Posted in Album of the Month, Music chat, New Albums, New Tunes, podcast, Spin it or Bin It

Podcast Ep. 49 | Common & Pete Rock

Festive Greetings from This Is Not Happening and welcome to our year-end, 2025 wrap-up episode. As always we split the pod into Part 1 and Part 2.Part 1 features our Top 10 favourite albums of 2025. We use a proprietary algorithm to create our list our collective favourite albums, we're talking nascent data-science excellence! Every year it throws up some surprises as our tastes are so different (and in some ways so similar.Part 2 features a festive Spin It or Bin It. We each bring a candidate for track of the year and ask the age old question 'Spin It or Bin It' … will anyone really bin anyone elses Track of the Year? Probably.To retain the tension, I won't share any spoilers here … other than to share a 40 track playlist of some of our favourite 2025 tracks … here.Whatever you do at this time of year, who ever you do it with … have a good one.Please join us in January where we will go back to the usual format of Album of the Month + Spin It or Bin It.We've been writing the blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/
  1. EP. 63 | Our Top 10 Albums of 2025
  2. EP. 62 | Juniper | Joy Crookes
  3. EP.61 | Blood Orange | Essex Honey
  4. EP.60 | Wet Leg | Moisturizer
  5. EP.59 | Little Simz | Lotus

Welcome to Episode 49 of This is Not Happening (TINH).  An Album of the Month (AOTM) Podcast where in Part 1 we deep dive into an Album that one of us has chosen and in Part 2 we play ‘Spin it or Bin it’.  This is where we pick a theme and each select a song that represents that theme. We judge each others selections by asking the question ‘Spin It or Bin It’?

This month, in Part 1, Nolan goes back to his spiritual home, Hip Hop and has picked an album that the genre has been waiting decades for – Common and Pete Rock, The Auditorium Vol. 1.

In Part 2, Spin It or Bin It, the theme sounds simple but it turned out to be deceptively divisive. This month we delve into ‘Power Ballads’ … but what actually is a Power Ballad?

Part 1 | Common & Pete Rock | The Auditorium Vol. 1

If you’re age (old AF) and you like Hip Hop then you’ve probably been listening to these two legends for 30 odd years. Common is 52, Mr. Rock is 54. They’ve been at the top of their games for decades but does the combination deliver synergy or something a little less?


Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | Power Ballads.

So what is a Power Ballad? We all know the classics, but if we try and bring something a little different then first we have to have some sort of definition. We’ve picked 4 tracks that aren’t on many Power Ballad playlists … 

See you on Episode 50 … 

Posted in Music chat, New Albums

Inspired by…. The Weather Station

If you’re getting your teeth into Episode 10 of the podcast and the Weather Station’s brilliant Ignorance, you’ll know we also talked all about those artists that we found within its ten tracks. Some of the blog’s favourites ride high in that list: Kate Bush, Fleetwood Mac, U.S. Girls, HAIM, Phoebe Bridgers…. so we made a playlist of them all as a companion piece, something we’re going to try to do for each album of the month. It’s a bit of enjoyment if nothing else. Hopefully here it’s a bit more context to an album that gets better and better with every listen.

Posted in Music chat

Siouxsie and the Banshees – Dear Prudence

Well, we’ve been talking about covers for a while on and off – perhaps coming to a future podcast episode near you – and I was staggered to come across this incredible version of a favourite Beatles track by a band I never would’ve expected to see do it.

Needless to say, it’s not nearly as raucous and rough as you’d expect it to be, but perhaps that’s what a great cover is: one that confounds your expectations. Which could lead down a rabbit hole all of its own. What else stands up to this? A few come to mind:

Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’?

Nirvana’s Bowie Cover ‘The Man Who Sold The World’?

(shameless love of mine) Hot Chip’s brilliant version of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’?

Sinead O’Connor’s cover of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’?

or perhaps Hendrix’s seminal Dylan cover ‘All Along The Watchtower’?

What would you pick?