EP. 53 | Father John Misty | Mahashmashana Artwork

This Is Not Happening - An Album Of The Month Podcast

Welcome to This Is Not Happening: an album of the month podcast with four massive music fans that have been talking and blogging about their favourite records for the last ten years together. An exiled Londoner in the North (Guy), a Leeds scriptwriter (David), ex-housemates in Leeds Joey and Nolan whose paths all crossed through music, be it festivals, DJing, gigs, or just sitting at home listening to entire albums without talking. Music is the bedrock of our friendship. The podcast name nods to our one nailed-on shared love: LCD Soundsystem, but our tastes are wide, sometimes odd, and often not the same! From bass to balearic, disco to dub, house to hip-hop, folk to funk, pop to punk, and rock to r'n'b, we'll all have music to champion, ready to be blessed or butchered by each other. Each episode we'll be talking freely about our album of the month, and what we've been listening to lately. The conversation twists and turns, and while we are serious about music, it's not so much that we can't enjoy ourselves talking about it, in fact it's why we do it. For everything we've loved in the past years, check out www.thisisnothappening.net, which will run alongside the podcast choices and much, much more. So why not join us for the conversation. It will always be lively....

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This Is Not Happening - An Album Of The Month Podcast

EP. 53 | Father John Misty | Mahashmashana

January 21, 2025 • Joey, David, Guy and Nolan • Season 4 • Episode 8

Another month, another pod. Welcome to Episode 53 of This is Not Happening (TINH), an Album of the Month (AOTM) Podcast. 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, Guy hosts an interesting discussion on Father John Misty's (FJM) latest album, Mahashmashana. 50% of the Pod love FJM, 50% don't!

In Part 2, Spin It or Bin It, our theme this month is 'Location, Location, Location', or 'songs about places' and it's a belter!

Part 1 | Father John Misty | Mahashmashana

We often review artists that we all love. This month this is not the case. 2 of us love FJM, one of us gets very angry when listening to FJM and one of us doesn't really have an opinion. Can this album keep the fans happy and win over the angry and the non-plussed?

Given the above, this is a surprisingly well mannered and coherent conversation about FJMs latest album. There's only 8 tracks but they're all pretty long. We discuss songwriting, song length and album themes like ageing and the associated ego deaths that accompany it.

Listen to the album ... HERE
Watch some of the videos for the tracks discussed ... HERE
Watch the World Cafe interview that we reference on the pod ... HERE
Watch a live performance of lead single 'She Cleans Up' ... HERE

Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | 'Location, Location, Location'

Songs about places are really common. It's a theme explored by many (most?) artists at some point in their songwriting. This was a great chat and 4 great track selections.

Guy chose Paris by Friendly Fires feat. Au Revioire Simone.
Nolan chose New York State of Mind by Nas.
Joey chose Welcome to Jamrock by Damien Marley.
David chose Tobacco Road by Bobby Gentry.

Here is a 16 track playlist where we all contribute 4 Location, Location, Location themed tracks to an extended playlist.

Chapters:

00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:10 - Album of the Month
00:06:26 - What Do You Expect and What Did You Get?
00:18:40 - Album style and themes
00:27:30 - The 'character' Father John Misty
00:38:56 -

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