tripping balls (a music podcast?)

This week: it’s Album Of The Year time. Doc and Beeso count down each of our five favourite albums of 2025, and talk near-misses, disappointments and trends from the year just gone. Also: Dead week revisited, yes-no-maybe, accepting your flaws, best releases vs best albums, immediately failed predictions, albums you neither enjoy nor recommend, NYC real estate, early mover advantage, Mrs Beeso Reads Bios, the Venn diagram of Mike Skinner, Amy Taylor and Barry the Baptist, wholesome punk, fuzzy everything, the fine line between stupid and clever, Chubs and Crockett, Tate modern, judicious skipping, hipster cred, bringing back 2015 pod energy, Will Pharrell, mind the gap, a dangerous day to forget your 2024 #1, near-misses and disappointments, it’s Martin/Molloy’s fault, whither Australia, more 2024 #1 erasure, live at KEXP, sniper risks, remembering some albums, imperfect censuses, the new Kingsmills, consensus AOTYs, other people’s AOTYs, more teaches from Peaches, Swift backlash and Woodford vs reality.

12:11  Our number fives

16:19  Beeso’s #4

21:40  Doc’s #4

25:17  Beeso’s #3

33:11  Doc’s #3

39:22  Beeso’s #2

46:27  Doc’s #2

55:57  Beeso’s #1

61:51  Doc’s #1

66:17  Honorable (or otherwise) mentions

80:35  1996 albums redraft preview

90:45  2026 albums we’re looking forward to

94:09  After Dark (production, Woodford, 1996, trolling)

Next week: for tripping balls/BALLS After Dark (i.e. the music show) episode 450, it’s our now-traditional 30-years-on best albums re-draft for the year 1996, guest-starring the Godfather of Grime, Adamhfoto. There will be sniping and there will be griping.

Spotify playlists: 2025 review archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes | All our playlists

The list: Our previous review albums and year-end top fives

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

This week: it’s Bring Out Your Dead week, our last chance to review new albums for 2025, featuring albums from Alien Weaponry | Alison Wonderland | Automatic | Bee Bee Sea | De La Soul | Erick Sermon of EPMD | Mini Skirt | Powder Chutes | ROMES | These New South Whales. No we’re not doing timestamps for all that, it was enough of a hassle splicing in Beeso’s island-internet-addled voicenotes. Merry Christmas ya filthy animals.

Next time: it’s our Album Of The Year top 5 countdown for 2025. Here's Doc's first-pass (aka thirty albums that might be worth your time)

Spotify playlists: 2025 review albums | Playlist archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes

The database: All our review albums and year-end top 5 lists

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

This week’s new albums: Mungo’s Hi-Fi | Troy Kingi | Pabst

Also: unexpected empathy, geographical separation, rejected premises, previous benchmarks of this genre, pulling stumps, group credit, previous benchmarks of this artist, planning ep 1 of 2027, fantasy booking album 10/10, hiphop AOTY, sample detectives, the least worst stuff Diddy did, back of a length, release the masters, 4000 postcode noise, the magic number is 983 (not including classics/jokers), AOTY feels, algo fails, posthumous celebrations, band name reallocation, Chowder Putes, proof of concept, when music production is milk production, even dafter punk, the Konnichiwa doctrine, set the controls for the heart of the perineum, wins record false narratives, now and future kings of the West and the Kiwi-led rebounding renaissance. 

1:01  Mungo’s Hi-Fi

5:18  Troy Kingi

18:39  Pabst

23:17  Bring Out Your Dead Week album picks

37:45  After Dark (NBA)

Next time: it’s BOYD week, which means piling the playlist high with end of year clearance items from Alien Weaponry | De La Soul | Erick Sermon of EPMD | Automatic | Powder Chutes | Alison Wonderland | Bee Bee Sea | ROMES | possibly Mini Skirt & These New South Whales if we can get round to them

Spotify playlists: 2025 review albums | Playlist archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes

The database: All our review albums and year-end top 5 lists

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

This week’s new albums: Avett Brothers & Mike Patton | Cheap Trick | Home Front | Dick Move

Also, in a bonus-length holiday special*: 25% extra, country folk, now this is going to be fun, the wrong kind of WTF, it might be Tomahawk actually, tuatara evolution, big in Japan, five bands you’ve seen live, hello there and/or goodnight ladies and gentlemen, going home, heaven knows I’m not miserable enough now, we fix punk, coherent social arguments, Simz timestamps, scheduled leave, rescheduled Wrappeds, forgotten February albums, podcast personas, RSA in India, Uz agrees with Doc, when all you have is T20 talent every game looks like a T20, the Arc of Ange, IPL rooting interests, threes versus fives, unexpected East teams, trying circumstances, blaming the Warriors PR guy, an unconvincing argument for why this is an interesting NBA season, does anyone want Ja or Trae, a long useful middle, mercurial superheroes, broadcasting technical difficulties and sympathy for robophobic quicks.

0:53  AVTT/PTTN

6:06  Cheap Trick  

11:45  Home Front

14:27  Dick Move

17:19  Next week’s picks

28:51  After Dark - cricket

49:53  After Dark - basketball

66:42  After After Dark - more cricket

*We’re on holiday next week, back in your feed mid Dec with the following albums - 

Next time: Mungo’s Hi-Fi | Troy Kingi | Pabst

Spotify playlists: 2025 review albums | Playlist archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes

The database: All our review albums and year-end top 5 lists

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

This week’s new albums: Creeper | Psychedelic Porn Crumpets | Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers

Also: Tech SNAFUs, more amateur dramatics, a million in prizes, unserious operators, live from Las Vegas, learning nothing and growing not at all, music to boomer to, Frenzal sledges, fictional 2002 girlfriends, painful and cringe, narrative throughputs, accidental fash, shouts to Canada, the most Beeso pick in the history of Beeso picks, happy 21st,  aided and avetted, oh beehive, two days in Perth is more than enough, drive to the conditions, that escalated quickly, bad balls, Trav’s D1NZ doppelganger, it’s golf’s fault, Boxing day plans foiled, India’s groundsmen: welcome to the resistance, and the nexus of NBA, EPL and skydiving.

0:52 Creeper

7:03 Psychedelic Porn Crumpets  

10:32 Teen Jesus & the Jean Teasers 

18:34  Next week’s picks

25:26  After Dark

Next week: Dick Move | Home Front | Cheap Trick | Avett Brothers & Mike Patton

Spotify playlists: 2025 review albums | Playlist archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes

The database: All our review albums and year-end top 5 lists

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

This week’s new albums: DJ Premier twice over | The Vasco Era | Arseless Chaps

Also: Interchangeable descriptions, throwbacks on throwbacks, the repeatability crisis, second verse same as the first, the two sweetest words in the English language, #ColesRadio, HAAY HAAY HAAY HAAY YEAH, Sizzletown Extended Universe, literal joke joker albums, Christian or emo?, Minecraft tributes,  weirdest timeline Kingi, the white whale of modern triphop, actually it’s only 42 miles on the M5, AAA Advance Aardvark Assemblers Pty Ltd, music criticism is not a ten month a year job, every circus needs its clown, forgetting the Luka Mavs were a NBA finals side, things you can put through hot butter, who stops OKC, fit in or Fox off, #NeserMustPlayButProbablyWont, plane graveyards and blowing up big versus just blowing up.

0:56 DJ Premier

3:58 The Vasco Era  

7:10 Arseless Chaps 

10:47 Next week’s picks

22:15 After Dark 

Next week: Creeper | Psychedelic Porn Crumpets | Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers

Spotify playlists: 2025 review albums | Playlist archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes

The database: All our review albums and year-end top 5 lists

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

This week’s new albums: The New Eves | Militarie Gun | Mhaol

Also: Add jingles, big hag energy, habitual lane selectors, Niamhe say Niamhe again, words vs music, no seriously the state of these lyrics, HJ Premier, singles night, our consensus (second) favourite album of 2017, albums that don’t exist, getting away with it, running out of years, the best time to be beaten up, our first annual mention of the Efficiency Landscape, Knuckles Connolly areas, breaking: Morant, the NBA-poker nexus, the only other Blazers fan in Dunedin and the proliferation of anti-Wemby munitions.

1:34 The New Eves

4:53 Militarie Gun 

6:13 Mhaol 

11:35 Next week’s picks

19:09 After Dark 

Next week: DJ Premier x2 | Arseless Chaps | The Vasco Era

Spotify playlists: 2025 review albums | Playlist archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes

The database: All our review albums and year-end top 5 lists

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

This week’s new albums: Geese | GANS | The Pack A.D.

Also: Listener feedback, mouse models, trying everything, dissonant shifts, the wisdom of crowds, it could even be a boat, old school 4ZZZ areas, liquid skin irritations, Kenny Beats strays, texting it in, greatest misses, first album energy, best laid plans, the least worthwhile GoFundMe in history, finally a working definition of post-punk, massacring Gaelic pronunciations, one-week-late week-one overreactions, LinkedIn lessons for leadership, gambling podcasts, the house always wins, txt yr m8s see who’s keen, finding Jesus and reclaiming Rip City.

3:36 GANS

10:46 Geese

15:55 The Pack A.D.

24:39 Next week’s picks

31:37 After Dark (mostly NBA)

Next week: The New Eves | Militarie Gun | Mhaol

Spotify playlists: 2025 review albums | Playlist archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes

The database: All our review albums and year-end top 5 lists

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

This week’s new albums: The Southern River Band | The Superjesus | St. Paul & the Broken Bones

Also: Mineral extraction, late Foos, wasting heartbeats, knob and the attainment thereof, falling in the gutter, we have Airbourne at home, Greta drivebys, Gizzard drivebys, Thirsty Merc drivebys, hollow eyes, twenty years off, trapped in amber, going gangbusters, not looking for customer feedback, learn to swims, 1990s Lexuses (Lexii?), manufactured precisely to specification, live from Auchenflower platform 2, beer was a bad decision, active vs passive voice, free labour, the second best bit of rugbaloiging this year, Gold Coast $500 excess for damage, justice for photographers, around the grounds, early NBA overreactions, Zak Brown’s Boys, not watching people you don’t like win things and unprofessional broadcasters. 

4:31 The Southern River Band

11:46 The Superjesus

18:05 St. Paul & the Broken Bones

22:16 Adam’s gig guide

26:22 Next week’s picks

28:05 After Dark

Next week: Geese | GANS | The Pack A.D.

Spotify playlists: 2025 review albums | Playlist archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes

The database: All our review albums and year-end top 5 lists

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

This week’s albums: New Olivia Dean and Rocket | Old Skunkhour

Also: Byron piano fights, Shield chat, live from a grass hill at UQ, big label regret, festival mixtapes, non-existent albums, Stockdale discovers Grammarly, the best of the Grafton TAFE, sweet flat whites, soundtrack bait, aging rock chicks, chuck brick and two smoking barrels, your call is important to us, extended exposure to pop, Taylor avoidance, production house PTSD, mistaking the internet for people, stolen valour, ah! soul action, noisy scrollwheels, regional radio voiceover guys, and previously on tripping balls series 2. 

Then: for old time’s sake, you can have a little After Dark NBA season preview, as a treat. Or skip it entirely, as Beeso will.

Our judging rubrik/production notes

3:54 Skunkhour - The Go (2001)

12:09 Rocket - R is for Rocket

17:23 Olivia Dean - The Art Of Loving

30:28 Next week’s picks

40:22 After Dark NBA East preview

58:29 NBA West preview & season predictions

Next week: St. Paul & the Broken Bones | The Superjesus | The Southern River Band

Spotify playlists: 2025 review albums | Playlist archive | Doc and Beeso’s 2025 mixtapes

The database: All our review albums and year-end top 5 lists

Find us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other apps

Socials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email