54 Michael Kiwanuka: Love and Hate

The impact of Kiwankoozie’s 2012 debut album was so wide reaching and influential that he was invited to perform on Kanye West’s

nono2nono3nono4nono5

 

2013 album ‘Yeezus’, a record you may have heard of seeing as it landed all the way up in fourth position on the 2013 Necessary Evil rundown

+12

peek

I posted all of the old Necessary Evil album of the year countdowns that I had on my computer on my blog in 2016. Except for 2013, because I made an (admittedly hilarious) crack about David Bowie being nominated for the Mercury Prize only because he wasn’t dead yet, and for some reason it felt insensitive. I think enough time has passed now, but I’m still not posting it because the writing is shockingly bad. Like, even if you consider this writing good, it still stands out as being terrible. I was in hospital for most of 2013: shut up

 

michael k.jpg

Kwunko flew over to the underground particle collider in which Mr West records his albums, pulled out his guitar, sat on one of the inverted supersymmetry discs to fly around the studio at the speed of light- which is how Kanye insists on recording after he heard that Taylor Swift recorded her album ‘Red’ while sitting on composite particles made of quarks travelling at the speed of sound and wanted to outdo her- got the nod from Kanye and…

nothing

-2

K-Wunka walked out of the recording studio, turned down the opportunity of exposure of such intensity that us ordinary plebeians would have to apply sunscreen to our tonsils if we even spoke his name, all because it didn’t feel right

-1

This, to me, is a truly inspiring tale of how, in even the biggest situations played out on the biggest stage, a true Englishman can always feel a little awkward and want to go home

+8

 

ron.jpg

 

‘Love and Hate’ is living proof that whatever decisions Kwanki has taken in the past, they’re absolutely vindicated in his music: gorgeous, emotional, infecting, top banana

+15

The gorgeous album is further proof that:

guitars arent dead

callback

Well, kinda: just not done one of those in a while, and hate to see a meme die out due to lack of use

 

Speaking of which: Nwanku is the undisputed 2016 champion of

tuna

as the album’s title track justifies every second of its 7:07 (+7) and Father’s Child never drags on its way to 7:05 (+7)

These pale next to the opening track, Cold Little Heart, though, one of (cough) this year’s absolute best songs and is guaranteed to disappoint you when it stops way too soon on 10:10

+10

 

Have

5 Prince Points,

for reasons I’ll decide later

 

Metacritic: +86

Length: 55 minutes.

But- you know what?- with no less than three Wall of Tuna contributions, I believe he justifies his excess, so I’m Pontius Pilating it

+0

Best Lyric: ‘Do you remember being born?/Are you thankful for the hips that cracked?/The deep velvet of your mother and her mother and her mother?/There is a curse that will be broken’ +1

Number of AMAZING songs: 1 (+10)

…But Are All the Rest of the Songs Kinda Amazing Anyway? Yes (+50)

Is the last song just the first track but played on Ukulele? No -1

Total 222

https://store.universalmusic.com/michaelkiwanuka/

2 thoughts on “54 Michael Kiwanuka: Love and Hate

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