77 Princess Nokia: Metallic Butterfly

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m a big believer in getting into artists solely because you like the cover art of their album. Well, guess what? I freaking loved the cover of ‘A Girl Cried Red’ by Princess Nokia. A Latin-American woman in a Slipknot shirt giving me the finger? Yes please, that’s all that I ever want, give that to me now, please, let me chow down on that, nomnomnomnomnom, thank you sir, can I have some more. Do you see? Well, I got the album, I loved it, and then was left with two main questions:

1. Where do I get to get more of this stuff and then shovel it into my ears?
2. So, what, is she the daughter of some sort of monarchy based around mobile phone manufacturers? Is she the daughter of the king of the Nokia phones, or is each different member of that particular royal family a different type of phone? Like is her brother Prince Samsung and her great aunt Duchy LG? I mean, the king has to be King iPhone, don’t it? Not based on quality, but one assumes that actual phone sales would feature in most prominently when deciding the lineage of such a monarchy. But if Nokia’s parents and older siblings die and she ascends to the throne, does she then take on the name iPhone? You can’t be having phone manufacturers royal house being run by a fucking Nokia, what is this, 2002??

That second question is more a collection of questions, admittedly.

Fortuitously enough, Her Royal Highness Ms. Nokia re-released her 2014 debut album ‘Metallic Butterfly’ in December of last year, to mark its.. five years and seven months anniversary…

Fucking hell, musicians, first Manics now Sovereign 3310, if you’re not going to get the dates of your re-releases right, just don’t fucking bother, OK?!?!? 

It’s an extremely decent album, especially for a debut mixtape, but it’s jarring how different it is from her later work, and how actually quite charming it is to hear her desperately search for a style that fits, and how adorably dated it would have sounded in 2014.

“Metallic Butterfly was way ahead of its time. It featured trip hop, jungle, R&B Neo Folk, adult contemporary, grime, and Afro Caribbean Canto. It’s visual and audio aesthetics were deep rooted in anime, cosplay, witchcraft, feminism, and cyber goth/ rave culture”

— Princess Nokia (@princessnokia) December 14, 2018

Hahahahahahawhat you talking about mate?? ‘Metallic Butterfly’, for all its charms, sounds like it was made by some Bristol University undergraduate in 1996, her Music and Media studies coursework that her mate definitely reckons she should send a cassette of to Daddy G. If you’re Princess Nokia’s age, you might not believe me, but that’s honestly what you did to get noticed. You’d send people tapes. It’s only ‘way ahead of its time’ if you consider all art to be cyclical, and so everything eventually comes back around again. But bless you for thinking that.

Metacritic: n/a

But they gave ‘A Girl Cried Red’ 61 so they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

25 in 2018

I wrote that on Boxing Day last year. Respect the motherfucking game

 

76 slowthai: Nothing Great About Britain

slowthai has it all (apart from consistently great songs)!

He has it all (apart from consistently great songs)!

He has it all (apart from consistently great songs)!

And he has it now (apart from consistently great songs)!

You know, Queen may have been an unforgivably shit band- one of the worst fucking bands of all time, in fact- but they actually spoke a lot of truth in the chorus of He Has It All (Except for That): slowthai Lament. slowthai almost has absolutely everything you need to be an absolute star and, more importantly, one of My Favourite Things. He’s got the presence, he’s got the voice, he’s got the charisma, he’s got the politics*, he’s got everything apart from the killer tunes quite yet. But that can come later, he’s done the hardest part, he’s already a star, just get the guy who used to be in the New Radicals to write a few songs for the next album or summat, I dunno…

(*he performed at the Mercury Prize with a severed head of Boris Johnson. Probably not real. The real impressive thing was how he answered the predictable criticism from the right- ‘This is just inciting violence!’ ‘It wouldn’t be allowed if the Prime Minister was black’ ‘How come it’s only terrorism if it’s done by darker skinned people… hang on… is this our argument or the other side’s? I forget…- which he did rather by just correctly pointing out that the Prime Minister is a cunt and the stunt was proper dope megabantz, he calmly stated:

“Last night I held a mirror up to this country and some people don’t like its reflection. Yet this is exactly where we’re being taken, cut off and at all costs. The people in power who are trying to isolate and divide us aren’t the ones who will feel its effects the hardest.

They’re not the ones queuing at the food banks, not the ones navigating Universal Credit and not the ones having to deal with systematic oppression and hate crimes at the hands of privileged politicians who say what they want without fear and consequence.

“We as a people are not being looked after and our best interests are not being served by those in government – this is their job and they’re not doing it well enough.”

I mean… fair fuck’s, y’know…? But was it really inciting people to decapitate the Prime Minister? Yes. Yes it was. He hoped that people break into Number 10 and slices off his head, and so do I. )

Can you put quotes inside a parenthesis like that? I’m just breaking all the rules, man!!

(…) Yeah, I know there’s six of them, this blog isn’t always perfect

Can we quickly talk about Queen? They’re a fucking terrible band. They’ve always been a fucking terrible band. I think this current widely held belief that they were always widely appreciated is a little distressing. Critics always hated them,intelligent people always hated them. The problem is, a lot of people had parents with terrible taste in music, so they were brought up surrounded by absolute pish like Queen, and we end up with a generation that honestly believe they were a great, well-loved band. I’m just trying to warn you, if we’re not careful in a few generations we’ll have kids who are really into Ed Sheeren because they believe that ‘everyone loved him back in the Tennies™. No. reject it. Queen are the enemy and their fans are all Thatcherites. Don’t let them change history.

RIP Freddie Mercury, even if you make horrendous music it’s still sad when you pass away. Brian May, Roger Taylor and The Other One? I can’t fucking wait for you to all die.

Metacritic: 82

 

75 Dua Saleh: Nūr

I’m expecting great, great, great things from Dua Saleh. One step ahead of slowthai because they’ve got one killer song already in the bag, and enough flashes of genius scattered around their debut EP, ‘Nūr’ (pronounced ‘Northumberland!’ The exclamation point is silent), that if I were you I’d put money on them making a [REDACTED] like leap up the Necessary Evil charts next time they are featured.

I had to redact that, otherwise it’d be a spoiler. Maybe I’ll go back and put the name in after I finish the list. Probably won’t though.

Metacritic: n/a

 

74 Sleater Kinney: The Center Won’t Hold

I don’t have to write something about all of these albums do I? No? Good

Metacritic: 80

25 in 2015