47 Blank Banshee: Metamorphosis

Zzzzzzzzzzzzum, weeeeeeeeeeeear-kazummazum… Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzum-wenkwenkwenk, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzdoo-baba-doo-baba-doo-baba-doo-baba. Sing along at the back.

‘Metamorphosis’ is a stunning 20 minutes of the most lushly created electronic music you’re likely to hear in 2019. I don’t want to be ‘that guy*’ again, but it’s really a piece of work that needs to be consumed through headphones (consumed… through headphones…?) to really appreciate the power and complexity of the music. Listening to the layered quasi-ambient beauty of ‘Metamorphosis’ you appreciate how far Blank Banshee has come since he was originally considered within the constraints of Vaporwave (or, indeed, ‘Vaportrap‘).

(*’that guy’ being someone who just points out facts. Don’t you fucking hate that guy??)

Yeah. How’s about that. Some proper fucking writing there, huh??

Metacritic: n/a

46 The Twilight Sad: It Won/t Be Like This All the Time

The Twilight Sad are, and always have been, almost but not quite there. Their style of hard hitting but at the same time sensitive and emotionally available new(ish) wave(ish) rock(ish) has always had all of the correct elements. BAWUNG, there’s the epic and effect laden bass intro. KA-WANG, KA-WA-KAWANG, K-KA-WA-KAWANG, there’s the solemn yet effective lead guitar riff. DUNK, KER-DAR, DUNK DUNK, KER-DAR, the drums sound big and anchor the song so well. The singer comes in: “How dare you question the complexity/Of my winning Scrabble score?”. Fucking yes, man! All this shit is amazing! Why don’t I love this album more??

The Twilight Sad are one of the greatest bands in the world on paper, they have all of the elements of musical genius, but the fact is they rarely ace the landing. So much of their work sounds like early demos of classic songs that haven’t quite found that killer something that pushes them over the edge into greatness. Their songs are Call Me Maybe before someone thought of adding the synth line, Old Town Road without the faux Western drawl or the Nine Inch Nail sample, Paranoid Android without the ‘Kicking squealing Gucci little piggy!’ middle eight, Pretty Ugly without that ‘YEAH’ after “Can’t nobody ever come between’. So many- pretty much all!- of these songs are brilliant pieces of work, but lacking that killer gimmick, that sticky hook, that song structure that the band can hang their best ideas from. Songs like Sunday Day13 and The Arbor are almost brilliant songs just lacking that hook, that chorus, that defining element.

But they occasionally do hit it, and when they hit it, when they fucking hit it, fuck me dead and bury me pregnant, it’s absolutely mind blowing. That rousing synth stab in [10 Reasons for Modern Drugs],  the utter beauty of Videograms, and many instances throughout the record. Don’t even get me started on VTr… VTr is what happens when Twilight Sad really pull their shit together and the perfect storm of all their obvious talent and too often disparate ideas come together perfectly, and creates perhaps the most perfect rock song of 2019.

Metacritic: 84

17 in 2007

(5 in 2017 as Out Lines)

 

45 Taylor Swift: Lover

Sigh… Taylor Swift, man… I mean… Why am I even bothering?

I am always wary of this blog just being copy and paste jobs from other, more successful* blogs and repeating the same old shite about every artist, just copying the text from the Wikipedia entry on the album but then adding words like ‘era-defining’ and ‘flossing’ and ‘bamboo bags‘ to make it look like I have even the slightest agency and that I pay attention to important current trends that I just Googled. Yeah, erm, Miss Americana is very much the *clickclickclickclickclick* most Suzanne Jongsman inspired track on the album, don’t you think? I know your game, music journalists! I always try and counteract the lazy promotional love in that almost all mainstream music journalism consists of by trying to put a different spin on albums, say stuff that’s not been said elsewhere, put a unique spin on things. What if… Kings of Leon… didn’t have any noses…? #Art

(*financially successful. This blog isn’t about worth being measured in financial terms, not concerned with such vulgar concepts. It’s all about the fucking art, yeah?? And I will die on the fucking hill defending the fact that Necessary Evil is the most artistically legitimate site on the motherfucking web, yo! That’s why you should all pledge me money at patreon.com/SlimyAlex. Pledge more than £10 a month and I’ll draw a picture of your genitals then put it in my mouth)

Taylor Swift though? There are two main barriers to me writing a worthwhile and compelling post about her:

1. There is so much written about her, so many analyses of her latest bowel movements, hot and fresh hot takes constantly put out to cool down on the kitchen window that we all burn our fingers on greedily attempting to steal, that there really is no space left for me, nothing of the well picked corpse left for me to gorge on.
2. There is so much written about her, so many analyses of her latest FUCKING HELL JUST SHUT UP ABOUT FUCKING TAYLOR FUCKING SWIFT I DON’T GIVE A FUCKING SHIT FUCK TAYLOR SWIFT AND FUCK YOU FOR REMINDING ME OF HOW MUCH I HATE HER!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

See? It’s a delicate balancing act. Taylor Swift is always a risky box (careful now) to open, she’s a walking hornets nest of memes and hot takes that has to power to fatally envelop all who are foolhardy enough to venture near. Really, I should just stop listening to her and leave her off this list, shouldn’t I?

Unfortunately, despite her omnipresence and troll feeding unassailability, Swift is an extraordinarily talented artist. Yes, she’s frequently insufferable, she so obviously consults vast charts of market research before she does or says anything, and she’ll quite happily sing songs that equate some people being mean to her online with gay rights. Listen, just read about ‘Queer Baiting’. It’s all market researched bullshit, Swift cares about gay people about as much as Katy Perry cares about Fireworks. But Taylor still makes freaking brilliant music! ‘Lover’ is a bit disappointing in how it’s Taylor most straightforward and prosaic album for a while, but the contents are frequently fabulous! Appreciate motherfucking CRAFT. Taylor has buckets of it, and even if it got there through endless focus groups and market research, ‘Lover’ is simply a collection of perfect pop gems. Sorry not sorry. No, forget that last part, I am actually sorry. Not sorry. Fuck! I think I’ve caught some Millennial tick from listening to Taylor Swift too much!

Apart from that dog shit song about London. I fucking hate London and I know for a fact that everyone who lives there is a cunt. What? It’s fucking true…

Metacritic: 79

59 in 2017

24 in 2014

 

44 Trentemøller: Observe

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees my son! ‘Ave a fackin’ birra dat in the morning, know what ahm sayin’? Ooosh! Whacks yer right up tha willies, don’t it??”

That introduction was from Alan “Four Chips” Pratton, my cockney alterego. He heard what I said about Londoners in the Taylor Swift entry and decided to come into my ‘ends’ and start a- as he called it- a ‘right old smackaroo dog and pepper party’. However, he then heard the gorgeous new Trentemøller album and was compelled to drop his fists and lay down his ‘arms’ (a framed photo of the Queen Mother covered in jellied eels that he had planned to batter me over the head with) to let the beautiful music flow over him.

For a while at least, before long Alan “Four Chips” Pratton spotted a random stranger and asked if he’d ever been to London? Ooooooooooooh, really? What part did you live in? Bunk Ruffle? Tempers Flaid? Fergal Shardy? I live in Gurning Humpback, have you ever been there? Oooooooh, yeah? What part…?

This goes on for a good half hour, as all Londoners can talk about is different areas of London. Fuck me, what a useless species

Metacritic: n/a

114 in 2016

One hundred and fourteen??? Holt fucking shitchrist…

14 in 2013

 

43 100 gecs: 1000 gecs

Rolling Stone magazine’s 19th best album of the year?? Aw man, this band is so over!!

Metacritic: n/a

 

I was only joking about Londoners, some of my best friends have visited London on their way to Brighton and Paris and stuff, it’s a perfectly fine place. What I was doing, yeah, was posting inflammatory things online in order to provoke a reaction, because I don’t trust my own work to elicit such emotional responses. Might say something about the Jews next…