This is like.. and it sounds so stupid but it’s genuinely something that me and my friends actually do
If we are approached by a group of men we will bark, like dogs
And people always laugh and they’re like “Ha ha, that’s so funny” (It’s actually really good)
But there is… there is nothing that terrifies a man more than a woman that appears completely deranged
Woman sampled at the start of I’m Fine
Self Esteem’s Rebecca Louise Taylor will not… Oh, I’m sorry, they hadn’t finished…
Roaw! Roaw! Rrrrrow-oooh!
Is that a woman making that noise?? Is it Rebecca?? It really sounds like a dog. Kudos to whomever makes those barks. Especially if it’s actually a dog, because dogs always deserve kudos
Sorry about that. As I was saying, Self Esteem’s Rebecca Louise Taylor will not rein in her need to be completely free, even if that freedom needs to occasionally be protected by imitating a pack of dogs while out with her friends. When men talk about protecting our freedoms, it’s generally concerned with not being forced to choose ‘English’ as our language when using ATMs or having to wear dirty Communist masks to stop people dying of an infectious disease (which is exactly the same as fucking Hitler by the way! The Nazis was all about mildly inconveniencing people in order to save lives! Wake up sheeple!). When women in 2021* talk about protecting their freedom, they generally mean having to go out of their way to protect their freedom to exist, to protect their freedom of their own agency, protect their freedom to, y’know, live, when roughly 50% of the population are the people who have shown time and time again how much they hate you and would happily rape and murder you. Oh, and I guess if you’re a man – especially in countries that generally have a more laissez faire attitude over killing machines, our freedom also includes the right to kill other people. Maybe women, I dunno, stop trying to politicise my bloodlust!!
(*almost 2022! When I’m sure it’ll all be completely different and this post is going to look laughably out of date)
First off, I’m not sure whether to hand ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ the separate award of ‘Best Album Featuring Someone Making Dog Noises’, as the dog noises here are so good that I’m not even completely sure they’re not an actual dog. Until I am shown proof of a human making those noises, I’m going to have to give the award to Justin Blackburn (who, honestly, must have assumed he’d have this award tied up) on the #60 album.
Self Esteem’s second album is a revelation. ‘Compliments Please‘, Taylor’s first as Self Esteem was good. Really good, in fact, but as I said at the time “there’s something about the album that stops me going completely coo-koo gaga over it. Perhaps it’s a little too epic in places, with the musical high camp melodrama sometimes negatively affecting the direct dynamism of the lyrics”. I’d now add the that the sense that there might have simply been too much going on, it had the classic feel of a debut album where the artist is anxiously unsure of whether they’re going to be allowed to make a second one, so simply drown the record with absolutely all of their thoughts, all of their influences and all of their musical touch stones on one record. It worked with ‘Compliments Please’, but led to the record feeling a little overwhelmed and difficult to define in places.
‘Prioritise Pleasure’ is the sound of an artist more confident in their own audience though. The music is sparse when it needs to be, and even the ‘epic’ moments and songs are given room to breathe, with enough belief in their own quality to simply allow them to be presented with the least musical accomplishment possible. “I’m kind of making music like a straight man now,” she told Dork magazine back in November. “They just get to make the music that they want to make. They don’t have to compromise; they just get to make it. I’m in the position now where that’s me and the fact that people are liking it at the same time that I’m becoming more peaceful, calmer and relaxed in what I’m doing and understanding my process and who I am in the world, those two things together has been fucking great”. I know. ‘Dork‘ Magazine?? How are they bigger than me? But these songs are still way bigger in scale than her debut, and manage to feel bigger and more epic, with the absolutely perfect inclusion of her choir when necessary. And her lyrics are both more funny and more cutting than ever (‘You’re beautiful and I want the best for you/But I also hope you fail without me’), and similar to Jazmine Sullivan in how Taylor skips past the celebrating of how #Epic #GirlBoss it is for her to crave these emotions, and instead outline the pain that these things might elicit.
Most brilliantly, she’s everything the right is afraid of! Not only is she a woman confident in her own ability to dissect and call out how atrociously she’s often treated, she’s also wants, as she told NME, “to use the palatable nature of pop to Trojan horse in my agenda“. I know. NME?? How are they bigger than me?? But anyway, she actually is using pop culture to push a leftist agenda! Before you know it, James Bond will be black, even Ben Shapiro will be using his ‘preferred pronouns’, and We’ll be forced to feel all sad about the Muslim countries we bomb!!
I’m joking, of course, I don’t think it’s ever fair to use pop culture to try and introduce and eve indoctrinate children into left wing ideas.
Ha! No seriously though, I think we have to do that, I don’t care how ‘Stalinesque’ fucking idiots on the right call it, or how often they misunderstand 1984 or Animal Farm. Seriously, dudes, you study George Orwell novels in secondary school because the fucking metaphors are so blatant, yet so many of you pricks still get it wrong! I don’t think great swathes of the population (say, 45.6% at last count?) can be trusted to bring their children up correctly and with the proper ideas to properly function in society. So, fuck it, I say use any method we can to at least try and make them into worthwhile people, because -fuck me – if they turn out like their parents this world is screwed. I’m not about finding compromise or reaching out to the troglodytes on the right. They don’t believe in universal human rights and true financial equality, what would a compromise mean?? Only a little genocide? Hating only a percentage of the poor?? Believing only maybe half of people in absolute poverty are there because of their own choices??? Nah, fuck that, fuck them, we push forward, let’s not cripple ourselves with pleas to people who have either long been brainwashed into believing the swill they are swimming in is something worth retaining, or their the donkeys in top hats that are motivated to continue shitting out that swill.
Wow, that post went places, didn’t it?
Sent while I was writing this! Maxwell, dude, you need to watch some real porn. This album is rubbish pornography. Seriously, I was barely able to get a couple of wanks out of it
Necessary Evil 
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