Necessary Evil 2023 Part I: A Child of Fire

We back, yo. Yeah, another one.

One day I’ll stop doing this countdown. I’ll just have to. It’s been going since 2007. This is the fifteenth year I’ve ranked. The tenth on this blog. There have been 694 posts. Most chillingly, my blog posts have been shared on LinkedIn six thousand times. That really makes you think, doesn’t it? A decent amount of people read my year end lists, but it far from justifies the amount of hard work I do on them, or the fact that I sacrifice my Christmas every year just to write them. Do I enjoy doing this? Does it bring me any sort of validation.? I don’t have a therapist, so who knows? And I partially think that all the therapy worship is some elitist bullshit that fails to appreciate how most people have neither the time nor the money to seriously pursue it. And anyway, therapy is largely about medicalise a social issue. And I’m not convinced depression exists. It’s simply a rational response to capitalism that society demands is dampened. “Men will attempt to overthrow imperialist class structures before they go to therapy”. Yes. At least, hopefully.

And you want me to ask a therapist about why I write this dumb blog that nobody reads?? Pandora’s Box up there mate, trust me.

Ah, but fuck, I love this shit!

I love writing, I love the chance to wail into the empty void, I love the chance to spread my own personal propaganda, I love thinking up new synonyms for calling people ‘cunts’ when I’ve already used the word a dozen times in that particular article, I honestly (truthfully) love all of the people who read my articles, and – perhaps most importantly – I always love so much music each year. I keep thinking that Necessary Evil will stop when I start to value my time more, or it will stop when I get a therapist to convince me to give up on any quasi-revolutionary interests, or it will stop when I’m taken out by a police sniper when I’m halfway through my latest Beyoncé review and things just get a little too spicy for The Man to handle. But it will actually stop when there simply isn’t enough great music for me to care about. I still maintain that there isn’t anyone else doing what I do as good as I do it. Music journalism and criticism remains a humourless, apolitical hivemind of pious head nodding. This blog is something different and something better. I’m still here because you can’t do your job. All the music I write about comes highly recommended. But, at the same time, you can read and enjoy everything I write even if you don’t hear a single note. Fancy reading the new Pitchfork review of Ingri Høyland just to enjoy the writing? Yeah, didn’t think so.

Also, I’ve long planned for the thousandth post to be me livestreaming my suicide, so I always want to keep that option open. Though I’m sure I used to say hundredth post. Then five hundredth.

2023’s Necessary Evil will go down (in history!) as one of the strictest year end lists in a long time. The previous seven NEs have been 81, 81, 99, 92, 82, 60, and freaking 117 albums included on the countdown. This year, we’re straightening shit up. There will be a top 40 [FORTY] this year. Like a normal flipping list. Because, as I’ve already explained, this is actually the greatest music writing you’re going to read, so why not make it that little bit more legit this year? This will give me more time to write the posts, more time to research the sources, and will result in forty stone cold blinders in terms of articles written. Of course, they’ll be at least two posts where I just can’t be arsed. There’s no way of safeguarding against that, it’s just going to happen.

It will also mean that absolutely every album I’ve included on this year’s list will be an absolute, undisputable banger. Except for one. The one at #40. You’ll understand. And there will be no artists getting entries just because of some ‘loyalty’ to their previous work. Except #38. Literally while writing this article I noticed that I had 39 albums so thought “Fuck it” and stuck it in to make a nice round number. Remember when the list was 99 albums long?? Absolute scenes.

Only 40 albums is obviously hard for a freak like me to scale down to (although, evidently, 39 was a little easier). It has meant there’s a long list of albums perhaps unlucky to miss out. Some aren’t unlucky per se. Just a bit shit.

• Algiers‘ ‘Shook’ was all over the place while at the same time not really going anywhere at all.

• You’d think the amount I simp for both Fuck Buttons and Blanck Mass would ensure that the other member Andrew Hung (‘Deliverance’)would catch some splashes of adoration. But, by God, stop singing! That fucking voice, man!!
• I’m done with Arlo Parks’ liberal art school poetry on ‘My Soft Machine‘. Sorry, it just happens sometimes. I’m starting to think they’ll never write a chorus as good as “Shut your mouth and take your vitamins/Bite your nails and sell your Ritalin” again.
• I fucking hate blur (‘The Ballad of Darren’).
• My mate Christine and the Queens is a guaranteed retweet, and they fucking love this blog. So can you imagine how much they missed the open goal with the dreary shite they released this year not to make the list!
• I adore Don’t do it, Neil so much I interviewed the fucker. Their latest ‘i’ll be your secret if you swear to keep mine‘ just doesn’t quite hit hard enough for the list though. And ask for a fucking caps lock for Christmas, yeah?
• ‘Working On My Karma’ by dvsn is some seriously toxic shit. I’ll have a chance to talk more about why in this year’s Legit Bosses, because the album just happens to have one of the best songs of the year. The cheeky bastards.
• Yeah, if you’re favourite album of the year was ‘Girl With Fish’ by feeble little horse then you might be at the wrong blog. Although, I concede, it is definitely an album loved by ‘Guys Who Write Blogs’.
• ‘Forever Forever’ by Genevieve Atadi is just a inferior Esperanza Spalding. Now that is a sentence.
• Michael, I completely agree that The Hives’ ‘The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons’ is far better than you’d expect. But Necessary Evil quality?? Not quite.
• I’m pretty sure I listened to one Hold Steady album once. Can’t for the life of me remember which one. Or when it was. I’ve searched the blog, but… nope. Anyway, as soon as ‘The Price of Progress’ started I thought “My God, this is the most Hold Steady album ever!”. I dunno, they’re a vibe, or something. Plenty to like, give it a shot.
• Ice Spice? Not sure if I wanna go there yet.
• I could have technically included Jordana on my list of ‘Gold Star Artists‘, as all three of their records have been featured. But I didn’t. Because I knew ‘I’m Doing Well, Thanks for Asking‘ wouldn’t make this year’s list. Peek behind the curtain, that.
• The actually brilliant poetry of Kara Jackson on ‘Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love’ is actually unlucky to miss out. Let’s say #41…

Shawn, I swear to God, I really don’t have the time.

• Then we enter the ‘Unlucky Katies’ zone, with Katie Gately‘s ‘Fawn/Brute’ having one amazing song but not quite enough surrounding it, and…
• katie dey‘s latest ‘never falter hero girl’ being very good but still being overshadowed by the career peak of ‘mydata‘, which I’m wondering if dey will ever rival again. They were #6 and #4 in 2020 you know?
• Killer Mike betrayed the fact that they haven’t listened to any rap music since about 2006 with ‘MICHAEL’. Quite some feat considering they’ve released about five (very good albums) in that time.
• Does the new Lalic album have a song on it anywhere near as good as Deed Rider on it? No. But neither do most albums, to be fair.
• Miley Cyrus did one of their shit ones.
• I know I’m supposed to like Parannoul.
• The Paris, Texas album is almost the right kind of shit to be kinda good.
• I’m starting to worry that the genius of Mouthful might be a height that Pickle Darling never reach again.
• Is the new Princess Nokia really a proper album?? Whatever, their sad decline continues.
• Fair play to Queens of the Stone Age, but I think your Necessary Evil shift is over.
• I get the feeling that Raye won’t mind their album missing out after they see the 2023 Legit Bosses.
• I really, really love Rhiannon Giddens, but they haven’t yet released the album that their amazing talent is capable of, and ‘You’re The One‘ sadly ain’t it.
• The most shocking omission: the absolute Necessary Evil legend that is Shamir has had seven previous entries – near Manics levels! However, .’Homo Anxietatem‘ is just… fine… Not even a song on the 2023 Legit Bosses. They go for early 90s alt-rock radio and are perhaps too successful. Like, that music was no good in the first place. Brownie points for the obvious Breakfast at Tiffanies tribute The Beginning though.
• ‘Spellling & the Mystery School’ is a great excuse to revisit some of the imperial back catalogue of one of the 2020s’ most expansive and creative musical artists with added orchestral oomph. But… you’re redoing songs from ”Turning Wheel‘?? Motherfucker, that already had ‘orchestral oomph’!? I fucking paid for it!!

Fuck me, there are a lot of these cunts. You see how hard it is? Ah well, almost at the end of the alphabet:

• I planned to cover Taylor Swift‘s new ‘Taylor’s Version’ of ‘1989’, maybe linking it to my ‘frosty chocolate milkshake’ era review from 2014, but… What is this? The difference is negligible, and it often sounds like Taylor doing karaoke of their own songs. I appreciate and support their reasons behind rerecording everything they’ve (even if it’s essentially just to hoard every last penny related to their music, I guess they’re justified. Some would say), but they’re charging people money for this?? Do they need another fleet of climate devouring private jets?? Politely: ethically dubious. Impolitely: proper cunt actions.
• Tirzah‘s alright
• I promise you’ll have a great time with TV Girl‘s new album.
• Unknown Mortal Orchestra were a period for me. I wish them all the best, and there’s a handful of Legit Bosses in there, but we might be done here.
• The Blacklips Bar: Androgyns and Deviants — Industrial Romance for Bruised and Battered Angels, 1992​–​1995 compilation album is fucking boss and you should all go and listen to it now. Understood?
• The first track off Victoria Monet‘s album is the Song Of The [CURRENT SEASON]. Everything else is fine.
• Sigh… White Lung. I popped my tits off when they announced their first album in almost seven years, and shed salt tears when they said it would be their last, but… This isn’t 2016 anymore. The band sound out of time and out of place, with a sound they have made no attempt to update. Nor should they feel compelled to. RIP, we’re done her xxx
• ‘Halos Lost and Found’ by Wine Drunk is a thing, but (spoiler alert) far from Metagirl’s finest work of the year.
• 100 gecs. One hundred. Gecs. One day I’m going to write the definitive piece on 100 gecs. It’ll be 23.000 words and will be the final judgement on them. When I write it the whole culture will move on Something needs to be done.

So those thirty seven albums are some of the records that didn’t make it. We can all now settle down and get ready for the 40 greatest albums of 2023…

Erm, oh, like, barely any…

Seven… 😳

OK, we’re done here.