I’ve got the poise of a newborn giraffe
And I feel like I’ve fallen off the wagon
My moves are quite clearly unchoreographed
My comportment like that of a Komodo dragon…
You deactivate my defense mechanisms
I think I’m coming unglued, I have emotional whiplash
I cannot brandish my trademark aloof cynicism
I’ve taken up macramé, just to deal with the backlash
Oh, what’s that, Alan Sparhawk, you’ve done some experimentation on your new album? Played around with vocal and electronic effects? Crafted something different than what you’ve done previously and embraced a new sonic guise with your new record? That’s cute.
May I introduce you again, for the fifth time on this, the most cherished and artistically valid of lists, to Mr John William Grant.
Grant was first honoured by this blog for the acoustic mournful paeans laced with acid wit of ‘Pale Green Ghosts’ (#6 2013); before ‘Grey Tickles, Black Pressure’ (#6 2015) instead turned to glacial electronic mournful paeans laced with acid wit; the confused and uneven electropop sexjams/mournful paeans laced with acid wit of ‘Love is Magic’ (a very generous #53 in 2018) was probably Grant’s first mis-step; but they relocated their mojo on the enigmatic synth swathes (plus mournful paeans laced with acid wit) of 2021’s ‘Boy From Michigan’ (a perhaps harsh #42). What I’m saying is that, while other contemporary geniuses like Sparhawk may dabble in experimentation and challenging all perceptions of their music on occasion, John Grant lives this life. Other artists may think experimentation is their ally, but they merely adopt experimentation, but John Grant was born in this, they were moulded by it. Grant didn’t see a power chord or a 4/4 beat until they were a man, and by then it was nothing to them but boring.
The cliche would be to compare John Grant’s capacity for reinvention and stylistic shifts to David Bowie, but let’s be honest, Bowie was a bit of a fraud wasn’t he? Yeah, back in the early 1970s he pretended to be Ziggy Stardust for a couple of albums, and bully for him, but then he just put on a suit and… that was about it in terms of reinvention. Bowie would spend the rest of his career chasing styles and adopting trends, albeit often very successfully. He spent the 80’s making electro tinged yacht rock in partial thrall to the New Romantics, then spent a large amount of the 1990’s trying to rip off Nine Inch Nails. His last tour was in 2004, then the big jessie hard a heart attack and decided to basically disappear, before taking the questionable decision to publicise 2016’s ‘Black Star’ by dying four days later. As publicity stunts go, I personally consider that rather tasteless.
I’m just playing Bowie, you’re alright. But your whole ‘chameleon’ narrative is pretty unmerited. And you absolutely sucked during the 1980’s, along with most people. Fucking Thatcher, man…
You are calm, you are rage
You were there yesterday
You will be there tomorrow
Nothing more left to say
Unattainable, you’re unattainable
What have you done to my cranium?
I’m so tired, will you hold me?
I just want you to mold me…
You don’t like what I am
I have come to understand
So Grant absolutely shits all over Bowie, is what I’m saying. ‘The Art of the Lie takes on influences from Can, Rick James, Funkadelic and – yes yes yes yes yes – Prince Himself to become a funk mini masterpiece. And it’s a John Grant album, so you should really know the deal by now: half the songs are rhythmic stompers where Grant sings about someone having a fat arse or something yet managing to make it mournful paean laced with acid wit, or absolutely devastating slow paced ballads where Grant painfully dissects their struggles with brutal honesty and mournful paeans laced with acid wit.
And yet Grant is such a big presence in all of his work, such an astonishing central figure in their songwriting that they[‘re able to take their art in all sorts of directions while ensuring that it always remains resolutely a John Grant song. You may have noticed by now that there’s a central facet to all of Grant’s songs that always securing their unarguable ownership.
It’s that fucking beard man! I’m super jel-jel of it. David Bowie could never.
Album Title as AI Image
Necessary Evil 
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