Keep up at the back! I’ve explained all of this a dozen times by this point! For glorious entry into the prized and celebrated Necessary Evil Gold Star Artists Hall of Fame you need to meet just two basic yet extraordinary difficult criteria:
- At least three albums
- All albums featured on the Necessary Evil best of year countdown
Well… not none, but… few… Few Shall Pass.
NE25 saw two new entries to the most prestigious list in all of music. In all of life. And they’re biggies: legitimately two of the most notable artists of the 21st century, and even if a normie mainstream media (more like lamestream media, ammi right lads???) outlet like Rolling Stone or BBC or The Daily Stormer or Razzle decided to list the greatest artists of the past two decades they’d both be listed high. And, in a pleasing bit of symmetry, there were also two artists condemned to the eternal shame of being disqualified from the Gold Star Artists Hall of Fame and violently dispelled into the disgraceful Ex-Gold Star Graveyard. It was a great shame that one of these artists was expelled. The other one I couldn’t give less of a shit about.
It’s a shame to lose Saba. Or rather, it’s a shame that Saba chose to debase himself to such an extent that they could no longer be considered amongst the elite. Unfortunately, Saba never really kicked on from 2018’s lowkey spectacular ‘Care for Me’ (#32 2018). The follow up, ‘Few Good Things’ (#35 2022) was a very, very decent if unspectacular album, which initially seemed like a breather after the artistic explosion of ‘Care for Me’, and moved me to state that “his next project will be fascinating” when they were inducted into the Gold Star HoF, Their next project was not fascinating. 2025’s excessively titled ‘From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D.’ was simply more of the same extremely competent mainstream hip-hop, and by that point it seemed like simply the direction Saba was heading. It’s more than likely that Saba will return to the Necessary Evil countdown in the future, however – like Andrew Windsor – they will do so without a title.
Japanese Breakfast though? I’ve kind of wanted them out of the HoF ever since I first erected it in 2023, realised they qualified, and stated “I kind of hope their next album is a stinker that doesn’t make the year end list so we can just forget that they were ever considered a Gold Star Artist”. A mainstay of the 80-60 placings, and I doubt that if NE25 even went that high ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)’ would have made the countdown. #2025Tax and all that.
OK, now let’s talk about some actually good music. Let’s talk about some spectacular music.
Sudan Archives
‘Cause I’m not average, average, average, average
Avеrage, average, avеrage, average
‘Cause I’m not average, average, average, average
Average, average, average, average
When Brittney Parks first came into my life with the spectacular ‘Sink‘ EP (2018 #61), I – obviously – fell immediately in love. But if I’m being completely, entirely, brutally honest, I probably mentally compartmentalised them as someone making music that was never likely to break any glass ceilings, and that would remain ‘popular’ in the sense that they would always likely be the coolest addition of the most discerning fan’s Bandcamp collection. Yes, Sudan Archives very much utilised Sudanese, Cameroonian (but also Irish) musical influences that fat white listeners like myself would not usually be exposed to. And yes, they very much “Made the violin cool”. And no, Brittney isn’t actually Sudanese nor has any Sudanese heritage (as far as they know) but just thought the name was cool because of the country’s history of violin music (and ‘Sudan’ was also a nickname her Mum gave her) – though to adopt a country’s name to draw parallels with is cultural history then staying silent on a years long civil war/genocide that has seen hundreds of thousands massacred seems a little gauche. The debut suggested that Parks would carve out an acclaimed and well respected career of little gems of the occasional brilliance of Nont for Sale, and those of us who are happy stroking their beards on the sidelines would be happy.
The proper debut album ‘Athena‘ (#2 2019) kind of continued in that vein. It’s an incredible achievement, an assured and incredibly proficient first record. However, it is kind of the best possible example of the well regarded (even respectable) quasi-mainstream jazz inflected with commendable experimentation and a unusually high recognition of international musical history. My ranking of it as second album of the year was perhaps me getting a little overexcited at an artist I’d nailed my mast to early coming out with something so accomplished, but it was a relatively weak years for albums, and who else is getting number two, Thom fucking Yorke?? METHYL ETHEL?? The number seven album??
Actually… yes… the number seven album should have absolutely finished second… or maybe first… But we’ll get to that later.
Also, as a further glimpse under the wizard’s sleeve, at the time my actual second favourite album of the year was Elbow, but with Nick Cave being number one I got very conscious about the top of the list being dominated by smelly old white guys. Because I am – at the end of the day – a pathetic virtue signaling libtard soyboy cuck.
Listening to Athena again though, I remembered how much I love this fucking album. I was really tempted to make a statement by placing it as her second or even first best ever. But, no. It’s their worst full album. Because the places Archives went next were nuts.
I found violinists who looked like me in Africa, playing it so wildly. It’s such a serious instrument in a western concert setting, but in so many other places in the world it brings the party
The second album, ‘Natural Brown Prom Queen‘(#5 2022) was a great casting off of any preconceived notions of how a black woman should act when playing in the ‘civilised’ and ‘polite’ and – c’mon now – ‘white‘ space of classical-adjacent music. Parks was no longer concerned with making the violin ‘cool’; no longer simply presenting an ‘urban’ take on pop jazz that Radio 2 could feasibly put on their playlists and think it counts for their diversity quota; ‘Natural Brown Prom Queen’ is a thrilling explosion of boundaryless creativity that is far more concerned with getting your feet to the dance floor rather than getting your hand to your beard. The musical palate is dizzying, and Sudan matches this sonic ambition by also lyrically touching far more on race, gender, and the expectations put on Sudan in her slightly unusual position. Sudan frequently sings about what is expected of her in the space she inhabits, wondering if she should feel ashamed for ‘selling out’ based on how she styles her hair (“If I wear it straight, will they like me more?/Like those girls on front covers… Stay hair, stay straight, though we feel ashamed/By the curls, waves, and natural things*”). And the record is often a commentary on its own very existence, with Sudan questioning all the expectations on her despite her wanting to let lose more and hit the dance floor (to get her titties out, titties out, titties out, titties out). I’d say perhaps thematically it’s Sudan’s best album, but its insane variety can make it a little overwhelming and sometimes muddled. Also, this shit’s loooooooooooooooong. The true career highlight came last year, as ‘The BRP’ (#6 2025) focused on an examination and celebration of dance music (rather than ‘Natural Brown Prom Queen‘s celebration of every genre that had ever been invented) that’s an incredibly fluid yet exhilarating experience.
Three astonishing albums, three incredinly ambitous expressions of creativity, three Necessary Evil top 10s (with her best album, counterintuitively, being the only one to finish outside the top 5). Yet I still feel that THE Sudan Archives record hasn’t been released yet. I know that Brittney Parks has a record in them that will truly be considered a landmark piece of work, which is still to come in the future. These three classics, all amongst the best of their period, are still Sudan only in second or third gear?
(*the best song about hair I can remember. No, that Solange one is dull as shit)
FKA Twigs
Listen, dingus, either you agree that Tahliah Barnett is likely the most progressive, experimental and important mainstream artist of the past decade, or you’re just lying. Why? What could you possibly benefit from such pointless deceit? Are you playing dumb in bad faith in order to spark some manufactured debate? I condemn your deliberate obtuseness.
And FKA Twigs is a mainstream artist. Let’s not go overboard and claim they’re some extreme anti-consumerist outsider artist. They make exceptional pop music, and they do so by pushing the form into artistic extremes that challenge what the listener might have reasonably considered palatable. They’re not quite insanely boundary crushing enough to be the next Björk (at least not yet), but perhaps a 21st century David Bowie, especially when you consider how dedicated Twigs is to ensuring that their image, fashion, videos and iconography always acts as extensions of their musical art. Bowie never created anything quite as erotically futuristic as Video Girl though (to pick a song pretty much at random), so fuck that old fart, right? I’m glad he’s dead.
It’s difficult to easily describe what the artistically fleet-footed Twigs – mostly because all genre is garbage. Just don’t call them ‘R&B’, because if she looked as white as Sydney Sweeney you know that’s not what you’d call her music. Actually, that might be a bad example – I don’t really want to know what you’d call her if she looked like Sydney Sweeney, that’s such a hot button political issue that I may as well have asked what you’d call her music if she looked like Mojtaba Khamenei. The (kinda) aforementioned “Erotic Futurism” is probably the closest though . I’m not actually sure if that genre exists, and so I am now officially trademarking it and demand the same degree of respect and notoriety as Kayla Newman still receives for coining the phrase “On Fleek” in 2014. Kids still say that, right? On fleek?
The best Twigs music is the soundtrack of robots having sex for the first time in the year 2869, with songs simulating (or should that be stimulating?? No, sorry, ‘simulating’ is actually the correct word) the mysterious excitements and perceptions, mimicking the revolutionary encounter with physical stimulus in a post-human world. The lyrics, meanwhile, deal with sex’s consequences, drawbacks, tragedies and dramas, but most importantly are unashamed of broadcasting the uncomplicated pleasures of these feelings. The polite, liberal way of describing Twigs and their music would be ‘Sex Positive’, but the simple fact of the matter is that FKA Twigs is one of the sexiest motherfuckers of all time, an objective fact that they proudly broadcast through their incredibly sensual music, their spectacularly horny music videos, and their astonishing fashion sense, both in and out of character (if, in fact, she is ever out). I know it’s illegal to be sexy these days, and the wokes will have a fit about it, but Twigs’ intense sexual energy is such an important and central part of their art and presentation. Listen, I know it sounds particularly sickening that a fat, 42 year old man like Franchise-Palmer is saying that, but the important thing is that I am merely recognising (and, yes, enjoying) sexiness, not then reacting to that sexiness with an angry and violent attack on FKA Twigs for daring not to have sex with me. I am skilled enough to suppress these thoughts. And the answer to the question “Would I like her if she weren’t so sexy?” would be “Of course not”. But that would be like asking me if I’d like Prince as much if He didn’t write songs or like the Manics as much if their songs were all instrumentals or like Guns n’ Roses as much is Slash didn’t wear that lovely hat. Twigs’ sexiness isn’t something they were born with or was lucky enough to inherit (good genes, as Sydney would say), it’s an intensely conscious choice she makes to highlight and present, that plays a central part to every piece of art they create, visually or sonically. It’s probably a big part of that ‘Crow’ remake they were in, though unfortunately that’s an unprovable theory as literally nobody saw that movie.
And Twigs’ discography is, pretty much, perfect. And was birthed perfect, when the Ronseal titled ‘LP1‘ (#7 2014) moved me to declare “FKA Twigs is one of the best things to happen to British music, or just all music in general, for absolute years“. Good call, Alex, no notes. I hadn’t listened to it properly for many, many years, and I kind of expected it to have lost a little bit of lustre over the past decade and a bit, no longer having the benefiting thrill of the new, and perhaps sounding relatively primitive in comparison to the sonic adventures the more experienced twigs would pull their sound along in later releases. Nah, mah dudes, this album absolutely slaps. Listening to it again, it still sounded as fresh and as new as it did when I was a fresh faced and naive 30 year old, and I straight away thought “Shit, maybe this is their best album??”. This would be a recurring thought. When I named Two Weeks as one of the greatest songs ever in 2019 I claimed that Twigs was a generational popstar but only had one amazing song. I still partially agree with that, but at the same time recognise it as absolute nonsense. Two Weeks might still be their career highlight – as it would be for most careers – but I should instead have said that she doesn’t have many immediate songs – songs that you could play to anyone and have them understand the artist’s genius is 168 seconds… But, yeah, mostly I was just talking bullshit. Entry #6 in that series – thanks to everyone who’s waited 2,387 days so far since the last entry – might have to be an apology. Talking about apologies – What the fuck was wrong with me when ‘Magdalene‘ (#7 2019) came out?? OK, so this is the best thing they’ve ever done! No, seriously this time! An absolutely incredible record that right now, to me, sounds like the greatest album of 2019 by some distance. It finished behind Thom fucking Yorke?? What was wrong with me?? I really, really, really love the aforementioned Sudan Archives debut that I placed at #2 that year, but… come on!! Yeah? You get it, yeah? Come the fuck on! I’d have to seriously consider whether or not it’s better than Nick Cave’s equally exquisite ‘Ghosteen”, but, I dunno, that kinda sounds like 2029’s problem. What was most striking to me about listening to ‘Magdelena’ again for the first time in a while is how it perfectly exhibits the kind of ‘orchestral/operatic pop’ that some idiots were saying Rosalía invented on her latest record, only taking the idea into far more complex and reqarding places than Rosalía comes close to exploring. To be clear, I absolutely adore that Rosalía record, but… come on!! Yeah? You get it, yeah? Come the fuck on!
Then there’s the mild controversy of ‘Caprisongs‘ (#34 2022), Twigs’ third entry onto Necessary Evil, but not qualifying her as a Gold Star Artist at the time. Because, I’m sorry, but it’s not a proper album. It’s brilliant, it’s incredible fun, it’s Twigs sounding more relaxed and happy than they do on any of their proper albums, and it contains some stone cold classics. But it’s a mixtape. So no dice. And I know that it has its fans (including fucking me), but it’s obviously the least important and least consequential (kinda) record of a career with an insanely high bar. It’s still fantastic though! if a lesser artist such as Weezer or Grand Funk Railroad or Gary Barlow or Linkin Park released ‘Caprisongs’, it’d be the highlight of their career by such a ridiculous margin that all the artist’s past recordings would be thrown onto bonfires in disgust in mass record burning events all across the world. But, come on lads, let’s be serious here, Twigs’ real third album came last year with the predictably incredible ‘EUSEXUA‘ (#3 2025). Possibly Twigs’ most accessible and immediate album, which I can often mistakenly read as denoting superiority, which it doesn’t automatically do so. But nor do accessibility and immediacy automatically render a record inferior. Currently, I’m off the opinion that it isn’t their career best, but to think it was would be extremely valid, as it would for any of her albums. Apart from, y’know, the lesser ones. And I’d include ‘EUSEXUA: Afterglow‘ (#19 2025) in that category. Again, listen to me, look me in the eyes, an absolutely incredible album – top 20 of the year!!! – but more of a ‘companion piece’ to ‘EUSEXUA’ than a completely separate and distinct record in its own right. The ‘Amnesiac’ to ‘EUSEXUA’s ‘Kid A’, and if it makes it any better, I fucking hate ‘Amnesiac’ so Twigs has those posh Zionists beat there. But… come on!! Yeah? You get it, yeah? Come the fuck on!
Necessary Evil 