73 Lizzo: Cuz I Love You

Your affection for Lizzo’s third album will all depend on how well acquainted you are with it. If you absolutely love it then you’re almost certainly a recent convert to the Lizzo cause. Maybe as recently as October, a friend advised you that a few spins of the record really ‘takes the edge off’ a fentanyl binge the night before. You try it out and- you know what??- it really does! Its infectious and unashamedly boisterous confidence acts as a vital kick start to your vital organs. “‘The only exes that I care about are in my fucking chromosomes ‘!!* That’s so true!!”, you announce to yourself, before curling up into a ball on the floor and weeping as you consider how ashamed your mother must be of you.

HEROINSPOT
…throw it like a girl, throw it, throw it like a girl!

 

(*obviously, you’d say this out loud, so that pun would make a lot more sense)

Maybe you appreciate it in moderation. This will because you were first introduced to it back in July, after Tempo soundtracked your particularly memorable sexual experience, after it happened to be playing on the radio of the Audi A4 you were carjacking at the time, and these things tend to stick with you. You’re always happy to give Lizzo a listen and appreciate what stellar pop songs the album’s highlights are, but can rarely stomach a full 42 minutes at any one time. You’ve started to cringe ever so slightly at Lizzo’s constant, overbearing shtick of ‘I DON’T NEED NOBODY I KNOW I’M AWESOME NO MATTER WHAT I’M GOING TO DATE MYSELF KNOCK KNOCK WHO’S THERE I’M FUCKING AMAZING THAT’S WHO JET FUEL DOESN’T MELT STEEL RT IF YOU LOVE KEANU REEVES IS EVERYBODY HAVING A GOOD TIME?!?!’ , plus the fact that a good 45% of her lyrics are simply viral Tweets that she liked (and, erm, then attempted to trademark) ensures the the love you briefly held for it after first hearing it has now cooled significantly. Yeah, I know, you have to really read between the lines for that jet fuel stuff, but it’s there.

Continue reading “73 Lizzo: Cuz I Love You”

Necessary Evil 2019 (77-74)

77 Princess Nokia: Metallic Butterfly

Metallic-Butterfly

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m a big believer in getting into artists solely because you like the cover art of their album. Well, guess what? I freaking loved the cover of ‘A Girl Cried Red’ by Princess Nokia. A Latin-American woman in a Slipknot shirt giving me the finger? Yes please, that’s all that I ever want, give that to me now, please, let me chow down on that, nomnomnomnomnom, thank you sir, can I have some more. Do you see? Well, I got the album, I loved it, and then was left with two main questions:

  1. Where do I get to get more of this stuff and then shovel it into my ears?
  2. So, what, is she the daughter of some sort of monarchy based around mobile phone manufacturers? Is she the daughter of the king of the Nokia phones, or is each different member of that particular royal family a different type of phone? Like is her brother Prince Samsung and her great aunt Duchy LG? I mean, the king has to be King iPhone, don’t it? Not based on quality, but one assumes that actual phone sales would feature in most prominently when deciding the lineage of such a monarchy. But if Nokia’s parents and older siblings die and she ascends to the throne, does she then take on the name iPhone? You can’t be having phone manufacturers royal house being run by a fucking Nokia, what is this, 2002??

Continue reading “Necessary Evil 2019 (77-74)”

79 MARINA: Love + Fear, 78 Billie Eilish: When We Go To Sleep Where Do We Go?

Yeah, that’s right, motherfucking double entry. Pssssshow! Did you hear that sound? That’s the sound of your tiny BRAINS being blown, yo! Don’t like it? Wanna lay down? Come at me, bro! COME AT ME!!!!

CnODfXIWYAM6kPv

Ahem… We enter the top 80 [EIGHTY] with an artist whom I’ve long loved who has never achieved the commercial success her AMAZINGNESS deserves, and a debut album by an artist* doing a lot of Marina’s old tricks and the obvious inheritor of the Welsh/Greek Queen’s mantle of master (mistress?? No, can’t use that word, the perverts have ruined it) of pitch perfect pop music that’s unafraid to be a little weird- frequently A LOT weird- and can hide quite profound sentiments behind its bubble gum pop aesthetics, playfully ironic one second but emotionally sincere the next. Yet, rather than challenging Marina for the title of ‘Favourite Cult Alt-Pop Act Who Sells Fuck All Records’, somehow her debut album has sold 1,304,000 equivalent album units (343,000 physical sales), which, yeah, it’s no ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’ (five. Fucking. Million?!), but it’s about as much as albums sell these days, and was the biggest selling album of 2019 for a long time. It might still be. What am I, Mr. Research? Get fucked. Released a month after Eilish’s debut, Marina’s first album in four years was going to set up a brutal battle between the master and the jumped up apprentice who has managed to commercially outperform her influence more than a hundred times over. Marina officially removing the ‘…and the Diamonds’ suffix from her name was like her removing all shackles, ready to go to war. She even stylises it as ‘MARINA’, like she’s screaming her name to remind these little upstarts who the real OG is! Billie’s gonna get pwnnnnnned!! Grab your popcorn, kids, this is sure to be brutal!

Continue reading “79 MARINA: Love + Fear, 78 Billie Eilish: When We Go To Sleep Where Do We Go?”

Necessary Evil 2019 (82-80)

82 Le Makeup: Aisou

a2016611389_10

That cover intrigues me. If we move the camera back, will we just see Keisuke Iiri with his arm’s out wide pulling a roll of cling film over his face? It’d ruin the illusion somewhat, wouldn’t it?

Listen, I have no fucking idea who this guy is. His name is Keisuke Iiri, his Twitter seems to suggest that he’s legitimately Japanese, and he’s made one of the most accomplished and sonically arresting dance albums of 2019. That’s all. This is awesome, I’m awesome, you’re awesome, and Le Makeup are awesome.

Keisuke, if you’re reading this, keep it up.

Metacritic: n/a

Continue reading “Necessary Evil 2019 (82-80)”

Necessary Evil 2019 (92-84)

92 Chance the Rapper: The Big Day

102754ce389c900531057dd11508c674.1000x1000x1

Seriously, what the fuck is this? It’s almost depressing that this is technically the debut album from arguably one the most influential and critically adored rappers of the past ten years. Previously only releasing music through free mixtapes, it’s a little baffling that Chance has decided the album that sees him starting to go after that Bruno Mars crowd should be the one that people should have to pay for.

Continue reading “Necessary Evil 2019 (92-84)”

2019’s Best Movie: Sorry We Missed You

Yeah, I know, continuing my proud tradition of naming the year’s best movie alongside the albums of the year countdown. ‘Under the Skin‘ was named 2014’s movie of the year, but the award went unclaimed in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and indeed every year before 2014. However, the (latest) masterpiece by Ken Loach, ‘Sorry We Missed You,’ was such a powerful piece that inspired such painful bolts of recognition and sheer fucking anger that I had to make space in 2019 to talk about it.

095_438__swmylandscape_1570462573_standard

Oh, and by the way, this isn’t going to be one of those “Ooooooh, look at the camera angles! isn’t the mise en scène lovely?! Hints of Akira Kurosawa’s vagina dentata, perhaps??” reviews, as I have no interest in actually talking about the movie. Instead, these is mainly going to be a thousand words or so of me ranting about the twisted nature of capitalism in 2019. Like I said, it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

Continue reading “2019’s Best Movie: Sorry We Missed You”

Necessary Evil 2019

It’s Back (and Badder Than Ever)

1200

Yes, unbelievably, it’s been 12 months since I started 2018’s version of this long, laborious and pointless task that completely ruins my Christmas and New Year every fucking year. Luckily, I’m Macedonian Orthodox so don’t celebrate Christmas until January 7th, and I haven’t drunk alcohol for roughly four years so there really is nothing worthwhile about New Year’s Eve. Also, I’m smart enough not to have any friends.

Continue reading “Necessary Evil 2019”

The Best Albums of the Tennies (kind of…) Part Two

Y’know what? This really didn’t need to be a two parter. Sure, Part One spilled over 4’000 words, but’s that’s just because Arctic Monkey’s shameful behavior presented me with the chance to go off on a wrestling tangent, and that’s a guaranteed extra twenty five hundred words right there. I reckon I’ll bang through the rest of these in around 2’000 words, as I’m almost certain The Sport of Kings is unlikely to make an appearance. 6’000 words is a not at all ridiculous length for an entry. My ‘50 Song Memoir‘ entry was, if memory serves, 7,296,586 words, and that’s one of my most popular posts of all time. You. Whores. Love. Length.

Smash

But, twice the content, yeah? Twice the clicks, twice the sweet, sweet advertising dollar. I mean… technically, yeah… Double zero is still zero, maths fans. Could be worse, I could be giving each entry it’s own individual page and forcing you to click ‘next’ each time, like those fucking awful lists you see on the internet, like… like… well, like this dumb blog that nobody reads every year end, I suppose. We’ve got some motherfucking stonkers coming up, mind, so ready your tiny minds to be blown like you were the window cleaner’s penis and this list was your mum (oooooooooooooooh!!). This pointless intro only exists because I hate the entries being scissored by a page break. Besides, I couldn’t let you know what no.5 is before I’ve got your delicious clicks. Clickety-click!

Continue reading “The Best Albums of the Tennies (kind of…) Part Two”

The Best Albums of the Tennies (kind of…) Part One

Has this even been a decade? Like, other decades were definitely decades, weren’t they? The 70s were definitely a decade, I’ve seen pictures. It was all flared jeans and Ashton Kutchers. I remember the 80s, it was all primary colours and He Man toys. Except I’m 29 years old, which now unfortunately means I was born in 1990, so I don’t actually remember the 80s. Shame.

Yeah, I know, the Megadrive version was better…

The NINETIES though! Remember the NINETIES?! That was an unarguable ‘decade’! There was a undeniable vibe to the 90s. The 90s was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air doing the Macarena after scoring the winning penalty against Ginger Spice in the Euro 96 quarter finals. Remember that? It definitely happened and was definitely 90s!!

I turned 16 (or possibly 10) three days before the year 2000, and since then life doesn’t really deal in decades or conveniently distinct periods of time anymore. Every decade, every year, every day is now a seemingly unending trudge through hideous adulthood. Life and popular culture just trundles off in a different direction and your major marking points become all the more onanistic and self-centred. I started getting fucking old. And when you’re fucking old you’re beaten down by capitalism’s endless rat race that you don’t even fucking care what year it is.

Continue reading “The Best Albums of the Tennies (kind of…) Part One”