Category: 2016NE

The Legit Bosses: Best Tracks of the Year (90-81)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

90 Jamila Woods: VRY BLK

I’ve no idea why I love this song so much, it’s mostly just a reworking of that irritating ‘Hello Operator’ kids song with more racially conscious lyrics. But it has something, from the alluring wavey intro to the euphoric chorus of ‘I’m very black, black, black/Can’t send me back, back, back/You take my brother, brother, brother/I’ll fight back, back, back’ that gets me evry tm

89 Chairlift: Unfinished Business

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReUJxM-d0iE

Fuck me, that chorus though…

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1 Beyoncé: Lemonade

~ Lex Leeson ~ 21 Comments

Well… yeah… I mean, come on… yeah!

+84

lemonade.jpg

The sixth album by Beyoncé is so obviously the best album of 2016 that it’s near offensive to posit the theory that any other could possibly be considered superior

+117

‘Lemonade’ is legitimately one of the greatest records released in my… 29 years of age, of which maybe I was paying properly close attention for 13 (once you take away the times I was either too young or too drunk and suicidal). Both musically, artistically and due to wider cultural impact, few records can seriously compete with this immediate masterpiece

+153

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You’re Looking at the Real Deal Now

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

 

In 2010 Spin Magazine listed the greatest albums released since the magazine’s conception in 1985, since I’ve been (ahem) alive for a large part of that time I’m going to quickly list the top 20 and briefly state why they’re now way near as good as the top record of 2016*:

*erm, assuming that all the records released between 2010 and now were comparatively garbage

 

20 My Bloody Valentine: Loveless

Speak up, mate, speak up! I can’t bloody hear you over all this racket! Also: know how many albums Ireland contributed to this year’s Necessary Evil? None! Your country’s a musical nonentity!

my bloody valentine

19 Jay-Z: The Blueprint

Oooooh! Look at my big cigar! A guy smoking a cigar this big couldn’t possibly be subconsciously compensating for something else could he?? Pathetic!

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2 Bon Iver: 22, A Million

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

Let’s get the important stuff out of the way first: I’ve always pronounced it ‘Bon Ivor’

+43

Because of this I set up a Google Alert to tell me when somebody finally made a ‘Bon Iver the Engine’ meme, as I truly believed that such a witty reference to both an ultra hipster musical act and an old children’s’ show would truly bring the world together in these troubled times

+23

No, but apparently he’s one of those ultra-hipster tossers who chooses to pretentiously pronounce his name the way it’s spelled, so the reference is lost

-3

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3 Let’s Eat Grandma: I, Gemini

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

‘I, Gemini’ is a perfect encapsulation of why it is I love music

+100

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Let’s Eat Grandma (great name +1) are two Norwich girls who…

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I think I’m allowed to refer to them as such, they were only 16 and 17 years old when they released this album

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No, honestly, and if they were in their 40s, or 30s, or even 20s they simply wouldn’t have been able to make an album as supernaturally beautiful as this

+100

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4 The Hotelier: Goodness

~ Lex Leeson ~ 23 Comments

‘Goodness’ starts with a fucking poem

-8

Picture the scene: you’ve returned home after a hard day investment banking and immediately retired to the smoking library. You’ve taken off your driving gloves, unclipped the ‘Shaguar’ cufflinks that were already painfully dated when your laundry maid got you them for Christmas years ago, thrown on your smoking jacket, lit up a Silver Vogue Lucky Strike and reclined in the leather push back ready to hear the new collection by young upstarts The Hotelier

+1

hotelier

(erm, that’s honestly the record cover, I’m not just being weird…)

You are greeted by a nerdy and presumably privileged white guy explaining to you how he deserves your pity and attention because he once fell in a pond when he was younger. In a fucking poem

-10

You are enveloped by dismay, the world is terrible, people are shit and make shit music, despair is the only feeling that washes over you

-5

Then the first song starts…

+1

 

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5 Kid Cudi: Passion, Pain and Dragon Slayin’

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

Last/this year, the DWP decided that I was no longer a disabled person, and I was moved off the ESA benefit and instead afforded the honour of beta testing Universal Credit and informed there were no barriers to me gaining employment

+24

I volunteer at a lot of immigration and refugee charities- because, ladies, I’m everything you’ve ever fucking dreamed of- and was sure to inform the Job Centre of my shifts, as I believed they were important in me gaining experience in both employment and immigration law, which I have decided is where my future lies

+18

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I was told to stop volunteering though, as it would interfere with me getting a proper job, as the welfare system in this country is solely based on stopping you being a parasite of state funds. So, I just stopped telling the Job Centre of my four days a week volunteering (God, I am such a fucking awesome person) and while I slowly (and thus far successfully) made my way toward earning the relevent qualifications I made sure to keep the JC happy by applying for one job a day that I has little intention or likelihood of getting

-2

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