9 Anna Calvi: Hunter

I wanna know if I can feel alive
I wanna know cause I’m an alpha
I divide and conquer

If you’re reading this, the language I tend to use would suggest that you speak English and maybe 说一点中文. You’re almost definitely British, perhaps American or European. Bizarrely enough, based on the people who read my blog, almost certainly not from Australasia. What’s up with that, Oceania? Don’t I get no love?

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Anyway, you’re more than likely, through sheer luck of birth, to have never had to put up with much dividing and conquering yourself. This time, right now, is actually the most peaceful time in human history. Now, for the first time ever, more people die from traffic accidents (because we’re useless drivers), obesity (because we’re fat bastards) and even suicide (because, as I’ve put it so bluntly before, there really is no fucking point) than die from human violence. Back when we we all lived all 27 years of our miserable life milking a the family duck or sifting through cow shit to find bits worth eating, 15% of all human deaths came through human violence, usually because of the endless war that we were all stuck in. In the 20th century, it was just 5%, as we still had two World Wars to get out of our system Now, it’s only about 1%. Alright, we don’t want to count our chickens too early, and I’m sure the 20th century was looking pretty rosie throughout a lot of 1918, all it takes is an Austrian Archduke being murdered in Syria or the Korean Peninsula and it could be World War 3 (luckily, Austrian Archdukes are quite rarely spotted in Syria and in either Korea). But, in the West at least, it may be Happy New Year (War is Over)!

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11 Lupe Fiasco: DROGAS WAVE

I’m sorry to start off on a bit of a downer here, and I know that a white person mentioning these things is always a bit of a bummer. I can hear all the white readers already:

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And I hear you, bro! It’s totally easier for us rad white guys to just ignore the guilt that’s naturally eating away at every white person! It wasn’t us who enslaved an entire section of people! It was, like, our great great great granddads and shit, yeah? But, like, not my great great great granddad, he would have been totally woke in the 18th century! If my great great great granddad had slaves, then how come I have so many black friends?! Loads! Like who? Peter! He’s black! What’s that? Italian, you say? But he’s got such dark… I mean, in certain lights… So, does he not count…?

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Taking You Up Where You Belong

Yes. this is it. Where the eagles fly and the… rivers… run wild…?

Necessary Evil is taking you up where you belong now, the next 11 albums are absolutely essential. Yeah, would have been more clean if t was ten albums, wouldn’t it? Well, there isn’t, there’s ELEVEN essential albums this year. Buy them all.

12 Kanye West: Ye

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Next September, it’ll be ten years since Kanye West famously interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 VMA awards. Which award? Which Taylor Swift song/video/album won? Which work by Beyonce was Kanye so aggrieved didn’t win? Literally nobody knows. And yet I promise you that every person you mention the moment to will be able to do a pitch perfect Kanye West impression from the moment. It was a dumb moment at a dumb musical award that nobody (at least in this country) gives two shiny shits about, and yet that moment of Peak Megalolz was still honestly one of the biggest and most discussed cultural events of the 21st century. Such was (and still is) the cultural cache attached to Mr. West.

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13 Royce Da 5’9″: Book of Ryan

I think we just have to accept that some things that are part of a nation’s identity just don’t make much logical sense to those looking in. To an outsider, a nation refusing to tighten its laws on something that causes 11.7 deaths per 100’000 of the population is absolutely ludicrous. The country needs it though, it makes it feel safe, makes them feel like they can protect their children. And anyway, the country only uses it for fun! Why should it be blamed for the other dumb countries- usually darker skinned, let’s be honest- who can’t control themselves??

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“How can they let this continue to happen??” other countries self-righteously bray, “Can’t they see that it’s killing them??”. Other countries just don’t get it though, it’s a part of the country’s national pride! This country knows what it’s doing! It doesn’t kill people! People kill themselves! That’s, like, a mental health thing or summat, yeah?

If you’re not British, I can’t imagine you’d understand my relationship with alcohol.

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14 awakebutstillinbed: what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way other people see you

I’ve long debated that. When I go through periods of hating myself, is it actually myself that I so despise, or just how terrible I must look to other people?

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I already mentioned my mind, and how ridiculous an amount of importance I place  on other people’s perception of me in finding my own sense of self-worth*, but isn’t that logically the way I should be approaching life?? Don’t we as humans only even truly exist in how we effect other human beings and the world around us? Sure, you can be happy in yourself, and not care slightly about your consequences that your needlessly complicated existence can have on those around you. Congratulations, you’re a meaningless life form. Isn’t that sociopathic though? How can you struggle through life with any kind of happiness when surely you have to be an idiot to not even give thought to how little esteem you’re held in the eyes of so many people.

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15 Son Lux: Brighter Wounds

Son Lux are a little ridiculous. No, they’re hugely ridiculous. They’re unashamedly dramatic, oppressively portentous, and sing of ‘priest and priestesses’ and ‘phantom muses’. Every song will go ‘whoooooooooooooooah-ah-whoooooooah’ at least once. They make music that Andrew Lloyd Webber would turn down for the Phantom of the Opera sequel (‘P3: Phantom Resurrects Intolerably’) for being a bit much. They were all probably unbearable at college. Heck, they’re all probably unbearable now.

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They’re all these things and more. Plus, if anything, more silly than you’d think. It must be hard for even their biggest fans to hold in a smirk when the singer is brave enough to break out his biggest operatic falsetto at the end of Dream State. They may be the least cool artist on this list.

They are also absolutely fucking amazing.

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16 The Joy Formidable: Aaarth

Why do we stick with the ones we love? Do we even love them anymore?

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OK, OK, I’m being as needlessly cynical as only a single person can be. I’m sure that out of all the people reading this who are in a relationship, not an insignificant amount of you truly love the person you’re with. 35%, maybe even 36% or 37%. Not as many as 40%, that’d be absurd. I’m sure that a good 35% of the people in a relationship reading this would say that they absolutely love the person they’re with. The rest, though…?

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