Category: 2018NE

18 Zeal and Ardor: Stranger Fruit

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Mmmmmmmmmmlet’s talk about cultural appropriation.

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Zeal and Ardor are one of my favourite bands. In fact, I’d go as far as calling them my favourite Swiss band. They combine black metal with ‘negro spirituals’, the bracing gospel music sung by the black slaves in the early 19th century. What’s your initial reaction to hearing that? Are you OK with it? Are you straight up against it? Do you think that merely the fact that the band are Swiss makes any use of music born from American cruelties automatically cultural appropriation? Do you want to fnd out a little more about the band before deciding your reaction? Are you immediately against it because you assume the band is white?

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20 Christine and the Queens: Chris

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Remember when the game done changed?

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The last time Matt Le Tissier’s daughter Christine was on this list, Christine herself professed to, and I quote, ‘love every second of this, and the guy writing is so obviously a sexual Catherine Wheel that I felt myself falling more and more in deep, unbridled lust with him with every word’ (that last bit was more suggested than literally said). I later found out that the Christine and the Queens album I was so sexually attractive over was actually the biggest selling debut album of 2016, which actually means my review was the most enjoyed blog post of that year! Probably. I haven’t been able to crunch the numbers. I also said ‘Christine and the Queen’s next album will automatically win that year’s Necessary Evil’. It’s number 20. I lied. It was nice of the Guardian to pick up the slack and not disappointing Christine too much by naming it their album of the year though, so thanks for that, really helped.

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21 Poppy Ackroyd: Resolve

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

‘Resolve’ is an absolutely mind-blowing album. I don’t know why Poppy Ackroys isn’t soundtracking every movie, ever. ‘But what film could possibly be good enough for her?’ I hear you cry. I dunno. What films are good? Bumblebee? Yeah, she could soundtrack Bumblebee.

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I’m not sure I need to add anything to this colossal record aside from pathetically urging you to listen to it and, if you have any desire at all to see artists paid for the incredible work they do, buy the fucker as well, so I’m instead going to give you a harrowing and perhaps damaging journey into my mind.

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23 Z Tapes: Spring 2018

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

Right now. Now. This time. The space in which we orbit. This particular mark along the 4th dimensional axis. This time. Now. Here. Right now. Right now is the best time ever to be a music fan. Fight me.

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If your argument is that there isn’t as much good music around these days then, with all due respect, what the fuck are you talking about, you ugly sack of piss? There’s more good music in 2018 than there’s ever been before, and with more possible ways of hearing it than previously thought possible. Perhaps you want the days again when you’d read about The Mock Turtles being given record of the week in NME and then excitedly rushing off to Woolworths in Dorking to spend your 25p on the plexi vinyl, and the exhilarating trip home on the bus before you raced back to the record player in your bedroom and finally found out it was dog’s pish. Fair enough, but firstly that’s the world that you don’t like as much these days, not music, and secondly you can still take a trip out to Asda or somewhere and spend money on a record you’ve never heard that’s likely to be shit. ‘You Know I Know’ by Olly Murrs is number 10, they’ll probably have a copy of that and it’ll almost definitely be shit. Fancy doing that?

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24 J Cole: KOD

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Jesus, this album. I could spend my time boring on about the sheer quality of the music here, of how it’s an album that deftly combines smooth hip-hop braggadocio with conscientious and thoughtful polemics, all backed with some of the slickest production of 2018. That’s not really my bag though, is it? Instead, the talking points and thought exercises thrown up by Jermaine Lamarr Cole’s fifth album KOD* are so numerous that I can only really take them on in bullet proof form. More after the jump! Click click click click! You’re all just cattle to me! Don’t forget to hit subscribe! Love you!

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(*standing for ‘Kids On Drugs’. Or maybe ‘King OverDosed’. Also ‘Kill Our Demons’. And potentially ‘Karate’s Over, Dingus’. Or ‘Kelly Osbourne’s Demise’. Maybe even ‘Kayaking Over Detroit’. ‘Kissing Older Dentists’? J Cole can’t seem to decide what it stands for himself, so that seems to suggest it can stand for whatever the fuck you want)

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25 Princess Nokia: A Girl Cried Red

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

“It get lonely at the top and I do it by myself
I got everything I want without anybody help
Do you think I give a fuck? Only care about myself
I’m a stone-cold killer, couple notches on my belt”

How much do you think your life is governed by your own actions? How much do you believe it’s actually under the jurisdiction of outside forces that are not of your making, or even understanding? That’s right, it’s Boxing Day and, as Thomas scoffed at Jesus as he sceptically rolled his eyes, it’s time to talk about your locus of control.

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See that picture there? Yeah, that pretty much explains what a ‘locus of control’ is. I’m going to explain it again here though because, I dunno, you might have a very specific type of blindness, or maybe your version of Netscape doesn’t support pictures. It’s important for me to explain it myself, because I don’t like to feel that a blog this insightful, inspirational and- dare I say it?- woke, could just as easily be written by pasting appropriate pictures from Google images. Also, my sponsor pays me by the word, so this completely superfluous paragraph has already made me a very rich man. Anyway, locus of control:

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27 El Perro Del Mar: We Are History

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

We are all history now. Me writing this is creating an (unimaginably minuscule) part of history. When you read it and go on Twitter to gush to all your girl mates about how darn adorable I am, you’re creating history. Even when you hold your nightly WhatsApp reading group to debate the day’s findings on the Necessary Evil blog you are, in a small way, writing history. When Sarah Assbring (El Perro Del Mar’s guiding force) got tired of me direct messaging her with the latest “I’d like to bring your ass” play on words that I’d managed to think up, and successfully applied for a restraining order online, she became a part of history.

 

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This is a fact. It has many positive consequences- I like making history all up in that prick Jamie’s face whenever he’s such an indefensible noob at COD- and many negative ones. For an example, I had to cancel my planned Christmas trip to Scandinavia because it would bring me within twelve hundred miles of Sarah Assbring’s Gothenburg home. I have also thought of exactly twenty seven new plays on her name that she might never get to hear. Oh! Twenty eight!

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28 serpentwithfeet: soil

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

My mate Paul said he saw a serpent with feet one time. He says he saw it with his bare eyes, about thirteen foot long and around 350kg, dark olive brown with a white underside. I grew more sceptical as he sold me how this serpent with feet would feast on fish, gar and turtles, and was obviously cold-blooded judging by the amount of time this serpent with feet would spend lazing around in the sun. It was when Paul started excitedly pontificating to me of how this serpent with feet had incredibly strong muscles with which to snap shut its jaws, but relatively weak ones to open it, that I couldn’t help but intervene. Paul, I said, this ain’t no ‘serpent with feet’, you cretin, it’s a fucking crocodile. I’m not having you going around claiming to have seen a serpent with feet when all you’ve seen is some dumb crocodile.

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Paul dismissed me, saying this serpent with feet had a far wider, U-shaped snout than you’d expect with a crocodile. Also, this serpent with feet definitely inhabited a freshwater marsh, and he was a little offended that I didn’t know crocodiles tended to live in saltwater. Through gritted teeth, I said fine, but I wondered whether he’d considered that this serpent with feet might have been an alligator. He scoffed, asking me where alligator’s usually live. After a quick internet search, I replied North America and parts of China. Then how could I have seen one?? He laughed, I’ve never even been to North America or China!

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