Category: 2022NE

#38 Mitski: Laurel Hell

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Sometimes I think I am free
Until I find I’m back in line again

Everyone

Ma dudes, Mitski’s sixth record is really fucking depressing. We’ve already seen plenty of records on this year’s list that deal with weighty and emotionally devastating subjects. But ‘Laurel Hell’ is different. It doesn’t just contain sad lyrics, but it’s very sound is beaten, dejected, empty. Like, total bummer, you get me?

It might just be me. I am, as you might have noticed, a total bummer merchant. I’m sure most people would still find it depressing just knowing the general story behind it. Mitski had sacrificed everything in order to do music for a living (“I will neglect everything else, including me as a person, just to get to keep making music”), and with the wider acclaim and success of ‘Be the Cowboy‘ she seemed to have lived her dream to the extent that she no longer needed to do it. And, having realised the sacrifices such success entails, she decided to chuck it all in. She wrote one of her greatest ever songs Working for the Knife in late 2019 as a spectacular and self-explanatory goodbye to the business (“I always thought the choice was mine/And I was right, but I just chose wrong”). Whereupon her label said, erm, no, you’re still contracted for one more album. Get back out there and dance for us. ‘Laurel Hell’ is that album. I’m sure Mitski was overwhelmingly happy to make it

I START THE DAY HIGH AND IT ENDS SO LOW

#40 Arlo Parks: Super Sad Generation

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

I talk to girls that sing about asphyxiation until their beer goes flat
I talk to girls that bring their switchblades to the function and dye their buzzcuts black

Shut your mouth and take your vitamins
Bite your nails and sell your Ritalin
I feel like the world is on my back

Sophie

Firstly, Arlo Parks was in the year 2000. So fuck her, right?

The wasn’t even born when Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator’ was released, co-starring an actor who was then still known as ‘River Phoenix’s less successful brother’. Bizarrely though, the number 1 movie when she was born was ‘Hollow Man‘. Like, nobody saw that movie! Was Arlo born into an alternative universe where Paul Verhoven movies were still popular into the 21st century?? The number one single when she was born was 7 Days, which – yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah – kinda tracks in so many ways. The crowd do indeed, say “Bo selecter”. That wasn’t 7 Days though, that was an Artful Dodger song….

IS THAT ENOUGH #AGEBANTZ YET?

The NE2022 Half-Time Show: Kitty Aurora’s Counterpoint

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

As all of my loyal readers know, what I say goes and I am the absolute and only authority on what equals good music. I’ve written this blog for almost a decade now, my lists go back to 2007, it’s clear that I know what I’m talking about, these pages deal solely on facts and not on feelings, and everyone else’s takes are merely ‘opinion’ and are generally invalid. But is that always the case?

Yes, obviously. But I am a fair and balanced broadcaster, and will at a push accept that there might be some music that I’ve missed. So, so the halftime show, I’ve invited my good friend, fabulous artist and – most importantly – the absolute oracle of underground British rock music that is Kitty Aurora to show us all what other weird and wonderful music deserves our attention.

SMOKE ME A KIPPER I’LL BE BACK FOR BREAKFAST

#42 Ari Lennox: age/sex/location

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Jesus, this record is far too classy for this list. I don’t feel like I’m paying it enough respect just lying here on my sofa. I’m still wearing the same shirt as I was yesterday, for Christ’s sake! I feel like I should be wearing a tie – perhaps a bow tie – or the general mood surrounding a listening to this intensely elegant record threatens to be laughably inappropriate.

No, Alex! This isn’t like all the other records, you can’t just be posting wrestling references that literally nobody is going to get! Put some respect on this album’s name! This album deserves low lighting, it deserves champagne on ice, it deserves candles, it deserves an open fire, it deserves a fur throw that you and your partner(s) are reclined upon. It also deserves lots and lots of sex.

OH NO…

#43 Jenny Hval: Classic Objects

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

My mother came to the city at 21
And had no choice but to drive to work
She said, “I cried in the car every day until I didn’t”
And when she had me, the midwife
Looked her in the eye and said, “Poor baby, you’re so scared”
I guess I was born anyway

American Coffee

I dunno, dudes, I’ve got a weird relationship with Jenny Hval.

Ooooooh, the bass in that song though

Nooooooooo, not that kind of weird relationship! I have always prided myself on how well I respect both my own and Jenny Hval’s boundaries. She has never spotted me as an 18 year old at a charity basketball game that she arranged and then soon after sent me photos of her genitals. And I, for my part, have never sent her cardboard boxes filled with a own hair and toenail clippings, with a single bullet placed in the middle. That would be weird, right?? Like, why on Earth would I do that?? If Rico Nasty’s legal team are reading this, I just want to clarify how that definitely isn’t something I would ever do, so you’ve obviously got the wrong guy. You’ve not mentioned it in court yet for some reason, but I happen to know that Rico was also sent a Jiffy bag containing three amputated toes, and that definitely wasn’t me either. I don’t even know about that! So, yeah, no idea where the hair and bullet came from, and I wouldn’t bother even bringing up the three toes, as I’m not even aware of that so it’s a dead end. Also, legally, I’m pretty sure you can’t force me to remove my shoes and socks in court, so you may as well give it up now. We may never know, I guess? Maybe start a True Crime podcast?

BESSIE DID YOU MAKE IT

#44 Rico Nasty: Las Ruinas

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

Talk sick shit
You gon’ have to show me
You gon’ have to show me
You gon’ have to show me
Rich bitch drugs
You gon’ have to blow me
You gon’ have to blow me
You gon’ have to blow me

Blow Me

I’m sorry to whomever’s reading this who was under the impression that I loved you. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what love was when I lead you to believe that. I didn’t know what ‘love’ really was. I don’t love you. I love Rico Nasty.

The actually quality of Rico Nasty’s music is almost irrelevant. The woman’s a fucking star.

END OF?

#45 Taylor Swift: Midnights

~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

This post might actually be my last. It’s been fun. Occasionally.

OK, if you haven’t been following the news recently, I might have to give you a quick primer. I get it, don’t worry, it can be a nasty world out there and sometimes we have to attempt to protect our own mental health by not even engaging with the horror, I completely understand if you aren’t up on possibly the biggest story of late 2022. Trigger warning, this might be the most upsetting. Remember a few days ago when I posted my Pusha T post? Fifty second best album of the year? Not bad, right? Sure not as high as the near top five placing that Rolling Stone had (bafflingly) deemed it worthy of, but then I’ve certainly been questioning if it’s actually better than Alvvays, Lykke Li, The Smile or Big|Brave, so… it all works out? I dunno, whatever, that’s where the album fell. Was it a particularly good post? Hmmmmmmnot especially. I didn’t spend anyway near the time on it that I dedicated to Tanya Tagaq or Arcade Fire, for instance, but likely because there weren’t any sexual assaults or cultural genocides to discuss. I mentioned how Pusha’s lyrics often don’t convey what he thinks they do, which I would have liked to delve into more given the time. As a post in general though, particularly when compared to my best work, it was definitely m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m

Yes! It’s getting more and more difficult to use that MJF meme, but – bah Gahd! – I still manage it!

THIS IS ALREADY AMONG YOUR BEST WORK

#46 Zeal & Ardor: Zeal and Ardor

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Listen to Z&A’s third full length album, listen to how this bafflingly overlooked Swiss band manage to combine a myriad of genres from soul to gospel to electronica to blues and house them all under a single roof of the blackest of black metal, listen to that at once hilarious and at once terrifying jump cut Emersion makes from BandCamp bedroom electro-pop into screaming death thrash, listen to this band redefine what could be considered heavy rock music for 44 minutes. Then come back to me, I want to see your face when I tell you that this is by far the most straightforward and standard record the band have yet made.

This is all relative, of course: Zeal & Ardor’s ‘normal’ is a far cry from that of plebs like you and I. We still get key changes, electronic swathes, and a near exhausting amount of tropes and genres paid service to. It’s just that compared to the incredibly creative places that the band have dragged their music to over their past two albums (plus 2020’s incredible ‘Wake of a Nation’ EP) their latest often sounds like the band instead turning more inwards and congregating all their visions into making a record that’s slightly more recognisable as ‘metal’.

AND HOW WELL DO THEY DO THAT?