55 Manic Street Preachers: Resistance is Futile (and the Manics albums ranked)

Dec 14, 2018Sep 13, 2024 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 23 Comments

You might not believe this- considering it sounds so much like a slogan that would have been scrawled over the shirt of an awkward looking Sean Moore in 1991*- but the Manic Street Preachers haven’t actually released an album (or even song) called ‘resistance is futile’ before!

thankfully, it says ‘broken algorithms’ on the inner sleeve

(*some classic Manic Street Preachers t-shirt slogans from the early 90s:

Bon Apetit Benito!
Pol Pot Luck!
Atrophy is Ecstacy!
She Had a Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk!
Burn Your Kindling!
You’re the Spitting Image of Your Father When You Make That Face!
(poo emoji)!
Mao That’s What Zedong Music!
Rick and Morty Reference That I Honestly Believe Makes Me Smarter Than You! Seriously, What The Fuck Is Up With That Shit?! It Makes Me Want To Hate the Show Because Its Fans Are Such Cunts!
USSR! Fuck Yeah!

OK, we’re done here…)

‘Resistance is Futile’ is absolutely a treading water, ticking boxes, Manic Street Preachers album. And that’s absolutely fine, not just because the absolute riproaring success of ‘Futurology‘ means the band are allowed to put their feet up for an album or two (you Millennials don’t appreciate how much doing something decent really takes it out of you at a certain age), but also because the lack of talking points means it’s given me a chance to finally rate all the Manics albums!!

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12 The Magnetic Fields: 50 Song Memoir

Mar 31, 2018Dec 9, 2025 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 13 Comments

Stephin Merrit’s Life, Ranked

(Wait, is it with an ‘i’?? I have been misspelling him my all life…)

The best Magnetic Fields albums always come with a good, solid gimmick, don’t they?

We all know (and love. If you don’t love it we can never be friends. Or even sexual partners. Unless you have, like, really nice tits) ’69 Love Songs’, but there was also the brilliant ‘i’ (where every song began with said letter); the less brilliant ‘Distortion’ (where every song was layered with Jesus and Mary Chain levels of interference); ‘Love Gas from the Digestive Tract’ (which featured Stephin Merrit burping after every line); ‘Hank and Peggy’ (in which all 259 tracks were based on a separate ‘King of the Hill’ episode, which was a brilliant way of honouring one of the most underrated TV shows of all time which I’m totally going to steal!); and ‘Fabio’s Groove Ride’ (the tale of Fabio killing a goose while on a rollercoaster. No, I will never stop referencing that incident! It happened on this very day in 1999, have some fucking respect).

[I started this ‘review’ yesterday, so it’s now exactly 19 years and one day since it happened]

’50 Song Memoir’ is what it says on the tin, with each of it songs referring to a different year in Merrit’s life. Yes, there’s 50 songs, because Stephin Merrit always prefers to go absolutely gall bladder out when he’s got a gimmick he really likes.

It’s not as good as ’69 Love Songs’, because of course it isn’t as good as the best album ever with a number in its title, but it’s still an astonishingly strong collection. The highs are no way near the heights of ’69…’,

but a far greater percentage of its songs are worthwhile: there are no piss-taking throwaways like Punk Love or Experimental Music Love and far less contrived arch jokes such as Love is Like Jazz. I might even argue that there are more great songs on ’50…’ than they are on ’69…’, but there’s nothing here anywhere near the sheer majesty of Busby Berkeley Dreams or The Book of Love or All My Little Words or The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure or I Don’t Want to Get Over You or I Shatter or…

[continues for several minutes]

I once had the brilliant idea of, instead of attempting a full Necessary Evil 2017 countdown of albums that I’ve barely lived with for three or four months, why not just have a top 50 of the songs on ’50 Song Memoir’, going into detail on all the topics and emotions brought up!? Pretty awesome, yeah?!

Unfortunately, I got that brilliant idea after I’d already started this stupid fucking list. I mean, I’m still going to do it, it just won’t be as good. Hope you’re all fine with that.

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Prince: The Ejaculate Collection- My Albums Ranked

Apr 21, 2016May 19, 2020 ~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

I’m not going to bore you with dog piss stories about how Prince was so important to me and he made an impression on my life and how this is all actually a tragedy for me…

No, it goes without saying that Prince should be recognised as at least as important a musical figure as dreary tossers like Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney. He was one of music’s all time great visionaries, yet he never neglected the importance of a great cod-piece. Prince’s run of albums from 1980’s Dirty Mind through to maybe 88’s Lovesexy is a burst of musical creativity and productiveness that has only been matched by the Beatles in the late 60s. Only the Beatles never wrote a lyric as good as “Look here, Marsha, I’m not saying this just 2 be nasty/I sincerely wanna f**k the taste out of your mouth”

So difficult not to refer to it as a ‘purple patch’…

So instead I’m going to attempt something near impossible: ranking all the Prince albums I own, which probably amounts to about 2.8% of his recorded. Prince has an irritating and presumably mischievously intentional habit of putting at least one stone cold classic on even his shittest albums, so just dive in people!!

Right, so I count 30..

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