#25 Kendrick Lamar: Mr Morale & the Big Steppers

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Fuck, dudes, I don’t fucking know.

I’m always wary of reacting to a Kendrick Lamar release. I’m far more scared of sharing my views on Mr Lamar than I am doing so with Taylor Swift (and even Pusha T), as I’m far more anxious about the Kendrickers than I am of the Swifties. And definitely more scared of them than I am of the Pushas, as that fangroup ain’t shit! Your hero calls me out (by, cough, ahem, misunderstanding the article and proving my point) and I don’t get one death threat or doxxing attempt?? We have a word for you around the Necessary Evil household: S… A… W… F… T… SAWFT! You casuals’ arms ain’t long enough to box with God. Hell, your arms ain’t long enough to wash my balls.

#DISS

#26 Ibeyi: Spell 31

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

OK, so Sister 2 Sister is track four and it just sends me, knowarra mean? When that chorus hits and it’s all like:

Dancing in front of the mirror
Singing along with Shakira

Already I love, love, love love it. What an adorably succinct and heartwarming depiction of sisterly love. And ‘sisterly’ love doesn’t need to refer to literal siblings (even if it might do originally for Ibeyi’s twin sisters Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz), but that sorority that can exist between friends. I mean, I guess. I grew up with two brothers and all my friends at school were boys (I was terrified of girls until…

SLOW DOWN, NOW WE’VE GROWN, LeT’S START ANEW

#27 Shamir: Heterosexuality

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

You wanna kill me? Well, here’s your chance
I can barely get around now as it fucking stands
You wanna see me, but you just can’t get passed
How I look or talk or think or walk, and it’s fucking sad

I don’t know what I can do
To make you comfortable
With what you see before you
So let me let you know that

I’m not cisgender, I’m not binary, trans
I don’t wanna be a girl, I don’t wanna be a man
I’m just existing on this God-forsaken land
And you can take it or leave it
Or you can just stay back, stay back

Cisgender

Heeeeey, you know what the world needs more of? Straight, cis, old, fat, white guys judging the scorched soul searching of young black queer people! Yeah yeah, Shamir, boohoo for you, tissues for your issues, but allow me to state the proper reaction to your inner trauma. “I’m just a faggot, who lives like a maggot”?? Hey! That’s our word for making fun of you people! So now we’re allowed to call you lot ‘queer’ and you get to use the F word?? And yet when I use the N word as a joke at my job I’m suspended from teaching primary school PE for a whole two weeks?! No fair! Where’s my artistic communication of hopelessness in a world that’s still depressingly oppressed against me?? I just wanna use the N word and bully queer people online!! Truly, we are the lost generation. Thank God that comedy is now legal on Twitter, because I’ve got some bangers.

UP YOURS, WOKE MORALISTS

#28 Psalm One X Custom Made: Bigg Perm

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

What I do this shit for

Why I get so passionate

Never been in pitchfork

Nighas know I’m talented

Know they always watchin

Even when you feel obscure

You should know you poppin

I’m that bitch and yeah I’m sure

Pitchfork Score

Never been in Pitchfork?? That can’t be right, those motherfuckers review everything. When I released my first mixtape, ‘Phish Pale’, back in 2011, they even reviewed that piece of shit and gave it a respectable 6.8. I get it, that line is obviously meant to emphasise how bafflingly obscure she remains despite being consistently responsible for some of the greatest hip-hop of the past decade, but it’s not meant to be taken literally. Let’s just search the Pitchfork site:

See! She got one mention when she released a new track once! In October 2022. One month after this album was released.

Dang!

THE OSTRACISATION IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE

#29 Anna von Hausswolff: Live at Montreux Jazz Festival

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Bwa-haha! Yes! Yes! I know it was all I needed, I know that all it would take to lift me out of my stupor was a visit from my old friend, the big man downstairs, lord fire and brimstone, Georgia’s best fiddler (in every sense! Bwa-haha!), The Big D with the Big D, the Antipope, Red (Dante’s version), I Love Lucifer, Orbital’s 1996 number 3 hit, Mr Rin Tin Sin, The Devil himself!

Or herself. I’d like to think we’ve reached a stage now where we#re comfortable with the devil being a woman. If you met my ex-wife, you definitely agree.

OOOOOOOOOOH! #CANCELLED

#30 Santigold: Spirituals

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Hey. Yo. Hey yo. You still there? Is anyone there? Is this whole list all just a tree having a manic episode in a forest when nobody’s there to utter the safe word? So you stop panic attacks with ‘safe words’? Yep. Pretty sure you do. Is this just the abyss at this point? If nobody’s reading, could I just, like, finally tell everyone that I was real Lockerbie bomber, and apologise that it caused a bit of a fuss? Because if not: no, of course I’m not, that was obviously a joke. But if so: yeah I did that shit.

Sorry, I’ve just kind of hit a brick wall. It happens every year, at some point I start to really question what the fucking point of all this is. Like, what am I actually doing? One time, I’m just going to stop writing one of these lists halfway through and never pick it up. You know how parents always like to repeat that “One day you’ll put them down and never pick them up again. And thank God, that fat little fuck is throwing my back out”? Well, one day I’ll just stop writing these lists and never start them again. And thank God, this fat little fuck is throwing my back out. Maybe because I’ve died. Spooky! I’ll be all afterlife and shit gettin ma ghost game on.

LIT

#31 The Koreatown Oddity: ISTHISFORREAL?

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Oh my fucking God! I neeeeeeeeeed this! You know you occasionally get braindead recommendations from hack critics (y’know, basically all of them apart from me that attempt to review or define music by blindly suggesting situations that the music might suit?

Sure you do, they’ll say stuff like “This new Taylor Swift is ideal for just reclining in a sofa enjoying an eggnog latte at your favourite artisan coffee place”, or “You’ll want to experience the new Tanya Tagaq while you commit cultural genocide on your country’s indigenous people”, or “Slap on this latest ANGEL_TECH when you feel truly goated with the sauce”. Well, Koreatown Oddity’s latest should come with the sticker “Just perfect for cleansing the palette after discussing horrific American war crimes at length“.

NOT A *SINGLE* WAR CRIME ON THIS RECORD

#32 Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ: Mỹ Lai

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

God, the Vietnam war was so cool, wasn’t it?? Cool, young, handsome Americans taking drugs to the strains of The Doors?? Yes please! Gooooooooood moooooooorning the 1960s! Aww, but it made the American soldiers a bit sad though, so make some movies out of that as well. But it was still the coolest war, it had the best soundtrack and it made the best movies. Didi mao! Didi mao! Who were the Americans actually fighting again? . Were they fighting Marlon Brando? Because, trust me, you’re gonna need some heavy artillery to take down that sizable landmass. Doesn’t matter – they were fighting the bad guys, and it made them sad. The end. Pretty sure Mỹ Lai’ – the soundtrack to an opera of the same name – just tells that story. And tells it very well!

ARE YOU *SURE* THIS TIME?

#33 Backxwash: HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

They’ll pay respects in the fire and brim,

Elijah and kin the violent things

Jesus will need to annihilate me

The Jesuits will sing from the highest of peaks

Beezlebub brought to his knees

Asmodeus, gon leap from the tallest of trees

Satan won’t feel so forsaken

Now that the lord has awoken and brought all his grace in

ZIGOLO

Ouch! Feel that? Oooh! There it is again. Bit of a stinging… ah! Bit of a stinging pain, no? Well… hang on, here comes another one: ouch! Well that, ma dudes, are the sharp throbs from this album going so fucking hard.

Well, what did you expect? It’s fucking Backxwash. I’m sorry, were you looking for some inoffensive muzak to play in the background at your latest ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ style upper class orgy? Firstly, you should never play inoffensive muzak at those events, your clientele are largely ruling class leeches looking to live out their furry fantasies to take their mind off the millions of victims that the current gross power structure they benefit from. You don’t think they might be a little shy if it’s their first time? Play something to lighten the mood, ease the conversation a bit, loosen people up. I’d personally recommend Adam Sandler’s ‘They’re All Gonna Laugh at You’. Food Innuendo Guy?? Guaranteed to start a conversation.

I’VE NEVER SEEN ‘EYES WIDE SHUT’

#34 FKA Twigs: CAPRISONGS

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

Hey, I made you a mixtape
(Work hard, get my body-body weak)
Because when I feel you, I feel me
(Love play called hide and seek)
And when I feel me, it feels good
(That’s why I’ve been standing in the bright lights, for you)
(You wanna get a bit of my mystique-stique?)
I’m still that mysterious bitch
(Play ooh-là-là, très chic)
‘Cause no one does it like I do
(Gets lonely in a studio week)
I keep it moving, keep on dancing
(Think about you all week)
For you

Ride the Dragon

Oh my fuckin God. Don’t you just love that for her? Yes, Twigs, fucking yes. You slay, babe, you slay.

I think it’s fair to say that Ms Twigs has had a lot to deal with in the last few years. There was her struggles with fibroid tumours, and the “fruit bowl of pain” the experience necessitated. Formally a rather reserved an private artist who was extremely cautious with how much of her personal life she revealed to the press, her honest and unashamed opening up about her medical struggles was amazing brave. And, yes, dumb fat knacker males such as myself weren’t even previously aware of the condition, so her honesty and openness was important.

Throw it in the fire, Ego in the fire