#35 Saba: Few Good Things

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Hustlin’ candy bars to play basketball
I still get nostalgic seein’ houses that my family lost
They wished upon a star, I caught it like I’m Randy Moss
When granny fought for her property, she would turn down any cost
I’m the grandson of Carl who lived across from the fosters
Then fostered me to spread love through holiday poverty
Hand-me-downs I was given, I thought they were bought for me
A tale of two Chicagos, this gets confused commonly
‘Cause one, you’re commemorated if you’re the hot commodity

Free Samples

Comrade Saba!

Is there an industry less concerned with ethics and more damaging to the general populace yet still so accepted as the real estate market? I’m not going to delve to deeply into it here, but the correct position to take is that all landlords are scum. If you own more than one house, you’re at the very best low key scum. Property development and large landlord associations are actually beyond scum and actually evil. I may be against the death penalty in its current widely accepted form, but we as a society need to seriously look at what horrors are accepted in our current decaying capitalism and make big decisions to punish the minority for their crimes against humanity, especially if it benefits the vast majority. That’s all I’m going to say right now. Unless there’s an album coming up soon that I can’t think of anything to say about. I will always reserve my right to go off on a massive far left tangent. Here’s ‘Britain’s Road to Socialism‘ again, give it a read (or a listen).

AND NOW BACK TO OUR SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING

#36 METHYL ETHYL: Are You Haunted?

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

OK, again, I’m not 100% sure who this band are. They made the 2019 list after I’d spent the entire year thinking they were someone else. I have no idea how I got into this band, I have no idea where they came from, I have no idea why I ever got that last album. Are they haunted? Is this some spooky shit going down? Did METHYL ETHYL die, on this very night, on this very spot, ten years ago today? Also, have they always stylised their name IN CAPITALS like that? I’m not gonna lie, I’m scared.

What I do know though, is that these mysterious Aussies (to a British person, aren’t all Australians a little mysterious? Like, why are they like that?) just keep producing banger after banger after banger after banger. ‘Are You Haunted’ is perhaps even poppier than their last album – which, I feel I must stress, is absolutely a good thing – and is full of standout tracks.

HOW MANY TRACKS CAN LOGICALLY ‘STAND OUT’?

#37 Stella Donnelly: Flood

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

I always… liked… Stella Donnelly. I literally first got into her because I liked the cover of her debut EP ‘Thrush Metal’ (and, yeah, the title, because – hurhurhurhurhur – geddit?), and it contained one of the most gorgeous and powerful indie ballads of recent times. That same song was included on her 2018 debut album, which was… good… Really good, in fact. Not amazing, but really good. I thought the cover of ‘Beware of the Dogs’ was an allusion to the wonderfully freaky 1924 novel ‘The Story of the Eye‘. I asked her about it on Twitter. She never got back to me. So fuck her, right?

‘Flood’ though, is on some real good shit. Firstly, it sees a talented young songwriter strive to make changes for their second album and not just introducing synthesizers! That alone is a notable achievement. Musically, Stella (Stellaaaaaaaa!) decided to centre songwriting around her piano playing rather than her acoustic guitar, and encouraged her bandmembers to similarly try instruments that they didn’t feel as comfortable with. This gives the album a much looser and less fastidiously tight sound to its predecessor, it sounds alive and almost improvised in places. The biggest change and improvement, however, comes with the lyrics. You know why? Yeah, that’s right, the spectre of Communism again, that’s why!

CHRIST, HERE HE GOES AGAIN

#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