18 & 17 Big Thief vs Big Thief!

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Both ‘U.F.O.F’* and ‘Two Hands’ are fantastic albums. Certainly, nobody has had two albums in the Necessary Evil top 20 before, and it’s certainly to be commended how an artist can release two separate albums of general quality as these two blasts of mana. But let’s temper our explosive ejaculations just a bit, yeah? The two albums last a total of 82 minutes (perhaps. I honestly don’t trust my own maths). Lupe Fiasco’s criminally underappreciated ‘DROGAS WAVE‘ was NINETY EIGHT fucking MINUTES- because Lupe is mildly insane- and was far better than either of these records. There are twenty two tracks spread across these two records. Pffff! ‘DROGAS WAVE‘ has twenty four tracks! And that was 24 tracks narrating the story of the transatlantic slave trade and making it work as an analogy for rebirth and second chances. What’s that, Big Thief? Woozy Impressionism of banal domestic themes? You’re gonna push that for twenty two tracks? Alright. Ha! You thought I wouldn’t have the chance to talk about Lupe Fiasco this year!

Yes! What’s that, Lupe?! What’s that?! He’s talking about you again! Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?!?!

 

(*Unidentified Flying Object Fuck. I mean… I assume… It doesn’t say on its Wikipedia page, so I’m out of ideas**)

(**it stands for friend! Unidentified Flying Object Friend!! Dudes, that’s so lame! I’m just saying, if I was 10 years old, I’d call it ‘totally gay’. Luckily, I’m older and wiser and fatter and gayer these days, so I understand the offensive connotations of referring to something as ‘gay’ in the pejorative sense. That’s why I am not saying that calling your album ‘Unidentified Flying Object Friend’ is ‘really gay’. So it’s not. But it totally is, do you understand?)

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19 Equip: CURSEBREAKER X

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

On ‘CURSEBREAKER X’*, Equip step shit up massively. Previously, the less forgiving may have accused them of being more gimmick than legitimate artist. Every album, like 2018’s ‘Synthetic Core 88‘, came with the hook that it was the soundtrack to a video game that existed nowhere but inside Equip’s imagination. This inspired some incredible music, but for many the conceit would be far too ‘cute’ and even ‘eye rollingly hipster’ to bridge that gap between ‘concept you might appreciate’ and ‘music you unreservedly love’. ‘CURSEBREAKER X’ doesn’t just bridge that gap, it clears it in a single bound by casting a +50 COMPOSITIONS spell and fills the cavern beneath it with buffed power ups as it flies over. Equip breaks the game with WWE 2K20 level glitches that make it unplayable, because they’re playing something else entirely with ‘CURSEBREAKER X’.

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(*we’ve seen far too many artists recently, from awakebutstillinbed to Ariana Grande to repeat offender american poetry club, show such a flagrant disregard for proper capitalisation that I’m pleased to see Jamila Woods, Michael Kiwanuka and now Equip have fought against this by, if anything, overcapitalising their records. I’m pleased to officially announce 2019 as The Year We Won Our Capital Back)

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20 Hannah Cohen: Welcome Home

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

I absolutely adore Hannah Cohen. I would go as far as saying I love her. As an artist, of course, I think she’s amazingly talented and has that certain something special that you can’t quite put your finger on. She may well be a fucking nightmare as a person. Maybe she spends half the time complaining about how dumb people are for watching Love Island, and the other half actually watching Love Island “Just to see how shit it is”. Maybe she’s a staunch believer in aromatherapy and whenever you bring up the questionable science behind it she simply states that there’s “A lot we don’t know about the world”. Maybe she prefers Jurassic Park 2 to Jurassic Park. I mean, it’s not a bad film, don’t get me wrong, but come on! Maybe she hates feminism because she “doesn’t hate men”, which leads to so many circular arguments that you know it’s a guaranteed evening wasted if you bring it up so have learned not to. Maybe, when she rides the bus on her own, she sits on the seat next to the aisle and leaves an empty seat next to the window just to make sure nobody sits next to her. Do you know these people?? Worse than fucking Hitler. Maybe- in fact, statistically, very probably– Ms Cohen is the absolute worse person in the world, that doesn’t matter, it’s the artist that I love.

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“[FUNNY QUOTE]”  Sorry, it’s late and I’m tired

‘Pleasure Boy‘ was all kinds of amazing. One of the best albums of

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Necessary Evil 2019 (23-21)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

23 Angel Olsen: All Mirrors

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We’re all OK with Gary Glitter now, aren’t we? Todd Philips used that song in ‘Joker‘ because ooooooooooh, you’re so edgy, Todd! Really sending a message to those SJWs who are apparently ‘ruining comedy‘ by condemning convicted and repeated child rapists! You’re so cool, Todd! Let’s have sex immediately!

And now we get ‘All Mirrors’, which throughout is an amazing sonic thought experiment asking what it would sound like if Phil Spector* produced The Glitter Band, with What It Is the most obvious Gary Glitter tribute. Was this intentional? Or is just me struggling to think of something to write about this album?? I can definitively, honestly and truthfully say that it’s absolutely the former. Gary Glitter was officially #Cancelled in 1999 (and then, like, really, really, really cancelled in 2006 and 2015), which bodes well for today’s #Cancelled celebrities. Based on Glitter’s redemption, you have to wait at most 20 years, no matter what you’ve done, before people reappreciate your art again, most importantly, start giving you money. That means Chris Brown, who was sentenced to five years probationary for beating his girlfriend in 2009, people will probably be ready to like him again in about

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25 Sir Babygirl: Crush On Me; 24 Tove Lo: Sunshine Kitty

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

What’s your favourite female personality? By my count, you’ve got a choice between two of them.

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As many as six?? Give over

 

We should all be extremely proud of ourselves as a society for getting to this many. Aren’t we amazing? There’s really no need for you to do anything worthwhile, you live in a society that’s been extremely kind to certain groups of people. No, don’t give any money to charity (you actually once read that article that said that giving money to charity was somehow absolutely the worst thing you could possibly do. You can’t remember the exact reasoning, something to do with Bono having glaucoma, but it was very convincing) just by existing in a wonderful society that gives people things you’ve already donated the most precious gift of all. Anyway. isn’t paying tax kind of like giving to charity? You did plenty of that in your early 20s before Uncle Ted told you about equity swaps. Just lie back and feel rightfully smug at all the amazing things society is doing that you’re not loudly objecting to most days. Did you hear that black people were allowed to dance in Oklahoma now? You did that! Or at least, you didn’t stop it!

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Necessary Evil 2019 (30-26)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

30 Candy Says: You Are Beautiful, We Are All Beautiful v2

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If this blog has one true aim, then it’s to introduce and promote new…

Well… no, actually, if this blog has one true aim then it’s to extensively psychoanalyse myself and admit my private shame into what I believe to be essentially ‘The Void’, all under the laughable pretense of ‘reviewing music’. Ha! I haven’t done any ‘music reviews’ since I was highly scathing as a twelve/six year old of the 1996 Dodgy album ‘Free Peace Sweet‘. Three piece suite! Now I get it! Sorry, Dodgy, that review was unnecessarily harsh. Reappraisal: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

OK, but if this blog had a secondary aim, then it’s to introduce and promote new artists to…

No, the secondary aim is just an excuse to talk about Manic Street Preachers as much as possible, isn’t it? With ‘Official Prince Chat’ sprinkled on the side as garnish. I might just rename the blog to ‘Artists I Liked When I Was a Kid, At Length (While I Wait for the Next Hotelier Album)’. Dot WordPress dot com.

(…)

“If it had a third purpose it’d be […] no actually it’d be [BANTER]. In that case the fourth purpose would be […] actually, it’d probably be [STONE COLD MEGALOLZ]. But the fifth purpose would definitely be… (repeat)”

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Necessary Evil 2019 (37-31)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 19 Comments

37 Pink Ranger: Sparkle Motion

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Pink Ranger is an outstanding talent in danger of spreading himself a bit thin. ‘Sparkle Motion’ is one of the most accomplished electronic albums I’ve heard in many a moon. It’s not particular subtle, often avoiding deep, ambient, dull, astute meaning in favour of beats that rattle your genitals like castanets and synth lines that send pulsing knives into your very soul! Or, your genitals. Wherever you’d prefer those rapier blades of pure ecstasy to penetrate, no kink shaming here, Pink Ranger is here for everyone, yeah? He (she? It? They? I feel after buying roughly 546 albums I probably should have asked by now) proved their universal appeal and all encompassing acceptance by allowing the phenomenal (you guys, I talked about it before, yeah?’) Twin Peaks to soundtrack Manchester Refugee Support Network’s entry into the 2019 Spirit of Manchester award. Whether we won or not is immaterial, Pink Ranger’s endorsement was enough of an award.

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Necessary Evil 2019 (41-39)

~ Lex Leeson

41 Bon Iver: i,i 

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OK, let’s just quickly get this out of the way: this is definitely Bongiovi “Bon Iver” Iverlenko’s weakest album. OK, OK, OK, I never listened to his second album as much as I would have liked, but… yeah, this is his worst. Actually, his second album was self-titled, which as I’ve previously mentioned I frigging hate, so… maybe… that takes it down toooooooooo… No. No this is his worst.

‘i,i’ was actually dead last on this list for the longest time when I first heard it, before Chance the Rapper’s ‘Big Day‘ redefined and lowered the bar on what dog shit I’d let onto the countdown. When I first heard it, I hated it. It sounded like a poor man’s retread of his previous album- ’22, a Million’, one of the  decade’s legitimate greatest records- with none of the songcraft, little of its experimentation and fucking none of its autotune! Don’t you dare take my autotune, you flannelly fuck!! The more I listened to it though, little by little it began to climb up the ranking. New nuances presented themselves, little wonders that I hadn’t previously noticed revealed themselves to me like Bon Iver politely flashing me his genitals as I walked home through the park after dark. Even now, on roughly the 7’654th listen I keep noticing and appreciating things about this actually rather accomplished record. If this year continued for another 12 months (clerical error), could it eventually reach number one???

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42 Daughters: You Won’t Get What You Want

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

One of the greatest/worst aspects of life in 2019 is how we all have the power to fine tune and curate exactly what world we live in, edit and personalise what news we hear and what bent ideology it pours from. When I was a bairn, the whole country basically had the same experience, all the time. We all heard Love Is All Around until we all wanted to ruthlessly and repeatedly embed a screwdriver deep into our own eardrums until the flowing blood hopefully drowned out Marti Pellow’s smirk (not me though, Love is All Around is a fuckin’ choon). We all watched Coronation Street last night, so could debate the meaning of Mavis Whooptuck performing a blood sacrifice in order to bring Harold Hupptickle back from the dead (my memories of Coronation Street are a bit cloudy, I’ll admit). Most importantly, we all got the same news. Sure, many people would still buy utter horseshit like the Sun or the Daily Mail- or The Guardian if they were a little more middle class and, let’s face it, a bit twatty- but we kind of all agreed that if it made it to BBC News, then it was likely correct. Likely due to laws restricting the bias of TV news in this country and the very charter of the BBC forbidding any bias or political inclinations in the news reporting. It’s, of course, not perfect*, it’s not always 100% observed, but it’s at least enshrined into law and aimed for, meaning that everyone always tuned into the TV news at the end of the day expecting them to brush the propaganda from the day’s events and tell us what really happened.

“Julie, for fuck’s sake, can you put the brandy down for five minutes??”

(*there were shocking scenes earlier this year when a BBC news reporter had the temerity to suggest that, growing up with an Indian mother and Mauritian father, racism was actually really gross and that Trump’s racist comments actually sounded very familiar. That’s how seriously we take impartiality- a woman of Asian descent isn’t allowed to call out the racist president for saying racist things and say that racism was bad. Apparently, a lot of viewers were still undecided on racism and didn’t want the crazy hippy idea that it was somehow a negative thing shoved down their throat. A white BBC news guy said similar things, but nobody complained about that, because… y’know…).

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