Tag: 1999

#5 Prince: Around the World in a Day

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

January 28th 1985 was a shade over seven months since Prince had released one of the greatest selling albums of the year – which would eventually grow to a 25 millioner amongst the best selling albums of all time – ‘Purple Rain‘ – and He had ten nominations at that night’s American Music Awards that He was attending. There was a special buzz around that night’s particular AMAs, part of which revolved around Prince going up against His eternal rival Michael Jackson in several categories. This was a non event though, as Prince won awards for Favorite Pop/Rock Album, Favorite Soul/R&B Album and Favorite Soul/R&B Song for When Doves Cry, while Jackson (moon)walked away with nothing. Anyway, in a series of decisions that history was sure to look kindly on, neither Prince nor Jackson could compete with Lionel Richie, who walked away with six awards including Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist. Prince’s performance of Purple Rain that night – which Billboard would later name as the greatest performance in the awards’ history – would ensure those decisions would look immediately ridiculous.

But the 1985 AMAs were most notable for the fact that, right after the ceremony that night, this absolute royalty of popular recording artists would – rather than spend the night covered in so much gak that their face resembled Elizabeth I and being serviced by heavily narcoticised groupies whom IDs was encouraged not to be checked by the entourage, as would usually be the case for successful music artists in the 80’s – they would all be whisked off to the Hollywood AGM studios to record We Are the World, a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones to benefit ‘USA for Africa‘ (America’s version of Band Aid). It would become the fastest selling single in US history and serve as the climactic singalong at that July’s Live Aid Philadelphia concert.

Prince, though, wasn’t really feeling it.

Ahmed Alaa Abd Al-Majeed Issa

37 Janelle Monae: The Age of Pleasure

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Around twenty years after its conclusion, the original Matrix trilogy has proven to be culturally enduring. Perhaps because now it’s pretty universally accepted as a clear allegory for the alienating forces of capitalism/the experiences of being transgender/how the pernicious illusion of how gynecocracy and feminism subjugates men/the Jewish people returning to Israel/reaffirming white supremacy in the face of multiculturalism/the New Testament/a story told in reverse about a guy who stops taking drugs and gets a job, and I’m not going to debate that here, that particular mystery is now solved. We’ll just conclude that when you make a movie about some tech bro with no friends who feels alone and alienated, a lot of people online are going to relate with it. And, come on, it’s actually a very broad story and set-up that you can basically bring whatever you want to.

some tech bros somehow have LESS than no friends

But I’m not here to talk about gay shit like allegories. I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards. Can we all shuffle out of our Media Studies group wank for one second and just look at the actual film? Personally, I believe that all the films are about people with trenchcoats shooting shit up, which was extremely popular in 1999. Please, I beg of you, insert a bit of wider historical context into your media literacy. I’m joking, of course: if the Matrix was in anyway tied to US school shootings then we’d be getting more than twenty Matrix movies a year! And if the country were getting that many Matrix movies I’m sure the US government would declare a state of national emergency and quickly enact some sweeping and radical changes. I mean, twenty Matrix movies a year?? That’s just unthinkable! Imagine how broken and sick a society needs to be to allow that to happen?

A LITTLE CONTEXT IF YOU CARE TO LISTEN

#2 Prince: 1999 (Super Deluxe Edition)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

For a Christmas present, he sent for me to come out on the road to see him, all expenses paid. It was New Year’s Eve in Dallas for the 1999 tour. That’s when I totally got it. I had never seen anybody give so much to an audience. I got weak in the knees. I was by the soundboard and the soundman got me a chair. Then I was literally up screaming with the crowd and dancing, and it was like, ‘Oh, my God. This guy’s incredible.’ That’s when I realized who I was working with.

Audio engineer Peggy McCreary

Oh, I’m sorry, did you forget about my Prince Journey? Did you think that albums on the journey couldn’t possibly finish this high? I regret to inform you that we’ve already entered the greatest run of albums in music history, so we’re likely to see Prince albums populating Necessary Evil’s top five until likely ‘Batman’ in around 2028. Also, it’s my (29th) birthday today, and you’re not going to let me talk about one of the greatest albums ever??

Back in 1982, this must have felt like it. Prince’s fifth album must have sounded like the ultimate and crowning masterpiece of His career. Not just ‘to date’, either, as ‘1999’ is such a comprehensive set of searing yet succeeded ambitions that it would have seemed unfeasible that Prince had anywhere left to go. He seemed to have finally perfected his mission statement: combining His formative ‘Minneapolis Sound’ with rock, reggae, electro pop, and heavy metal guitar screeches to create something entirely new, and to combine it with perfectly crafted pop songs to appeal to the mainstream. Prince had a one off hit song back in ’79 with the peppy I Wanna Be Your Lover, but as He’d grown as an artist and expanded his palate with more experimental and ambitious albums His commercial success had’t matched his critical one. Now, promoted by pop hits like Delirious, the inescapable title track and Little Red Corvette – legitimately one of the most perfect pop songs ever crafted – ‘1999’ provided that proper breakthrough. Despite being a double album, it entered the the US top 10, sold a million copies in only a few months and – despite being released in late 1982 – it’s staying power was enough for it to be the fifth biggest selling album of 1983.

Of course, this was no surprise to Prince, and only exactly what He had planned for.

WE NEED A PURPLE HIGH

5 Ultrasound: Everything Picture (Deluxe Edition)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

A synthesised orchestra bursts into life. And I mean bursts. If this were in a Disney movie and meant to signify the first buds of spring in some fantasy netherworld ruled by a giant and intimidatingly amiable field mouse, you’d still ask them to tone it down a bit. The orchestra repeats itself for a few bars, as if sweeping its arms across the landscape. Isn’t it beautiful?, it says, this world you believe to know? Isn’t life just idiotically charming when you don’t know any better?? Then, the orchestra stops, to be replaced by a single foreboding organ while the sounds behind it seem to be dripping out the last of their good will. Drip. Drip. Drop. Drip. The droplets seem to both become sparer and start to resemble a ticking clock, winding down to some unknown but anxiety inducing conclusion. The same music that had previously swept its hands in overt astonishment as the landscape that is now starting to melt away, now grabs you roughly by the collar and pulls you forward. It opens a hand to you containing a red pill and a blue pill. Before throwing them both in rage at the still deforming landscape.

“Nah, fuck that”, they say. “That trope has been done to death to such a point where it now somehow represents Men’s Right Activism. There aren’t just two routes anyway, there are an infinite ways to comprehend reality, let me show you them all“.

I’LL SHOW YOU MINE

6 Prince: Controversy

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

It’s a long way to the end if I want to jack you off. Year four of my approximately thirty year crusade to revisit and document each Prince album annually. I’ve so far found that His first two albums, unfortunately, really don’t stand up to modern scrutiny, but his third album ‘Dirty Mind‘ was as demonstrative a mark of His genius and as revelatory an LP in 2020 as it was in 1980. That album reached #7 on the year end chart and, fair warnings, we’re going to see a fair few of his following albums do the same, as that masterpiece officially kicked off one of the greatest run of albums any artist has done, ever.

While ‘Dirty Mind’ is much lauded over and intensely debated to this day, and His fifth album frequently joins it on lists of greatest albums ever (as does His sixth. And His seventh. And His eighth. And His ninth. And occasionally His tenth. Probably not His eleventh though), His follow up and fourth album ‘Controversy’ doesn’t get anywhere near the same attention. It seems to be looked upon as merely a transitional point between Prince really nailing down the style and the look on ‘Dirty Mind’ and then later finding the right mix of invariables to make him the biggest star in the world.

LET’s WORK

26 Olivia Rodrigo: SOUR

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

I’m so insecure, I think

That I’ll die before I drink

Brutal

Ha! Trust me, Ms Rodrigo, if I died before I first drank, it would have made a lot of people’s lives easier! Your not missing anything, I promise. Have you ever tried Methyl​enedioxy​methamphetamine though? That’s some good stuff, get it down you.

Christ, it’s a minefield trying to search for Olivia Rogrido photos. Like, is she twelve years old in that one?? I’m I accidentally turning this whole post into paedofodder? There’s also a lot of gifs of her doing something like sticking her tongue out but looped, which I’m pretty sure are just weird masturbation fodder for 40 year old men. OK, not many years until I’ll greatly appreciate all that pandering, but right now it’s still officially gross, OK? Jesus, this woman turned eighteen in February of this year, and this is her life now. Listen, maybe just read my Jordana piece and, like, amplify it.

I guessed you moved on really easily

My Life in Albums (part 1 83-96)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Yeah, sorry, no more Bumble Rumble. Possibly… ever…? Listen, I’ve pretty much decided that I hate Zero Hour dating- I happen to still believe that I’m relatively attractive, so to have an app on my phone that frequently reminds me that I’m actually not is not good at all for my already inflated yet easily pricked sense of self-esteem. For now, my official stance is that I know that I’m a highly fuckable piece of hunky man meat who could grind genitals with pretty much any woman he wants, but I just choose not to, OK?? The official stance is that I’ve decided to concentrate on the more important things in my life, such as this blog- which has never been more popular- and my actual job- which I’m technically supposed to be doing now*. Remember this blog? It used to be about music, didn’t it? I mean… kinda… Let’s do that again. Basically, it’s time for:

image 241

Just wanted a photo with my eyes in it. Have they always been that colour? More after the jump!!

Continue reading “My Life in Albums (part 1 83-96)” →

21 Christine and the Queens: Christine and the Queens

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Can you believe this is only the second (halfway decent) self titled album released (cough) this year??

+36

I had, like, a thing for self-titled albums, didn’t I?

+31

I think it was called Self-Titled Vindication or summat, but it’s been so long now that I can’t quite remember

+24

christine

Did I use a picture or something?

-3

Continue reading “21 Christine and the Queens: Christine and the Queens” →