Tag: 2018 best albums

Going Up, Up, Up, Up, Up

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

OK, we now cross an important threshold in 2018’s albums. The 50 (!) records up to now have ranged from bonkers experimental curiosities, noble failures, excellent efforts, to just plain brilliance. From this point though, we are not fucking around. Everyone reading this needs to at least give the record a couple of plays on Spotify (you lazy, entitled cunts. Love you!), but really these artists all deserve a donation of your real money to reward them for creating such majestic pieces of art.

Let’s go:

33 tUnE-yArDs: I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

Do we even have private lives anymore? In the crusty old days of the early 21st century, we were given the choice of whether we wanted to share all of our personal details and cherished moments. It used to be that it was only if you chose to download Facebook or Myspace or Friendster or Habbo or Flickr or Ribblegrink or ConsciousCoupling or SideGrindr that you consented to sharing your details online. Sure, many people would object to having to livestream ‘OMG! Toughest Poo EVER!!’, but the fact is it was my choice and I completely understood what I was signing up for.

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Now though, the very act if existing in 2018 is only made possible by the existence and authority of so many digital companies- some social networks, some good old fashioned squillion dollar multinationals- that we can’t do anything without passing over at least a little bit of personal information about ourselves. My alarm clock today only agreed to shut itself off after I told it what my make of television was, my toothbrush refused to uncoil its stubble until I spent four minutes telling it what credit card companies I’d heard of, I wasn’t allowed to boil my kettle until I confessed what income bracket I was in, my left shoe wouldn’t tie until I linked the right one to at least four social media accounts, and my door would only open if I connected to it on LinkedIn. And this has all in the last hour since I got out of bed at 2:30! I managed to avoid signing up to Facebook until 2015, but after seeing so many ‘sign in with Facebook’ buttons on every site I tried to access I just got lazy and decided to let Facebook tell every site imaginable my details instead of me spending a whole 24 seconds entering them myself.

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34 Santigold: I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

I went to Marrakesh last Christmas. Don’t believe me?? Then what do you call this??

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Yeah, that’s actually just a photo of my brother Johnny talking to a suirrel. I really thought I’d be able to find photos he took last Christmas, but I couldn’t. Admittedly, it’s getting late so I quit the search relatively quickly, but the chances are this photo is far better than any shit he took in Morocco. You’ll just have to take my word for it, OK? Or don’t believe me, who cares? We live in the post-truth era and this post is still going to exist whatever you believe.

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35 Camp Cope: How To Socialise & Make Friends

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

“And I said that I was sorry about that line
I only wrote it cause it rhymed”

‘Last year’ I wrote for the first time in detail about my last suicide attempt. ‘Last’ as in ‘previous’, it takes a mighty pair of brass balls to confidently predict you’ll never attempt suicide in the future, no matter who you are. I wrote it because I was in a good place mentally and didn’t like feeling that it was this uncomfortable skeleton hanging in my closet, awkwardly swinging after a laughably failed attempt at hanging itself. Remember, I’m allowed to make those jokes, not you. Maybe you’ve read it, because it was the most viewed post ever on this blog, because you’re all sickos. Honestly, I really do hope another post overtakes it soon, as currently the example of what musters the absolute most traffic to my website is failed suicide bids. What if I felt I needed to repeat its success?? How do you even plan a failed suicide bid? I can’t very well jump off the bottom step of the stairs and then claim I’ve survived another suicide bid, can I? Well, maybe I could once, but after the fourth or fifth time I’d likely start losing the trust of readers. And that’s what’s most important to me, dear readers, your trust. Or just another random person visiting the site to assure me the clicks, I really couldn’t give a fuck. You’re all cattle to me.

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36 Laura Jane: Devotion

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

When I first heard ‘Devotion’ I was blown away by it. I had never previously heard of her, and only bonked into her album during one of my financially and mentally draining BandCamp trawls. She didn’t exist. I had read no reviews or even mentions of her in the world of online music journalism. Yet here she was. And she was perfect. I got very excited. I had discovered her and would now be the spark that lit the wider press adoration that fired her to the very top. She would be my artist.

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‘Devotion’ is a pretty spectacular album, and I was looking forward our trip to the top together. I pictured her mentioning my name in her acceptance speech after winning her first Brit/VMA/Emmy/Oscar/Mercury/Nobel prize in 2025, as someone who had ‘always been there’ for her. She’d even invite me to sing backing vocals on Dismal Affordable Beams, track seven off her 2023 album ‘Pigs! Pigs! Fucking PIGS, Motherfucker!‘, as being a longtime devotee of my art* naturally meant she was well-aware of my exceptional singing ability. I mean, the track isn’t very well received (like, at all), but it means that I can now boast of appearing on a platinum record. And, yes, some deeper feelings are quite obviously always going to blossom between two people who work so closely and are so deeply in awe of each others art*. Laura would even proposition me one night, but I’d say I could never take advantage of a woman who’d been drinking gin and snorting ketamine for the last six hours straight, and I wouldn’t want to jeopardise what had by that point grown into one of the most artistically and financially successful partnerships in all of music. This honesty, and my sheer integrity, would cause Ms Jane to burst into tears, and she’d apologise for even putting me in that position as she falls into my embrace. I pat the back of her head, and say that I still love her, and that I would help her beat the debilitating drug addiction that I’ve just decided she has. I mean… I’d probably say no… depends how lonely I was feeling…

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38 Equip: Synthetic Core 88

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

I think we can say that we are now living in the post-truth era. If we’re not, we should still say it. That would make the statement untrue, which would actually prove that we are living in the post-truth era, Which would make the statement true. Though, since we’re living in the post-truth era, the usefulness of saying that we’re living in the ‘post-truth era’ is debatable, as the truth is no longer what we deal in. However, if I say WE’RE LIVING IN THE POST TRUTH ERA really loudly and marry it with whatever’s trending on Twitter right now (Josh Gordon, whoever he is) then perhaps you’ll decide this post is worthy of note.

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Eugh, he’s an American football player?? I thought he was a real person

But when did we enter the era of post-truth? When were we pre-truth, when were we resolutely amid truth, and at what point did truth become a rapidly shrinking figure in our rear view mirror. Some say that the era started with that last paragraph I wrote. This is definitely a minority view however, as at time of writing I am the only person who’s seen that paragraph, and I certainly don’t believe that. Me stating that, however, is another good example of the post-truth age. What do you think of when you think of post-truth? Donald Trump and Brexit? Was 2016 the end of our often fractious relationship with reality?

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39 Ariana Grande: Sweetener

~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

“Once I have you, I will never let you, never let you”

I feel quite sorry for Ariana Grande. ‘Sweetener’ is an absolutely brilliant album, and the jokes about my ‘TDE’ (Tiny Di… yeah, you got that joke, didn’t you?) would write themselves. It sees Grande finally locate an identity for herself, and honestly contains some of the best and most subtly experimental mainstream pop music released this year. I’m just going to use this review to talk about Hejjy again though. First ISIS, now this: poor girl just can’t catch a break.

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Buckle up!

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41 The Men: Drift [CANCELLED DUE TO JOSE MOURINHO]

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

I’m really sorry, Men, and I really do honestly love your album. I’d probably hypothetically put it as forty second or maybe fortieth best album of the year, if I was into stuff as bizarrely obsessive compulsive as only even enjoying art in order to list it at year’s end. And- ho-ho!- I had a straight fire bang up the elephant entry planned! It would have been so funny it would have literally blow all your collective arses out through your collective eyeballs. Literally. Literally. It’s unfortunately had to be shelved, much like my editor told me that it ‘wasn’t a good time’ to publish my ‘Top 100 Boeing Aircrafts’ on September 11th 2001. Especially as I’d planned to hold the launch party in Times Square. While dressed as Osama Bin Laden. It’s really hard to judge the mood at times like that.

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Besides, let’s face it, I’ll just write the exact same piece I was planning later on an album I’m struggling to think of what to say about. I’m looking at you, El Perro del Mar!! Erm… ‘spoiler’… I guess…

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42 Ash Koosha: Aktual

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

“Ooooh! Oooooh! Two albums on one list! Ooooh! Ooooh! This has only happened once before! Ooooh! Ooooooh! This is historic! Oooooh! Ooooo….!”

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Is it historic, though? Is it? When Prince had two albums on the 2014 best albums list, he did actually write and perform both of the records, whereas Ash Koosha’s other entry on the list was largely written and composed by artificial intelligence, sooooooooooooooo… 1.5 albums on this year’s list?

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