No I’m not who I used to be
I used to see magic in everything
But that has gone away from me
I can’t find the remedy
Former Things
Can’t find the remedy, you say?? There’s my ‘in’!! How would you like to hear about my medical misery in 2021??
Wait, are you saying “Noooooo!” or “Noooooof course we’d love to hear that!”?
oooooof course you want to read more
This is officially the end of 2018! And it’s only the 5th January [EDIT: Still only the 6th!]! Although there’s freaking one hundred and thirty six tracks to get through, so this may well take until mid May! Happy Cinco de Mayo! No time to talk! A shit load of songs to get through!!
Gorgeous, innit?
While Z-Tape’s ‘Spring’ collection was veritably busting at the seems with Legit Bosses, as you’ll soon see, this is the only similarly legitimate position of authority from their ‘Summer’ collection. They’re all still great though, as is the Epic Reflexes’s album ‘ChaChaChinatown‘.
I had a lot of problems with ‘Everything is Love’, the surprising debut release from Beyonce and Jay-Z. Part of the reason I struggled with it was that I wasn’t sure how canonical it is. Like, is this it, Bee? Is this underwhelming collection of occasionally very entertaining rap boasts officially your actual follow-up to one of the most acclaimed albums of the 21st century? It’s an album about how two very rich people love each other but probably love their money more, that includes the line “My grandchildren’s grandchildren already rich” which, despite Kanye’s crisis of publicity, is by far the line from 2018 that Donald Trump is most likely to high five in a men’s locker room. Also, there’s a moment on the opening track where Mr Carter drawls out “Let it breaaaathe, let it breaaaathe” like JB Rockefeller basking in the glory of a fart he’d just released under the bedsheets, which marks the first time in more than two decades that I’ve thought to myself that I don’t think I really like Jay-Z. However, he often wins me back with the later claim that he’s “Good on any MLK boulevard”. This song’s pretty great though
Fucking hell, Jay, that haircut though… One hundred and thirty three more after the jump!
I know, I know, she’s not number one. This was all set up to be perfect, wasn’t it? Nobody has ever won Necessary Evil more than once, and after her outstanding debut won it way back in 2010 before anyone important was even born, it seemed as if it was all set up for her to make history. But she’s at number two. I’m as shocked as you are.
It’s something I’ve been struggling with since April. The reason so many albums were seriously considered as being 2018’s best is because for near eight months I was furiously searching for a reason to not hand it to Janelle Monae.
A man enters the bar, possibly Irish, possibly Scottish, possibly Micronesian. His nationality isn’t important to the rest of this wry story. The bar was actually in Eastern Ukraine, but the man might have been on holiday, we don’t know. He orders a double negative. The barman asks him what the hell a ‘double negative’ is. The guy says it’s what he calls a double martini. The barman says that it was a lame way of trying to find some relation to the particular album this story ends up on, but took the man’s money and served him a drink. After the man finishes the double negative, he peeks inside his shirt pocket then orders the bartender to prepare another one. The barman asks him where exactly in the world do people call a double martini a ‘double negative. The man says that everyone calls it a ‘double negative’ where he;s from. The barman asks where he’s from. The man says where he’s from isn’t important, as it doesn’t play into the punchline in any way. The barman rolls his eyes and hands over the drink. After the man finishes it, he again peeks inside his shirt pocket and orders the bartender to bring another double negative. The bartender says, “Look mate, I have to say you’re being really weird. You call a double martini a ‘double negative’, you say that everyone does where you come from then refuse to elaborate on where exactly that is. Then there’s the thing with the photo in the pocket. You’re bumming me out! I’ll bring you ‘double negatives’ all night long, but can you at least tell me why you look inside your shirt pocket before you order a refill.” The customer replies, “I’m peeking at a photo of my wife. When she starts to look good, I know it’s time to go home.”
Wa-hey! Because his wife… his wife’s really ugly… I guess… Thought I’d start with a joke, because this post is a little low on brevity. I am, unfortunately, unbearably serious about how much I love this record
If you haven’t seen and heard Tierra Whack’s outstanding album, ‘Whack World’, then you should absolutely be ashamed of yourself. But there’s really no reason that shame needs to engulf you for long. It’s fifteen fucking minutes. Here it is:
Watch it now. I’ll wait.
I normally leave this until the end, but Mitski’s live performance is central to this piece, so:
I really liked Mitski’s last album, even if as you can see my review was mainly made up of me bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t afforded it the time it obviously deserved and it was a far better album than its lowly placing suggested. Then I started talking about the person who murdered Jo Cox, because I’ve always found it difficult to concentrate on one thing and I’d probably read a bit about Mr. Death To Traitors, Freedom For Britain recently and I can’t help myself jabbering on sometimes and it’s getting cold but I don’t want to turn my heater on and my favourite theme song at the moment is probably Alaister Black‘s but I’m growing to love Tomasso Ciampa‘s and oh look, is that a squirrel? I went to see her at Gorilla mainly down to the fact I fancied going to a gig and she was there. I even shamefully put off buying her album until just before the gig, waiting for it to appear on torrent sites. I did buy it eventually, Ms Miyawaki, don’t worry, I just didn’t consider owning it as being that essential. Then. I saw her.
I’ve dragged this blog to some pretty dark places as we move toward the end. The possible end of Hejjy and my relationship, which I had rather naively and foolishly pitted so much of my happiness on, hit me hard. I hadn’t previously realised to what extent I’d subconsciously done until it was potentially pulled away. I quickly realised that I’d actually based all of my future dreams, centred every situation I imagine myself in, around Hejjy and the threat of her being removed from all of these fantasies meant my head was forced to furiously remove chairs and make new plans like WWE when Roman Reign’s leukaemia sidelined him. Everything I knew was wrong, suddenly I had nothing to look forward to. Life suddenly became completely pointless. And I still had to finish this fucking list that nobody reads!! Then, this morning I got up and opened the curtains.
It’s a sunny day. I get to listen to the lovely Let’s Eat Grandma record. Even the fact that they are no longer my band didn’t hurt that bad. Then, as I make dinner, I put the genius second record by Tove Styrke on my headphones and… danced around the flat in the sunshine.
I have a weird, suffocating and in all definitions probably entirely sexist relationship with Let’s Eat Grandma. I feel hopelessly in love with their incredible debut, it was simultaneously insanely exploratory and captivatingly naive about where these probing songs would take it. Part of the reason I loved it so was the fact that Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth were from Norwich, a city I still consider my true birth place, as it was attending university there and living there for much of my 20s that I started to recognise what kind of person I was and what sort of man I had grown into*, so I’m always extra excited to hear such astonishing music from there. But it was also the fact that Walton and Hollingworth were 16/17 year old teenage girls when they released it. Was I subconsciously belittling these two incredible artists by thinking of them as my children??
(* I mean, the ‘man I’d grown into’ was dangerously excessive chronic depression case, with only any real love for alcohol and other brain altering tools, but at least I knew that! I, of course, got married in this period, and cheated several times because I was a fucking tool, because the more you drink the more popular you become with the opposite sex. I’m not saying this is the reason you should drink, I just think it’s only fair if you know the facts)
“I wanna know if I can feel alive
I wanna know cause I’m an alpha
I divide and conquer“
If you’re reading this, the language I tend to use would suggest that you speak English and maybe 说一点中文. You’re almost definitely British, perhaps American or European. Bizarrely enough, based on the people who read my blog, almost certainly not from Australasia. What’s up with that, Oceania? Don’t I get no love?
Anyway, you’re more than likely, through sheer luck of birth, to have never had to put up with much dividing and conquering yourself. This time, right now, is actually the most peaceful time in human history. Now, for the first time ever, more people die from traffic accidents (because we’re useless drivers), obesity (because we’re fat bastards) and even suicide (because, as I’ve put it so bluntly before, there really is no fucking point) than die from human violence. Back when we we all lived all 27 years of our miserable life milking a the family duck or sifting through cow shit to find bits worth eating, 15% of all human deaths came through human violence, usually because of the endless war that we were all stuck in. In the 20th century, it was just 5%, as we still had two World Wars to get out of our system Now, it’s only about 1%. Alright, we don’t want to count our chickens too early, and I’m sure the 20th century was looking pretty rosie throughout a lot of 1918, all it takes is an Austrian Archduke being murdered in Syria or the Korean Peninsula and it could be World War 3 (luckily, Austrian Archdukes are quite rarely spotted in Syria and in either Korea). But, in the West at least, it may be Happy New Year (War is Over)!
Alright, I’m done with this list. Done. You hear me?? Done! Doooooooooooooone!
I’m still going to write it, don’t worry, it just won’t be as good as it’s been in the past or explore quite as many psychological or social issues. Necessary Evil this year has, if I’m being totally honest, a fucking chore!
necessaryevil.blog 