Tag: 2021 best albums

30 Jordana: Something to Say to You

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

2020 #59 (Jordana), 2021 #56 (with TV Girl)

Jesus, everyone, Jordana was twenty one years old when she released this incredible record back in December 2020 (Making it. Eligible. For this year’s. List. So sick of having to explain how this works), isn’t that just terrifying?

For her, I mean. This isn’t one of those “Whaaaaa! They’re so young and I’ve comparatively failed in life!” takes. Partially because – Jesus fucking Christ – those mournings are so boring. We’ve all failed in life, that’s what connects us so beautifully as people, and even the ones we assume haven’t still think they have, let’s not create divisions by imagining any one of us is making a better go of this shitshow we call existence. Mostly because, seriously, you eventually get to an age where fucking everyone is younger than you (except Caroline Shaw, of course), you stop being such a big baby about the whole thing (“Malala Yousafzai was only fifteen years old when she was shot in the face by Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan gunmen?! Lucky!! What had I done by that age??”) and instead switch to being in constant mortal dread of your own imminent demise. It’s honestly a cool transition.

I’ve got something more to say to you

31 Manic Street Preachers: The Ultra Vivid Lament

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

2020 #9, 2019 #83, 2018 #55, 2014 #1, 2013 #20, 2010 #15, 2009 #2, 2007 #3

Jesus Christ, more Manics?? Their fourteenth album, their ninth appearance on this year end list which has only run for thirteen years itself, I’ve ranked the albums, I’ve ranked the songs, I’ve shamelessly juiced the clicks because – glimpse behind the curtain, between you and me – any Manics post gets roughly ten times the hits of the rest of nonsense I churn out on this Bullshit Blog™, surely there’s nothing left for me to say??

Ha! Fucking idiot, this is the Manic Street freaking Preachers! I’m always going to have stuff to write about! That list of the greatest songs was about 40’000 words, but I’m still planning to go back and edit it, add new facts I’ve learned, new theories I’ve had, new philosophies uncovered. Plus, their new album, ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’ wasn’t featured in that album ranking, and I’d only heard the marvellous lead single Orwellian when I made my ranking of Manics songs (I had actually planned to finish it before the new album was released but – ha! – no…) so it was the only one to feature. This is all fresh content, my friends!! Hit that ‘subscribe’ button as hard as you can!!

Into the waves of love

33 The Joy Formidable: Into the Blue

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

2018 #16, 2016 #112 (!!!), 2013 #15

They came number one hundred and twelfth in 2016?! Sorry, I’ve just made myself feel a little ill by reminding myself of how many fucking albums I used to include on this dumb year end list that nobody reads. I did one hundred and seventeen albums in total that year, in one of the greatest years for music of the last two decades at least, so The Joys were unfortunately near the bottom of the pile with easily their weakest album. Dead bottom was Damian Lazarus who – and you’ll like this – actually slagged me off on Twitter because of the review!! I mean, fuck me, I know these days I am The Most Trusted Voice in Music™, but back then I think I had about 300 views in total across the whole year!! I had only just started my current Twitter account and had nine followers!! Damian Lazarus, you absolute fucking muppet.

That retweet was from me, because it was fucking hilarious. And I stand with my response at the time:

I still think I suit a bald head,you know?

Continue reading “33 The Joy Formidable: Into the Blue” →

34 Dua Saleh: CROSSOVER

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

2020 #57, 2019 #75

Ooooooooooh Dua (par-par-parpar-parpar), ooooh Saleh, Saleh (par-par-parpar-parpar), you are my innovational and boundary pushing electronica tinged hip-hop nonbinaryyyyyyy, and you got me wanting you.

Yeah, I know, looking at that contemporary photograph of The Archies there, you might worry that there were real issues with representation in the late 60s, but if it makes you feel any better know that three of the members were proudly out homosexuals, two did not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, and one was a literal dog.

Continue reading “34 Dua Saleh: CROSSOVER” →

35 Big $ilky: Big $ilky vol.3

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

2020 #26, 2020 #27

I changed so much since ‘Volume 1’

I don’t give a fuck who don’t like me…

Pandemic illuminates darkness

Uprisings just hit me the hardest

And all you virtue signalling fucks

Will not get to sample the harvest

Jesse Got Away

Hey. Hey. Hey you. Yeah, you, future cultural historian. Yeah. I’m contacting you from the past. Wooooooooooo! Wait… no, I’m not a ghost, am I? Scrap that last comment. Just put down your Diplomat smoking pipe and remove your monocle, listen to me for a second. How’s the future treating you? Flying cloud storage, you say? Electronic cigarettes with AI sentience? Well that all sounds absolutely pointless, but good luck to you. Gig economy for cultural history, is it? Because Elon Musk is now the Great Leader at more than a thousand years old and can’t afford to give any workers at all any rights because he needs to fund his great humanitarian expedition to carve a visible doge meme onto the surface of Jupiter? For the lols? You have to pay for your own monocle and pipe?? Yeah, yeah, that all sounds awful, but not much different from my time and I kinda wish you’d stop going on about it, it’s my turn to speak.

How are you currently gauging the cultural mood of the years 2020-21 out there in the year 3000? Sure, if you wanted an inspiring and comforting read on everything you could just go to Arlo Parks’s debut album. Perhaps if you wanted a glimpse into how humanity strived (and often succeeded) to make creative connections despite the viral barriers you could take a listen to Charli XCX’s magnificent ‘how i’m feeling now‘. Or, yeah, if you wanted to go all Pitchforky I guess you could name that Fiona Apple album. What’s that? You’re actually currently evaluating the era through the prism of Emily in Paris? Damn, that’s a good angle, and I’d love to see what horrors you’ve unearthed during your studies. But can I suggest something far more advantageous? How about you study the illuminating trilogy of albums released by Big $ilky over that period?

Continue reading “35 Big $ilky: Big $ilky vol.3” →

36 Sal Dulu: Xompulse

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

It’s… really… hard.. to… write… this… I’m listening to the blissful ‘Xompulse’ while I dictate this entry to Shawn, my volunteer blog assistant. Well, I say ‘volunteer’, but a county court settlement recently confirmed that it was actually ‘indentured servitude’ by legal definition. Whatever, the fact remains that ‘the words’ remain Shawn’s job – until I am suitably satisfied that he has earned back the money he cost me when he saw fit to eat nearly half of the hors d’oeuvre that I had set out for my friends in expectation of the all night session on ‘Kira to Kaiketsu! 64 Tanteidan’ later that evening in 1997 (why were you even in the house, Shawn?? Who are you?!) – and my job is the general vibes and intermittent inspiration. But… my vibes… are being… so mollified… by this music…

Shawn, I swear to God, if I hear one more word out of your vulgarian lips I shall put your shrivelled testicles on the keyboard of that top of the line laptop and slam the screen down violently several times until you have naught but a pair of fleshy pancakes hanging between your knees. Let’s not make the same mistakes at Christmas that we made on Bonfire Night, OK?

Continue reading “36 Sal Dulu: Xompulse” →

37 JPEGMAFIA: LP!

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

2020 #16, 2019 #34, 2018 #44

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaars!! Pe-ggy! Pe-ggy! Pe-ggy! The latest astonishing collection by hip-hop’s premier avant garde electronica pushing Communist! You know what that means? That’s right: some of the most progressive and experimental music currently being made by any artist, in any genre, in the entire world. Oh, but most importantly, loads of wrestling references.

It also means that, unfortunately, there’s little space between the much appreciated wrestling call outs to actually talk about Peggy’s music. But do you need any more explanation on how he’s such a generational talent? A thousand articles by writers far more talented than me* have already written lengthy pieces and conduced many interviews that shed light on why you should be deeply ashamed if you’re not already on the Peggy Train. ‘LP!’ (always a fan of exclamation marks) retains a lot of the more melodic and slightly less abrasive styles that he presented on his recent (amazing) EPs, but uses it to only squeeze his music into more unique places. It’s a fucking banger.

Continue reading “37 JPEGMAFIA: LP!” →

38 Arlo Parks: Collapsed in Sunbeams

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Caroline

I swear to God, I tried

I swear to God, I tried

Caroline

Hey hey hey! I manged to link #40, Kanye West, with #39, Caroline Shaw, now I’ve managed to link Shaw with Arlo Parks at #38! Will I continue to do this right down to the year’s best album? Absolutely! Until I forget to do it, which I will definitely do with the next one, because it’s going to be a struggle to think of a link between JPEGMAFIA and Arlo Parks. Oops. Spoiler, I guess…

Now let’s never talk of WWE’s Eugene again…

‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’ was released at the end on January 2021, when the UK was coming up to a solid 12 months under on and off lockdown measures. It was a different time. Or, at least, different at time of writing. Much of the country had been cut off from the percentage of humanity that didn’t work for Deliveroo* and had just been forced to spend a Christmas away from their friends and family. Well, unless they were lucky enough to have specific ‘business meetings’ and they actually passed these laws so in a strange loophole they didn’t actually didn’t apply to them. God speed, moral superiors. The whole country was on edge, wondering exactly how many banana breads made and opinions on the USA George Floyd protests posted online per afternoon is diagnosed as mentally dangerous, and the disgustingly young Arlo Parks’s debut album was soon instilled as the nation’s official comfort blanket, winning Brit Awards and the Mercury Prize. Parks combined emotionally raw and painfully honest lyrics with soft and silky pop music, which all seemed to carry the message that, hey, everything gonna be a’right. Personally, I didn’t really need that much comforting regarding the lockdown – I was lucky enough to be in a job that was never in danger of being swept from under me, plus I’ve never been one for overly championing the company of other people. Other people are dumb and annoying. However, for me, it certainly offered timely comfort around the chaotic breakdown of my second marriage. Ah, bollocks, I’ve become one of those guys, haven’t I?

Continue reading “38 Arlo Parks: Collapsed in Sunbeams” →

39 Caroline Shaw, Sō Percussion: Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

2021 #48 (Sō Percussion, Dawn Upshaw, and Gil Kalish)

Remember ‘Caroline Shaw: Narrow Sea‘ at #48? Yeah, I know, that was a bit of a while back now. Jesus, I spoil you ingrates with three posts in three days over the weekend and now you’re expecting daily updates?? I do have a job, you know?? Sure, it’s only a flat fee per month to suck Paul Scholes’s daughter’s toes whenever he’s too busy to satisfy her, but it’s an honest job God dammit! Anyway, remember that album? That was a bit of a bop, wasn’t it? But you know what it was missing that would make it that little bit better?

That’s right: Caroline Shaw.

Continue reading “39 Caroline Shaw, Sō Percussion: Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part” →