Tag: arcade fire

2022’s Statictus the Fitness: The Numbers Behind the Year’s Greatest Albums

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Remember when I used to do these posts right after I did the albums of the year? So it’d be the Necessary Evil albums of the year, the scientifically proven best album fawned over at length, the stats, and then we’d be officially done for another year?

Boom! You just been Mandela Effected, boyeeee! I actually only think I ever did that schedule once, for Necessary Evil 2019. I’ve always been far more often waaaaaaay late with these statistical breakdowns. What I actually used to do really early is (pfff!) do the stats just before the number one album! I could never (be arsed these days! These days the writing of the list itself is such a huge emotional toil that it takes me a long time to even consider thinking about these fucking albums again. Also, it’s getting harder and harder to think of puns on the word ‘stat’.

But these posts are basically just pictures, so I may as well just freakin’ do it. Let’s glance back at the wonderful year od 2022 when we all collectively thought, as always, “Well at least the next year can’t be as bad as this one…”.

Watch me drift and watch me struggle, let me go

#45 Taylor Swift: Midnights

~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

This post might actually be my last. It’s been fun. Occasionally.

OK, if you haven’t been following the news recently, I might have to give you a quick primer. I get it, don’t worry, it can be a nasty world out there and sometimes we have to attempt to protect our own mental health by not even engaging with the horror, I completely understand if you aren’t up on possibly the biggest story of late 2022. Trigger warning, this might be the most upsetting. Remember a few days ago when I posted my Pusha T post? Fifty second best album of the year? Not bad, right? Sure not as high as the near top five placing that Rolling Stone had (bafflingly) deemed it worthy of, but then I’ve certainly been questioning if it’s actually better than Alvvays, Lykke Li, The Smile or Big|Brave, so… it all works out? I dunno, whatever, that’s where the album fell. Was it a particularly good post? Hmmmmmmnot especially. I didn’t spend anyway near the time on it that I dedicated to Tanya Tagaq or Arcade Fire, for instance, but likely because there weren’t any sexual assaults or cultural genocides to discuss. I mentioned how Pusha’s lyrics often don’t convey what he thinks they do, which I would have liked to delve into more given the time. As a post in general though, particularly when compared to my best work, it was definitely m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m

Yes! It’s getting more and more difficult to use that MJF meme, but – bah Gahd! – I still manage it!

THIS IS ALREADY AMONG YOUR BEST WORK

#51 Arcade Fire: We

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Ah, old dependable Arcade Fire! I can always count on including them in the year end list with no controversy! Their sixth album is a miner return to form – not really coming close to equaling their imperial phase of their first four albums, but certainly superior to their messy and unfocused fifth ‘Everything Now’. There are real moments of stirring beauty, as the band lean into their real status as the stadium rock band that it’s not embarrassing to admit you like. Like, never embarrassing. Up to around the 27th August 2022, this statement is watertight. To me, they’re the 21st century New Order, in that their fantastic music is almost always enough to cover up for their frequently awful lyrics (“But some people want the rock without the roll/But we all know, there’s no God without soul“, uuuuuurgh, “We unsubscribe/Fuck season five“, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh!). ‘We’ is a tight, anthemic effort, which might consider pleasing the crowd more important than making any real creative strides, but nonetheless crowd pleases enough to let its lack of ambition slide.

YAY! ANOTHER EARLY DINNER!

Necessary Evil 2020 pt 2 (90-81)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

#90 Vritra: Sonar

OK, remember when I told you that there were so many fantastic records released this year? Well, that pretty much starts here, as Vritra’s

roughly 6’903rd record is yet another example of the unique and intoxicating talents of perhaps the least sufficiently appreciated (former??) member of Odd Future. If this is your first Vritra album, the rapping and musical styles one or two notches above clinically comatose will be sure to bewitch you for a solid half hour (do not listen to while operating heavy machinery etc), but the lack of real evolution of change of styles between records can mean a dangerous sense of disposability and lack of individual character can set in when you listen to multiple records. Like, the guy has released about three albums since that wonderful album with Wilma Archer last year that I didn’t even notice. Which, to be fair, is a docile forgetfulness that’s very on brand.

2019 (no.28)

#89 Lindsay Munroe: Our Heaviness

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My Life in Albums (part 2 97-06)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

You want an intro? You got that in part one! Let’s get down to the dirty, sticky and dangerously unhygienic business:

1997

This was an important year for me, this was when shit got real. Yeah, Labour won the election, which I was aware I was supposed to celebrate but not yet conscious enough to know exactly why, just that ‘our team won*. Princess Diana died, inspiring a nationwide reaction that even 13 year old Alex Palmer recognised as being a bit fucking much**. All that was meaningless background noise though, as most importantly 1997 was the year that I became really switched on to new music. Before this point, most of the albums I’ve listed would have been discovered by me later and posthumously lusted after in the kind of nostalgic necrophilia that I would later grow to despise. Yeah, sorry if you’ve already imagined me as an incredibly cool seven year old bopping his head to Soon by My Bloody Valentine. From this point on, these important albums in my life and personal development were pretty much all discovered as contemporaries. Seriously though, ‘It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah’ was the first CD that I ever owned. Yeah. I’m that cool/weird.

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“Dad, this is why you’re only allowed to see me one weekend every other month…”

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The Legit Bosses: Best 65 Tracks of 2017

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

EDIT: a full 16 days after publishing this piece, I finally got round to making a Spofify Playlist. The best songs of 2017. In May 2018)

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OK, 20th April and we’re almost done. Never apologise for your own timing: genius cannot be standardised by your plebeian calendar. Good things are always worth waiting for. Patience, motherfuckers, patience.

Remember (kayfabe) last year, when I broke the Legit Bosses down into about a million parts? Ten freaking YouTube videos every post?

That was a really dumb idea. You’re getting all 65 songs in one list this year.

There were exactly sixty five amazing songs released last year. If you believe that there were any more or less then you are either massively mistaken or just plain stupid. Listen and learn:

65 Vince Staples: Alyssa Interlude

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Finding out that the voice sample explaining the pain that’s sometimes needed to inspire creativity is actually Amy Winehouse pushed this interlude into ‘AMAZING’ classification.

Barely two minutes long, but exhibiting the kind of experimental genius that was slightly lacking on the rest of the album. More of this in the future please, Mr Staples, and less of… erm…

Less of, like, whatever I said in my review. It was quite a long time ago…

64 Young M.A: M.A Intro

Freaking perfect introduction to the record, which I can’t help but shout along to the “Who dat?/Who dat?/Never who dat” intro with all the gusto and passion a middle aged white guy is legally allowed.

63 St Vincent: Los Ageless

Despite what my review may have led you to believe, not actually about my ex-wife wrongly claiming credit for my suicide.

My ex-wife read that review, by the way, and got in touch to correct a lot of my false assumptions. Yeah, I’ll definitely talk about that at some point. Make sure to click ‘subscribe’…

62 Tove Lo: Hey You Got Drugs

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A lovely ballad about a subject that I think is vastly underrepresented in sad songs. I may have slightly overrated it in my review of the album, which shows how relatively underwhelming the rest of the album is.

Also: invest in a comma maybe, Ms Lo?

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Stats Off To You, Sir 2017

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

The Only Reason I Do This Fucking List

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Yaaaay!! A statistical breakdown of 2017’s albums!! Suddenly, all those wasted evenings desperately bashing out 1000 words of utter shite on Muna or something finally comes to fruition!! I get to do a mathematical breakdown of the findings!! Kinda get tired reading more than 100 words but enjoy looking at pretty pictures? Yeah, me too…

This post is just for you!!

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(number 3)

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37 Arcade Fire: Everything Now

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

A Decent Amount of Things Now

Image result for blind melon no rain

“God make me famous/If you can’t, just make it painless”

When I was younger- and older. And recently. And presently. And probably tomorrow, because changing one’s opinion is one of the hardest thing for a person to do, despite my pontification on the previous entry– I never used to understand why famous people committed suicide.

I mean, I would consider suicide on a near daily basis sometimes, and often attempted it*, but of course I would: I was a useless and completely inadequate human being that nobody loved. But these people, these people were stars! Everybody loved them! Even if you were as ugly or as ginger as I was, if you were a freakin’ celebrity girls will throw your wet knickers at you and tattoo your name on their vaginal lips with a rusty nail and a broken biro**.

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Best Albums of 2013: Necessary Evil’s Chris Benoit

~ Lex Leeson ~ 91 Comments

I’ve tried to put this off for a long time: the 2013 best albums list that I originally emailed off to ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ around Christmas that year is the final collection to be posted onto the webisphere and officially archived. I considered never doing it, denying its existence and never admitting to the shameful mistakes it contains. However, when I write my NE2017 list (soon, I promise) I want to make a point of referring to artists’ past entries in the Necessary Evil Blogging Universe (NEBU), so I’ve relented and made it available to read.

I was mainly worried about two things: firstly, I spent 6 months of 2013 in hospital, occasionally politely coughing and making my existence known to death’s door, so the fact that I managed to still mash out a top 50 at year’s end- while being an astonishing achievement warranting some achievements in disability award- makes me assume that a large portion of it will be unreadable madness.

Yes, very funny: more so than usual

Secondly, Arctic Monkey’s award for best album was soon revoked in light of their tax dodging selfishness, and the records for 2013 now show Hjaltalin’s astonishing ‘Enter 4′ as the greatest album, as despite it only finishing 5th in this initial list, by the time Arctic Monkey’s were stripped of the award it had grown into my favourite release of the year. Arctic Monkey’s win in 2013 is now viewed in the Necessary Evil Online Community (NEOC) with the same divisiveness as Benoit’s Wrestlemania 20 Heavyweight Championship win, and doubtless the posting of this list will be viewed as an extremely controversial move by victims of the Arctic Monkeys’ crimes. I apologise for any offence caused, but you must understand the importance of establising the legitimacy of NEBU.

So, I re-read the list for the first time in years and…

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It’s…

…

…

…not bad. Not bad at all. In fact, I’d say that 2013 might contain some of my best and most incisive actual music writing, and I didn’t cringe nearly as much as I feared. Jesus, some of the entries (The Strokes, Arcade Fire, Kanye West…) are some of the best normal writing I’ve ever done! From death to coherence: I’m such a fucking inspirational figure

It’s far from perfect- I make a quip about Bowie not dying, I’m a little too subtly sexist in my Haim review, Steve Mason is number fucking two…- but I’m not completely overwhelmed by shame posting them

Also: Daft Punk are only no.42, Vampire Weekend 34, that’s pretty gangsta…

NE2017 soon, I promise

I love you all

Except you…

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