Tag: arctic monkeys

‘Definitely Maybe (30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)’: My Dynamic Affection

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

adjective

  1. 1.(of a process or system) characterized by constant change, activity, or progress

It’s never talked about in 2024, but Oasis were actually a far bigger deal than Nirvana.

In the UK I mean, of course. I am from the UK and writing this in the UK from the perspective of someone who lived in the UK in the 90s. If I were Spanish, I might be writing the praises of the million selling debut album by Laura Pausini, by far the biggest selling record of 1994 in that country. If I were Japanese, I might be talking about how neither Nirvana nor Oasis can hold a candle to Mr. Children (ミスターチルドレン), whose 3.4 million selling ‘Atomic Heart’ album obviously hit that sweet spot between tentacle porn and genocide denial that the country cherishes so much. But, I’m writing in English, so you’d probably just imagine I’d cede to the American version of history, as we are so often wont to do.

we’ll have lasaaaaaaaagnaaaaaaaaaaa

#1 070 Shake: You Can’t Kill Me (Greatest Album of 2022)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

OK, let’s try and put this in some sort of perspective: I have always considered my three favourite artists of all time to be Prince, Manic Street Preachers and Nick Cave. Between all three of them they have all had a combined thirty records make the Necessary Evil end of year list and out of those thirty, two have been named the year’s best. If I wanted to throw in some faves – both problematic and less so – from the last 15-20 years I might throw in the names of Janelle Monae, The Hotelier, Kanye West, Let’s Eat Grandma, CHVRCHES or Yeasayer. Twenty three entries between them. One winner. Oh, and Radiohead have never finished first, but

Can we get this meme a medal or something?

Thirteen different artists have won Necessary Evil since it first started in 2007. Maybe fourteen, depending on your take on 2013’s infamous Arctic Monkeys/Hjaltalín controversy. No artist has ever finished first twice. Until now. 070 Shake’s ‘Modus Vivendi’ was the greatest album of 2020, and the 2022 follow-up is unquestionably the greatest album released this year, with its only viable contender being a 1982 masterpiece widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time. These are the only two albums she has released.

I’M IN YOUR WORLD FOR THE NIGHT, YEAH

#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!

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” →

Necessary Evil 2020 pt.16 (3-2)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

#3 Hjaltalín: Hjaltalín

Firstly: what up brothers and sisters? Put you’re hands in the air, yeah? Like you just don’t care, yeah? Can I get a ‘what what’? Respect the flex of Necessary Evil 2020! We might have finished Necessary Evil 2015 by the 13th December, but that was beginning to feel like a much missed byproduct of a far simpler time. We didn’t finish Necessary Evil 2016 until November the 5th. Of 2017. Necessary Evil 2017 didn’t come all over all of your apathetic and disinterested eyeballs until the next year again, but at least had the grace to finish by April the 8th of 2018. Necessary Evil 2018 got so close to finishing in the year it was referring to, eventually wrapping up January the 3rd of 2019. And God fucking damnit Necessary Evil 2019 managed to bow for applause just one day into 2020. This year!! Baring an absolute calamity, Necessary Evil 2020 will somehow be finished before even Christmas, as we enter the final post on December 23rd and- holy shit!- I might get to relax and enjoy my festive period for the first time in five years!!

Continue reading “Necessary Evil 2020 pt.16 (3-2)” →

My Life in Albums (part 3 07-20/death)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

Put my mind at ease, pretty please, I need your hands on me, sweet relief, pretty please…

Yeah, I’m in a good mood, what of it? Wanna fight about it? Bring it on, I bet I’ll have you kissing me before the first punch lands, because how can you stay angry at this face?? My good mood mainly arises from three reasons. Firstly, longtime reader Beryl got in touch to tell me how she enjoyed the last post, and only made the polite suggestion that this series could be improved if it…

image 247

…incorporated more hardcore scat pornography?? Jesus fucking Christ, Beryl. Honestly, whenever I’m that close to relaxing that restraining order, you come out with something that sends us back to square one. Maybe I’m at fault here for expecting more from someone I met on the online scatological fetish dating app ‘ScatrBraind‘, but I just always assumed she was interested in the person around the fecal matter, y’know?

Anyway, the second reason is that this will definitely be the final part in this series, allowing me to abandon my blog again to return to my three real loves (masturbating, crying, and masturbating while crying. Mainly the third, if I’m being completely honest).  Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, we are now actually into the years where I made a point of listing the best albums, so this part should be an absolute piece of piss! Look at the header of this blog- I’ve already got my best albums of 07-19 listed! I just need to copy those albums down again for this entry! It’s 8:53 now, and I’ll have all this done and dusted in time for my traditional 9am cry! Let’s do this shit!!

Continue reading “My Life in Albums (part 3 07-20/death)” →

The Best Albums of the Tennies (kind of…) Part Two

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Y’know what? This really didn’t need to be a two parter. Sure, Part One spilled over 4’000 words, but’s that’s just because Arctic Monkey’s shameful behavior presented me with the chance to go off on a wrestling tangent, and that’s a guaranteed extra twenty five hundred words right there. I reckon I’ll bang through the rest of these in around 2’000 words, as I’m almost certain The Sport of Kings is unlikely to make an appearance. 6’000 words is a not at all ridiculous length for an entry. My ‘50 Song Memoir‘ entry was, if memory serves, 7,296,586 words, and that’s one of my most popular posts of all time. You. Whores. Love. Length.

Smash

But, twice the content, yeah? Twice the clicks, twice the sweet, sweet advertising dollar. I mean… technically, yeah… Double zero is still zero, maths fans. Could be worse, I could be giving each entry it’s own individual page and forcing you to click ‘next’ each time, like those fucking awful lists you see on the internet, like… like… well, like this dumb blog that nobody reads every year end, I suppose. We’ve got some motherfucking stonkers coming up, mind, so ready your tiny minds to be blown like you were the window cleaner’s penis and this list was your mum (oooooooooooooooh!!). This pointless intro only exists because I hate the entries being scissored by a page break. Besides, I couldn’t let you know what no.5 is before I’ve got your delicious clicks. Clickety-click!

Continue reading “The Best Albums of the Tennies (kind of…) Part Two” →

The Best Albums of the Tennies (kind of…) Part One

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Has this even been a decade? Like, other decades were definitely decades, weren’t they? The 70s were definitely a decade, I’ve seen pictures. It was all flared jeans and Ashton Kutchers. I remember the 80s, it was all primary colours and He Man toys. Except I’m 29 years old, which now unfortunately means I was born in 1990, so I don’t actually remember the 80s. Shame.

Yeah, I know, the Megadrive version was better…

The NINETIES though! Remember the NINETIES?! That was an unarguable ‘decade’! There was a undeniable vibe to the 90s. The 90s was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air doing the Macarena after scoring the winning penalty against Ginger Spice in the Euro 96 quarter finals. Remember that? It definitely happened and was definitely 90s!!

I turned 16 (or possibly 10) three days before the year 2000, and since then life doesn’t really deal in decades or conveniently distinct periods of time anymore. Every decade, every year, every day is now a seemingly unending trudge through hideous adulthood. Life and popular culture just trundles off in a different direction and your major marking points become all the more onanistic and self-centred. I started getting fucking old. And when you’re fucking old you’re beaten down by capitalism’s endless rat race that you don’t even fucking care what year it is.

Continue reading “The Best Albums of the Tennies (kind of…) Part One” →

60 British Sea Power: Let the Dancers Inherit the Party

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

You know what?: It probably would have made much more sense to actually start the countdown at the same time I announced it, rather than making a big song and dance about it, then going to bed and doing fuck all for 24 hours. Ah well, here we are:

BSP Inspire Slight PTSD

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“You said the world was losing all its lustre
You realised each day you’re growing old”

Your body decides that it’s really given you enough and stops growing in any beneficial way around age 21. This is also the absolute oldest age that you’re really supposed to leave full time education. I mean, sure, there are people older than 21 who decide that, despite being legal adults in every conceivable sense, they still want to stay at school for all their life, base both their dress sense and DVD collection around Tom Baker’s Doctor Who and never shut the fuck up about how much better the quality of the real ale is at their local pub (‘The Queen’s Withered Resignation’) than Wetherspoons’s. These people, though, are the most ridiculous people in the world, and should be disregarded in every discussion.

Continue reading “60 British Sea Power: Let the Dancers Inherit the Party” →