What more is there to say about the astonishing ‘Destruction’?
Oh no! I Googled ‘Destruction’ and it just came up with loads of stats from the Gaza genocide! That’s embarrassing! Innocent mistake though, hope you understand. I promise that I won’t mention the continued and UK sponsored slaughter happening right now in Gaza anymore on this list, I promise. And that photo will already be dated tomorrow, when the death count will likely have risen by a few hundred. What was I thinking posting it there completely accidentally??
OK, reality nerds, I admit: this album was actually released first released in June 2023. I was first introduced to this art rock masterwork when rounding up Seth Manchester’s 2023 records, and was so blown away that I cheekily decided to consider it for the 2024 list. Or, to quote: “holy shit, the Big Beat impact of ‘Aki’ by The Bronzed Chorus on June 9th?? I love that shit, it’s also on NE2024″. I also decided to consider records by Asher White,Jaye Jayle, and Oxbow, which were all pretty great records but didn’t quite make this increasingly elite list. One other album… maybe did… No spoilers.
The Bronzed Chorus, Adam Joyce (L), Brennen O’Brien
But The Bronzed Chorus, man, they made a 2023 album so good that it’s the scientifically proven, objective thirtieth best album of 2024. That’s quite a flex.
The problem is… I have next to no idea who this band are…
Fancy a quick look behind the curtain? A glance into the magicians’ circle? A unobstructed look up the wizard’s sleeve?
“Who’s ready to PAAAAAAAAAARTAAAAAAAY?!?!”
I kind of wasn’t going to bother with the Lost Girls’ second album?? I mean, I bothered to an extent: I bought the album digitally the day it came out, because I’m the last person in the world just buying albums because I like to financially support artists I consider incredibly important but that I worry about their work being financially rewarding in late stage capitalism. It’s bullshit, I know, and Bandcamp is about to be stripped for parts, because it’s a gross company like all the other gross companies, but it makes me feel better. Oh, and artists like Olivia Rodrigo who are too big a deal to ever have a Bandcamp page? Yeah, I torrent that shit. We don’t have time to discuss all of this now, what I mean by not bothering is that I wasn’t going to bother putting it on the list this year.
[23.12.12 EDIT: Fuck! I’ve only just clocked that the album title starts with ‘(22)’ and it’s actually landed at #22! Come on, that’s proof of God’s existence, no?]
I recently discovered I want to be goth which is gonna make my next album really fun. Hopefully won’t take 2 years this time
Well, it technically didn’t take two years. And it ain’t fucking goth. It’s a borderline work of genius though.
Usually, when a small, none-more-independent bedroom artists like Elora Faith releases a record that beautifully exhibits their deft songcraft and seemingly supernatural way around a melody, my chief response is to usually lament what world-humping genius they’d be capable of if they had access to the resources. Would this artist be able to produce a record as universally beloved as ‘Desire, I Want to Turn Into You‘ if only the production budget extended to bagpipes? Would the raw, stripped back Strokes trumping GIVE AND TAKE AND WITCHCRAFT really get to the next level if Elora could afford to hire someone to blow a referees’ whistle just before the musical break like Paradise City? What if the budget stretched far enough for Taylor Swift to rap over ANTIBODIES about “Getting down to this sick beat“? Would that make the song better?
Yeah, that’s right, ALL CAPS. Because it’s been RAISED RIGHT. Can we please have a collaboration with awakebutstillinbed? Actually, I know I meant to clean up the capitalisation of ‘chaos take the wheel and i am the passenger‘, but can we just have that?? Honestly, use whatever grammar you want, call is ‘@wa[£b()$tIlInPEG’ for all I care. Can Peggy just produce?? JPEGMAFIA producing an emo album?? Nomnomnomnomnom! Give it to me now!!
Oh and apparently there was a different cover of this record?
Ma dudes, of course it’s great. It’s Sufjan freaking Stevens, yo! This is only their second proper album since their magnum opus ‘Carrie & Lowell’, which I named best album of 2015 ahead of ‘To Pimp a Butterfly*’ and forever confirmed that I am, in fact, the softest of soft soyboys. But Sufjan’s creativity and genius is far from simply contained to their own albums: they’ve penetrated Necessary Evil with Lowell themselves, with fellow indie softbois Bryce Dessnar, Nico Muhly & James McAllister, and just with shit that didn’t fit on his magnum opus. They had two Necessary Evil entries in 2017 and in 2020. Mate, the Sufjan Stevens Blogging Universe (SSBU) is rich with lore.
(*as low as number 14! You’ll rarely see lists of best albums of all time where it’s listed that low! And I stand by it. Why? Because I’m a free thinker. A philosopher. A leader. And, yeah, also a soft soyboy)
And they almost had two entries on the 2023. The year also saw the 20th anniversary release of ‘Michigan‘, and if you haven’t heard that album, maybe… like… listen to it rather than ‘Javelin’? Like, seriously, it shits all over this album. I’m not one of those dedicated softbois who have followed Sufjan religiously since he was releasing electronic albums based around the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, and…
Firstly: No, I’m pretty sure ‘consumerising’ isn’t a real word
Secondly: capitalism really won’t leave anything alone, will it? Won’t let anything just exist if it isn’t somehow commodified. And maybe I’m only really able to remark on this because no fucker reads this blog, it doesn’t make me any money at all, so I’m not even reaping the benefits of my own commodity. I’m instead producing excessive amounts on Content™ for WordPress and then sharing it on X (formally known as ‘X formally known as Twitter’) so it can be a small piece of those companies’ endless churn of millisecond flashes of dopamine hits. And then the lines of code scrolling past people’s eyes on the screen are commodified and sold to advertisers as proof of ‘engagement’. But only after these people have logged into the site using their name, address, phone number, bra size and blood type, ensuring that their very existence as a statistic can be commodified and sold to people who need to know the exact sample size of people worth advertising their new bracelet that’s designed to work well with a AB RhD positive blood type, as it cascades across it from a slice made on the wrist. It’s fucked up, is what I’m saying.
You can make a lot of easy assumptions about people based on their feelings toward Psalm One.
Not in the sense of whether they like her or not – ain’t nobody not liking Psalm One! It’s psychologically impossible – more in the sense that they’re likely to give one of two answers.
Either they’ll say “Ermagod! I love her so much! She’s been one of the most notable underground hip-hop acts of the 21st century! More than two decades of critically adored music while being one of the genre’s most central voices on the experiences of a queer person’s struggles with the industry/world’s patriarchy! Her Twitter bio describes her as a ‘National Hip-Hop Treasure’ and, folks, where’s the lie?? Most importantly though, the woman drops banger after banger after banger after banger!”
So, yeah, first of all this achievement is out of the window, so I’m naturally a bit bitter about that.
But I had to really slow down and take stock as I entered the top five, as these five records are so close together in terms of absolute genital bursting incredible quality that I felt I needed to take a step back and really evaluate the order that I’d placed them in. Despite what that insolent little prick Shawn might say, this is important. Also, I really didn’t want my number one album to still be number one, for reasons that will become clear.
Necessary Evil 