Tag: Beyoncé

38 Clipping: Dead Channel Sky

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

opening line of William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer’

C-c-c-c-c-c-c-cyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyberpuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu̸̖̬͑͑u̴͇̍̌͂ů̵̢̼̳u̷̮͑ů̵͖u̶͉̐̒u̸͙̱̾ṵ̵́͗̚u̶͕͙̽̑͝ṷ̸͓͌ṳ̶͉̊̈̓ụ̵̢̃u̶̗͋͘u̶̡̗͊̍̇n̴̫͕͆k̴̢̃͘!̶͇̭̹̎!̵̨̭̬̀͐!̴̲̙̂͝

*start up modem noises*

Aw, dude, in the future you’ll be forced to eat algorithms, which will be injected straight into your anterior insula and be called “structuralising the framework”. You’ll be able to choose your newborn baby’s sex, race, Twitter handle and initial .README file, and births will instead be called “Day One Updates”. And these day one updates won’t come out your fanny like before, they’ll be shared through ethernet cables and your happy day will be marked by receiving a Steam download key. And and and and and people won’t even have sex anymore, they’ll just… like… merge their Javascripts or some shit. You want to do some shopping? Club Penguin. File your taxes? Club Penguin. Carry out a terrorist attack? Club Penguin. We may currently live in the age of ‘Everything Computer‘, but the future will be Everything Club Penguin. Billy Idol tried to warn us but we didn’t want to listen.

Like a shock to the system

Staturday Night Fever: The Best Music of 2024 In Numbers

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Have I done that pun yet? Mate, I am struggling, honestly…

So here we are again, a round up of the hot stats of the best albums and songs of 2024, which I have bizarrely fallen into the habit of doing doing eleven fucking months after the Necessary Evil list of the best albums and songs of the year is actually published. Why do I always leave it this long? Because, quite simply, after writing 40+ blog posts and a gargantuan song list in little over a month, my brain seriously doesn’t want to even acknowledge the previous year’s music again for at least a thousand years.

I almost didn’t do it this year. But – but! – then I realised that 2025’s list might have some extremely notable points! So maybe I’ll retire this dumb fucking tradition once I get round to that in winter 2026. Until then? Yeah, we gotta do this.

I do like making these purdy pictures though…

Stats in the cradle and a silver spoon

#8 JPEGMAFIA: I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Ebrahim Raisi in the heli’, feelin’ foggy
Money, money, money, it made me feel like I’m targeted
Blowing up like I’m IDF, Netty warrants ain’t stoppin’ shit
Is you Harvey, Jeffrey, R. Kelly, or is you opposite?
Say that shit, say that shit
Say that shit, say that shit

Exmilitary

Despite the arrest warrants, the IDF is likely to keep getting away with its atrocious horrors while they still have support of the world’s most powerful people, similar to Harvey Weinstein, Jeffery Epstein and R Kelly. Maybe that should be the last word on the Gaza Genocide?

Except it obviously isn’t going to be – wait until you see what album is in 5th place!

Nisreen Mohammed Mohammed Al-Najjar

#31 Beyoncé: Cowboy Carter

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Looka there, liquor in my hand
The grandbaby of a moonshine man
Gadsden, Alabama
Got folk down Gavelston, rooted in Louisiana
They used to say I spoke too country
Then the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ‘nough
Said I wouldn’t saddle up, but
If that ain’t country, tell me, what is?

American Requiem

I’m going to say this right out the bat, less you start reading this under false expectations: I do not give one shiny shit about what fucking genre of music you say you’re a part of. This is Beyoncé’s country album. Is it real country though?? Well, she’s wearing a cowboy hat on the cover and she mentions whiskey a lot. The title of the album has the word ‘cowboy’ in it, for fuck’s FFS! What more do you people want??

“Pew pew pew!”

Listen, do you know which comedy series now holds the record for most Emmy wins? The fucking Bear! Have you seen that show? It’s 30 minutes of stressed Catholic Americans shouting “BEHIND!” at each other and having emotional breakdowns to the soundtrack of 90’s REM songs. I think that show has had about two jokes in its entire run so far. Well, ‘Cowboy Carter’ features Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus – literally the only three country singers I could name and the three undisputed geniuses of the genre – so by my maths it’s at least 50% more of a country album that The fucking Bear is a comedy show. Case closed, move on everyone.

‘Abd a-Rahman Mahmoud ‘Abd al-Fatah ‘Abd a-Nabi

Necessary Evil 24: The Biggest List Under the Sun

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Bumpin’ that bumpin’ that bumpin’ that…

Yeah, we’re back, so fuck me I guess?

The 16th year end Necessary Evil list of the year’s objectively and scientifically proven greatest music is a notable event for a few reasons. Firstly, it will be the first time I’ll be writing a list of year’s best bops and slaps that played out to a full twelve months of genocide. Like, the whole year. When I wrote last year’s list, it was only to the backdrop of a tiny bit of genocide that covered the last couple of months of the year. And who really pays attention in those winter months? Too busy thinking about Christmas, right? A couple of years back, for example, my housemate Darren engaged in the systematic and targeted slaughter of more than two dozen woman and children in those early December weeks, and I just didn’t notice because I spent the whole time trying to untangle the Christmas lights. Don’t worry, it happens, I get it.

Hajar Khalil Salah al-Bahtini

Necessary Evil 2023 Part I: A Child of Fire

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

We back, yo. Yeah, another one.

One day I’ll stop doing this countdown. I’ll just have to. It’s been going since 2007. This is the fifteenth year I’ve ranked. The tenth on this blog. There have been 694 posts. Most chillingly, my blog posts have been shared on LinkedIn six thousand times. That really makes you think, doesn’t it? A decent amount of people read my year end lists, but it far from justifies the amount of hard work I do on them, or the fact that I sacrifice my Christmas every year just to write them. Do I enjoy doing this? Does it bring me any sort of validation.? I don’t have a therapist, so who knows? And I partially think that all the therapy worship is some elitist bullshit that fails to appreciate how most people have neither the time nor the money to seriously pursue it. And anyway, therapy is largely about medicalise a social issue. And I’m not convinced depression exists. It’s simply a rational response to capitalism that society demands is dampened. “Men will attempt to overthrow imperialist class structures before they go to therapy”. Yes. At least, hopefully.

And you want me to ask a therapist about why I write this dumb blog that nobody reads?? Pandora’s Box up there mate, trust me.

SLEAZIN’ AND TEASIN’ I’m SITTIN’ ON HIM