I can see how an artist can get tainted, frustrated
Angel
They don’t care if your mental is on the brink of somethin’ dark
As long as your cuttin’ somebody’s pay slip
And sendin’ their kids to private school in a spaceship
Yeah, I refuse to be on a slave ship
Give me all my masters and lower your wages
I was born an open wound that only suicide could sow up
33 & golden
But I refuse that healing thread, I wanted God to look at us
And she whispers you sweet nothings, you hope it’s true enough
To keep you here ’til you give yourself up
Do you know what happens when you open an album with a line of delicious ideation like “I was born an open wound that suicide could sow up”? Do you know what door you prise open when you begin your album career with such a beautifully nihilistic suggestion like that? Do you know what you get if you awaken my never fully dormant but always pathetic Richey Edwards fandom??
You get what you deserve.
Which is my attention.
DOCTOR, DOCTOR, HAVE MERCY ON ME, TAKE THIS PAIN AWAY
The Soviets were completely convinced that “Able Archer” was the cover for a real nuclear strike. They believed that starting from this maneuver a strike aimed at decapitating the command, control and communication centers of the Soviet army, the state apparatus and the party apparatus would be carried out with the help of the new ultra-modern and precise tactical nuclear missiles, Pershing II and cruise missiles for which you had a warning time of only five to eight minutes. With these rockets, the criminal gang in the Pentagon hoped to decapitate the Soviet army, so that they — a quote that I myself have heard — “would run around the farmhouse like a chicken with its head cut off.”
Rainer Rupp
I mean, yeah, sure, you had the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and that was a whole thing, but honestly the Cold War kind of chilled out for a long time after that. The USA and USSR hardly kissed on the mouth afterwards, but they at least came to the conclusion that they should probably take actual nuclear war and guaranteed world destruction off the table for a while. There were still working people attempting to build some sort of Communism all over the world of course, and the USA trying to support the ruling classes to beat these people down – in Angola, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent Bangladesh and Ethiopia – but the world’s two biggest swinging dicks at least agreed to maybe not spray both of their piss in every direction with such ferocity that it ended all human life. That would, they both agreed, really stink.
Then – whoop-de-fucking-doo – Thatcher and Reagan were elected in 1979 and 1980. They were both united in their shared belief that they were tired of this hippy bullshit. They also both agreed that having to consider workers rights and public welfare to make sure their populations didn’t look too longingly over to the Soviet Union was a lot of work. It also required a high tax rate for the rich. And they thought fuck that. What if, yeah – here me out, OK? – we just stopped caring for 90% of our own citizens, tell them that the real enemy is the ‘Evil Empire’ of the USSR, cut all taxes for rich people so the ruling class has reason to support us, and be done with nearly all public spending apart from shit loads of fucking rockets and shit that we’ll obviously need to protect ourselves against the ‘Evil Empire’? Cool? Cool.
‘CAUSE I DON’T WANNA FEEL HOW I DID LAST NIGHT
When am I gonna stop being wise beyond my years and just start being wise?
Teenage Dream
When am I gonna stop being a pretty young thing to guys?
When am I gonna stop being great for my age and just start being good?
When will it stop being cool to be quietly misunderstood?
OK, I’m going to suggest something pretty revolutionary now. No, way more revolutionary than just replacing capitalism with a socially owned system that benefits the working class through their ownership of the means of production. That’s nothing. That’s just, like, the base level sentiment that I hope is evident in every single thing I write. That’s not even revolutionary. It’s scientifically proven and inevitable. Join the Communist Party, you cowards.
So that’s all facts. #Facts, as the kids on X say. Formally known as the kids on Twitter. What I’m about to suggest? You freaks ain’t even gonna be able to see the box anymore considering how far out of it you’re about to be thinking. Stick this in your mind microwave and I promise you one thing: shit’s gonna melt. I’m suggesting that we sit back for a second and consider something far, far, far more mind-blowing and world changing than merely Marx’s recognition of the capitalistic mode of production and his employment of historical materialism:
DRUNK CALLs, DRUNK TEXTS, DRUNK TEARS, DRUNK SEX
Fucking yes! Fucking yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Three and a half fucking years I’ve held on to this screenshot!
People laughed at me when I saved that Tweet from 2020. Laughed at me! Of course, back then it had only been two years since the release of their incredible debut album ‘what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way other people see you*’, a furious and intoxicating powder keg of intense self-hatred infectiously narrated. All us ‘Bedheads’ ate it the fuck up, because we are all reprehensible vultures. We had tasted the blood of Shannon Taylor as they eviscerated themselves for our entertainment, greedily sucking it down as they slit their wrists above our mouths and let it flow so beautifully down our gullets. Yum yum yum yum. Please, Mommy, can we have some more?
IN FACT, I DON’T WANNA FEEL, SO I STICK TO SIPPIN’
Around twenty years after its conclusion, the original Matrix trilogy has proven to be culturally enduring. Perhaps because now it’s pretty universally accepted as a clear allegory for the alienating forces of capitalism/the experiences of being transgender/how the pernicious illusion of how gynecocracy and feminism subjugates men/the Jewish people returning to Israel/reaffirming white supremacy in the face of multiculturalism/the New Testament/a story told in reverse about a guy who stops taking drugs and gets a job, and I’m not going to debate that here, that particular mystery is now solved. We’ll just conclude that when you make a movie about some tech bro with no friends who feels alone and alienated, a lot of people online are going to relate with it. And, come on, it’s actually a very broad story and set-up that you can basically bring whatever you want to.
But I’m not here to talk about gay shit like allegories. I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards. Can we all shuffle out of our Media Studies group wank for one second and just look at the actual film? Personally, I believe that all the films are about people with trenchcoats shooting shit up, which was extremely popular in 1999. Please, I beg of you, insert a bit of wider historical context into your media literacy. I’m joking, of course: if the Matrix was in anyway tied to US school shootings then we’d be getting more than twenty Matrix movies a year! And if the country were getting that many Matrix movies I’m sure the US government would declare a state of national emergency and quickly enact some sweeping and radical changes. I mean, twenty Matrix movies a year?? That’s just unthinkable! Imagine how broken and sick a society needs to be to allow that to happen?
A LITTLE CONTEXT IF YOU CARE TO LISTEN
Once or twice I prayed to Jesus
Never heard a word back in plain English
More like signs or advertisements
Telling me to be keep consumerising
The Fields
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.
I MET HIM AT THE BAR, IT WAS 12 OR SOMETHIN’
You know it’s all about that boom! Legit Bosses, baybay!*
(*yeah, that song isn’t actually included. It’ll be on Legit Bosses 2022 though! I’m just a bit slow with these things…)
So, only 121 this year, a marked decline on 2020’s 125. So was it a notably worse year? Absolutely chuffing not. Despite the 2.928% drop in numbers, the quality on show is outstanding. Never mind the weight, feel the quality. The top maybe twenty songs especially are on some next level shit, and you haven’t seen so many GOATs since you traumatically happened upon Weird Uncle Colin’s problematic porn collection back in 92. I also shaved a few songs last minute, mainly because they were from albums due to be released in 2022 and I decided to make them Next Year Alex’s problem. Also, one or two I realised… weren’t… actually… that… good… So that just means the 121 that made the cut are all of such spectacular quality that you may want to warn the people around you before you start reading this list, as the floor between your legs is about to get soaked.
No, no, hey, maybe it’s you that’s too gross, ever considered that??
Anyway, let the festivities begin, here are the playlists:
Continue reading “Legit Bosses: 2021’s 121 Greatest Songs”
This is like.. and it sounds so stupid but it’s genuinely something that me and my friends actually do
If we are approached by a group of men we will bark, like dogs
And people always laugh and they’re like “Ha ha, that’s so funny” (It’s actually really good)
But there is… there is nothing that terrifies a man more than a woman that appears completely deranged
Woman sampled at the start of I’m Fine
Self Esteem’s Rebecca Louise Taylor will not… Oh, I’m sorry, they hadn’t finished…
Roaw! Roaw! Rrrrrow-oooh!
Is that a woman making that noise?? Is it Rebecca?? It really sounds like a dog. Kudos to whomever makes those barks. Especially if it’s actually a dog, because dogs always deserve kudos
Sorry about that. As I was saying, Self Esteem’s Rebecca Louise Taylor will not rein in her need to be completely free, even if that freedom needs to occasionally be protected by imitating a pack of dogs while out with her friends. When men talk about protecting our freedoms, it’s generally concerned with not being forced to choose ‘English’ as our language when using ATMs or having to wear dirty Communist masks to stop people dying of an infectious disease (which is exactly the same as fucking Hitler by the way! The Nazis was all about mildly inconveniencing people in order to save lives! Wake up sheeple!). When women in 2021* talk about protecting their freedom, they generally mean having to go out of their way to protect their freedom to exist, to protect their freedom of their own agency, protect their freedom to, y’know, live, when roughly 50% of the population are the people who have shown time and time again how much they hate you and would happily rape and murder you. Oh, and I guess if you’re a man – especially in countries that generally have a more laissez faire attitude over killing machines, our freedom also includes the right to kill other people. Maybe women, I dunno, stop trying to politicise my bloodlust!!
Right, holy shit, so am I actually doing this…?
The Manic Street Preachers are the greatest rock band ever. That’s not an opinion, it’s a conclusion that I’ve reached and am now saying it loudly and not listening to any dissenting voices, which in 2021 counts as a ‘fact’.
Their greatness is… complicated… and not easy to explain in a simple intro to a blog post… These 100 tracks aren’t necessarily the greatest songs ever. Even as a pathetically dedicated Manics stan*, even I would argue that they’ve only ever released one indisputable, stone cold classic record from front to back (see if you can guess which one after you read the list!). They may have supernatural control over melodies and how best to ensure a chorus hits just there, but at the end of the day they’re just a rock band. They have never really challenged the very boundaries of music, never pushed things forward or necessarily introduced anything new sonically. I would argue that only one of their albums is truly challenging and experimental, rather than just being a break from what the band usually produce (yeah, it’s the same album…). I mean, Jesus, they once shamelessly released a song including the lyric “The world is full of refugees/They’re just like you and just like me“. That’s unforgivably bad, isn’t it? They can’t come back from that, artistically.
(*I may occasionally use cool, groovy, young person lingo like ‘stan’ so you think I’m a hip young gunslinger. Not, y’know, old enough to be a Manics fan)
I’m not able to explain their magic here, but over the next one hundred (!) entries you’ll hopefully all have a better idea. It’s not as dominated by the 90’s as I was worried it might be, and every album is represented (apart from one. Because their tenth album is worse than Hitler). I’ve been wanting to find the time to do this for ages, partially inspired by the great What is Music podcast covering their entire discography and reminding me of how many big veiny stonkers this band had bulging out of their collective musical swimming trunks. They’re talking about Muse on that podcast now, a band for morons, so you only need to listen to the last season. My major blind spot is I don’t think they’ve done a decent b-side since 2001. Now, I’m sure I’m wrong, so please correct my ignorance in the comments. Tell me how wrong I am. Post your top tens. Your top hundreds. The Manic Street Preachers’ fan community is one of the greatest in the world, and no other band are as connected with their fanbase and feed off their adoration as much as The Manics. So let’s celebrate that by calling me a fat slut in the comments because I didn’t choose Little Baby Nothing.
If you don’t have time for such nonsense, here’s the Spotify playlist and here’s all the songs in order on YouTube.
And, er, you might wanna bookmark this page – motherfucker’s gonna be long. Your next 500 trips to the toilet are sorted.
Continue reading “Love Their Mess and Adore Their Failures: Manic Street Preachers’ 100 Greatest Songs”
Necessary Evil 