We used to be human but now
We are resin
We are powder
Scattered all over
Touch
Touch and get burnt
Get moved
Some people bring happiness by arriving; others by leaving — and a few only by dying
I still haven’t decided how glad I am that Charlie Kirk got shot.
As a wrestling fan, I do appreciate him wearing white knowing that he was going to get colour, but that is a completely separate thing.
I told you I was going to talk about this, don’t act all surprised
Protest with love, baby
Clap your hands
Stomp your feet
And if you want to
You can shout Hallelujah
We found love
We found love
We found love
Protest with love
Protest with love
Should we, though? When we are combatting forces so lacking in love, so bereft of humanity, is there really a benefit to having ‘love’ on your side? Will the oppressors eventually down their arms with a shrug, saying “Fair enough, they’ve been the better person here, played an absolute blinder, have to admit when you’ve been morally beaten, fair’s fair”? My first reaction to someone enthusing that we “Protest with love” is picturing those fucking Portland, USA gimps wearing unicorn and frog fancy dress costumes to somehow protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Fucking liberals! If you’ve bought into the propaganda about politics being a binary choice, and you see one side acting like that?? Whooo! Trump 2028 baby! USA! USA! USA! Seriously, I know next to nothing about Portland, but I know that I fucking hate it!
Another reading to the song would be to protest with love in our heart. Which, fine, listen up liberals, I kinda agree. I would never phrase it like that, because that sounds gay as hell, but I can at least understand the feeling in a certain sense. Again, if you truly believe that politics is a binary made up completely of the right and liberalism (which is centrist, swinging to centre right when capital is threatened) then sure, yeah, whatever, speak of the benefits of your own side rather than just complain about the other. That Blue Sky Heroine Kamala Harris lost an election because her only policy was “I’m not Donald Trump”. The deteriorating shell of the Labour Party currently in power in the UK have only ever used the fact that they’re not the Tories/Reform as a potential vote winner, all the while pushing policies that both of those right wing loony bins might balk at for being “A little too racist“. ‘Not being the other ones’ only really works for the people who were always going to support you, probably because their Dad did and they think politics is like supporting a fucking football team.
Kings in the Jungle, Slaves in the Field
Incredibly, implausibly and – let’s face it – improbably, Marina Diamandis is still duking it out on the Necessary Evil countdown.
This was going to be it: This was going to be the year that an artist that had become a feature of this annual countdown since almost its inception finally fell off the list. An artist that first burst into my consciousness in 2009 with the almost impossibly good debut hat-trick of singles (The outstanding Obsessions!! The immaculate I’m Not a Robot!! The mmmmm-decent Mowgli’s Road!!) that I was even moved to declare them an “Almost impossibly good debut trio of singles from the Welsh/Greek singer who seems all set to become Britain’s most interesting pop star when her (inevitably crushingly disappointing) debut album is released early in 2010”,.
I’m vulnerable so vulnerable
Listen, I messed up.
‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess‘ was one of the biggest and most talked about albums of 2024, even if it was originally released back in September 2023 and had songs on it that originally came out in early 2022. I was on it no earlier than The Normies, unfortunately, with their NPR Tiny Desk Concert in early 2024 probably being the first I’d heard of them (and initially, probably intentionally on their part, assuming that they were a man in drag). I was all ready to throw my hands up, admit to how lamely out of touch I was (on occasion!) and include it amongst the best albums of 2024 like I was some lamestream media mark like Time Out. I had initially placed it around 23rd, and it was only when I was planning my next piece after the Danny Brown review and listening to the album again that I realised “Shit, this album’s way better than this!”. I moved it to #15, but then I relistened to it again after writing my Magdalena Bay post that I realised “Shit, this album’s way better than even this!” I finally settled on it being number 6. However, I’m here to tell you that it’s now been removed from the list.
Maria Maher Yahya Al-Sikk
I, I, I am waiting on the other side, sigh
Looked out into everything and I lie
Tell myself it’s nothing, when it’s quite right
Everything grows, everything growsI, I, I am watching, I am waiting
I, I, I am waiting, I’m not breaking
I lie, tell myself it’s okay, when it’s not quite
Everything grows stronger in the light
‘People Who Aren’t There Anymore’?? Sounds like Twitter these days, ammi right?? Aaaaaaaaah, hahahaha.
So we’re all supposed to go to Bluesky now. The US election (which I’ll get back to talking about later on this countdown) was the final straw for millions of people, where Elon Musk became one of the biggest examples of someone taking their divorce so badly that they ushered in fascism since Benito Mussolini fractious split with Jelena Lewitzki in the early 1920s. Musk had already spent the previous couple of years laughably and repeatedly showing his pasty weird shaped arse to the world since buying the company – which had never really previously made a profit – for a hilariously and stupidly inflated $44 million, and this new exodus is just the latest rat to scurry off a ship being absolutely tanked by its owner’s incompetence. Elon still has his admirers among the clinically stupid, but that just shows you how, if you’re brought up to be a bootlicker, no amount of evidence is going to convince you that a significantly richer person isn’t naturally better than you and deserves to be admired.
Noura Walid Abdulsalam Shaheen
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
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
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?
Did you get that? ‘Flipping’, yeah? As in, the PG-friendly expression of mild annoyance you use when your whole body wants to say ‘fucking’ but you remember at the last minute that this is the only hour this month that the court says you’re allowed to talk to your three toddler aged children. But also, like, the review of the flipping flippy dippy wrestlers flipping themselves around? Yeah? Fucking genius. You bunch of cunts. No, please don’t take my kids away again, I promise I’ll behave!
Right no more bloviating this time. Quick recap of part 1:
[EDIT: I started writing this on Saturday the 2nd September. That night, or perhaps early Sunday morning, a new part to this story was added which is now going to require some furious editing:
Wish me luck]
Right, we’re all on the same page now.
just saved you reading about 4000 words. you’re welcome
Holy shit! Happy birthday ‘Electra Heart’!
NE2022 enters into a strange ‘rerelease zone’ for these next three entries. I can’t remember if I did this intentionally. It’s difficult to consider ‘classic’ albums alongside newer material. You need to balance out any nostalgia and the unfair ten year start that some records have had to burrow into your subconscious. Yet you don’t want to go too far the other way, and fail to remember the original spark and energy that was originally locked within a song you’ve heard fifteen thousand fucking times already. You can’t give too much weight to cultural importance… but you certainly can’t just blindly ignore it. It’s an extremely complicated equation that I honestly don’t believe anyone reading this will be intelligent enough to fully grasp. Or, I just realised there were a lot of amazing rereleases this year and didn’t want them all clogging up the top ten, so parked them all just outside. Two releases still escaped and made the top ten. There are five records in the top 15 that weren’t released in 2022. Shut up. Ah do warra want!
YOU DON’T LOVE ME? BIG FUCKING DEAL
Necessary Evil 