17 Moses Sumney: Aromanticism

Moses Sumney Makes My Nose’s Bum Wee

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Music journalism is such bullshit, isn’t it?

I mean, sure, write an incisive piece of what the success of From Earth With Love unexpectedly meant for the people of Lappeenranta, Finland in 1997. That probably comes close enough to proper journalism for the other writers at your office not to laugh at you and flick bogeys at you when you’re trying to eat your dinner.

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Or maybe just write gushing pieces about how The Rolling Stones used to make 14 year old groupies eat their own faeces while they pissed on them and hi-fived, before pushing the young groupie so hard against the floor that she couldn’t breathe- choking in the mixture of piss, shit and blood from her nose that broke in the collision with the floor- and then all did lines of cocaine off her back. God, there used to be proper rock stars back in the day, didn’t they?? How often do you think frickin’ Twenty One Pilots do that?? The pussies wouldn’t have the stomachs! I mean, that groupie almost definitely didn’t die, did she?

You can only interview bands that you think are great and that we’d enjoy listening to. Perhaps their story will put their music in sufficient context for us to properly appreciate the songs? Don’t interview a band you hate and tell them how shit they are: you are not Lestor Bangs blowing the fucking minds off some sheltered faux superstars, blinded by the shining of the walls of their ivory towers, you’re just a prick who’s really irritating Snow Patrol. These artists are clever enough to understand how life isn’t a zero sum game, they are aware that some people don’t like their music, but they’ve decided to cater to those that do, those that have been throwing money at the band for years, people who had their first wedding dance to Chasing Cars.

Yes, these people are fucking idiots, but part of growing up is recognising that telling idiots that they’re idiots is not an honourable pursuit. However, me telling you that you’re a pathetic edgelord dingus is entirely necessary.

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18 Charli XCX: No.1 Angel

Celestial Incompetence

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Remember when I said that EMA was definitely the coolest person in the world? Then maybe you’ll also remember my boring and boorish balderdash about how important it is to always change your mind? Maybe you’ve read the former entry, but not the latter, so consider me an outrageous hypocrite? Perhaps you’ve read the latter but not the former, and will let the upcoming comment slide by without comment? Most probably, you’ve read neither, and are currently just massively confused by this ridiculously overinflated introduction? Don’t worry, the subeditor will remove this paragraph in the edit

Charli XCX is definitely the coolest person in the world. She’s a pop artist who knows exactly how a pop artist should look, act and sound. She writes some of the most perfect pop of the 21st century (occasionally leaving her songs unattended and letting lesser artists pilfer them), but also pop that sounds like it should exist in the 21st century.  She manages to subvert pop’s tropes and expectations with every song, while never once paying the genre anything less than the upmost respect. Even more cooly, she’s smart enough to know that such a mammoth task of pop revolution through disruption could never be a one person job. So she’s always eager to use her records as presentations of some of the best and more outlandish ‘pop’ from the genre’s less appreciated corners. On this ‘mixtape’ alone we’re introduced to notable names that might have otherwise passed us by, Starrah, Raye, the unGoogleable … My attention was first brought to the fascinating story of Uffie, and I was at one point even considered the Cuppcake album for NE2017 (but… wow… I mean, I’m no prude, but… does she kiss he gimp with that mouth??)

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(and here’s proof of how much I love her)

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19 Protomartyr: Relatives in Descent

Father in Distress

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I was never a fan of The Fall. I mean, sure, I didn’t hate them, I didn’t even dislike them: I was quite content with allowing their existence to continue. I once told this to Mark E Smith directly, when I met him while he was rifling through the tip at the end of my road looking for his other sock, which he mistakenly threw out the week before.

He replied as follows:

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and then ran off. I was glad that he appreciated my point of view, though it was always a shame I never got the chance to question him on some of the legitimate issues he brought up with my statement.

I am and always have been (and always will be), of course, aware of what’s hip and groovy. I know how The Fall are one of the most certifiably and officially cool bands to be a fan of. I know how professing your fandom for them immediately bestows upon you a veneer of high culture that automatically makes your opinion of culture far more worthwhile than everyone around you. Upon declaring that you’re a fan of The Fall every wannabe cool man, woman and child in audible proximity will immediately throw off all their clothes and rub their genitals up and down your leg. You are their new God. You are just so freaking coooooool!!

(How angry do you think Stewart Lee must be that Frank Skinner is the other most notable (living) Fall fan? He’s no way near as cool as me!!! Though, Skinner did tell a story about how he was set to interview Mark E Smith for some magazine article. Smith eventually barrelled into the interview three hours after arranged and said “Sorry I’m late, Stewart”. So I guess Lee kinda wins in the end)

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24 Waxahatchee: Out In the Storm

Love is Undefinable

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“See, I always gravitate toward
Those who are unimpressed
I saw you as a big fish
I saw you as a conquest”

It would have been late 2010. I had spent the day drinking, because in 2010 my only three states were

  1. Drinking in order to get drunk
  2. Drunk, and drinking in order to get more drunk
  3. Asleep, possibly passed out after drinking

Now it was late at night at the choice of pubs in Dushanzi were extremely limited. Sean suggested we get a taxi to nearby Kuitun and go to a club. I was still in my 20s, so going to a club didn’t automatically seem like the most horrendous idea in the world. And I was drunk, so going to a club seemed like the most awesome idea in the world.

We jumped in a taxi, we got to the pub, we ordered a bottle of vodka for about £10 to exhibit to the rest of the club quite how big a deal we were. And we danced, convinced that we were the coolest fuckers these people had ever seen!

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27 Spoon: Hot Thoughts

Appropriate Spooning

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Do I have to talk you into it?
Do we have to make sense of it?
They say I better seal you up in wax
So that you’re never gonna bite me back

Call me a Social Justice Cluck Snowflake (#SJCS), but I’m generally in favour of this current fad of reframing the way we view women. Apparently, females aren’t always happy with us men waving our willies in their direction, and are not actually secretly begging to be fucked roughly and painfully 24 hours of the day. You know how you’ve been taught in every movie, song and university lecture that a woman would be guaranteed to fuck you as a ‘reward’ for any achievement you manage to unlock, and even every time you exhibit the bare minimum of human decency? Like, that time you let Stacey borrow your pencil and spent the rest of your life resenting the slut because she never even gave you a quick hand shandy in thanks? You know all the women who owe you sex for various different reasons? Yeah, turns out they don’t. Actually, some scientists have posited the theory that women are actual human beings who might be full of all sorts of complex thoughts and emotions, barely any of them involving your penis.

Like, they’re usually about ponies and makeup and periods, but the important thing is they are rarely about your penis. Rarely about your specific penis.

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(… I have long made my heteronormative peace with Bret Hart)

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28 Blanck Mass: World Eater

Eater of Worlds Secretly Cuddles Teddy Bears

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Stewart Lee apparently likes to ensure his tour posters always contain the absolute worst reviews his act receives (mostly, it has to be said, culled from the Daily Mail). So if you were to see his latest tour advertised at your local ballroom, you wouldn’t just see the usual praise emblazoned across his photoshopped visage- not just the ‘Top of his game!’: Guardian, or ‘A melting chucklepot full of witty grits!’: Evening Standard, or ‘Blimey, he’s so much more clever than me!’: Independent- but also some of the kickings he receives that arrive chiefly from the other wing:

  • ‘Is the joke that it’s not remotely funny’                                      Daily Express
  • ‘We get it, Stew: you’re far more intelligent than us and by including such scathing reviews from the right wing press you’re attempting to draw concrete lines between you and ‘them’, and you’re intent on making your whole act about how much better you- and the audience smart enough to hear your dog whistle poster- are than the scum who read the Daily Mail and voted Brexit, and how the most important thing to do now is create unbreakable barriers between the two sides and create eternal disarray among the human race, we get it! Can we have our money back now?’                                                                         The Sun
  • ‘Was he always that fat? He definitely didn’t used to be that fat, did he?’

The Daily Mail

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29 Future: Future

Emptiness, Nihilism, Emptiness

No artist on this list (few that you’ll encounter on any of the lists I produce once a year by screaming at the unfairness of life and smashing my tearing ducts against the keyboard) have taken me quite as much time to truly understand than Future. Now way near as much time.

Firstly, Future (real name ‘Marty McFly’, so he thought he best play up to the assumptions of time travel) is simply extremely difficult to keep track of: he releases albums and mixtapes at roughly the same rate that you might decide it’s time to buy new shower gel. He released two albums this year, and I had to decide to cull ‘Hndrxx’ from NE2017 when it became clear space was premium, and I had to start considering proper vowel usage as a prerequisite. His 2016 mixtape ‘Purple Reign’ was also unlucky not to make the cut (kayfabe) last year (sadly, due to its obvious play to my affections). He even released another mixtape in late 2017, which, I mean, come on Future, give a guy a break!

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32 Jay-Zed: 4:44

Poking a Hornets Nest for 444 Word

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“OJ like: ‘I’m not black I’m OJ’/OK…’

Firstly, if you even mention the OJ Simpson case to me, you automatically have my full attention. Ever since I watched the astonishing ‘OJ: Made in America’ documentary (kayfabe) last year In have come to realise that the story of the trial is in fact the most important news story in America in the latter half of the 20th century*, narrowly beating Fabio getting hit by a goose in 1999 whilst on a rollercoaster at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg (I cannot stop referencing that incident). This is chiefly because I finally realised why he was nicknamed ‘The Juice’, and concluded that’s definitely the best nickname ever (again, narrowly beating Fabio, whose nickname later became ‘The Goose’). I have seriously watched the entire season maybe 10 times, and if I ever learned of a cinema showing its full 467 minutes run time in one sitting (which has been done in the past) I would run there faster than The Juice himself running to score a lineback overtime dunk (I’m still not sure what sport he played) or, if you prefer your similes to be a little fruitier, I would run there faster that OJ Simpson ran from [DELETED ON LEGAL ADVICE] after he [DELETED ON LEGAL ADVICE] in his [DELETED ON DATED REFERENCE ADVICE]. Ooooooh, you’re a saucy one, Alex!

The line at the top of this ‘review’ is from the man himself and quoted in one of many album highlights The Story of OJ

The thing is…

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#ClickBait (wait, is that one word…?)

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