Tag: everything everything

Best Albums of 2013: Necessary Evil’s Chris Benoit

~ Lex Leeson ~ 74 Comments

I’ve tried to put this off for a long time: the 2013 best albums list that I originally emailed off to ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ around Christmas that year is the final collection to be posted onto the webisphere and officially archived. I considered never doing it, denying its existence and never admitting to the shameful mistakes it contains. However, when I write my NE2017 list (soon, I promise) I want to make a point of referring to artists’ past entries in the Necessary Evil Blogging Universe (NEBU), so I’ve relented and made it available to read.

I was mainly worried about two things: firstly, I spent 6 months of 2013 in hospital, occasionally politely coughing and making my existence known to death’s door, so the fact that I managed to still mash out a top 50 at year’s end- while being an astonishing achievement warranting some achievements in disability award- makes me assume that a large portion of it will be unreadable madness.

Yes, very funny: more so than usual

Secondly, Arctic Monkey’s award for best album was soon revoked in light of their tax dodging selfishness, and the records for 2013 now show Hjaltalin’s astonishing ‘Enter 4′ as the greatest album, as despite it only finishing 5th in this initial list, by the time Arctic Monkey’s were stripped of the award it had grown into my favourite release of the year. Arctic Monkey’s win in 2013 is now viewed in the Necessary Evil Online Community (NEOC) with the same divisiveness as Benoit’s Wrestlemania 20 Heavyweight Championship win, and doubtless the posting of this list will be viewed as an extremely controversial move by victims of the Arctic Monkeys’ crimes. I apologise for any offence caused, but you must understand the importance of establising the legitimacy of NEBU.

So, I re-read the list for the first time in years and…

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It’s…

…

…

…not bad. Not bad at all. In fact, I’d say that 2013 might contain some of my best and most incisive actual music writing, and I didn’t cringe nearly as much as I feared. Jesus, some of the entries (The Strokes, Arcade Fire, Kanye West…) are some of the best normal writing I’ve ever done! From death to coherence: I’m such a fucking inspirational figure

It’s far from perfect- I make a quip about Bowie not dying, I’m a little too subtly sexist in my Haim review, Steve Mason is number fucking two…- but I’m not completely overwhelmed by shame posting them

Also: Daft Punk are only no.42, Vampire Weekend 34, that’s pretty gangsta…

NE2017 soon, I promise

I love you all

Except you…

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27: Everything Everything: Get To Heaven

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Have Everything Everything ‘broke through’ with this album? It’s hard to tell. I went to those teens on the corner and asked them but they only scoffed and called me ‘grandfather testicles’ while pointing out that that kids these days unanimously agree that youth culture reached a zenith in 1994 with Shampoo’s ‘Trouble‘ and famous teenage scientists who have their own YouTube channel and everything have instructed all teenagers to give up on pop music as it was now a dead art form akin to needlepoint tributes to the Osmonds. So that was me told…

‘Get…’ has been sold by some reviewers as a monumental step up in quality for the band, but it’s not really massively superior to 2013’s ‘Arc’ (which certainly isn’t a bad thing at all, no siree, nope, not at all), however while that last album was more a hopeless whimper directed at life’s little insurmountable tasks of tedium, ‘Get…’ is a BIG and impassioned cry over the very state of humanity itself, taking stops off to comment on the rise of ISIS and the wet fart of the 2015 General Election. Sure, it’s essentially four middle class white boys complaining about life’s difficulties but at least it’s something, it’s always so refreshing to see the almost critically insular world of indie rock at least take a peer out of the window occasionally. It’s extremely gratifying to hear EE’s sound (a mishmash of countless influences) blossoming into something that now sounds rather unique to the band: you couldn’t really imagine any other indie (if EE even still deserve to be tagged so) band launching their big comeback with a song as angular and esoteric as ‘Distant Past‘.

everything everything

‘Fun’ Fact: Shampoo used to write the Manic Street Preachers fanzine ‘Big Exit’ and appeared in the video for ‘Little Baby Nothing‘, so they’re alright by me

The main question, and one I ask of all albums, is whether there’s a track that could be played over commercials for upcoming soap operas to lazily demonstrate a character is in some way upset over a past action? Channel 4 used ‘Regret‘ liberally to advertise Hollyoaks over the summer

Album Link