5 ANOHNI and the Johnsons: My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross

“For me, there’s no heavenly respite; creation is a spectral and feminine continuum, and our souls are an inalienable part of nature.”

Anohni Hegarty

There are those who argue that the sex/gender divide is just a socio-political
construct. Certainly this is not true for those individuals with gender dysphoria where
there is a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity. It is also the case
that class society has nurtured an ideology of femininity and masculinity which fits the
profit motive rather than peoples’ lived experience. But all of this this does not
invalidate the fact that the vast majority of humans (unhelpfully labelled ‘cis’) do not
experience a mis-match between their biological sex and their gender. This does not
mean that all is well for women who are, by virtue of both sex and gender, historically
and currently oppressed in patriarchal class societies.

SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL STICK IT IN

28 Efficax: Dissent, Penance, & Destroy

I mentioned the epic road in my awakebutstillinbed post. One of the most notable things about the eight minute soul cleanser is now it acts as an early and definitive primer on the wider themes of the whole album, and would likely have been the title track had the band not come up with the far more metal album name ‘chaos take the wheel and i am a passenger’. It’s all there: the anxious combination of living the life you’ve always dreamed of while still being dragged down by dejection and doubt, all backdropped by a tour bus hauling itself up highways on the endless cycle of boredom/validation/loss/boredom/validation/loss/boredom/validation/loss…

On what I guess would be the 20th track on ‘Dissent, Penance & Destroy’, my mate Efficax lays out a similar mission statement:

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

You told me,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Find out find out,

You told me,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

You told me,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Find out, find out.

fvckaround

And around they fuck, with great discoveries being made. They also fuck as well, you know? You get me? Like the songs fuck? Like there are songs here that just law out vinyl sheets to protect the furnishings, squirt baby oil over every surface and just get down to it, yeah? Are you following me? Do I need to draw a diagram? Because you know I will.

JUST A HEART BROKE BITCH, HIGH HEELS, SIX INCH

26 Olivia Rodrigo: SOUR

I’m so insecure, I think

That I’ll die before I drink

Brutal

Ha! Trust me, Ms Rodrigo, if I died before I first drank, it would have made a lot of people’s lives easier! Your not missing anything, I promise. Have you ever tried Methyl​enedioxy​methamphetamine though? That’s some good stuff, get it down you.

Christ, it’s a minefield trying to search for Olivia Rogrido photos. Like, is she twelve years old in that one?? I’m I accidentally turning this whole post into paedofodder? There’s also a lot of gifs of her doing something like sticking her tongue out but looped, which I’m pretty sure are just weird masturbation fodder for 40 year old men. OK, not many years until I’ll greatly appreciate all that pandering, but right now it’s still officially gross, OK? Jesus, this woman turned eighteen in February of this year, and this is her life now. Listen, maybe just read my Jordana piece and, like, amplify it.

I guessed you moved on really easily

You All Knew This Was Coming [UPDATED]

This blog has never been the place for timely, contemporary and up to the minute fresh takes. In normal circumstances, if something notable happens during the year I simply put it aside in that special part of my brain that I hope to access around December, then at the end of the year I rant about it in a blog post about my 25th best album of the year, or whatever, when every other person in the world has long stopped caring about it. Or, most likely, I’ll simply forget all about it and instead go off on a tangent about rape fantasies or utter fucking nonsense. It was all we wanted. All we needed. We were happy.

Well, COVID-19 got me doing all sorts of crazy shit that I’ve never done before- last Tuesday I ate an unsalted pistachio*- so I guess I may as well add to the insanity by commenting on something that only just happened this last week. Partly this is because a particularly obnoxious crow outside my window has woken me up at two thirty in the morning, like I’m a 15th century wheelwright working in the tower of his master’s monastery or some shit, but partly because Lana Del Rey’s 21st May Instagram post really got under my skin. Yeah, mostly the former. Sniff, sniff, what’s that smell? Oh yeah! Precious motherfucking content!!

Continue reading “You All Knew This Was Coming [UPDATED]”

20 Hannah Cohen: Welcome Home

I absolutely adore Hannah Cohen. I would go as far as saying I love her. As an artist, of course, I think she’s amazingly talented and has that certain something special that you can’t quite put your finger on. She may well be a fucking nightmare as a person. Maybe she spends half the time complaining about how dumb people are for watching Love Island, and the other half actually watching Love Island “Just to see how shit it is”. Maybe she’s a staunch believer in aromatherapy and whenever you bring up the questionable science behind it she simply states that there’s “A lot we don’t know about the world”. Maybe she prefers Jurassic Park 2 to Jurassic Park. I mean, it’s not a bad film, don’t get me wrong, but come on! Maybe she hates feminism because she “doesn’t hate men”, which leads to so many circular arguments that you know it’s a guaranteed evening wasted if you bring it up so have learned not to. Maybe, when she rides the bus on her own, she sits on the seat next to the aisle and leaves an empty seat next to the window just to make sure nobody sits next to her. Do you know these people?? Worse than fucking Hitler. Maybe- in fact, statistically, very probably– Ms Cohen is the absolute worse person in the world, that doesn’t matter, it’s the artist that I love.

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“[FUNNY QUOTE]”  Sorry, it’s late and I’m tired
 

Pleasure Boy‘ was all kinds of amazing. One of the best albums of

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Continue reading “20 Hannah Cohen: Welcome Home”

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)

Continue reading “27 Spoon: Hot Thoughts”