Tag: Fever Ray: Shiver

2024’s New Gold Star Artists

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

You know the rules by now: an entire album discography comprising of at least three albums, every single one of their albums featured on a Necessary Evil album of the year countdown on the Most Trusted Blog in Music. There were a few Legacy Gold Star Artists who added to their repertoire in 2023, but on this post I’m going to be concentrating on the five artists who earned their wings in 2023. Or rather, who were already glorious winged beasts of musical sapience, but got those motherfuckers gold plated in 2023.

Ah, Ms. Zauner! I see you have chosen to commemorate your achievement! As wee you should, my dear.

Oh, and these particular entrants will just be copied and pasted into the master post as well. I’ve just created this new post highlighting the new entries so you wouldn’t have to go back to the original entry every year to see who has earned promotion. So don’t come at me with that “You never think of us! You treat us so bad!” bullshit, alright? I treat you just fine. If anything, I treat you too well, so that might not be a string you want to pull too hard on. To see how new albums by Legacy artists like Wednesday and Janelle Monae did? Yeah, you’ll have to check the rankings on the master post. Like I say, I already treat you too well, so be careful what you ask for. And did you read what I thought about that Janelle album?? Probably not breaking into that top three, is it?

Anyway, without further ado:

all that glitters

Legit Bosses – The 160 Best Songs of 2023

~ Lex Leeson ~ 23 Comments

In their 1972 book ‘Psychology of the Arts‘, Hans and Shulamith Kreitler tried to explain the reasoning behind why certain people react in certain ways to certain pieces of art. However, they deemed that to fully explain it, your knowledge of each person would need to “extend over an immeasurably large range of variables, which would include not only perceptive, cognitive, emotional and other personality characteristics, but also biographical data, specific personal experiences, past encounters with art, and individual memories and associations”. Sounds like a lot of work, right? Well, luckily, I’m here to just tell you what the best music of 2023 was, so all that effort behind your own personal psychosis can be sidestepped altogether. Think of it as my new year’s present.

no spoilers on what number this particular classic finished

And there’s one hundred and sixty this year. Maybe one hundred and sixty one. Because there was a lot of great tunes released in 2023. While limiting the Necessary Evil list to just 40 albums still meant there was space for at least one ‘meh’ album and one absolute stinker, over the past week I’ve actually had to really edit this list down to prevent it being ridiculous. And yet here we are: 160. Maybe 161.

I’m also going to be giving shout outs to particular golden moments in certain songs – similar to what I did in 2018 – and for each of those I’m going to be using a picture of one of the greatest moments in the short history of All Elite Wrestling, because… well… I get the horrible feeling that company is cooked and I hope to look back on this list in five years time and laugh at how pessimistic I was.

Can I finish this before 2024 and maybe have some days off before I go back to work?? Let’s seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

[Edit: No. No I cannot. Not even close.

You’ve got some playlists though, will that make you happy?? Here’s the countdown on Spotify and on YouTube, minus the unavailable songs on whatever platform]

I REMEMBER NOTHING, SO THERE’S NOTHING TO REGRET

#1 Fever Ray: Radical Romantics (Greatest Album of 2023)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

This is for our careers

Putting my kid in high school

Even it Out… sort of

All year I adored the opening lines from ‘Radical Romantics’ fifth track. I loved the angry, vicious attack of the commodified work of an artist. How the work is no longer about inspiration or true artistic integrity, but just a career. Under capitalism it has become just another desperate attempt to ensure safety, housing, food and education for your family. And what does such a system force you to do with your artistic inclinations? Or maybe the social safety nets?? “And then we cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut”. Comrade Karin Dreijer! Give those capitalist pigdogs what they deserve!

There’s no room for you
And we know where you live
One day we might come after you
Taking back what’s ours

Workers of the World unite!!

SUNSET IN THE MAZE (YOU’RE ASKING ME MY SYMPTONS, DOCTOR, I DON’T WANNA FEEL)

DISABILITY DECADE CELEBRATION! The 101 Greatest Songs of the Last 10 Years

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

Right, so I’ve just taken on another huge list without anyone asking? Cool.

And the overall quality of this list is… pretty mindblowing, as you’d imagine. It was a painful experience getting it down to just 101, and the strength of the competition has meant that proper Necessary Evil alumni like Sharon van Etten, Christine & the Queens and Lykke Li couldn’t fit in. And speaking of harshness, strictly (kinda strictly) only one entry per artist, which has meant that even some former Legit Boss winning songs failed to get in simply because the artist did an even better song in a different year. And remarkably few of the Necessary Evil albums of the year are represented.

And I’m not trying to spin any narrative here – these aren’t the 101 songs that I can link back to my disability in any way, I’m not saying that these next 101 songs were all important to my recovery, or that these 101 songs saved my life in any way (though they all did, as music can do that), just the scientific fact that these are 101 songs released since Mat 4th 2013 that simply slapped hardest.

At the very least, these 101 songs make up the greatest YouTube and Spotify playlists of all time, and the quality of these next one hundred and one songs is going to be headspinning.

Beginning with the least headspinning to the most, yeah? You know how this goes:

kick in the door, waving the coco