#26 Moor Mother: The Great Bailout

Man, as a British person, I can’t help but shake my head in bewilderment at the simply awful race problems that they have in the US of A. I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but considering that we don’t have that sort of trouble over here in the UK, you can only come to the logical impression that the UK is simply a more liberally developed country than the US. More liberally developed than white America, I mean, all you African-Americans are obviously being treated horribly over there, it looks ghastly. George Floyd, isn’t it? Awful business, truly horrid. #BlackLivesMatter, ammi right? If only Obama was still president, I do so wish that I was able to vote for him. I’d have voted for him in the next three elections if they’d let me. Quite, quite, quite. You have my sympathies for that ghastly country. You’re welcome to come and romp in England’s green fields with me. So long as you don’t outstay your six month visit Visa Britain is full, I should stress, and we simply can’t take anymore people with skin as dark as yours. Oops, did I say that last part out loud?

You know why I think is the reason we’ve ended up a slightly more civilised society? You know why I don’t think any of us really even see colour? The reason why I don’t even notice if my cleaner, my personal driver, or my pool cleaner is black? Actually… I think my personal driver might be Indian or Pakistani, or maybe one of those Muslim ones… But whatever they are I don’t notice! And I believe the reasons for this go back to us ending slavery first! Yes, you Americans might go on about your Abraham Lincolns and your ’12 Years a Slave’ and your Sylvester Magees and your thirteenth amendments, but to be honest, us progressive Brits are chuckling behind our china tea cup! 1865, you say? Oh, how cute! Erm, cough, erm, cough cough, eighteen motherfucking thirty three, bitches! Golly, that must mean that the UK is a whole thirty two years more progressive than the colonies across the pond! And, to be honest my American chums, the UK is so much more progressive now, that I doubt you’ll ever catch up! And I believe your hick, backward country is still debating reparations, but I can see that the United Kingdom of Great Britain already paid some sort of reparations when they passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, I assume that all the slaves were fairy remunerated and that’s why the UK is free of racism now? I don’t mean to talk down at you, but when both my high horse and my ivory tower are this high, it’s difficult not to.

Najwa Mahmoud Fathi Radwan

2024’s New Gold Star Artists

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

35 Big $ilky: Big $ilky vol.3

2020 #26, 2020 #27

I changed so much since ‘Volume 1’

I don’t give a fuck who don’t like me…

Pandemic illuminates darkness

Uprisings just hit me the hardest

And all you virtue signalling fucks

Will not get to sample the harvest

Jesse Got Away

Hey. Hey. Hey you. Yeah, you, future cultural historian. Yeah. I’m contacting you from the past. Wooooooooooo! Wait… no, I’m not a ghost, am I? Scrap that last comment. Just put down your Diplomat smoking pipe and remove your monocle, listen to me for a second. How’s the future treating you? Flying cloud storage, you say? Electronic cigarettes with AI sentience? Well that all sounds absolutely pointless, but good luck to you. Gig economy for cultural history, is it? Because Elon Musk is now the Great Leader at more than a thousand years old and can’t afford to give any workers at all any rights because he needs to fund his great humanitarian expedition to carve a visible doge meme onto the surface of Jupiter? For the lols? You have to pay for your own monocle and pipe?? Yeah, yeah, that all sounds awful, but not much different from my time and I kinda wish you’d stop going on about it, it’s my turn to speak.

How are you currently gauging the cultural mood of the years 2020-21 out there in the year 3000? Sure, if you wanted an inspiring and comforting read on everything you could just go to Arlo Parks’s debut album. Perhaps if you wanted a glimpse into how humanity strived (and often succeeded) to make creative connections despite the viral barriers you could take a listen to Charli XCX’s magnificent ‘how i’m feeling now‘. Or, yeah, if you wanted to go all Pitchforky I guess you could name that Fiona Apple album. What’s that? You’re actually currently evaluating the era through the prism of Emily in Paris? Damn, that’s a good angle, and I’d love to see what horrors you’ve unearthed during your studies. But can I suggest something far more advantageous? How about you study the illuminating trilogy of albums released by Big $ilky over that period?

Continue reading “35 Big $ilky: Big $ilky vol.3”

38 Arlo Parks: Collapsed in Sunbeams

Caroline

I swear to God, I tried

I swear to God, I tried

Caroline

Hey hey hey! I manged to link #40, Kanye West, with #39, Caroline Shaw, now I’ve managed to link Shaw with Arlo Parks at #38! Will I continue to do this right down to the year’s best album? Absolutely! Until I forget to do it, which I will definitely do with the next one, because it’s going to be a struggle to think of a link between JPEGMAFIA and Arlo Parks. Oops. Spoiler, I guess…

Now let’s never talk of WWE’s Eugene again…

‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’ was released at the end on January 2021, when the UK was coming up to a solid 12 months under on and off lockdown measures. It was a different time. Or, at least, different at time of writing. Much of the country had been cut off from the percentage of humanity that didn’t work for Deliveroo* and had just been forced to spend a Christmas away from their friends and family. Well, unless they were lucky enough to have specific ‘business meetings’ and they actually passed these laws so in a strange loophole they didn’t actually didn’t apply to them. God speed, moral superiors. The whole country was on edge, wondering exactly how many banana breads made and opinions on the USA George Floyd protests posted online per afternoon is diagnosed as mentally dangerous, and the disgustingly young Arlo Parks’s debut album was soon instilled as the nation’s official comfort blanket, winning Brit Awards and the Mercury Prize. Parks combined emotionally raw and painfully honest lyrics with soft and silky pop music, which all seemed to carry the message that, hey, everything gonna be a’right. Personally, I didn’t really need that much comforting regarding the lockdown – I was lucky enough to be in a job that was never in danger of being swept from under me, plus I’ve never been one for overly championing the company of other people. Other people are dumb and annoying. However, for me, it certainly offered timely comfort around the chaotic breakdown of my second marriage. Ah, bollocks, I’ve become one of those guys, haven’t I?

Continue reading “38 Arlo Parks: Collapsed in Sunbeams”

A White Person Proves They’re Not Racist By Saying They’re Not Racist (and possibly by listing their black friends)

Shit’s really going down, ain’t it? You know shit’s going down because some big shops are shutting down. These shops didn’t shut down during a virus that’s currently been responsible for 376’000 deaths worldwide (watch this space!!), because, seriously, fuck these people, right? But now these multimillion dollar companies that have long built their success on the suffering and oppression of others are actually losing products on a scale absolutely insignificant to their wider wealth. So this shit’s important, yeah? COVID-19 testing centres are also being shut down in some areas because, well, some people don’t deserve to be safe, do they? In 2020, you really have to earn the right to not die, and we have to make it clear that certain people don’t deserve that right, yes?

I’m currently listening to a great album by Backxwash called ‘God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It‘. Real good record. Just thought I’d mention it. No reason.

Continue reading “A White Person Proves They’re Not Racist By Saying They’re Not Racist (and possibly by listing their black friends)”