13 Lambrini Girls: Who Let the Dogs Out

The epitome of everything, I’ll tell her how I really feel
She’ll realise that I’m homo for sure
I like your face but not in a gay way
No homo

No Homo

Who! Who who who!!

Heeeeeeeeey, all you Dr. Who fans, that could be a new chant for you! Whenever the new Dr. Who episode about planets having the right to defend themselves (with genocide), or whatever, you could all chant “Who let the dogs out! Dr. Who, who, who, who!”! You can have that. Mind you, I don’t really watch a lot of Dr. Who, but I don’t think dogs feature too heavily in the core plot? Do they still have K9? Is that still a thing? You could maybe try to fit K9 into the song? “Who let Daleks out! Dr. Who, who, who who!”. That kinda works? Listen, it might need a bit of work, but I am officially relinquishing the intellectual property of that chant, so it’s public access now.

You know what mate, you stay the fuck away from me

14 Tyler, The Creator: Don’t Tap the Glass

Welcome
Number one, body movement (funky)
No sitting still (dance, bro)
Number two, only speak in glory (yeah)
Leave your baggage at home (none of that deep shit)
Number three (nigga), don’t tap the glass
Roked, roked, roked l’Elohim
Roked, roked, roked m’Elohim

Big Poe

It’s Big Poe, motherfuckers!! ‘Big Poe’, obviously, being short for… Big Potential… because the record has such potential…? Big Poacher…? Because Tyler likes to illegally hint game…? Big Pochettino! Of course! Tyler is American, of course, and I’m sure Poch will appreciate the show of confidence ahead of next summer’s World Cup! Fantastic! I hope you cunts lose every game! World Cup 2026 is a vomit inducing sham and your fucking country should be ashamed of itself! Hate you all so much! Have fun!

The day before his sixth album’s July 21st release, Tyler, The Creator was at pains to stress how we shouldn’t expect too much from this shit! It was just an album! There’s no overlying concept, he won’t be wearing funny masks or bright wigs, there’s no unflinching peak into to the psyche of the millennial black experience, it’s just fucking ten banging songs!! From the opening of the album quoted above, Tyler makes it very clear that they’ll be “None of that deep shit”.

Fuck you and your dreams, stop playing with me

15 Perfume Genius: Glory

It might not quite be as representative of the record’s contents as Ninajirachi, but the cover of ‘Glory’, showing the aftermath of a car crash that has flung Mr Genius through the window of his house and deposited him, broken and disfigured, onto the floor of his own living room. The crash may have just happened, it may have happened hours ago – days, weeks? – but it’s clear that Mr Genius has found himself smashed upon the carpet of his home and decided “No, no, I’m very happy slowly dying here, thank you very much”.

I don’t know is Mr Genius (known as Perfume Hadreas by his friends) has ever suffered a life threatening, completely debilitating injury, but I definitely feel that.

Broken apart and shinin’

𝟸̶𝟼̶ 16 Blondshell: If You Asked for a Picture

How bad does it have to hurt to count?!
Does it have to hurt at all?!
I’ll come back if you put me down two times!
You try hard to make me yours!
But once you get me I get bored!
I’ll come back if you put me down two times!

Two Times

Aaaah mate, buddy, pal, 朋友, amicus, amiga! You might have dropped a pretty massive 24 places since I was charmed enough to name you the second best album of 2023, but – bah Gahd! – can you still ignite those cursed feels when you feel in the mood??

OK, step back, hold it up now, back it up – beep beep beep – re-rewind, when the crowd say Bo Selecta…

With Craig David all over your BOINK

19 FKA Twigs: EUSEXUA Afterglow

OK, so how am I going to approach this? You know I really hate spoiling my own list, so I’d hate to perhaps let it slip during this post that maybe there’s another FKA Twigs album later on this year’s countdown. Maybe! Nothing in this introductory paragraph should be read as any sort of confirmation!! But you also know what a genuine and straight talking man of the people I am, and it simply wouldn’t be in my nature to lie to my wonderful readers that I love so much, and say that a certain album isn’t going to be featured… Or lie and say that it will feature!! Nothing in this introductory paragraph should be read as any sort of confirmation!!! People are calling me the most trusted voice in music. Everyone’s saying it. Sports Illustrated are saying it. I can’t abuse that trust.

I guess, all things considered, I’m probably better off just not mentioning that other album at all. That hypothetical other album I mean!! Nothing in this second paragraph should be read as any sort of confirmation of the existence of any other album!!!! That probably makes the most sense. I mean, it’s not going to be easy, considering that that hypothetical album is named in the title of this one, but hey, let’s give it a go, aye?

Continue reading “19 FKA Twigs: EUSEXUA Afterglow”

24 No Joy: Bugland

Shit, I just did a big State Of The Genre Address concerning IDM in my Ninajirachi review, didn’t I? I was kinda planning to do a similar takedown to fucking Shoegaze in this review, but now I worry about repeating myself. Because I am an artist who is constantly re-evaluating my craft. If I was putting the Necessary Evil countdown into the Necessary Evil countdown it would come out on top every fucking year. This list is basically my annual check of my artistic competition, and I always find them lacking. But I nonetheless appreciate their efforts.

I wrote a song for you And all the things you do

28 And So I Watch You From Afar: Jettison

Put your minds back, if you will, to that wild and crazy year of 2022. We were all young fools, grooving to hip new tunes like Running Up that Hill and sending a lot of Tweets in the format “She’s a 10 but she pronounces ‘Uncut Gems’ like that“. America was still led by the 143 year old Joe Biden, as his mushed brains slowly seeped out of his ears, while the glorious UK was more ably managed by the strong and stable government of Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss and then Rishi Sunak. Oh, and, erm, A coup d’état in Burkina Faso removed Roch Kaboré from power and the prime minister of Peru, Aníbal Torres, resigned. I hate how I only ever mention politics in the UK and US as well, don’t worry. Heidi Klum dressed as a worm.

Russia invaded Ukraine, an obviously horrendously violent act that luckily the rest of the world were dedicated to end as quickly as possible in order to save untold innocent lives, and to ensure that the skyrocketing energy prices wouldn’t harm working class people worldwide for long. Russia were also banned from all international sports competitions and – most damningly – disqualified from Eurovision. That was only fair enough, as any state partaking in similarly violent actions would undoubtedly be treated the same. Nick Cave even cancelled gigs in Russia, because he is a man of strong and consistent principles. Incredibly, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars and the Queen died in the same fucking year!! Maybe you’re too young to remember, but the internet just could not with all that shit! We all had so much fun, that the owner’s of capital obviously couldn’t let that happen, and by the end of the year Elon Musk had bought Twitter for a laughably inflated $44 billion. Because he is, never forget and incredibly thick cunt.

I made an offer

29 Jenny Hval: Iris Silver Mist

We used to be human but now
We are resin
We are powder
Scattered all over
Touch
Touch and get burnt
Get moved

You Died

Some people bring happiness by arriving; others by leaving — and a few only by dying

Anon

I still haven’t decided how glad I am that Charlie Kirk got shot.

As a wrestling fan, I do appreciate him wearing white knowing that he was going to get colour, but that is a completely separate thing.

I told you I was going to talk about this, don’t act all surprised

#19 elbow: AUDIO VERTIGO

We live in a troubling age

Falling leaves in an unearthly autumn light
Become the frame
And chip my curse away
Above the waves, you can still see where we drown
No looking down
Oblivion’s oblivion

Her to the Earth

So, let’s quickly get everyone up to speed. Don’t worry, we’re only going to go as far back as the Six Day War in 1967, but – who knows – perhaps we’ll talk about earlier events with similar players later in this list. In 1967 though, when we begin our tale, the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser had been handed information by the Soviet Union that Israel (hi there!) were gathering troops in preparation to invade Syria. Nasser phoned up the Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and was like “Hey, that’s our mate, can you not?” and Eshkol was like “We’re not even, bro!” so Nasser was like “Yeah right mate, I’m just going to expel all these United Nations Emergency Forces that are here to ensure our 1949 Armistice Agreements” and then Eshkol was like “Na-uuuuuuhhhh!!” but then Nasser was just like “Er, yeah-uh! And also, you can’t use our Strait of Tiran anymore” so that made Eshkol go all red and like scream “Dude! That’s where we get all our stuff from! And that would totally be an act of war!”. Then Nasser did it anyway, because YOLO. Israel bombed the fucking shit out of Egypt, taking the entire Senai Peninsula, plus Gaza as a little souvenir trinket, but I imagine that’s the last we’ll be hearing about that tiny strip of land. Israel warned King Hussein of Jordan not to enter the war, but they also bombed the shit out of Jordan’s airbases on the first day of the war. So Jordan gave troops to support Egypt and Israel bombed the shit out of Jordan, capturing the West Bank and ensuring Jerusalem was in Israel for the first time. The combined Arab country losses were around 15’000, Israel less than a thousand. Israel also killed 15 UN peacekeepers – coz Israel gonna Israel! – and 34 American soldiers, because they’re the only country allowed to do that apparently.

Oh, and around 413’000 Palestinians were of course expelled or killed in this process, but that’s barely worth mentioning. For Israel it was just Monday.

Ilham Ahmed Hammad Khattab

#35 And So I Watch You From Afar: Megafauna

First, before I talk about the latest euphoric audio assault by Belfast’s finest noise merchant, I’d like to take a moment out of 2024’s Necessary Evil to just pay our respects to the beautiful, talented and influential megafauna that we’ve lost these past two million years or so.

These good megafaunas have had a tough time recently, with 80% of all mammals that weigh greater than a thousand kilograms dying off in the last fifty thousand years. Pour one out for our fatty bombatty brothers. Yeah, we still mostly have our elephants and our rhinos and our elephant seals. And our motherfucking bisons, boy!! Have you seen a bison?? I don’t think we’re ready to accept how huge those big boys are! I’m not counting the big fishes, like the blue whale, because they’re always hiding down there, I’ve never seen one in a zoo, and fish are boring. But I think we have to accept that we have sadly lost the best and brightest megafauna. We’ve lost all the dinosaurs, for fuck’s sake!? That’s nuts! And, if we’re being honest, we lost a lot of Earth’s stability when the dinosaurs went: ain’t no genocide in Gaza if Deir al Balah is partially populated by motherfucking titanosaurs!! Oh, what’s that, America? You want to aggressively and violently suppress the world until it accepts your neoliberal world order? Well, try telling that to the giganotosaurus, yeah? The ichthyosaur will fucking eat all your submarines, son! However, like I said before, fish are boring.

Anyway, heads bowed, please:

Hadi Hayel Shehdeh Abu Dahruj