Yeah, it happened again, And I wentagain. Then the week after, I had an OISC Level 3 exam for the highest possible accreditation in immigration law. Oh, and between those two things I watched the Magnetic Fields perform ‘69 Love Songs‘ in full over two nights at the Albert Hall, so there’ll probably be a blog post related to that at some point.
“But Alex”, I hear you squeal, though it’s difficult for you to speak through painful wheezes, as you sitting up in indignation is the most exercise you’ve done in eight months, you fat fuck, “Wasn’t it pretty stupid to arrange a trip down the London mere days before the most important exam of your life?” .
And I reply: “Of course it was. But this is professional wrestling, everything to do with it is as stupid as shit”.
Even though the 2024 All Innit was a vastly superior show to its predecessor, and must rank amongst the greatest professional wrestling shows ever held in the UK.
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.
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 Spotifyand on YouTube, minus the unavailable songs on whatever platform]
I am my father’s daughter in the end He says, “Watch your ego, watch your head, girl You’re so smart, so talented But now the water’s turning red And it’s all your fault, and it’s all your mess
Ah good, enough of that privileged bollocks like Olivia Rodrigo, time to hear from some real artists who have clawed their way up from the very bottom through sheer force of talent. When you’re willing to pull yourself up by your bootstraps like Caroline Polachek (daughter of James, classical musician, MD at Harvard, PHD at Berkley, taught Chinese History at Columbia and Princeton) then anyone can.
I’m being flippant, of course – I know! Me!? Can you imagine! – I just wanted to highlight how any discussion of supposed ‘privilege’ is a bit of a box of wasps, and a lot of people are going to have to get stung. Just be aware that you’re unlikely to sting just the person you intend to complain about if you open that box, and also that advantages exist beyond appearing on Disney shows growing up.
For the vast majority of human history, everyone was mainly just into the same shit, and had the exact same cultural references. You think in 5000 BC, when you and your fellow Sumerians were starting your little agricultural society based around the cultivation of dates, people would have much time for your niche appreciation of tomato crops? They’d be like “nah kevin we all about the dates right now fr”. It was essentially a monoculture though, so everyone would at least be aware of the tomato subculture, even if they weren’t fans themselves. Everyone went bananas for dates*, and everyone knew that some weirdos like fucking Kevin inexplicably preferred tomatoes. For thousands of years, we have had the superstructure and the subculture, with a clear distinction and easy to judge distinction between the mass support of dates and the dangerous, fringe interests such as tomatoes.
‘Das Gespenst’ is German for ‘The Titty Master’
(*but, crucially, not bananas)
Which brings us, naturally, to professional wrestling.
There are statistics to argue that professional wrestling is as big – or even bigger – now than it ever has been. Or at least as big as it’s been in the modern era, biggest since 943 thousand people somehow crammed into the Atlanta Omni in the 50s to watch George Hackenschmidt put Toots Mondt in a headlock for 97 minutes. Live gates are huge, merchandise sales are huge, the world’s Problematic Fave WWE are making billions upon billions of dollars in increasingly morally dubious ways. Sure, TV audiences are a fraction of what they were during the first (Hogan) and second (Austin) WWF/E boom periods, but do you know why that is? Because no fucker actually watches TV anymore! I asked a Zoomer what their favourite TV show was, and they didn’t actually know what I was talking about, had never heard of a ‘TV’ before, and actually refused to speak to me any further because they’d assumed I’d made a transphobic slur. Wrestling on TV may only get fourteen people and one ferret watching every week, but it’s one of the only things that gets any sort of repeat viewings, so stations like Fox will still throw a billion dollars at them in the hope of securing at least a handful of people to show Dominos Pizza adverts to (also eggs. Ferrets love eggs. You should always do market research). Attendances, money made, CM Punk clout farming (the three most crucial elements to measure cultural integration), wrestling might be bigger now than any point in my or anyone reading’s lifetime.
I gave all you cretins, like, a million words back when this astonishing reconceptualisation of the divisive 2001 release by Our Lord Jesus’s Favourite Band back when it was released in September! “But Alex!” I hear your dribbling mouths bray, “This isn’t even a proper anniversary! 2021 would have been the *actual* twentieth anniversary, so wouldn’t it make more sense to put it on last year’s list??”. To which I lower my voice to an angry whisper, pull your collar roughly forward so our foreheads clash, and say, through gritted teeth, You think I don’t know that?? This is a band that fucks everything up! And that’s part of the reason we love them!! Now sit down and enjoy your Epicentre!!
Seriously, what the fuck is this? It’s almost depressing that this is technically the debut album from arguably one the most influential and critically adored rappers of the past ten years. Previously only releasing music through free mixtapes, it’s a little baffling that Chance has decided the album that sees him starting to go after that Bruno Mars crowd should be the one that people should have to pay for.
Necessary Evil 