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

#51 Arcade Fire: We

Ah, old dependable Arcade Fire! I can always count on including them in the year end list with no controversy! Their sixth album is a miner return to form – not really coming close to equaling their imperial phase of their first four albums, but certainly superior to their messy and unfocused fifth ‘Everything Now’. There are real moments of stirring beauty, as the band lean into their real status as the stadium rock band that it’s not embarrassing to admit you like. Like, never embarrassing. Up to around the 27th August 2022, this statement is watertight. To me, they’re the 21st century New Order, in that their fantastic music is almost always enough to cover up for their frequently awful lyrics (“But some people want the rock without the roll/But we all know, there’s no God without soul“, uuuuuurgh, “We unsubscribe/Fuck season five“, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh!). ‘We’ is a tight, anthemic effort, which might consider pleasing the crowd more important than making any real creative strides, but nonetheless crowd pleases enough to let its lack of ambition slide.

YAY! ANOTHER EARLY DINNER!