Tag: kim kardashian

18 Zeal and Ardor: Stranger Fruit

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Mmmmmmmmmmlet’s talk about cultural appropriation.

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Zeal and Ardor are one of my favourite bands. In fact, I’d go as far as calling them my favourite Swiss band. They combine black metal with ‘negro spirituals’, the bracing gospel music sung by the black slaves in the early 19th century. What’s your initial reaction to hearing that? Are you OK with it? Are you straight up against it? Do you think that merely the fact that the band are Swiss makes any use of music born from American cruelties automatically cultural appropriation? Do you want to fnd out a little more about the band before deciding your reaction? Are you immediately against it because you assume the band is white?

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2 Lorde: Melodrama

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

She is Lorde, Ya-ya-ya

(get that out of the way, that’s your lot)

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Yep, neither Lorde nor Kendrick Lamar is my number one album: who could it possibly be?!

Have a think about it…

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Yeah, it’s that one.

Maybe you haven’t heard Lorde’s Stone Cold Masterpiece of a second album, because you’re a fucking idiot, but you know what it’s about don’t you?

I mean, her 2013 debut was written when she was only 14 years old

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and showed a prodigious level of writing ability that arbalested her to worldwide attention. It was a far better written (and plain better) debut album than the Arctic Monkeys’ was in 2006, and back when that was released there were some people unconvinced whether lyrics so good could have been written by someone in their late teens, and conspiracy theories abounded. There was no such debate over the much younger Lorde, because she was (and, brace yourself, still is) female, and so all of her art will always be undervalued, and people will just assume that a more naturally talented man was actually responsible for writing the songs, and Lorde just added bits about makeup and Kim Kardashian to get the writing credit.

(Hmmm, if you haven’t seen ‘The Trip‘, that Michael Caine picture might look a bit like I’m accusing him of something rather uncomfortable. Mind you, this is a guy who said he legally changed his name to Michael Caine because of ISIS, so I don’t really care)

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30 Alvvays: Antisocialites

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

The Only Socialising You’ll Need

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I like to think the 2017 Necessary Evil list has so far catered to a lot of different tastes and requirements:

You’ve had Mark Lenegan , for those who want gravelly voiced ginger reminding them of a time when rock music was really cool; you’ve had Lil Yachty, for those of you who want your hip-hop history disregarded and even defiled on top of saccharine pop beats; Lil Peep, for those of you who just want to soundtrack their own descent into drug-induced senselessness, overwhelmed by life’s cruel meaningless; Arca, for those of you who don’t really want to enjoy the music they listen to rather, have it drill its own importance into their cerebral cortex and splatter its definite artistic statement over the wall behind; and Björk, for the people who… erm… well I still haven’t quite figured out who that album’s for. Perhaps just Björk…

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(…)

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