Tag: lana del rey

#14 Marina and the Diamonds: Electra Heart (Platinum Blonde)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

Holy shit! Happy birthday ‘Electra Heart’!

Starburst? Yeah, fuck that kid

NE2022 enters into a strange ‘rerelease zone’ for these next three entries. I can’t remember if I did this intentionally. It’s difficult to consider ‘classic’ albums alongside newer material. You need to balance out any nostalgia and the unfair ten year start that some records have had to burrow into your subconscious. Yet you don’t want to go too far the other way, and fail to remember the original spark and energy that was originally locked within a song you’ve heard fifteen thousand fucking times already. You can’t give too much weight to cultural importance… but you certainly can’t just blindly ignore it. It’s an extremely complicated equation that I honestly don’t believe anyone reading this will be intelligent enough to fully grasp. Or, I just realised there were a lot of amazing rereleases this year and didn’t want them all clogging up the top ten, so parked them all just outside. Two releases still escaped and made the top ten. There are five records in the top 15 that weren’t released in 2022. Shut up. Ah do warra want!

YOU DON’T LOVE ME? BIG FUCKING DEAL

You All Knew This Was Coming [UPDATED]

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

This blog has never been the place for timely, contemporary and up to the minute fresh takes. In normal circumstances, if something notable happens during the year I simply put it aside in that special part of my brain that I hope to access around December, then at the end of the year I rant about it in a blog post about my 25th best album of the year, or whatever, when every other person in the world has long stopped caring about it. Or, most likely, I’ll simply forget all about it and instead go off on a tangent about rape fantasies or utter fucking nonsense. It was all we wanted. All we needed. We were happy.

Well, COVID-19 got me doing all sorts of crazy shit that I’ve never done before- last Tuesday I ate an unsalted pistachio*- so I guess I may as well add to the insanity by commenting on something that only just happened this last week. Partly this is because a particularly obnoxious crow outside my window has woken me up at two thirty in the morning, like I’m a 15th century wheelwright working in the tower of his master’s monastery or some shit, but partly because Lana Del Rey’s 21st May Instagram post really got under my skin. Yeah, mostly the former. Sniff, sniff, what’s that smell? Oh yeah! Precious motherfucking content!!

Continue reading “You All Knew This Was Coming [UPDATED]” →

Legit Bosses: The 112 Best Songs of 2019

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

OK OK OK! There were 112 amazing songs released in 2019 (or, erm, released earlier but I just listened to them a lot this year), and here is the definitive, objective and scientifically proven ranking. You can disagree all you want, just remember your disagreement is merely an opinion and this list is fact.

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Or maybe not. I made a big change of tablet and therefore music player this year, and I might not have remembered all of the songs I deemed to be Legit Bosses earlier in the year. But whatever, here are 112 amazing songs, here’s the YouTube list and here’s the Spotify playlist, now please leave me alone, yeah?

Starting at number 112 wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith…

Continue reading “Legit Bosses: The 112 Best Songs of 2019” →

Necessary Evil 2019 (41-39)

~ Lex Leeson

41 Bon Iver: i,i 

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OK, let’s just quickly get this out of the way: this is definitely Bongiovi “Bon Iver” Iverlenko’s weakest album. OK, OK, OK, I never listened to his second album as much as I would have liked, but… yeah, this is his worst. Actually, his second album was self-titled, which as I’ve previously mentioned I frigging hate, so… maybe… that takes it down toooooooooo… No. No this is his worst.

‘i,i’ was actually dead last on this list for the longest time when I first heard it, before Chance the Rapper’s ‘Big Day‘ redefined and lowered the bar on what dog shit I’d let onto the countdown. When I first heard it, I hated it. It sounded like a poor man’s retread of his previous album- ’22, a Million’, one of the  decade’s legitimate greatest records- with none of the songcraft, little of its experimentation and fucking none of its autotune! Don’t you dare take my autotune, you flannelly fuck!! The more I listened to it though, little by little it began to climb up the ranking. New nuances presented themselves, little wonders that I hadn’t previously noticed revealed themselves to me like Bon Iver politely flashing me his genitals as I walked home through the park after dark. Even now, on roughly the 7’654th listen I keep noticing and appreciating things about this actually rather accomplished record. If this year continued for another 12 months (clerical error), could it eventually reach number one???

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Continue reading “Necessary Evil 2019 (41-39)” →

11 Yeasayer: Amen and Goodbye

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

What’s the best song of the 10s?

+21

yeasayer

No, idiot, not the best songs of 10AD, as I think it’s universally accepted that the only music of that era that really holds up today is Ovid’s absolute banger Epistulae ex Ponto Bonko

+23

That’s where the term ‘put an Ex Ponto on it’ comes from, fact fans

+14

No, idiot, not the 1010s, though if we were then I would suggest Prime Tortoise of the Record Bureau, though of course you could make a point for anything in the ‘Four Great Books of Song’

+32

kane3

Continue reading “11 Yeasayer: Amen and Goodbye” →

41: Lana Del Rey: Honeymoon

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

…and so LDR merely twists tighter as she delves even deeper into herself, or rather into her own persona. I previously considered 2014’s ‘Ultraviolence’ as the most ‘Lana Del Rey’ Lana Del Rey album possible, but this Lana Del Rey album is so much more ‘Lana Del Rey’ that it makes the previous Lana Del Rey album barely ‘Lana Del Rey’ at all in comparison to how ‘Lana Del Rey’ this Lana Del Rey album is. It’s all here and correct, even if it’s passed of in a markedly darker production package than before, all the high drama and imagery so on the nose that it’s in real danger of inducing severe nasal trauma. Lana is making absolutely no concessions to the haters, so they’re left with nothing but continued attempts to deny she’s a wonderfully commanding presence.

‘Fun’ Fact: Lana Del Rey once described herself as a ‘gangsta Nancy Sinatra’. Ah Jesus, I think I hate her as well now…

Dude, do you know Lana Del Rey isn’t even her real name?? She’s so freaking fake… I’ve got some bad news about Scroobius Pip, listen to ‘Salvatore‘ and try to calm down

Album Link