#54 Mark Lanegan: Whiskey for the Holy Ghost

Dying mama
Barely breathing in a bed of nails
To wander through the ruin smoking and pale
I came upon an angel and a nightingale
Hanging where the darkness comes
Between the earth and skies above
Dead weight are my body’s bones
I think I dug too deep a hole
Think I dug too deep a hole
Better run for cover, babe, you better hide
Don’t do no good to wait ’til time decides
Time decides
Time
Time
I need a little more time

Riding the Nightingale

Right everyone, let’s get sad.

Mark Lanegan passed away on February 22nd 2022, adding to Necessary Evil’s sadly growing death list. His last appearance was as a typically commanding guest vocal on the Manics’ recent album highlight Blank Diary Entry. He actually died while I was writing the 2021 Legit Bosses list, meaning a rapid (and, to be honest, rather shocked) rewrite to that song’s entry at #93. I didn’t want that rushed and dismayed edit to be my final word on an artist unarguably an important and consistent part of the modern rock canon, and someone who had long been close to my heart. So I entered the 1994 album that I long considered his career highlight into NE2022.

RIP

78 Lil Yachty: Nuthin’ 2 Prove

 

Longtime readers of this blog (hi, Mum!*) will know I have a bit of an obsession with Lil Yachty. I honestly think he’s a fascinating figure who has the sufficient lack of self-awareness and disregard for the supposed former statesman and accepted tropes of his genre that he could potentially create something very special. His sound is obnoxious, flagrantly disrespectful and nonchalantly artless. But then, I’m a depressingly old white idiot: the sound of 2018 should sound borderline offensive to me! Lil Yachty is 21 years old, he’s already released one stone cold classic song (fight me) and a patchy and imperfect debut album that nonetheless showed flashes of the buoyant/obnoxious/genius/overjoyed style that is all his own and that could see him take over the world before too long, to the fabulous irritation of old farts everywhere. Whether you like it or not, this was evolution and it was frickin’ exciting!

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(*My Mum has far too much self-respect to read my blog. Only people with a base level of pitiful self-respect would ever waste time reading this shit. Yeah, I’m talking about you. Aunty Cheryl, however, loves it! She is, however, a shameless crack cocaine addict and, if I’m being completely honest, has been dead for 12 years next April)

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1 Perfume Genius: No Shape

L.O.S.S.L.E.S.S Generation

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(So nice of Lorde to let us reference one of her songs…)

This it it. the mathematically proven greatest record of 2017. And The Maths is in no doubt.

Perhaps you could argue that The Maths was so desperate to name an album that isn’t Lorde or Kendrick Lamar– a desperation foreshadowed by The Maths naming the Fever Ray’s album best record of 2017 before The Maths had even heard it (and then always being ever so slightly disappointed every time The Maths heard it because of this decision)- and actually conclude that ‘No Shape’ is actually just the greatest album of 2017 that isn’t Lorde or Kendrick Lamar.

The Maths appreciates that viewpoint, and The Maths is aware of how The Maths previously mocked Crack Magazine for naming Arca as 2017’s best album as obvious edgelord attention seeking. The Maths would understand if you accused The Maths of a similar exhibitionism if you were to listen to the Arca album– very good if overwhelmingly intense and rarely enjoyable ‘in the traditional sense’- and the knock-down genius of Perfume Genius’s latest– the most perfect combination of pop songcraft and overwhelming beauty you’ll have likely heard recently- and tell me they are both equally understandably considered the greatest record of any year.

Continue reading “1 Perfume Genius: No Shape”

40 Lil Peep: Come Over When You’re Sober Pt.1

A Legacy of Obnoxious Beauty and Regrettable Tattoos

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That’s true: I would have never even considered listening to some white (presumed) rapper with worse tattoos than Cheryl Cole and apparently popular with teenagers (who, as I’m sure you’re aware, are universally thick as soggy pig shit) unless his death made the (minor) headlines in November 2017. Alternatively, if died from a suspected drugs overdose instead of Lil Peep, I would have also never had the chance to hear this record and most probably never write this post. Also, if I had no ears I would be categorically unable to listen to it. If I was an iguana rather than a human, I might possess the ability to literally listen to the album, but it’s highly unlilkely I would manage to collate my thoughts on it on a WordPress blog. It’s definitely true that if circumstances were different then things wouldn’t be the same, and you’re extremely clever for pointing that out.

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60 British Sea Power: Let the Dancers Inherit the Party

You know what?: It probably would have made much more sense to actually start the countdown at the same time I announced it, rather than making a big song and dance about it, then going to bed and doing fuck all for 24 hours. Ah well, here we are:

BSP Inspire Slight PTSD

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You said the world was losing all its lustre
You realised each day you’re growing old”

Your body decides that it’s really given you enough and stops growing in any beneficial way around age 21. This is also the absolute oldest age that you’re really supposed to leave full time education. I mean, sure, there are people older than 21 who decide that, despite being legal adults in every conceivable sense, they still want to stay at school for all their life, base both their dress sense and DVD collection around Tom Baker’s Doctor Who and never shut the fuck up about how much better the quality of the real ale is at their local pub (‘The Queen’s Withered Resignation’) than Wetherspoons’s. These people, though, are the most ridiculous people in the world, and should be disregarded in every discussion.

Continue reading “60 British Sea Power: Let the Dancers Inherit the Party”