Tag: manic street preachers

Legit Bosses: The 118 Best Songs of 2025

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

WE ARE CHARLIE KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRK WE CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRY THE FLAME…!

OK, so that song is obviously number one, no surprises there, but aren’t you still interested in the songs that finished #2 – #118?

Yadda yadda yadda, absolute dog’s bollocks tracks here, you know the drill: #118 is already a fucking banger, then each track afterwards manages to be somehow even better, until we finally reveal which piece of genius is almost as good as We Are Charlie Kirk.

Slightly smaller list than last year, partially because Prince’s insane output has been cordoned off this year to stop it hurting the self-esteem of 2025’s music, and partially because I made the last minute decision to not count any songs from Hallelujah the Hills epic ‘DECK’ project, as I promise I promise I promise that I’ll rank those 54 songs seperately sometime this year. Or, at a push, definitely before 2030. Ish.

Sit back, relax, bookmark this so your next few dumps are sorted, and think about how long it must have taken me to write this fucker if you’re on your twelfth trip to the toilet reading it.

Spotify Playlist

YouTube Playlist

In us it echoes, in Christ it sustains

13 Lambrini Girls: Who Let the Dogs Out

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

The epitome of everything, I’ll tell her how I really feel
She’ll realise that I’m homo for sure
I like your face but not in a gay way
No homo

No Homo

Who! Who who who!!

Heeeeeeeeey, all you Dr. Who fans, that could be a new chant for you! Whenever the new Dr. Who episode about planets having the right to defend themselves (with genocide), or whatever, you could all chant “Who let the dogs out! Dr. Who, who, who, who!”! You can have that. Mind you, I don’t really watch a lot of Dr. Who, but I don’t think dogs feature too heavily in the core plot? Do they still have K9? Is that still a thing? You could maybe try to fit K9 into the song? “Who let Daleks out! Dr. Who, who, who who!”. That kinda works? Listen, it might need a bit of work, but I am officially relinquishing the intellectual property of that chant, so it’s public access now.

You know what mate, you stay the fuck away from me

40 MARINA: Princess of Power

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Incredibly, implausibly and – let’s face it – improbably, Marina Diamandis is still duking it out on the Necessary Evil countdown.

This was going to be it: This was going to be the year that an artist that had become a feature of this annual countdown since almost its inception finally fell off the list. An artist that first burst into my consciousness in 2009 with the almost impossibly good debut hat-trick of singles (The outstanding Obsessions!! The immaculate I’m Not a Robot!! The mmmmm-decent Mowgli’s Road!!) that I was even moved to declare them an “Almost impossibly good debut trio of singles from the Welsh/Greek singer who seems all set to become Britain’s most interesting pop star when her (inevitably crushingly disappointing) debut album is released early in 2010”,.

I’m vulnerable so vulnerable

Necessary Evil 2025: The Ragin’ Climax

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

The stage curtains open, revealing 40 lovely ladies in bathing suits, wearing sashes that denote which of 2025’s greatest albums they represent, blinding the front row with quite how dazzlingly white their full toothed grins are, in danger of taking someone’s fucking eye out with quite how resplendently squeezed tight their open cleavages are.

I come out through the floor on an elevating platform, full suit and bow tie, hair slicked back and microphone in my hand:

“There she iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis, Miss Necessary Eviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil…!”

“…and I said ‘Lady, that ain’t no gear stick!!!’ Seriously though, if you don’t let me videotape me pissing on you then I’ll eject you from the competition

Considering this will be the seventeenth time that I’ve collated the Scientifically Proven Best Albums of the Year™, I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing by this point, yeah? I had only just graduated from university when I started writing this dumb list that nobody reads, and I’ll be freaking forty two when I finish the 2025 vintage! Considering my physical health (which, in 2025, has definitely started to take on a whole ‘end of days’ start of feel), it’s looking more and more likely that I will die before I ever retire this list. Mate, I would love to stop, this is a massive pain in the arse that ruins Christmas and my birthday for me every year. But if I go, then who seriously is there to take my place?? Pitchfork?? Give me a break. Fantano?? Bald fraud. Smash Hits??? Mate, I don’t like having to break this to you, but Smash Hits Magazine shut down in 2006. To quote a far less talented (but bizarrely more feted, which is often how it goes) personality who has been able to actually retire this year: I’m still here because you can’t do your job!

the last time ISN’T now

2025’s New Gold Star Artists (and a couple of RIPs)

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Sigh, I guess I should explain the rules again? To be honest, if this is one of your first times reading The Most Trusted Voice in Music then you really should start with the first post from December 1st 2014 and then read through the next 791 entries (or “chapters”, as I like to think of them) until you’re ready to read this post. Necessary Evil might be oversimply referred to as a ‘Blog’, but it’s actually more of an epic tale – a poem, really – that only sampling parts of risks lessoning its artistic impact. What’s happened to this generation’s attention spans?

OK, the criteria for qualifying for the Necessary Hall of Fame as a Gold Star Artist:

  • At least three albums
  • All albums featured on the Necessary Evil best of year countdown since 2007

There were three new Legit Bosses crowned on the the 2024 list, and here’s my ranking of their three albums so far, which will soon be added to the ongoing Hall of Fame.

And, excitingly, for the first time this year we have two artists that have brought great shame on their careers, their legacies, and their entire families by dropping out of the Gold Star Artist Hall of Fame. Both (predictably) Soccer Mommy and (perhaps surprisingly) Illuminati Hotties released records in 2024 that weren’t considered good enough for the end of year lists, so they are forever banished to the dreaded Ex-Gold Star Graveyard. There, they are both feted to rot for eternity. A ridiculously harsh ‘punishment’ for the supposed crime of releasing a record that I didn’t think was quite as good as their previous three+? Especially tough considering Soccer Mommy’s previous three albums were all released before the list shortened to 40 albums and all finished outside the top 40, so could arguably be being punished for remaining as good as they ever were?

Yes.

Sorry, SJW cuck snowflakes, take your woke ideas of fairness and ‘not treating people like shit’ back to Libtardia. This is Necessary Evil. We hit harder here.

KAPOW! CRRAACK! ZGRUPPP!

The Decline and Lull: The Manics Grow Dull Gracefully on ‘Critical Thinking

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

The Manic Street Preachers’ fifteenth album is one that is extremely easy to appreciate, so long as you’re ready to accept an entire trolley worth of caveats.

Firstly, this is the band’s 15th [FIFTEENTH] album. Few bands with any kind of success ever get this far, never mind a band that started out already preplanning their self-destruction, and coming 34 years after a debut-album the band promised would be their last. And, hey, for a group of three men in their mid fifties this ‘Critical Thinking’ is a great accomplishment. My colleague at work recently had her 50th birthday, and would she be able to produce an album of this quality? Highly unlikely.

Imposter syndrome, fuck that!

Legit Bosses: The 143 Best Songs of 2024

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Hey, look, I’m getting better at this. Recently, I went on a massive cull of the 2024’s greatest songs to make this list as tight and as concise as possible, so that it would be sure to represent the absolute best of the best and would be as brief and easy to write as possible. And look! There are only one hundred and forty three tracks this year!! That’s a whole seventeen less tracks than last year! This post is going to be a breeze!

spoiler: this song is going top five. It INVENTED GAY POP, show some respect

OK, three weeks laternow, and I’m almost done! This post will be longer than most books you read, but to be fair most of the ‘books’ you read are Dr Who fanfic.

So, yeah, these songs are really good. And they get better as the list goes on. That’s how these lists work.

Here’s the YouTube playlist, which I know is the only thing most of you care about.

How much of an intro do you need, seriously?

A/79/232

#11 Manic Street Preachers: Lifeblood 20

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

OK, you’ve had plenty from me on this album. I wrote thousands of words on it when it was first reissued, I delicately and some would say expertly compared the band’s situation in 2004 to the Soviet Union’s position at the end of the 1980s. Consider this album done! So, is now the time to write my previously threatened and detailed defence of Josef Stalin??

No. I’ve not eaten all day. And I’m a bit tired as well. I’ve been looking at this computer screen all day, my head hurts. And I’m horny. And thirsty.

Khitam Bara’a Abd Al-Bari Abu-Foul

#34 Taylor Swift: The Tortured Poets Department

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

To be clear: the 33rd scientifically proven, objective best album of the year is the sixteen track, sixty three minute original release of the album. That’s already way to the upper limits of how much Jack Antonoff any one human can ever hope to consume in one setting. If you’re here for the thirty one track two fucking hours ‘Anthology’ edition of this album, then I’m sorry, you are insane and I don’t know how you can do that to yourself.

I am also not going to count the 234 different editions of this fucking album that Taylor released in 2024, making sure that she greedily fleeced one of music’s most obsessive fanbases for every last penny they have. Oh! This just in! Taylor has apparently released a new version of the album called ‘The Tortured Poets Department: Capitalism’s Necessary Evil?’, which includes an extra fourteen seconds tagged onto the end of But Daddy I Love Him where Taylor just absolutely lets rip with a huge fart right into the microphone. Some people have accused Taylor of attempting to cynically manipulate the Necessary Evil 2024 countdown in the same way they’ve been manipulating sales figures and charts all year with these unlimited reissues. Well it won’t work, Swifto! I am way to savvy to be manipulated by these hideously manipulative schemes! And anyway, I can’t really afford to after spending more than a hundred quid on the Manic Street Preacher’s January album release. They do it because they appreciate our support!

Ziad Tareq Ziad a-Rifi