The Necessary Evil Hall of Fame: Gold Star Artists

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

I’ve been doing this dumb blog that nobody reads since my first post on the 1st December 2014 called the latest Pixies album an “especially grievous dirty protest”. 2024’s list was the tenth I’ve written in excruciating detail on the blog. The intelligent thing to do would be to call it a day after that. But then again the really intelligent thing to would have been to never start it in the first place. As a stupid person, I’m definitely conflicted. My (recorded) albums of the year go back to 2007. I’m not wanting to put too fine a point on it, nor am I at all pompous enough to ever overexaggerate my importance, but I think it’s fair to say that I am objectively the paramount and most respected voice on music of the last 15 years. And before that too, I just didn’t have a blog then.

But what about the artists themselves? They sometimes play a part in the psychosexual agitprop magic of this blog. We can obviously consider the artists whose work has appeared most in my year end lists, but that’s obviously going to be the Manics (eleven + one very decent JDB solo record and one dreadful Nick Wire one), Prince (eleven, and eventually all 42 of the fuckers) and Nick Cave (I think around eleven, over a variety of projects). Like, duh much? We can all agree without any argument at all that these are the three most important musical artists of all time. It’s like if someone says their favourite food is “crisps”. Like, of course it’s crisps. Crisps are amazing. Everyone loves crisps. But what does that tell you about them as a person?? No, we need a different gage to work out the real stars of Necessary Evil.

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#59 Tierra Whack: Pop? Rap? R&B?

Oooooooh, was that the plan all along? Were these three EPs meant to be analysed together like this, so that when the ensuing blog post is titled that way it looks like a thinkpiece on what genre you could describe the revolutionary and eclectic output of one of modern music’s most interesting artists?

Well tough, that’s not what I’m going to do. I’m not falling for that trap, this ain’t ma’ first time at the rodeooooooo-whoah-oh. And there are few debates more pointless and boorish that “What genre is this?”. Who. Fucking. Cares? This is Tierra motherfucking Whack, son! If you like or rate music based on their genre, or even profess a preference for one particular style of music, you are an extraordinarily dull person and need to sit down.

IT’S SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST AND I’LL ONLY TAKE A MINUTE