Tag: muslim

4 Little Simz: Grey Area

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

“I say it with my chest and I don’t care who I offend, uh huh, ha“

Just to let you know, dear reader, at times in this article it may sound like I’m derogating the general situation or decrying a loss of civility in wider society or lame things like that, but I am actually complaining about you personally, as your own behaviour is at the centre of what I’m talking about and it is completely within your power to address it. And, I’m sorry, but if you consider yourself left wing then you really are chiefly what I’m thinking of. We cool? We cool??

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If you are left wing, you are (generally, generally, generally!!) concerned with supporting the community rather than the individual but also want the state to make it as easy as possible for a human being to express themselves freely and with a truly equal framework of opportunity. That’s cool and- you know what?- I probably agree with you. If you are right wing you are (generally! Gen-er-motherfuckin’-ly!!!) concerned more with allowing the more successful people as little impediments to their achievements as possible, you think the best state is one that interferes as little as possible, that things like high taxes and overzealous bureaucracy only discourages human potential. You (GENERALLY!!!!) thank that to support the less successful financially is actually just encouraging people to ‘do nothing’ and removes the impetus for them to truly excel. That’s cool. I don’t agree, but we both honestly believe that our positions on society are what’s best for either the good of the community/country/world or just, y’know, yourself and your own family. Maybe the latter’s more important to you. Maybe the former’s more important to me only because it will increase the good of the latter. Maybe we both think that the former plays a part in improving the latter but without the latter being dealt with the former has no chance but without the former being stabilised we don’t even have a latter but then what is the former if not just a larger collection of latters and the latter and the former both need to somehow work in synergy? Yes, that’s probably the one statement we can all agree with.

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39 Ariana Grande: Sweetener

~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

“Once I have you, I will never let you, never let you”

I feel quite sorry for Ariana Grande. ‘Sweetener’ is an absolutely brilliant album, and the jokes about my ‘TDE’ (Tiny Di… yeah, you got that joke, didn’t you?) would write themselves. It sees Grande finally locate an identity for herself, and honestly contains some of the best and most subtly experimental mainstream pop music released this year. I’m just going to use this review to talk about Hejjy again though. First ISIS, now this: poor girl just can’t catch a break.

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Buckle up!

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23 St Vincent: MASSEDUCTION

~ Lex Leeson ~ 21 Comments

MASSDELUSION

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“How can anybody have you and lose you
And not lose their minds, too?”

That’s a really nice little couplet, isn’t it?

It relates to the similarly awesome surrounding song’s Los Ageless*‘s themes of  desperately attempting to battle the horrifying and corrosive party-pooping  efforts of aging. It’s so cleverly written though, that Annie Clark is aware how it could potentially become an anthem for jilted lovers and soundtrack many traumatic break ups. Annie Clark is clever enough to realise that, realistically, the largest effect any song written and performed by a woman can hope to have on wider culture is if it’s included on the soundtrack of a ‘Bridget Jones’ movie, so she might hit paydirt with this one.

I really love the line. I love how it flows, I love how many ways it could be interpreted. I love how Clarky sings it. I love it so much I actually got it as a tattoo.

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…which, given the things I’m about to talk about, might have been a mistake…

Imagine if the lyrics were slightly different. Imagine if the song was actually about how finishing a relationship with Annie is likely to send someone loopy, because she’s so fucking awesome. The chorus would instead go ‘How can anybody have me and lose me/And not lose their minds too?’.

It would still be a pretty boss lyric, wouldn’t it? I mean, a little less nuanced and subtle than Clark’s songs usually are, but still an exhilarating anthem of female empowerment that is once again guaranteed that Bridget Jones movie spot.

However, what if the lyrics were: ‘How can anybody have me and lose me/Move to a different country for three years/Finally divorce me/And not lose their minds too’?

It’d be a bit weird, wouldn’t it? I mean, the rhyming scheme has been completely compromised, and the song’s whole melody would probably have to be rewritten in order to work it in.

Don’t worry, I am actually going somewhere with this:

Let me take you back to April 31st 2010:

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Donald Trump Breaks the Fourth Wall

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

There are only two real reasons that exist to justify writing, two possible excuses for dribbling over your fingers and then wiping the resulting saliva- diluted with Monster Munch crumbs from last night’s binge of consumption that attempted to comfort the desolate loneliness that eats at your soul and also from the tears that such an act inevitably result in- across a keyboard and mashing the porridge of shame into roman numerals and expecting the outside world to be deserving of it.

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The first reason is if you’re actually, like, good at writing. If you’re a proper good writer like, I dunno,  Dan Brown or David Walliams then your writing might be good enough to one day be turned into a movie, and therefore your ideas could actually effect the wider cultural conscious. I’ll admit that here’s a weird grey area that exists where you write good stuff that isn’t turned into a film- like… erm… Salmon Rushdie?- and this just about qualifies your existence. But who reads books today, honestly? Freaking nerds, that’s who.

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I obviously don’t fall into this category: I’m not very good at writing.

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