Tag: pitchfork

31 Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

We all agree that is was William S. Burroughs or maybe Miles Davis or maybe Thelonious Monk or maybe Charles Mingus or maybe Frank Zappa or maybe George Carlin or maybe Martin Mull or maybe Lester Bangs or maybe David Byrne or maybe Steve Martin or maybe Elvis Costello or maybe Laurie Anderson who first coined the phrase “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”. I’d like to formally call that out today, and to officially deign William/Miles/Thelonious/Charles/Frank/George/Martin/David/Steve/Elvis/Laurie out as a grade A bullshit artist. You don’t dance ‘about’ anything, you utter cretin, you dance to things. What if I write about a holiday I had? Would that be like playing darts about synchronised swimming? Was that food review I wrote like building Lego about the Paris Climate Accord? When Pablo Picasso painted about the Spanish Civil War, might he as well have been trellising a fence about Celeste speedrunning?

You’re full of shit William/Miles/Thelonious/Charles/Frank/George/Martin/David/Steve/Elvis/Laurie!!!

Not you, Lester Bangs, you’re alright. He was probably making a similarly good point to the first paragraph of this post. Many consider Bangs to be very much the Alex Franchise-Palmer of his day.

The Queer People-Medicines Are Here

36 Tame Impala: Deadbeat

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Dude, mate, bro: did you know that Tame Impala was just one guy? And he’s Australian? Mind: blown, right? Wait until I tell you who’s the brother of Big Mo from Eastenders.

Mate (maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate!), is that your daughter on the cover?? No. Don’t like it. That feels creepy and wrong, and brings in all sorts of questions of ethical consent. But now that’s dealt with, I’m not sure I can think of any other reason to dislike this album. It’s perhaps no way near as expansive, trend-shitting or potentially influential as his (it’s just one guy!) previous work, but it’s still an incredibly strong collection of brilliant electro pop with melodies to absolutely die for.

Do you want my love? Is it obsolete?

#38 Waxahatchee: Tigers Blood

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

What even is Waxahatchee now?

Katie Crutchfield is extraordinarily talented, don’t get me wrong. Whatever I ever say about them or the music they make, I never want the fact that they are ridiculously good at their job to be forgotten. Their songwriting skill is absolutely impeachable, I don’t think they’ve ever put their name to a song you’d rank below 6/10, they’re an obvious mentality monster whose mastery of their craft now has eight albums (plus other stuff. It’s hard to work out what counts) worth of hard evidence. She’s very good.

But what are they?

Bayan Muhammad Kamel Abu Khamash

2024’s New Gold Star Artists

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

You know the rules by now: an entire album discography comprising of at least three albums, every single one of their albums featured on a Necessary Evil album of the year countdown on the Most Trusted Blog in Music. There were a few Legacy Gold Star Artists who added to their repertoire in 2023, but on this post I’m going to be concentrating on the five artists who earned their wings in 2023. Or rather, who were already glorious winged beasts of musical sapience, but got those motherfuckers gold plated in 2023.

Ah, Ms. Zauner! I see you have chosen to commemorate your achievement! As wee you should, my dear.

Oh, and these particular entrants will just be copied and pasted into the master post as well. I’ve just created this new post highlighting the new entries so you wouldn’t have to go back to the original entry every year to see who has earned promotion. So don’t come at me with that “You never think of us! You treat us so bad!” bullshit, alright? I treat you just fine. If anything, I treat you too well, so that might not be a string you want to pull too hard on. To see how new albums by Legacy artists like Wednesday and Janelle Monae did? Yeah, you’ll have to check the rankings on the master post. Like I say, I already treat you too well, so be careful what you ask for. And did you read what I thought about that Janelle album?? Probably not breaking into that top three, is it?

Anyway, without further ado:

all that glitters

21 Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

Don’t pull your pants, before I go down
Don’t turn away, this is my time
Don’t make demands, I don’t take none
Just say a prayer that it gon’ get done
Don’t pull your pants before I go down
Don’t turn away, this is my time
Like a shotgun needs an outcome
I’m your prostitute, you gon’ get some
Like a shotgun needs an outcome
I’m your prostitute, you gon’ get some

Get Some

Hooooooooooooooooooooo mama! That’s some spicy meatballs! Is it hot in here? I know it’s not my central heating, as I haven’t been able to afford that for around two years now.

I still remember my reaction on first hearing the introductory single from Lykke Li’s second album. I had fallen in love with their debut record (#3 in 2008) and had a extremely memorable personal experience/sexual awakening while seeing her live that year. “Sexual awakening”? I dunno, but I vividly remember watching her interpret her agonisingly beautiful and perversely anthemic music through hip movements and overwhelming stage presence and thinking to myself “I would die for this person”. That thought came from deep in my soul. And also my penis. Not entirely my penis, you understand, I’m not a monster. But my penis was still on the board of directors of my soul. It was at least allowed to have a say.

#Representation

TO THE BENTLEY TO THE HOTEL TO MY OWN WAYS

The Necessary Evil Hall of Fame: Gold Star Artists

~ Lex Leeson ~ 21 Comments
  • 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.

Pulitzer Prize stuff from 2019

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.

Continue reading “The Necessary Evil Hall of Fame: Gold Star Artists” →

#1 070 Shake: You Can’t Kill Me (Greatest Album of 2022)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

OK, let’s try and put this in some sort of perspective: I have always considered my three favourite artists of all time to be Prince, Manic Street Preachers and Nick Cave. Between all three of them they have all had a combined thirty records make the Necessary Evil end of year list and out of those thirty, two have been named the year’s best. If I wanted to throw in some faves – both problematic and less so – from the last 15-20 years I might throw in the names of Janelle Monae, The Hotelier, Kanye West, Let’s Eat Grandma, CHVRCHES or Yeasayer. Twenty three entries between them. One winner. Oh, and Radiohead have never finished first, but

Can we get this meme a medal or something?

Thirteen different artists have won Necessary Evil since it first started in 2007. Maybe fourteen, depending on your take on 2013’s infamous Arctic Monkeys/Hjaltalín controversy. No artist has ever finished first twice. Until now. 070 Shake’s ‘Modus Vivendi’ was the greatest album of 2020, and the 2022 follow-up is unquestionably the greatest album released this year, with its only viable contender being a 1982 masterpiece widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time. These are the only two albums she has released.

I’M IN YOUR WORLD FOR THE NIGHT, YEAH

#13 Hallelujah The Hills: No One Knows What Happens Next (2012)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Rerelease number two! By the way, I’ve also come to notice since I last wrote that Marina post signalling the Oncoming of the Rereleases, where I rather cerebrally and logically (some would say deeply sexually) explained how I’d been smart enough to collate the list’s three big rereleases all together just outside the top ten. Or maybe that was a complete accident. The point was: I’m a fucking critical genius. Well, afterwards, I realised that there were rereleases at numbers 14, 13, 12, then a completely valid 2022 record at #11… Then another ‘rerelease’ (not technically rereleased this year, but a ‘Legacy Release’ that I’d decided to include) at number ten. Honestly, I’ve no fucking idea what’s going on with this list. Or my life, for that matter. Please help me. Any clues on how to sort this shit out?

My life, I mean, I don’t want to hear about any perceived ‘improvements’ to this blog or the Necessary Evil year end list. Necessary Evil is a perfect little crystal and I’m very protective over it. My life? Meh, I’m not too fussed, so I’ll give everything a shot. Have I ever tried deeps sea crab fishing as a vocation, you ask? Why not!? Live out my days as a Dreamsexual?? That sounds pretty problematic these days. I’ll do it.

THERE’s NO USE PRETENDING THAT THIS LIFE IS UNENDING OR CRUEL

#24 Destroyer: Labyrinthitis

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

Oh Aggie, your beating heart was a carriage made of gold
How the arithmetic of this guitar melts your heart is beyond me
And when I say beyond me, I mean beyond me
Love ya? I barely know you, it goes to show
Who really knows what love is?
The branches, the breeze, the roiling seas
None of it seems worth mentioning
Though I’m in the process of figuring it out
Even if it’s elementary
A scrapyard angel, wings of brass
Ash, a river called trash
And speaking of lifelike, this is what life’s like
You thread the needle, then the needle runs dry
You thread the needle, then the needle runs dry
“Inward Crackle,” says the fink to himself
Oh well, I wasn’t taught how to
Go off like a, go off like a, go off like a, go off like a
Go off like a hydrogen bomb
But I do radiate a certain glow
It flutters and fades, a Ferris wheel on the run from the snow
You have to look at it from all angles
Says the cubist judge from cubist jail
The sky glows, the heat is unbearable
Parrot weather
My decision is final, a crazy game
I traded in moonlight for the morning dew
I know dusk when I see one
I know rust when I see it
You come out swinging, but you go down swinging too
You pay good money for a million dollar view
Flipping the pages of Chatelaine
The rude empiricism of every troubled loser
Quote, unquote, unquote
A moment alone please
A moment alone please
A moment alone please
With this, with this
With this rhapsody
With this rhapsody
Vital information from where I’m standing
Low-born Madonna
With her typewriters in the rain
Clacking their misfortunes, speech, speech
A figure of light’s trapped inside your kimono
Absent friends, where’d you go?
And while we’re on the subject of psychotic passwords
Honing in on nothing
Everywhere Rome goes
Everybody wants her
Ah fuck, I feel like a discovery someone once saw
On a clear day
Dump him

June

Dan Bejar, ladies and gentlemen and others

WHOO! WORD COUNT!