Tag: review

2026’s New Gold Star Artist’s (and a Couple of Shameful Exits)

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Keep up at the back! I’ve explained all of this a dozen times by this point! For glorious entry into the prized and celebrated Necessary Evil Gold Star Artists Hall of Fame you need to meet just two basic yet extraordinary difficult criteria:

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

Well… not none, but… few… Few Shall Pass.

NE25 saw two new entries to the most prestigious list in all of music. In all of life. And they’re biggies: legitimately two of the most notable artists of the 21st century, and even if a normie mainstream media (more like lamestream media, ammi right lads???) outlet like Rolling Stone or BBC or The Daily Stormer or Razzle decided to list the greatest artists of the past two decades they’d both be listed high. And, in a pleasing bit of symmetry, there were also two artists condemned to the eternal shame of being disqualified from the Gold Star Artists Hall of Fame and violently dispelled into the disgraceful Ex-Gold Star Graveyard. It was a great shame that one of these artists was expelled. The other one I couldn’t give less of a shit about.

More, more, more, how do you like it?

Stat is to Be Done? Necessary Evil 2025 in Numbers

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Yes, a lot earlier than I’ve usually pulled my fingers and thumbs out to do these statistical breakdowns of the previous year’s Necessary Evil list of the year’s best albums. I’d fallen into the bad habit of putting it off for so long, that it now usually acts as a semi-introduction to the nexr year’s list, which is pretty fucking pointless.

And this year I have come to the realisation that, ultimately, this whole yearly tradition is pretty dang pointless. Self-referential, divisive, needlessly segregationary, and of absolutely no interest to literally anyone in the world other than myself. It gives me a chance to make fun little pictures, but that’s it.

Which is why, what is to be done, is that this will be the final time ever that I list the stats of the previous year’s list. Especially since I started the (far more important, obviously) Gold Star Artists Hall of Fame (which will get its 2025 update soon), this twee and meaningless drag on my time simply can’t justify itself. After this year’s stats, I’m going to storm the Necessary Evil Winter Palaces and change the whole system for the better.

You might remember that I threatened this on last year’s stat breakdown but decided to give it one more run around because of one important factor: I honestly think that 2025 might see the UK beat the USA for the first time, which would be a great and extremely honourable way to bow out.

Also, I’m really running out of puns for ‘Stats’. And this is two years after I did a Fatman Scoop reference. Times are tough.

You got a ten dollar bill, get your hands up!

Legit Bosses: The 118 Best Songs of 2025

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 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

#1 Anna von Hausswolff: ICONOCLASTS (Best Album of 2025)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

A lot of these songs are about love, in various ways, but I wanted the album to feel like a battle cry. It felt urgent to me to express a sense of wanting things to change and actually taking steps towards that change. 

Anna von Hausswolff to The Line of Best Fit 2025/10/27

The foolish hope of great eternal beauty
This shit breaks my heart

Facing Atlas

Of course, this is Anna von Hausswolff we’re talking about, so that line in Facing Atlas comes attached with that voice, that incredibly powerful and borderline counter-musical battering ram of an instrument, perhaps one of the only human talents on Earth that could ever hope to position itself among the maximalist sturm und drang of Von Hausswolf’s music and not be immediately crushed to pieces by the musical waves crashing all around it: “This shit breeeeea-a-ye-aaaaaaaaaayks ma heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar…!!”

I’m scaring my sister and my mom

3 FKA Twigs: EUSEXUA

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Yeah, that’s right, I’m going to start my post on the Scientifically Proven™ third greatest album of 2025 by slagging off Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ for the third fucking time.

Both Beyoncé’s 2022 critic stupefying event album and FKA Twigs’ third proper record were heavily influenced by dance music. Beyoncé referenced a lot of post 70’s black dance crazes – with close attention paid to early 90’s House music and Detroit’s best -while Twigs was enchanted with the techno music she heard when she relocated to Prague to – don’t laugh – film ‘The Crow‘.

I’m a dog for you

𝟸̶𝟼̶ 16 Blondshell: If You Asked for a Picture

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

How bad does it have to hurt to count?!
Does it have to hurt at all?!
I’ll come back if you put me down two times!
You try hard to make me yours!
But once you get me I get bored!
I’ll come back if you put me down two times!

Two Times

Aaaah mate, buddy, pal, 朋友, amicus, amiga! You might have dropped a pretty massive 24 places since I was charmed enough to name you the second best album of 2023, but – bah Gahd! – can you still ignite those cursed feels when you feel in the mood??

OK, step back, hold it up now, back it up – beep beep beep – re-rewind, when the crowd say Bo Selecta…

With Craig David all over your BOINK

36 Tame Impala: Deadbeat

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

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 Clipping: Dead Channel Sky

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

opening line of William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer’

C-c-c-c-c-c-c-cyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyberpuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu̸̖̬͑͑u̴͇̍̌͂ů̵̢̼̳u̷̮͑ů̵͖u̶͉̐̒u̸͙̱̾ṵ̵́͗̚u̶͕͙̽̑͝ṷ̸͓͌ṳ̶͉̊̈̓ụ̵̢̃u̶̗͋͘u̶̡̗͊̍̇n̴̫͕͆k̴̢̃͘!̶͇̭̹̎!̵̨̭̬̀͐!̴̲̙̂͝

*start up modem noises*

Aw, dude, in the future you’ll be forced to eat algorithms, which will be injected straight into your anterior insula and be called “structuralising the framework”. You’ll be able to choose your newborn baby’s sex, race, Twitter handle and initial .README file, and births will instead be called “Day One Updates”. And these day one updates won’t come out your fanny like before, they’ll be shared through ethernet cables and your happy day will be marked by receiving a Steam download key. And and and and and people won’t even have sex anymore, they’ll just… like… merge their Javascripts or some shit. You want to do some shopping? Club Penguin. File your taxes? Club Penguin. Carry out a terrorist attack? Club Penguin. We may currently live in the age of ‘Everything Computer‘, but the future will be Everything Club Penguin. Billy Idol tried to warn us but we didn’t want to listen.

Like a shock to the system