#45 Taylor Swift: Midnights

Dec 11, 2022 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

This post might actually be my last. It’s been fun. Occasionally.

OK, if you haven’t been following the news recently, I might have to give you a quick primer. I get it, don’t worry, it can be a nasty world out there and sometimes we have to attempt to protect our own mental health by not even engaging with the horror, I completely understand if you aren’t up on possibly the biggest story of late 2022. Trigger warning, this might be the most upsetting. Remember a few days ago when I posted my Pusha T post? Fifty second best album of the year? Not bad, right? Sure not as high as the near top five placing that Rolling Stone had (bafflingly) deemed it worthy of, but then I’ve certainly been questioning if it’s actually better than Alvvays, Lykke Li, The Smile or Big|Brave, so… it all works out? I dunno, whatever, that’s where the album fell. Was it a particularly good post? Hmmmmmmnot especially. I didn’t spend anyway near the time on it that I dedicated to Tanya Tagaq or Arcade Fire, for instance, but likely because there weren’t any sexual assaults or cultural genocides to discuss. I mentioned how Pusha’s lyrics often don’t convey what he thinks they do, which I would have liked to delve into more given the time. As a post in general though, particularly when compared to my best work, it was definitely m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m

Yes! It’s getting more and more difficult to use that MJF meme, but – bah Gahd! – I still manage it!

THIS IS ALREADY AMONG YOUR BEST WORK

#65 ANGEL_TECH: INITIATION :3

Dec 5, 2022 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Remember how much I stanned the vertical bar in BIG|BRAVE‘s name at #71? Bro, I was super simping for that punctuation symbol, wasn’t I? It was totally… bussin’… and… PAWG…? Look at all these hip new words I’m using! As far as you know, I’m, like, 22 years old or something. Yeah, I’m a hip young gunslinger. Yes I am. Stop gaslighting me.

Hold on, slow down *grabs pen and paper* Laugh… out… loud… Go on.

Eeeeeeeeeeew, ‘PAWG’ stands for ‘Phat Ass White Girl’?? I honestly never knew that, it’s so gross! I will state at this point that I personally will not be referring to either Melanie James/melodus nor Elora Driver/metagirl as ‘PAWGs’, though they are of course free to refer to themselves as such and may well fit the description.

‘PHAT’ STANDS FOR ‘PRETTY HOT AND TEMPTING’??

6 Fever Ray: Plunge

Apr 5, 2018Apr 5, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

I Decided to Love Her.

but She Didn’t Make it Easy

Sometimes I envy NME. And The Guardian. And Pitchfork. And Melody Maker. And Q Magazine. And the Manchester Evening News. And Rolling Stones. I envy The Roling Stone’s money, but I don’t envy being them, as that would mean losing 50 years of my life and a complete morality lobotomy. And Crack Magazine.

How many others are there…?

And Kerrang. And the Telegraph And NME. I said that one, didn’t I? I envy it twice. And Mojo. And Uncut. And Mixmag.

I envy all these vessels of music journalism- to different degrees and holding it to varying degrees of importance- because, I don’t know if you ever noticed, but they manage to get their albums of the year list out at the actual end of the year!!

(Falling)

How do they do that?? I mean, even if Mojo is in a terrible place mentally, and is considering if it’s really worthwhile writing anything anymore, it still manages to garner up the motivation to try and and convince us that David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ was the best album of 2016 (nonsense, I have the science to prove it was actually 27th) on December 11th!! I didn’t even get around to explaining the truth until October 30th 2017!!

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33 Various Artists: Tegan and Sara Present The Con X: Covers

Mar 16, 2018Mar 23, 2018 ~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Leave the Memories Alone?

‘The Con’, Tegan and Sara’s fifth album, was a very important album to me personally, not just simply at the time of its release but for many years afterwards. This should have had given me a hint to how significant a release it was- considering the lasting effect it still managed to have on a man so tediously heteronormative that he seriously refused to like Bret Hart as a child because he wore pink- but I honestly didn’t realise the wider world had similar and even equal affections to me (but never more, never possibly more: nobody could love ‘The Con’ more than me. Nobody!) until I learned that there would be a tenth anniversary celebrated with a collection of covers of each of the album’s 14 tracks by 14 different artists, some newer acts that were directly influenced and even enabled by T&S’s and this album’s success, and some older affiliates (Ryan Adams: who knew? He’s a man that I imagine would consider even me an outrageous fop).

Firstly, this is always a great idea, and always preferable to just lazily re-releasing a classic album with an extra disc of b-sides and demos (damn you, Manic Street Preachers, stop taking my money!!). Two albums on this countdown are by artists first introduced to me through this album (Muna and… another one…)

and it’s by far the best way to exhibit an album’s importance.

Secondly, rather than spending 800 words again moaning about how I think Tegan and Sara aren’t as good as they used to be, I thought that it would be far more interesting and relevant to revisit my original ‘review’ of the album when it, in keeping with my usual punctuality, was No.4 in my 2008 list (and make it 2’100 words). The original piece only captures a small part of the bond I would eventually form with the record, but this is still proof that I was into this album way before anyone on this list. And yet was I invited to contribute? Was I buffalo!!

More after the jump (I’ve always wanted to write that, makes the blog sound so legit)

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