Tag: saba

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” →

#35 Saba: Few Good Things

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Hustlin’ candy bars to play basketball
I still get nostalgic seein’ houses that my family lost
They wished upon a star, I caught it like I’m Randy Moss
When granny fought for her property, she would turn down any cost
I’m the grandson of Carl who lived across from the fosters
Then fostered me to spread love through holiday poverty
Hand-me-downs I was given, I thought they were bought for me
A tale of two Chicagos, this gets confused commonly
‘Cause one, you’re commemorated if you’re the hot commodity

Free Samples

Comrade Saba!

Is there an industry less concerned with ethics and more damaging to the general populace yet still so accepted as the real estate market? I’m not going to delve to deeply into it here, but the correct position to take is that all landlords are scum. If you own more than one house, you’re at the very best low key scum. Property development and large landlord associations are actually beyond scum and actually evil. I may be against the death penalty in its current widely accepted form, but we as a society need to seriously look at what horrors are accepted in our current decaying capitalism and make big decisions to punish the minority for their crimes against humanity, especially if it benefits the vast majority. That’s all I’m going to say right now. Unless there’s an album coming up soon that I can’t think of anything to say about. I will always reserve my right to go off on a massive far left tangent. Here’s ‘Britain’s Road to Socialism‘ again, give it a read (or a listen).

AND NOW BACK TO OUR SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING

Stats Through the Heart (and you’re to blame) 2018

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

Hooray for me. A winner is me. I’m the king of the world. I am a golden God. I put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp. I’m that star up in the sky. I’m that mountain peak up high. Hey, I made it. I’m the world’s greatest. I assume that allows me to enslave any underage girl I want, with occasional pissing privileges. What a time to be alive.

celebration
That’s me, that is

This week 2019 officially outstripped 2018 on Necessary Evil, with the site getting more views and more individual visitors than ever before. This despite me not even starting the end of year list, which has always been the only reason any of you miserable cunts (love you!) ever visit this piece of shit site. This is, of course, an outstanding achievement which you no doubt would have heard on the news. Whatever it is that I do on this blog is more popular than ever.  Perhaps it’s due to me writing many more non-list entries this year. In 2019, I’ve written

img_0326

img_0327img_0328img_0329.jpgimg_0331img_0330.jpgimg_0332img_0333.jpgimg_0334

I’ve written a number of non-list entries, which beats my previous record of ‘a lot less’ at best and, more commonly, ‘fuck all’. I’m not going to waste much time trying to analyse why I’m so popular- just luck at that fucking face. Adorable- but such a momentous occasion deserves something of a celebration. And I couldn’t think of a better one than this. Or, more accurately, I could think of a million better ways to celebrate than this, but this is the only one I could be arsed doing. Good? Good.

You could probably guess what I’m aiming to do. As we edge towards the end of the year, it’s obvious what needs to be done, and the fact that we are about to close on a decade that has seen the arrival SnapChat, Pope Francis, Boko Harem, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz only makes things more imperative.

That’s right: a statistical breakdown of the best albums of 2018!!

Yeah, I know, I should have done this in January when I finished the countdown, much like I published detailed breakdowns soon after 2016 and 2017 finished. But you know what? I’ve just been busy, man, y’know? Did you not notice that it took me three entries to list the greatest Money in the Bank matches ever? If I’m spending so much time on bullshit like that how am I ever going to find time for bullshit like this? Are you going to be one of those people who doesn’t like it when things they don’t like happen?? Grow up, this is neoliberalism and you’ll accept whatever we tell you that you’re happy with.

Love you!

Continue reading “Stats Through the Heart (and you’re to blame) 2018” →

32 Saba: Care for Me

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

When I was ‘reviewing’ the extremely impressive and undeniable Noname album a few dozen entries back, her close musical conspirator Saba guesting on one track gave me an uncomfortable feeling all of a sudden. I had placed her compatriot’s album a full thirty five places higher on the list. Was it really that different and that much superior? Was I guilty of the ‘male glance’??

000001.jpg

I’m sure I’ve talked about the ‘male glance’ on numerous occasions before, because it is something that I wholeheartedly believe exists and am extremely wary of being guilty of it myself. I’ll explain it again, because I can’t remember if I have before, and anyway this is the first post of this blog you’ve ever read, isn’t it? You’re only here because I added ‘keira knightley rim job’ as a tag. Not what you expected, I know, but still awesome, yeah?? Don’t forget to hit subscribe. I will explain what the ‘male gaze’ is after the jump, because bah gahd I need dem clicks:

Continue reading “32 Saba: Care for Me” →

69 Noname: Room 25

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

“My pussy teaching 9th grade English/My pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism/In conversation with a marginal system/In love with Jesus”

03fd182aa688476b9f94031c7590f9da

When Noname released her second album back in some time in the past (there really is no way of knowing), Amazon offered the opening (and possibly best) track, Self, to listen to as a sample. Early in the song she states “Y’all really thought a bitch couldn’t rap huh?/Maybe this your answer for that, a crack era/The Reagan administration that niggas are still scared of?”, and being the sucker I am for commentaries on the (still) worst US President of the modern era. Soon afterwards, she utters the aforementioned bang up the elephant line that you really should be well aware of by now, and I was sold. I immediately chucked £7.99 at Noname and her scholarly vagina. I later found out that she was also on Bandcamp, so purchased it again in the assumption that she was likely to see a lot more of the money, judging by the amount of cash Amazon siphoned off when I published a couple of books a couple of years ago. For that reason, ‘Room 25’ is the only 2018 album that could be considered so good that I bought it twice.

The thing is though, what does that line actually mean?

Continue reading “69 Noname: Room 25” →