Tag: serpentwithfeet

Staturday Night Fever: The Best Music of 2024 In Numbers

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Have I done that pun yet? Mate, I am struggling, honestly…

So here we are again, a round up of the hot stats of the best albums and songs of 2024, which I have bizarrely fallen into the habit of doing doing eleven fucking months after the Necessary Evil list of the best albums and songs of the year is actually published. Why do I always leave it this long? Because, quite simply, after writing 40+ blog posts and a gargantuan song list in little over a month, my brain seriously doesn’t want to even acknowledge the previous year’s music again for at least a thousand years.

I almost didn’t do it this year. But – but! – then I realised that 2025’s list might have some extremely notable points! So maybe I’ll retire this dumb fucking tradition once I get round to that in winter 2026. Until then? Yeah, we gotta do this.

I do like making these purdy pictures though…

Stats in the cradle and a silver spoon

2025’s New Gold Star Artists (and a couple of RIPs)

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Sigh, I guess I should explain the rules again? To be honest, if this is one of your first times reading The Most Trusted Voice in Music then you really should start with the first post from December 1st 2014 and then read through the next 791 entries (or “chapters”, as I like to think of them) until you’re ready to read this post. Necessary Evil might be oversimply referred to as a ‘Blog’, but it’s actually more of an epic tale – a poem, really – that only sampling parts of risks lessoning its artistic impact. What’s happened to this generation’s attention spans?

OK, the criteria for qualifying for the Necessary Hall of Fame as a Gold Star Artist:

  • At least three albums
  • All albums featured on the Necessary Evil best of year countdown since 2007

There were three new Legit Bosses crowned on the the 2024 list, and here’s my ranking of their three albums so far, which will soon be added to the ongoing Hall of Fame.

And, excitingly, for the first time this year we have two artists that have brought great shame on their careers, their legacies, and their entire families by dropping out of the Gold Star Artist Hall of Fame. Both (predictably) Soccer Mommy and (perhaps surprisingly) Illuminati Hotties released records in 2024 that weren’t considered good enough for the end of year lists, so they are forever banished to the dreaded Ex-Gold Star Graveyard. There, they are both feted to rot for eternity. A ridiculously harsh ‘punishment’ for the supposed crime of releasing a record that I didn’t think was quite as good as their previous three+? Especially tough considering Soccer Mommy’s previous three albums were all released before the list shortened to 40 albums and all finished outside the top 40, so could arguably be being punished for remaining as good as they ever were?

Yes.

Sorry, SJW cuck snowflakes, take your woke ideas of fairness and ‘not treating people like shit’ back to Libtardia. This is Necessary Evil. We hit harder here.

KAPOW! CRRAACK! ZGRUPPP!

Legit Bosses: The 143 Best Songs of 2024

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Hey, look, I’m getting better at this. Recently, I went on a massive cull of the 2024’s greatest songs to make this list as tight and as concise as possible, so that it would be sure to represent the absolute best of the best and would be as brief and easy to write as possible. And look! There are only one hundred and forty three tracks this year!! That’s a whole seventeen less tracks than last year! This post is going to be a breeze!

spoiler: this song is going top five. It INVENTED GAY POP, show some respect

OK, three weeks laternow, and I’m almost done! This post will be longer than most books you read, but to be fair most of the ‘books’ you read are Dr Who fanfic.

So, yeah, these songs are really good. And they get better as the list goes on. That’s how these lists work.

Here’s the YouTube playlist, which I know is the only thing most of you care about.

How much of an intro do you need, seriously?

A/79/232

Legit Bosses: 2021’s 121 Greatest Songs

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

You know it’s all about that boom! Legit Bosses, baybay!*

(*yeah, that song isn’t actually included. It’ll be on Legit Bosses 2022 though! I’m just a bit slow with these things…)

So, only 121 this year, a marked decline on 2020’s 125. So was it a notably worse year? Absolutely chuffing not. Despite the 2.928% drop in numbers, the quality on show is outstanding. Never mind the weight, feel the quality. The top maybe twenty songs especially are on some next level shit, and you haven’t seen so many GOATs since you traumatically happened upon Weird Uncle Colin’s problematic porn collection back in 92. I also shaved a few songs last minute, mainly because they were from albums due to be released in 2022 and I decided to make them Next Year Alex’s problem. Also, one or two I realised… weren’t… actually… that… good… So that just means the 121 that made the cut are all of such spectacular quality that you may want to warn the people around you before you start reading this list, as the floor between your legs is about to get soaked.

No, no, hey, maybe it’s you that’s too gross, ever considered that??

Anyway, let the festivities begin, here are the playlists:

Spotify

YouTube

Continue reading “Legit Bosses: 2021’s 121 Greatest Songs” →

4 serpentwithfeet: DEACON

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

2018 #28

Seriously, three years ago today for serpentwithfeet’s previous album. No, no, duuuuuude, I’m not even joking, Josiah Wise’s previous album – the dark and forbiddingly sensual ‘soil’ – reached #28 back in 2018, and I wrote the blog post about it on December 24th 2018!! Dude, don’t you realise?? Today’s December 24th 2021!! You telling me that’s just a coincidence??

Seriously? I thought there’d be way more wrestlers named ‘Derrick’ or ‘Derek’ or whatever. Who even is this guy?? Derick Neikirk?? I’ve never even heard of him before, and I’m a fucking geek!! Not much of a beard, either. This whole thing’s been an absolute sham.

Yes. That is just a coincidence. Do we need to go through this again? Coincidences happen and they don’t mean anything, Microsoft releasing a game called ‘Omikron’ does not prove that Bill Gates masterminded the COVID outbreak, the Democrats don’t feast on child’s blood in order to survive – they would never be able to sort out anything that complex and meaningful, Biden did actually win the election even if only the losing side seem to care that much about it, whatever Gods you believe in aren’t real, and all the people you believe love you actually don’t, or if they do they will soon die anyway. Such is life. Can we start the blog post now?

CHILE I GOT US SOME GOOD NEWS

You All Knew This Was Coming [UPDATED]

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

This blog has never been the place for timely, contemporary and up to the minute fresh takes. In normal circumstances, if something notable happens during the year I simply put it aside in that special part of my brain that I hope to access around December, then at the end of the year I rant about it in a blog post about my 25th best album of the year, or whatever, when every other person in the world has long stopped caring about it. Or, most likely, I’ll simply forget all about it and instead go off on a tangent about rape fantasies or utter fucking nonsense. It was all we wanted. All we needed. We were happy.

Well, COVID-19 got me doing all sorts of crazy shit that I’ve never done before- last Tuesday I ate an unsalted pistachio*- so I guess I may as well add to the insanity by commenting on something that only just happened this last week. Partly this is because a particularly obnoxious crow outside my window has woken me up at two thirty in the morning, like I’m a 15th century wheelwright working in the tower of his master’s monastery or some shit, but partly because Lana Del Rey’s 21st May Instagram post really got under my skin. Yeah, mostly the former. Sniff, sniff, what’s that smell? Oh yeah! Precious motherfucking content!!

Continue reading “You All Knew This Was Coming [UPDATED]” →

The Legit Bosses:136 Best Tracks of 2018

~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

This is officially the end of 2018! And it’s only the 5th January [EDIT: Still only the 6th!]! Although there’s freaking one hundred and thirty six  tracks to get through, so this may well take until mid May! Happy Cinco de Mayo! No time to talk! A shit load of songs to get through!!

136 Candace: Rewind

Gorgeous, innit?

135 Epic Reflexes: Cha Cha

While Z-Tape’s ‘Spring’ collection was veritably busting at the seems with Legit Bosses, as you’ll soon see, this is the only similarly legitimate position of authority from their ‘Summer’ collection. They’re all still great though, as is the Epic Reflexes’s album ‘ChaChaChinatown‘.

134 The Carters: Apeshit

I had a lot of problems with ‘Everything is Love’, the surprising debut release from Beyonce and Jay-Z. Part of the reason I struggled with it was that I wasn’t sure how canonical it is. Like, is this it, Bee? Is this underwhelming collection of occasionally very entertaining rap boasts officially your actual follow-up to one of the most acclaimed albums of the 21st century? It’s an album about how two very rich people love each other but probably love their money more, that includes the line “My grandchildren’s grandchildren already rich” which, despite Kanye’s crisis of publicity, is by far the line from 2018 that Donald Trump is most likely to high five in a men’s locker room. Also, there’s a moment on the opening track where Mr Carter drawls out “Let it breaaaathe, let it breaaaathe” like JB Rockefeller basking in the glory of a fart he’d just released under the bedsheets, which marks the first time in more than two decades that I’ve thought to myself that I don’t think I really like Jay-Z. However, he often wins me back with the later claim that he’s “Good on any MLK boulevard”. This song’s pretty great though

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Fucking hell, Jay, that haircut though… One hundred and thirty three more after the jump!

Continue reading “The Legit Bosses:136 Best Tracks of 2018” →

28 serpentwithfeet: soil

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

My mate Paul said he saw a serpent with feet one time. He says he saw it with his bare eyes, about thirteen foot long and around 350kg, dark olive brown with a white underside. I grew more sceptical as he sold me how this serpent with feet would feast on fish, gar and turtles, and was obviously cold-blooded judging by the amount of time this serpent with feet would spend lazing around in the sun. It was when Paul started excitedly pontificating to me of how this serpent with feet had incredibly strong muscles with which to snap shut its jaws, but relatively weak ones to open it, that I couldn’t help but intervene. Paul, I said, this ain’t no ‘serpent with feet’, you cretin, it’s a fucking crocodile. I’m not having you going around claiming to have seen a serpent with feet when all you’ve seen is some dumb crocodile.

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Paul dismissed me, saying this serpent with feet had a far wider, U-shaped snout than you’d expect with a crocodile. Also, this serpent with feet definitely inhabited a freshwater marsh, and he was a little offended that I didn’t know crocodiles tended to live in saltwater. Through gritted teeth, I said fine, but I wondered whether he’d considered that this serpent with feet might have been an alligator. He scoffed, asking me where alligator’s usually live. After a quick internet search, I replied North America and parts of China. Then how could I have seen one?? He laughed, I’ve never even been to North America or China!

Continue reading “28 serpentwithfeet: soil” →