Tag: soccer mommy

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!

Necessary Evil 24: The Biggest List Under the Sun

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Bumpin’ that bumpin’ that bumpin’ that…

Yeah, we’re back, so fuck me I guess?

The 16th year end Necessary Evil list of the year’s objectively and scientifically proven greatest music is a notable event for a few reasons. Firstly, it will be the first time I’ll be writing a list of year’s best bops and slaps that played out to a full twelve months of genocide. Like, the whole year. When I wrote last year’s list, it was only to the backdrop of a tiny bit of genocide that covered the last couple of months of the year. And who really pays attention in those winter months? Too busy thinking about Christmas, right? A couple of years back, for example, my housemate Darren engaged in the systematic and targeted slaughter of more than two dozen woman and children in those early December weeks, and I just didn’t notice because I spent the whole time trying to untangle the Christmas lights. Don’t worry, it happens, I get it.

Hajar Khalil Salah al-Bahtini

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.

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#75 Marissa Nadler: The Path of the Clouds

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

In 1928 the newly wed Glen and Bessie Hyde had honeymoon plans that would likely put yours to shame (definitely mine). You know how when your talking to your fiancee about your future wedding plans and one of you inevitably suggests trying to break the world speed record for traversing the Grand Canyon in a boat? In reality, this traditional fantasy never comes to pass, but six months after their marriage Glen and Bessie actually tried to walk the walk. Bessie would also become the first woman to run the canyon, so she was absolutely #girlbossing the shit out of everything.

“When are we going after the world speed records that I want to break…?”

On November 18th 1928, the couple visited photographer Emery Colb at his home and studio on the Grand Canyon rim to take some photos commemorating them setting off on their history making trip. And off they went. Forever! Dun dun duuuuuuun! A search party was launched about a month later, when the couple failed to make it to places along the Canyon as expected. They found the boat still full of the couples’ supplies, notebooks and equipment. Bassie had #girlbossed too close to the sun, and her and Glen were never seen again.

Or were they??

CLICKBAIT!!

#77 Soccer Mommy: Sometimes, Forever

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

We all like to imagine relationships ending in flames, don’t we? We want to think that all affiliations will grow into a whirlwind of emotions and angst until one partner is Marlon Brando STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAing their guts out to the other partner, Adam Driver, inside the house… shouting…? I dunno, I’ve not seen that relationship film where Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson shout at each other, but I gather it’s rather intense. Both of the partners will inevitably accuse the other of gaslighting them because, Jesus Christ, we just can’t get enough of using that fucking word, can we? You don’t think this Burberry scarf goes with my faux leather pants? Quit gaslighting me. You fascist.

“No I am not getting changed before the wedding, stop gaslighting me. If your sister has an issue, maybe she should first think about how fat she’s got recently. Glass houses, know what I mean? You both get it from your bitch mother…”

When we see an old friend and find out that they broke up with Alan, we’re always so disappointed to hear they just ‘drifted apart’. No, fuck that! Where are the story’s of Alan punching through walls or cutlery being thrown across your apartment as you both exchange obscenities!? Where’s the anecdote of both of your infidelities coming to light on the day you were supposed to get married when it’s suddenly revealed that you’re both fucking the Imam officiating the wedding?? One of life’s most depressingly dull facts is that the vast majority of relationships end with a sad whimper. Listen, there are billions of relationships in the world, and billions of people will be in multiple relationships. The majority of these relationships won’t be good fits. They might have thought they were in love at one point, but more likely they just really liked each other. Then they started to merely like each other. Then they tolerated each other. Now, they just find each other a bit annoying. It’s fine, it’s normal, and I’m not talking about your relationship, you and Stuart are meant for each other. Yeah, that’s the person you’re happy to spend the rest of your life with, yeah? Yeah?

The rest. Of your life…

Necessary Evil 2020 pt.6 (50-46)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 10 Comments

#50 Banoffee: Look At Us Now Dad

Banoffee’s debut album should act as an important reference point for Halsey. The subjects she covers here- from painful reconciliations to painful intergenerational trauma to, Jesus, why didn’t I just leave it as a one night stand with that prick??- are at least as weighty as those covered on Ms Frangipane’s latest. Banoffee simply covers them often more explicitly, with far more humour and raw openness. And, more importantly, does so with no shame about this being a pop album and with the mature knowledge that really shouldn’t take away from its artistic legitimacy. She’s not openly complaining about Band of Horses not being considered pop despite starting with the same three letters, she’s not arguing that her album being considered ‘pop’ and the Javier Muñoz Spanish language production The Occupant being considered a ‘movie’ is just more evidence of the suffocating patriarchy, she’s not pointing to the barbed wire around her wrist on the album cover as poof of how freaking metal she is. She has no qualms about being a pop artist and is confident in the utter magnificence she can still produce, how being a ‘pop’ artist doesn’t act as a barrier to producing such weird, challenging and effective music such as this.

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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!

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60 Soccer Mommy: Clean

~ Lex Leeson ~ 17 Comments

By many definitions of the word, I’ve been ‘clean’ for about three years now.

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By which I mean I no longer drink alcohol. As for other drugs, I’m fond of saying that “I’m either never high or high all the time, depending on how you look at it” due to the cocktail of prescription drugs I consider essential to my psychological upkeep and the fact I’m a stone cold banter merchant. However, as wry and cheeky as the statement may be, it’s not strictly true, and a far more accurate statement would be “I’m either never high, but sometimes really fucking high, or high all the time, and sometimes really fucking high, depending in how you look at it”, as I still enjoy recreational drugs. Because of course I do- drugs are awesome. Kids, just say ‘yes’. If more kids tried drugs we’d have far less problems in the world as potential alcoholics discover a cleaner way to search for the experience of another body. I mean, yeah, sure, we’d have a lot more heroin and crack cocaine addicts, but you’ve got to break a few omelettes to make a good egg, or something

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