Tag: spotify

5 Car Seat Headrest: The Scholars

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

I’m sorry, am I actually losing my fucking my mind here? Is this some bizarrely specific psychotic hallucination that I’m suffering? Is everyone else suffering mass psychosis here?? Is it a mind virus or something? Did all you idiots catch it from TikTok? Everyone else seems to use that apart from me, so that might explain this apparent lunacy.

Hey, I don’t want to sound like I’m not open to debate: if you want to argue that I’ve actually been far too harsh on this modern rock masterpiece, and that it should rightfully be far closer to the number one spot. I hear you, I really do, and can only defend myself by arguing that there have been three albums released this year that are even greater pieces of genius. Also, erm, spoiler alert but there’s a Prince album to come and all. In the interests of BBC-like ‘Both Sides‘ bullshit, I will also listen to even the most insane and backward opinion that suggests that ‘The Scholars‘ would merely be a top ten album, probably delivered while the questioner dribbled out of the side of their mouth and softly pissed themselves. But to suggest anything lower than that is akin to suggesting that not only does man made global warming not exist, but it’s a huge conspiracy thought up by a still living Elvis Pressley as he controls the narrative from the same studio that he faked the moon landing based in the outer reaches of the flat Earth. I’m sorry, sir, but you are obviously an imbecile whose opinions are flimsier than drunk ape’s attempt at Jenga.

And yet, ‘The Scholars‘ received pretty good reviews and was barely mentioned when general discussions of the year’s best took place.

The fuck is wrong with you people??

I don’t feel good about it now and I won’t when I look back

7 Ethel Cain: Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

You’ll keep changing
I will stay the same
And turn the page
To find it blank
Except for my last name

Janie

Fucking hell, liberals, enough with the purity tests!!

[EDIT: Sorry, but I went to bed last night hating this post. I just feel it was all over the place, undecided on what to focus on, dipped its toes into saying something more important but wimped out of it when I was worried that it wouldn’t come across how I hoped it would, then the post just garbled about nothingness. I wanted to say things that were thought provoking and interesting, but just ended up with milk toast nothingness. I’ve left the final couple of paragraphs, plus the amazing lyrics, but the rest of this post can get to fuck. I’ll take another swing at the topic I chickened out of another time in the future. Fucking incredible album though]

LEGALIZE INCEST

9 Nourished by Time: The Passionate Ones

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

May they multiply you
May the river guide you
You won’t always be here
To be tricked and lied to
May you always have a fight
Be it wrong or be it right
Shed a raindrop when you cry
But beware of sedatives and passing time

9 2 5

Namy-namy-namy-namy-namy-namy-namy-namy-namy-namy-way we go! Yeah, I’ve got no idea what that sped up voice is saying. But I love it.

Oh, and this whole “May you always have a fight/Be it wrong or be it right”? Listen, I get it, that whole “If You Don’t Stand for Something, You’ll Fall for Anything” job? Yeah, all good. Only, don’t stand up for wrong things, yeah? I get where you’re coming from, and that not believing in anything just means you’ll allow yourself to be just swept up by the majority. And if you believe in the right things, we’d love to have you! But if you believe in the wrong thing, then maybe just pipe down and get on with your life, we’ve got this. And don’t “Fine people on both sides” me with this – there are people whose beliefs are literally scientific; there are people (the fascists) who always support capital because they’ve been told God wants them to; and then there’s people (the social fascists) who also support capital because they saw it on the fucking West Wing: Fight for what’s right, yeah?

“Beware of sedatives”? Well… I mean… what sedatives are we talking about, exactly…

If my heart should burst or break, it was overdue

10 Cleo Reed: Cuntry

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Oh, wow, white collar crimes on the company dime
Couldn’t catch a break on company time
Life on the clock’s like, eating with your eyes
Might find God, and go for a hike
More brown liquor, I chase my pain
I’m bitter by the hour, I state my claims
I’m hanging by a nail, my body’s on a scale
And work is really jail

The grass ain’t greener and the fare ain’t cheap
Give me salt and lime in the land of the free
Hate is in the air, getting harder to breathe

Salt and Lime

Ah man, I’m gonna be talking about slavery again??

Here in the UK, we hear a lot about America’s role in the slave trade. We hear a lot the perhaps most brutal and masochistic period in human history. We hear how a total of 12.5 million human beings were stolen from Africa and shipped over the the ‘New World’ in conditions not suitable for factory farmed hens. We hear how around two million simply died on the journey on account of the horrendous conditions that they were forced to live in. They might have been the lucky ones, rather than the 10.7 fucking million shipped off to the New World as slaves and brutally forced to live out their lives as someone else’s property. We are sent films like ’12 Years a Slave’ and think “Gosh, wasn’t the USA just ghastly, as we sip on our tea, toss a fag and spell ‘moisturiser‘ correctly. We watch films and TV shows about the American Civil War and think “Hmmm, yes, I know what that is” as we shove aubergines into our fannies.

Treat me like cattle and you gotta quit

11 Lorde: Virgin

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Today, I’ll go to Canal Street, they’ll piss in my ears

Hammer

Oh, wow, OK, to have such an honest admission on your album’s opening track is quite a statement! It sounds wrong to call ‘Virgin’ sex positive, per se, but it’s definitely Lorde’s most ‘sex aware’ record (counter to its title, I guess), and to ensure that it opens like this definitely warns listeners to leave their kink shaming at the door.

I fear that some of my oversees readers might not get the reference here, so think of this post as a bitesize educational supplement as well as the usual incisive musical journalism. Canal Street is about a kilometre walk away from my house, so I feel a degree of closeness to it to the extent that explaining the history and significance of the reference would actually be something of a pleasure.

If I’d had virginity I would have given that too

13 Lambrini Girls: Who Let the Dogs Out

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

The epitome of everything, I’ll tell her how I really feel
She’ll realise that I’m homo for sure
I like your face but not in a gay way
No homo

No Homo

Who! Who who who!!

Heeeeeeeeey, all you Dr. Who fans, that could be a new chant for you! Whenever the new Dr. Who episode about planets having the right to defend themselves (with genocide), or whatever, you could all chant “Who let the dogs out! Dr. Who, who, who, who!”! You can have that. Mind you, I don’t really watch a lot of Dr. Who, but I don’t think dogs feature too heavily in the core plot? Do they still have K9? Is that still a thing? You could maybe try to fit K9 into the song? “Who let Daleks out! Dr. Who, who, who who!”. That kinda works? Listen, it might need a bit of work, but I am officially relinquishing the intellectual property of that chant, so it’s public access now.

You know what mate, you stay the fuck away from me

14 Tyler, The Creator: Don’t Tap the Glass

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Welcome
Number one, body movement (funky)
No sitting still (dance, bro)
Number two, only speak in glory (yeah)
Leave your baggage at home (none of that deep shit)
Number three (nigga), don’t tap the glass
Roked, roked, roked l’Elohim
Roked, roked, roked m’Elohim

Big Poe

It’s Big Poe, motherfuckers!! ‘Big Poe’, obviously, being short for… Big Potential… because the record has such potential…? Big Poacher…? Because Tyler likes to illegally hint game…? Big Pochettino! Of course! Tyler is American, of course, and I’m sure Poch will appreciate the show of confidence ahead of next summer’s World Cup! Fantastic! I hope you cunts lose every game! World Cup 2026 is a vomit inducing sham and your fucking country should be ashamed of itself! Hate you all so much! Have fun!

The day before his sixth album’s July 21st release, Tyler, The Creator was at pains to stress how we shouldn’t expect too much from this shit! It was just an album! There’s no overlying concept, he won’t be wearing funny masks or bright wigs, there’s no unflinching peak into to the psyche of the millennial black experience, it’s just fucking ten banging songs!! From the opening of the album quoted above, Tyler makes it very clear that they’ll be “None of that deep shit”.

Fuck you and your dreams, stop playing with me

15 Perfume Genius: Glory

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

It might not quite be as representative of the record’s contents as Ninajirachi, but the cover of ‘Glory’, showing the aftermath of a car crash that has flung Mr Genius through the window of his house and deposited him, broken and disfigured, onto the floor of his own living room. The crash may have just happened, it may have happened hours ago – days, weeks? – but it’s clear that Mr Genius has found himself smashed upon the carpet of his home and decided “No, no, I’m very happy slowly dying here, thank you very much”.

I don’t know is Mr Genius (known as Perfume Hadreas by his friends) has ever suffered a life threatening, completely debilitating injury, but I definitely feel that.

Broken apart and shinin’

𝟸̶𝟼̶ 16 Blondshell: If You Asked for a Picture

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 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

17 Sharon van Etten: Sharon van Etten & The Attachment Theory

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Yeah, I know a bit of an ‘Alan Sparhawk With Trampled by Turles Situation’ – or ‘ASWTBTS; as we call it in the Journalism Business: I have also seen this record named as the self-titled debit album by Sharon van Etten & The Attachment Theory. At least in this case the album’s title is never just listed as ‘& The Attachment Theory’, so Ms Van Etten isn’t quite up there with Sparhawk when it comes to awkward album titles. However, ‘Sharon van Etten & The Attachment Theory’ is referred to by Wikipedia as “the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten” and – even more importantly – listed as solely a Sharon van Etten album on Bandcamp, so that’s what we’re going with.

Oh, and you shouldn’t capitalise the ‘Van’ in a name when you’re writing the name in full, only when you’re only writing the surname. So I will continue to call one of the greatest music artists of recent times ‘Sharon van Etten’, and Ms. Van Etten when I’m perhaps being more formal. Yeah, I know that Ms. Van Etten (see?) is American, and those fuckers don’t know how to fucking spell (see entry #26), but the least I can do is try and teach them how to spell their own name, no??

Someone inside me saved me