#1 070 Shake: You Can’t Kill Me (Greatest Album of 2022)

OK, let’s try and put this in some sort of perspective: I have always considered my three favourite artists of all time to be Prince, Manic Street Preachers and Nick Cave. Between all three of them they have all had a combined thirty records make the Necessary Evil end of year list and out of those thirty, two have been named the year’s best. If I wanted to throw in some faves – both problematic and less so – from the last 15-20 years I might throw in the names of Janelle Monae, The Hotelier, Kanye West, Let’s Eat Grandma, CHVRCHES or Yeasayer. Twenty three entries between them. One winner. Oh, and Radiohead have never finished first, but

Can we get this meme a medal or something?

Thirteen different artists have won Necessary Evil since it first started in 2007. Maybe fourteen, depending on your take on 2013’s infamous Arctic Monkeys/Hjaltalín controversy. No artist has ever finished first twice. Until now. 070 Shake’s ‘Modus Vivendi’ was the greatest album of 2020, and the 2022 follow-up is unquestionably the greatest album released this year, with its only viable contender being a 1982 masterpiece widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time. These are the only two albums she has released.

I’M IN YOUR WORLD FOR THE NIGHT, YEAH

#4 yeule: 𝖌𝕝𝒾,c̶̳͚̈́͌̿͋̔ͅ𝖍 ρ𝖗𝕚n̶͓͉̣͉͚̂̏͐ƈᵉ𝖘ร

My name is Nat Ćmiel
I am 22 years old
I like music
Dancing ballet

Crushing up rocks and snorting them
And genderless people
I like to eat
But I don’t like it when it lingers on my body

I like to take up as little space as possible
I like pretty textures in sound
I like the way some music makes me feel
I like making up my own world

And the people who live inside me
I like to dress up and not going out
I like my cat, Miso
I like touching myself

And I like being far away from my own body
I like sweet things
Physical and consumable
I like short sentences that say everything I felt at one go

I like obsessing over people
And then throwing them away
I like being a boy
I like being a girl

I like getting fucked
And I like to fuck
I like to be pure
I like believing there’s a cure
But, most of all, I…

My Name Is Nat Ćmiel
I CAN HEAR THE VOICES TELLING ME TO DIE

#5 Sudan Archives: Natural Brown Prom Queen

I’m back, bitches!

Oh, my God, Britt
They gon’ have a fit when they hear this shit

OMG BRITT

So, yeah, first of all this achievement is out of the window, so I’m naturally a bit bitter about that.

But I had to really slow down and take stock as I entered the top five, as these five records are so close together in terms of absolute genital bursting incredible quality that I felt I needed to take a step back and really evaluate the order that I’d placed them in. Despite what that insolent little prick Shawn might say, this is important. Also, I really didn’t want my number one album to still be number one, for reasons that will become clear.

ONLY BAD BITCHES IN MY TRELLIS

#8 Jeshi: Universal Credit

When I become in charge of the UK – I am more than happy to kill the 50.48million people ahead of me* in the line of succession to become king and then declare an absolute monarchy – I like to think I will be a fair and benevolent ruler to the 15 million or so remaining residents that I didn’t need to slaughter in order to become leader. The death penalty though? Yeah, bring that shit in straight away. Only for the most heinous crimes (parking on bike lanes for example), but chiefly for what my reign will consider the Original Sin: complaints about how ‘easy’ people on benefits have it. Yeah, any version of that and it’s Who Wants to be Beheaded?! live on ITV presented by Declan Donnelly (I can’t explain it, but I feel that Ant McPartlin will have been executed pretty early on).

(*yeah, worked it out. I accept that I’m pretty low down on the list, but I am white, so the Royal Family will still automatically choose me ahead of a certain section of the population. So there’s that.)

PAIN IN MY MIND, BRAIN, BACK, LOWER SPINE

#9 Sharon van Etten: We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong

Ooooooh, that title is an open goal for renowned and celebrated political satirists such as myself, isn’t it?? ‘We’ve been going about this all wrong’, aye? What biting topical references could I make here??

#topical

OK, OK, let me just get my satire iron. I’m about to take you to a satire ground. Like higher ground, yeah? You got that? Allow me to put on my satirish dancing shoes and perform for you a satirish jig, Remember that Jim Carrey film, ”Satiar Liar’?? Well, that’s me.

THIS IS SOLID GOLD CONTENT

#10 The Hotelier: It Never Goes Out

We leave our higher educations that we all ‘must’ get
With a signature stamped paper and a mound of debt
The bank has got us by the throat and then we’re forced to settle
For the jobs we hate, 9 to 5, 40 hour, 40 years ’til the day
We are too weak to work, too frail to play
No friends or lovers because they all passed away
We’ve waited for this day all our lives long
And on our death bed the stereo plays our favorite teenage anthem song
And we sing along

Our Lives Would Make a Sad, Boring Movie

We into the top ten, God dammit! With, another album was wasn’t actually released this year: The Hotelier’s 2011 debut album that I just needed to complete my set.

I KEEP CHOKING ON MY FEARS

#12 Manic Street Preachers: Know Your Enemy (Deluxe Edition)

Seriously? You freakzillas want more content from me about this album??

I gave all you cretins, like, a million words back when this astonishing reconceptualisation of the divisive 2001 release by Our Lord Jesus’s Favourite Band back when it was released in September! “But Alex!” I hear your dribbling mouths bray, “This isn’t even a proper anniversary! 2021 would have been the *actual* twentieth anniversary, so wouldn’t it make more sense to put it on last year’s list??”. To which I lower my voice to an angry whisper, pull your collar roughly forward so our foreheads clash, and say, through gritted teeth, You think I don’t know that?? This is a band that fucks everything up! And that’s part of the reason we love them!! Now sit down and enjoy your Epicentre!!

SEEMS LIKE THERE’S NO ESCAPE EXCEPT THROUGH MY HATE

#13 Hallelujah The Hills: No One Knows What Happens Next (2012)

Rerelease number two! By the way, I’ve also come to notice since I last wrote that Marina post signalling the Oncoming of the Rereleases, where I rather cerebrally and logically (some would say deeply sexually) explained how I’d been smart enough to collate the list’s three big rereleases all together just outside the top ten. Or maybe that was a complete accident. The point was: I’m a fucking critical genius. Well, afterwards, I realised that there were rereleases at numbers 14, 13, 12, then a completely valid 2022 record at #11… Then another ‘rerelease’ (not technically rereleased this year, but a ‘Legacy Release’ that I’d decided to include) at number ten. Honestly, I’ve no fucking idea what’s going on with this list. Or my life, for that matter. Please help me. Any clues on how to sort this shit out?

My life, I mean, I don’t want to hear about any perceived ‘improvements’ to this blog or the Necessary Evil year end list. Necessary Evil is a perfect little crystal and I’m very protective over it. My life? Meh, I’m not too fussed, so I’ll give everything a shot. Have I ever tried deeps sea crab fishing as a vocation, you ask? Why not!? Live out my days as a Dreamsexual?? That sounds pretty problematic these days. I’ll do it.

THERE’s NO USE PRETENDING THAT THIS LIFE IS UNENDING OR CRUEL