Tag: st vincent

Legit Bosses: 2021’s 121 Greatest Songs

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 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” →

Necessary Evil 2021 (70 – 61)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

70 Kings of Leon: When You See Yourself

(2016 #104, 2008 #17, 2007 #1!)

I’m allowed to still have Kings of Leon, right? You people will still consent to this? This is still OK, yeah? Nobody’s feeling mistreated in any way? I don’t want this to be one of those things where I was almost sure you were OK to me playing with my gross old man testicles while you watched holding back tears.

Remember that Simply Red song Holding Back the Tears? Well that’s what it was about. Mick Hucknall was so ahead of his time. He was trying to teach us, why did we refuse to learn? What’s that? It was actually called Holding Back the Years?? Well, shucks… Ah well, I’ve written it now.

I’ve done well, haven’t I? I’ve, like, mostly irradiated all the bullshit white guy rock that was honestly the entirety of all music I consumed before the age of about 19. I like to think that my end of year lists, while being a no way near exhaustive list of new music, is at least a forward thinking and progressive exercise in highlighting new and exciting progressions in style and presentation and in many different (and often new) genres. What’s your favourite Turmeric Trancotone album of 2021? Gotta be #26, right?

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Necessary Evil 2020 pt.10 (30-26)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

#30 Luke Haines & Peter Buck: Beat Poetry for Survivalists

Luke Haines is always going to earn a place on this list. Aside from his near legendary cantankerousness these days best evidenced through his Twitter account now that he doesn’t sell anyway near enough records for any journalist to want to bother talking to, but he might actually be one of the most influential and important British music artists of the last 30 years without anyone really noticing or caring (least of all Haines himself). Unfortunately, a lot of that influence and importance isn’t really valued in 2020, like Haines has spent a large part of his career building up a collection of several billion Yugoslav Dinar. His previous band, The Auteurs, didn’t just release the greatest album of 1996, but are widely considered to have been the first Britpop band and their 1993 debut ‘New Wave‘ is considered the first album and perhaps the ultimate example of the genre. Unfortunately, crowing about an artist’s importance to Britpop in 2020 is like raving about one of the most important engineers ever because of their revolutionary idea to build houses using asbestos. People are unlikely to share your enthusiasm, and will likely debate whether it should be considered a ‘good thing’. Regardless of the nonsense that Britpop quickly descended into though, it still can’t be denied that Haines played a central part in solidifying the importance and artistic/financial viability of British guitar music at the beginning of the 90s, and without him we may never of had… erm… what British guitar band are they nowadays? Royal Blood. Without Luke Haines we may never have had Royal Blood. Can you even imagine? But, yeah, he doesn’t care, he’s happy enough by ow (all relative, of course) releasing extremely decent but lower scale and borderline comedy solo albums.

Continue reading “Necessary Evil 2020 pt.10 (30-26)” →

Entry #4 Marina and the Diamonds: Obsessions

~ Lex Leeson ~ 11 Comments

What is the point of this blog? I mean, really?

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Don’t answer that.

I don’t mean to say ‘don’t answer that’ as a joke, like the answer would somehow be difficult to hear, it was an entirely serious suggestion. An order, really. It would really slow this entry down to a standstill were I to pause now to open it up for reader’s suggestions. It’s pretty much the definition of a rhetorical question, see? I’m not actually expecting you to answer, merely just asking it for dramatic effect. Do you see? Good.

Continue reading “Entry #4 Marina and the Diamonds: Obsessions” →

35 Camp Cope: How To Socialise & Make Friends

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

“And I said that I was sorry about that line
I only wrote it cause it rhymed”

‘Last year’ I wrote for the first time in detail about my last suicide attempt. ‘Last’ as in ‘previous’, it takes a mighty pair of brass balls to confidently predict you’ll never attempt suicide in the future, no matter who you are. I wrote it because I was in a good place mentally and didn’t like feeling that it was this uncomfortable skeleton hanging in my closet, awkwardly swinging after a laughably failed attempt at hanging itself. Remember, I’m allowed to make those jokes, not you. Maybe you’ve read it, because it was the most viewed post ever on this blog, because you’re all sickos. Honestly, I really do hope another post overtakes it soon, as currently the example of what musters the absolute most traffic to my website is failed suicide bids. What if I felt I needed to repeat its success?? How do you even plan a failed suicide bid? I can’t very well jump off the bottom step of the stairs and then claim I’ve survived another suicide bid, can I? Well, maybe I could once, but after the fourth or fifth time I’d likely start losing the trust of readers. And that’s what’s most important to me, dear readers, your trust. Or just another random person visiting the site to assure me the clicks, I really couldn’t give a fuck. You’re all cattle to me.

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39 Ariana Grande: Sweetener

~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

“Once I have you, I will never let you, never let you”

I feel quite sorry for Ariana Grande. ‘Sweetener’ is an absolutely brilliant album, and the jokes about my ‘TDE’ (Tiny Di… yeah, you got that joke, didn’t you?) would write themselves. It sees Grande finally locate an identity for herself, and honestly contains some of the best and most subtly experimental mainstream pop music released this year. I’m just going to use this review to talk about Hejjy again though. First ISIS, now this: poor girl just can’t catch a break.

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Buckle up!

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The Legit Bosses: Best 65 Tracks of 2017

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

EDIT: a full 16 days after publishing this piece, I finally got round to making a Spofify Playlist. The best songs of 2017. In May 2018)

00 (alexanderlpalmer@hotmail.co.uk)

OK, 20th April and we’re almost done. Never apologise for your own timing: genius cannot be standardised by your plebeian calendar. Good things are always worth waiting for. Patience, motherfuckers, patience.

Remember (kayfabe) last year, when I broke the Legit Bosses down into about a million parts? Ten freaking YouTube videos every post?

That was a really dumb idea. You’re getting all 65 songs in one list this year.

There were exactly sixty five amazing songs released last year. If you believe that there were any more or less then you are either massively mistaken or just plain stupid. Listen and learn:

65 Vince Staples: Alyssa Interlude

00 (alexanderlpalmer@hotmail.co.uk)

Finding out that the voice sample explaining the pain that’s sometimes needed to inspire creativity is actually Amy Winehouse pushed this interlude into ‘AMAZING’ classification.

Barely two minutes long, but exhibiting the kind of experimental genius that was slightly lacking on the rest of the album. More of this in the future please, Mr Staples, and less of… erm…

Less of, like, whatever I said in my review. It was quite a long time ago…

64 Young M.A: M.A Intro

Freaking perfect introduction to the record, which I can’t help but shout along to the “Who dat?/Who dat?/Never who dat” intro with all the gusto and passion a middle aged white guy is legally allowed.

63 St Vincent: Los Ageless

Despite what my review may have led you to believe, not actually about my ex-wife wrongly claiming credit for my suicide.

My ex-wife read that review, by the way, and got in touch to correct a lot of my false assumptions. Yeah, I’ll definitely talk about that at some point. Make sure to click ‘subscribe’…

62 Tove Lo: Hey You Got Drugs

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A lovely ballad about a subject that I think is vastly underrepresented in sad songs. I may have slightly overrated it in my review of the album, which shows how relatively underwhelming the rest of the album is.

Also: invest in a comma maybe, Ms Lo?

Continue reading “The Legit Bosses: Best 65 Tracks of 2017” →

Stats Off To You, Sir 2017

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

The Only Reason I Do This Fucking List

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Yaaaay!! A statistical breakdown of 2017’s albums!! Suddenly, all those wasted evenings desperately bashing out 1000 words of utter shite on Muna or something finally comes to fruition!! I get to do a mathematical breakdown of the findings!! Kinda get tired reading more than 100 words but enjoy looking at pretty pictures? Yeah, me too…

This post is just for you!!

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(number 3)

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21 EMA: Exile in the Outer Ring

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

The Rejection of Comprehensive Reviews

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Well, two out of three ain’t bad (I turned 34 after the song was released)

I’m not going to be able to give the next handful of albums the usual insightful and in depth  investigation that by this point you’ve come accustomed to.

You see, my previous entry intensely debating the artistic choices made on St Vincent‘s recent album was just so emotionally draining, that I worry that if I shake have head over my keyboard there simply won’t be enough viscous creativity juice left to pour out over my next few reviews.

Regardless: here is Emalina McFunnel Armitage with her third solo album. It’s brilliant, for many of the reasons I pointed out in my 2014 reaction to her previous record.

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23 St Vincent: MASSEDUCTION

~ Lex Leeson ~ 21 Comments

MASSDELUSION

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“How can anybody have you and lose you
And not lose their minds, too?”

That’s a really nice little couplet, isn’t it?

It relates to the similarly awesome surrounding song’s Los Ageless*‘s themes of  desperately attempting to battle the horrifying and corrosive party-pooping  efforts of aging. It’s so cleverly written though, that Annie Clark is aware how it could potentially become an anthem for jilted lovers and soundtrack many traumatic break ups. Annie Clark is clever enough to realise that, realistically, the largest effect any song written and performed by a woman can hope to have on wider culture is if it’s included on the soundtrack of a ‘Bridget Jones’ movie, so she might hit paydirt with this one.

I really love the line. I love how it flows, I love how many ways it could be interpreted. I love how Clarky sings it. I love it so much I actually got it as a tattoo.

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…which, given the things I’m about to talk about, might have been a mistake…

Imagine if the lyrics were slightly different. Imagine if the song was actually about how finishing a relationship with Annie is likely to send someone loopy, because she’s so fucking awesome. The chorus would instead go ‘How can anybody have me and lose me/And not lose their minds too?’.

It would still be a pretty boss lyric, wouldn’t it? I mean, a little less nuanced and subtle than Clark’s songs usually are, but still an exhilarating anthem of female empowerment that is once again guaranteed that Bridget Jones movie spot.

However, what if the lyrics were: ‘How can anybody have me and lose me/Move to a different country for three years/Finally divorce me/And not lose their minds too’?

It’d be a bit weird, wouldn’t it? I mean, the rhyming scheme has been completely compromised, and the song’s whole melody would probably have to be rewritten in order to work it in.

Don’t worry, I am actually going somewhere with this:

Let me take you back to April 31st 2010:

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Continue reading “23 St Vincent: MASSEDUCTION” →