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!!
Sometimes I envy NME. And The Guardian. And Pitchfork. And Melody Maker. And Q Magazine. And the Manchester Evening News. And Rolling Stones. I envy The Roling Stone’s money, but I don’t envy being them, as that would mean losing 50 years of my life and a complete morality lobotomy. And Crack Magazine.
How many others are there…?
And Kerrang. And the Telegraph And NME. I said that one, didn’t I? I envy it twice. And Mojo. And Uncut. And Mixmag.
I envy all these vessels of music journalism- to different degrees and holding it to varying degrees of importance- because, I don’t know if you ever noticed, but they manage to get their albums of the year list out at the actual end of the year!!
How do they do that?? I mean, even if Mojo is in a terrible place mentally, and is considering if it’s really worthwhile writing anything anymore, it still manages to garner up the motivation to try and and convince us that David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ was the best album of 2016 (nonsense, I have the science to prove it was actually 27th) on December 11th!! I didn’t even get around to explaining the truth until October 30th 2017!!
Yeah!! ‘Sum Fuck Flower Boy’! It’s not just feebly called ‘Flower Boy’ on this blog! You won’t see no censorship on Baboon Etiquette*! Yeah, motherfucker, we punk rock, yo!! I hereby promise that you will never, ever see censorship on this blog!! Unless somebody starts actually paying me for it!! Then I’ll do whatever the fuck they want!! Because I’m far too poor to put any principles before money!! Holler at your boyeeeee!!!
I never actively disliked Tyler, the Creator. I mean, whenever I’m complaining about the paucity of decent rappers’ names these days (‘Vince Staples‘? Really?? So, do I call you ‘Vincent’, or…?) his is always the first exception that comes to mind. He always just had a pretty poor reputation to me.
The Italian philosopher Gloria Origgi writes in her Taylor Swift inspired book ‘Reputation‘ (although it was of course initially released under it’s Italian title of ‘Ayyyyy! Reputationalio! Mama Mia!’. Yes, of course that joke’s racist) that we all have two selves. There’s the physical and mental sensation of being you, which is what you (wrongly) consider to be your actual self. Then there’s The Alex Palmer Existence, which is a hazy and constantly changing image of what you are in the eyes of Alex Palmer.
I’d argue that the latter is actually your ‘true’ self. You might believe that you truly exist within yourself, that only you truly understand the real you. This is bunkum. I’m not saying that you have no say in what kind of person you are, but you actually only exist through how you interact with the outside world. If you ask all the people you know to describe you, then even if it greatly contravenes what you believe, it’s their opinion that’s going to be true. Trusting a person to be truthful about what they are is like me trying to find out if your pet dog is nice by asking the dog itself. The dog’s inner beliefs don’t matter, because it’s far too swayed by its overriding desire to eat and to lick its own genitals, very much like yourself.
For example, if you asked me how big my penis is, I would say with typical modesty that it is rather humble. Not small per se, but definitely politely unimposing and considerate. However, if you asked my friends how big my penis is, they would actually confirm that it’s humungous, that they wonder how I even stay upright with that monster swinging from me, and that I must be the only man in history to ‘dress on both sides’. I’m saying that my friends are way more likely to be true, and my contact details are available on this blog.
But, I digress:
Continue reading “20 Tyler, the Creator: Scum Fuck Flower Boy”
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.
Wow, well this is pretty shameless, isn’t it?
Damon Albarn and That Other One were obviously struggling for ideas for the band’s fourth (proper) album, evidenced by the seven years it took them to follow up 2010’s ‘Plastic Beach’ (an album I really loved for about four months then forgot all about), so were forced to instead crib inspiration from perhaps the most artistically provocative writers of their time.
(Do I need to say that it took seven years and then state further that ‘Plastic Beach’ was released in 2010? Seems like a waste of words. In fact, if you include this little parenthesised section here, the addition of the conformation of the year two thousand and ten has added an entirely unnecessary one hundred and nine words to this piece!! In retrospect, probably unnecessary. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any way to remove or obliterate anything you’ve written- to ‘delete’ it, if you will- so it has to stay in. Let me know of any potential solutions in the comments. Should I write the whole entry again?)
OK, Christ, I’ll try and stay more on point for this one…
“Love made me crazy If it doesn’t, you ain’t doin’ it right”
When did that become the accepted view? Why are we still selling the idea that ‘real’ love is supposed to be difficult? Can’t we have a few songs about how you met someone who also thought that ‘Nevermind’ was an overrated album and made you smile a noticeably increased amount of times? If ‘love’ is driving you crazy, it doesn’t prove that you’re ‘doing it right’, it proves that one or both of you is a little mentally unstable and absolutely not good for each other.
I’m going to break it down in a completely scientific and not in the least bit cynical way:
Necessary Evil 