Here is part two of the list, where things plummet downhill very quickly.
5: There's No-one Quite
like Grandma – St Winifred's School Choir (1980)
What?
Now this is more
familiar territory for a list like this – a terrible one hit wonder
from the 1980s, featuring a child choir. I'll try not to go too
deeply in with this song, helped by the fact that since it's a very
childish and innocuous song, there isn't really much to read into.
The strange production, forwarded by synth strings so awful the song
sounds like a failing student's submission in their “Introduction
to Sibelius” class, sounds really quite sinister alongside the
naturalistic sound of the children's singing, other than the one girl
who actually got the main solo part, who's strange voice utterly
frightens me, though that might just be undeveloped vocal chords or
something. The two contrasting components would be fine on their own,
but together it makes the song feel incredibly empty and devoid of
anything, like the dead skin of a meaningful song draped over a
robot.
And yet it managed to
knock the late great John Lennon (who had just died in a high profile
tragic occurrence not three months prior) off the chart. How?
Most Ridiculous Part?
The Top of the Pops
performance, which seems to tie with the original Ringu for the most
frightening video involving children to ever be distributed to the
masses.
Why?
It's kitchy, badly made
with not particularly talented singers and songwriters, of course it
was going to be a hit in the early 80s! It was a very very cheesy
song with a big sentiment, which meant it was always going to be a
number one hit, and chances are a ton of grandmothers got this
unwanted ode as a present that year. But why this song, with this
choir and that awful production, I will never know.
4: Can the Can – Suzi
Quatro (2004)
What?
Oh, I'm not going to
make any fans for this...
So we have Suzi Quatro,
rock music's (and to a big degree feminism's) dirty little secret.
I'll start with the positives of her. She was indeed the first female
to be involved in rock music at a high level as an instrumentalist
and not just a singer, as well as the first female rock artists to
get a number one single, making her an early icon for feminism and
inclusivity in the very very masculine genre of rock. Her work after
her initial run of success showed genuine improvement, and even now,
40 years or so after her initial hit, she's still performing. Um...
she looked really good in a catsuit?
But all of this can't
really get around the fact that her initial hit singles, Devil Gate
Drive, 48 Crash and especially Can the Can are utterly appalling
uninspired rock songs from the early explosion of the genre. This was
1973, when progressive rock and heavy metal was beginning to explode
and get increasingly sophisticated and technical, and Can the Can
smacked of uninspired blues-based three chord rock and roll, with
very very little to set it apart from its contemporaries. Quatro
herself plays bass at a very elementary level, playing nothing more
than simple root notes, which in this sort of song doesn't really
matter all that much. This kind of relatively unintrusive music is
resigned to the background, in order to not distract from Quatro's
vocals: a convention you typically see in pop music.
Speaking of
Most Ridiculous Part?
The Lyrics. The
entirety of them. Most people tend to mock the chorus for it's utter
nonsense, but the lyrics get worse the more you understand them.
Before I go into the lyrics, I would be hasty to not point out that
in a lot of circles Quatro is considered a feminist icon for being
the first female instrumentalist with major commercial success in her
own right, which paved the way for more female instrumentalists, band
leaders (like Blondie and Joan Jett) and proof yet again that women
could succeed in a man's world.
However, the lyrics,
penned by Quatro and two male songwriters prove that music was still
very much a man's world, as the song is about getting a boyfriend and
getting him to stick around, that is if he wants to. That's what “Can
the Can” means, doing the impossible and getting him to stick
around, which I suppose in the early swinging seventies was tricky to
do.
Essentially the verses
discuss the dangers of other females in the family, which could be
read figuratively (as in all the mother and sister figures) and
literally. It plays to the stereotypes of the disapproving
matriarchal battleaxe in the first verse, the metaphorical Tiger,
protective of her young and fiercely retaliating against any
perceived threat, such as the boyfriend eagle who flies in the sky
(high high!), a somewhat obvious double entendre or being both a free
spirit and a stoner. The strange pre-chorus refrain “Scratch out
her eyes” could be implying to surprise her and stand by your
boyfriend, but it seems oddly violent, and the use of feline imagery
and the notion of cat fighting over a man has not gone unnoticed, and
only gets worse in the second verse.
The second verse of
course, which implies that any woman who isn't moralising and
matriarchal is a direct threat to your relationship, an evil harlot
who will take your boyfriend “without a fight.”
Essentially, the
“feminist icon” is singing that other women are the enemy, a man
is so valued and treasured to your identity you should mutilate other
women to keep him and that it's not a man's fault if he's adulterous,
it's the fault of the women who tempt him. For the seventies
admittedly, that is progressive, but in hindsight it didn't really do
that many favours.
Why?
It was an easy gimmick.
Put a girl in a leather catsuit, stick a bass on there and boom, mass
market appeal! She had an air of danger but not too much to put off
really white-bred types, playing the rock stereotype very safely and
singing essentially something like “Baby Love” or the typical
female singer fare of the time, just playing a bass at the same time.
My bafflement is why this song? Why this song with its awful premise
and really clumsy lyrics? Answers to these questions are beyond me,
but at least its crimes are just clumsy metaphors, it's not like it's
outright misogynistic is it?
3:
Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back) – Eamon/F.U.R.B. (Fuck You Right
Back) – Frankee (2004)
What?
Sometimes
it's wonderful doing the research for this list, you get to hear all
these lost gems that had their day in the limelight then sunk like a
stone, you see that some artists who deserved hits did get them and
some utter shocks now and then.
Unfortunately,
then you get to 2004 and realised that this stupid feud dominated the
charts for seven weeks.
This
is going to take quite a bit of explanation as to why I have two
songs in the same spot, both by artists you've never heard of. The
short version is one is the answer song to the other and both are
essentially the same song, so I counted both. The longer answer is
significantly so. Are you sitting comfortably?
In
2005, Eamon came onto the pop scene with a new sound he dubbed
Ho-Wop, which was new and unique and combined gritty hip hop with a
smooth R&B vocal styling. Now, I suspect his claims of
originality are suspect, since the late Princess of R&B Aaliyah
was making music several years before that which fit the definition
and actually were an influence on various artists that combined Hip
Hop and R&B such as Drake, but that's not where this song falls
down.
Nor
in fact does it fall down on its controversial lyrics. Well, I'm not
sure if controversial is the right word for the levels of juvenile
dialogue you hear in his work. The song contains 33 expletives, the
most in any number one single, and as you may expect the topic of
the song (a break up song based on infidelity, believe it or not)
isn't exactly explored with much meditation. Or dignity. No, the song
falls down because it's awful, with an anaemic beat, a really
underwhelming singer and incredibly clumsy lyrics. And usually here
the story would end, the song would get maybe a little stint in the
top 10 for having the word “Fuck” in the title and then it would
just go away,and I would be happy.
Then
of course came the answer song, Frankees F.U.R.B. What does FURB
mean? Fuck you right back of course! And this is where the bad bitter
mean spiritedness takes a turn, and you realise you're listening to a
row between two inherently repellant people. He has serious issues
with women and acts like a 14 year old with his largely incoherent
whiny lyrics, while she is an unfaithful sociopath who, while
righteously pissed about this not being settled in a room or some
angry Bebo posts rather than being part of the biggest selling song
in the UK in April 2004 (along with anyone with ears) took this rage
to an extreme level, actually saying that the infidelity she did
doesn't matter, because “it's [his] fault somehow!”
Somehow,
I don't feel entirely sympathetic to either, and rather than feel
intrigued about what kind of situation could have caused such a
one-in-a-million occurrence, I just wanted them to go away. Which
they didn't for another month after.
Most
Ridiculous Part?
That,
get this! Eamon and Frankee didn't actually date each other and this
relationship was an elaborate publicity stunt! Wow, that was such a
twist it's like the forces of the cosmos are just fucking with us
today aren't they? Seriously, people actually bought that the two of
them were an item, mostly because the idiots who genuinely enjoyed
the song wanted to believe it was true, helped by Frankee having an
Eamon lookalike in the music video, to add to the cash in potent-I
mean adding to the emotional crippling, as we see Frankee righteously
react to accusations of infidelity in such a dignified fashion!
Why?
Both
artists were complete unknowns, with barely a hint of buzz about
them, and judging by their efforts no reason to. Initially Eamon's
song was a hit because having the F-bomb in the title is a pretty
unsubtle way to drum up controversy, which of course creates cash.
You can't build controversy purely on the f-word though, so Frankee's
associates came in and created the idea of a feud between the two,
which appealed on many levels, pandering to the worst stereotypes,
and dividing audiences between misogynists and misandrists, appealing
to their basest misconceptions (all women are whores who want your
money vs the key to female independence is to use all within your
path) in order to drum up sales, making this a pseudo-competition
between men and women. And in fact, that aspect of it is probably the
only part of these two abominable wastes of music that actually had
any thought put into them.
2:
I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair) – Sandi Thom
(2007)
What?
An
embodiment of absolutely everything I hate about music, that's
fucking what! This is not going to be the same kind of entry as the
last eight, because while I'm not a fan of their gimmicks or the fact
they're not very good, they're usually either too good or innocuous
enough to not be worthy of my contempt. Even the Crazy Frog,
something I hate from every possible conceptual level, I at least
respect the particular song the frog bing baaarped to. This is on a
whole nother level, and is probably up there as one of my least
favourite songs in existence. I'll usually give everything a chance,
even things technically worse than this, but this song. This fucking
song! Right, I've got to explain where I come from this song before I
can get into it.
Right,
one of the things that annoys me more than anything else is nostalgic
mania, nostalgia pretty close to its initial medical definition.
Where people long for the past despite never experiencing it and
having very little knowledge of what the past was actually like to
live in. So, I'm fine with songs like Summer of 69 and The Boys of
Summer, which talk about the past from a relative standpoint; they
don't miss the time period but the experiences and people that were
in it.
You
might start to see my issue with Thom's single.
Written
as a response to her getting her mobile phone stolen (that's actually
the story behind it) this entitled cretin then wrote this screed with
the idea that “the hippies wouldn't let this happen”, neglecting
the fact that hippies do not care about unnecessary possessions and
generally were the minority, also the fact that the punks hated
hippies and kicked the shit out of them. The faux-k song has no
actual instrumental melody, completely held by Thom's insufferably
smug vocals and a thumping drum section that I think is designed to
give me a migraine. In terms of production, vocals or lyricism, there
is nothing redeemable about this song; it is utterly, utterly
worthless. Even the premise, that she wishes that she was back in the
eras of free love and fake anarchy were back because that would make
the world magically better and she'd be better in it. Except her
music is dreadful and would never get even a passing mention in the
era of Woodstock and Isle of Wight, and she'd probably get glassed in
the London punk scene.
Most
Ridiculous Part:
The
lyrics, every single painful word of them. In fact I hate the lyrics
so much that I am going to analyse this song line by agonising line,
to show you what this song sounds like in my head.
Oh I wish I was a punk
rocker with flowers in my hair
(Well, I think The Automatic said
it more succinctly than I could about how much shit would be kicked
out of her if she went to a punk gig with flowers in her hair)
In seventy-seven and
sixty-nine revolution was in the air
(Oh yes, that
media-based revolution, where people bought the sex pistols genuinely
believing their message of anarchy, or sixty-nine where lots of great
music happened, but not that many epoch shifting events.)
I was born too late
into a world that doesn't care
(Oh get fucked! This is
the main crux of why I don't like nostalgia ballads, because they
assume the world suddenly stopped caring an indefinite period after
they realised a world existence, by pampered entitled pricks who
don't care about the world at all. You get out what you put in in
this life!)
Oh I wish I was a
punk rocker with flowers in my hair
(Running out of lyrics
already?)
When the head of state didn't play guitar
(I've
no idea what this is referring to, but in any case, how do you know
what musical tastes politicians have when they're off duty? Henry
VIII composed Greensleeves after all.)
Not everybody drove a
car
(Most still not,
another sign of her entitlement complex me thinks. Besides, does this
mean she pines for the days when social mobility was a pipe dream?)
When music really
mattered and when radio was king
(Wait, did she just say
her music doesn't matter? Well she's got me there.)
When accountants
didn't have control
(I think they still
did, these were the dying days of Keynesian economics after all...)
And the media
couldn't buy your soul
(Tell that to the
Monkees!)
And computers were
still scary and we didn't know everything
(Really? Is this a
Luddite Anthem or something? I'd call this utterly stupid but I fear
that may be the point!)
When pop stars
still remained a myth
(Tell that to the
Monkees, and Elvis Presley for that matter)
And ignorance could
still be bliss
(Called it! This is a
anthem for stupidity!)
And when god saved
the queen she turned a whiter shade of pale
(Because she only knows
two songs from the Punk and Prog revolutions. Maybe if she heard any
more she'd write better lyrics?)
My mom and dad were
in their teens
(Well, at least this is
relatable to her own life, maybe the first verse and a half was a
miste-)
And anarchy was still a
dream
(-and back to stupidity
we go. Where outside of Syria has anarchy been achieved?)
And the only way to
stay in touch was a letter in the mail
(You fuckwit! Even in
the sixties there were telephones!)
When record shops were
still on top
(Timely, as horrible
music like yours began to gain traction through digital means. You
hypocrite)
And vinyl was all
that they stocked
(What about 4-track and 8-tracks? Sure they were
around in the sixties, they were certainly around by seventy seven
you idiot!)
And the super info
highway was still drifting out in space
(another nonsense
Luddite rhyme, because the internet was made by aliens am I right?)
Kids were wearing
hand me downs
(Most kids still wear
hand-me-downs today, and when they don't, that means recycling and
donating clothes have improved exponentially.)
And playing games
meant kick arounds
(Oh, so video games are somehow the work of
modern evil too right? Unless it's meant to be decrying the
sexualisation of society, something that is a direct result of the
sexual liberation of the late sixties?! Do you know a single thing
about the past?)
And footballers still
had long hair and dirt across their face
(Because mud and long
hair are the truest signs of masculinity right? What does this have
to do with Punk Rock anyway?)
Why?
Much like the other
completely worthless track on this list, the Crazy Frog (oh YES! I
went there!), the key to Thom's success was not actually on any
merits her song actually had (read: none) but once again on blanket
marketing. The adverts for her song were completely inescapable. You
ended up seeing it about a million times a day (conservatively
estimated) and hearing her horrible whine of a chorus, like something
out of a particularly stupid socialist's livejournal. Actually,
that's giving her way too much credit, like she has actual beliefs
and values of her own. It' more like one of those bandwagon jumpers
who has no idea what socialism (or politics at all) means but knows
that it's cool among her hipster group of friends to like it, so she
does. Basically you were bombarded with stupid for long enough that
your brain melted and you went out and bought it to try to make it go
away.
Essentially I'm
saying that despite the pandering to luddite hipsterdom, she's as
processed as the Crazy Frog. And under that context, it makes sense
to blanket market her and allow stupid people to genuinely believe
the shit she's spewing, completely blissfully ignorant (or can you
only be that in the sixties Sandi?) to the utterly hypocritical
nature of the lyrics.
Right, I've got to move
on before this song starts to cause permanent damage. And to
hopefully make up for this, we're ending on a triumphant note.
1: Killing in the Name
– Rage Against The Machine (2009)
What?
Oh hell yes, nineteen
years after the release of their first album, Rage Against the
Machine got a number one in the UK with one of their most enduring
songs, most of the people reading this probably already know the song
and the story behind its well deserved but belated success, but for
you who don't understand the significance, here's a recap of the pop
landscape at the end of the naughties.
From the creation of
the hugely popular and hugely influential talent contest The X
Factor, there was a sort of monopoly on the record industry and the
charts. Basically, the masses of exposure and the framing of the
winner's “story” as a journey though adversity, the winner of the
contest each year was pretty much given on a golden plate a Christmas
number one single. Yes, no matter how bad the singer, how uninspired
the choice of song or even how disrespectful the cover version was,
the Christmas number one each year was some kind of irrelevant
processed ballad, which felt more devoid of emotion than a cardboard
cut out of Keanu Reeves and had barely any more singing talent. For
six years this was the case, six years of hurt.
In 2009, a last minute
campaign to get something else to number one was hatched, the
managers picking Killing in the Name as an appropriately anarchic
song, essentially screaming the mantra of all those sick and tired of
the endless manufactured pop. “Fuck you I won't do what you tell
me!”
The campaign picked up
momentum despite a lot of cynicism and conspiracy theories
surrounding the fact that both Simon Cowell's record label and RATM's
were both imprints of Sony BMG. With that, all eyes were on the
Christmas charts, would Rage finally be able to stop the torment of a
mediocre male singer and his Miley Cyrus cover?
Most Ridiculous Part?
That the campaign
worked! Killing in the Name was the fastest selling downloaded single
in history and the first Christmas number one to succeed purely
though downloads. So what if McElderry managed to get the number one
the very next week, for one brief shining moment, the people had
spoken. Democracy had worked because the apathetic stood up.
Why?
Usually I'd have some
cynical reason for the success of a song, but for something like
this, maybe people are just awesome after all...
