5. CRYSTAL CASTLES: Courtship Dating
Okay, can someone explain Crystal Castles to me, please? I really don't get it. She howls inaudibly into a dodgy Fisher Price microphone, with her hood up, while he boots up his Spectrum ZX81 tape deck and presses 'record'. With his hood up. I'm sorry folks but I fail to understand the appeal of such a concept. I hear the horrific buzz phrase 'digipunk' bandied about rather a lot whenever there's discussion of this, ahem (excuse me while I nearly choke on my use of the word), 'band' going on and, frankly, that just offends me. Okay, so they might do things on their own terms (which usually involves assaulting members of their own audiences at live shows) and yeah, fair enough, they come from a staunchly independent, DIY background, but even punk allowed for some semblance of enjoyment: sure, it was abrasive, often far from instantly accessible, but at least, for the most part, it had a melodic sensibility. An understanding of the importance of entryism: all the best punk bands essentially recorded pop songs, only sped up a notch: the Pistols, Buzzcocks and especially The Clash. Crystal Castles just make a bloody racket. And yes, I am aware of how utterly fuddy-duddy that sounds. I desperately don't want to seem like a musical conservative, bemoaning the good old days of straightforward, conventional band formations and musical compositions. I'm all for experimentation... really, I am. I swear. It's just unfortunate that, a large proportion of the time, all it produces is a right load of old wank. I started thinking it was my old age; that, upon entering my mid-twenties, I was beginning to lose my understanding and appreciation of the musical Zeitgeist and that this was the beginning of my departure into the world of daytime radio and NOW 2008 CDs. Until I remembered Add N To (X). Waaaaay back in 1999, when I was a wee sixteen years of age, this lot were being rammed down my throat as 'inspirational' by a fawning music press. They were shit. Shitty Shitty McShit Shit. And I knew that then. I hated their pretentious keyboard wankery, their insistence that the sound of decades-old computers loading up was somehow enjoyable to listen to; I saw this so-called 'musical radicalism' for what it really was: the desperately hollow sound of a bunch of chin-stroking face munchers with way too much time on their hands and smoke up their arses. So Crystal Castles, this really is nothing new. And it really is nothing even remotely good. Please... give it up and get back to your crack houses. Thanks.
4. WILEY: Wearing My Rolex
Oh Jesus Christ, please, MAKE IT STOP. NO MORE. That punctured beat that sounds like the gramophone's about to spontaneously combust. Her supposedly sultry voice, constantly repeating the question 'what would we do?', that actually sounds more like she's been drugged out of her mind, ready for Wiley to have his wicked way. His trumped-up, smug-as-fuck, self-aggrandising vocal delivery; you know, the kind that actually says, "Yeah you little insignificant runt, bitches just drop off my cock like a month's worth of congealed smegma. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? EH?" It's enough to drive you to murder, honestly. And to make matters worse, the whole thing's about how poor Wiley, after having undoubtedly brandished his gigantic wanger at the nearest big-tittied ho-bag in his favourite club, discovers that his latest conquest is actually a bit of a bunny boiler and, heaven forfend, a gold digger. Oh poor, poor you Wiley. What an absolute cunting shame. I hope she takes your fucking Rolex and shoves it where the sun don't shine.
3. THE TING TINGS: Shut Up and Let Me Go
Now then. While 'That's Not My Name' is unquestionably an absolute car-wreck of a song, for which everyone involved should be strung up by their big toes for the rest of their days, it was featured in my list of worst songs of 2007. Yes, it was a single last year and, according to the rules (that I made up, natch), that means it's exempt from inclusion in this year's run. I probably should've made an exception, given how unforgivable it is, but hey ho, there's always this one to moan about. Yes, The Ting Tings have done it again; not content with irritating an entire cosmos once with the line 'THAAAY CALL ME STAAAAAAAAAAAACY!' and twice with 'the drums, the drums, the (MOTHERFUCKING) drums!', they've managed it a third time with the incessant squawk of the bloody singer's delivery THROUGHOUT THIS ENTIRE SONG. The way she sings 'shut up and let me go! HEY!' just makes me want to throttle her with her own microphone wire.* It certainly doesn't help that the music is a plodding trudgeathon of epic proportions, so deathly empty and devoid of soul that you begin to question whether these two are actually human beings at all, but rather manufactured space-robots from the planet Zargaton, sent by the Blue people to put an end to all life on Earth, one Ting Tings record at a time. By jove, I think I've cracked it.
* = Of course, I'm not actually advocating her murder. Really, I'm not. *tumbleweed* Look, I need help, okay? I just can't take it anymore...
2. MGMT: Electric Feel
NME's band of the year, this lot; winners of 'best album' AND 'best single', although not for this bucket of diarrhoea, thankfully (but it did manage to make it into the top ten, funnily enough). The other MGMT singles, while also considerably rubbish, do have one thing, and one thing alone, going for them: a catchy hook. 'Time To Pretend' goes 'doo doo - doo doo doo doo doo - doo doo - doo doo doo doo doo'; 'Kids' goes 'der der der der derrr derrr derrr der derrrrrr'. Inspirational. 'Electric Feel', however, has no such catchy six second keyboard part. Instead, it has a pace lethargic enough to bore snails, production so overblown you can almost taste the cocaine, and lyrics so asinine that you'd be embarrassed if your six year old wrote them for his primary school poetry assignment. 'Oooo girl, shock me like electric eel/Baby girl, turn me on with your electric feel'? Really? Is that the best you can do, guys? And NME, you consider this to be the best that we, as a race, could do in this joyful year? My God, the state of the nation is worse than I thought. MGMT then: an offence to modern music. And yes, my objection to them is rather more to do with their prog-influenced, stoner manifesto ("we just want to make music that allows people to have a good time, man! Fuck that political shit!" etc.) than anything else but can you honestly, hand on heart, tell me that this is any good? Didn't bloody think so.
1. THE VERVE: Love Is Noise
Now I've heard some shite in my time but this just takes the biscuit, cake, trifle, blancmange and ice lolly. What in the name of all that is good and wholesome IS that sample? 'Ooooo ooooo aahhh ahhhh AAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!' THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE FOUR MINUTES TWO SECONDS. Jesus tap dancing Christ. Dear fucking God. As if the sound of Richard Ashcroft's Messiah complex on overload wasn't bad enough; this just demands that the listener pick up the nearest blunt instrument and repeatedly thwack whatever instrument they are using to play the song until it explodes and is NEVER ABLE TO BROADCAST THE SHITTING VERVE TO THE WORLD AGAIN. Irritating doesn't even begin to describe it. If ever any dodgy experimental psychologist feels the need to repeat all those world class experiments where they lock people in a dark room with a CD player playing the same thing on repeat, and wants to understand how human beings could be driven to digging their own insides out with their bare hands, 'Love Is Noise' would be the perfect choice. Really, I never want to hear this again. In fact, I want to forget that I ever forced myself to listen to it in the first place. Just look at those lyrics: 'Are we blind? Can we see?/We are one - incomplete/Are we blind? In the shade/Waiting for lightning - to be saved'. Bloody hell, he thinks he's a fucking prophet or something. Actually, scratch that, he thinks he's the Second bleeding Coming: 'Love is noise and love is pain/Love is these blues that I'm singing again'. Well Ashcroft, sorry to burst your bubble and all that, but you're not. Not even fucking close. You're just a washed up, mediocre musician with an inflated ego who's well past his sell by date, writing empty epithets that say and mean nothing. Let's face it, The Verve were never even that good anyway. 'Bittersweet Symphony' is the most over-rated song this side of 'Wonderwall'. Get back to supporting Coldplay or something will ya and leave our charts, and our festival headline slots, well and truly alone. In other words: bugger. Right. Off.
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Worst Ten Songs of 2007:
10. KLAXONS: It’s Not Over Yet
The so-called ‘new rave pioneers’ make it into the chart with a cover version that just about manages to be as bad as Grace’s original. If there’s a single song that represents how laughable the notion of ‘credibility’ currently is in indie music, this has got to be it.
9. SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO: It’s The Beat
Is it really? How very nice for it. Oh what’s that? You’re gonna tell me over and over and over and over and over and over like a monkey with a miniature cymbal? (Did I really descend into Hot Chip there? Someone shoot me!) While the most God-awful early 90s techno throwback bleeps and blops play out in the background? Great. Cheers. Music like this became outdated two seconds after it was originally thrown together back in 1987. Twenty years later, IT’S NOT RETRO, IT’S FUCKING SHIT.
8. DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH?: Let’s Make Out
More NME dah-lings and another of ‘new rave’s stalwarts, Does it Offend You, Yeah? not only have one of the worst band names ever to have tumbled out of some poor bugger’s brain, but they also manage to make music as vacuous, soulless and downright monotonous as this. I’d rather make out with some snails, thanks.
7. KATE NASH: Foundations
Oh God, that voice. That whiny, Mockney voice. That whiny, Mockney, robotic voice (‘M-y f-in-ger-t-ips are ho-ld-in-g o-n-to th-e c-r-ack-s in o-ur f-oun-datio-ns’) that doesn’t appear to be able to conceive of the concept of not singing (or speaking for that matter as half the bloody song’s talk) IN FUCKING SYLLABLES. Christ, you want to chew your own foot off after about ten seconds thanks to Nash’s complete and utter lack of any vocal ability whatsobleedingever. Whomever told this poor woman she could sing was clearly having a laugh at all of our sorry expenses. ‘Foundations’ also contains the single worst couplet of the year in ‘You said I must eat so many lemons cos I am so bitter/I said I’d rather be with your friends, mate cos they are much fRITTAH!’ Oh and Kate, F.Y.I., pasty doesn’t rhyme with wasted love. Cheers.
6. XX TEENS: Darlin’
What IS this crap? Seriously? Where’s the song, exactly? Where’s the tune? Where’s the melody? People enjoy this? Really? I just DON’T UNDERSTAND.
5. ENTER SHIKARI: Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour
Where Klaxons are presently the worst indie band the world has to offer, Enter Shikari have got to be the worst ‘rock’ band (or, at least, the worst band that would get some Kerrang! airplay at any rate). Shame really, as that drummer’s one hell of a talented bugger… what a waste. Anyway, so rave/dance and screamo… wonder what it was that made the guys in Enter Shikari think they’d be onto a winner with that combination? Or indeed, what it is that makes anyone think tracks like this one are worth clogging up their iTunes with? ‘Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour’… yeah, I could turn this the fuck off.
4. KID ROCK: So Hott
Okay, so when I said this list was only going to contain ‘credible’ music, I was kinda being a little economical with the truth… but the readers of Kerrang!, Metal Hammer and, er, Kid Rock Monthly probably consider this guy the height of respectable. Ah, dear. ‘So Hott’ is quite obviously the best comedy moment of 2007… look at it any other way and you just want to despair at the state of the kind of world that could produce such absolute wank as this. The track’s actually all right for the first 1.17, but then Rock opens his mouth and it all goes downhill. ‘You got a body like the Devil, man you smell like sex’. ‘I wanna get you alone/I wanna get you stoned’/’I don’t wanna be your friend/I wanna fuck you like I’m never gonna see you again’. What a lyricist. Really. This generation’s TS Eliot. Ah, God. So bad you need to put it on your iPod so you can cheer yourself up on the way to work in the morning. Adam.
3. THE TING TINGS: That’s Not My Name
More NME dah-lings and, as you must have learned by now, more self-important twaddle. Singer, drummer and keyboardist… yeah, that’s about it. Well, they must be good, musn’t they? Er, no. About as far from ‘good’ as you can imagine, ‘That’s Not My Name’ goes nowhere, does nothing and has about a minute and a half in the middle that is some of the most boring music I have ever had the misfortune of listening to. Dreadful, absolutely dreadful.
2. SHY CHILD: Drop the Phone
There’s a theme developing here. Really, it’s not that I’m opposed to electronica or anything, it’s just that it’s so easy to do it bad. Look, I like Late of the Pier, okay? I like The Prodigy. Hell, I quite like The Chemical Brothers. Shy Child, however, I don’t like. In fact, I challenge anyone to genuinely like them (no, saying you enjoy ‘Drop the Phone’ because NME gives it ‘single of the week’ status DOES. NOT. COUNT). Like The Ting Tings, Shy Child have a drummer and a keyboardist. Unlike The Ting Tings, they don’t have a female vocalist. Not that that matters or anything, I was just trying to flesh this out a bit. Um, it’s fucking awful. Basically.
1. BATTLES: Atlas
Oh, the hype! NME loves Battles. Q loves Battles. Wire loves Battles. Uncut loves Battles. ALL the musos love Battles. In fact, so much Battles cock has been sucked by the music industry this year that it’s a wonder the band actually have any juice left. Ah, but if only. Perhaps then they’d stop pissing around with whatever instruments they use to make claptrap like ‘Atlas’ and retire to the country, thereby saving all our ears from being subjected to such out-and-out tripe. Winning the accolade of worst song of 2007 is no small feat, it must be said… there’s been so much shite released this year it’s untrue. But ‘Atlas’ gets the award by virtue of being absolutely unlistenable. There are no redeeming features in these four minutes and eight seconds whatsoever. Fact.
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