10. KASABIAN: Underdog
In probably the most depressing 'statement of fact' to have been uttered in 2009, Kasabian's Tom Meighan proudly informed us all that, now Oasis have imploded under the weight of the Gallagher brothers' over-inflated egos, "Kasabian are the biggest band in Britain!" Yeah, cheers for that Tom. I really needed another reason to want to chew my own foot off. Jesus Christ, this bunch are dull. Honestly, where's the heart? Where's the soul? Where's the sense that the band are making music because they love the art form, not just because they want to suck Ian Brown's dick? Oh come on, you know it's true. Every sodding song Kasabian have ever released is too busy sodomising the rotting corpses of The Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays to give a damn about being any good. 'Underdog' is no exception; it plods along with its Madchester 'swagger', thinking it's the epitome of cool, when actually it just looks and sounds like a twat. Put those Charlatans records away Kasabian and leave us the fuck alone. Now.
9. BLOC PARTY: One More Chance
Oh God Kele, what are you doing? Honestly, is it too much to ask that a year goes by where you don't take a massive dump all over everything good that you've ever recorded? It really is becoming difficult to believe that this is the same band responsible for 2005's seminal debut 'Silent Alarm', a record that ranks amongst the very best albums of the decade. And yes, sure, we all understand that bands need to progress, that if they keep churning out the same material, it'll lose its lustre (Kasabian, take note... actually, on second thought, they never had any fricking lustre in the first place), but COME ON. This?! Early 90s 'minimal techno'? The sort of dance music that sounded dated ten seconds after it was originally recorded? What were they thinking? 'One More Chance' is the kind of record that sadistic torturers might lock their victims in a room with, playing it on a perpetual loop until they snap. Truly horrifying.
8. JAMIE T: Sticks 'n' Stones
Jamie T's such a cheeky chappy, isn't he? Aw look at him, what a little scamp! Running around in his slightly cocked cap, Argos jewellery and burberry jacket, singing songs about 'getting in trouble with your mates' (heaven help him - he's 'stuck in Hampton Wick'!), trying to fit in with the nation's charvas. He's such a cad! Or a prick, whichever takes your fancy. Okay okay, so perhaps I'm being a little harsh with that pikey accusation, but 'Sticks 'n' Stones' makes no qualms about being something of an anthem for the brutish and belligerent and, as a result, every two-bit male poseur with a penchant for macho posturing has taken it to their bosom, resulting in its ludicrous over-playing on radio stations and in clubs up and down the country. It's a thoroughly irritating little shit of a song, the aural equivalent of that six year old brat who keeps ringing your doorbell and then legging it down the street because he thinks it's funny. What 'Sticks 'n' Stones' needs is a good slap; yeah, that'd sort it out. Or something.
7. DIZZEE RASCAL: Bonkers
This may come as something of a shock, but some people think Dizzee Rascal is bonkers, you know. Of course, he just thinks he's free. Remember: he's just living his life, there's nothing crazy about him. After all, some people pay (PAY!) for thrills (would you believe it?) Dizzee gets his for free. Man, he's just living his life, there's nothing crazy about him. Bell-end.
6. THE HORRORS: Sea Within A Sea
Clocking in at a horrifically unforgiving eight minutes and twenty four seconds of purest pretentious wankery, the lead single from The Horrors' excruciatingly self-indulgent sophomore record 'Primary Colours' is the sort of track that cares not for the bothersome art of actually being enjoyable to listen to, and is far more preoccupied, instead, with giving the world's chin-strokers something to discuss besides the new Animal Collective album. Yes, this is another one for the hipsters, a song to drop casually into the conversation as you're gazing at your shoes, trying to figure out whether they're still on the right side of cool. 'Sea Within A Sea' is a criminally hollow record from a hopelessly empty band; hopefully, sooner rather than later, they'll disappear so far up their own arses that they won't be able to crawl back out again. We can but dream.
5. HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD: Undead
Returning for a second appearance in the top twenty, here's Hollywood Undead with their self-professed 'band anthem.' Loaded with macho posturing and homophobic insults ('faggot ass punks', 'faggots who hate'... the list goes on), 'Undead' feels like a desperate attempt for self-validation... and that's exactly what it is! The band clearly feel a little irked at the fact that many of us see right through their pre-pubescent sarcasm and over-compensating shock tactics and, as such, have written the lyrical equivalent of a 'ner ner ner ner ner ner!' to get us back. Thus, we're treated to laughably pathetic lines like 'You cowards can't, you never will, don't even try to pursue it/I took the chance, I payed the bill, I nearly died for this music' (um, when?), 'What? You think I just got lucky, didn't work for this shit?/Bitch, I've been working at this ever since I was a kid/I played a million empty shows to only family and friends' (a million? I think that's a *slight* exaggeration, don't you? And in any case, it's little surprise really, given your music...) and my personal favourite, 'What kind of person disses a band that deserves to get big?' Um, they're called critics, darling. They have opinions. And if you're going to survive in this dog eat dog world of - admittedly unfathomable, in your case - musical success, you're going to have to learn to deal with 'em. Hollywood Undead, we don't really care that you worked your asses off (or so you say) in order to 'make this music.' Fact is, the music sucks. Big time. So really, you're all chumps for expending so much time and energy in making it. And now we're going to point at you. And laugh. Endlessly.
4. FUCK BUTTONS: Surf Solar
"Oh ja Timothy, I just purchased the limited edition Sparkly Cowbell seven inch of the new Fuck Buttons single. You know, the one with the twenty minute Stick It Up Your Ass And Smoke It Dubelectrosynthrave Remix." "Oh really Quentin? That's so controversial." "Oh I know, they don't even blot the word out or anything. It just says 'FUCK' in massive capital letters on the front... you should have seen my dear sweet mother's face when I walked in with it last night." "You're so naughty, Quenters!" "Oh I know, I know, I just can't help myself." "So what's it like?" "What?" "The song?" "I don't have the foggiest, I haven't put it on yet." "Well, they're quite... minimalist... or something, aren't they?" "Oh ja ja." "I think that's what NME said about them." "They're all the rage in the underground, honestly. So hot right now." "Oh marvellous." "Not enough people know about them yet, so we don't have to move on. The mainstream haven't really got to grips with them, you know." "Thank Heavens." "Yes." (Silence) "So, shall we play it on Youtube?" "Oh yes, let's!" (Thirty seconds later) "Fancy some James Blunt?" "I thought you'd never ask."
3. MISTABISHI: Printer Jam
It's the sound of paper jamming in a printer. With a drum and bass/dub beat. Do I really need to say more?
2. LA ROUX: In For The Kill
Looking like Jimmy Neutron on crack and sounding like twenty tabby cats being fed feet-first into a meat grinder, La Roux was 2009's 'break out' star, achieving considerable success with a number of unforgivably atrocious singles, the most unrelentingly insipid of which was this delightful number. For four minutes, Neutron wails and warbles over a shoulder-shruggingly turgid beat, complementing each actual lyric with a line of 'oooooooooo oooooooooooooooh!'s; a format so painful that it makes you want to claw your own eyes out with a toothpick after about fifteen seconds. The song goes on and on and on (or so it feels), slowly choking the life out of modern music, never quite satisfied that the last round of tuneless chalkboard-scraping was enough to keep everyone self-medicating for rest of their adult lives. Truly and utterly horrible.
1. brokeNCYDE: Freaxxx
And just when you thought La Roux had shown us all what the nadir of contemporary alternative music looks like, along come brokeNCYDE to sweep us off our feet and tell us, in their very own 'crunkcore' style, that 'we ain't seen nothin' yet.' Screamo and crunk are two genres best avoided at all costs and yet, inexplicably, these fake plastic scenesters had a collective 'eureka!' moment one fateful evening a few years ago in which they decided it would be a "freaking awesome" (or something) idea to mix the two together and produce an all-new musical style that they could use to take the industry by storm. So yeah, what we have here is three kids messing around with $2 drum machines, synthesisers and vocoders, alternating between wannabe Kanye West raps and the sort of vomit-inducing guttural yelling that would embarrass even Bert McCracken. Any semblance of melody gets lost amongst this horrendously repugnant hotch-potch and the result is a record that is patently unlistenable. Worse still, brokeNCYDE insist on bashing their own music's - admittedly rather puny - brains in with an ill-advised penchant for sexist machismo. 'Freaxxx' contains such repulsive lines as 'I got these bitches all tipsy trying to sex me/I know they want it, alcoholics are some sex freaks' and this writer's personal favourite, 'If you want me baby feel me in/'cause I don't waste my time with lesbians.' And the problem, boys and girls, is that they mean it. 'Irony' is a concept far too complex for brokeNCYDE; to quote the LA Times' August Brown, "to ask 'are they kidding?' is like trying to peel an onion to get to a perceived central core that, in the end, does not exist." This very probably is the absolute rock bottom, the absolute worst that music has to offer. There isn't a single redeeming feature about the song, and the only manner in which it is even remotely worthwhile is in the fact that, as Warren Ellis points out, its music video is "a near-perfect snapshot of everything that’s shit about this point in culture." There just aren't the words.
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