20. BEST COAST: Boyfriend
Bizarrely touted as heirs to the Pixies' lofty throne, Best Coast make the kind of distorted, two chord indie bollocks that used to get bands like Campag Velocet laughed out of the building. With a depressing lack of variety and a hilariously limited palette (girl loves boy, boy loves girl, it's unrequited, it's requited, repeat ad nauseum), these Californian washouts fit the zeitgeist's current penchant for fuzzy Americana perfectly: hell, with tracks as banal as 'Boyfriend' ('I wish he was my boyfriend/I'd love him til the very end') , no one really has to think too much. Win, win right? Guess again.
19. WE THE KINGS: Heaven Can Wait
Pop punk is back in vogue peeps, so out come the copyists, the cheap knock-offs with high pitched male vocals, hastily written lyrics about that unobtainable, but oh so incredibly beautiful girl, and more probably than not, a key change. We The Kings satisfy all the criteria; 'Heaven Can Wait' ticks all the required boxes... and for that reason alone, it is worthy of your contempt. As hum-drum and formulaic as you can get.
18. TINIE TEMPAH: Pass Out
Wish he bloody would.
17. ROLO TOMASSI: Party Wounds
Look, guys, if you just stopped verbally shitting all over your records with those unfathomably hideous 'vocals' (yes, we use the term very, very loosely), you might actually be onto something. The unusual rhythm and tempo changes show promise and that transition from abrasive hardcore to guitar-led funk at the minute mark is actually quite interesting. Why ruin it all by opening your mouths and letting the diarrhoea flood out? Throw out your microphones, become an instrumental band, then we'll talk.
16. MIA: XXXO
Oh my God, like, MIA is just sooooo cool. Her records are like, totally relevant and stuff. I mean, calling your track 'XXXO', like, you know, from texts, it's just so real man. She sings about our lives dude. And that beat, it's like, so phat man, not even irritating at all. Totally awesome. Euck.
15. MGMT: Congratulations
Goes nowhere, says nothing, doesn't even have a catchy keyboard bit. Come on MGMT, for all your 'Oracular Spectacular' material was as irritating as a bout of genital herpes, at least it was annoying enough for us to give a shit. This exercise in abject boredom trudges so far down the dismal road of mediocrity that even Fran Healey fans are tempted to reach for the 'off' button. Truly mind-numbing.
14. WILLIAM CONTROL: Only Human Sometimes
No, William, you are not Gary Numan. You're barely even Gary Barlow. Give it up. Now.
13. FOXY SHAZAM: Oh Lord
Coming on like the bastard love child of Jake Shears and Justin Hawkins, Eric Sean Nally, a.k.a. Foxy Shazam, makes music that is every bit as shocking as his alias. As you might expect, this is flamboyancy squared, cubed even, with cat suits, falsettos and platforms taking pride of place next to a depressingly predictable glam-cum-punk rock sound. 'Oh Lord' is the worst of an awful bunch, crooning, pouting and preening along and managing to be as stale as a month old loaf of Warburtons. Essentially, The Darkness for pop punk/emo kids. Sends shivers down your spine, doesn't it?
12. KATE NASH: Do Wah Doo
Oh Goddddddddddddddddddddddddddd, make her stop! Please! I just can't take the meaningless lyrics, uncontrollable warbling and irritating mispronunciations any more! It's enough to drive you to insanity. Really. Nashism, that's what my psychiatrist calls it. I need a lie down.
11. CRYSTAL CASTLES: Celestica
Fancy making your own Crystal Castles record? Simple! Just take out your nearest Dictaphone, dust down your old Spectrum ZX81 and let the fun begin! Sprinkle with a side-helping of incomprehensible belching (males and females allowed) for added flavour and hey presto, you've got your next Hipster No. 1. Easy. Saves having to subject your ears to the originals, at any rate.
10. A DAY TO REMEMBER: Have Faith In Me
Seriously? THIS is where we've got to? This is where pop punk, emo and hardcore have taken us? Three minutes of self-absorbed, adolescent whinging, soundtracked by the most depressingly standard of three chord thrashings? This is what we're supposed to swallow? Well sorry boys, but we're not buying it. The discerning public deserves more than a series of well-worn cliches and half-baked Sixth form poetry. From the evidence of this, ADTR are no different to any of the 10,000 other so-called punk wannabes stinking up Kerrang! TV and for that, they deserve nothing other than your contempt. Put a sock in it Remember and bloody well give it up.
9. HURTS: Stay
Every indie dah-ling from Cambridgeshire to Shoreditch lined up, one by one, to shove their unnecessarily bespectacled faces up these Mancunian knobbers' arses this year, heralding their knock-off Pet Shop Boys sound as 'like, really revolutionary man.' Actually, it's just recycled 80s synth pop... and very, very bad 80s synth pop at that. The kind you might find on the 99p Lost Classics of the 80s CDs in the ASDA bargain bin; the sort of thing Spandau Ballet fans would probably consider listenable. 'Stay' is the epitome of their hideously polished, garishly trite sound and should therefore be avoided at all costs. Don't say we didn't warn you.
8. PENDULUM: Watercolour
THAT vocodered voice! THOSE pro-tools effects! MORE inane lyrics! ANOTHER inevitable build to a 'thumping' back beat! Throw 'em all together, stir lightly for three minutes and serve. Cold. To an army of drugged-up idiots too stupid to realise that these colossal w**kstains are taking them on one gigantic, money-grabbing ride every time they release a new record. Seriously guys, can anyone discern a difference between 'Watercolour' and any other track
released by Pendulum, like, EVER? Apart from the slightly amended diction? No, you bloody well can't, so stop trying. Put this God awful record down, tear up to your tickets to the next underground dubstep night (you know, the ones that cost you an arm and a leg) and get some taste. Please.
7. KELE: Tenderoni
Once upon a time, many aeons ago, Kele Okereke had something to say. Back in the hallowed Winter of 2004, this angular indie rock troubadour was singing about the vampirism of consumer culture, writing about the price of gasoline and making the kind of post-punk noise you just couldn't help but lose yourself in. Bloc Party's 'Silent Alarm' is an amazing record, one of the best of the decade, but pretty soon after its release, Kele, in his infinite wisdom, decided that he just wasn't interested in producing outstanding music. The chinks began to form in the armour: first we had 'The Prayer', a poor man's attempt to fuse indie and crunk. Then there was 'Flux', a cheap Chemical Brothers knock-off produced in a shoebox. By the time we got to 'innovative' (hah) third album 'Intimacy', Bloc Party had done away with guitars altogether, churning out early 90s minimal techno 'homages' like 'One More Chance' and the utter, utter abomination that is 'Mercury'. Kele, in effect, proceeded to take one gigantic three year shit all over his band's legacy, and while he's now flown solo and is at least no longer tainting the rest of the guys with this crap, the unrelenting disappointment remains.
Inspired, apparently, by his love of club culture (always down Popstarz, getting' hammered, d'you reckon?), solo album 'The Boxer', from which this monstrosity is taken, is a 45 minute exercise in electronica-wankery, owing much to the depressingly dated stylings of early 90s rave culture, designed to send the ultra-cool hipsters who fill up the pages of the NME into a frenzy of uncontrollable hyperbole and sickening sycophantism. Look, this is complete bollocks, okay? And for that matter, it's complete bollocks that's been done better by such luminaries as The Shamen and bloody Black Box. An almighty fall from grace. Shame.
6. LINKIN PARK: The Catalyst
Look, Chester, just because everyone and their granny is queuing up to worship at the altar of the Casio keyboard does not give you carte blanche to piss all over your legacy and produce a terrible electronica record. 'The Catalyst' is bloody awful and, for that matter, the title is something of a misnomer: it trudges along for four minutes, going absolutely nowhere, and couldn't inspire anyone to do anything. Come on guys, give us another 'Hybrid Theory'. Please?!
5. GOOD CHARLOTTE: Like It's Her Birthday
Not only have Linkin Park jumped squarely on the electronica bandwagon, but Good Charlotte appear to have taken the wheel, driving themselves so far beyond their traditional, um, pop punk sound that it's hard to recogni... oh wait, Joel's still attempting to sing, yeah, this is definitely Good Charlotte. It's somewhat amusing, if a little sad, that the Madden boys have such little self-respect that they'll clamour to fit in with whichever scene is flavour of the month, regardless of how idiotic it makes them appear. "Quick, get the synths out, they're popular, this'll make us a few million!" It would perhaps be forgivable if the track were any good but, predictably, it isn't. A real case of utterly transparent desperation.
4. 3OH!3: My First Kiss
As if one year of these Eurotrash rejects wasn't enough, the music press continued, somewhat unfathomably, to force 3Oh!3 down the throats of unsuspecting alternative music lovers in 2010, refusing to stop until they swallowed every last morsel of their horrendously dated, and unquestionably odious, electropop. Quite how this fetid cesspool of detritus managed to elbow its way into rock and indie club playlists is anybody's guess, but there it was, all Summer long, cosying on up to the Lady GaGa/Metallica mash-ups, making your sodding ears bleed. There really is no excuse for this crap. It's not big, it's not clever and it most certainly isn't funny. Oi, 3Oh!3... do one.
3. BEADY EYE: Bring The Light
Making a right Royal hoot out of Liam Gallagher's claim that the forthcoming LP will be 'better than Definitely Maybe', this four minute honky-tonk abomination sets new records for wanton laziness, stealing the piano parts from 'Great Balls of Fire' and setting them to a lyric more predictable than the transformation of day into night. 'Little James' ain't got nothin' on this blighter. Check out that chorus! Your nephew could scribble something better on the back of his packet of Coco Flakes. A real travesty, an undeniably atrocious record, which makes Alan McGee's desperate attempts to excuse it all the more laughable.
2. BRING ME THE HORIZON: It Never Ends
I believe it was the almighty Slipknot who once observed, most eloquently, that PEOPLE = SHIT. That there is anyone, and we mean anyone, in existence who can derive enjoyment from listening to the utter and complete doggerel churned out on a regular basis by this God awful excuse for a band is testament to its validity. That Oli Skyes and his band of merry noisemakers feel it is acceptable to subject the teenyboppers and emo kids who make up their audience to output like this provides further proof, and just reinforces the fact that, well, they're a bunch of masochistic bastards. Unfathomably, music press stalwarts have taken it upon themselves to lavish praise upon BMTH's latest release when, actually, it is the aural equivalent of week-long bout of explosive diarrhoea. Supposedly, this is a revolutionary record, a pioneering fusion of hardcore, metal, punk and, um., dubstep. What actually transpires is an unlistenable mess, as if Oli and co simply threw everything into the pot and hoped it would stick... and it didn't. 'It Never Ends', the lead single from it, is a song with no redeeming features whatsoever. There is simply no reason to listen to this crap and no justification for its existence. PEOPLE = SHIT indeed.
1. BrokENCYDE: Teach Me How to Scream
Well, congratulations BrokENCYDE! Not only have you managed to remain as unequivocally dreadful as you were last year - a feat that sent them rocketing to the no. 1 spot in 2009's Worst Singles of the Year - but you've also made a record that is a less enjoyable listening experience than anything produced by Bring Me the Horizon. That's no small feat ladies and gentlemen, and is proof positive that this caterwauling sack of horse manure is well deserving of its position at the top of the atrocity pile. Despite the best efforts of everyone with functional earlobes to prevent these fucktards from continuing to fuse screamo and crunk, and hence cripple the credibility of both genres and the very music industry itself, the guys from the CYDE have chosen to stick to their tried and, um, tested formula with 'Teach Me How to Scream' and consequently, have produced another embarrassingly unlistenable monstrosity. The screams! The lazy beats! Those offensively misogynistic lyrics! Oh, the horror! It's enough to make you want to chew your own foot off... actually, scratch that: listen to this for longer than three minutes and you'll have cannibalised your insides. Want to ensure a confession from Julian Assange? Make him listen to this on repeat. It's a sure fire winner. Undoubtedly the worst track released upon an unsuspecting public in 2010, and quite probably one of the worst things ever created. Why God, why?
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