When you watch this you will understand...
Before you watch I must warn you that you will want to paper cut her eyes and force her to piss her own teeth out.

www.bbc.co.uk/switch/them/amy.shtml

The fact that 'an Indie' is regarded as a thing is annoying enough, but to exemplify an entire group of people using this little sod is excruciating. I would rather have sex with a nail than have the statement 'Oh I like alternative guitar music' equate me to this type of person.

It isn't just because she has no self-awareness. It's hardly her fault she's been chosen to represent an entire group of people with a token title that barely scratches the surface of what people are actually like. It's the fact that she says her life was changed by Razorlight.

Firstly, that wave of post-Libertines landfill indie that turned pub bands into stadium rockers annoys the shit out of me anyway, as every guitar band in the country decided they either had to be from Essex and write about Britishness with all the grace and wit of a Daily Mail discussion board member, or be the new U2 and put delayed guitars on everything and play stadiums and be EPIC while saying things like 'Obviously Bono is a wonderful man...'

Secondly Razorlight epitomise everything I hate about that wave of music. Not only did they come from a suddenyly achingly cool place full Nathan Barleys where NME journalists waited outside pubs to fellate anyone walking past in a leather jacket but, and this is much more important, they were shite. Truly shite. So buttock clenchingly pisspoor that Pete Doherty's tedious life and times were less irritating.

I had heard a couple of songs from the first album and thought 'They're nothing special, there are plenty of bands out there who're better than this', but had reckoned without their totemic bell-end of a front man bragging his way through an NME interview about how spectacularly great he was, and the magazine realised they were onto a good thing and promoted the fuck out of them. They knew that people would want to read Johnny Borrell talking utter bollocks about how he had invented rock and roll and how he had once smoked a spliff and now he could fart new colours and his jizz was the note between B and C and he was better than Dylan, Lennon, and Craddock.

Ignoring the fact that his lyrics are like something you'd expect to find in a volume of poetry written by Adrian Mole, ignoring the fact that the rest of the band clearly hate him, and ignoring the fact that I saw Razorlight at T in the Park playing to a group of e'er dwindling people (after they'd become 'big') which consisted of Borrell staggering about the stage with his top off, hollering and swinging his guitar around. Occasionally he'd hit a chord, but it would probably not be one the rest of the band were playing. They stood long sufferingly playing the actual song while Borrell careered around as if he was in Velvet Goldmine, fucking everything up and acting as if what he was doing was somehow of great artistic value. It was without doubt the worst live performance I've ever seen.

Then they released a second album when I was working at a shop that left the radio on all the time. And they'd somehow got worse. This time, however, I couldn't do anything other to escape. A couple of times I managed to make it to the stock room before 'America' came on, but mainly I had to listen, praying for a customer with a loud voice to come along and talk to me about anything at all. This never happened. Instead I had to listen to a catfaced arsecandle wittering meaningless bollocks over their version of epic music. Razorlight are a pub rock band, but they got caught up in the whole fucking EPIC music thing until they got to Live Aid and decided they were U2. Everything had to be soaring and grand and able to, y'know, heal the world and bring people together because that's what music is about, yeah?

Cunt off. Cunt right off. Razorlight are an ego project for a spongelike vanity-felch rodent-faced pen-scratching attention seeking English-language-sodomising vacuum packed nodular scuntbucket and their inexplicable popularity was part of the crest of a wave that contained The Kooks singing 'She moves in her own way' about Katie bloody Melua, every guitar band in the world taking turns to feel Bono's flaccid cock settle on their lips before they started working the foreskin as EPICALLY as fucking possible before getting a papercut on their tongue because that's where the bastard keeps his tax break money and he never actually comes anyway because even his climaxes have delay pedals on them while Snow Patrol chime away in the background with another of their "*guitar* chime,chime,chime,chime, chime...*oirish vocals* you have such pretty eyes, let's run away together...*guitar*DERNERNERNERNERNERNER-DER-NERNERNERNERNERNER etc. " songs and Biffy Clyro have managed to become popular by writing whole albums worth of Foo Fighters b-sides and The Pigeon Detectives were actually popular rather than being dismissed as a satire on boring music by people who think that being 'an Indie' means you have to wear converse and artfully slashed jeans and who stopped watching Doctor Who after David Tennant left.

So in conclusion, I hate Razorlight.
(thePontificator, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 13:10, 9 replies)

Q. What do you call a woman with three cunts
A. the Black Eyed Peas

That is all.
(postmistress, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 17:29, 9 replies)

The Aimless Dovepuppets
...a band I've invented as a kind of litmus test for hipsters.
They're coming up in Hoxton, I tell them. They're about to break big time. I've got their first EP on first-press seven inch vinyl. Only the boring black vinyl though, not the super-rare, only-five-ever-made picture vinyl with the hand-inked sleeve.They're a kind of post-fusion, post-colonial electro hip-hop feminist collective who happen to play gigs when they're not sitting in dark corners and cutting themselves.

Responses and consequences:

Response:
I've never heard of them. Are you sure you're not making it up?
Consequence:
A good person. Buy them a drink. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Response:
Yeah, I've heard of them. My friend's got the *gold* vinyl.
Consequence: Wanker, avoid.

Response:
I liked them about three months ago.
Consequence:
You feel that itch in your knuckles? That's God's way of telling you to smite. No jury would convict you! Attack! Kill!
(universalpsykopath loves what you've done with your hair., Tue 4 Jan 2011, 12:33, 6 replies)

It's really quite hard to come up with a definitive answer to this question,
what with taste being subjective and all. I've thrown my hat into the ring earlier in this QOTW, not that it really matters because some people agreed with me, and some didn't, as was to be expected.

There is one definitive conclusion that I've managed to draw as a result of all these stories though, and that is that the British public in general don't really give a flying fuck about music being some sort of art form, which makes me very, very sad. I could have easily come to this conclusion after the first series of X factor to be fair, but reading all the stories this week has just made me think.

Music, in my eyes, is like the strangest drug. You don't have to ingest it in any way, you just have to be near it for it to have an impact on you, and what an impact it can have. There are certain songs that can change my mood the second they start. There are pieces of music that can make me feel like I'm flying, and there are pieces of music that make me feel like I could punch my way through a brick wall.

The fact that so many millions of people in this country make do with that watered down, conveyor belt, plastic shit that you get on radio 1 is a sad indictment of just how little music must mean to so many people. If all you want out of it is the soundtrack to you pissing your nights away in some shitty nightclub, that is as forgettable as it is insincere, then I feel truly sorry for you because you're missing a world.

And yet, you are the sole reason for all that is wrong in the world of music, because you're the majority. The worthless, fucking ignorant majority.

I am a musician, and a struggling one at that. I have tried and tried again to make a career out of playing music, out of doing something that I truly love, and it's hard. Too hard in fact. It's hard to the point of being nearly impossible in a country where bands and artists have a sell by day like you'd find on a carton of milk. "Too old. Too ugly. Not enough tattoos. Not the right look." Because what I do isn't marketable on a wide scale, there is no way I'm ever going to make a living doing it. That doesn't sound like an art form to me. That sounds like a fucking episode of "Dragons Den".

Music is meant to move past the superficial. It affects you an at almost spiritual level, and those of you who truly love music will know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, fuck off back to your JLS records.

I don't really know what the point of me writing this was, but I felt the need to say it anyway, and here seemed about as relevant a place as any. Instead of pointing the finger at various shit bands, we should all collectively point the finger at the fucking idiots who facilitate this stifling creative abyss.

It was all fun and games getting Rage Against The Machine to number one last year, but how many people that bought that fucking single probably tuned in to watch the X Factor every week? It only sold 500,000 copies. There were 17 million people voting in last years final. That's more people voting for the X Factor than voted for the conservatives!

It's not enough to just buy a single once a year to push a certain band to number one. That does nothing. If you give a shit about music, turn your fucking television off and go and watch a gig.

You can go out in any city in Britain, on any night of the week, and watch a band play for fuck all. Not because they're getting paid, or because they might get famous, but because they fucking love music.

Some might be shit but maybe, just maybe, you'll see something you love, and you can tell your friends, and they'll love it too. And when they tell their friends, and they tell their friends and so on, and the band gets momentum enough to make a record that could possibly go down in history as being truly great, you can say, "I was there. I made this. I turned off my television, I stopped listening to the mass produced shit on the radio, I stopped looking at Simon Cowells fucking smug face and I went out and supported a band that needed support. This music is mine."
( PMGT -Bacon., Tue 4 Jan 2011, 0:51, 11 replies)

( Bela Lugosi's Dad, Sat 1 Jan 2011, 9:48, 3 replies)

Dead Kennedys
for a doing a song called "Let's lynch the landlord". OK, they might not always provide a working washing machine but it's not as if a landlord has ever strangled a tennant or anything.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 30 Dec 2010, 18:25, 5 replies)

I used to hate Jennifer Lopez's music
I took it for cynical over-produced shit pushed by industry types keen to cash in on her movie star fame, looks, and conspicuous wealthy lifestyle.
Then I realised I was actually being fooled by the jewellery that she possessed, and deep down she still had genuine roots in the community from which she was raised and this gave her authenticity
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Thu 30 Dec 2010, 22:36, 4 replies)

Pearoast about R and Frickin' B
R and frickin B

One pretty, underdressed, nasally whining bint with a passable voice, terminally unable to use one pure note when she can ram forty-seven in the same space. Then we get to the male part. What the holy jamstranglingbastardfuck is HIS raison d'etre? Monotonally slurring through some "gangsta" bollocks while swaying, grabbing his crotch and waving his arm like a shit-flinging simian.


And don't get me started on "Fiddy cent". Just don't.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Sun 2 Jan 2011, 18:47, 2 replies)

A few years back I had an issue with my pc. Instead of playing that Windows sound when it started up, it played 'Achy Breaky Heart'. I found out later it had a Billy-Ray Virus.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Sun 2 Jan 2011, 10:01, Reply)

Without doubt it has to be U2.

For not only writing straight down the middle of the road bland wanky shite pop/rock music; but also for being so far up their own asses they're inside out.
There are plenty of awful bands out there, but at least they stand for something other than their own egos.
( Turquoise Hexagon Sun has just dropped acid on, Thu 30 Dec 2010, 13:54, 7 replies)

I dislike far better bands than you AND I dislike them on limited edition colour vinyl.

( Cave Duck, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 11:31, 7 replies)

Kiss.....my anus.
When I was a youth, eagerly devouring the monthly edition of Kerrang! (yes, it was THAT long ago), the bands I loved, the young guns of metal, all used to cite Kiss as one of their main influences. Loads of tales about how they were the heaviest thing since, erm, something very heavy, how mind-blowingly good they were, how everyone wanted to be just like them. (Only different, obviously) It seemed everyone of the thrash bands I loved had "dressed up like Kiss and put on little shows in the back yard"
Well, I had to get my hands on some of this Kiss music, it was obviously going to be life-changing for me, I would see the light, heavy-beyond-heavy fucking metal...yeaaaaah!!!

One bloke I knew was a Kiss fan, and he also ranted and raved about them: How could I like Sabbath and Ozzy, totally shit compared to Kiss. Metallica? (Eeh, "Ride the Lightning" days) Crap mate, ripped off Kiss, nowhere near as good, they'll disappear after the next LP, you'll see.

I, with some other un-educated young rockers congregated at Fat Jock's place, to learn the true secret of Metal, to watch his live Kiss video.
The lights dimmed, the intro faded out, BOOM! a massive pyro salvo.....we were right on the edge of cumming now.......aaaaand.....PARP!

Everyone of us Kiss virgins was momentarily stunned, but not by the awesome power of these true metal gods. No, by how absolutely abysmal they were. They sounded like the fucking Osmonds. What. A. Pile. Of. Shit.

Since then I'm constantly amazed they are still plodding on, still playing to massive crowds, and still eliciting gushing praise from other bands. It's like the Emperor's New Clothes, they are fucking crap, no two ways about it, but no-one wants to stand up and say "This lot are shit."
I can understand that they were different and exciting in the 1970s, so would attract attention, but then so was Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and you don't hear people banging on about him, do you?

Worst has to be the way a certain Mr Simmons and Mr Stanley have conformed to the worst racial stereotypes and squeezed the last nth of blood out of the Kiss stone, fucking over band members and fans alike in the blind pursuit of cash. They have managed to keep a novelty giggle going for nearly 40 years, with only a hint of musical talent.

I don't begrudge them a living, or the desire to retain control of their image and rights, but those fuckers have taken it to a new level. Rock stardom should be about drinking, shagging and making music, not licensing comic books, action figures and counting the cash. Or at least, let someone else do the business stuff whilst you live out the rock star life, vicariously for us. I want my rock stars to do massive amounts of drugs, fuck groupies, and, importantly, make music that makes me feel good, not build business empires which are apparently more important than playing guitar.

I read not so long back that now Shylock & Co are getting too long in the tooth to be doing all that playing live nonsense, they are looking to franchise out the Kiss name, find hired hands to play their characters and keep the band on the road while they just pull the strings!

Actually, it might be worthwhile, the puppets might come up with some music that is actually worth listening to. God I hate Kiss, and all they stand for.
(Rsoles, Mon 3 Jan 2011, 15:21, 8 replies)

UB40
Jesus fuck a pig.

I remember the early 80s when UB40 were a group of angry young unemployed men from Birmingham, hitting out at the Thatcher government through brilliant songs like "Food for Thought" and "One in Ten". Signing off and Present Arms are iconic albums.

Then they got rich, did "Labour of Love" and they became nothing but a cheesy wedding covers band, committing the ultimate musical sin of becoming [Group] + Friends

"I've Got You Babe" remains a low point of the entire musical output of ALL MANKIND. Those behind it should be hung, drawn, quartered, turned into soup and the soup poured down the drain.

UB40: STOP IT, YOU CUNTS

I feel quite strongly about this
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Sat 1 Jan 2011, 11:27, 4 replies)

Prior to meeting Chuck Norris,
'The Black-Eyed Peas' were simply known as 'The Peas'.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 10:04, 1 reply)

Twee for Twats
I vote for Fredrika Stahl for somehow managing to epitomise the currently fashionable brand of advert-friendly twee bullshit folk with her stomach-churningly pathetic rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little fucking Star (as heard in the recent Nissan commercial), a song choice so embarrassingly precious that not even a decent singer could pull it off without sounding like a cringingly sentimental bell-end.

But a decent singer she is not. The “care free” style of singing that she is so self-consciously trying to pull off combines with the pained flailing of single syllables until she just sounds like a drunken 11 year old boy whose balls haven’t quite dropped. The result is nauseating in the extreme. Like gorging on an enormous My Little Pony birthday cake and 3 litres of Calpol.

Who buys this absolute guff? Presumably the same menstruating dullards that buy chunky faux mother of pearl jewelery from Dorothy Perkins, litter their IKEA coffee table with copies of Vogue and use a “deliciously quirky” cupcake fridge magnet to attach their yoga schedule to their Activia containing fridge. Safe, pseudo-emotive music for boring, emotionless cunts. I find it more irritating than the most manufactured of Cowell tripe simply for having ideas so far above its station.
(Mr Eraserhead Why aren't you a lemon?, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 16:26, 7 replies)

The Arcade Fire
Let me begin by stating that I know so little about Arcade Fire that I don't even know if there's a "The" prefixing their name. Hell, I wouldn't know one of their songs if it was played on a loop. I'm actually not that sure if they do such a mundane thing as a song - they probably do a "piece" or something. Nope, what I detest about this particular band are the humourless pretentious followers of Elite Indie Rock.

A follower of Elite Indie Rock is best exemplified by those twenty and thirty-something cardigan-wearing (males; the females prefer tea dresses and opaque tights), Converse-shod skinny types who sport asymmetric haircuts and an unwarranted superior musical attitude. They revel in the obscure quirkiness of their tastes. The twee is to be embraced in an ironic manner. The more unknown the band, the more offbeat and whiny the music, the more they love it. Arcade Fire made them pee a little with excitement when first they emerged because everyone used terms like "critically acclaimed" and there was a collective of musicians onstage dressed just like them!.

I have been informed that I obviously don't know and don't like music because I express no interest in (The) Arcade Fire and was not falling over myself to go and stand amongst all the other fringe-wearers at some alt gig location. To be honest, the whole thing just makes me think of that couple on the Match.com advert ("I like old movies... Like the Godfather...3...") - you just know they're going to go on a date to see Arcade Fire, possibly with a mumbling drink beforehand, with some surreptitious hand-holding and sideways smiles during the finale, and then some weak but meaningful sex in his North London bedsit.

I like music, I'm just not a humourless bollix about it. For "(The?) Arcade Fire" fill in any band's name where a bunch of earnest self-proclaimed music lovers are queuing to get into the gig, hipstamatic cameras at the ready.

Q. How many Elite Indie Rock fans does it take to change a light bulb?
A. What, you mean you haven't heard it?
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 11:06, 4 replies)

What annoys me most about music these days...
... is how technically poor it is. Vocalists can barely sing in tune, instrumentalists struggle their way through basic chord progressions that would get a C in GCSE music, orchestrations are simply lazy and changing key up a semitone pretty much the standard indication that the last verse has been reached (at least you know it'll be over soon, I guess). Being good at music sadly doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for being a musician these days.

I had the misfortune of sitting through part of the X Factor final this year (was stuck on the sofa feeding our baby with the remote out of reach). The bit I caught was the "duet" round, where they got some established stars to sing with the prospective contestants. The most astonishing thing was that not only were the contestants musically crap (which is what you'd expect), but the star musicians were awful too. Rhianna and Robbie Williams were dire, Will.i.am was simply beyond awful. Surprisingly, Christina Aguilera seemed to actually be able to sing, and ended up completely upstaging the poor contestant she was accompanying. The judges then had orgasms over these shit performances.

What's really depressing, though, is that there are legions of really talented people, who can really sing well and play their instruments brilliantly, who simply aren't marketable enough to make it. In almost any televised performance, I can almost guarantee that the backing singers and the faceless instrumentalists performing off-screen are far better musicians that the star thrashing out off-key vocals on the camera.

So who's on my musical shit-list? Pretty much all of them. I want to listen to stuff where I don't simply feel that I could perform it better myself or know somebody who could. I want to hear stuff with more novelty than the elevator music that's churned out.
(Mr T, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 10:43, 10 replies)

The Beatles...
Musical heresy maybe, but I've just never 'got' them. Sure, they may have helped shape the future of 'rock and roll', but I've always felt their influence and 'status' have been overblown a bit. Sure, there are some great tracks (singles and album tracks) but there's plenty more than a fair share of absolute garbage as well.
As for Lennon, I prefer some of his solo stuff.

I say this being born in the 70's not having the benefit of growing up when The Beatles emerged in the Sixties so, like Vietnam, "I probably don't know man, I wasn't there".

They are also responsible for Oasis. Case closed.
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Thu 30 Dec 2010, 13:10, 11 replies)

U2
How can music so crap fill so many stadiums around the globe? What kind of moron calls themselves The Edge? U2's success just baffles me. And people listen to Bono speak as if he's some kind of Buddha. Come on, I've heard less vacuous platitudes from the mouths of stoned seventeen-year-olds! Random internet sample of Bono's divine wisdom:

The less you know, the more you believe.
Bono

To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.
Bono

U2 is an original species... there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.
Bono

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.
Bono

I need to be bitch-slapped with my own severed genitalia.
Bono
(Happybara The jungle came alive and took him, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 17:07, 16 replies)

The Worst Band In The World ... by quite a bit.

Oh dear. I've perused the board on at least one occasion every single week of the 8 years and 28 days that I've been a member, yet I've never actually posted anything until today. I can't for the life of me think why not. I just assumed I'd been joining in all along. Talk about a new breed of slack. I shall go and face the corner.

Am I perhaps the laziest of all B3tans?

(answers on a postcard, please)

Anyhow, back in the '90s, I was one half of Pwürg (and still am, at least on paper). Pwürg possibly don't belong on this thread, being arguably the finest lo-fi Carnival/Goth/Doom/Fairground genre crossover band ever to have come out of the Thames Valley area.

(Indeed, longtime B3tans may fondly remember my dear friend and co-conspirator, Mr Lucas Bones - aka Kallus - whose lovely spore-related artwork used to regularly pepper this very board.)

BOBO+BOBO, on the other hand, are a different kettle of fish.

As young protégés of our long-time associate and producer - the legendary Ray Hurley-Castle - BOBO+BOBO came into being solely to be the worst band in the world.

A few years back, a talented Tokyo musician, working under the pseudonym of Syntax Terror, firmly laid down his handkerchief at the feet (or possibly chin) of Melbourne-based tunesmith Bobolino and challenged him to a musical duel.

Their mission was to listen to the greatest and most popular songs of the last hundred years and observe the elements that make them so endearing and enduring ... then completely leave all that good stuff out. They were each to create what they felt was the worst song of all time - a tune that was bad in every imaginable respect.

While Syntax Terror forged ahead on his lonesome, Bobolino hooked up with Bobolina (who was either his girlfriend, wife, mistress or sister, depending on which version you believe) and together they became BOBO+BOBO. Their resultant anti-masterpiece was to unanimously beat "The Aerobic Detective" hands down. Syntax Terror conceded defeat.

"My Love Is Soft (Fluffy Puppy)" was born.



This contagiously-repetitive musical nightmare quite possibly IS the worst song ever recorded.

Indeed, the man charged with mastering the atrocity - one of the UK's top audio engineers - conveyed the following to Ray:

"When I first played it to my colleague, she was in tears within 20 seconds and still in shock 20 minutes later. The song is now firmly lodged in my internal jukebox (or ear worm, as the Germans call it). It's now a game here in the studio to try and plant the song in each other's heads, testament to how catchy and annoying it is. We can do it with just the words "like a puppy" or "my love is soft", usually to loud protestations. I hate you."

To make matters worse, an accompanying video clip was brought into being. This will very much give you the full experience - so watch at your own peril.

Friends, Romans, B3tans ... I give you
BOBO+BOBO: The Worst Band In The World:

My Love Is Soft (Fluffy Puppy)

--------------------------------
( Isaac Mangang With Love & Herpes xXx, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 3:08, 6 replies)

Scouting for Girls
The four-chord stop start band who released the same song four times.

I do a parody of them during my stand-up. The song made the Scouting for Girls Newsletter a while back, leading to a lot of 10-year old girls yelling at me. "They're better than you! They've made records!" as if I'm only allowed an opinion of them when I've got a record deal myself.

I'm sorry, but I also don't know how to bake cakes. But I know when one tastes like shit.
( __, Thu 30 Dec 2010, 20:19, 6 replies)

That band that I don't like
but other people do. The complete cunts.
( wotofco pissing in your swimming pool, Thu 30 Dec 2010, 14:51, 10 replies)

Alicia Keys
Two reasons;
1) She's somehow been bestowed the title of Legendary Singer-Songwriter, worshipped by fans who praise her 'real music' (the dullest of all musics), awarded a metric crap-tonne of tuppenny-hapenny gongs, with a 3CD 'Platinum Collection' under her belt, despite having about three boring songs to her name. And one of them was a bloody rip-off of We Are the Champions.
2) That fuck-dismal New York song. Holy shitpies, what a steaming pile. Nice enough as a sample in someone else's song, but pull it out and inspect the whole thing, and it's like seeing what goes into sausages. Considering she's supposed to be a proper singer-songwriterzzzzzz, she does a bloody good impression of a seven year-old writing a song about What I Done On My Holidays.

Let's take a closer look at her lyrical genius;

Grew up in a town, that is famous as a place of movie scenes
Yes. New York appears in a lot of films. Good spot.

Noise is always loud / There are sirens all around
Hey, you know something? She's right! I saw one of those movies once, and there WAS a lot of noise! And it was all around! Especially the sirens. All over the bloody shop, those sirens.

If I could make it here / I could make it anywhere / That’s what they say
Ooh, that's a clever line, that! If you could make it there, you could make it anywhere. Yes, that's got a ring to- Hang on, Who's 'they'? Oh yes - The writers of 'New York, New York', a song about New York. Still, don't worry. Leave it in, I'm sure nobody remembers it. Got any other astute observations that other people have made? Are the cops not that smart?

New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of
Now THAT is good. Because when you think about it, New York is a lot like a jungle that's made of concrete. That's a great metaphor, I can see it taking off. And you're right, it is the place where dreams are made of... Of... Made of what? Did your pen run out then?

There’s nothing you can’t do
Really? I'm fairly sure they frown upon dog-bumming.

Hail a gypsy cab / Takes me down from Harlem to the Brooklyn Bridge
Fascinating. I once took the A1 up past Newark, then onto the A57 through Worksop then up to Sheffield, where I had a bit of trouble with the ring-road and had to make a dodgy U-turn in the middle of town to get - Oh, wait! I've just realised, running through a route you once took in excruciating detail is actually incredibly boring, and not the sort of thing you usually find passing for lyrics. Sorry.

Hear it for New York, New York, New York
Struggling?

Imagine my surprise when, during that legal tussle a few months ago (between this 'song' and the far superior Newport video), it was revealed that there were actually about seven writers responsible for the above dreck. Yes, it took more people to write that pony than it does to land a plane.

Christ's balls.
(costas, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 23:59, 4 replies)

Ahem
For my eternal shame I will admit that I once appeared as part of a band on a national singing competition on the TV. I don’t want to go into it too much as the situation was pretty embarrassing but let me just say that we were on the TV, got through a few preliminary stages and were voted off before the public got the chance to vote for us (Thank God).

The group I was were due to appear last out of the acts and we opted to sing something we had written ourselves as we wanted to look original and to be honest we came off pretty decent, our song went down well with the audience and we thought that we might have been in with a chance especially compared to some of the other acts. Some were way too theatrical, others a little too cheesy one of the bands had a racist entry blasting the UK and then there was the band that I now class as the worst I have seen in my entire life.

I can’t for the life of me remember the band name but they were horrid, they looked sloppy, unprepared and in my opinion the lyrics they had written may have been good with a decent bit of backing music but instead it was a musical disaster and sounded like they were playing the same sodding note over and over again.

Turns out my opinion was not the same as the judges and they, the shittest of the entries managed to get through. I now know that I am going to hell as I laughed my ass off when they failed to pick up any points at the Eurovision final- I may have forgot to mention before but they were priests. I think that the blokes voting for it to get through to the final stages must have had a thing for horses.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 15:19, 6 replies)

The Kooks
I hate them. I particularly hate their tedious, gurning, two-rungs-lower-on-the-evolution-of-pop-music-even-than-Johnny-Borrell singer. I was at the Lewes Guy Fawkes festival a couple of years back (an annual celebration of slightly iffy pagan imagery, quasi-racist blackfacing, and firing large pellets of gunpowder down crowded streets), when I saw that walking ballbag of a man walking towards me, his simian arms swinging, his brow furrowed as he tried to contemplate the utterly confusing notion of any kind of songwriting technique beyond farting a melody and then singing doo-doo-doo over the top of it.

I wish I had been the guy standing nearby who chose to make his feelings on this complete and utter guffcloud known.

"Oi, KOOK!" he hollered.

No response.

"KOOOOK!" he persisted, fuelled by the heady mix of alcohol, cordite and apocalyptic fervour.

The manufacturer of dross looked over, ready to welcome the kind of critical attention that he was so used to garnering (bear in mind that this was around the time that these anodyne tit-stains were at the peak of their inexplicably chart-baiting rise).

"TWWWWAAAATTT!!" screamed this glorious fellow at the top of his voice, so loud that several hundred people turned and laughed as one. A round of applause broke out. Never have I felt so at one in my musical taste with so many people.

Kook scowled and walked away. I thank you, obnoxious stranger. I thank you, for having the grace and deftness of touch, the lyrical nous and verbal dexterity, to sum up in one word to that overhyped chuff-wipe exactly what everybody thought of him.
(jabboy, Mon 3 Jan 2011, 14:11, 3 replies)

REM and U2
I've always enjoyed music. At one time, I used to rail against boy bands and so on; I despised anything that smacked of manufacture.

At the ripe old age of thirty and a massive jazz freak whose I-Pod doesn't even contain any rock tracks, you might expect my attitude to have hardened even more. In fact, the opposite is true. Stuff such as the shitecuntery peddled by Simon Cowell and his ilk fails to register - I simply laugh it off if I happen to hear any of it on the radio (which rarely happens, since it's always on Radio 3 or Radio 4). After all, it's not actually music - it's a complete and utter joke and I think even the cynical Marketing Twats who think it up (actually, probably *especially* these Twats) must realize that it's utter, utter jizz.

What really gets to me is the reverence paid to two bands: REM and U2. People actually think that REM and U2 produce music of artistic merit. It's this that pains me beyond fucking belief. "The Edge" (I'm sorry, I think I'm going to have an aneurysm) even got into a "Guitar Heroes" thing on Channel 4 years ago. The Fucking "Edge". Jesus Harold Bishop Christ. Sorry, Mr McLaughlin, Mr Di Meola, Mr Holdsworth et al...no bugger outside of the decent music realm has ever heard of you three chaps -- but some tit with a goatee that looks like it came out of a Brazilian-waxing salon for Cheshire Wives registered on the "Guitar Hero" scale and he can't even play the bloody instrument beyond the level of a thirteen-year-old bedroom guitarist.

Don't even get me started on Michael Stipe. His voice makes me want to shove an ice pick through each of my eardrums. And the jangly, family-friendly guitar playing so beloved of REM makes me want to cry. Not in the same way that hearing Bill Evans playing "Noelle's Theme" or Jaco Pastorius playing "Continuum" make me want to cry: these are tears of pure, unalloyed despair.

The people who like these two bands - I've met a few of them - generally seem to be the kind of people who have no appreciation for music at all. They won't try anything new of their own volition. They drink whatever's advertised on the billboards (in a chain pub, naturally), wear whatever the new season in Top Shop or New Look dictates, and cut their hair according to whatever style the current heart-throb/hot bitch in [Insert Name of Generic Series on E4/BBC3 Here] is sporting. They are middle-of-the-road, staid, anodyne plodders whose musical "taste" reflects their lack of imagination and individuality.

REM and U2: The musical equivalent of magnolia paint.
(Dinting Arches, Sat 1 Jan 2011, 19:00, 17 replies)

Chris de Fucking Burgh
Do I need to say anymore?
(GingerIrishTosser isn't dead yet., Thu 30 Dec 2010, 14:43, 10 replies)

Gonna nick from my own blog here
And point out that their website has now changed, but the points still stand:

Prinzhorn Dance School.

I feel like I owe it to you to introduce you to possibly the shittest band this side of the Arctic Monkeys. Because I'm a bastard. And I want you to suffer like I suffer:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4AG3r-2aM0

Allow me to be rather self indulgent for a moment and quote my own blog in a post about how to write "quirky" music:

"Firstly, write a totally shit song that no-one actually likes, including yourself. If possibly try to make the lyrics a bit off the wall. Writing about something specific and mundane that absolutely no-one else can, or would want to, relate to is usually a good way of doing this. For example, you could write about the rusty hinges on your back gate. Or you could write about a yoghurt you once ate.

Next, record your song with a couple of your dickhead friends that can't actually play their instruments. Preferably, rope someone in who has never even played an instrument before, then teach them literally just enough to get to the end of the song. It doesn't matter if it's not great sounding, it's quirky. Alternatively, you can take on the role of "band" yourself, and record all your backing on the shittiest sounding 8 track recorder you can get your hands on. This makes you look especially quirky, because no-one uses 8 tracks anymore. Except people trying to be quirky.

Next call yourself, or your band, something that makes you sound like a gang of pretentious wankers. Again, you could reference so utterly mundane and self-specific that to anyone else it sounds like a catchy name thought up off the top of your head. Something like "Prinzhorn Dance School" ought to do it..."

Having done a little further research it turns out that Prinzhorn Dance School are apparently named after a Doctor Prinzhorn, famous for studies into mental health. Whilst not exactly self specific, I would like to point out that this study is obscure enough for it to sound like they thought of it off the tops of their heads, and as for mundanity, well it doesn't get much better than medical reports from the early 1900's does it? And as for sounding like a group of pretentious wankers? Well...

The mundane element is especially prevalent in this bands music. Allow me to quote further, from their review on allmusic.com:

"Repetition is another Prinzhorn Dance School obsession, and the one that makes the band polarizing. While "Crash, Crash, Crash" and "I Do Not Like Change" (which could be another PDS manifesto) come close to monotony, for most of the album the band's purposely limited sounds don't get in the way of them telling a story in their own fragmentary style"

I'm sorry, in what way can monotony be considered a good thing? And this is from a review that sings the praises of the band. I must have missed the announcement that told us that it's actually OK for music to be relentlessly boring and repetitive, I mean, it's different right?

Well, yeah, it is. But it's still monotonous and repetitive. Different doesn't mean good. It means "different". Something can be different and shit at the same time. And Prinzhorn Dance School are both. I'm sorry to have to resort to such basic, unintelligent commentary on the matter, but truly the most accurately descriptive phrase that could be applied to them are "they are shit". If a dog turd was musical, it would sound like Prinzhorn Dance School. If excrement could play the bass, it'd play the bass like Prinzhorn Dance School. If crap could sing, it'd sing like the guy from Prinzhorn Dance School. You get the idea...

It makes me wonder just how much of the bands sound really is "purposely limited", and how much of it just comes down to a lack of musical ability. Their website claims "we just take the sounds in our heads and record them on a cheap recording machine in an old building..." (which, incidentally, ties in rather nicely with what I said earlier about all so called quirky music being recorded on shitty recording equipment in order to sound 'Quirky'...). I mean, fuck, if the sounds in your head equates to a poorly played bass, poorly played guitar, and some of the most woeful vocals I've ever had the misfortune to hear then I'm guessing musical vision isn't exactly your forte. Saying their sound is "purposely limited" is like saying my knowledge of 12th century Greek architecture is "purposely limited". I know it exists, but could I tell you any more about it? No, could I fuck. Could Prinzhorn Dance School do anything with more scope than 2 dickheads twatting about with musical instruments which, quite frankly, should be taken off them? Again, no. A resounding no.

The band has a chance to redeem itself however, via lyrical content. Punk was never the most technically challenging or accomplished music, but it made up for it in sheer attitude and, for a while at least, having something to say. So does Prinzhorn Dance School save itself from that pit of absolute sub-par musical worthlessness by having some sort of hidden agenda?

Well, would I still be fucking writing if it did?

The truth is, their lyrics are, if anything, less imaginative than the music. At least the music requires some brain activity, if only to stimulate the limbs. It would seem that their vocal articulation is limited to simply saying things that exist. Or, in one truly tragic example, counting.

Not that Mr Hip Indie Music Critic writing the allmusic review would agree with that. Oh no. He ends one particularly misguided passage with a reference to:

"..."Worker"'s social commentary ("Mental health/Pills on a shelf")."

I'm sorry, what? Care to elaborate on that at all? Not only is that bad journalism, it's bullshit to boot. In what form can that be considered social commentary? Did I fucking miss something at university? Roland Barthes wrote social commentary. Theodor Adorno wrote social commentary. Jean Baudrillard wrote social commentary. This...This is simply two sentences that rhyme. And not even complete sentences at that. Actually, you're just saying two things that exist.

In some sort of wider context I could perhaps appreciate the understated meaning of the line. But, as with all of these pompous, elitist fuckwits that write this sort of drivel, he's reading in his own meanings that, whether there or not, can't actually be proven because of a distinct lack of context.

But maybe that's the point. By keeping things vague, or "purposely limited", you allow yourself to simply agree with whatever meanings the important people throw at you. Hell, if Mr Hip Indie Music Critic wants to read that meaning into it, why not let him? He'll probably only cream himself more for your next album when he gets the opportunity to review it, and once again prove to his readership how he has his skinny little indie fingers on the pulse of the scene, thus perpetuating an endless cycle of shit and self congratulatory indulgence. Maybe Prinzhorn Dance School are actually like Indie Simon Cowell's, deliberately pumping out shit to squeeze every penny out of the idiots who will pay for it?

And here's something else that pisses me right off. Why, on a website about your band, under the link "Pictures Of The Horn", would you include shitty fucking "arty" pictures you have taken at various pointless fucking locations around the world? If I'm clicking a link that purports to show me pictures of the band, sorry, "The Horn", why would I then want to look at pictures of a fucking teapot, or some shitty fucking collage you did? The answer: I don't.

These subtle little inclusions don't make me go "wow, these guys are really arty" or "hahaha, these guys are so wacky and 'out there'! ", although I suspect for a lot of people they do, they simply make me go "Wow. You utter gang of cunts." Am I supposed to be somehow impressed because you made a teapot? You obviously consider it of such worth that you include it on your fucking website.

And heres another choice quote written by the band themselves:

"people have written a lot about us and our music recently. we don't read much of it - reading about yourself is not good. it will send you insane. but this is what some people have said about the music we have released so far..."

I'm sorry, come again? Here you seem to be basically saying "We don't read about ourselves, but have a look at what we've read about ourselves." This isn't just remarkably contradictory, it also points to that atypical Indie "humbler-than-thou" attitude that is absolutely neccessary in order to keep the wool pulled down firmly over the eyes of their fanbase. It just simply isn't cool to say "hey, people like us", you have to sort of divert that into some sort of personal statement about how in no way, shape or form is it about being famous, and it's all about the music. The shitty, badly recorded, badly played and badly written music.

It's the same contradictory attitude that pisses me off about bands in any genre. If you're not interested in being popular, or famous as it's more commonly known, WHY SIGN A FUCKING RECORD DEAL???

Why have videos on MTV? Why play gigs? If the band is just about recording the sounds in your heads, why have I heard of you? You can at least have the modesty to admit that actually, you would quite like to be liked. Why not say "to record the sounds in our heads, and play them to people?" Why not even "to play a few gigs"?

Nooooooooooo, that would undermine the artistic integrity of the band. The artistic integrity of the band that somehow manages to manifest itself in very poorly written music and generic Indie weirdness (and that's an oxymoron).

Well, here's an artistic idea for you; take your shitty band, your shitty website, your shitty ideas, and your shitty fucking teapot, and just fuck off back to a time when I'd never heard of you, or your fucking appalling "music". Or better yet, why don't you have some sort of horrific fatal accident?

And you, Mr Hip Indie Music Critic, you can fucking join them too. I hope you all get fucking killed.
( PMGT -Bacon., Thu 30 Dec 2010, 14:39, 16 replies)

One night in Cambridge . . .
A mate told me of some electronic music night in town. He could vouch for several of the main acts but hadn't heard of the ones lower down the bill.

Fuck it, I thought. Why not.

The first act saw two blokes hidden behind a mountain of equipment. All sorts of pads, soundboards and important-looking gear. Basically nothing I recognised, despite dabbling in the odd bit of guitar muck myself. Obviously with that amount of gear you knew they had to have something unique up their sleeves.

Unique was one word for it. Their sound was simply this:
No beat or drum sound, just an audio recording of someone carrying a bin liner full of empty bottles up some stairs. On a loop. Over and fucking over. Each time the ten second clip was looped it became slightly distorted. As though the speaker was in the middle of breaking down. And it somehow took two blokes and a shitload of equipment to do this.

At first I thought this was merely the build-up to some sort of audio explosion that would render all in awe of their digital mastery. But after twelve minutes of distorted bottle rattling they suddenly stopped dead, waited a second, and waved at the crowd as if to signify "the end", before thanking everyone and leaving the stage.

I figured it couldn't get much worse so it'd be worth sticking around for.

However when the next act took the stage my mate turned away in disgust and whispered: "Christ it's him! He's so far up his own arse I'm surprised he hasn't got shit on his glasses."

The new act sat down on the stage, like the Milky-Bar Kid with a bumfluff moustache, bristling with self-importance. And in a nasal tone of John Major's accountant, he said: "I shall improvise for approximately 10 minutes. . . ." He pushed his glasses up his nose and added: ". . .Perhaps 12 if the moment takes me."

He then scratched an electric guitar aggresively with a screwdriver for quarter of an hour until the compere politely stopped him.

Easily the worst two acts I've had the misfortune to witness in one night. And I've seen Oasis*

Having said that though, the main two acts later on were decent. Anyone seen Om, or The Man From Uranus?


*Not through choice
(Barry Subchimp, Thu 30 Dec 2010, 13:10, 1 reply)