Worst duet ever

No real surprises in the list of the worst-ever duets, as voted for by BBC 6 listeners. The obvious candidates are there - Save Your Love by Rene and Renato, Arthur Mullard and Hylda Baker's version of You're the One That I Want, that god-awful Little Drummer Boy collaboration between Bing Crosby and David Bowie...



But for once in the long history of these kind of polls, I agree with the number one vote: Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder's Ebony and Ivory. This bloody terrible turgid lump of indigestible schmaltz was amazingly one of the biggest-selling records of 1982, staying at No1 in the UK for three weeks, and topping the US charts for seven! To this day I can never understand the popularity of this number, nor why Stevie chose to take part in it.

Then I remember other tracks he made in his later years, including his biggest ever solo effort I Just Called to Say I Love You, and suddenly I realise that the man actually, genuinely, has absolutely no taste whatsoever.

As for Paul McCartney... I never did like the Beatles, but even those songs of theirs that I can tolerate were always Lennon's, not his. Just think of some of the stuff he has made his fortune with - Mull of Kintyre, Wonderful Christmastime, Pipes of Peace... yuk.

Congratulations Radio 6 listeners - you got it right for once.

Ebony and Ivory - a version not normally heard
(MP3 courtesy of the magnificent 365 Days project)

Read the Top 10 Worst Duets list