The last thing we need is Sheeran clones

To the relief of many music lovers, Adele has announced she is going to take a big break from recording. Hopefully these artists will follow suit.

Taylor Swift
With the Eras tour and the Super Bowl and a ‘secret’ double album with a completely unnecessary 31 songs, surely we’ve reached Taylor Swift saturation point? Even if none of her latest songs are memorable in any way, it would make sense to at least cultivate some anticipation. A few decades would definitely be sufficient to make Swifties hungry for a dozen tracks about lame boyfriends with shit lyrics.

Ed Sheeran
Sheeran released two studio tracks last year alone. Can’t he give the listening public a well-earned break by putting down his guitar and loop pedal until, say, 2050? He seems like a nice, reasonable guy, so if everyone tells him that a hiatus will give new acts a chance to flourish, he’ll listen. He’d probably even offer to mentor them, although the last thing we need is Sheeran clones churning out songs called Limerick Lady which are exactly as bad as that sounds.

Madonna
There’s no denying that Madge’s discography contains many bangers, but they came out decades ago. In fact Holiday isn’t too far from a half-century. Seeing her still scraping along and churning out records is like watching an elderly shelf-stacker toiling away in the Co-op. She should be enjoying her retirement in peace, eating biscuits and not releasing tracks that will generously be remembered as ‘culturally irrelevant’.

Liam Gallagher
There’s only one way people want to consume the music of Liam Gallagher, and that’s when he’s joined by his brother and belting out hits from 20-odd years ago. And since that’s never going to happen, he’s better off putting his musical activities to bed and finding some completely new interests. We’d all definitely be more interested to hear how his tomatoes are doing than listen to another instantly forgettable vanity project with John Squire.

Kylie
Every now and then you think you’ve escaped the clutches of Kylie’s earworms, but then she unleashes another disco hit that will rattle around your head for weeks. Why does she keep releasing them? Doesn’t she have all the money she’ll ever need? The world has even moved on from her saucy videos. We have Dua Lipa for that now.

Chris Martin
Yes, even cynics were somewhat heartwarmed by Coldplay’s epic Glastonbury set. But maybe that gig should have acted as a triumphant send-off, with everyone waving as Chris Martin disappeared into the sunset like a less-popular Shane. The vacuum his absence would create could then be filled by musicians with edge and charisma, or simply nothing at all. That would be absolutely fine compared to more Coldplay.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

The Saltburn effect

A rash of 20-year-old tracks, such as Murder on the Dancefloor and Natasha Bedingfield’s Unwritten, are in the charts again. But which should remain firmly in the early 2000s?

Out of Your Mind by True Steppers and Dane Bowers feat. Victoria Beckham, 2001
UK garage seemed an unlikely musical segue for Victoria’s first solo single and it now seems incredibly dated, and not in a cool, ironic way. It was pretty popular at the time, but sadly not quite popular enough to reach number one, getting pipped at the post by Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love), which had the unfair advantage of being in some way memorable.

Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, 2006
This miserable, meandering ballad was utterly ubiquitous in 2006 and made you want to top yourself, which isn’t a great combination. The noughties were knee-deep in limp indie bands stuffed full of sad-eyed boys with straggly hair and ripped jeans, which seem to have largely been consigned to history, thank fuck.

My Humps by Black Eyed Peas, 2005
The awfulness of My Humps has penetrated so far into our culture that, rather than it making a comeback, you could ask if it ever went away. However, what it’s certainly not going to be doing is soundtracking the climactic final scene in a sexy murder film about the English aristocracy, however alluring Fergie claims her ‘lovely lady lumps’ are.

I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in my Hair) by Sandi Thom, 2006
From the 30-second long a cappella intro to the asinine lyrics that conflated punks with hippies, who hated each other, and harked back to times when ‘computers were still scary and we didn’t know anything’, this song is terrible. Thom lamented that she was ‘born too late into a world that doesn’t care’, and, unfortunately for her, it still doesn’t.

Axel F by Crazy Frog, 2005
Crazy Frog was an animated character originally marketed by a Swedish ringtone manufacturer, and was originally known as ‘The Annoying Thing’, which is fucking spot on. This cover of the Beverly Hills Cop theme tune is so deeply, horribly irritating that even Gen Z’s rabid enthusiasm for everything Y2K cannot resurrect it.

Ooh Stick You, Daphne and Celeste, 2000
Bratty Americans Daphne and Celeste were everywhere in the year 2000, welcoming in a brand new millennium with lyrics like ‘In your ear with a can of beer, up your butt with a coconut’. They were so hated that a performance at Reading Festival saw them showered with hundreds of bottles of piss, so the UK is probably safe from a comeback from these two.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

I am more than happy, dear reader, to upload any or all of these videos to this post, if I get any requests to do so...😁

What about elephants?

We're not exactly in Yip Harburg territory here...

Music fan? Ever listened to the lyrics of a song you love and thought ‘wait – what the f**k’? These songs are, on close attention, completely deranged:

Yellow by Coldplay

"I swam across / I jumped across for you / What a thing to do / ’Cause you were all yellow"

Yellow is a hard colour to sell in a love song, associated as it is with piss. Chris Martin gets off to an okay start, saying that stars are yellow, which kind of, and that the song is called Yellow which is tautalogical but accurate. But when he starts hinting his lover might possibly have jaundice, that’s weird.

Earth Song by Michael Jackson

"What about elephants? / Have we lost their trust?"

Lost their trust? Did Jacko borrow a fiver from a pachyderm and not pay it back? In the wider context of a song about perpetual human suffering and a ravaged earth bringing up one specific animal and questioning whether it would still vouch for us is mental even for him.

Buck Rogers by Feeder

"We’ll start over again, / Grow ourselves new skin / Get a house in Devon, / Drink cider from a lemon / But I don’t wanna talk about it anymore"

The lyric that makes most sense is not wanting to talk about it any more, because it’s incomprehensible. Why would you put an apple-based drink in a lemon? Literally any county/food combination would fit better. ‘Get a house in Surrey, drink cider with a curry’. There, you guitar-thrashing muppets.

Happy by Pharrell Williams

"Because I’m happy / Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof"

Having already claimed to be like a "hot-air balloon that could go to space", which is a "no", because of "physics", Pharrell goes on to assert that a roofless room is his happy place. Really? A room where the rain comes in? Where the sun beats down? A room that quite frankly isn’t much of a room at all? And you expect us to clap along?

Stayin’ Alive by The Bee Gees

"Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk / I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk"

Coked-up helium-voiced nonsense. If some twat with a stupid walk asked if you could tell it meant he was a ‘woman’s man’, you’d honestly be left wanting for any possible reply.

Human by The Killers

"Are we human? / Or are we dancer?"

Repeat offenders, because "open up my eager eyes / I’m Mr Brightside" means bugger all when you think about it, this lyric is not only lunatic babbling but ungrammatical. We are human. We are not ‘dancer’. Glad that’s settled.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

I'd humbly add to this list the following embarrassments:

You Gotta Be by Des'ree

“I don’t want to see a ghost/It’s the sight that I fear most/I’d rather have a piece of toast/Watch the evening news”

Rhythm Is A Dancer by Snap

“I’m as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer”

That Was Then But This Is Now by ABC

“More sacrifices than an Aztec priest/Standing here straining at that leash/All fall down/Can’t complain, mustn’t grumble/Help yourself to another piece of apple crumble!”

New Moon on Monday by DuranDuran

"Shake up the picture the lizard mixture/With your dance on the eventide/You got me coming up with answers/All of which I deny"

Your Song by Elton John

"If I was a sculptor/But then again, no/Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show"

Nonsense, each and every one...

Now what are your suggestions, dear reader?

Now that's NOT what I call music...

Horrendous news breaks upon an incredulous world today - a new musical about the origins of Marvel superhero "Spiderman" will come to Broadway next year, with music and lyrics by none other than everyone's least favourite overblown gob-in-shades Bono and fellow U2 member and beanie-hat-wearer The Edge! I feel nauseous already.

Read the full article

On hearing this "wonderful" piece of news, my thoughts turn to the world of truly dreadful musicals. I actually have in my possession a copy of the soundtrack of Silence of the Lambs - the Musical (which I think is a piss-take, but nobody knows for sure), and of course South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone famously came up with Cannibal! The Musical!.

I have amused myself for many years with a drinking game that involves suggesting the cast, set pieces and appropriate numbers to feature in musicals about real-life disasters and atrocities - "Harold Shipman - the Musical", anyone? Or maybe "9/11 - the Musical"? But none of these are likely to be treated seriously.

Out there in the real world, however, horrible concepts actually do exist, and even get to the glittering stages of the West End (if only briefly). We have studiously avoided such ill-conceived "gems" as Movin' Out (featuring the songs of Billy Joel), Tonight’s The Night - The Rod Stewart Musical and Daddy Cool: The Boney M Musical, all of which are part of a sick trend started by the likes of We Will Rock You and Mamma Mia - chav theatre for the Jerry Springer/Jeremy Kyle generation. Other grandiose ideas such as Gone With The Wind and Desperately Seeking Susan were incredible flops.

Here, writing for the Telegraph last year, is the personal choice of theatre critic Dominic Cavendish, amongst which are what sound like some real clangers:

1 Carrie (1988)
This atrocious adaptation of Stephen King's novel - taken by the Royal Shakespeare Company to Broadway where it folded after 21 performances - remains the primus inter pares of the musical flop. King's story of a menstruating schoolgirl with telekinetic powers and a mad religious mother was served up with a ghastly gloop of rock-pop and fake blood. It was hailed as "a resounding mistake" in England and duly went on to be ferociously panned in New York, losing a neat $8 million.

Read a hilarious appreciation of this debacle courtesy of West End Whingers blog

2 Which Witch (1992)
The brainchild of Benedicte Adrian and Ingrid Bjornov - members of Norwegian pop group Dollie Deluxe - this "opera-musical" was a cod 16th-century tale of thwarted passion that culminated in the young Italian heroine being burnt at the stake as a witch. King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway visited the Piccadilly Theatre to lend their support to "the most heavily panned London stage musical in a generation" - but it folded after 10 weeks. "Flops don't come much floppier," said the Telegraph. Nul points.

3 Bernadette (1990)
Described as "one of the most bizarre and spectacular failures in London musical theatre history", the show - naively expected to pack out the Dominion - was based on the story of Bernadette Soubirous, a young peasant girl who had visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes in 1858. It was written by a piano-tuner and his wife, financed by readers of the Daily Mirror and an ex-chauffeur and, astoundingly, the Pope blessed the cast. To no avail: it lasted three weeks.

4 The Fields of Ambrosia (1996)
A jaunty, taste-free US musical about capital punishment, set in the deep South in 1918. The hero, a state executioner, falls for a German femme fatale he's due to fry - and eventually sings the finale from his own electric chair. The Daily Mail described it as "the biggest turkey, the floppiest flopperoo, the greatest slice of ham to hit the West End stage in years". It didn't last a fortnight.

5 Jeeves (1975)
Even Andrew Lloyd Webber has had his off-days. Riding high after Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph, the composer turned to Alan Ayckbourn to help bring the comic charm of Jeeves and Wooster to the stage, but the "heavy-handed affair" was denounced as "like a dream of all the Wodehouse novels combined in the ultimate ghastly weekend". It lasted 38 performances.

6 Moby Dick (1992)
"Sixth-form girls perform Herman Meville's novel in their school swimming-pool" - doesn't sound like a recipe for success, does it? And it wasn't. Scantily clad females, "Dick" jokes and a swiftly forgettable score saw this Cameron Mackintosh-backed extravangaza being harpooned by the critics. It survived 15 weeks at the Piccadilly Theatre before sinking below the waves.

7 Twang!! (1965)
Lionel Bart gave the world Oliver!. Five years later he also gave the world this troubled "burlesque" version of the Robin Hood legend. Director Joan Littlewood abandoned ship after the first regional try-out and Bart, against the advice of Noël Coward, invested his own fortune in the show. "The worst musical for years," chortled the critics. Bart was left in a state of financial ruin.

8 The Hunting of the Snark (1991)
Mike Batt, the producer of the Wombles records, gambled heavily and lost on his lavish adaptation of Lewis Carroll's nonsense epic poem. Batt wrote the book, music and lyrics and even gave Kenny Everett his West End moment as the Billiard Marker. A reported £2.1 million was spent on the show, which successfully emptied the Prince Edward theatre and bowed out after seven weeks.

9 Children of Eden (1991)
John Caird and composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz (who gave the world Godspell) turned the Old Testament, from the Creation to the Flood, into a biblical concept show and created a holy mess, by most accounts. "Clearly God is miffed/He's left us all adrift" ran one lyric, summing up the ill-fated enterprise, which was cast out of the Prince Edward theatre after 10 weeks.

10 Oscar Wilde (2005)
Former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read's bio-musical account of the life of Oscar Wilde achieved special notoriety for surviving just one proper performance - press night - at the Shaw Theatre. Read, the Telegraph concluded, "passes golden genius through the filter of presumptuous mediocrity and produces over two hours of leaden dross".

Now, do we have any further nominations?

I'm serious as cancer when I say Rhythm Is A Dancer

BBC Radio 6 has been running a poll on the worst song lyrics ever! The shortlist is below.

My choice has to be a toss-up between Des'ree and Snap!... aargh!

ABC - That Was Then But This Is Now
More Sacrifices than an Aztec priest,
Standing here straining at that leash,
All fall down,
Can't complain, mustn't grumble,
Help yourself to another piece of apple crumble

Snap - Rhythm Is A Dancer
I'm as serious as cancer,
When I say Rhythm is a Dancer.

Human League - The Lebanon
Before he leaves the camp he stops,
He scans the world outside,
And where there used to be some shops,
Is where the snipers sometimes hide.

Razorlight - Somewhere Else
And I met a girl,
she asked me my name,
I told her what it was.

Duran Duran - Is There Something I Should Know?
And firey demons all dance when you walk through that door,
Don't say you're easy on me you're about as easy as a nuclear war.
 
Oasis - Champagne Supernova
Slowly walking down the hall,
Faster than a cannonball,
Where were you when we were getting high?

Des'ree - Life
I don't want to see a ghost,
It's the sight that I fear most,
I'd rather have a piece of toast,
Watch the evening news.

Black Sabbath - War Pigs
Generals gathered in their masses,
Just like witches at black masses.
 
Toto - Africa
The wild dogs cry out in the night,
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company,
I know that I must do what's right,
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.
 
U2 - Elevation
I've got no self control,
Been living like a mole now,
Going down, excavation,
High and high in the sky,
You make me feel like I can fly,
So high,
Elevation

The winner will be announced in Marc Riley's Brain Surgery on BBC Radio 6 between 7pm - 9pm on Friday 4 May. Unlistenable, I'd imagine...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/brain_surgery/

Dumb musicals overload

Why is mainstream entertainment so lacking in imagination and creativity these days? Are we suffering the result of a generation brought up on MTV, whose idea of "epic" is a television series starring Kiefer Sutherland, whose idea of "diva" is Beyonce Knowles, and genuinely does not know that the DaVinci Code is not a true story...?

My greatest bugbear at the moment is the increasingly banal state of theatre - in particular the concept of what exactly constitutes a "musical". Lightweight dross like "We Will Rock You" and "Mamma Mia" are international success stories, and lately we have had musicals based upon the dubious talents of Rod Stewart, Billy Joel, and (gulp) Boney M!



Now I read with horror of plans for "Shrek - the musical", following hard on the heels of "Lord Of The Rings - the musical", and even "Legally Blonde - the musical" (which was universally panned even in the culturally light USA):

Shrek

Legally Blonde

Lord of the Rings

Is nothing sacred any more? Why can't we find writers these days of the calibre of Cole Porter, Gershwin, Bernstein or Sondheim...

And what next? "The Queen - the musical"? "Laurence of Arabia - the musical"? "Guantanamo - the musical"?