At least the Worst 20 Albums I've been duped into buying.
As you may or may not know I keep a list of albums of this decade, ranked with scientific precision. I’ve spent most of my time over the last seven years looking at the top of the list but a Chatzy moment brought me to look at the foul waste lands of Dis section at the bottom of that chart so I thought I'd drag you down to the depths of Hell too, after all why should I suffer alone? Except I know for a fact that some of you actually like some of these albums. The mind boggles.
20. ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE – HOLES IN THE WALL
A prime example of the fact that surplus cash is the quickest root to misery. I was at the height of my ‘young executive’ phase back in 2001 and was literally throwing money at Glasgows record clerks on a daily basis. Unfortunately one of them threw this back in exchange. You suspect the word ‘tepid’ was specifically invented to describe this dismal bunch of sleepy, pillow headed cunts.
19. VARIOUS – THE WORLD IS GONE
First of all if you form a band how dumb do you have to be to call it Various? Perhaps even more worrying is the question “how dumb do you have to be to buy a record by a band called Various”? Particularly when it has the worst six form art on the cover that you have ever seen (wolves and topless women in high heels drawn in black pen). For the record this sounds like Fairport Convention meets Dub Step which is a bit like drinking orange juice right after you have brushed your teeth, i.e an ill advised, frankly vile, combination.
18. GRANDADDY – SUMDAY
In classical times, the ancient Greeks crippled weakling babies by hammering a stake through their ankles and leaving them on the mountain side to die of exposure. Today, we allow the weakling babies to grow up and buy Grandaddy albums and sing along to songs like ‘I’m On Standby’ while nodding their useless heads like retards. Truly progress is a bunch of bullshit.
17. THE HORROR, THE HORROR – THE HORROR, THE HORROR
Imagine five dumb Swedes pretending to be the Strokes. Scary isn’t it? Of course they aren’t content with that, they have a pop at every other influential band of the last twenty years so that the LP sounds like the product of some half witted wedding band. At least they had the common decency to name both the band and album ‘The Horror, The Horror’, a warning I sadly failed to heed.
16. FORT DAX – FOLLY
Once again the album title should have given the game away. Conclusive proof that blippy electronica, sea shanties and Shinto chanting should never be combined under any circumstances.
15. MUM & DAD – MUM & DAD
In retrospect buying an album simply because the female vocalist looks a bit like the singer from Swing Out Sister (whom I had a crush on in 1986) was not the best thought out reason for purchasing an LP.
14. DOVES – THE LAST BROADCAST
The greatest fall from grace of the last ten years? Their debut album is pretty highly rated at Konstantimansions but this aberration was about as welcome as a hefty kick in the balls with a muddy boot.
13. THE NATIONAL – ALLIGATOR
You know you have a problem when the artistically most pleasing aspect of an album is the font that the title of the album is written in. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again The National should be fed into the air intake of a jet fighter so that their burned mince meat remains rain on to the tarmac like a confetti of charred gristle. Any one that likes it can go in straight after them.
12. !FORWARD RUSSIA! – GIVE ME A WALL
There isn’t even much you can write about this bunch of complete knob ends, except that putting one exclamation mark in a band name is a bit like yellow and black banding in nature – it pretty much means “steer well clear”. These bozos had two exclamation marks and I was still stupid enough to pay hard earned cash for their plundering and desecration of the bones of Gang of Four. Fingers crossed the NKVD pick them up soon.
11. BEIRUT – GULAG ORKESTAR
That's fucking gypos for you.
10. ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION – Enemy of the Enemy
Once upon a time it’s rumoured Asian Dub Foundation were actually good but this thing is just a horrific mish mash of faked ire and ham fisted raggamuffinery. Plus they look absolutely ridiculous – look at Chandrasonic on the booklet photo! Fuck off you sap! A pathetically forced attempt at political radicalism, with nothing to say or to listen too except a bunch of total cack.
9. HOWE GELB – THE LISTENER
So dismal my brain just went on strike and refuses steadfast to write any more on the subject.
8. JOLIE HOLLAND – SPRING TIME CAN KILL YOU
As someone who lives next to a down at heel ghetto bar, if I want to hear a slurring bint tunelessly singing the same song over and over again all I have to do is open the window. I did not need to pay £12 for the ‘privilege’.
7. SEMI FINALISTS – SEMI FINALISTS
This is one of those albums that actually makes you angry that it was ever released. I mean, shouldn’t there be a series of music industry checks and balances that make the release of an album this utterly wretched an impossibility? That this made it to the shops requires a series of dawn raids and long prison sentences meated out for those incompetents that allowed this to happen.
6. MODEST MOUSE – GOOD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE BAD NEWS
I’m just getting depressed now. I wish I’d never started this. If a dog made this sound they would shoot it out of pity.
5. PRESTON SCHOOL OF INDUSTRY – ALL THIS IS GAS
The history of music is littered with non talents who clung to greats and milked everything they could from the ill deserved adulation. Step forward Spiral Stairs, the man that ruined side two of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain with a pre-cursor of this utter, utter awfulness.
4. MY COMPUTER – VUNERABILIA
If I remember correctly Fast N’ Bulbous gave this his album of the year award in 2002, presumably just before they whisked him away to a padded room. Literally unlistenable.
3. MAX TUNDRA – MASTERED BY THE GUY AT THE EXCHANGE
Terrible cover, terrible everything. I’m in fucking tears now just thinking about this album. FUCKING TEARS!
2. MOMUS – OTTO SPOOKY
About as good as fuck-you-listener-I’m-playing-a-post-modern-trick-on-you-ha-ha-aren’t-I-clever concept albums about illegal Chinese immigrants harvesting cockles get. Which, as you have probably guessed isn’t very good. To be fair this probably isn’t as bad as some of the albums above it except that it goes on and on and on for an hour and a half until you just feel sick with exhaust.
1. AUTECHRE – DRAFT 7.30
I’ve nothing against experimentalism but this is just a form of torture. Quite why someone felt the need to sample the most mundane boring sounds in the universe and then link them together in the most annoying fashion possible and then slowed it down to a quarter speed remains something of a mystery. The worst record of the 2000’s and almost certainly the worst record ever.
OK, this sucked all the life out me, I'm going to the bed with the hope that morning brings something approaching renewal in my faith in music.
_________________ He has arrived, the mountebank from Bohemia, he has arrived, preceded by his reputation. Evil Dr. K "The Jimmy McNulty of Payment Protection Insurance"
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