Gah! Trailing Already...

Tim has challenged me to a little blog race.  I won't bother repeating the intro, I'll just link you to his post.  We've only just started, and as of right now I'm already one post behind.

As per the Twenty Questions challenge I had against Hannah last summer, it's a "here-are-questions-now-answer-them"-type race.  The 10 questions which I need to answer over the next week are:

1. What is the most ghastly mainstream TV show of modern times?
2. Cheese or democracy: which would you go without for five years?
3. What's your favourite online game?
4. If a=9, b=30 and c=25, what does x equal?
5. What is the naffest film genre?
6. If you could add one piece of tech to your body, what would it be?
7. What's the worst pop song you've ever heard?
8. If, overnight, you could be bestowed with grade 8-level ability on any musical instrument you liked, what would it be?
9. If you had to join the armed forces, what department would you choose to serve in?
10. Who would win if the Galactic Empire fought the Borg, the Daleks fought the New Arpathian Principality, and then the winners went on to fight each other?

As per last time, some of these are going to be easier than others.  And just because it's the easiest one to answer, I'm going to start with Question 7, What's the worst pop song you've ever heard?

That's very easy.  Thanks to Radio 2, I now have a shortlist of most hated pop songs.  Most of them are ones the Radio 2 types have been playing ad nauseam over the last few weeks, and I hate them partly because of the horrific repetition, and partly because they're excruciatingly depressing.  Nearly every pop song I've heard seems to be about a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, and more specifically most of them seem to be about a relationship gone sour.  What a complete, pathetic lack of imagination.  Can't you think of anything else to sing about?  Why can't you sing about, say, science and cake?

I won't give you links to any of the songs.  The whole point of this post is that I hate them all and never want to hear them again, so it would be gratuitously cruel to give you a link and make it easier for you to suffer.

Anyway, the current shortlist is as follows, in reverse order:

• Somewhere around #6 or #7: We Take Care of Our Own by Bruce Springsteen.  Not too relationship-y, just hated for being really miserable.
• Tied with the above entry: American Pie by Don McLean.  Hated for being overly long, overly cryptic, pretty darn miserable and perhaps (if I heard the lyrics right) vaguely blasphemous.  Weird Al's Star Wars-themed parody is millions better, mostly because the lyrics make more sense and it's a lot more cheerful.
• Circa #4 or #5: Love Will Set You Free, as performed by Engelbert Humperdinck (what a name - he really must have had sadistic parents) and apparently intended as Britain's entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 2012.  For a song whose title revolves around love and freedom, it sounds really dismal, almost as though the composer and vocalist are both resigned to a life without love or freedom.  Unless the whole of the rest of Europe is even worse, or depression is in vogue with the Eurovision judges this year, then I can only assume the UK entry's committee are deliberately planning to lose.  Not that I follow Eurovision or care who wins, mind you.
• Circa #3 or #4: one that I don't know the title or composer of, but the chorus involves the phrase "I love you, I love you, I love you", moaned as if it was the saddest damn thing ever to happen.  I hate it for much the same reasons as Love Will Set You Free, except slightly more so.
• #2: Masterpiece by Madonna.  Apparently the song is written from the perspective of a lover to their beloved, but it's so badly done that the first few times I heard it I assumed that the singer bitterly hated the addressee and wanted to kill them.  Then I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered that it's meant to be about Edward VIII from Wallis Simpson's point of view, and it started annoying me even more.  I mean, it's all very well for some silly American popster to write soppy wuv song about the cutesie romance of the king who gave up his throne to be with his darling, but my view of the whole affair is much more negative, more or less in line with The King's Speech, and I consequently find the song somewhat repulsive.
• #1: Somebody That I Used to Know by the implausibly-named 'Gotye'.  Probably the most miserable song I've ever heard, and infuriatingly prone to getting stuck inside the grey matter, and therefore the most hated.  If you've never heard it, don't go looking for it.  Just be grateful for your blissful ignorance.

So there you have it.  The list is open for revision, subject to the discovery of other, even more depressing songs, and/or to Radio 2's next choice of irrational obsession.


Compulsory Stats:

• Last 10 for 17 status: neck and neck, each with 1 down and 9 to go.
• Latest book read: The Kink and I by one James D Mallory Jr, M.D.
• Latest film/TV watched: All Creatures Great and Small series 1 episode 10
• Latest music listened to: Machinarium OST by Tomas 'Floex' Dvorak
• Latest edible item eaten: apricot and ginger pudding
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Dashboard; Blogspot Create Post), Skype
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable Episode 1473

- The Colclough