Unlistenable

It’s such a personal thing:

Those pieces of music which make you want to kill someone instead of 

   making you want to sing.

I don’t mean the sort of mild irritation

Brought on by being subjected to the latest tv-manufactured teenybop 

   sensation:

Harmless, vapid, a little bit annoying;

Half-way through hearing it for the first time and it’s already sickly and 

   cloying?

No – music cannot be truly offensive which is instantly forgettable 
   and bland;

I’m talking about the songs which set fire to your adrenal gland,

So that you want to run around the streets screaming at the top of your 

   voice: “Join with me to defeat the forces of darkness and evil; together, we 

   can be the nemesis,

Of really shit bands, like Culture Club and Genesis.”

‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?’ Well, if blow-torching that song caused 

   you pain,

Then yes – I wouldn’t be averse to hurting you: again, and again, and again…

And that’s just for starters.

The same ignominious fate

Really ought to be lying in wait

For the vast panoply of million-selling hits,

Which are the auditory equivalent of a dose of the shits,

Like ‘Careless Whisper’, where George Michael gets all sentimental and 

   ballady,

Whilst inexplicably replacing a melody with a malady.

I can almost hear the Shit Hits Fan whining right now:

“But I really like ‘Careless Whisper’ and ‘Come On, Eileen’,

My all-time favourite song is ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen,

And the best band of the last ten years is a toss-up between Coldplay 

   and Keane;

“ ‘The Final Countdown’ is awesomely rifftastic,

Anything by Cliff is just totally fantastic,

And no way are Take That manufactured and plastic.

“‘The Lady in Red’ had me swooning deliriously,

‘Candle in the Wind’ always moves me so mysteriously,

And the high-point of the Eighties was Phil Collins’s ‘But Seriously…’.”

Seriously? I mean… seriously? Was it?

Because I think this drivel needs to be driven right back into the 

   Shit Music Closet,

Whence it sprang, along with all the other mindless musical crap,

Like Hair Metal guitar solos and White Middle-Class Rap.

Not feeling enough suicidal despair tonight?

Just open up the Shit Music Closet and out tumbles Phil Collins singing 

   ‘In the Air Tonight’,

Which, you’ll notice, is sitting right next to ‘Ebony and Ivory’ and 

   ‘The Frog Chorus’,

Two songs which really ought to have been called, “Please, Please 
   Ignore Us”.

These songs have scaled the pinnacle of commercial success,

And yet artistically are little more than an over-produced, tune-shy mess.

The silver-lining of these sonic rainclouds, though, is that they highlight one 

   of the most profound truths that Humanity has ever faced:

Namely, Hell isn’t other people, but rather, being subjected to 

   Other People’s Musical Taste.

You think I’m wrong?

Then come on over to the party at my house tonight; I’ll be playing 

   The Smiths and Morrissey all night long.