Worst Singles of 2006

What can I say? I'm a busy boy. I really haven't had the time to sit and update my blog. However, what with the Garage going really well at the moment, and us finally receiving some hits on our website, maybe it's time to update my blog

However, I had my car broken into yesterday so I'm a bit of a bitter mood. With this is mind, I present to you DJ Tom* Worst Singles of 2006!!!11! Oh Em Gee! Yup, there has been a lot of competition for this coveted mantel. And bare in mind when reading these that I have deemed all of these singles worse than efforts by Jamiroqui, Texas, Westlife, Upper Street, Kubb, P. Diddy, The Pussycat Dolls and the seven thousand dance records that sampled 80's tracks and put some scantily clad women in their videos (okay, I liked that bit). That's right, I actually preferred The Beatfreaks to any of these. So, here are my first picks:

U2 & Greenday - The Saints Are Coming



Okay, so this is a charity record. This probably makes me a bad person. I can live with that. This is an appauling record, both in concept and execution. Where to begin? Maybe bullet points will help:

1) U2, and more specifically, Bono, are the enemy. Of everything, ever
2) Greenday used to be kick ass. Now my dad likes them. Here are three things that rock harder than Greenday do now : brunch, the clarinet, Sunday afternoons with my grandma
3) U2 and Greenday's record sales are about 80 billion a year. I've sent this off to NASA to be calculated, so don't question me on this. They could probably afford to have the whole of American laminated so that no flooding could ever happen again. Don't produce bad records asking for my money.
4) Charity records = The End Of All Credibility. Now, you can ignore this part U2, as you have slightly less than no credibility anywhere but Belgium. However, Greenday are still fondly remembered for their Dookie period output, enough so that people can ignore how bad Warning and American Idiot are as albums. They've got a lot to loose. Remember when Dizzee Rascal did that rap on The Band Aid record? Heard anything from him since?
5) All proceeds from this record go to charity. So after all the cost of production, distribution, marketing and paying label pluggers to buy the records back to boost the chart position, that's roughly six and a half pence a record. Which they won't get anyway, because everybody downloads records.
6) The song is bad. I mean, really, really bad. If I had the choice between buying this record and performing my own laser eye surgery with a nothing but a rusty spoon then sign me up for an eye patch. It's not been mentioned in any of the press, but it's also a cover of The Skids. It's ironic that a punk band managed to take all of the punk out of a punk record, so props to Greenday for that eh?


The Kooks - Oh La
The Kooks - She Moves In Her Own Way
The Kooks - Naive

These records are all exactly the same, so I feel justified in lumping them together. Now, there are a lot of bands out there that are musically worse than The Kooks, and we will come to them soon. I mean you can pretty much throw a stone into the the indie section of HMV and any record that it bounces off will be truly, truly terrible. Do record labels actually have A&R men any more, or do you just have to walk in with a photograph of you and Pete 'Give Him Ten Years And He'll Look Like Shane McGowan' Docherty?. However, despite all of these terrible bands clogging up the shelves in record shops, I still find it easiest to hate the Kooks

To start with, they all look so smug. And they're so fresh out of stage school that you can almost see the shrink rap. Just as The Lost Prophets are styled for which ever rock flavour is currently in (apparently it's emo-core at the moment. yawn), The Kooks are so stereotypically student indie. Silly floppy curly hair, straw boaters and charity shop jackets finished off with winkle pickers and cowboy boots. Then there's his voice. Nasal singing, insipid lyrics, boring tunes. Everything is just so inoffensive. It is music for people who don't like music, but like buying things. You remember how everybody got excited about the Kaiser Chiefs even though they were clearly rubbish? It was lowest common denominator sing-a-long-in-a-chain-bar-with-a-pint-glass-over-your-head-whilst-dancing-like-Ian-Brown lad indie. Then there was Hard-Fi. Then the singer song writer thing became popular and lo-and behold, the record company reaches a compromise and combines the two, which is a bit like having measles and flu at the same time. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you The Kooks

The Klaxons - Magik

Okay, let's get one thing clear before we begin. Nu-rave = Completely made up scene so that The NME can still seem relevant. It is as made up as the word Nu. The bands that seem to have fallen under this banner are either already kick ass electro dance acts that have nothing to do with rave and everything to do with making great dirty slices of tech house, and guitar bands with cheap keyboard noises stuck over the top as an afterthought. See if you can guess which camp The Klaxons fall into...

Their debut single was rubbish. I have played with the same keyboard they used to provide the 'electronica' on Atlantis Interzone. It's a 200 quid Argos job where ever button elicits a naff DJ lazer zap sound. But apparently, when this is stuck over the top of a Franz Ferdinand B side it represent a revolution in music akin to the invention of Steve Vai. To really assert their rave credentials they've then lifted the bass line from S-Express's classic Theme From S-Express. Wholesale. The same way the Vanilla Ice was 'inspired' by Under Pressure. Now whilst it's understandable that as an indie kid whose whole musical diet consists of Razorlight
and The Libertines, you might get excited by something a little different. However, the kids have gone nuts for this. It's all glow sticks and talk of disco biscuits (not that anybody actually knows what these are). And nobody has pointed out that this is not dance music. It's barely music. If something has to be ironic, then what's the point?

Bad though the first single might be, the follow up is even worse. They kept all the bits that made me hate the debut, and taken the skillful step of leaving out any kind of tune, structure or hook. Could it be that The Klaxons don't actually have any ideas whatsoever? That all they have to offer are brightly coloured sweaters and limp glow sticks? Far be it from me to suggest it but, er.. yes. So it's been an NME single of the week and topped the MTV charts for what seemed like nine years. Which leads me to think that I might be the only person in Britain with a pair of ears

Paul Weller - Wild Blue Yonder

I haven't actually heard this record, but I'm pretty sure it deserve a place on my list. Better safe than sorry, eh?

More tomorrow. Something to look forward to then