So Long And Thanks For All The Shit Sandwiches
"I can has shit sandwich?"
Back in November 2008 when I started this blog I didn’t set out to accomplish anything in particular. Two years later, I believe I have achieved that aim.
I have had a lot of fun writing World-Class Shitty, but I think it’s run its course and the time is right to bow out before it becomes as unwished-for as a new Sting album of James Blunt covers played on a lute.
Thanks to those of you who took the time to read and to comment. Don’t take any wooden nickels, listen to any Sting records or eat any McRib sandwiches. Unless, of course, you want to.
—Tony “Player Hater” Powell
WCS SmackDown: Beady Eye Vs Colon
Welcome to yet another installment in the WCS SmackDown series, where two bands battle it out Thunderdome-style—two bands enter, one band leaves. Today is a contest between bands named after parts of the anatomy, with Liam Gallagher’s Noel-less crew Beady Eye going up against indie newcomers Colon.
Beady Eye bring the shite on "Bring The Light"
Vs
"Already the corporate whores of the mu-sick biz are on their backs with their legs wide open baying for Colon to show them just how dangerous music can be"
Beady Eye: Bring The Light
The dregs of Oasis have made good on their threat to release new music under the name Beady Eye after Oasis’ main creative force Noel Gallagher left the band almost a year and a half ago.
Beady Eye have made their first single, “Bring The Light”, available today as a free download. As World-Class Shitty is a site that deals in crap music, I was very much looking forward to hearing what the band had to offer, knowing that it would be at the very least underwhelming. I’m pleased to say that the lads have not disappointed. Listen for yourself.
It sounds like Jerry Lee Lewis meets the Stones’ “Let’s Spend the Night Together” with Beatles-style harmonies and a George Harrison guitar solo. At the 2:26 mark some Alvin and the Chipmunks backing vocals come in. Indeed, “Bring The Light” brings everything except the barest flicker of originality. It takes its various archetypal influences and invests them into a creative bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers proportions. In one way, however, “Bring The Light” does achieve what was previously inconceivable—it makes Oasis sound innovative by comparison.
Colon: Kick In The Sun
Judging from this YouTube video, there seems to be a lot of buzz about Colon right now. Like Beady Eye, these guys wear their influences on their sleeves but somehow combine them into more than the sum of their parts. Take a look.
Of course, those parts are really nothing more than a combination of sub-par La’s and a singer who stands at the mic like Liam Gallagher.
“Remember Where You Are—This Is Thunderdome, And Death Is Listening, And Will Take The First Man That Screams.”
This is typically the part of WCS SmackDown where I declare a winner. However, I feel incapable of choosing between these two totally derivative and unnecessary bands, so as I did with the last installment I’m opening this decision up to a vote. Like most elections, it doesn’t really matter who you choose as the winner is always The Man and the loser is always you.
Take That McRib And Shove It: Pop Star Or Fast Food Menu Item Quiz
"I'll take harbingers of the apocalypse for a thousand please, Alex": The return of both the McRib sandwich and Take That
This week has been quite eventful in the world of shitty fast food and shitty pop music. McDonald’s announced that they were bringing back the McRib sandwich and douchetastic former boy band Take That announced that they were bringing their washed-up, middle-aged selves back. If you saw the video of their cover version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” which I included in last Wednesday’s post, this information can only serve to sicken you as much as ingesting one of Mcdonald’s congealed pork presto-patties would.
In response to these two resurrections of shit, or shitsurrections, if you will, I have prepared a little quiz for you. Each question will be made up of a short quote and you will have to determine whether the statement was taken from the article about the McRib or the one about the Take That reunion. So put your thinking cap on and prepare to click on your answer choice. If you are right you’ll know it and if you’re wrong you’ll get to watch a salsa-dancing dog.
1) “I’m going to eat as many as I can until I throw up.”
A) McRib
B) Take That
2) ”It’s delicious and nutritious. I’d let you have some but there’s not really enough.”
A) McRib
B) Take That
3) “It was proper puking rainbows stuff.”
A) McRib
B) Take That
4) ”I was hoping that if we got enough support, Mcdonald’s/Take That would grant us our wish.”
A) McRib
B) Take That
5) “The McRib/Take That has also been referred to by naysayers as a ‘sacrilege against the real barbecue/music deities.’”
A) McRib
B) Take That
The Audacity Of Crap: World-Class Shitty Cover Versions
Today’s post features some truly horrendous renditions of songs you no doubt know and may even be fond of—though that fondness may not survive a listen to these cover versions. And let that suffice as a warning to you. Some things can never be undone. One such thing is the experience of hearing Celine Dion perform an AC/DC song.
It’s difficult to accurately describe the awfulness of that video, but it felt a bit like being force fed poutine slathered in raw sewage while being made to endure an episode of The View with your eyes pried open A Clockwork Orange-style.
It’s said that nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition, but it’s quite possible that Kurt Cobain had an inkling that Take That would cover “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in 1995 and that would go some way towards explaining why he killed himself in 1994.
That was worse than Celine Dion’s version of “You Shook Me All Night Long” if that’s even quantifiably possible. The singer says he feels “stupid and contagious”? While it’s true that he certainly does look stupid and is able to induce a serious case of the douche chills on the viewer, but for him to actually feel stupid would require him to have some level of self-awareness, and if he had that he wouldn’t be singing a Nirvana song shirtless. And listening to the guitarist try to play that solo is like watching a monkey try to fuck a football.
By 1995, Duran Duran were already many years past their sell-by date. In an effort to deny their total irrelevance, the band somehow thought it would be a good idea to cover Public Enemy’s “911 Is a Joke”.
Just because rap music is consumed largely by white middle-class suburbanites, it doesn’t follow that those same people want to hear rap performed by white bread yacht rockers in pink leather pants. It would be like Prince Charles renting Boyz n the Hood expecting it to be a movie about out of touch, elitist, inbred fox murderers.
I’ll leave you with Jim Carrey covering Michael Bolton covering Percy Sledge.
Album Review:
Good Charlotte
Cardiology
Capitol
Douchecothèque: U2 Work With Danger Mouse On New Record
U2 from left to right: The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., the cop from The Village People, Adam Clayton
U2 have announced that they are currently working on three different albums—a “rock” record, a “club” record and an album of ”meditative psalms”. For those of you in the market for meditative psalms, you’ll have to continue, at least for a while, to get your fix from 100 Huntley Street as the band intends to release their rock record first.
Rather than work with their usual producers Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, U2 have decided to shake things up and are working on their new rock record with Danger Mouse producing.
If you’ve read this blog at all before then you may have noticed that I know very little about current popular music and do what I can to avoid incidental exposure to it. I didn’t even know who that Bieber character was until it was in the news last week that he popped a cap in some motherfucker’s ass at a game centre in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond.
Bieber: Like Anton Chigurh from "No Country For Old Men" but tiny and with a funnier haircut
Like I didn’t know who Bieber was until he took out six generations of inner-city rage and cultural appropriation on some poor sap, I also didn’t know who this Danger Mouse was either. So I did what I always do when confronted with my own ignorance—I checked out Wikipedia.
It appears that Danger Mouse is some kind of crime-fighting cartoon mouse. You can see him at work in this episode called Beware Of Mexicans Delivering Milk, which is every bit as ethnically enlightened as the WWII-era Bugs Bunny propaganda cartoon Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips.
Obviously, the cartoon gives us a much better idea of El Loco’s vault cracking skills than it does Danger Mouse’s producing skills, but I do think that if the band are determined to go with a cartoon character then, for a couple of reasons, they should go with Scooby Doo. First is that he’s always got access to top quality weed through his association with Shaggy. Secondly, if The Rolling Stones were to offer more money to use the same recording studio, then there’s a pretty good chance that the owners and employees of the studio would dress up as ghosts and try to scare U2 off. Scooby has extensive experience dealing with just such situations.
Zoinks!: Bono shakes his money maker while Scooby quizzically produces
He Sells Beer, Sells Chips, It’s All The Same To Lemmy
A still from the beer ad featuring Motorhead: "I'll have two massive jugs of Kronenbourg 1664, please"
A new advertisement featuring Lemmy from Motorhead playing a slowed down, bluesy, acoustic version of “Ace of Spades” started airing today for Kronenbourg 1664. The ad shows Lemmy along with band mates Mikkey Dee and Phil Campbell jamming in what looks to be a bar somewhere in France. At the end of the ad the message “Slow The Pace” appears. Since Lemmy is approaching his 65th birthday and hasn’t taken so much as a nap since 1972, that may or may not be advice he’s considering.
“The challenge was to find a well-known music artist famous for particularly fast rock tracks and get them to perform at a much slower pace,” said Lucas Bergmans, senior brand manager for Kronenbourg 1664.
My guess is that “challenge” was overcome when the beer company presented Lemmy with an enormous wad of “cash”. After all, his collection of Nazi memorabilia isn’t going to purchase itself.
"I'll be having Leni Riefenstahl's mustache comb off you then, thank you very much"
Bergmans said that getting Lemmy to represent Kronenbourg 1664 was key to targeting male beer drinkers aged 34 to 49.
At the risk of dating myself, I actually fall within the demographic that Kronenbourg 1664 is looking to attract and can say categorically that I will definitely be purchasing their beer—as soon it is on sale for cheaper than any other beer in my local liquor store.
The Kronenbourg 1664 commercial is not the first ad to feature Lemmy. In fact, the man has covered all the major food groups with appearances in ads for Kit Kat and potato chips.
Here’s a video of Motorhead performing “Ace of Spades” back in the motherfucker. This wasn’t an advertisement for anything except methamphetimine in 1980.
Can't Stand Him Now (or at anytime really): Jewelry designer/celebrity tosser Pete Doherty
Pete Doherty of the Libertines and Babyshambles has launched a new line of jewelry called Albion Trinkets. Doherty joins a long list of pop and rock musicians, from the Sex Pistols to Kiss to Liam Gallagher to Karl Wolf , who have tried to foist inexplicably pointless products on the marketplace. The only conceivable reason I can think of for someone actually buying a piece of Doherty’s jewelry is so they’ll have something to pawn for drug money.
Albion Trinkets will offer a selection of cufflinks, rings, necklaces and watch chains (!). So the next time you’re in lock up for burgling your band mate’s apartment and someone asks you the time you can tell them that you wouldn’t tell them even if the custody officer hadn’t taken away your pocket watch and chain, as being a self-mythologizing pop star prick requires you to be of no use to anyone at anytime.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the jewelry available from Albion Trinkets.
Class (and Class A drugs) never goes out of fashion and this golden coke spoon on a golden chain tells everyone you’re ready to hoover up the blow like a Dyson Ball Vacuum, but classy like.
"No wonder you're late. Why, this watch is exactly two days slow."
You can’t spell “pocket watch” without p-o-n-c-e. Well, technically you don’t need the n. But if you want to look like a combination of a Victorian dandy and a modern-day fop, this whimsical watch and chain inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland and brought to you by Pete Doherty is just the ticket for your one-way ride to doucheville. You know Carroll was tripping balls when he wrote it, right?
Next time you’re at some work function, let the Man know you’re hip with this pair of psychedelic marijuana leaf cufflinks from Albion Trinkets. You’ll be holding while the only thing he’ll be holding is his dick. Well, that and your pink slip.
Rod Stewart’s ‘Fly Me To The Moon…’ Begs The Question “If They’ll Have Him, Why Not?”
Album Review:
Rod Stewart
Fly Me To The Moon…The Great American Songbook Vol. V
J Records
The tailings pond of mediocrity that is Rod Stewart’s Great American Songbook series has overflowed once again, flooding the earth with a noxious dreck that exceeds acceptable smarm content by millions of parts per million.
Usually I wouldn’t take any notice of the CDs Rod is making to sell to boomers along with their venti frappuccinos at Starbucks, but since he turned down a Faces reunion in order to do this pallid shit, I feel a brief comparison of the two projects is in order.
If you are only familiar with Rod from his “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” disco hit on up, you may be unaware that there actually was a time when he didn’t suck. That time was the early 70s when he was the lead singer for The Faces, a band that also included Ron Wood, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane and Kenney Jones. As well as playing some great, loose rock n’ roll, The Faces were the first band to actually have a bartender on stage mixing them drinks, which is an indisputably brilliant idea.
The Faces reunion went ahead anyhow with Glen Matlock taking over bass duties from the late Ronnie Lane and with Mick Hucknall on lead vocals.
Here’s a short infomercial for Rod’s latest crapterpiece:
A suit from Sony named Clive Davis actually comes out at the beginning of the infomercial and directly states that this is indeed some tired, played out shit: “You really wanted to keep it fresh but you just knew that the public just has the hunger and the demand for these incredible songs.”
"'Fly Me To The Moon...' really is pedestrian and dull, but it's guaranteed to shift units"
Several times in the advertisement they try to send the message that Fly Me To The Moon…, despite all indications to the contrary, isn’t going to put you into a boredom-induced coma. Interviewed in the kind of warmly-lit scene reminiscent of a Vagisil commercial, Rod says, “It’s absolutely more danceable. We’ve done more up-tempo tracks than any of the other albums put together.”
"I've fallen and I can't get up": Rod warns fans not to break a hip while grooving to his up-tempo barn-burners
Indeed, “up-tempo” along with “youthful” are two buzzwords that keep coming up in the ad. Notice how no one in Rod’s band or audience is over 30.
From the look on the guy on the left's face, it's time to change the Depends
Although strict WCS guidelines prevent me from actually listening to a CD under review in its entirety, I feel quite confident in awarding Fly Me To The Moon…The Great American Songbook Vol. V 4.5 shit sandwiches out of a possible 5.
WCS SmackDown: The Sex Pistols vs The Queen Haters
Filthy Lactose: The Sex Pistol's Johnny Rotten shills for Country Life Butter
VS
The Queen Haters: Man, do these guys ever hate the Queen
Welcome to yet another installment of WCS SmackDown, a rock and roll cage match where two competitors face off against each other Thunderdome-style—two bands enter, one band leaves.
Today’s competition pits successful first wave UK punk band The Sex Pistols against some UK also-rans called The Queen Haters, who performed once on the Canadian TV show Mel’s Rock Pile before never being heard from again.
The Sex Pistols: Pretty Vacant
Here’s a video of The Pistols performing Pretty Vacant on Letterman back in 1996. Note Lydon’s douchey leather—or perhaps pleather—pants. Does he think he works at Long & McQuade?
And while Letterman may look a lot older these days, it’s comforting to know that he’s still doing the exact same jokes every night as he was in 1996. And 1986, for that matter.
The Queen Haters: I Hate The Bloody Queen
Here’s a clip of The Queen Haters performing “I Hate The Bloody Queen” on Mel’s Rock Pile sometime in the early 1980s. Though their careers may have slowed down a bit in the ensuing years, and there were no lucrative reunion tours from which they could ring every last nickel out of their legacy nor any well-paying gigs advertising dairy products to fund their retirements, I think you’ll agree their performance is the stuff of pure rock n’ roll majesty.
“Remember Where You Are—This Is Thunderdome, And Death Is Listening, And Will Take The First Man That Screams.”
This may be one of the closest cage matches we’ve ever had here on WCS SmackDown, so I’m opening this one up to a vote—and unlike proper elections where you actually have to leave your house to vote for some guy who’s just going to spend four years pissing in your ear and telling you it’s raining, this vote will actually mean something. To quote Tina Turner: “We don’t need another hero/
We don’t need to know the way home/All we want is life beyond the Thunderdome.”
