| Product: |
Cheggers' Choice: The Worst Album On The Planet/40 Clucking Awful Trax |
| Date: |
31.01.05 (1953 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Did you think I would, leave you dying when there's room, on my horse for two?
Disadvantages: I wish I could fly, way up to the sky, but I, can't (You can!) (I can't!!!)
Just because everyone says something is bad, it doesn't mean that it is. This is a compilation of what are supposedly the worst songs ever released. In 1999 Keith Chegwin introduced a show on Channel 4 about the 10 worst songs of all time. This 40-track album appeared shortly afterwards. There's a picture of Chegwin dressed as a chicken on the front - I have no idea what chickens have to do with bad music. (Possibly Cheggers just wanted to dress as a chicken. This was only a couple of years before he got his knob out for Channel 5.)
Thing is, though, I actually find a lot of this music enjoyable. Basically, it's a collection of novelty records and unfashionable pop songs. I dislike the rather sneery attitude that people like to adopt towards the popular culture of recent decades (as if that of our present one isn't going to seem just as dated and ludicrous in 20 years time). A lot of these songs are meant to be funny, so laughing at them is surely the whole point? It seems a hideous injustice to criticise something from the early 80s just because it isn't fashionable today.
The compilation boasts 35 top tens, including 19 number ones. And therein lies the problem - a lot of this stuff was wildly popular. So in buying into the idea that this music is bad, we are surely attacking the very fabric of British society itself. And if we, as a society, can't be trusted to buy the right music, how can we possibly be trusted to, say, vote? Hmm?
Disc 1 begins with a well-known comedy song, Shaddup You Face by Joe Dolce. It's OK, mildly entertaining, nothing more, nothing less. Then we get the Birdie Song by The Tweets. This as much as any other song has come to epitomise the church-hall disco style of 80s novelty record that people affect to despise these days. But it's actually bloody good - forget all about being forced to do stupid dance moves by drunk holiday-camp DJs, and just listen to the actual music. It's jolly as hell, with a great barrel-organ vibe, and if it didn't have silly bird-call effects in the background it would probably be a lot more highly regarded. Next up is Agadoo by Black Lace - I have to admit to not liking this one so much, although I'm a little puzzled as to why it's almost universally regarded as the worst song ever.
Next is a rather nondescript but entirely inoffensive pop song called Son Of My Father by Chicory Tip. Then comes Billy Don't Be A Hero by Paper Lace - I'm sorry, but why is this song on here? When did it become part of the pantheon of awful songs? It's a bubblegum masterpiece, and an anti-war song to boot! (The Dixie Chicks' heart-rending Travellin' Soldier is essentially a remake of this song.) This is followed by an odd but loveable instrumental called Mouldy Old Dough (by Lieutenant Pigeon, who probably wasn't a real Lieutenant). The weird, occasional chant of the song's title in the background (mixed way back so it's quite hard to hear) elevates this track to the ranks of the genuinely strange. Then there's Jonathan King's Una Paloma Blanca, an agreeable enough tune that promises more than it delivers (although given King's fall from grace I doubt it'll be turning up on many more compilations).
Next is - oh yes! - Disco Duck, by someone called Rick Dees. Who but the British would react to a strange new form of popular music (as disco was when the song was released) by buying a humorous novelty record about a man being out-danced by a duck at his local discotheque? The synthesised duck noises are tremendous, and the duck's laugh sounds genuinely malevolent. Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by Middle of the Road is immortal, an entirely charming little song that has always received more than its fair share of opprobrium. Its drum intro reminds me of Up The Junction by Squeeze.
Next we arrive in Eurovision land, with Clodagh Rogers' Jack in the Box and Buck's Fizz's Making Your Mind Up - very different songs, but they epitomise the glory years of the Song Contest, when the challenge was to write songs that sounded good no matter what language they were sung in. Next up is I'm The Leader Of The Gang by Gary Glitter - not really a bad song, just a glam rock chant. The fact that Glitter's disgraceful behaviour had come to light when the album was released suggests that the song was included purely because of who sang it. The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Tight Fit is an old African-flavoured piece of lounge music fused with some kitsch lyrics about lions - it's the pop equivalent of those plates with pictures of elephants on them that you see advertised on the back of magazines.
The Time Warp by Damian is the first song on here that I can't listen to. This cross-dressing jackanapes was trying to be the new Boy George, but he was rubbish; his cover of the classic Rocky Horror number sucks profoundly. After this little blip, though, we're back on safer ground. Los Del Rio's Macarena is good - the vocal combination of Eurotrash chicks and sober sounding middle-aged men creates something that I'm rather fond of. Sam Fox's Touch Me is a song that caused an immoderate amount of excitement amongst my peer group when it was released (we were 12) - it tries and fails to be powerful and erotic, but fails well - it is to Total Eclipse of the Heart what Confessions of a Driving Instructor is to Last Tango in Paris. The only problem is that the version on this CD is some kind of remix, with the verses removed. This disc finishes with I'm In The Mood For Dancing by The Nolans, a song that's perhaps a bit *too* cheerful, and the very vague hint of sexual favours to come actually sounds more like a threat than a promise.
Disc 2 is a let down, although the first half is good. It begins with Orville's Song, in which popular 80s ventriloquist Keith Harris sings a dark song of existential despair to his alter ego, a flightless green duck. A curiously upsetting children's song, especially when you bear in mind it's a man singing *to himself* about how his sadness will never end. Benny Hill's Ernie is a comic song about the death of a milkman, and isn't quite as memorable as the songs that surround it. Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris has no business being on a compilation of bad music. Apart from being one of the least bombastic (and therefore most effective) anti-war songs ever, it's actually rather moving. When I saw Harris at Glastonbury, I was choking back a manly tear when he sang this.
St Winnifred's School Choir's song about how great grandmas are is a bit much, to be honest - grandmas are great and all, but I don't really need dozens of schoolchildren to tell me that. Clive Dunn's Grandad is a masterpiece - the old buffer reminisces about things he used to do when he was a lad, while an adoring chorus of girls assures him that he's lovely. Quite touching, really, and *everyone* likes it, which makes its appearance on this album mystifying. Seven Tears by the Goombay Dance Band is another great, great song. Utterly incomprehensible lyrics, and a tune that resembles Auld Lang Syne - great stuff, and if it only had a spoken-word bit in the rather lengthy instrumental break it would be up there with the best.
Sadly after that the album goes rapidly downhill. The Wurzels' Brand New Combine Harvester is good fun, but otherwise we get genuinely appalling songs by the likes of the Krankies, Mr Blobby and Kenny Everett (yes, I realise this undermines my rant way back at the start of this opinion, but there *are* limits). Tiny Tim was a lot less funny than he thought he was, Patrick McNee and Honor Blackman should stick to acting, and Johnny Reggae by the Piglets is simply awful. The only ray of light is provided by Anita Dobson's Anyone Can Fall In Love, basically the EastEnders theme with agreeably insipid lyrics. Disc 2 limps to a halt with the rather trying Cinderella Rockefella.
The real disappointment about so much of disc 2 being so bad is that there's some great stuff they could have included - Save Your Love by Renee and Renato is missing, as is Star Trekkin' by The Firm. Ah well. The point is, don't dislike things just because you're told to; listen to them first, and then dislike them. I realise that very few people will have much patience with the likes of Keith Harris or Disco Duck, but I really regard them as a lot more entertaining than a lot of the more popular acts of their day (and of ours).
Ha ha ha, I've just blown all my credibility, haven't I?
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