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Gordon tops opinion poll
No, not that Gordon. This is Sting, who has come out on top of a survey to find the world's worst lyricists, part of a rash of not-really-news surveys that have been causing mild discomfort and intimate itching this last couple of days:
The schoolteacher-turned-rock star topped Blender's list of the worst lyricists, thanks to lines that betray "mountainous pomposity (and) cloying spirituality," the music magazine said.
It's not often that we see acclamation for Sting that we feel able to throw our weight behind, but they do have a point.
To be fair to Sting though, he did have the decenc... yes, yes, I'm about to be fair to Sting. I do, sometimes, do balance, you know... he had the decency to at least make his dullness flip the usual career path - he started with the sort of "doo-doo-dah-dah" will-this-do-isms that usually mark a songwriter's descent into keeping going merely to pay the mortgage and ended up writing the sort of shameful overblown stuff that most people start out with. "I've been up, I've been down/I've been lonesome, in this godless town/ You're my religion, you're my church/ You're the holy grail at the end of my search" is a lyric for a sixteen year-old boy who's just formed a band called Scarlet Stigmata, not a man who played Zarm in Captain Planet and the Planeteers.
The top five in full:
1. Sting
2. Neil Peat
3. Scott Stapp
4. Noel Gallagher
5. Dan Fogelberg
Better luck next year, Pete.
Elsewhere, someone did a search to discover The Greatest Video of All Time, ever. It was won by Bohemian Rhapsody, voted for by the same people who think that it's been downhill all the way for air travel since Montgolfier stopped doing his balloon trips.
Sure, it was the "first" pop video - even although it wasn't - but it's not actually any good, is it? It's what happens when you're unable to get past a bag full of ideas and a bunch of new vision tricks and instead of choosing, elect to use the lot. There are better videos of a similar vintage - Rat Trap, for example, which was more than a performance video and a couple of cross-fades. And, really, BoRap isn't even the best Queen video - better than the promo for Radio GaGa? I don't think so.
Still, the top five in full:
1. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
2. Michael Jackson - Thriller
3. Justin Timberlake - Cry Me A River
4. A-Ha - Take On Me
5. OK Go - A Million Ways
Yes, we double-checked, and it does say that the video for Cry Me A River has only been bettered twice in the last forty years. We've just watched it again to make sure we didn't miss anything, but it does seem to be exactly as we remembered it: a mean-spirited, self-aggrandising, spiteful ending; most of it like a car advert for one of those brands whose names you can never quite remember, with - for no reason at all - a smattering of Lionel Ritchie's Dancing On The Ceiling treatment bunged in to the middle.
Elsewhere again, 6Music attempted a spot of self-promotion with a list of the worst duets - although we'd rather they tried to build their audience by not shunting Gideon Coe off into the middle of the night, to be honest.
Their top ten:
1 Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder – Ebony and Ivory
2 Arthur Mullard & Hilda Baker – You’re the One that I Want
3 Mick Jagger & David Bowie – Dancing In the Streets
4 Bing Crosby & David Bowie – Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth
5 Renée & Renato – Save Your Love
6 Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson – The Girl Is Mine
7 Elton John & Pete Doherty – Children Of The Revolution (Live 8)
8 Puff Daddy & Faith Evans – I’ll Be Missing You
9 Elton John & George Michael – Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me
10 Band Aid – Do they Know It’s Christmas?
TIED WITH
10 Girls Aloud & Sugababes – Walk This Way
Now, there's much to agree with here, but the appearance of Mullard & Baker's Travolta & Newton-John cover seems to have missed the point that it was a joke. And in what way was the Bowie and Crosby cover bad?
Not to mention, of course, that in return for a bit of Christmas fluff, viewers to Bing's 1977 special also got this:
[thanks to Michael M for the worst lyricist survey]
6 comments:
That vote for Bohemian Rhapsody does seem a bit worthy, doesn't it? Would voters really prefer to watch that video over, say, the grin-making joy of Walken's dancing in Weapon of Choice or OK Go on treadmills? White Stripes in Lego? Weezer in Al's diner? Basement Jaxx as monkeys on the loose? Basement Jaxx's Queen on the loose? Me, I'd go for Chemical Brothers' Star Guitar. But then I like that sort of thing.
Shame about Renee and Renato in Worst Duets too. I'm no fan of the song, but I love the bit in the video where the plane takes off and Renee stands by the runway, watching it sorrowfully. It harks back to a more romantic time, when he would've been able to do that without Heathrow security shooting him.
Good to see Puff Daddy's mawkish drivel in there though. Is it wrong that whenever I see the video for that song, I laugh when he falls off his motorbike?
Speaking of Lionel Richie - surely "Hello" has to be in the top 5 best videos EVER. The climactic scene with grotesque clay head still shocks me every time. In every way.
I was just about to mention Lionel Richie's "Hello". It's definitely one of the greatest videos ever. Absolutely abstract irrelevance in relation to melodramatic anthem. It makes me laugh every single time. Surely that means it's one of the best videos ever!
Why is it that, after all these years of lists like this, Bohemian Rhapsody STILL gets mentioned as "first" video ever? Or has got to the point now when people will now comment "though many people think it is the first music video, it's actually not" because it has topped these list so often that there's little left to comment on.
And that video clip from Bing and Dave Hang Out '77.... well it's priceless.
The Bing and Bowie thing was just plain odd though at that time Bowie could have collaborated with James Last and still not lost much credibility(such was the standing at the time). The pre song 'acting' in the video always makes me giggle.
I found the Blender list online! Check it out...All 40!
http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?ID=2886&src=tst127:MKd
Sting rules!!!
How exactly is Band Aid a duet? Ditto Girls Aloud/Sugababes?
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