Bluntly Awful Songs

I think I may be going mad. This morning I heard a song on the radio, thought, "that sounds nice,", then found it was by James Blunt. Only I don't like James Blunt - I thought his massive hit "You're byoo-dee-farl" was horrible, at least in part because someone smart enough to graduate from my old university should at least have learned how to pronounce "beautiful" properly.

I am not alone in this dislike: readers of The Sun in Britain voted the song the most irritating of all time. I am happy to say I have not heard most of the others in their Top 10 (an unintended benefit of living well out of the western cultural mainstream in Hong Kong), though The Macarena certainly deserves its place on the list (and Shout doesn't).

Several of the same songs turn up on Rolling Stone's Top 20 list, while another poll provides a few more to avoid, as does this one, while a BBC viewer suggests that football songs are the most annoying. Another BBC respondent there suggests that the whole Cantopop genre should be condemned, which seems a bit harsh even to those who have had the misfortune to hear Twins attempting to sing....

My own list probably betrays my age: I would certainly include the following:
> Copacabana by Barry Manilow
> Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by Middle of the Road
> Mickey by Toni Basil
and of course anything by Michael Bolton, whose voice I find intolerable.

Ultimately what such lists prove is that there's no accounting for taste: I actually enjoy a few of the songs listed - Tub Thumper, for example - while even the worst of them (My Humps, anyone?) sold millions, so someone somewhere must like them. Which doesn't make them bearable - after all, millions of people voted for George W. Bush.