 | Tracklist:
1. The Most Wanted Song
2. The Most Unwanted Song
Release Date: 1997 | |
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| Summary: The funniest song ever? Or just simple proof that people are idiots... |
There's a brilliant book about football called Why England Lose, written by a couple of economists named Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, that introduced me to a few concepts, one of which is 'the wisdom of the crowd'. It's pretty self-explanatory - when it comes to things that are based on facts and figures, several minds are much better than one. The example used in the book is a jar filled with beans; while a wide range of people, when asked to guess how many beans are in the jar, will individually provide a set of often wildly wrong answers, the average answer of all the people surveyed will usually be unerringly accurate. It's used by businesses, by market researchers, and as noted in the book, by Olympique Lyonnais - operating a group thinktank to review every decision on transfers, hiring and firing, tactics, contract negotiations, and how to treat players allowed them to rise from mediocrity to become a European powerhouse, all while turning a profit - a seriously unusual achievement for a football club.
What I've yet to see anybody explain, though, is why crowds are so brilliant when it comes to facts but so utterly, utterly useless when it comes to opinions. If you want proof of just how bad crowds are at that, one listen to this should do the trick.
This album is a quasi-scientific experiment conducted by Russian artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, with the help of composer Dave Soldier. It started life as an online poll, where people were invited to vote for the things they most like to hear in music, and the things that most annoy them; Komar, Melamid, and Soldier then took the results and churned out two songs, one of them "The Most Wanted Song" (using all the elements most people liked) and one of them "The Most Unwanted Song" (using all the elements most people hate).
It should come as no surprise that "The Most Wanted Song" is one of the most boring pieces of shit ever. It's a nightmarish smoothie of Kenny G saxophone, cheesy keyboards, plodding major-key chords, and unutterably soul-less melismas, like the music piped into hell's own lifts. Even the most boring, most neutered bands in pop history would reject this song as being too dull - it makes your average Westlife song sound like an attractive proposition.
But "The Most Unwanted Song"? Well, 'good' is a relative term, I guess, and I'm not sure it's appropriate to use here. Fucking hell, though; this has got to be ranked as one of the most entertaining pieces of music committed to tape. There's bagpipes, there's an accordion, there's tuba, there's a church organ, there's a children's choir, there's operatic rap (seriously), there's noise, there's a few instruments that are out of tune, there's a few spastic freak-outs, there are lyrics about cowboys, shopping, Labor Day, and Christmas - it is utterly, utterly hilarious. Having said that, what amazes me about it most is how on Earth some of the elements here were deemed 'unwanted'. What kind of absolute golem hates harps? Why is there a hip-hop beat here - considering it's, you know, the biggest selling genre of music on the planet? Did somebody specifically say 'I don't want to hear anything that sounds like John Zorn buttfucking Astor Piazzolla', or does it just sound like that by accident?
Well, I guess this was made in 1997. I'd love to hear what an updated version would sound like, considering how drastically mainstream taste has changed since then and how many new genres have been introduced - I mean, which track would the dubstep drop end up in? How close would the Most Wanted track be to your average David Guetta song? Still, even if times have changed, the sheer hilarity and insanity of "The Most Unwanted Song" hasn't. Sure, this is an experiment more than an album as such, but I feel like every music obsessive should hear this at least once.
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Cheers Nick.
Digging: John Talabot - Fin
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haha i'm gonna have listen to this for some kicks
Digging: Om - God is Good Digging: Om - God is Good
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
The whole of the Unwanted song is on YouTube, no idea about the Wanted one.
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christmas tiiiiiiiiime!! :] christmas tiiiiiiiiime!! [:
at wal-mart! :]
Digging: Weakling - Dead as Dreams Digging: Weakling - Dead as Dreams
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Man I gotta hear this. It sounds absolutely intriguing and mind-fuckingly unlistenable.
Digging: My Bloody Valentine - Loveless Digging: My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
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Nurse With Wound has made worse stuff than this
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most unwanted song in the world includes opera-rap.
No joke.
Digging: Josh Garrels - Love and War and The Sea In Between Digging: Josh Garrels - Love and War and The Sea In Between
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this is fucking AWESOME
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omg this sounds so fucking awesome.
and stellar review, i was quite entertained.
Digging: Spraynard - Funtitled Digging: Spraynard - Funtitled
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edit: oops double post
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Sounds hilarious, checking it out now! :D
Digging: Swarms - Low Sun EP Digging: Swarms - Low Sun EP
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Cool review selection.
Digging: Alabama Shakes - Alabama Shakes
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Same group, most wanted and least wanted Paintings by country:
http://awp.diaart.org/km/painting.html
Spoiler alert:
Almost all the most wanted are the same.
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oh nick butler
this is great
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This sounds like the greatest fucking thing of life. Thanks Nick
Digging: Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself Digging: Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself
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Komar, Melamid, and Dave Soldier sounds like the name of a wicked rap collective.
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As a barometer for public opinion, this seems to be kind of flawed. Based on their data, fewer than 200 individuals will "enjoy" the Most Unwanted Song. I wonder exactly what they count as "enjoying" something, because I bet we could find more than 200 people on this very site who enjoy it just for it's sheer weirdness.
Pretty insane, anyways.
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this is amazing
oh god my sides
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