An online poll conducted in the '90s set Vitaly Komar, Alex Melamid and David Soldier on a quest to create the most annoying song ever. After gathering data about people's least favorite music and lyrical subjects, they did the unthinkable: they combined them into a single monstrosity, specifically engineered to sound unpleasant to the maximum percentage of listeners. The song is not new, but it resurfaced on Dial "M" for Musicology.


Amazingly, this "most unwanted music" contains little dissonance -- that would have been too easy. For the most part, they seem to have tried to assemble these elements in a listenable way.

Komar & Melamid and David Soldier's list of undesirable elements included holiday music, bagpipes, pipe organ, a children's chorus and the concept of children in general (really?), Wal-Mart, cowboys, political jingoism, George Stephanopoulos, Coca Cola, bossanova synths, banjo ferocity, harp glissandos, oompah-ing tubas and much, much more. It's actually a fascinating listen, worthwhile for the opera rapping alone. (We didn't think that was possible either.)


You can listen to and download the song on here: http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/...ntific-at.html

[ZEROpumpkins]

opera rapping? LOL

It has to be heard.

[ZEROpumpkins]

I'll check it out at the start of next month when my download limit resets :/

[hat and bread]

Listening... I like it pretty well.

Not sure how scientific their "scientific" approach was. They certainly overlooked some things.

[Toilet & Bowels]

they could have just used that recent kylie minogue song or the new duffy song about warwick avenue tube station and saved themselves a lot of trouble

[Toilet & Bowels]

listening to the opera rapping whilst that guy shreds on the bagpipes is blowing my mind

Why did I not think of opera rapping myself? I could have been the new Pavarotta.

[the ikara cult]

I know a song thatll get on yer nerves
get on yer nerves
get on yer nerves
I know a song thattl get on yer nerves
get get get on yer nerves

[Toilet & Bowels]

here's the opposite experiment, a song created after 500 people were surveyed to say what they would most like to hear in a song, it's a lot worse, it's like a spoof michael bolton song
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/...-produced.html

That's horrendous. I wonder who they interviewed that would like their favourite song to sound ''humble''?

[Everyneurotic]

all that and they didn't invite yngwie mälmsteen to contribute a neoclassical two handed tapping solo?

[tesla69]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

they could have just used that recent kylie minogue song or the new duffy song about warwick avenue tube station and saved themselves a lot of trouble

or just about anything heard on mTV in the past 10 years

[atsonicpark]

Yes, this is really fucking good.

[PAULYBEE2656]

this isnt half as annoying as the annoying song by the butthole surfers!

[SuperCreep]

This is moreso "let's try to clusterfuck a million genres to make one weirdbutt genre" than it is annoying. I could think of way more annoying sounds than this.

This actually kinda reminds me of something Negativland would do, especially with the Walmart jingles.

[Phlegmscope]

I was listening to bits of this. To me it just sounded a bit dull and sparse.
The Residents succeed in this sort of stuff better and are actually annoying, demented and great simultaneously.

I need to hear Helter Stupid to remember if it's more annoying than this.

The only difference is that what The Residents, Negativeland or even People Like Us do is not what these dudes were trying to do.

It's not like they were making some sort of artistic statement, they were just experimenting with what a sample of the population find are ''good'' or ''bad' qualities in a song, and then put those qualities together to compose two examples of songs that reflect what that group of people might have thought of as good and bad. Of course there are way more annoying songs out there, that's hardly the point.

[Rob Instigator]

that song is so fucking LONG

that, and the opera rapping are the worst aspects.

The opera rapping and that bit at 13:33 are my favourite bits. The whole thing is good.