As I wander through the depths of Youtube, hunting for bits of music to give me (and I hope, you) pleasure, I also come across some truly dreadful musical excrescences as you can probably imagine. So I thought I might collect some of them for your musical pleasure.
This wont be of the Portsmouth Sinfonia variety as they are not really simply making bad music, they are having fun making bad music and know perfectly well that is what they are doing. But the bits and pieces I shall be sharing with you are created by people who are labouring under the delusion that they are making beautiful and meaningful music.
So just to show you the difference, here is a video of the delightful Portsmouth Sinfonia and then one of the pieces that I consider to be truly lousy music.
Absolutely awful I agree, but done with love and pleasure, and no pretensions of being real musicians – They know they are dreadful and don’t care.
However, this next one is a very different kettle of fish, as you will hear.
Er…. That was someone called Nervous Norvus, with his truly strange song called, reasonably enough, Transfusion. I have no idea quite why anyone would want to make such a record, but he did, and apparently even managed to find people who wanted to buy it as well.
As with the rest of the awful songs I am about to play to you, this one was obviously made as a serious musical undertaking, with the idea that people would find it both interesting and enjoyable musically… So a song about driving badly and ending up in need of a blood transfusion is I suppose at least a good message to put out there, but I don’t really believe that this song was intended as a sort of Public Service message, but more as a sort of variant on the Hot Rod style of music that was popular in the USA at one point in the late 50’s and early 60’s.
If you want to know more about Nervous Norvus, then follow this link and all will be revealed about him… Nervous Norvus.
The next dreadful musical disaster I have on offer is a song in which the singer discusses at considerable length his plans to “see the world” by going to Spain for his holidays, chiefly because his cousin Norm had such fun there the previous year.
So pin back your ears and listen carefully to the immortal words of Steve Bent‘s hit, I’m going to Spain..
Musically inoffensive enough I suppose, but the words bring it into the area we are interested in here.. such amazing banality and weirdness. The sort of stuff one would expect if invited to see your brother’s holiday snap shots over a glass of beer one evening.
The next one is also extraordinary, so much so that I am not sure whether it is even appropriate to consider this to be music in fact. Have a listen and see what you think.
This musical excrescence goes under the name of Paralyzed, which it seems to me is a rather good name for it. However, it is apparently a good example of something called Psychobilly, which was somewhat popular in the early 60’s. So we have the dubious pleasure of listening to The Legendary Stardust Cowboy (Norman Carl Odam) bellowing, shrieking and grunting his way through what was to be his one hit. Surprisingly he was briefly very popular, but chiefly as a sort of musical eccentric, a joke and a misfit. If you want to know more about this musical genius, follow this link and all will be revealed. (Link)
This dirge is called Why Am I living?, which seems a very good question., Another equally good question might be “Am I living?” This dirge with its overwhelming backing of Doo Waa Doo Waa and its amazingly dreary and depressing video is simply one of my favourite awful and bad music videos. There are almost no redeeming features to this song and performance that I can see.. Actually, there are no redeeming features.
So, this was Jess Conrad. If you want to find out more about him look for him on the net, I don’t find him inspiring enough to be bothered to hunt up more info for you.. Just going to have some coffee to get myself up to speed again after that dreary song…
And as the last offering, a seriously strange and pointless song from Jess Conrad again, this one called Cherry Pie. I can think of nothing to say about this one, except listen well to the amazingly poetic and meaningful lyrics, enjoy the superb backing arrangements and wonder what on earth possessed anyone to ever make this record in the first place…
I have nothing further to say……..
OZTHOUGHTS 