Audacity of Truth
Rahmbo:
"Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive."
-Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) on Obama's COS, 3/7/10
Velvet Lair- Legends March 18, 2010
- Some things are just not cute March 18, 2010
- The adventures of the lady spider killer continue March 11, 2010
- Intermission February 19, 2010
- People who allow their dogs to poop in other people’s yards February 16, 2010
My nominee for “best torture music”
Michelle Malkin blogs this morning about a judge in Fort Lupton, CO who lately has been sentencing noise ordinance violators to an hour of listening to Barry Manilow songs, Barney The Dinosaur, and The Platter’s “Only You.” Apparently in that small town, it’s working.
Malkin also asks for nominees for “best torture music.” My nominee is the Dolly Parton “Home for Christmas” CD. When I used to work at a music store many moons ago, we figured out quite by accident that the best way to clear out the store at closing time was to play that CD. Without fail, as soon as she started singing, people would file out one by one within seconds and we’d be able to start closing the store on time. The Amazon link I provided has short clips of each song on that album, in case you’re wondering what was so bad about it. It’s truly awful.
What/who are your nominees?
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26 Responses to “My nominee for “best torture music””
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Chinese opera, hands down. If they played it at Gitmo, we wouldn’t need waterboarding.
Good choice, Anthony. Eek.
How about the voice track from the Star Wars Christmas Special? Now that’s painful….
– kd
Ok Outside of William Shatner singing anything, how about this AC/DC band. What incredibly boring music. Make those guys in Gitmo listen to this garbage and they will confess within minutes. – Lorica
Hey, AC/DC rocks! Great hard rock band.
Anything by Barry Gibbs or ABBA would qualify, as would the Capt and Teneal in the article. “Lovin You” definitely, also that horrid one hit wonder about skyrockets in flight. Ugh.
Italian opera…I can get into Wagner and such, but fat tenors and sopranos shrieking in Italian always sends the hairs on the back of my neck straight up.
And for me, anything Rap would do it too. Double ugh. Ditto for Michael Jackson, 5 min of that and I’d be ready to beat something to death.
Anything by the following:
-Supertramp
-James Taylor
-Steely Dan
-Seals & Croft
Any and all “Gangster Rap”.
Hey wait a minute! What’s wrong with “Only You”?
I love country music and I love Christmas music, but honestly, the two don’t seem to go together at all. I have yet to hear a country artist who’s really good at singing Christmas Carols.
Hey, Ryan, I love Steely Dan. They’re among the tiny handful of singers my son will actually tolerate (he hates nearly all vocalists, in any genre).
Wagner is definitely torture music. I understand it killed some okapis in Europe once, some years ago.
Other torture music:
some but not all rap and hip-hop. Some is good, but some is just yelling.
Bloodrock (any other old people out there remember them?)
the Ohio Express
In-a-Gadda-da-Vida
the Archies
But the worst ever is Jimmy Buffet’s Christmas album, when he sings about Santa and “those damn reindeer.”
John Tesh and Yanni!
I don’t have a problem with “Only You” either…but if I had to listen to it non-stop for an hour I’d probably take out my eardrums with an icepick.
Other than that, these nominees are some really scary choices. I think you need to allow the judge some discretion, depending on the miscreant. Personally, the Gansta Rap genre would make my ears bleed, but if the guilty party were, say, your average Philadelphia street thug, then you’d have a more effective punishment using Manilow or Barney the Dinosaur or the Archies.
Great White Rat–
I love you,
You love me,
Let’s get together
And kill Barney.
Well like my Mom used to say, “There’s no accounting for personal taste.” Then again, she was as I, raised on classical music.
Lorne Green sings “Songs from the Ponderosa” including his hit (no kidding) single, “Ringo.”
I should add another category to the “torture music” list: 50s “teen ballad” songs. After a few minutes of those, I’m ready to confess to being bin Laden!
Just about any song, played nonstop, can drive one into a homicidal rage. Just ask any parent who didn’t think to get Junior a set of headphones.
Back in the early ’90s, Ace of Base’s “All That She Wants” became the unofficial anthem of Southeast Asia. Any bar or club you went into in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, or Indonesia had it playing.
Lord, I came to hate that band. As if ABBA weren’t enough, and then those damned Swedes strut around in that superior pose of neutrality. IKEA is pretty cool, but doesn’t go anywhere near enough towards making up for their crimes against humanity.
Anyway, I had to actually buy the CD and listen to it a few times just to purge the song. Then I gave it away to a shipmate who actually liked the band.
But I want to call to your attention Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs. It was based on a series of columns he wrote about bad songs that get stuck in your head, and is hysterically funny. The only drawback is that reading it will cause bad songs to – well, you already know what will happen. So do what I do, and find a sing that will drive them out. For me, Aqualung does it.
No matter how annoying the song – Muskrat Love to Watching Scotty Grow, all I have to do is start with “Sitting on a park bench, eyeing little girls with bad intent…” complete with crashing guitar chords, and the bad song on infinite loop is vaporized.
I challenge anyone to listen to “Summer Breeze” for an hour straight.
Hey, I like Steely Dan!
Aqualung, thanks for the tip, I’ll have to try humming that to myself next time I get some insipid tune stuck in my head.
Seals and Croft, I used to like them a lot more than I do now. Back in college, in my at the time girlfriends dorm room, we had one of their albums (yes it had Summer Breeze on it) on the record player with the thing set to endlessly repeat. Despite the enjoyable carnal pleasures of the afternoon, I came away completely and totally hating Seals and Croft’s music. It took me a week to get that out of my head! Aaaaaah! It’s back!
eying little girls with bad intent…eying little girls with bad intent…eying little girls with bad intent…
Hmmm… ryan, Summer Breeze?? can I come up with new Lyrics…
Summer breeze makes me feel fine going (blowing) through the jasmine in my mind????
what about that song… Axel F (theme for Beverly hills cop)… hahahahhahahahaha hahahahah got that from the movie Summer Rental. It was on last night and of course it was watched!! hahahahahahhaha
Ohhh come on guys, what about Toni Basil’s Hey Mickey, put that on repeat and you will have bin Laden crying like a baby within minutes. Or that one song about “breakin’ my stride”, I hated that song, even more than my distaste for AC/DC or Aerosmith or for that matter, the Rolling Stones. Talk about “money for nothing and your chicks for free”. – Lorica
Specifically “Christmas” music???…. The hands-down winner is Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” (the never-ending pseudo-holiday song from Hell).
LOL, Babe.. Summer Rental! Great movie. It’s in my collection. Maybe I’ll throw that in tonight and follow it up with a classic – Road House.
Sorry, Sev..
I like a LOT of music others find terrible as well. Steely Dan just really strikes a nerve with me, albeit not as much as say Supertramp. Ugh.
I’ve seen some mentions of ABBA here. Listen to Waterloo a few times and try not to brain yourself with a rock.
Eww, Feliz Navidad is awful. What about Donde Esta Santa Claus?
“Feliz Navidad” is GORGEOUS! It is one of my absolute favorites. I could listen to this song from heaven for YEARS on end. I like “Summer Breeze,” too.
And I was also raised on classical music.
The worst Christmas music ever has to be Bruce Springsteen singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” The man has NO clue.
And yes, I agree, “Aqualung” is a room-clearer. I think so, anyway–I’m the first one out the door.
The most beautiful Christmas song I have ever heard is Enaid & Einalem’s “First Noel” intstrumental. It is incredibly beautiful and very haunting. The whole CD is called ‘A Highland Christmas’, and is very interesting body of work. Certainly one of the greatest Christmas CDs ever made.
I have off beat tastes in music. One of my favorite bands is a group called Iona. They are a Celtic Band I started listening to in 1990, and have never stopped. Their CD ‘Beyond these shores’ is an amazing mix Contemporary and Classic Celtic. The CD ‘Journey into Mourn’ is very moving too. It is about the oldest surviving Christian hymm. “Be Thou My Vision” which was written in the 7th century, if I remember right. The more I learn about the great Irish Church, the more I realize that Ireland alone saved the Christian Church all those years ago, and yet we wonder why for so many years the enemy of the Church has made the Irish People suffer. It is truly sad.
I have been feeling alittle blue lately, so I usually turn to Van Morrison during these times. The song “Magic Time” from the CD of the same name is so awesome. It is a love song that is without equal. It reminds me of better times.
The CD came out in 2005 and is a wonderful mix of the music of the 30s and 40s. Van the Man is truly one of the last great artists ever. – Lorica