Ears. They're flipping fantastic, aren't they? Tirelessly taking in horrendous sounds such as a baby's crying, or the sound of nails scraping down blackboards, or the sound of nails scraping down crying babies and dying seals, and yet our ears never complain. Until now. Ladies and gentlemen, I present unto you: Swagger Jagger, the horrendous crapfest by Cher Lloyd. I could barely hear myself thinking 'What is this?' over the sound of my own ears throwing up. Tentatively listening through the brief intro, I though this was going to be a huge dirty dutch house track, until it hit the first verse, and it all runs downhill from there.
And dear goodness, she's a cocky one, isn't she? The first verse begins with 'You can't stop looking me, staring at me, be what I be, you can't stop looking at me, so get off of my face'. For a start, not only would it be weird if anybody was actually stuck on Cher's face like a facehugger out of Alien, the only reason that we can't stop looking at her is because she's tried her very best to look and act like Cheryl Cole, except she doesn't, and ultimately ends up looking like Cheryl Cole stuck midway through a transfomation into one of Balrog's testicles. And, occasionally, a meerkat who's just spotted a predator three feet away, since at the end of every sentence she seems to feel the urge to make wild hand gestures and pull a face like a man who's just dropped soap in a prison shower.
She then goes on to tell us about how "you can't stop clickin 'bout me, writin' 'bout me, tweeting 'bout me". Firstly, you can't click *about someone, love, you click on them. And yes, people are tweeting *about you and I'm writing *about you right now, but that doesn't make it good, especially since 99% of all the writing about this song and Cher in general basically boil down to 'Well, this is a bit crap, isn't it?' But, whatever makes her happy. The attention whore.
What really, absolutely takes the biscuit though, is the chorus. "Swagger jagger, swagger jagger, you should get some of your own" she bleats, throwing the cameras knowing looks. I would get some, Cher, expect I don't know what on earth 'swagger jagger' is. Is it regular swagger? I've got plenty of that, you know. You're acting like you're the sole proprietor of swagger, just like Justin Timberlake claimed to be the overseer of the world's supply of sexy, bringing it back like a more desirable Wispa. Except he did it in a catchier way, is immensely more likeable, and got away with calling everbody nasty names at the same time. Or maybe it's a special kind of swagger reserved for rhyming geniuses. In which case I'd like to stab her with my swagger dagger for even coining the phrase in the first place.
Another phrase I'd like to stab her for is that we apparently can't stop 'youtubing' her. Yep, she used youtube as a verb. Good grief, she's like a one-woman army hell-bent on destroying sensible language, in a vain attempt to look ghetto, even though she's about as ghetto as The Wombles. In fact, she even looks like a womble, whenever she's pulling her surprised face. Google it. It's true.
She then goes on to explain that we'll definitely, unequivocally have her "on repeat, running this beat", even though the only desire I remotely have of running this beat is running it over with a bus. And reversing. And pouring petrol on it an setting it alight, then dancing round it as it goes up in flames.
Kind of like Cher's musical career after this song, really.
Wednesday 20 July 2011
Monday 4 July 2011
The Netherworld Speaks Japanese
Of all the things that a person could experience in everyday life, dying is not the most pleasant. Yet for some reason, I can't seem to stop doing it. Recently, I died no fewer than ten times. This was partially due to me dying a little inside after realising I'd left myself logged in to Facebook and coming back to find that my brother had posted all manner of statuses from my page, but it was mostly due to chain mail. Chain mail. Chain. Mail. Chain flipping mail. In the past, a fairly sturdy and somewhat reliable form of armour. In the present, one of the most annoying social phenomenons that the advent of the internet has ever given birth to.
Forget the myriad possibilities that the internet showers upon us, like a widening of our cultural lenses, or the opening of vast communication channels, or huge amounts of information, so vast that it would make our tiny human minds explode like an unopened tin of baked beans on an overheated barbeque: you don't have time to even contemplate these gifts, because Jessica, aged 10 (hobbies: lurking on forums, long walks on the beach and coming back from the dead), whose parents never loved her and whose randomly mutilated body was found by police in a stream in a forest near a nondescript suburban housing estate after being murdered by the local troubled witch-child, is coming to kill you in your sleep at 1 a.m. Tonight. Why? Because she's a vengeful little git with a penchant for murdering internet citizens who read select paragraphs, apparently. Oh, and because you didn't pass on the message about her little killing spree to five other hapless victims. Silly you. Look what you've done.
What strikes me as most concerning is that the people who write these messages, evidently in a vain attempt to save us by warning us of our impending doom but ultimately luring us into Jessica's wrath, seem to have very little grip of the English language (either that or the netherworld speaks Japanese, bearing poor translation), and subsequently the details of what is going to happen are often rather obscure, and tend to get more and more vague as the message progresses, which can only lead to more and more helpless people viewing it and spending their last moments simply being wildly confused and not knowng what to do, like a group of kittens with a thousand laser pointers flying round them all at once whilst a volcano erupts 50 feet away from them. Here's a sample I found earlier, broken down and analysed for your convenience:
"Tonight at midnight your true love will realize they love you."
Oddly specific. Creepily specific, you might say. But so far, so clear. This *is* going to happen.
"Something good will happen to you between 1-4 pm."
Getting more vague, aren't we? Just 'something good' (that could be anything, from finding a pound in the street, or being gifted with a blimp by a benevolent millionaire) and what's more, there's a three-hour scope for it to happen in.
"Tomorrow it could be anywhere."
Insanely vague. Understanding what on earth the implications of this prediction actually are would be like trying to decipher what Charlie Sheen is saying after banging seven gram rocks for three days straight, if his brain was also made of egg noodles and baby seals. I don't even know what's going on by this stage, which is presumably the point.
"Get ready for the biggest shock of your life!"
Oh. That was a sudden change of mood, it threw me. I'm even more confused. I'll brace myself.
"If you don't post this to 5 other pages. You will have relationship problems for the next 10 years."
Of course, since there's a random full stop in the middle of that sentence, not only is the first half of the sentence an unfinished threat, leaving my peace of mind hanging somewhere in limbo, the second half of the sentence is now declaring that I *will* have relationship problems for the next ten years. Guess that's the shock. Well played, Jessica, well played
And so, emerging from the confusion-trap with my love life thoroughly condemned, I shall end this investigation, preferably before I die again. And, because I'm a shameless self-promoter, if you don't send a link to this blog to at least ten of your friends before exactly 2:43 and 56 seconds this afternoon, Tommy, aged 7, who suffered the loss of both arms in an explosion, and whose body was found emaciated and withering in his local playpark (he died of starvation after somebody pushed him off the swings and he couldn't lift himself back up again) will appear at your bedside at roughly between 1-4 a.m. and smother you. Or rather he would, but he has no arms. Jessica's still out there though. Sleep tight.
Forget the myriad possibilities that the internet showers upon us, like a widening of our cultural lenses, or the opening of vast communication channels, or huge amounts of information, so vast that it would make our tiny human minds explode like an unopened tin of baked beans on an overheated barbeque: you don't have time to even contemplate these gifts, because Jessica, aged 10 (hobbies: lurking on forums, long walks on the beach and coming back from the dead), whose parents never loved her and whose randomly mutilated body was found by police in a stream in a forest near a nondescript suburban housing estate after being murdered by the local troubled witch-child, is coming to kill you in your sleep at 1 a.m. Tonight. Why? Because she's a vengeful little git with a penchant for murdering internet citizens who read select paragraphs, apparently. Oh, and because you didn't pass on the message about her little killing spree to five other hapless victims. Silly you. Look what you've done.
What strikes me as most concerning is that the people who write these messages, evidently in a vain attempt to save us by warning us of our impending doom but ultimately luring us into Jessica's wrath, seem to have very little grip of the English language (either that or the netherworld speaks Japanese, bearing poor translation), and subsequently the details of what is going to happen are often rather obscure, and tend to get more and more vague as the message progresses, which can only lead to more and more helpless people viewing it and spending their last moments simply being wildly confused and not knowng what to do, like a group of kittens with a thousand laser pointers flying round them all at once whilst a volcano erupts 50 feet away from them. Here's a sample I found earlier, broken down and analysed for your convenience:
"Tonight at midnight your true love will realize they love you."
Oddly specific. Creepily specific, you might say. But so far, so clear. This *is* going to happen.
"Something good will happen to you between 1-4 pm."
Getting more vague, aren't we? Just 'something good' (that could be anything, from finding a pound in the street, or being gifted with a blimp by a benevolent millionaire) and what's more, there's a three-hour scope for it to happen in.
"Tomorrow it could be anywhere."
Insanely vague. Understanding what on earth the implications of this prediction actually are would be like trying to decipher what Charlie Sheen is saying after banging seven gram rocks for three days straight, if his brain was also made of egg noodles and baby seals. I don't even know what's going on by this stage, which is presumably the point.
"Get ready for the biggest shock of your life!"
Oh. That was a sudden change of mood, it threw me. I'm even more confused. I'll brace myself.
"If you don't post this to 5 other pages. You will have relationship problems for the next 10 years."
Of course, since there's a random full stop in the middle of that sentence, not only is the first half of the sentence an unfinished threat, leaving my peace of mind hanging somewhere in limbo, the second half of the sentence is now declaring that I *will* have relationship problems for the next ten years. Guess that's the shock. Well played, Jessica, well played
And so, emerging from the confusion-trap with my love life thoroughly condemned, I shall end this investigation, preferably before I die again. And, because I'm a shameless self-promoter, if you don't send a link to this blog to at least ten of your friends before exactly 2:43 and 56 seconds this afternoon, Tommy, aged 7, who suffered the loss of both arms in an explosion, and whose body was found emaciated and withering in his local playpark (he died of starvation after somebody pushed him off the swings and he couldn't lift himself back up again) will appear at your bedside at roughly between 1-4 a.m. and smother you. Or rather he would, but he has no arms. Jessica's still out there though. Sleep tight.
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