Playlouder - Music is the Network

Sony BMG's 'SINGER' (yes, all in caps) is a benchmark in compilation albums. 

For 'benchmark' read an incidental mark, on a bench, a broken bench, stuck in a hawthorn bush, right at the bottom of a deserted and inaccessible quarry. With a bear shitting on it.

Amongst other dubious promises, the accompanying press release boasts an album which "features a fresh and eclectic mix of acoustic, soul, jazz, blues and pop singer/songwriter classics to our ears".

Well, let me feature this to the ears of whoever compiled this flacid beast: it's shite. 

I haven't even listened to it, but, as is inevitably the case with these supermarket-friendly imagination-melting disks of death, if you've ever bought a CD - JUST ONE CD - in your life, chances are you've heard most of these songs and like less than 25% of them.

Making the whole arduous 38-track journey must be akin to watching your ex girlfriend having sex with somebody much cooler than you while listening to the last crappy mix CD she gave you for your birthday, before dumping you, even though you'd bought her dinner and she technically owed you sex (at least a hand job) in return.

Just look at it:

1. Daniel Powter - Bad Day (one of the worst songs ever written)

2. Sara Bareilles - Love Song (who?)

3. Michael Bublé – Lost (what?)

4. Norah Jones - Come Away With Me (no, I prefer your sister. The one with the sitar)

5. Amy Winehouse – Love Is A Losing Game (so is DRUGS, you septic wench)

6. Dido - White Flag (remove the vocal chords. Actually I saw a walrus in pyjamas cover this on a rainy morning in Falmouth and HIS version was good)

7. Jeff Buckley – Hallelujah (this takes the piss more than any other. He didn't write it - he was a shite songwriter. Leonard Cohen's version was 100 times better)

8. Damien Rice - Cannonball (Damien Rice only writes good b-sides, and those rarely enough)

9. Paolo Nutini - Last Request (excuse me while I revive my swooning aunt)

10. Katie Melua - Nine Million Bicycles (Mike Batt wrote this. But yes, it is a great example of the celebrated singer/songwriter tradition, except for that minor fact)

11. Newton Faulkner - Teardrop (is this another cover? Arse)

12. Eva Cassidy - Fields Of Gold (Sting wrote that, not you, deady)

13. Will Young – Leave Right Now (fuck off. Not one Al Stewart song, and THIS gets an airing? Fuck off)

14. James Blunt – 1973 (...)

15. David Gray - Please Forgive Me (for this? never)

16. James Morrison - You Give Me Something (will cyanide do?)

17. Paul Weller – Wild Wood (oh God! Shoot me! Shoot me again! Just to be sure...)

18. John Mayer - Waiting On The World To Change (right, I'm dead now)

19. Rufus Wainwright - Going To A Town (where's your dad, Rufus? I like him...)

Oh God there's more! So much more!

1. Elton John – Your Song (you don't write lyrics, you are not a songwriter)

2. Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water (there are two of you. One of you is superfluous. Would you like a clue?)

3. George Michael - Praying For Time (He could give you a clue too. He's been there)

4. Annie Lennox - Why (good question)

5. Kate Bush – Moments Of Pleasure (right, cos there aren't a million better Kate Bush songs...)

6. David Bowie - Wild Is The Wind (right, cos there aren't...)

7. Lou Reed - Perfect Day (right... how about something off Metal Machine Music?)

8. Sade - By Your Side (shite)

9. K. D. Lang - Constant Craving (for the ability to write a decent song)

10. Bruce Hornsby & The Range - The Way It Is (this is so incongruous right here)

11. Marianne Faithfull - The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan (meh)

12. Tori Amos - 1000 Oceans (pah)

13. Rickie Lee Jones - Chuck E's In Love (who?)

14. Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl (spare me)

15. Bob Dylan - Baby, Stop Crying (...)

16. Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting (not 'Hazard'? Why?)

17. Stevie Nicks - Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You (hmm)

18. Sheryl Crow - Run, Baby, Run (you suck, Sheryl, you suck hard - now stop abusing your child, it will never be an Olympian)

19. Carly Simon - That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be (...not 'You're So Vain' is it? There's a real knack of celebrating sacred cows while simultaneously throwing the baby out with the bath water here - quite something...)

And if that seems petty, just think about the audacity of this compilation: 38 tracks claiming to distil the art of the singer/songwriter. It has Will young, and no Leonard Cohen. It had Sheryl Crow and no Joan Baez. Daniel Powter, no Phil Ochs.

But that's not all is it? I mean - the pacing of it, the whole construction, belies the claims of 'careful selection'. It's almost as though the besuited mollusk that compiled this insult to common decency has never actually made a compilation CD or tape before in his life. 

Everything about it is wrong; it's poorly ordered, poorly conceived, exhaustingly long and not all that variable in tone or tempo for the greater part. This was no doubt made by the sort of person who buys expensive gifts with little or no thought for their suitability to the receiver. Similarly, its claims to "have something to suit every musical taste" are typical of the blinkered, watered-down, ill-judged ethos of major labels.

To have any possible use for this 2X CD compilation you would need:

a) no music of your own. Not one CD. 

b) an aunt who hates music and also has no CDs (but has a CD player) and also has an approaching birthday.

c) no imagination, or affection for the above.

d) no working knowledge of the Internet and its many uses.

d) about 20 quid.

Should you fulfill the above criteria - and lots must, though I assume none of them will be reading this - go right ahead and buy, buy, buy!

If you're not a complete cunt, you'd do well to boycott the supermarkets that stock this, or possibly to go around replacing the disks with your own compilations, which couldn't possibly be less cohesive or more pointless than this embarrassing entity.