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Talent in a Previous Life

Because It's Never Just About the Music

Thursday, September 07, 2006

The Actual Worst Records... Ever 

Given that the odds on us ever actually completing the thing are roughly akin to those of Tony Blair still being Prime Minister by the end of the year, we've decided to drop the countdown element to our list of the actual worst records ever made and instead simply focus on venting our spleen over some of the more distressing forms of aural torture we've ever had to endure spurting unwanted out of our radio. First up in our new, structure free look at the detritus of the music charts is Kelly and Ozzy Osbourne with Changes.

It must be hard being Kelly Osbourne - though less so if you're her boyfriend. Arf! Not only do you have to contend with the fact that your mother is the most irritating woman in the world with all the likeability of a dead puppy, but you also have all the talent of a used up teabag and a face that appears to be the result of being hit by a frying pan in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Nevertheless, despite the fact you possess the sort of handicaps that make homeless leprosy sufferers look upon you and thank their lucky stars, you still reckon that you're in some way entitled to have a crack at this pop lark, mainly because you were in some crappy reality show whose selling point was that it allowed people to have a laugh at someone whose years of drug abuse has rendered them incapable of dealing with modern life in any sort of functional way. Unfortunately for you, despite receiving the benefit of the doubt with your first single, a vaguely passable cover of Madonna's Papa Don't Preach, the public quickly came to their senses and your second single, Shut Up, a pathetic slice of whiny teen nonsense which would have had even Good Charlotte turning their noses up at it for being a bit childish, couldn't even make it into the top ten. After such humiliation, there was only one thing for Kelly to do. Except for some reason "Run back to the obscurity from whence she came" didn't seem to figure in her plans, so instead she decided to run off and do a career salvaging duet with her dad instead.

Of course, the best laid plans of mice, men, and untalented daughters of rock icons don't always work out as the planners might have hoped and Kelly and Ozzy's single was notable for one thing. It was awful. Not just awful in a "Blimey, that record's a bit rubbish, isn't it", but awful in a "Dear God! Make the pain stop before I pour superglue into my ears in an attempt to numb the sound". An embarrassingly saccharine slice of schmaltz that would be more suited for a Smurf Christmas album, the record was clearly set to stall awkwardly outside the top forty were it not for a perverse bit of good luck: Ozzy decided to turn his unique talents in the field of co-ordination to the slightly complicated skill of quad bike driving. It doesn't take a genius to work out what's between us to realise that, much like releasing the single, this wasn't one of the best ideas the world has ever seen, and so Ozzy promptly ended up in hospital with massive head injuries and a very real possibility that he might die.

Things were looking bad for Ozzy, but for Kelly things couldn't be rosier! As a tidal wave of sympathy swept across the nation, aimed firmly at her daddy with a definite "Why couldn't it have been one of his annoying brood" subtext attached to it, Changes suddenly started getting quite popular. So popular, in fact, that it hit the number one spot, causing shares in superglue manufacturers across the country to go through the roof. AS the record hit the number one spot, Kelly could be seen on Top of the Pops crying as a result of what the news meant to her. We knew how she felt, we were weeping too when we found out.

One Word was really ace, mind.