Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The Actual Worst Records... Ever
Thankfully, she didHepburn. It's a name that brings to mind glamour. It brings to mind style. And above all it brings to mind class. It may also bring to mind this, but if that's the case then you've only got yourself to blame. But with all these good, positive attributes which the name brings to mind, why on earth did a bunch of clod-footed, hammer faced cockneys, who made a collective sound like a cat falling down a set of stairs made entirely from the same material as blackboards and for whom "elocution" is what happens when you put a fork into a plug socket think that this would be a good name for their band?
I Quit, their debut, and pretty much only, single was released in the spring of 1999. We were all pre-millennial back then, our thoughts and dreams still full of optimistic thoughts of the future, not yet tainted by the terrifying horrors of 9/11, Iraq and the Arctic Monkeys still to come. It was a time when anything seemed possible and the holy grail of a perfect pop record was surely within our grasp, so it's baffling why they felt convinced that what the public was desperately wanting to hear was a bit of half arsed indie-pop with a barely thought out lyrical metaphor about a failing love affair being a bit like having a job you don't like. Though frankly if you were the guy in that situation you'd probably be desperately attempting to engineer a poor workplace environment so that she quit off her own back, thus avoiding the need for you to sack her and pay a hefty severance fee.
As songs go, it's very much by the numbers, the guitars get loud exactly where you expect them to, the chorus kicks in exactly when you expect and the irritation factor kicks in exactly when you'd expect it to too. The only real novelty in the track comes with singer girl's accent, whose cockney enunciation of the phrase "Kings Road, Monday Morning", is likely to have you wishing death on all those who idolise the idea of Pearly Kings and Queens. Either that or have you pray to any God who might be listening that you too were born within the sound of the bow bells. So close to the sound, in fact, that it had rendered you deaf, leaving you blissfully unaware of this track's entire existence.
Maybe she really did want to quit, but judging by this the songwriting part of her brain had given up long before she did.
Labels: Hepburn, Worst Records
