Guest List: 10 Annoying Songs . . .

. . . to Which I am Regularly Subjected as a Consequence of One of My Colleagues Listening to Classic Hits on a Shitty Transistor Radio All Day.

Today's Guest List is courtesy of Mr A of Parnell. Enjoy!

The Power of Love - Jennifer Rush
Holds the unfortunate distinction of not even being the best song called Power of Love (this one comes in a distant third of the three that I can think of, with Frankie Goes To Hollywood ahead of Huey Lewis and the News). This is one of the 4 or 5 songs which Classic Hits plays on a daily basis, which is fairly galling because (a) they advertise themselves as having a "no-repeat work day" (which, while technically true, would be much more welcome paired with a "no-repeat work week"); and (b) by virtue of being a Classic Hits station, they have 50 years of popular music canon to draw from, so why they should feel the need to play this turgid piece of shit every day is entirely beyond me. This makes number one by also having one of those drawn out hooks in the chorus that makes it nigh-impossible to remove from your head once you've heard it.

My Cherie Amour - Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder is one of my favourite musicians of all time, and I own 3 or 4 of his studio albums (which I believe is a rare thing in the age at which every artist with more than 2 albums under their belt is deemed worthy of a greatest hits compilation, at which point the albums tend to disappear out of print). I don't necessarily loathe this song (or at least I didn't used to, although it was certainly never a favourite) but after months of exposure to the horror that is Classic Hits it's the only Stevie Wonder song I've heard. No Superstition, no I Wish, no Living For The City, no Uptight (Everything's Alright), not even I Just Called To Say I Love You. Just this one, over and over and over again.

You Light Up My Life - Debbie Boone / Sometimes When We Touch - Dan Hill
I have bracketed these two because, as far as I can tell, they are basically the same song with different words, one sung by a woman and one sung by what could loosely be described as a man. This is some of the most scrotum-crawlingly saccharine music ever committed to tape, and incidentally both songs figure on this list at numbers 19 and 8 respectively. Which sadly hasn't stopped Classic Hits from playing them to death.

Blame It On The Bossanova - Eydie Gorme
Blame It On The Bossanova is to the bossanova as 2 Legit 2 Quit is to hip hop. The fact that this song is a watered down version of actual bossanova is fairly bad, the sub-Mambo Italiano lyrics are worse, and the claim that the bossanova is the "dance of love" is patently ridiculous (I thought that was the Running Man). But the worst thing about this song is the fact that Classic Hits play it every single day, which is almost enough to send me on a shooting rampage.

Boy From New York City - Manhattan Transfer
Jazz vocal groups are a sketchy proposition at the best of times. Manhattan Transfer are one of the worst offenders, and this is one of their worst songs - a novelty tune that is one step up from Who Let The Dogs Out, one step down from Video Killed The Radio Star, and FAR TOO AWFUL TO JUSTIFY PLAYING EVERY FUCKING DAY.

Take A Letter Maria - R B Greaves
One of the more quietly mysoginistic offerings from the sixties, featuring one of the most nagging, banal choruses ever written. It's amazing how many of these songs are one hit wonders. The pseudo-Latin sound is almost as annoying as Blame It On The Bossanova, and the repeat airplay given to this annoying sixties one-hit wonder is patently ridiculous.

I'm Coming Out - Diana Ross
Both for the crushing disappointment that it isn't the I'm Coming Out-sampling Mo' Money Mo' Problems by Notorious B.I.G, and for the waste of a relatively interesting drum break in the intro on what is inevitably a bland, unengaging song. Also, Diana Ross is crazy and evil, and any airplay is only prolonging her ability to hire personal assistants to abuse while hopped up on Valium.

Baby Baby - Amy Grant
I hadn't heard this song in around 15 years until recently, but, lucky me, now I get to hear it all the time. Another one hit wonder who, just like Debbie Boone, warbles for Jesus. If there's a worse part to any song ever written than the horrible, even-Kenny-G-would-have-made-this-sound-more-edgy sax break, I haven't heard it. Along with plagues, famines and Ben Affleck, this song is more proof, if any was needed, that God hates all of us.

The Pied Piper - Del Shannon
This song was used on an ad (I think it was a car ad) for a couple of years, and I grew heartily sick of it and was glad when they stopped screening it. It is now a repeat offender on Classic Hits (in more ways than one - even in the era of Surfin' Bird and Louie Louie it would have been one of the more repetitive songs on offer), and its reedy backing music and nagging tune are the perfect compliment for the tinny, trebly transistor. Nobody give me a gun.

Take It Easy - The Eagles
To quote The Dude: "I hate the fucking Eagles, man."

10 Star Making Roles

TE Lawrence - Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia
When Peter O'Toole was cast in David Lean's epic biopic of the legendary Thomas Edward Lawrence, he was a little-known actor whose largest role was a supporting part in a film adaptation of Kidnapped. O'Toole was lucky in the end to get the part: Lean's first choice, Albert Finney, had passed on Lawrence to instead star in Tom Jones. O'Toole was a revelation as Lawrence - by turns romantic, imaginative, charismatic, petulant, effete - and at all times enigmatic. O'Toole earned an Oscar nomination for the role. Although he lost to Finney for Tom Jones, his place in cinema's pantheon was secure.

James Bond - Sean Connery in Dr No
When producers Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman embarked on translating Ian Fleming's novels to the big screen, a number of stars were approached to play James Bond. Cary Grant (58 at the time) and Patrick McGoohan both declined. Fleming himself favoured David Niven, but the producers ultimately cast unknown Scottish actor and former Mr Universe contestant Sean Connery. Fleming was initially apprehensive, calling Connery "a Glaswegian lorry driver" and, upon first meeting the actor, decried "so you're the one they've chosen to fuck up my character." Of course, Connery was a huge success in the role, portraying Bond with a pitch-perfect combination of machismo and raw sexual magnetism. Fleming so warmed to Connery's performance that, as a tribute to the actor, he made Bond's father a Scot in the 1964 novel You Only Live Twice.

Hannibal Lecter - Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins was already a well-respected veteran of stage and screen when he was cast in Jonathan Demme's adaptation of Thomas Harris's novel. However, it was his chilling performance as the psychopathic Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter that thrust him, at the unlikely age of 54, into Hollywood's A-List. Hopkins won the Oscar for Best Lead Actor for the role despite being onscreen for only 16 of the film's 118 minutes.

The Terminator - Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator
James Cameron originally conceived his robotic assassin from the future as an average, ordinary person who could blend into a crowd - and deliver death when it was least expected. Former football star and future murder suspect OJ Simpson was considered for the role before cameron settled on Lance Henriksen. However, when Arnold Schwarzenegger auditioned for the role of the film's hero, Kyle Reese, Cameron contemplated the Austrian Oak as the cyborg instead. Calls were made, a deal was done, Henriksen was given a supporting role, and Schwarzenegger became a star. Cameron would later admit that casting Ah-noldt as the Terminator changed the tone of the whole film, giving it a kinetic, larger-than-life aesthetic.

Rocky Balboa - Sylvester Stallone in Rocky
Sylvester Stallone was a struggling actor when he wrote the screenplay for Rocky after watching Chuck Wepner almost go the distance with Muhammad Ali. Producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler were impressed and offered Stallone a six-figure sum for the script, with one caveat - a big-name actor would be cast as Rocky. Stallone declined - he wanted to play Rocky - and eventually a compromise was reached. Rocky was a huge success, winning the Best Film Oscar for 1976, and Stallone became the first person since Charlie Chaplin to be nominated for both acting and screenwriting Oscars for the same film.

Tony Manero - John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever
John Travolta was already known to audiences from TV's Welcome Back Kotter and as the cruel head jock in Carrie, but it was Saturday Night Fever that flung his career into the stratosphere. When Travolta's Tony Manero struts his way through the opening credits, all 1970s swagger and bravado, you know that he's a woman's man, no time to talk. Travolta reprised his role as Manero in the 1983 sequel, Staying Alive (coincidentally, directed by Sylvester Stallone), but the film tanked and Travolta's career entered a nose dive from which it would not recover until Pulp Fiction.

Amon Goeth - Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List
Cold, brutal, a mass murderer in more than one sense of the term, death camp commandant Amon Goeth was Schindler's List's personification of Nazi Germany's inhuman treatment of Jews. Ralph Fiennes plays the demanding role with icy intensity, portraying Goeth as a fanatic Nazi, even in the face of his own execution. Fiennes was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance. That he did not win (it went to Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive) was a miscarriage of justice.

Jules Winfield - Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction
The eminently quotable Jules Winfield elevated Samuel L Jackson from journeyman supporting actor to star in his own right. Quentin Tarantino's hip, pop-culture referential dialogue found a perfect match in Jackson's urban-cool persona. The byplay between Winfield and John Travolta's Vincent Vega, together with Winfield's memorable monologues, made Jules Winfield an instant cult character.

Catherine Tramell - Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct
In a single role (or to be more precise, in a single underwear-less shot), Sharon Stone flew from B-movie maven to 1990s celluloid sex goddess. Basic Instinct itself is lurid and trashy - epitomised by the sociopathic nymphomaniac bisexual Tramell herself - but that didn't stop a whole generation of 14 year old boys from elevating Sharon Stone to the level of sex symbol. Stone reprised the role in 2005's sequel, Basic Instinct II, a film powered solely on Stone's raw sex appeal which, at the age of 47, remains impressively strong.

Iris - Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver
In 1976, Jodie Foster appeared in two films. The first was Disney's Freaky Friday. The second was Martin Scorsese's visceral Taxi Driver in which she played a teenaged prostitute. The effect, one imagines, would be similar to seeing Hayley Westenra snorting coke off Nicky Watson's cleavage. Foster's performance as Iris so affected one young man, John Hinckley, that he fell in love with her and began stalking her. In an attempt to impress Foster, Hinckley eventually emulated Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle by trying to assassinate a prominent American politician. Unfortunately he chose President Ronald Reagan. Reagan escaped with his life, but Foster was so badly shaken by the incident that she refuses to talk about Hinckley to this day.

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