Because he sounds like a Cockney head trauma victim haltingly reading the lyrics off a teleprompter as he struggles to force his tissue-thin vocal range through a tuneless, pitch-fucked, dare-you-to-get-through-it version of Elton John’s “Your Song” that’s streaming on his MySpace page and was recorded for that BBC Radio 1 anniversary covers comp I was bitching about a few months ago.
Pitchfork calls it “tender,” by which I think my colleague Mark Richardson means “like the painfully tender yellow bruise that forms the day after being kicked repeatedly in the stomach by a steel-toed boot.” This may, in fact, be the worst song I’ve heard in 2007, making me feel like I should apologize to any of my friends who bought his Skinner’s albums at my recommendation in the first half of the decade.
The Streets [MySpace]
Tell us how you really feel, Jess.
ouch. well, I can’t really feel bad for the guy, though, since he does blow.
i mean, does this even qualify as a song? it’s just spoken word with some backing vocals.
Somewhere, Ewan MacGregor is feeling really good about himself.
Can I steal “pitch-fucked” for the name of my all hate, all the time blog? I’m only half-kidding.
He is the OMC of this decade. What a joke. Has anyone ever seen live footage? It’s execrable.
Wow. Just wow.
And I thought it couldn’t get any worse than his last album.
I second your vote for Worst Song of 2007 and raise you a “potential career-killer”.
Oh, I’ve seen him live. He got the crowd going well enough but his backing singer ate him alive. (Not to mention the opening act, one D. Rascal.)
@dog door: What does Skinner’s cocaine usage have to do with anything?
Oh. Gotcha.
I thought his second album is one of the best this decade?
But yeah, his version sucks bad. The rest of the compilation is pretty good though.
I kinda like it, in its heartfelt spoken word way. That said, it certainly does have a William Hung “Rocket Man” quality to it.
Agreed, that was horrendously bad. I’m not currently a “fan”, and I guarantee you that will make me actively avoid further exploring whether I want to be.
@ Jess: so how would you compare it to Shatner’s version of “Rocket Man”?
Kitten, want a Midol?
Actually, that was funny to read.