The most annoying sound in the world.

[AbominableHoman]

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/rocks/2009/0..._engineered.php

Crazy science, will you ever learn? Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. Sure, we could start transplanting monkey heads on humans, but you shouldn't. The atom bomb sure as hell ended World War II, but it began an era of atomic fear and guilt. We ended up with all kinds of hassles, like communism and bad Schwarzenegger movies.

This brings us to the crack team of Dave Soldier and Komar & Melamid, who scientifically created the world's worst song. It clocks in at over 20 minutes. The trio has a Web site where they asked visitors to list their most hated sounds, be they operatic hip-hop with cowboy lyrics, swelling harps or marching-band music from hell. They claim that "fewer than 200 individuals of the world's total population will enjoy this," but released it anyhow.

The site gets very scientific and is hella confusing. The guys basically used the thought behind software that figures out the most desirable musical tones, and went the sadistic route by doing the opposite. The result is elevator music for schizophrenics and those enduring acid flashbacks.

We just listened to the track in full, and it's not bad per se - that is, provided you dig batshit, emotionally jarring music, where children sing about Easter shopping at Walmart. It also features plenty of oompah horns and bagpipes, so at least it's multiculturally offensive. (That's not even mentioning the Dracula organ dirges, either.)

The world can gather around and hate it together. Also, you may never think of Yom Kippur the same way ever again. Nonetheless, it's funny, too, in a Dadaist way. This would definitely be a perfect Valentine's gift for your absurdist boyfriend who did his final U of H art project by donning a meat helmet and officiating a mass pet marriage on Discovery Green.

And we always thought the worst song in the world was whatever Clay Aiken was singing at the moment.

Wow. Basically the songs assembled to be as annoying as possible to the human ear.

[SpUd_Jr]

I'm five minutes in, and it's mostly bearable.

[Black Sabbath]

This is on my iPod now.

[kevin]

i actually like this song so far

this is like girl talk before he bought a computer

[stacks on deck]

first off: songs can't be annoying; listeners can, however, feel annoyed while listening. same goes for other "emotions".

and that wasn't that bad, really. i was actually tapping my foot to a few parts. reminds me of "nasal retentive calliope music" from frank zappa and the mothers' we're only in it for the money. a lot of people would be more annoyed by just about anything by merzbow. and then there's the omar rodriguez-lopez and jeremy michael ward album--interesting to me, but most people would hate it.

[SpUd_Jr]

Yeah, listened to all of it.

I guess it wasn't pleasant, but it certainly wasn't unlistenable. If they were going for unlistenable, they shouldn't have put in so many catchy parts.

[Black Sabbath]

I thought the Christmas Time at Wal-Mart Commercial parts were funny.

[P.A. Guns]

Not annoying so much as utterly boring.

[swlabr]

I actually liked it. Reminded me of The Beatles' "Revolution Number Nine."

[Guest deleted_19765]

For inclusion of harmonica.

[swlabr]

20+ minutes and counting...

Just stopped.

Edited February 16, 2009 by swlabr

[Gash]

Ah I was going to post this the other day!

It starts off a bit "Last of the Summer Wine."

They also did one where they tried to make the best song in the world, well the one that most people would like.

If people are interested I could probably find it and put it up.

[oxocubeingravy]

How odd

[Wild_Child]

first off: songs can't be annoying; listeners can, however, feel annoyed while listening. same goes for other "emotions".

and that wasn't that bad, really. i was actually tapping my foot to a few parts. reminds me of "nasal retentive calliope music" from frank zappa and the mothers' we're only in it for the money. a lot of people would be more annoyed by just about anything by merzbow. and then there's the omar rodriguez-lopez and jeremy michael ward album--interesting to me, but most people would hate it.

Have you heard Despair by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez? That's some weird shit.

[stacks on deck]

yeah, it is weird. i guess you're supposed to play it backwards. and i actually like it better than megaritual, which offers nothing we haven't already seen from his previous efforts. his solo output as a whole has been pretty weak lately, with the exception of old money, which was sick. but real talk, his collab album with zach hill from hella is one of my most anticipated albums of this year. cedric's supposed to sing on that shit.

[Wild_Child]

Yeah, looking forward to that one. Seeing him next month, going to be awesome.