Songs I Loathe, pt. 1

And loathe, my friends, is exactly the right word, for the songs that shall be featured in my Diary's new series are compositions I goddamn fucking hate (detest, I'm afraid, is too light a word to describe my feelings towards the music contained herein).

And the first song, which came to mind almost immediately, is Believe, by the ever so musically untalented (and living?) Cher. As with most songs in this soon-to-be-hugely-popular series, my reasons for such ill will must remain, at best, unconvincing: it's all completely subjective, I still love Marina Lima, and -let's be honest- who says I actually know what I'm talking about?

But Believe just kills me: very weak lyrics, that annoying pitch shift effect for her voice, her tone, it's all just awful. Worst, it's one of those songs that, like those of Matchbox 20, are so impeccably well-written that they become duller than Bob Dole on qualudes.



And then there's that other paradigm of mediocrity, Ebony and Ivory, with Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. The song reminds me of the Wiemar Republic: it looks really good on paper, it fills our hearts with high hopes, and then comes crashing down on us by simply sucking so very, very much. I mean, just copy/pasting the video's code already has my brain scrambling for shelter.

A Monumental Waste of Talent

The nineties I hold to be an unfortunate decade and in music few examples lead to more exasperation than Mariah Carey. She was the best-selling artist of that decade, and one of the best-selling artists of all time; I am also sure that, American marketing discourse aside, Carey was quite the inspiration to many a singer. It is amply saddening, then, to realize that after some fifteen years this artists has one decent recorded song to her name. But what a song, and what a performance.

However, as much as I would love to embed the song just below these lines, some shit on or from YouTube made sure that this video could not leave the site, and so I hope the link alone will suffice. Enjoy, dear reader, and sigh alongside me at what a waste these fifteen-odd years have been.