Welcome to our new series, where we ask The Orb survivor Kris Elizabeth Weston to cast his eye over the latest releases from the glorious world of music. Prepare yourself for the most honest man in music...

Episode #1 Alchemy: Turning Turd to Gold

Hi internet, firstly may I just say, yer maw goes to the chippy in her slippers. If yer know anything at all about me you are probably expecting the following to be a scabrous attack on Universal Music Group due to their gob-­smackingly shameless and unrelenting exploitation of my work as The Orb, but it isn’t. No. Fair reader, what I want to communicate to you today is all about THE GENIUS of the largest music corporation in the world.

Perhaps if one were a crusty anti­-capitalist type, you know with an iPad, one might regard this monopoly as detrimental to music and culture. Luckily, I'm here today to clear that up for you. You’re completely wrong – as I will now illustrate with the help of my acerbic wit, towering intellect and popular 'musical' act Avicii.

Upon watching the youpube video you may be forgiven for thinking Avicii is a band made up of two fairly good looking girls who like to occasionally bring each other to orgasm with their mouths, but you couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, Avicii is a 24 ­year­ old, ugly, Swedish kid called Tim. Tim looks like the sort of inbred who might come lurching out of the woods at you with petrol­-powered garden equipment if you happened to be hiking through a remote Swedish forest. Luckily for him and a whole new generation of ugly nerds like myself who want to fuck lots of girls and are not too bothered how, that doesn’t matter any more. Because now you can be this relatively new thing called a DJ. A DJ is someone who plays other peoples music at live events and watches people make music in the studio. No need to be beautiful, DJs are so small on the stage in these corporate arena events, you cant see the ugly bastards anyway and yer can just fill the youpube videos up with suggestions of girls breasts and cunts. Perfect, and certainly good news for myself and Tim. So. Can you see THE GENIUS yet?

Despite being visually impaired (i.e. he is impairing my vision by being in it) Tim has collaborated with many of the high-­powered festering sores that comprise the corporate music scene. In my work as an investigative journalist for this piece, I uncovered several disturbing, shuddering abominations 'created' with David Guetta and Coldplay, all featuring the same sort of gay riff played on a chorused Sylenth preset used by literally (new oxford dumb version) everyone who is crap at making music. Avicii's 'trademark' (i.e. all he is capable of doing) is 80's piano riffs, presumably hoping his audience is young enough not to have been utterly saturated with said bile. His CV is like a who’s who of bland corporate death and even features some deceased artists like Madonna and Lenny Kravitz. Let's get this into perspective here, Tim launched into a 'star'­ sodden career at age 20 by sampling a vocal which at the very, very least, 3 mainstream artists had already done 5 years previously. So: NOW can you see THE GENIUS?

OK, maybe I'm not making it clear enough. Maybe my rose tinted view of the music industry is obstructing your understanding, lets examine the video in full:

Like all good Universal Music Group whores, Avicii's videos are brought to you by VEVO. VEVO is synonymous with the public’s evident turd­-fascination and a collaboration between Universal Music Group, Google, the Abu Dhabi government (huh?) and Satan. That’s right, Google – the company that made a secret deal with musicians cash that they don’t own and were not mandated to control, are also doing other secret deals with the major music companies. This might be why youpube is now one huge advert for Universal Music Group/VEVO (see suggested videos). Usually what I do when a VEVO video is in danger of being played back on my system is either go for a dump or quickly put a hammer through the router.

The opening scene apes the opening scene of Kubrick's 'Shining' and attests to the depths that the video producer wanted to snorkel had he been allowed. A badly played and really badly recorded guitar comes in. The player stumbles over the fast bit in his riff. Occasionally he hits it right. I immediately toilet. Shoddy. Cut to smoky bar, cigarette in the ashtray, shot glass on the table, we are clearly told the scene is set for a 30's gangster­ movie. I’m going to spoil it for you if you haven’t watched the video yet: basically, what it seems to be is Bonnie and Clyde, only with some girls lezzing ­off on a table. In fact, now you have read the last sentence there is no point in watching it. Take my word for it, its infinitely better to just imagine two lesbians lezzing off or go on xhamster and watch two even ­fitter girls lezz­ off properly with squirting and everything. In fact, I would rather have watched Warren Beatty and Gene Hackman tickle each other's walnuts than this sorry excuse for erotica. Words to describe how shit this 'music' is do not actually exist in the English language because the people of bygone ages what invented words never imagined anything this shit would exist. Regardless, I'm gunner ave a bloody good whack at articulating em anyway. In a possibly related note, I’ve just come back from a serious bout of the shits.

Coincidence? I think not.

The painfully affected 'jazz' voice of American folk singer Audra Mae comes in. From what I can tell, its a white female folk­-singer trying to sound like a black soul diva. A quick reverse image search reveals her to be James Corden in drag after suffering a stroke. In true Universal Music Group style she is uncredited on the track, despite her vocal making up the lion's share of it.

'I dunno just how it happened...'

The first line comes in and I am already smearing pedigree chum over my bell­-end and praying for David Blunkett to mistake me for his dog.

'...let down my guard ..swore I would never fall in love again, but I fell hard...'

To say these lyrics are retarded is to do them a disservice, kinda like saying the genocidal Israeli government 'isn’t very nice'. To say this song delivers the lyrical metering equivalent of an erratic and uncomfortable cycle­ ride back from the doctor's after being diagnosed as the first human to contract blue waffle from bestiality with cows is to bestow too much honour. Nay, one can actually smell the blue waffle emanating from this video. Do yourself a favour and DO NOT look that up. If this effort was taken to a record company or recording studio back in the 1970's they would have told these people to 'away and take yer face for a shite'. But that’s what’s so great about the three companies that own the corporate mainstream music industry today, they are generating new revenue­ streams for musicians that weren’t there before by lowering the standards of the earth through satanic ritual. Here, again, we see a shaven flash of THE GENIUS.

'....cos I should have seen it coming caught me by surprise wasn’t looking where I was going I fell into your eyes...'

Well that’s pretty careless, also: I think fucking a shrew in the retina would be more productive than allowing this input to infest my think­hole. I would celebrate this wooden and profoundly staged entertainment with a rhythmic evacuation, except that I would be afraid of shitting out any and all semblance of who I am, shitting out my soul. And now for the chorus:

'addicted to you... lost in your eyes, drowning in blue, out of control, what can I do'

Just when you are thinking the hippy chi couldn’t be sucked out of you any more, the beat comes in like Blunkett's dog looking for sloppy seconds. The entry of the drumbeat is a special kind of disappointment usually reserved for those with a long history of premature ejaculation. When I first heard the snare, my immediate thought was 'Timmy's flaccid paper mallet'. By the time the staggering mediocrity of the rhythm really sinks in, one can only wish for an irreversible discontinuation of the vital processes by which one is sustained. Death is the only logical thought which one can be left with after experiencing this 'music', not merely because of the video's predilection for it, but because its very essence IS corporate death. This death­-dirge is so popular with the automaton-­sheep­-drone­-matrix­-fucks that the views went up by 100,000 while I was out at the shop buying more pedigree chum (and downers I can mix with cider in order to continue this torture).

Another verse goes by featuring lyrical histrionics the likes of which haven’t been seen since 'Fruit Salad Yummy Yummy' by The Wiggles. 'Pain' and 'Insane' are rhymed in an ironic and highly artistic critique of the capitalist music monopoly and co­-dependant mental illness.

'Give everyone a plate and a spoon. We'll all be eating it very soon' - The Wiggles

Some conspiracy theorists on the web have pointed to The Wiggles' deep understanding of the corporate monopoly. 'We shall all be eating it very soon'.

Indeed.

Melodically, this music is a limp­-cocked pussy­-discharge, vaguely based on approx 56.3 million blues records that have previously existed, only with the sadistic twist of adding nothing of value whatsoever. And we are on our way to the joyful chorus again. With a bridge reminiscent of an amateur diva version of Nellie the elephant, it comes ineffectually limping back in, like an air- starved fish, flapping for its life on a trawler deck. If you don’t see THE GENIUS by now, I'm wondering if you are paying proper attention.

So, fair reader, what diabolical alchemy, what devious treachery has Universal Music Group employed in order to turn Tim into an 'artist' that ACTUALLY SELLS RECORDS? Where exactly is THE GENIUS here? After extensive investigative research, I can today exclusively reveal their methods. Every month, in the back of a sliced potato vendor in Cheam, the 12 Universal Music Group Illuminati meet for lunch in their slippers and magic nazi illuminati hats. When their 12 pointy hats touch at the stroke of noon, a gong sounds and a flock of pointy black birds are released in hell. The earthly skies part and a terrible and particularly bad-­smelling force is unleashed onto Cheam. The force propagates around the entire planet, retarding the tastes of anything it comes into contact with. Young children suddenly decide to like and buy any old bland generic corporate media shit that is trotted out in front of their faces. This is then followed by an orgy at an undisclosed location in Penge, involving six­ hundred and sixty­ six Stephen Hawking lookalikes chanting something about 'salty fanny batter' in their speak­and­spell voices.

Poor Tim is just another instrument of profit to Universal Music Group and whether or not he is chewed up and spat out in 5 years time is just a matter of statistics. Statistics which are stacked heavily against him. It is more than likely he has about as much chance of cultivating a long term career as Stuart Hall has of reviving 'It's A Knockout'. At the end of the day is the worlds most annoying phrase so I won't start this sentence with that. So, at the end of the day – Tim is just another box in a spreadsheet, financed by the Abu Dhabi government and some disgusting corporate fucks with no ethics whatsoever. If he is lucky. His music won't go on to become part of a catalogue in some holding company that exists purely to flog off his singles over and over and over again.

What? You still don’t get THE GENIUS?!

OK. FFS. I'm going to spell it out for you. THE GENIUS of Universal Music Group is that they can take a piss pile of generic, shit aborting, cancerous cliché which everyone has already been sold 15 million times before, repackage it, stick some birds lezzing­ off on it and SELL IT AGAIN. Ah, just go back to yer pret sandwich and shut it.

Visit Kris's website for more facts of life, and maybe even some decent songs.

This is also the place for his Crowd-Funding page for his ambitious album which will "kick your motherfucking ass".

Enjoy this article? Want more?

You can support Ransom Note and independent journalism through our Patreon campaign now.