This is not going to be your normal, run-of-the-mill remix contest.
Background: Around 10 years ago, two Russian artists named Komar and Melamid paid to hire a market research firm to find out the American public’s likes and dislikes in art. They wanted to know what works, but moreover they wanted to know what doesn’t work. They began with visual art, and then moved on to music. As it says on their website:
In an age where opinion polls and market research invade almost every aspect of our “democratic/consumer” society (with the notable exception of art), Komar and Melamid’s project poses relevant questions that an art-interested public, and society in general often fail to ask: What would art look like if it were to please the greatest number of people? Or conversely: What kind of culture is produced by a society that lives and governs itself by opinion polls?
They took all the data that was gathered, compiled it and used it to try and create the most annoying song possible based on the market research. Of course they also created the most likeable song as well, but I sometimes feel that evil can be much more entertaining that good, so we’ll focus on the “most annoying” song for now.
It would have been much too easy to simply create a cacophony of dissonance to make the worst song in the world, but they didn’t take the easy way out. The song is actually well-crafted as far as song structure and creativity are concerned. Here is their description of what they came up with for the worst music in the world:
The most unwanted music is over 25 minutes long, veers wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe (which tie at 13% as the most unwanted instrument), banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synthesizer (the only instrument that appears in both the most wanted and most unwanted ensembles). An operatic soprano raps and sings atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans, and “elevator” music, and a children’s choir sings jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects for lyrics are cowboys and holidays, and the most unwanted listening circumstances are involuntary exposure to commercials and elevator music. Therefore, it can be shown that if there is no co-variance someone who dislikes bagpipes is as likely to hate elevator music as someone who despises the organ, for example fewer than 200 individuals of the world’s total population would enjoy this piece.
The cowboy-soprano-rap at the beginning is a good indicator of what is to follow. The bass is provided by a tuba and there are some great bagpipe breaks.
Yo, I’m ropin’ up my saddle for the long long ride
Every time I see the desert there’s something inside says
Yo, yo, this is the life
Give me open land and a big ol’ knife
To get some bear, deer, even a snake
I light me a fire, do the shake and bake
I say yo, yo, I’m a cowboy now.
Here is a downloadable MP3 of the song – it’s pretty large at 30MB. (the “most likeable song” is here, which is of course much shorter). Personally, I think that the most likeable song sounds just as horrible as the most annoying song. Go figure.
You can get the full CD on Amazon.
On to the contest
Let’s make gold out of guano. Whomever can come up with the best remix of the “most annoying” song will get a really cool prize. I’m not saying what the prize is quite yet prizes have been announced! Over $1000.00 in prizes have accumulated and more being added!
Of course you will also get all the fame and notoriety that you would expect from being featured on our site.
Send us your remix before April 1st to: remix (at) noiseaddicts.com. All the entries will be posted here on the website, and judging will be begin on April 1. (You can also remix the “most likeable” song as well and I will post them, but they will not be eligible for the contest.)
Preference will be given to remixes that:
- are under 5 minutes in length
- are made entirely with sounds from the original song
- are original and creative
Sign up for email alerts to be notified of when judging begins and when remixes are posted!
IT’S CHRISTMAS TIME!
The “worst” song is great…Any Frank Zappa fan can relate to this stuff. I think it could work as the worst song for the sheep who listen to whatever crap the pop industry throws at them, well it’s not a “song” as such anyways.
I listened to the “worst” one all the way through and liked it a lot. I couldn’t listen to the “best” one for more than a minute. I have very wide musical tastes, including Diamanda Galas, The Shaggs, Stravinsky, Can …. and loved the juxtapositions, the unexpectedness and the reprises. The “best” song was trite and bland – two things I can’t stand.
Adding the vuvuzela would not be a bad idea
The wanted one is not what i wanted,
but the uwanted one is a true disaster!
Just stumbled upon this page after googling “What is the worst music in the world?” because I figured I’d like it. And while it’s not great, I was amused and lasted through the whole thing no problem. Much much better than the most wanted song, which is boring and cheesy. Like some of the other commenters, I like Fantomas, Mr. Bungle, Nurse With Wound, and The Residents, and each of those groups has produced things that could be considered just as “bad” – try Sylvie and Babs by Nurse With Wound (mentioned above) or The Third Reich and Roll by The Residents, if the “worst” song hit your funny bone or put you in a musical happy place like it did me.
Hey there! I’m listening to “The worst song in the world” and i won’t say this song sucks.
Komar and Melamid try to mix up what people find annoying in music, but they forget the fact that everybody have different tastes.
The result of this experiment is a track that Mike Patton could have wrote.
I’m a huge fan of Fantomas and Mr Bungle, so The worst song in the world doesn’t shock me.
I’ve heard way worst on radio or tv, mainstream music or mainstream wannabe artist.
Haha, jesus – I hope this is a freaking April-fools joke. Yea the song is really annoying, but I also found the most likeable song annoying. I made many mashups that are extremely annoying, but this one beat everything! But I like the idea of a market research.
But anyway, isn’t there any seperate channels for this? It’s Quite hard to turn the disharmonic pieces into something usefull then…
>>MOD: Yep, I also found the most likeable song even more annoying. Sorry, no separate channels, you need to work with the stereo mix. Fortunately, the mix is pretty lean, so there are a lot of exposed parts.
are you kiddin’ me? this song isn’t unwanted. that harp in the beginning was beautiful.
For a real “remix”, don’t we need seperate tracks/recordings?
Is this a competition for DJs?
Perhaps we’re in this 200; the worst song is at times irritating but it’s also interesting with its weird changes and unique mixes of genres. The best song is like boiled potatoes– it’s safe, bland, and contrived, and these qualities make one’s eyes roll pretty soon. So, yes, I tend to like the bad song more; irritating is better than nauseating.
I wonder if 22nd century music will sound like this. If we played someone from the middle ages, say, rap metal, they would be horrified.
Personally, the research might have been foregone and they could have just listened through Yoko Ono’s box set.
I think “FACK” by Eminem is a lot worse than this.
i sorta liked it
i sorta lied
nah, it aint that crappy… havent you heard of il divo?
holy shit! the most likable song is even worse than the most annoying song song. at least the most annoying song is laughable!
This is WAY better than 99% of what I’m hearing on the radio these days!
And I’ll take it any day over Tangerine Dream, ELP or rather boring electronic sequencer music, or remixes of other people’s songs by non-musician “DJ’s”!
I WANT this! There’s hope for the human race after all.
And I thought I was going to have to listen to Blechh, I mean, Bech, and Radiohead for the rest of my days….
– BJ
being better than 99% of the music in radio and mtv means nothing because those songs sucks.
I feel like they cheated a little bit. It’s kind of several really awful unrelated songs jammed together into the world’s absolutely worst DJ set ever (except it’s blessedly short by the standards of bad DJs, and relatively well mixed).
So Nurse With Wound Sylvie and Babs Hi-Fi Companion would be considered the worst album ever made according the the description above. The worst song is actually very interesting both structurally and tonally. Operatic rapping is genius and a welcome variation. Surprisingly, dissonance, microtonal, and temporal changes are well integrated into the pop sections and the contrast is pleasing. I think they did an excellent job on this piece and the CD is probably something I would purchase.