Cheaper By The Dozen (2003)

Past-it comedian struggles to manage household without highly fertile wife/maid due to lifetime of excessive fucking with unsheathed penis.

1/5

Matt Cardle ‘satisfied’ with Syco snack vending machines

By Slick Nick

Matt Cardle, winner of the 2010 series of X Factor, has gone on record to confirm his views that the vending machines at Syco records are more than adequate for his needs.

The tired cockney, 38, pictured below in talks with his chiropractor, has been working at the London premises since winning the contest’s top prize last year: a ten-record deal worth reportedly £1.4 billion.

During the day, Cardle, who can play an impressive three chords on electric guitar, has been seen conducting a regular late morning ritual of buying a packet of Walkers cheese & onion crisps and a can of regular Fanta. On occasions, he has also purchased Mars bars and Lucozade in the afternoons, presumably to get him through dance rehearsals.

He said: ‘The machines have everything a painter & decorator could hope for. Just solid, mass-produced high calorie foods that are likely the main cause of Britain’s obesity epidemic.’

‘If there was one thing that’s missing though, it would be some of that Polish meat in jars that I’ve seen in Sainsbury’s. I’d like to try that some time.’

‘I’ll bet you thought I was going to say jellied eels, right? Fuck you.’

The vending machines are replenished three times a week by a man in his late fifties.

The Worst Albums Ever Made – ‘Dig Out Your Soul’ (2008) by Oasis

By Slick Nick

There is no doubt in my mind that Oasis were the best pop group of the 90s, using a slew of extremely uncomplex singles and albums to end the musical careers of countless raggae and eurodance acts that always seemed to top the British charts at the time. Led by unambitious song-writer Noel Gallagher and starring his knobend brother Liam, the world was theirs for the taking – before Pop Idol, of course.

As enjoyable as the early Oasis compositions were, musically they were never anything more than basic as fuck. ‘Live Forever’ from the debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’, had an opening drum beat that any child could perform after two lessons, and generally you’d be lucky to get three or four different chords in a song. Listening to Oasis and then puting on a bit of Blur, their mortal enemies, was like listening to fucking Mozart by comparison. Sadly, their most ambitious riff from another early single called ‘Cigarettes And Alcohol’ had already been written by heavy metallers T Rex around twenty five years earlier, so they couldn’t lay claim to that.

But, like a lot of bands that start out well, after a few albums and a shit ton of record sales, Oasis could no longer muster the effort to record decent music, and the decline in quality of output during the noughties was quite staggering. The band broke up soon after releasing their final album ‘Dig Out Your Soul’, one of the worst albums ever made.

These crap songs sound like the kind of music you’d find buried on a 100-track bootleg set of long-forgotten Beatles demos that were never intended for release – lifeless, boring and poorly recorded. For all the Gallagher brothers’ rock ‘n’ roll swagger and tabloid punch-ups, this final effort is like someone retiring by leaving the office quietly after an insincere presentation from their boss in front of their co-workers.

There was magic in the initial Oasis singles. Hell, if ‘Wonderwall’ came on the radio during my short commute to work every day, I’d probably punch the air (roof) with elation; I don’t go to nightclubs anymore, I wasn’t reared on a tough inner city estate and I don’t fall for the Simon Cowell PR/marketing machine, so I get very little from the British charts these days. Comparing the songs from that era to the singles from this album is like puting Manchester United against an Albanian school football team – they just don’t compare.

Lead single ‘The Shock of The Lightning’, bolstered by a staggering two chord changes for the most part, sounds like an idea for a song that still needed to be finalised in rehearsals. ‘I’m Outta Time’ is the only listenable effort here, but it still annoys me because the verse always makes me think I’m listening to Lennon’s ‘Jealous Guy’. Pleasant chorus though, reminding fans that they could still write the occasional hook when they weren’t sitting by swimming pools guzzling Director’s Bitter.

Apart from sounding like the Beatles and wearing John Lennon spectacles, Liam Gallagher even started to look exactly like George Harrison at one point. On ‘Dig Out Your Soul’, the tribute act was completed with the aping of the rather self-indulgent, ploddy sitar-driven stuff that John, Paul, George and Ringo were experimenting with in the mid–to–late sixties. If it didn’t work for the greatest band to ever set foot in a recording studio, what the fuck was it going to do for Oasis?

Noel Gallagher’s lyrics have always been appalling at the best of times. Incoherent rambling sentences ending in words that mostly rhymed with ‘away’, ‘mind’, ‘far’, ‘you’, ‘me’ and ‘why’, they tended to make even less sense than Kurt Cobain’s insane poetry. This final album didn’t break tradition; the problem was the songs were now as equally terrible as a whole. Before, no one paid much attention because the melodies and singing were so effective.

It’s a shame the band that recorded ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?’ could end their careers with such an underwhelming collection of crap songs. Even their b-sides collection ‘The Masterplan’ was one of the best from 1998, better than most other bands’ proper efforts. Noel Gallagher was supposed to keep rock ‘n’ roll alive, at least from a Sunday Times supplement point of view. His declining song-writing ability combined with Simon Cowell and increasing levels of illiteracy amongst young people have now rendered the British charts almost unlistenable. And this is even before Liam Gallagher kick starts an inevitable solo career for more cigarette money.

 

Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannon ball, where were you when we were writing shit music?

Bugsy (1991)

Testicled half of Bonnie And Clyde provides world-class dictionary service and skincare to mobsters in the 30s.

3/5

Cabin Fever (2002)

Deliverance replaces sodomy with severe eczema and poor dialogue.

2/5

The Neverending Story (1984)

Despite promising the contrary, bullied bowl-cut fails to return to owner harrowing fairytale book featuring poorly dubbed abominations.

2/5

Disclosure (1994)

Fuck veteran fails to get past third base with corporate slut type, then discusses techniques for manufacturing clapped-out computing equipment.

3/5

Free Willy (1993)

Deformed killer whale refuses to perform for merch-heavy crowd without first seeing written entertainment contract.

2/5

‘I am well happy’: Cher Lloyd expresses joy at finding Friends seasons two and three on VHS in charity shop

By Slick Nick

Life as a pop star can bring with it vast fame and fortune, but sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest difference. That’s why X Factor reject Cher Lloyd recently called a press conference to announce her joy at picking up two entire video boxsets of the hit 90s sitcom Friends in a local charity shop.

The anorexic, 29, saw the boxsets in the window of a Barnardos shop in hometown of Malvern, Worcestershire, earlier in the week.

There was repordely no price tag attached to the videos of the now ended sitcom, which told the story of only caucasian 30-somethings living, working and fucking in New York, arguably the most ethnically diverse city on the planet. After making an enquiry inside the shop to a woman that was hard of hearing, Ms Lloyd was able to secure a price of £7.50 in total for the items. She then required five carrier bags to get the videos home.

Cher said: ‘I never thought that when I entered the X Factor all those months ago that I’d be sitting here owning not one but two boxsets of Friends.’

‘It’s a shame my grandmother’s caravan burnt to the ground with her inside it a few years ago. She’d have been so proud to see this.’

When the skeleton intends to view the videos remains unclear. Some have speculated that she will watch one episode an evening until completing all cassettes. Others insist she will attempt to watch both seasons in their entirity across a single weekend. We will remain close to the sources and report any further developments as and when they happen.

Despite getting the boot quite early on in 2010′s X Factor finals, Cher Lloyd will be releasing an album this coming summer. Take that, Ofcom.

600th Post SPECIAL: Why Alien 3 is the worst sequel ever made

By Slick Nick

When I judge a sequel, I don’t just consider its merits alone. I tend to think of sequels as remakes initially – you generally have the same characters, same setting, same story, same genre and similar writers & directors, doing the same shit as in the previous film/s.

I also think about how good the previous movie in the franchise was. To better an already great picture is a commendable feat. On the flipside, a film like Nightmare on Elm Street 4, arguably the worst film ever made, wouldn’t jump out at me as being a crap sequel because the previous film in that series isn’t worth much either.

I think a great sequel should be a decent stand alone film in its own right, but also build and improve upon the previous film’s ideas. A crap sequel will do the opposite and be an inferior film.

Aliens itself is a classic film but also one of the best sequels ever made. It betters a classic movie, brings memorable characters, technology and action to the table, and also delivers a shit ton of iconic sci-fi cinematic moments. Who could forget Bishop’s knife and hand trick which revealed him to have sperm for blood?

Alien 3 took all that away. Everything that made Aliens one of the best films of the 80s was missing. All the magic was gone.

1. Story

In Aliens, Ripley is still coming to terms with the mass murder of her entire list of co-stars from the first film by an athletic man in a suit. She then gets the opportunity to bond with some awesome space marines in a quest to wipe out the aliens for good after they’ve made a mess of a Pinewood Studios set. She acquires a foster daughter in Newt and does battle with the alien queen at the end – metal against flesh, mum against mum.

Alien 3 doesn’t compare. Ripley crash lands on a planet whose only inhabitants are prisoners. An Alien is born from livestock, and goes on a killing spree. It can’t kill Ripley because she herself is carrying an alien queen, though how the alien is aware of this is anyone’s guess. Apparently for the sake of convenience it’s been given x-ray vision. So the protagonist cannot be harmed by the antagonist in any way. Now, excuse me whilst I sit on the edge of my fucking seat through all this narrative tension.

2. Characters

Aliens has a list of unforgettable, richly scripted characters. They all drive the narrative and drama in certain ways and elicit the appropriate emotional responses from the audience. We want Ripley to conquer her demons and save her ‘daughter’. We want Hicks to survive because he’s a generally all round good egg. We want Burke’s throat to be ripped open by a xenomorph, because he’s a greedy, slimey corporate highflying fuckhole. The deaths that happen are iconic and meaningful, and so is the chemistry between characters.

Alien 3 fails almost immediately by having only a single sympathetic character other than Ripley in the entire film, and even he becomes wormfood fairly early on. The rest of the characters are dangerous criminals, exhiled from civilization and adequate dentistry, for example murderers, rapists and the like. Having them confront the alien leaves no room for suspense or hope – we don’t give two fucks if they survive or not because they’re the worst collection of subhuman scum committed to film. Even the authority figures are annoying, one being the arsehole PE teacher from Kes for example. They’re also almost entirely British. Why are the arse-kicking marines in Aliens essentially all-American archetypes, whilst the rotten, ugly prisoners in Alien 3 are from Blighty? Does no other nationality in the galaxy commit horrible crimes? Fuck off.

3. Technology

Aliens had all manner of awesome life-ending gear, plus spaceships, powerloaders, motion sensors, web cams and a commendable pimped up limousine. These still look great even today. Entire films now use the CCTV/reality TV gimick to exist, whereas Aliens innovatively used it in just one gripping, story-changing sequence when the marines first encounter the Viet Cong and get their arses quite convincingly handed to them.

What does Alien 3 have, apart from a sprinkler system and doors that lock? Fuck all. Not even one gun. Brilliant.

4. Action

This pretty much speaks for itself. Aliens is so packed full of action that you almost forget set-pieces. But the key thing is it’s never meaningless – it all drives the narrative and develops the characters. Each encounter makes Hudson more unhinged until he meets his legendary demise, for example, whilst Ripley only gets stronger and more determined. The final bout between Ripley and the alien queen is dramatic because the script makes it personal, like two old slappers having a scrap outside a Whetherspoon’s in Sheffield. Ripley is also confronting what could be the root cause of her nightmares in the first place.

In Alien 3 there’s only one alien, and no weaponry; all that’s on offer is a lot of running through grim corridors, opening and shutting doors, until they’re in a position to offer their guest a very inconsistent shower to end its short life.

Sequels are supposed to turn the action up to 11. There should be more deaths, bigger sequences, better effects, new enemies and characters etc. that give the audience something more for their money. They shouldn’t take everything further back than even the fucking original movie.

5. Set Design

I love a good set, and Aliens is full of them. Every scene gives the audience something neat to look at. The space station where the marines awake from a long afternoon nap, the colony rooms and corridors, the laboratory, the alien lair, I could go on.

Alien 3, on the other hand, offers nothing. In fact what it offers is worse than nothing. It could have been decent, a hi-tech super prison perhaps with some decent weaponry and futuristic ideas on keeping a population of near animals in line. But no, that would have required too much effort. Instead we get a generic, bland, boring, depressing iron works, with every room and corridor resembling the same bland shit. It’s about as easy on the eye as that little woman/eunuk creature from The Krankies. It’s also poorly lit, as are all David Fincher flicks, and whilst that style does lend itself to gritty, noir-like psychological thrillers, it does little for big concept science fiction.

6. Special Effects

The effects in Aliens were cutting edge in 1986 and still hold up very well today. Cameron knew where the limitations were and shot and edited accordingly. The result is a seamless blend of live action, make-up, costumes, puppets, models and CGI work, a veritable wank for the eyes if ever there was one. Combining this spectacle with the dynamite story and script made Aliens unbeatable. Every scene is fucking gold.

Clean up on aisle 4 lol

Alien 3 didn’t offer much scope for effects, and those it did depict were substandard. A really ropey, poorly animated and crap-looking alien running around hardly compares to the might of the alien queen, which required the population of Basingstoke to operate. Technically, the CGI was more advanced than in Aliens, but it doesn’t stand up even for a second in the present day.

Conclusion

Alien 3 isn’t necessariy a terrible film in its own right, but it is the worst sequel ever made. It removed tension, narrative, spectacle, action and design and inserted some crap computer graphics as a compensation. It was like someone puking up a slap-up three course meal from a Gordon Ramsey restaurant and offering the bile in a cereal bowl to a dinner party guest. Above all else, the film was just a bore.

I do have hope though that a half decent sequel or prequel will get made, advancing the alien mythology in a good way and giving the audience something unique and entertaining at the same time to enjoy.

Amadeus (1984)

Two effeminate men try to out-do one another in the production of annoying music to appease Ferris Bueller nemesis.

5/5

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Christ-like salad dressing CEO demonstrates little willpower for curbing dairy consumption.

4/5

The Long Good Friday (1980)

Violent barrow-boy types looking for bombers show loyalty to crime manager by working on bank holiday.

4/5

Brief Encounter (1945)

Miseryguts recounts interim snogfests with English 40s gent type, as Casablanca collides with the Piccadilly line.

5/5

Schindler’s List (1993)

Factory general manager struggles to meet production targets due to particularly strong union interference.

5/5

Oh no! JLS’ Marvin oversleeps and misses group workout

By Slick Nick

Chaos descended upon the JLS camp yesterday morning as lead singer Marvin Humes failed to turn up for a pre-planned group gym workout.

The session was due to take place at 8am at an LA Fitness in central London, which also sells an impressive range of protein bars.

It was later revealed that Humes, 36, had overslept.

It is unknown at this time whether he slept in on purpose, or whether an alarm clock had malfunctioned.

An anonymous source stated that JLS management had recently struggled to curb Humes’ addiction to late-night reality TV cop shows and that this may have been a contributing factor to his lethargy.

The group are expected to exercise daily in a punishing regime that includes two hours of cardio, one hour of weights, one hour of core and half an hour of stretching. The rest of the day is spent in dance rehearsals, with eleven minutes before bedtime devoted to song writing.

Manager Louis Walsh was reportedly ‘a bit annoyed’ at Marvin’s behaviour and is expected to make him train twice as hard tomorrow.

He said: ‘If Marvin can’t train his lean, rippling physique as part of a team, I’m sure I could find a way for him to burn some calories together in my Dublin castle. Mmmm.’

 

JLS’ current obligatory-slow-one-after-continuous-dance-anthems single is out now and available from all good petrol stations.

 

The Worst Albums Ever Made – ‘Mechanical Animals’ (1998) by Marilyn Manson

By Slick Nick

During the 90s, if you bought even one copy of Kerrang! magazine, you couldn’t help but be exposed to the monstrosity that was Marilyn Manson, who came to represent everything that could possibly go wrong when a bunch of lads entered a recording studio. They were everywhere, and the release of each new album was treated, ironically given their Satanist leanings, like the second coming of Christ himself by the press.

Manson, real name Brian Warner, was the very definition of style-over-substance, where looking like a dick and saying silly things in interviews could generate a shit ton of record sales even if the music on those records was as bad as that of ‘Mechanical Animals’, his third album.

With a lead singer that relied almost solely on image, and a group of cohorts all named after serial killers, it just screamed of childish attention seeking from the get-go, as if they knew they were never going to write any music that was worth listening to but couldn’t bare the thought of making the coffee in an office for the rest of their lives.

Growing up, a few things puzzled me about this band. Obviously the music had zero merit; it wasn’t particularly heavy, and there certainly wasn’t any melodies to remember . There was no sex appeal unless you happened to have a fetish for very ugly, under fed men. The instrumentation was basic and would never be admired by proggy muso types in the same way that something like Tool would have been. Yet the group’s army of misguided fans kept growing. Despite all their controversy, musically they had more in common with T Rex than Slayer, and the only shocking effect they had on the impressionable youth of the day was postponing their discovery of decent music for a few years. For myself, that band/act was Rod Stewart, but I digress slightly.

‘Mechanical Animals’ is an hour of inconsistent, incoherent balls. Every song starts and ends with noise, and inbetween fails to satisfy in every way. The vocals are the same monotonous, crap-sounding dirge, underpinned by sometimes glam/sometimes industrial but always dull nothingness. It’s so fucking slow and drawn-out as well, with each song about two minutes longer than necessary. Lead single ‘Dope Show’ is a particularly big offender; less music, more torture.

There are fleeting moments of listenable guitar work but these are over quickly to make way for more rubbish. It must have been frustrating having to make this album as a guitarist with someone as up themselves as Manson at the helm of the operation. I’m sure they consoled themselves with the buckets of money they made though.

Finally, the genre-skipping really winds me up. This can’t make up its mind as to whether it wants to wank over David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust material or be featured in a straight to DVD film in a scene where a load of douchebag characters enter an ‘alternative’ nightclub for the first time in their lives. If you’re going to dip into every genre found on allmusic.com then before you do so, you’d better make sure you’re some kind of fucking musical prodigy like Brian Wilson or Will.I.Am first, lest you end up with a piece of shit like ‘Mechanical Animals’ on your CV.

 

We’re all slaves in the… crap music show.

CV Tip #58 (Obesity)

Whilst it may seem like a good idea at the time, an email address like a variation of more_massive@… should be avoided on all job applications because it will do fuck all to sell yourself to the recruiter.

CV Tip #4 (Nerdling)

It’s probably not a good idea to describe your offspring as ‘two human wrecking balls’ on a CV.

Chances are one of them won’t be.

CV Tip #19 (Life in the fast lane)

Avoid abreviating words on your CV, for example converting the word ‘years’ to ‘yrs’, because it is bloody annoying to have to read from a recruiter’s point of view.

Do you really lead such a fast-paced, hectic life that you don’t have the time to type two extra fucking buttons on a computer?

CV Tip #50 (G & T)

Don’t write ‘easily sociable’ under the skills section of your CV.

Is it really a fucking skill to not turn down offers of going out for a couple of gin & tonics?

CV Tip #75 (Amy Childs)

There is never a requirement to write your fucking wife’s name on a CV.

If she isn’t a cast member of The Only Way Is Essex, the employer probably won’t be too bothered.

REVEALED: How Olly Murs ran out of toilet roll just hours before morning wank

By Slick Nick

Pop star Olly Murs was unable to masturbate according to his normal morning ritual today after finding himself without an adequate amount of bedside toilet roll needed to capture and dispose of the ejaculate.

The X Factor reject and current chart flop, 33, usually begins each day with a five minute wank with the aid of a toilet roll kept in his bedside cabinet.

It is thought that the air in the cockney’s bedroom being festuned with Old Spice the night before caused a sneezing fit, which required the use of the final few sheets of the Andrex toilet tissue.

He said: ‘It was a nightmare. Even though I was fully erect and good to go, I had to get out of my nice warm bed and go to the bathroom to get a new roll of toilet paper.’

‘By the way, would you like to buy some fruit and vegetables? We can probably come to an arrangement on some sort of bulk purchase.’

Syco management have confirmed that Mr Murs will now store several toilet rolls under his bed to prevent this kind of disaster happening again.

The album Olly Murs is out now and can be found playing at most ironic social gatherings of twenty-something music snobs.

Wanker?

The Worst Albums Ever Made – ‘Adema’ (2001) by Adema

By Slick Nick

Adema – a word I never thought I’d see again. Still, that’s what this feature is about in a way – digging up long-forgotten shit from the past. And believe me, this is shit.

I suppose in hindsight, Adema serve a small purpose in 2011. People often disagree with me when I suggest that the noughties were generally the worst decade for music since the 1940s. They will claim metal in general, bands like Against Me! and Gaslight Anthem breaking big and the charts never looking better as reasons to cherish the past decade’s recorded output. Next time that happens, I can calmly sit down, load up Spotify and type ‘Adema’ in the search bar. “Come, my friend. Have a seat,” I’ll tell them. “I don’t feel the need to offer this debate anything more than for twelve tracks.”

It would be a feat of inhuman ability for Adema to have been even worse than they were on this self-titled debut, probably only released given the singer was the half brother of Jonathan Davies, vocalist of fellow Californian highschool bully victims Korn. Whilst that latter band had some nice ideas, occasionally effective riffing and rare hooks, Adema had precisely nothing to offer rock music in the slightest, save for a cute frontman. It’s worth noting that the brothers were as equally annoying to listen to on record though.

The Adema song-writing process was a straight forward one – you lay down some terrible guitar parts, execute a couple of forgettable verses and choruses and then go into a middle eight perpetuated by an array of silly effects pedals. The lyrics in particular, after some brief analysis, are dreadful to the point of being a near parody of shitty radio rock. This nugget of poetry from the song ‘Close Friend’ illustrates my point: ‘And now I know because you’ve done everything possible to me / Made me so upset.’ Upset? On a so-called alternative rock album? Even a monumental pussy like Bruno Mars would never write anything so pathetic.

The singing from Mark Chavez is appalling. Frankie Valli he ain’t. If your band can’t nail any semblance of a passable guitar riff, you’d better be sure as fuck that you have an arsenal of immaculately-executed hook-ridden melodies to bestow upon the record-buying public to compensate. Instead, almost every song uses the same tuneless melody, whined by a singer doing a mediocre Korn impression. Combining these factors with the clumsy lyrics and ‘Adema’ makes for one hell of a punishing listening experience.

There are clips on YouTube of the band performing these crap songs live and unplugged. This was an interesting idea – if the songs and singing are awful on record, even with all the modern studio effects and trickery, what on earth was there to gain in filming even more poorly executed versions of these godforsaken tracks? It was just one in a catalogue of poor decisions made in Adema’s career, a catalogue that began with the decision to give them a fucking record deal in the first place.

There were two singles from this piece of dog shit – ‘Giving In’ and ‘The Way You Like It’. In closing, the video for the latter made the least sense. This album is full to bursting point with lunk-headed self pity and despair. Then along comes a video showing the lead singer dancing with a decent bit of skirt at one of Adema’s very own shows. Apart from the obvious self-indulgence, two very different demographics of American teenagers appear to be targetted in the band’s marketing strategy. On the one hand, the clean-cut douchebag, and on the other, unpopular grunge rocker types. This just doesn’t work. Until kids ‘find’ themselves, there are firm boundaries in a social sense that teens stick to, and that music marketing should adhere to. You’re either a confident sportsman that gets to fuck cheerleaders at keg parties, or you listen to Marilyn Manson and cut yourself. The two should not be blurred or combined within music. Ever.

 

Nowadays no one remembers when they were young and made shit music

 

Blue City (1986)

Bratpacker stretches audience sympathies to breaking point after committing ABH, arson, common assault, use of an unlicensed firearm in public, vandalism, theft, breaking & entering and murder in the space of eighty minutes.

1/5