Milk (2008)

Playful rat face stands up for rights to enjoy anal sex without suffering police brutality in postcard location.

3/5

Escape From New York (1981)

Dead-looking auteur depicts ECW prototype in lethargically managed prison town.

3/5

Airplane! (1980 dir. Jim Abrahams & David Zucker)

Clever character names and racism provide chuckles aboard dangerously catered flight.

3/5

The Firm (2009)

Like Goodfellas with colourful sportswear and street brawls, minus 90% of the wealth.

3/5

‘They look like popstars’: Louis Walsh sees musical potential in unselected females from Take Me Out

By Slick Nick

Irish pensioner Louis Walsh, famed for his perenial role as Simon Cowell’s verbal sparring partner on the X Factor, has expressed interest in getting a selection of girls together for a brand new, cutting edge pop group. Hardly breaking news, you may think, but this time the girls all have a very distinctive thing in common – they have all not been selected for sexual intercourse after appearing on ITV’s Saturday night meat market Take Me Out.

The show, largely considered to be the Blind Date of the iPad generation, features a plethora of single women all desperate to share the DNA of largely unemployable male twenty-somethings. Those that are selected are whisked away on a luxurious break to enjoy a slightly awkward dinner date with their suitor, and those that are not remain on the show seemingly for all eternity.

'Tell Uncle Paddy... what sort of guy would get to deposit semen inside you?'

Music manager Walsh, 78, has surprisingly confirmed that appearing on a primetime ITV reality TV show for several weeks in a row is more than enough to warrant a record deal. The girls that have been on the program for the longest consequitve amount of time will be given singing, dancing and sandwich-making lessons, as well as studio time with top music producers.

He said: ‘I know these girls have got what it takes to make it big in the music industry. They’ve been shown on television for weeks on end.’

‘Everyone will want to hear the songs they have written together. And by ‘written together’, I mean songs my minions have carefully selected for them to attempt to sing in a recording studio armed with all the latest technology that can make anyone sound half decent on the radio.’

Girls like Lucy Evans, 29, from Wales, are prime targets for the music mogul. Pictured below with what is thought to be a masturbation aid, the marine biologist had appeared on the show a record 237 consequtive weeks since the first episode aired in 2003.

Walsh continued: ‘We’ve got some really good ideas for the band name floating around my Dublin castle.’

‘How about The Unfuckables? It’s a little riff on the movie The Untouchables you see. That one didn’t just come overnight, I can tell you.’

The single is expected to be released in the early part of 2012 after a launch party at the Leatherhead branch of WH Smiths.

Nickelback are the greatest band of all time

By Slick Nick

It really bothers me when so many crap bands get all the attention, acclaim and interest from the general public whilst the most important visionaries often get overlooked. Nickelback, a band I rarely go a day without listening to at least once, sadly fall into the latter category. I want to change this and open minds (and ears!) to the glorious majesty of Nickelback’s recorded output and highlight some of their more significant career moments.

Debut album ‘Curb’ starts rock ‘n’ roll

Many bands had attempted to play in a musical style that we now know as rock ‘n’ roll, but Nickelback were the first group to put electric guitars, bass guitars and drums together all at the same time in a recording studio. This revelation in 1996 left the world with the album ‘Curb’, a record years ahead of its time, almost too far ahead of its time. Though largley dismissed as ‘crap’ upon release, the album quickly developed a cult following and would go on to influence the likes of Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Slayer, Black Flag and Enya. Led Zeppelin in particular would highlight the album’s heavy blues-based riffing as a major inspiration.

Frontman Chad Kroeger turns out to be Jesus Christ

Whilst crafting the follow-up album to ‘Curb’, Mr Kroeger went on record in a number of magazine and television interviews to confirm that he was in fact the reincarnation of popular Christian figurehead Jesus of Nazareth. Though these claims were unsubstantiated at the time, eventually someone came forward with an artist’s impression of the original Christ in a children’s Sunday School pamphlet. Upon comparing this document with an image of Kroger in Metal Hammer magazine, the likenesses were deemed too similar for the story to not be 100% true. With such a significant figure in western civilisation at the helm, there was now no stopping Nickelback from achieving their first hit single.

‘Leader Of Men’ tops charts in all Christian nations for 2 years

With the power of a Demigod coarsing through his veins, Kroeger was able to craft the group’s first of many super smash hit singles. ‘Leader Of Men’ from legendary album ‘The State’ topped the charts in every western country for two years straight, a record that remains unbroken to this day. Manufacturers could barely keep up with the demand, forcing label Roadrunner Records to move production to a gigantic Chinese labour camp. At least seven deaths are known to have occurred there amongst staff quite literally worked until their last breath to cope with the ever increasing record sales.

Pictured below is a queue  of Nickelback fanatics outside Oxford Street’s HMV store, 68 weeks after the single’s initial release. Scientists even made the discovery of a copy of ‘Leader Of Men’ (albeit in an unlistenable condition) amongst the property of an Amazonian tribe thought to be completely untouched by civilization.

The song ‘Never Again’ ends all domestic abuse and wins Nobel Peace Prize

The classic album ‘Silver Side Up’ was notable for being a music scholar’s dream, effectively a rich tapestry of musical ingenuity, creativity, originality and feeling. Opening single ‘Never Again’, though lyrically drenched in metaphor, still delivered the message that the world (apart from Scotland) could relate to; that hitting women square in the face is a pretty bad thing to do.

The song tells the story of an abused wife from her son’s point of view. Kroeger compares the living room to a ‘boxing ring’, poignantly reminding the listener that punches also get thrown in said ring. The antagonist is then berrated by the singer, underpinning a stunning middle eight. From that point onwards, no women were ever beaten to a pulp by their male fuck partners ever again.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the band in a two-hour ceremony three minutes after the single’s release, culminating in the trophy itself being passed to the eager hands of Kroeger by Frank Bruno.

Dark Horse album recorded in a single take

Finally, the most recent page of musical history written by Nickelback came with the ironically-titled 2008 album ‘Dark Horse’, a record notable not only for its stellar song-writing, but also the manner in which it was made. Broadcast on the internet for the world to see, Nickelback laid every track down in order in a single take, making no mistakes whatsoever. Absolutely no over-dubbing or other studio trickery was used. The songs went into the pressing plant the very next day. Fans were left with what was essentially a live album that sounded just as over-produced and watered down for the radio as anything else in the charts with a guitar.

So what next for the band that has apparently done it all? The plethora of unauthorized Kroeger biographies are keen to speculate, however I am content to remain patient with the music I have of theirs knowing that whatever comes next will undoubtedly be life-affirming and massively superior to anything else around.

How could it not be, considering Nickelback are without a doubt the greatest band to ever set foot in a recording studio?

A Few Good Men (1992)

Amateurish military lawyer struggles to get proper baseball game started whilst defending two US army cliches in beautiful court room.

3/5

Psycho (1998)

Film studio actively encourages blatant plagarism.

2/5

Double Impact (1991)

In a seemingly advanced future, handguns don’t need re-loading and Belgian twins communicate without proper eye contact.

2/5

The Happening (2008)

Civilization, and career of long surnamed movie maker, face annihilation due to windy grass.

2/5

Requiem For A Dream (2000)

Feature-length 24 episode, minus terrorism, introduces arse fucking innovation and gangrene to Weight Watchers dystopia.

4/5

Katie Price seeks low quality sperm from donorship to avoid relationship hassle

By Slick Nick

After another disasterous relationship, model Katie Price has decided she has had enough of men for good… almost.

The 48 year old pair of tits has registered at an exclusive sperm bank in London’s West End in order to choose a low quality suitor without needing to go through the rigmarole of a heavily-publicised relationship. The story came to revelation after a special appearance on the BBC’s Panorama, pictured below, in which Price gave an exclusive 3-hour interview.

The bread-and-butter of Heat magazine’s editors has decided that enough is enough.

She said: ‘I am sick of sadsack types using me for one thing – furthering their own pathetic careers and making a small fortune along the way.’

‘I will be able to use the DNA of anonymous under-achievers without having to share a bathroom with them for eight months. I’m looking for donations from under-educated men in their thirties that haven’t done particularly well in their working lives.’

‘If they don’t have anything interesting to say either, then that’s a bonus.’

Recent squeeze Alex Reid struggled in his career as a cage fighter, losing approximately 638 bouts by knock-out in the space of 16 months. Before him, ex-husband singer/song-writer Peter Andre was entered into the Guinness Book of Records as having released some of the worst albums since mankind learnt to walk upright.

Proprietor of the Tadpoles 4 U semen donation center Richard Wilkes, 50, hopes that Miss Price’s association with the company will generate some extra funds.

He said: ‘Hopefully we’ll be able to invest in some better wank DVDs, starring Tera Patrick and Shy Love. The ones I get from the local newsagent are pretty ropey, and don’t have nearly the production values of a Vivid  Pictures release.’

 

The latest photograph of Miss Price’s teets can be found somewhere in any newsagent’s in the world ever.

 

The Worst Albums Ever Made – ‘The Black Parade’ (2006) by My Chemical Romance

By Slick Nick

If I want to listen to retro rock, I may delve into my immense iTunes library and put on a bit of Journey or Cheap Trick. If I want to hear a bit of generic pop-punk then Blink182, Midtown or Lit usually does the job. If I want to listen to some piano-driven pop that uses minor sevenths, some Paul McCartney hits the spot. Then, if I fancy hearing some terrible singing, I’ve been known to enter ‘X Factor shit auditions’ into YouTube’s search bar. Luckily, if I ever want to hear all that at once, I can turn to this 2006 release by My Chemical Romance, one of the worst ‘alternative’ bands to make it big in the noughties.

After starting their career as a pretty bog-standard pop-punk group with a slightly different sound to all the billions of Greenday/NFG clones, something triggered MCR to become ‘artists’ rather than ‘dudes prolonging the inevitable despair-ridden office-driven existence by being in a band’. They started pulling in a plethora of musical influences largely favoured amongst the Dad community, whilst still underpinning their music with the generic, twenty year old riffs that all their peers had been using all along.

‘The Black Parade‘ is supposedly a concept album about someone passing away due to cancer, which is enough to put me off even playing it in the first place to be honest. I’m pretty sure in modern times, naming something as a ‘concept album’ is simply a way to protect bad music from harsh critics, who wouldn’t understand what these artists set out to achieve.

Musically, it’s not too far off from the likes of Cheap Trick and Kiss, if the former forgot how to write good songs and the latter wrote even worse songs. There’s also some masturbation over the likes of Lennon and Bowie, which is to be expected, and at least the songs do have one consistent quality running through them in that they are all for the most part total dogshit, particularly the lead singles.

The music is generally staggeringly mediocre at best. It’s not that catchy, it’s not that heavy, it’s not that fast. It’s just there to bolster camp, shrieking monstrosity Gerard Way’s irritating-as-fuck vocals, whilst ripping off Queen‘s harmonic guitar sound. Chord changes can be predicted a mile away, which leaves the album as tedious as wading through a thread about Blade Runner on an internet forum, which is in itself only slightly more tedious than watching the actual film I might add.

Hit single ‘Welcome To The Black Parade‘ was notable only for the music video, which looked to have cost the GDP of Paraguay to make and saw the group dress up as the evil sports jocks from the first Karate Kid movie, an idea that will surely be regretted by everyone involved for the rest of their lives. It’s an interesting song which opens with a minute or so of this album’s few bars of tolerable music, before delving into the group’s roots with an interlude of shitty pop punk before building to an irritatingly over the top chorus seemingly hellbent on ripping off their own breakthrough hit ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’.

MCR rough up a fan for not paying for autograph backstage at the London Astoria in 2006

Other single ‘Teenagers’ is far worse; the kind of garbage you’d expect to be playing at the end of an Adam Sandler movie.

Aside from the music, one of the worst things about MCR is watching their press interviews. The band take themselves very seriously considering their childish, stage-school schtick, and hearing them dissect their own body of work and influences you’d think they’d just released the next fucking Sgt. Pepper or Nevermind. This behaviour, from a group that featured Lisa Minnelli on one of their songs, is fucking laughable.

 

We’ll caaaaaaarrrryyyyyy oooonnnn, we’ll wriiiiiiiiiiiiite shit sooooo-oooooongssssss.

 

CV Tip #18 (Oxford or Cambridge?)

It’s a joy to see the British educational system winning the fight against illiteracy and ignorance, equipping the iPad generation with the tools they need to keep this great nation at the forefront of global economics.

So this sort of sentence on a CV really fucks me off:

’4 G.C.S.E at grade D – E’

Fucking brilliant. You might as well state that you don’t have any intelligence whatsoever and that your entire school tenure was a waste of everyone’s time and money.

CV Tip #57 (Arse)

This closing line from a covering letter pretty much speaks for itself – one grammatical mistake and four spelling errors, including accidentally swearing, in two sentences:

‘I am competitive and determined to succeed in every cicumstance, I am just waiting to be given the opportuinity. Therfore I believe I could be a real asses to your company.’

How about being determined enough to write a fucking sentence correctly before you try and take over the world?

CV Tip #20 (Greatest fascist dictator)

In this day and age, being able to influence with the written and spoken word is a commendable string to your bow.

On the flipside, stating on a CV that you are ‘recognised for having powerful communication skills’ is a bit too much.

CV Tip #64 (The Shining)

When you’re writing a CV, bare in mind your own understanding of the language at hand, or at least get it checked afterwards by someone with a working brain.

Then you won’t have a line like this at the end of your CV: ‘My psychic and physical endurance is high.’

CV Tip #67 (Ta da!)

Always strive for a more professional email address than a variation of ITS_SHOWTIME@…

Is it showtime? Is it? Or will you just be hacking your way through cigarette butts and empty Big Mac cartons to get to the Job Center entrance on Monday morning like every other fucking week?

Government quango confirms Steve Brookstein’s popularity to be ‘equal to that of The Wurzels’

By Slick Nick

A new government body (which was promised By Nick Clegg to not be going ahead but exists anyway) determined to uncover the great mysteries of popular music has confirmed what many insiders had suspected for years – that Steve Brookstein’s popularity is equal to that of classic alternative rock act The Wurzels.

The frequent performer to half-empty coffee shops won the 27th series of the X Factor back in 2004 and enjoyed a week-long record deal before being dropped by Song BMG. It is now thought that the total amount of time spent listening to his music by the British public is exactly the same for the entire discography of Sommerset’s favourite sons.

The latter group shot to fame in 1976 with chart-topping hit single ‘The Combine Harvester‘. Their subsequent 43 albums largely covered themes such as cider, muck-spreading and incest, yet failed to enjoy a mainstream fanbase.

Brookstein, 63, pictured below in the backstage area at Ealing Broadway’s Starbucks last Thursday, was said to be pleased with the report’s findings, suggesting it may be one of his greatest musical achievements.

Will sing for a vanilla bullshit thing

He said: ‘Growing up, The Wurzels were probably the main inspiration for me becoming a musician. Their body of work spoke to me about the dark underbelly nestling within Britain’s rural villages, but I couldn’t help but sing along.’

‘All the people that laughed at me and called me a deadbeat, a loser, a bitter old man, a no-talent shitheel, a non-entity, a stain on the very fabric of popular culture, a cheeseball, a self-promoting has-been, a waste of space and complete and utter mindfuckingly rubbish can do one – I am now officially as popular as the Wurzels, and they are not.’

Steve Brookstein’s new self-released single ‘How to Make Friends and Irritate Tweeters’ is out now on stereo cassette and available from all good newsagents.

 

The Worst Albums Ever Made – ‘Doo-Wops & Hooligans’ (2010) by Bruno Mars

By Slick Nick

The first few months of a new year are usually trying times – it’s a struggle going back to work, the weather is shit, school kids are everywhere and Loose Women returns to television schedules. The early part of 2011 will always be remembered as a particularly frustrating period for me due to the compositions of Bruno Mars penetrating my daily morning and evening commutes like fucking wasp stings.

A poor man’s Michael Jackson, Mars shot to fame in 2010, largely for contributing bad ideas to already dreadful songs, like Travie McCoy’s mindfuckingly terrible  ‘Billionairre’, before ‘Doo-Wops & Hooligans’, his debut album, was released to almost total elation from music critics and fans of bad music alike. The problem was, no one knew they were actually listening to one of the worst albums ever made.

Modern pop isn’t really my critical forte. Having grown up on a diet of punk, hardcore, metal, surf and Abba, dissecting rubbish like this takes me out of my comfort zone a little bit. None the less, the two main singles irritated me enough to delve deeper into the Mars discography, which luckily begins and ends with these twelve songs.

This is fourty minutes or so of unimaginative, wishy-washy, forgettable pop. It is a collection of sadsack musings from a man that would have no shame in asking someone ‘why do you think girls don’t like me?’ and rest assured, it is just as annoying.

I will always remain stunned that lead single ‘Just The Way You Are‘ shifted so many units. A song that outstays its welcome after about 23 seconds and then builds to a punishing falsetto warble, it features ridiculously melodramatic lyrics that even fucking Celine Dion would probably be embarrased to sing. Follow-up ‘Grenade‘ is even worse, alluding to the act of suicide over a girl. By claiming to be able to catch a live hand grenade to protect the said girl, Mars also makes light of war and disrespects our boys in Afghanistan or where ever the hell else our forces are stuck these days. That’s just offensive.

I’d love to see this object of Mr Mars’ lyrics; to listen to him, you’d think the broad had been perfetly crafted by the very hands of God himself.

‘Our First Time’ is a tender, boring ode to a couple’s initial fuckfest. It’s little more than a demo, like someone trying out a new microphone for the first time.

Then, ‘Runaway Baby‘ ups the ante, offering a punchier, jive-inspired number. It fails immediately due to the previous few songs affirming Mars’ status as something of a despair-ridden pariah in the eyes of the opposte sex, and is thus as embarrassing as seeing your relatives dancing at a wedding.

‘The Lazy Song‘ has ‘hit single’ written all over it, which is a worry. Does the British youth of today really need any more inspiration to do nothing with their lives but listen to rap music and mate? The album’s lyrics reaches its peak of crapness on here though, as proven by this choice cut: ‘Tomorrow I’ll wake up do some P90x / Meet a really nice girl have some really nice sex / And she’s gonna scream out ‘this is great’ (Oh my God, this is great).’ Brilliant. Let’s all destroy every copy of Shakespeare’s complete works – we have a new literary genius to dissect for GCSE English classes now. Sadly, all this cut leaves the listener with is an image of Mr Mars quite literally laying around in bed within the throws of self gratification (wanking).

I have to admit that this album isn’t without its saving graces. ‘Count On Me’ is a pleasant, low-key effort just slightly undermined by childish lyrics, whilst ‘Liquor Store Blues’ has a thunderous raggae bass groove that can be felt as well as heard. It’s no Toots & The Maytals but it’s certainly listenable.

Finally, the album title is woefully misleading. I was hoping for some strong harmony work, maybe some retro acapella ideas and certainly at least one cover of ‘Blue Moon’ by the fucking Marcels. Sadly, there’s no actual doo-wop to be had here at all though.

 

I’d catch a grenade for you, then write a shit song for you.

CV Tip #6 (A world of shit)

Never claim that you ‘command a team of 5 people’.

This isn’t the fucking Vietnam war, after all.

CV Tip #8 (Take my wife… please)

Most employers won’t give two fucks about your wife. Therefore, avoid describing your civil status on a CV in quite as much detail as ‘married to a French lady called Evelyne.’

CV Tip #38 (M, GSOH, WLTM girlz now)

‘Single, male, student, living at home with parents.’

As impressive as these accolades are, try and avoid the temptation to open a fucking CV with that statement; none of it is particularly relevant.

CV Tip #89 (Give peace a chance)

Traditionally, the CV is a way to sell yourself to a company, to outline all your life’s work, relevant skills and impresisve experience that you’ve been fortunate enough to gain. A few bullet points on key achievements usually go down a treat as well, particularly in a recession where everyone and their mother are applying for the same fucking jobs.

This sort of sentence wouldn’t even be recommended, however, at the end of a CV, much less at the beginning:

‘I am inspired by my surroundings; by the appearance of the land, nature and objects upon it, of their various and changing forms, colours and textures.’

CV Tip #15 (Philanthropist)

If at any point in your life your CV contains the following sentence, make sure you kill yourself immediately:

‘Approaching people in the street to persuade them to support a charity.’