Lady Gaga – Bad Romance
It seems the Gaga may need a bit of a break. She's clearly being worked to the limit, and if the "ra-ra-ro-ga-ga" in the opening bars isn't a serious cry for help then I don't know what is. Not that you can blame the singer for wanting to capitalise on her golden moment in the spotlight, but her packed work schedule might explain why her latest assemblage of electro-beats and big, BIG chorus sounds like it was rushed off in about five minutes. In the hype that surrounded the release of the video – That hair! Those clothes! – it seems somebody forgot to mention that the song is pap.
Paramore – Brick By Boring Brick
Remember how utterly dreadful your adolescence was? Well, if you can't, Paramore are here to bring it all back home. How depressing. With it's tumbling drums, shrieking vocals and rousing "ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba" battlecry, Brick By Boring Brick is the emo-strewn noise of raging hormones imprisoned in cloying suburbia. It's a sound that speaks to 13-year-olds from Arkansas, but prompts anybody over 25 to ask: "Is this that Avril Lavigne?"
Erik Hassle – Hurtful
Swedish singer Erik Hassle sounds like a male version of Robyn. Were we blessed with the same reviewing skills as Raygun (remember them?), we might even go as far to say he sounds like "Basshunter and Mika in a lift". Of course, you may think you don't like this electro-pop ballad now (re-released this month after making the Swedish charts last year), but just wait till you're listening to it in the back of a cab after a late one. You'll be silently weeping at this homage to lost love.
Watch the video for Hurtful
Sting – Soul Cake
Far be it for me to speak ill of the dead, but this song was bad enough when Peter, Paul and Mary (RIP) recorded it in the 1960s. It's the kind of giddy hey-nonny-nonsense that gave folk music a bad name, so you can only imagine how dreadful it is now that Sting's got his hands on it. The Police singer lifts the melody and samples lyrics from the original for his own uniquely creepy-sounding version. And every time he sings "Soul cake" it's like fingernails being dragged down the blackboard that is your soul.
Flo Rida and Akon – Available
In a parallel universe, this hideous construction of chords and melody might actually pass for music. It's probably the same universe where lyrics such as "I ain't got no girlfriend ... let me put your number in my iPhone baby" pass for poetry. And in this horrendous alternative reality no art is considered as great as that touched by the producing hand of Will.I.Am (he pops up near the end for a bit of a boast). The only thing that's worse than this song is the accompanying video, which appears to have been filmed on a child's mobile phone.
