Ten Artists Who Should Back Off for 2013

In December, people will always be doing one of three things; they’ll either be doing Christmas, complaining that it’s colder than previous months (despite this phenomenon’s annual nature), or they’ll be listing things. Yes that’s right, people will list anything; films, TV shows, weddings, dogs, executions, and shoes; but it’s always the ‘top’ examples of these things. It’s almost like these people are happy and get pleasure out of focusing on the positives in life. To counter this, here are ten musicians took it too far in 2012, in no particular order;

 1) Chris Brown

I reckon that by the end of 2013, the market for women beaters singing about the intensity to which DJ’s turn up their music and the amount of attention their dance moves garner them will be so small that Brown will just dissolve into hell, where he will finally face Satan; his long-lost, less-evil brother.

 2) fun.

Not only did ‘We Are Young’ and those other two songs ultimately become offensive to the ears, but insisting on having a full stop at the end of your band name is exactly the sort of pretentious behaviour that will ultimately ruin everything. See also, Hard Fi’s album with “No Cover Art” on its sleeve and Deadmau5’s ‘> album title goes here <

3) Alex Clare

To be honest, it’s Microsoft’s fault for putting him on the advert for Internet Explorer, which I expect he proceeded to become more popular than. Along with Maverick Sabre, he holds the limp flag for faux-soul voiced singer-songwriters.

4) Nicki Minaj

Now, Minaj’s verse on Kanye West’s ‘Monster’ was great, ‘Super Bass’ was brilliant and I assume some of her earlier material, which I haven’t listened to, must have been good for her to have become so huge, so what’s going on now? I don’t think she has necessarily got worse, its just that the novelty wore off so quick, that the fact she seemed to appear in every single song this year made what initially seemed so exciting begin to seem weird and fake, like her ars… Never mind.

5) Emeli Sande

Did it not annoy anyone else that during the Olympics she was treated like Britain’s defining female artist, when all she seemed to have done was sing a bit on a Chipmunk track a couple of years ago and a chorus on a Professor Green song? Where was Adele? Also, why does ‘Read All About It’ have three parts? It was an OK song, until she milked it to the point where became a dusty, morose corpse of its former self.

6) Ed Sheeran

I’m not going to bore anyone with the variety of reasons for Ed Sheeran’s place on this list. Just see ‘Small Bump’ and his recent appearance on ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ for an adequate explanation.

7) Flo Rida

For me, the straw that broke the camel’s back was his arbitrary appearance on Olly Murs’ ‘Troublemaker’. Like Pitbull, Flo Rida seems to feature on every song currently being produced, despite seemingly adding nothing to the experience, like an appendix. Also, in the video for said song, he finally completed the transition from rapper to marketing tool as he appeared with a beach backdrop, two bikini clad women, and one of those bouncy cars in his, clearly phoned-in, segment of the song. It’s almost like he is the bland, transparent water that makes our music easier for Americans to swallow.

8) Rudimental

I have heard ‘Feel the Love’ so many times on the Radio, the TV, and in the deepest recesses of my subconscious, to which it has been permanently burnt, that he (they?) could release the new ‘Stairway To Heaven’ and I would still run crying to the nearest cliff.

9) Lana Del Rey

She isn’t bad by any means, she just isn’t good enough too justify her sense of entitlement. Del Rey came to the forefront with the mediocre ‘Video Games’, and suddenly she took it upon herself to become this high-budget Lady Gaga-esque figure, which makes her hard to like. At least Gaga has the balls to wear her diva sensibilities on her sleeve, Del Rey really seems to take herself seriously.

10) DJ Fresh

Re-releasing ‘Gold Dust’, the musical equivalent of scraping your fingers on a chalkboard, would be cruel in itself. Re-releasing ‘Gold Dust’ with added REGGAE is by far the worst thing music has done since Robbie Williams starting rapping.

So that’s my list, and I hope I haven’t offended anyone; each of the above have armies of fans and are far richer than me, so they shouldn’t take it to heart too much, really. I just want everyone to enjoy their lives again.