People I Don't Know Are Trying to Annoy Me

[23 Daves]

It's seldom I come across something that's so saccharine, so awful, so cliched in its delivery that I think it either has to be a parody or else an incredibly bad joke... but, of course, it's happened twice in the last two days.  First with Peter "Sage", and now with this heap of shit:

http://www.peoplearetryingtokillme.com/

It's the new project from music journalist Neil McCormick, a half-hearted song with atrocious lyrics combined with a tasteful film where various ethnic minorities mime along.  Bono said "it simply has to be heard".

Now, not only do I find this so objectionally bad I can't believe anyone would wish to release it, I also find it distasteful in its sappiness.  As a reaction to recent events it's obviously ineffectual, but it's also melodramatic and completely not in keeping with the mood of most people I know.  "I live in a world where people I don't know are trying to kill me" indeed - well, as one wise person has already pointed out, there are certainly more people in that category now than there ever were before.

What is it about terrorism or other tragedies that brings out this kind of greeting card, Sindy-doll pity amongst the public?  Why is it necessary?  Why must grief for these events always be gaudy, ill thought out, badly presented and clearly rushed?  Is that really showing events the respect they're due, or is it actually being distasteful and gratuitous?

[clareQuilty]

Remember the Dunblane version of 'knocking on heavens door'?  This sort of thing isn't really that surprising, but like Mike Reids tsunami song it probably won't do very well.
I think the opening lines from that song work well delivered in the style of Malcolm McDowell in 'A Clockwork Orange'.

[Jemble Fred]

People I Don't Know Are Trying to Annoy Me

Internet forums in a nutshell.

[Mildly Diverting]

I can't even bear to listen to it. He's been writing about his quest to get it available for download in The Telegraph for a fortnight. It's excrutiating to read. To sum up his hundreds and hundreds of words of self-gratifying nonsense : "My mate Bono thinks it will change people's lives but no-one else seems to understand and it's all really hard, 'cos I've got to work as well as attempt to release a charity record which I will never use as an excuse to try to launch a pathetic attempt at pop stardom even though I'm basically a middle aged hack. Oh no."

Tosser.

[Gazeuse]

hehe...He's used 'Thee' because it rhymes with 'me'!!!

[Slackboy]

I remember hearing a conspriacy theory that anti-virus software companies were the main people who created and released new viruses onto the internet so that they could make money by coming up with the cures.

I think that modern comedians are doing the same thing by secretly creating straight-faced stuff like this so that they can then parody it later, and be seen to have some kind of use to society. Either that or there are enough idiots out there who think that something like that is actually going to work.

[Mildly Diverting]

I'm sorry to harp on, but I really think others need to be made aware of the delusions of this man :

The clock is ticking. I still don't know if my single People I Don't Know Are Trying to Kill Me will be available to download on Monday, but it is starting to build what I hope will be an irresistible momentum.


'Music can engage with something that has left us feeling powerless'

Written as a reaction to the London bombings, as I reported on Tuesday, the song was demoed, recorded, mixed and mastered in a week. It received its first radio play on BBC London in the wee small hours of Wednesday morning, with your increasingly bedraggled and bewildered correspondent sitting opposite DJ Wendy Douglas, wondering what I had got myself into.

I had spent a day shooting a video in six London locations (with ordinary Londoners delivering lines of the song, as if the city itself were challenging its attackers), while fielding phone calls from news stations and breaking off to attend meetings with record company and internet representatives.

Last week I was told it was impossible to make a single available online so quickly. By Monday that had become "unlikely". The last I heard, the head of iTunes Europe said, "We are going to do everything in our power to do the right thing by this record."

It has been a steep learning curve, and perhaps one that all rock critics might benefit from. I have always been slightly mocking when pop stars complain about their over-scheduled lives, yet I have barely paused for breath in the past week, with Endeavour records promising (or threatening) that things are going to get busier by the day.

Guitar in one hand, mobile phone in the other, I am bouncing from breakfast television to late-night radio and all media stops between.

And, unlike most pop stars, I don't have an army of assistants at my beck and call (after two nights without sleep, I am starting to feel the same way as Mariah Carey about the importance of hair and make-up), I still have my day job as the Telegraph's rock critic to worry about, and a 21-month-old toddler to look after who just doesn't seem to understand when I ask him to pipe down because the head of Universal is on the phone.

Finn has been going everywhere with me, since our childcare arrangements were not set up with a recording career in mind. He was in the sound booth while I put down my vocal, helpfully interjecting during the line "Mothers and children weep to shame thee" (to the despair of my producer). He proved slightly more useful during a meeting with internet marketing company Green Room Digital.

I introduced him as my manager and he duly sat at the boardroom table and stared people in the eye with the solemn intensity that only an infant can muster. I think he made everybody slightly nervous, which is, after all, part of a manager's job.

But the music business is rallying around. The idea of releasing a single as a rapid reaction to the terrorist atrocity seems to have seized people's imaginations. It creates a sense that music can actively engage with something that has perhaps left most of us feeling powerless.

And that is what this is really about. Profits from the release of this single will go to charity. The Mayor's office has been asking if we want to become part of their London United campaign.

We have been talking to the Red Cross and the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund, who will be happy to accept our donation. But while every copy of this single sold will raise money for victims and their families, that is not its primary purpose. The song is an emotional response to the bombings, an expression of outrage and sorrow, a plea for understanding, and I think that is an area where music has true power.

Perhaps Bono put it best. It doesn't exactly hurt your cause when the world's biggest rock star offers unqualified support and I know he has been putting in calls in the background, helping this venture move along.

"I love this song," he said. "It does what songs are supposed to - it expresses something that is in the air that people can't quite articulate."

I also suspect he has named his child after Neil Finn. I rest my case.

[Banana Woofwoof]

His mobile number is on the site, interesting...

[Jemble Fred]

Can you do a Bono impression?

[Banana Woofwoof]

And after reading that article, hang on...

YOU EGOTISTICAL SELF PUBLICISING LITTLE FUCKING CUNT OH I WANTED TO BE A ROCK STAR I DID MUMMY CAN I BE A FUCKING ROCK STAR DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!

Cunt.

Wait, no..

Thou is a cunt.  Haha.  Thee rhymes with me.  CUNT.

[Banana Woofwoof]

Can you do a Bono impression?

You know, I can...

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

It's a Gary Jules' Mad World for the 90s.

[Jemble Fred]

Every time you mock him, you put a smile on the face of Allah.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Shall we release an answer-single under the name of 'The Terrorists', or maybe 'Bono featuring the Walking Wounded'?  We could call it 'I Got the Allah Akhbar Blues' or something.

[Jemble Fred]

I think Cat Stevens is already working on it.

Because, you know, he's one of those muslins. Which means he KILLS.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

See, this is why so many comedians do monkey-whimsy these days, and why so many pop stars do 'music for girls to dance to' - cunts like this guy have given political/angry material a bad name.

[23 Daves]

I had my suspicions after I heard his lyrics mentioning the fact that showing terrorists pictures of his baby might solve the problem, but having read that article I now know it for sure... he really is one of those twee parents, isn't he?  You know, the kind who won't stop banging on about their offspring's toilet habits when you come round to dinner, as if nothing else in the world is of more importance than the unspecial little brat they've spawned.  I'll bet he expects the record company execs to coo and ahh when he brings the kid into meetings as well.

If this single is a hit, there will be a follow up with the lyrics "The children are our future" in it somewhere, of that you can be sure.

[m...wW(wwMww)Ww...m]

Wow, that's some of the most indifferent lip-synching I have ever seen (outside of the Karma Police video).


And he could at least be consistent and use "thy" instead of "your".

[Rev]

Heh, you're not kidding.  I get the distinct impression that the guy miming the second like would like to distance himself from the whole project.

[Johnny Yesno]

I think Cat Stevens is already working on it.

Because, you know, he's one of those muslins. Which means he KILLS.

And any other muslins that release an answer-single after that will be Copycat Stevenses, of course...

[Labian Quest]

People I don't know are trying to mime to my record.

[Johnny Yesno]

Urgh! I've just watched that vid and now I feel sick. "Will Allah or Jesus claim me?" - you wouldn't let it lie, would you Neil? You wouldn't let it lie.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

He sounds like Tony Hadley, except he can't hit the notes. 'Are tryna kill mee-eeeee-eeeeee...'

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

It sounds like The Beautiful South without the humour.

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

According to this fortnight's Private Eye, he's managed to sell a massive 8 copies of this track in one week, despite three full length plugs in the Telegraph!

[23 Daves]

According to this fortnight's Private Eye, he's managed to sell a massive 8 copies of this track in one week, despite three full length plugs in the Telegraph!

That would mean that even members of his family couldn't be bothered buying it. You know then that it's time to give up....

Seriously, though, has it already been out a week? It hasn't come within sniffing distance of the top 75 if so, so I suppose I should have guessed that it's done abnormally badly for such a high profile release.  Mind you, it's no more or less than it deserves.

[The Mumbler]

Do Telegraph readers buy that many singles?   I find the prospect unlikely.

[terminallyrelaxed]

Is it high profile? The Telegraph, that champion of musical trailblazing?

I just sat through the video. He should be airing that in America, they'd fucking lap it up.

[Banana Woofwoof]

He shouldn't have put the music and video on the site- why would you buy that after hearing it?

Awwwww, how much measly pounds has it raised for the charity he used as an excuse to play rock star?  A lot less than it cost to record, I bet.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Did the sales disappoint thee?