Because I'm Worthless

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them.

Everyone is justifiably annoyed at that idiotic Pepsi advert, when clearly the most effective way to advertise Pepsi would just be to say it's cheaper than Coke.

But when you live at the cinema like me, you see worse adverts than that every day. So here are three more shitverts - shampoo edition!

1.

The first shampoo with a brain. More than can be said for whoever came up with that.

2.  

Shoulders carry the promise of late nights you'll never forget. Catchy. They'll all be yelling that one in the playground.

3. 

An advert supposedly championing inclusivity and difference that exclusively features conventionally attractive people. Facile slogans about self-confidence do not change the fact that as a cosmetics company you're in the business of telling people to look better.

On that angry note, I'll leave you with a Jane's Addiction song about showering.

The Slogan

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them.

It's time for another month of awful adverts - terrible tagline edition!

1. 

Not only does this Coke advert feature the worst song ever recorded, it also includes one of the worst slogans: 'Taste The Feeling.' Gross. I think 'Tasty Feeling' would have made more sense.

2.

Speaking of not making sense, Stella Artois appear to have adopted the nonsense tagline: 'Be Legacy.' Even worse is the way alcohol adverts are now obsessed with telling us their founder's backstory, as though anyone cares about booze beyond: "Will it get me drunk or not?"

3.

This type of ironic voice-over does cause in me the kind of visceral reaction I associate with Subway, but I also think 'Keep Discovering' is a blatantly bad slogan for a sandwich shop. In fact it's probably the worst possible slogan for a sandwich shop, except maybe: 'Our sandwiches are full of blood.'

I'll leave you with Somewhere in the Between by Streetlight Manifesto, an album celebrating its 10th anniversary and still one of my favourites.

Fried Neckbones

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are five more of them.

I'm talking about adverts again. But aren't there worse things to be worrying about? Yes.

1. 

I'm no advertising expert, but I have seen every episode of Mad Men, and I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea to keep repeating that there are chicken beaks in your food. What I take away from that advert isn't the actor pretending to be a 'food quality inspector', but the thought that there are definitely 100% guaranteed chicken feet in McNuggets.

2.

Similarly, I'd avoid phrases like "We are thoughtless" or "We are cruel" when trying to make people trust me with their money. Just a thought.

3.

I couldn't find the particularly awful Dove advert I was looking for, but this one suggesting that you can shower in 13 seconds is either very stupid or aimed solely at Quicksilver from the X-Men.

4.

There's something not quite right about this one. I can't put my finger on it. Is it the eerie sci-fi music? The creepy whispered voice-over? Oh I know, it's because it's an advert about HEATING CHILDREN'S ARSES.

5.

And the award for the world's most cynical advert goes to Amazon Prime! Congratulations Amazon, you win a trophy full of sick.

Here's Santana.

It doesn't make any sense!

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is adverts that don't make any sense. 

No, we do not get dressed every day. We're not in the army.

No, we have not forgotten about TalkTalk's mass negligence. And no amount of pandering is going to trick us.

No, Adam and Toni are not taking part in a social experiment. They're taking part in an advert.

Here's Kyuss. 

Sick Sad Lidl World

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them.

This year, cinema adverts have been almost as bad as the films themselves. For example...

1. 

This one annoys me because he abandons his car in the middle of a traffic jam. Red Bull might give you wings but clearly not brains.

2. 

I think I remember going to that club when I was at uni.

3. 

Lidl are doing a series of passive-aggressive adverts in which fake customers pretend to voice concerns about the origin of the company's produce, only to have the supermarket wake them up at some ungodly hour, send them out to sea and confront them to prove a point. I'm trying to get involved:

I'm concerned about where @Lidl get their Panda Cola. I hope it's not from real pandas.

— Dan Meier (@MiniMeier) September 12, 2016

Here's Incubus.

Laughing Navy Types

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them.

I went to the cinema last night (Star Trek Beyond AKA Mission Impossible in space) and winced my way through another set of insipid adverts, three of which were...

1. 

To reiterate, this was before a Star Trek film. It doesn't exactly scream Starfleet.

2. 

Because nothing says sexy and sophisticated like Are You Being Served?

3.

#YouKnowItsSummerWhen McDonald's makes you feel sick outdoors.

Here's Donald Fagen:

Beer

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them.

I just went to the cinema (Elvis & Nixon - better than Batman v Superman) and accidentally sat through the adverts because TFL got me there on time, the bastards. These were 3 of the worst.

1. 

There were not 1 but 2 separate Coke adverts, in case there was any danger of going a whole day without seeing any Coca-Cola advertising. This one has something to do with football and intimidating night-time rallies. If my country ever does call, tell them I'm not home.

 2. 

All McDonald's adverts present a bizarre version of the "restaurant" that does not and has never existed. Personally speaking, I can't remember the last "good time" I had in a McDonald's... what year did they have Pocahontas toys in Happy Meals?

3.

If you're sick to death of twee fucking ads / and pray those smug arseholes are hit by a cab / or maybe dismembered by huger killer crabs... there's a beer for that.

Here's Reel Big Fish.

Plus Plus

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them. 

Adverts, that is.

1.

This bizarre corporate tie-in attempts to simultaneously advertise an airline and a horrible film, and fails drastically at both. Batman v Superman? Paint v the Drying Process.

2.

Now with added shitness. Call me cynical, but I don't want my bank being cute at me.

3.

There's something deeply depressing about this one. Maybe it's the awful advert music, or maybe it's the idea that we're doomed to live and die in cars like some wretched Ballardian nightmare.

Here's German funk band Poets of Rhythm!

Christmas Shopping at the All Night Garage

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them.

Once a year is way too frequent for Christmas. They should make it every four years, like the World Cup or leap years. It would make Christmas feel more special, make me feel less angry, and (most importantly) reduce the number of horrible Christmas adverts. Here are three more awful ads, and some of the questions they raise.

Motorbike?

"The unexpected bank"? Isn't being "unexpected" quite bad for a bank? Isn't that what caused all this financial mess?

Then why do they taste like that?

Here's Joe Cornish's All Night Garage from Adam & Joe's Song Wars!

Selling Silly Putty Door to Door

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them. They're adverts, naturally.

3.

There's nothing worse than a beloved movie character being used to sell car insurance. What next? Yoda selling phones?

2. 

 

A few questions...

• "I've witnessed moments which are beyond any descriptive power." But aren't you supposed to be a journalist?
• Why are you praising Ronald Reagan for money?
• What are you doing in a fucking glasses advert?

1. 

 

This belief-defying advert is the ickiest thing I've seen since that Republican presidential debate. Who makes Audi's adverts? David Cronenberg?

I'll leave you with one of my favourite songs, Wilt by Blind Melon. 

Price I Pay

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them. 

The worst thing about adverts is that they're everywhere. On the tube, at the cinema, during RuPaul's Drag Race... they're inescapable. Here are three more shitverts* (* thanks Charlie Brooker)

1. 

"You get what you pay for" is clearly a terrible slogan. It implies either high expense or low quality, neither of which you want associated with your product. Perhaps they realised, because the slogan has mysteriously disappeared from the advert...

2.

Lidl: it almost tastes the same as actual food! 

1.

Cortana: when Clean Bandit call, remind me to lie in front of a train.

Welcome to the Jungle

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them. 

Another month, another slew of unbearable adverts, each more cynical and saccharine than the last. For instance:

3. 

How's this for a true story that hasn't happened yet - I go to the house of that bastard woman dressed as a dinosaur and traumatise her arsehole child. Bring back Anthony Head!

2.

An unlistenable, anodyne cover of a rock song. How original. 

1. 

The idea that banks are our friends, or part of the community, or remotely interested in bringing people closer is one of the most cynical advertising ploys of the last few years. Besides, it's an ugly fucking scarf.

Everybody's Got A Thing

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is advert music.

Believe it or not, the worst thing about adverts isn't the nauseating sentimentality. Nor is it banks pretending to be our friends. It isn't even the exploitation of human tragedy for corporate gain. The worst thing about adverts, it turns out, is the music. Here are three examples:

1. 

This VW ad embodies everything that's wrong with adverts; it's twee, it makes no sense (Woofwagen??) and it features the worst song ever written. Never before have I felt such a strong urge to beat a singing man to death with his own guitar. Me and you, just bleeding from the brain / me and you in agonising pain.

2. 

Here's my impression of a lazy advertising person: "Let's just use another soulless cover of a recognisable song *snort*." Speaking of cocaine, it's hard to miss the point of Kiss. Smirnoff, however, have managed to do so in spectacular fashion, with this hopelessly drippy cover of Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Nights; a song essentially about having crazy nights. Apparently advertising people's idea of a crazy night is sunsets and confetti. A crazy night with Kiss is more a case of: "How am I going to get home?"

3.

Using the most commercial rock band in the world to sell alcohol (or ALCOHAAAWWWWLLL as Paul Stanley would say) is one thing; exploiting '70s funk is another matter entirely. Funkadelic's I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing,  Everybody's Got a Thing is about overcoming our differences to help one another; Levi's version is about selling jeans made in sweatshops. Everybody's got a thing, and my thing is a burning desire to kill those responsible for this ad-rock cover of a song I love.

Spotify My Soul

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is Spotify.

If the Ohio Players had wanted a string of unlistenable adverts played after every two tracks of their Live 1977 album, they'd have put them in - like Will.i.am or Jay-Z. Nothing ruins an album like a whiney Christmas advert or some prick telling me how much I need a phone that doubles as a hipster beard trimmer. Spotify will gleefully interrupt my '70s funk to play me some contemporary bullshit which it insists is incredible, despite the audible evidence to the contrary.

Why not just turn down the volume? Because Spotify is very clever and pauses the adverts when you mute them - they know when you're not paying enough attention, like the telescreens in 1984. Why not just take out your headphones? Because then I don't know when the advert's finished and end up missing the first 15 seconds of Sweet Sticky Thing - it's easy to overestimate the length of the adverts, because when you hear them they seem to go on for ever.

An album is a piece of art - unless it's Jake Bugg, obviously. You wouldn't draw a McDonalds logo on a Turner painting, or try to sneak a PC World advert into a Jane Austen novel - "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a tablet that can replace your laptop." 

I understand that Spotify is a business and it's free to use, using the absence of adverts as a tantalising incentive to pay for a subscription. But the sheer frequency of the adverts, coupled with this unnecessary telescreen technology, suggests that Spotify doesn't really care about music - it cares about selling you expensive crap you don't need.

If this is in any doubt, look at this picture - Spotify have helpfully compiled a playlist of all your favourite songs from adverts. It's one thing to subtly use advertising to fund your passionate project, it's another to force adverts down our throats disguised as art. But the big question is - who listens to that?!

Probably quite a lot of people, which is extremely depressing. The John Lewis advert that I've not seen but is definitely awful was released alongside a penguin toy that cost £95 - and sold out in under 24 hours. And as for that Sainsbury's advert - sticking a corporate logo on the end of a completely irrelevant film about World War I is all kinds of wrong.

But I digress. If you're on Spotify, you can listen to loads of great stuff. You can listen to a Grateful Dead show from 1966, or Blind Melon's first two albums, or a Grateful Dead show from 1973, or James Brown Live at the Apollo, or a Grateful Dead show from 1982. But no. You're listening to the music off of adverts. I hope you have a terrible Christmas. 

Money For Nothing

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them. 

Another trip to the cinema (Dead Man Down, crap), another bunch of awful adverts and trailers.

3. 

Everything about this advert is loathsome; their smug fucking gurning, that awful ad-rock music, the weirdly disgusting name Freederm...

2. 

"Wouldn't they sound better facing the right way?"

No. 

1. 

Just when I thought I'd found this year's film with the dumbest premise (Upside Down), along comes this big pile of stupid. Why would making all crime legal for one night a year make unemployment fall to 1%? How would it stop people committing crime the rest of the year? What stupid fucking government would do that? Apart from ours maybe. It just seems like the makers of this film haven't stopped to think about it for a single second.

Oh, ok.

Yep, got it. 

Then I watched the fantastic Stoker, and my faith in the world was (partially) restored. Here's Dire Straits. 

You're Gonna Pay

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is adverts. Again. Again. Again. Again. The word has lost all meaning.

Blah blah blah here are three more shit adverts. I didn't get much sleep...

3. 

"Over 2,000 visual effects" boasts Iron Man 3, another meaningless brag about quantity that's almost up there with Movie 43's "The biggest cast ever assembled". But not quite. 

This idea that only spectacle and special effects are "worth paying for" is complete nonsense and is basically insulting to films that actually give a shit without having "an amazing stunt team." Films like Good Vibrations, which actually deserves your money and, best of all, doesn't star Gwyneth Paltrow. 

2. 

The advert is fine, it's just the music. That boring fucking noise of nothing that can only be described as Ad Rock. If your rock music can be used to sell BlackBerrys, you're doing it wrong.

1. 

Fuck off.

Here's The Toasters. 

Fuck You, I Won't Do What You Tell Me

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is Christmas.

And don't call me Grinch, you're wasting your time. I don't own a dog and I don't speak in rhyme. So here are the 5 worst things about Christmas:

5. The songs: "I don't want a lot for Christmas", sang Mariah Carey, before going on to demand an actual human. That is "a lot", not to mention the legal and moral implications. And then there's the issue of wrapping. If she really doesn't want a lot for Christmas, she should sing: "All I want for Christmas is socks." But Mariah Carey's advocacy of slavery aside, Christmas songs serve only to make the already thoroughly depressing task of Christmas shopping even worse; grudging consumerism to the sound of sleigh bells. There's a reason you don't get sleigh bells in normal songs... they're fucking awful. And the worst thing about Christmas songs is that we have to listen to them. No other time of the year brings such rigidly enforced rules about music. In the interest of fairness, around Halloween the radio and shops and television should exclusively play unlistenable black metal. I'd hate it as much as everyone else, but it'd still be better than Mariah fucking Carey.

4. The adverts: Adverts are bad enough the rest of the year, but they're particularly loathsome at Christmas. It's all creepy supermarket parties, and manipulative sentimentality, and insidious sexism, and dicks being festive dicks, and more fucking sleigh bells.

3. The charity: Wait, hear me out. Charity, obviously, is great. In fact it's one of the best things. It's up there with The Simpsons and Jamiroquai and food. But on the tube I saw a Shelter advert (appeal, whatever) that said: "75,000 children will be homeless this Christmas." What a weird statistic. Presumably those children are homeless the rest of the year as well. That advert makes it sound like these children all have homes normally, but on Christmas day they're all thrown out into the street. Then on Boxing Day they're allowed back inside again. Of course it's really just emotional manipulation; the thought of children being homeless on Christmas seems worse than on any other day of the year. If you're an idiot. 

"Wait, these kids are going to be homeless on Christmas?! That's terrible!"

"Well they're homeless all year round."

"Yeah but... Christmas!"

By invoking Christmas, we're made to feel heartbroken at the thought of these children missing out on all the turkey and presents and the Queen. This emotive message, appealing to our strange cultural values, is more effective than explaining the grim reality of it all. We don't want to hear about all that nastiness, we just want every kid to have the right to eat until they're sick just like Jesus intended. It's this bizarre implication that one day of festive fun makes up for a year spent starving on the street. But obviously this approach works so I'm not complaining. Well, I am... It's just interesting, that we're compelled less by the idea that everyone deserves a roof over their heads and more by the idea that everyone deserves a "Christmas".

2. The homeless: Kidding.

1. The lights: At the beginning of the year, St Albans council decided that 80% of the city's streetlights should be switched off at midnight to save money. It sounds like the start of the most boring horror film ever made. But it does make the walk home from the pub slightly Blair Witch and terrifying. And yet, we still have Christmas lights in the city; what a festive load of fucking joy. Obviously, the important and practical Christmas lights are a much better use of money than the silly, frivolous streetlights with their stupid, trivial way of making sure that people can fucking get home safely. Oh well, hopefully the obnoxiously bright Christmas decorations on the sides of houses can light up the roads.

Thanks for reading, I'll leave you with the festive Rage Against The Machine song from which this blog takes its title. Enjoy!