The other morning I switched radio stations in the car and I think I heard a duet between Jon Bon Jovi and Robbie Williams. I mean, it came up on the screen, so it must have been true. First it was Jon Bon Jovi singing. He’s been bigging himself up a lot lately because he wants his band, Bon Jovi, to make lots more money for him. And he’s also been discussing the rich and famous version of hell that he’s been going through with his voice. Apparently that plasterboard magnolia larynx of his has required surgery or super-lozenges or something like that, otherwise he might have lost his voice altogether and no rooting round down the back of the sofa or in the pockets of his kimono would ever have found it again. It’s a good thing the world hasn’t imploded in the meantime, because just imagine filling a place on earth and never having to hear Jon Bon Jovi sing, ever again. I’d give up smoking just to get an extra few minutes on that version of this planet.
I think I remember reading once that Lionel Ritchie had considered undergoing drastic surgery on his vocal cords until someone pointed out that maybe he was just allergic to ice cream. In some ways it’s a pity that he found it so easy to wriggle free of his Cornetto addiction. He’s not a bad bloke, old Lionel, but a bit like Jon Bon Jovi, his voice, while lauded by many who wouldn’t know good music if they fell over it in a lift is about as interesting as a trifle that has had all the jelly, custard and cream removed, only to be replaced with sawdust and a milkman’s whistle. Indeed, I would happily listen to a postman whistling in my ear for a thousand eternities than spend time voluntarily digesting the another note from Ritchie or Jovi. Life really is too short for that sort of banal stupidity.
Back to that unnecessary pollution on my car radio. After Jon Bon Jovi had sung some barrel scraping lyrics which, to be honest, I forgot the instant I heard them, in came Robbie Williams. And then I knew it was true. We can stoop even lower. At this point, driving my car perhaps a little faster than I should have been, it occurred to me that I might be better off fast asleep at the wheel and dreaming of something more agreeable than listening to this sort of, for want of a better word, crap. I believed so deeply in my heart that I didn’t want this to be happening that I subconsciously started to try to fall asleep. Of course, I knew I was driving and that purposefully willing myself to sleep would pose a considerable danger, not only to myself but also to the drivers and pedestrians around me, but you have to understand that it was one of those desperate times/desperate measures kind of scenarios. And trust me when I say – I tried almost everything. I made a cup of Horlicks, drew a deep, aromatic bath, counted blessings and sheep and crawled into a freshly made bed with ear plugs and an eye mask, all in an effort to drop off and float away into the blissful land of nod from behind the wheel. Anything to escape the threat of a reality where something as dreadful as a duet between Jon Bon bloody Jovi and Robbie fucking Williams could ever, ever be brought to pass.
It didn’t work, obviously, because it has stuck with me ever since. In an effort to exorcise the evil inherent in this manner of musical vindictiveness I looked the song up, my fingers crossed that it had been nothing more than AI flexing its muscles before it takes over, and eventually destroys, humanity. It’s called ‘We Made It Look Easy’, which sort of makes sense, because let’s remember that thousands of years ago our primate ancestors learnt to make noises by banging one rock against another rock. I would happily watch an ape playing with rocks all day long, and for every day until I die than to stumble upon this wretched collaboration ever again. It’s two awful things combined to make a world of pain that no-one deserves to endure. It’s tinnitus and rickets. It’s malaria and spinal surgery. Sunburn and syphilis. Tennis elbow and terminal cancer. It’s a tragedy of Wagnerian proportions and it must be stopped.
And then, yesterday, running another errand of desperation I somehow managed to hear something even worse. Before I elaborate I feel honour bound (and glad for a moment of positivity) to divert you in the direction of Johnny Cash, amongst the most authentic, powerful and essential voices in all of music. Towards the end of his remarkable career, poor Johnny must have started to feel the reaper lurking round the corner and so was guided into a series of albums, chiefly populated by covers, designed to introduce him to a new audience whilst still celebrating the thick, fidgety, brow-beaten darkness that Cash had made a stock-in-trade all to himself. It started with ‘American Recordings’, which was good. The second instalment – ‘American II: Unchained’ was also damned fine. But the series really took off with ‘American III: Solitary Man’, where Cash’s choice of covers really started to blossom; the title track alone is possibly the best thing that’s ever happened to a Neil Diamond song. He also tackled Tom Petty with suitable brio and even managed to remind us of why U2 used to be relevant by adding his own growl to ‘One’.
To be honest the third instalment was probably the peak, but this shouldn’t take anything away from ‘American IV: The Man Comes Around’. It’s an album celebrated first and foremost for ‘Hurt’, his devastating take on a bleak Trent Reznor ditty that came with a video that could even bring tears to the eyes of someone with a heightened level of alexithymia. But to my mind the highlight, and possibly the highlight of the whole series (there were two more albums to come but they are too late, if not necessarily too little; dying embers and fading memories, not quite cash-in but still starting to drain the Cash legend a mite too far) is the title track, made yet more glorious because it is written by Cash himself. It’s a potent, biblical, four and half minute classic, scattering fire, brimstone and the fear of God, as well as something more malignant, out into the void and is exactly as terrifying as it is exquisitely beautiful. It is one of those songs that, as it rattles and wheezes to a gravel-smoke, rattle-spoke finish, leaves you with the overriding idea that it is impossible to improve upon. That it is that rarest of things – a truly perfect song. Hands off, there isn’t a human being alive that could do better with it. And then Pulp come along to prove my point.
I have, I should admit, a serious problem with Pulp. If they were just a mildly celebrated cult band with a devoted but slim fan base then I’d probably let it lie, but there is something vast in the scale of the injustice of having such a third rate outfit finding themselves propelled up to national treasure status based on such a flimsy footprint of a flaccid, humdrum catalogue. Most may not feel this, or so it seems apparent, but I feel it with every cell of my soul. This year, the music magazine MOJO (which I usually trust) decided that Pulp’s first album in 24 years, wittily titled ‘More’ was the best album released in 2025, which either means they have joined an awful lot of other music journalists in choosing to blow smoke as far up Jarvis Cocker’s bony backside as it is possible to do or that, even more frighteningly, that not a single human has made music better than theirs in the last 12 months. This would be laughable if it wasn’t so regrettable. You’re being fooled, people, and you’re foolish for letting it happen. The same sort of foolish that have been tricked into believing or thinking that Cocker is any finer a front man for a pop outfit than Vanilla Ice, or that Pulp are much better than a whimsical novelty act whose main excuse for such a long hiatus is simply that they weren’t good enough to continue in the first place. As for their assumed position as Britain’s foremost musical social commentators, well personally I think I’ll stick to Chas and Dave.
Anyway, Pulp, in their wisdom (because Cocker, thanks to all that smoke blowing I mentioned earlier, seems to relish himself as some sort of cultural sage and working class guru) have decided to do their own cover of ‘The Man Comes Around’ by Johnny Cash. It can be heard on the soundtrack to another of those half-baked dramas (ITVX, in case you like that kind of thing) based on real stories called ‘The Hack’ and which stars David Tennant and Toby Jones; a right old pair of ubiquity ticklers who I am beginning to suspect are legally obliged to appear in a minimum of 60% of all domestic TV dramas within any given calendar year. Pulp’s effort (if you could call it that) has been described as moody and sultry and a unique twist on a classic song but I can tell you that it is none of these things, unless by the word ‘twist’ one can safely imply that it has taken a classic song and twisted it into a thick, coiled heap of dogshit. Moody and sultry just don’t apply, unless you have a very scant grip on how a dictionary works, and Cocker’s attempt to add some variation on suspense through his semi-spoken word approach actually makes the coming of the apocalypse sound about as terrifying as the plot of a Richard Osman novel. It’s poor. It’s pitiful. It’s pointless.
Put simply, nothing about it works and it hurts even more because you can just tell they’re all far too pleased with themselves about the way it’s turned out. It’s so bad I can’t even muster the energy to go through everything that is wrong with it, but instead the best I can suggest is that you simply listen to both versions of ‘The Man Comes Around’ and try telling me that Pulp’s version is within a hundred leagues of Cash’s. It shouldn’t even be on the same planet. I’d say it was so bad that there is a slight chance that it was done as a joke, because it certainly sounds like one, only without the funny bits. If Cash were alive I suspect that the way Pulp have listlessly kidnapped and molested his work would have made him look even sadder than he does in the video of ‘Hurt’. I’ve had a busy month and, as can often be the way with November, many things have made me rather upset, but the straining out of this affront to good taste by Pulp is probably what has made the angriest. So angry I could almost let Bon Jovi and Robbie Williams off the hook; but not quite, because when the man does finally come around I may get the chance to see the whole lot of them sent down into musical hell, ironically enough the very same well from which they draw pretty much all of their music. There really is no excuse for things that sound this bad. By the time we all get to hell we’ll be grateful to give our ears a rest.
G B Burton. 30.11.2025
On stupidity......and other causes for concern. 