I remember reading about this about 10 years ago, but for some reason, it has again arisen in the bloggy world as if it’s a new thing. No idea why, but I had not previous actually heard the songs, so I took this renewed worldwide interest as an opportunity to track down and enjoy the songs scientifically determined to be the world’s most wanted and world’s most unwanted songs.
You can enjoy these tracks on Ubuweb: http://www.ubu.com/sound/komar.html
The Most Wanted song is awful, but intentionally contains elements that are generally enjoyed by people – 72 ± 12% of listeners, they claim.
From the artists’ site: Dave Soldier and Komar & Melamid – The People’s Choice Music
“The most favored ensemble, determined from a rating by participants of their favorite instruments in combination, comprises a moderately sized group (three to ten instruments) consisting of guitar, piano, saxophone, bass, drums, violin, cello, synthesizer, with low male and female vocals singing in rock/r&b style. The favorite lyrics narrate a love story, and the favorite listening circumstance is at home.”
I really don’t enjoy any elements of this song. I guess I am outside the scope of the 72 ± 12%.
Moving on over to the Most Unwanted Song, I was totally blown away. It has atonal operatic vocals about cowboys done in cowboy-mosey style. It’s pretty friggin’ awesome. The song is very long at about 22 minutes (something that people don’t enjoy), but if you get further into it, you get little kids singing ad jingles, different overlooked holidays, often intertwining the topics to tell you to celebrate Veteran’s Day and Halloween (“Candy corn for lunch and dinner!”) at Wal-Mart. The song is pretty amazing. I really don’t know how anyone could not like it:
The best part is the operatic gangsta rap about cowboy.
(atonal opera voice) It’s cowboy living
(kids choir) Yo! Yo!
(atonal opera voice) It’s cowboy living
(kids choir) Yo! Yo!
(atonal opera voice) It’s cowboy living
(in unison) all the way
“Fewer than 200 individuals of the world’s total population will enjoy this” – I guess there are only 199 more like me out there.
Enjoy it now: http://www.ubu.com/sound/komar.html