Girls Aloud Made Me Made Me Love Them

If you were to ask me which song most defined my Belfast experience it would have to be "The Promise" by Girls Aloud. You should really watch the video while trying not to hate it and simultaneously trying not to love it.



I've heard this song at least a hundred times since I landed here, none of them of my own free will. Unlike that shitty Kid Rock song and all of Katy Perry's songs which refuse to stop being popular here, this Girls Aloud song has entered my ear and begun to control me like the yerks from the Animorphs books. I don't like it or respect it, but it has turned my hatred for it into a grudging affection, even though it sounds like a hybrid of No Doubt with the Spice Girls at their euro-trashiest.
This video is also a good barometer for what the music scene is like here. In a word: shit. But Stockholm Syndrome has set in and I'm beginning to understand my captors and sympathize with them.

Runner ups:
The Saturdays - Up.
This song is a boring version of "Disturbia":



Who Da Funk - Shiny Disco Ball:
You may think this is the trashiest of euro-trash and you wouldn't be wrong. But don't get too snooty, Jack; the atrociously-named Who Da Funk are from the US. I feel dirty by association.

Strap another horse to the bitchin' post

Dear Belfast and friends in Belfast,
I'm a little drunk right now, but before I go to bed I have a confession to make: I hate your music. The music you listen to here is, almost without exception, complete shit.

Before coming over to the UK I labored under the delusion that there was great music in Britain that never made it over to the US due to our cultural differences. I was wrong. America actually does a great job of making sure your Euro-trash nostalgia has as much chance of crossing the Atlantic as British soldiers in redcoats.

I tried to reach out and find common ground, like the Knife, Lykke Li and hip-hop from the '90s, but you rejected me. I wouldn't feel so hostile if you hadn't derided my music, instead putting on the following songs:







Don't fuck with me, Belfast, I know I'm right. The year 2000 is over. You need to move on. None of this is viable music, even if (especially if) you have to put a rave beat behind it and drop pills to make it relevant.
And don't get me started on that fucking Kid Rock song. If you didn't know who Lynyrd Skynard was before hearing it, you certainly haven't been "singing 'Sweet Home Alabama' all summer." Also he rhymes "different things" with "funny things," which is not something a "Rock and Roll Jesus" would do.

Also, please stop playing Blink 182 and Wheatus' "Teenage Dirtbag." It's like rolling a corpse over just to smell it fresh. Some things deserve to be buried!