The Fourth Worst Single Of 2005

4. "Fuck Forever" by Babyshambles
In compiling a list like this, it's inevitable that personal taste plays a part. It would have been easy to take, say, an hour's worth of Radio 2 programming and present that. Having said that, I have done my best to include the worst of a fairly broad range of genres - bad R'n'B, bad Dance, bad coffee-table snooze-jazz. And when you need some bad Indie, it's hard to think of a better example than "Fuck Forever".

I've covered Pete and his problems before, but to summarise: he's a sad burnt-out junkie waste of talent. "Fuck Forever" is his typically half-arsed and muddled attempt at self-aggrandisement ("So what's the use between death and glory?" - eh?) and protest ("New Labour and Tory... All and the same" - roughly one percent as eloquent as "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"). For someone hailed as a poet, it's shocking: the lines often don't make any sense, giving the impression that he's making it up as he goes along, and his idea of rhyming is just to repeat the same line again. If there is any anger implied by the lyrics it's undercut by his trademark singing voice - as if mid-yawn - and a weedy, ramshackle backing, leaving the song with all the effectiveness of a drunken tramp taking a swing at thin air.

Of course it's possible that this song is actually a gloriously witty self-parody. In which case, fair enough. But it's still a crap song.