The Second Worst Single Of 2005

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. Now, back to the bile...

2. "You Raise Me Up" by Westlife
Earlier in the year, for a brief shining moment, it seemed the lovable Irish Stepford Sons were on the decline. Their album of Sinatra covers hadn't done as well as expected, and they had lost the one member who seemed to have any character at all - spade-faced doofus Bryan McFadden. But then everyone remembered that he, like the three other "background artists" in the band, never contributed that much anyway, and so sure enough they returned with no conceivable difference in their sound at all.

And that return was one desperate, last-ditch attempt to claw back their success. Every base had to be covered. Their fanbase had always been mums and nans, entranced by their nice-catholic, non-threatening good looks (a genius move, as such a fanbase would never grow up and get bored of them), and the blander their songs were, the more they sold. So "You Raise Me Up" is a bland, bland song about how great mums and nans are. Brilliant. All they had to do then was make the video a black and white picture montage of people hugging while the boys walk around in slow motion and emote unconvincingly, and bingo, a number one and a funeral staple into the bargain.

A huge, huge disappointment, since it wasn't the failure it should have been, and so proves they have no sell-by-date and will go on churning out sub-Lloyd Webber dirges until the end of time. How depressing is that? And it's a worry proven by their almost equally awful duet with Diana Ross. They are the second most evil force in music today, and it would take something truly breathtakingly terrible to beat them in this chart. Now, what can that be?