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The most unwanted song ever

A follow-up to why ABBA songs are so catchy: Vitaly Komar, Alex Melamid, and David Soldier developed a song scientifically engineered to be the most unwanted song ever: By their calculations, "fewer than 200 individuals of the world's total population would enjoy this piece."

Ah, opera rap.

Also check out The Most Wanted Paintings. America's Most Wanted Painting contains "an autumnal landscape with wild animals, a family enjoying the outdoors, the color blue, and George Washington."

Published Friday, July 03, 2009 7:00 AM by oldnewthing
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Comments

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Friday, July 03, 2009 11:54 AM by Me

The list of undesirable elements in the Wired article sounds like the attitude of global kool-aid drinkers with a disdain for strong connections to people, place, and tradition.  No doubt, listening to a few measures, it was composed to grate on the ears.

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Friday, July 03, 2009 11:07 PM by Stuart

This song is just really great, definitely worth tracking it down. The paired "Most Wanted Song" is certainly less distinct...

Soldier has a number of other great records as well, if you're interested in outside sounds.

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Saturday, July 04, 2009 11:38 AM by Igor

My 4 year old liked about half of it. My 2 year old liked the other half. So on average, there are only 199 slots left.

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Saturday, July 04, 2009 11:29 PM by James Curran

So, have anyone else check out the The Most Wanted Paintings for the various countries?  While they are different paintings, many are remarkably similar:  A beach scene with a hill/mountain to the left.

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Saturday, July 04, 2009 11:33 PM by porter

Ingrained in the human brain is the recognition of pleasant scene which has some hills, is green and has water. All desirable things for living off the land.

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Sunday, July 05, 2009 5:30 AM by Jax184

I've always thought they had it backwards. The so-called unwanted song appeals to my absurd sense of humour, while the most wanted is just nauseating. Several of my friends agree. Although less than 200 of them...

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Sunday, July 05, 2009 11:24 AM by Mark

Jax184: Agreed, it sounds like the Bonzos or various sampled music.  The levels are balanced, and it has a good rhythm and structure.  Badly produced music is far less listenable.

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Monday, July 06, 2009 3:40 AM by Cheong

I don't know the others, but I think the "China's most wanted painting" is wrong.

Most Chinese would want plenty of white color, plus a little bit red in the painting.

And I don't know if there would be lots of people like a painting that only contains "cold colors".

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Monday, July 06, 2009 9:13 AM by Aaron G

But Mark, that's the whole point - their "worst song" could have been a 3-year-old banging randomly on a piano or some other kind of discord or poor quality audio, but that wouldn't really have demonstrated anything interesting.  The idea was to put out something well-written and well-produced that people would hate anyway on the basis of the music itself.

Anyway, it's obviously satirical, and so I don't think it should shock anybody that the "most wanted" song is annoying, but as for the "least wanted" song, even if it made you chuckle, would you really put it into your regular playlist?

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Tuesday, July 07, 2009 8:48 AM by Falcon

There was an episode of Numb3rs (S4E17 - "Pay to Play") which featured a program that could "process any song and predict its expected level of success."

# re: The most unwanted song ever

Tuesday, July 07, 2009 11:03 AM by Anonymous

Real most unwanted track ever: spotify:track:6yZTU3AUeO9CcI0bFwoiFB

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