Countdown Candy
British pop "icon" Robbie Williams released the song 'Candy' on the 2012 anniversary of 9/11, to mixed reviews. On rateyourmusic.com,VioletMoth (great name) couldn't "decide if funny or irritanting" (great new word), while awesomesauceman's family kept playing it on repeat, annoying the sauce out of him to the point where he couldn't understand how anyone could possibly like it.
The serious critics, you know the ones paid to have opinions, were also divided. Lewis Corner on Digital Spy was just chuffed with it, calling the catchy chorus bouncy and "brassier than (Williams') stage presence". Meanwhile, somewhat more insightfully, Sophie Wilkinson of NME gave a very short and to-the-point review, explaining exactly why this song sounded so familiar and so annoying. The hook is a blatant ripoff of nursery rhymes (read playground taunts) "about the plague and taxes". She wasn't impressed and neither am I.
You may wonder why I've chosen nearly 10 years post Williams' "comeback" tune to illuminate its existence. I would wonder too why it's even still a thing, only Countdown the supermarket won't let me forget. If you've been to Hastings Countdown in the last couple of months more than once, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. They have this song on a repeat cycle so tight that EVERY time we've gone there for WEEKS it has played. Heck, last time we went there it played TWICE; we were only there for 20 minutes! I felt compelled to ask a regular friendly staff member if she knew how many times a day it played. Her reply was one of resignation: "I don't know, I have blocked it all out". She's one of those lucky people who can do that.
There are many forms of torture, and if the tormentor knows the person they are trying to grind down, they will be more successful in choosing the best method. When your tormentee can't just block out sounds, you've got a goldmine right there. When I briefly worked at Mexicali in Napier, I was tortured unknowingly. Like, they don't actually torture their staff and their food is pretty good, however, tortured I was. They had a playlist that wasn't too bad all things considered. It had a great upbeat RAC remix of Blue Jeans by Lana Del Rey that on some days I prefer to the original. It's even featured on more than one of my regular Tidal (fuck Spotify and fuck Joe Rogan) playlists. I have Mexicali to thank for bringing that version to my attention, but I digress, I was tortured there.
Every day they would play the same playlist, in the same order. THE SAME ORDER. So I would get there at 10am to the same song, and could set my watch to the rest for the entirety of my shift. It wasn't okay, and I don't think it was on purpose, but nobody would help me get it changed. I asked management and was told that it was played from head office. I had no contact number or email address for the particular Kerlin brother supposedly responsible, so I Twitter and LinkedIn pestered him - to be met with stony silence.
There was nothing I could do. I was doomed to having to hear Paul Simon appropriating the culture of people he never quite got around to properly compensating EVERY DAY AT THE SAME TIME. On weekdays I was told over and over again while on my break all about diamonds being on the soles of someone's shoes (why), and on Saturdays treated to a slightly edgier playlist containing Nirvana, still in the same order though, every single Saturday. It was like head office had forgotten to press shuffle, and then just left us to our own devices.
The thing is though, I seemed to be the only one who cared. The only one who hadn't just resigned myself to it. I "let" it affect me. I couldn't understand why at the time, but since being diagnosed with ADHD, I have realised that music has a huge sensory impact on me, and I literally can't not let it affect me. It stands to reason then, why it (music) was used as a torture device in Guantanamo Bay. The moral of the story is STOP TORTURING YOUR CUSTOMERS COUNTDOWN HASTINGS. And if you're listening, Mexicali Napier, you now know why I was in a bad mood half the time. That and fuck hospo; it's not my jam, and neither is Candy by Robbie Williams.