The Worst Song in the World: Cheerless explain a hatred of ‘Teenage Kicks’
First inspired and now endorsed by Slowdive, the up-and-coming shoegaze revival act Cheerless appears set to burn rubber in 2024. A sultry tea steeped in late 20th-century alt-rock, this band’s sound must not be mistaken; derivative flavours are stylishly vindicated by nuanced tone and a strong vocal identity.
As fresh as their sound, Cheerless only formed a couple of years ago, but with a bulletproof assemblage of introductory singles, they’re on Far Out’s radar as one of London’s most promising post-lockdown phenomena. The four-piece comprises frontman Charlie Wigglesworth, bassist Dan Fitzsimmons, guitarist James Parr and drummer Harry Carter.
Before these stars aligned, “each member had their own musical journey,” as Parr told us last year. The initial trio, Wigglesworth, Carter, and Parr, “crossed paths during their formative years in Cambridge” through a “shared passion for music forging a tight camaraderie.”
In July 2023, shortly after the arrival of their third and fourth singles, ‘True’ and ‘102’, Cheerless joined us to pick out nine of their all-time favourite albums for our ongoing ‘Doctor’s Orders’ column. Their selections ranged from Live at the Witch Trials, the 1978 debut album of The Fall, to Beach House’s modern classic of 2015, Depression Cherry.
After receiving such discerning selections from the band, we felt it’d be interesting to mix things up and ask them to name “The Worst Song in the World”. According to Cheerless, Derry punk rockers The Undertones sit on a rocky bottom with their most famous hit, 1978’s ‘Teenage Kicks’.
“I have always hated this song from the first time I heard it as a kid,” Wigglesworth states of the punk classic. “The chord structure is boring and entirely without direction, the drums are just the same all the way through with not so much as a roll, and the bass just does nothing at all.”
Although Cheerless’ associative genre, shoegaze, stemmed from the post-punk era, Wigglesworth notes the dated simplicity of crude punk. “For a ‘punk’ song, it just completely lacks energy or intensity and retains only the simplicity inherent to much of the genre,” he adds.
Intriguingly, the late DJ John Peel, whose all-time favourite band was The Fall, would have clashed horns with ‘Cheerless’ on this take. When he first played ‘Teenage Kicks’ on BBC Radio 1 in 1978, he admitted to being moved to tears by the song and decided to play it again immediately after – something he had never done before.
Peel frequently proclaimed the song as his absolute favourite and requested that “Teenage Dreams, So Hard To Beat” be etched onto his headstone. “Maybe once a fortnight, after a few days of listening to sizzling new releases and worrying that the music is merging into angst but otherwise characterless soup, I play ‘Teenage Kicks’ to remind myself exactly how a great record should sound,” he once said, demonstrating his passion.
Perhaps it’s best that Cheerless never had the chance to challenge Peel on this conviction, but the difference in perception is apparent: what appeared fresh and pertinent to middle-aged eyes in the late 1970s seems to have withered, trite and emetic under modern light.
“What I find most unpleasant are the lyrics; a kind of leering, lustful wank-bank recital that makes me cringe so hard I wanna turn inside out,” Wigglesworth elaborates. “This is no doubt partly due to my own repressed sexual dysfunction, but a big part of it is due to how many old men I have seen dancing enthusiastically to this song, playing air guitar like they are recapturing their teenage energy. I get that the song was written by teenagers about teenagers for teenagers, but it ain’t teenagers that have been listening to it for the last 40 years.”
Listen to ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones and Cheerless’ recently remastered debut single, ‘Heat’, below.
