The Worst Song in the World: Royalty Capes rip into an unending advert jingle
There is a pulsing rhythm to everything that Ben Adey does. Primarily a bassist before moving on to everything else, the musician behind the Royalty Capes moniker has always had a knack for driving songs forward. His latest album, Louder Than Joy, burst out of the traps and bangs into funk, desert rock and a host of genres in between.
Speaking about the new Josh Homme-ified album, Adey commented that his intent was to focus on the following: “Hooks, riffs and a decidedly retro sound tinged with just enough modern shrewdness and style, slabs of rock goodness, with a cascade of tumbling bass and guitar lines. It’s potent, chewy and nicely compact.” Indeed, it has a punchiness to it that seems to cut through the demuring of today and grasp a simpler time.
While he won’t be touring the project until he hits 100 songs, that won’t take long for the prolific songsmith with three more LPs planned for this year alone. As he explained, “When I have 100 songs, Royalty Capes will be a live vehicle. Until then, songwriting is the focus. That was the rule from day one. I’m at 79/100.” In the meantime, he’s always kept busy working alongside the likes of The Melvins, Fontaines DC, Gang Of Four, Warren Ellis and plenty of others.
Given his prolific nature within the industry, it’s no surprise that he is fueled by a sense of movement and freshness. The next thing is the most important for Adey. So, it also comes as little surprise that the anthem he loathes has been played more times ‘Yesterday’ and yet it still seems to be gathering dust. This awful ‘music by numbers’ atrocity has now reached the stage where it feels like a strange human experiment, but don’t just take my word for it…
The worst song in the world, according to Royalty Capes:
Royalty Capes’ verdict: “There really is only one answer to this, and it’s 100% Jess Glynne’s ‘Hold My Hand’. Utterly diabolical. Fair play, she’s likely made thousands off it courtesy of Jet2, but having flown all over writing, and recording, it fills me with dread even boarding a plane in anticipation of hearing that damn song.”
“If you could bottle shit, this is the one. I just hate it. It’s a dreadful slice of everything hateable about bad pop music. You can’t knock Jess Glynne though, she’s got some great songs, but this one drives me insane.”
Ironically, even when finding the YouTube video to embed above, I was greeted by the song on a Jet2 commercial—the same campaign that they have been running for what feels like 15 or 16 years now. While Royalty Capes may well be hoping the release of Louder Than Joy will prove just as profitable, he’ll also certainly be hoping it has a bit more resonant soul.
