The worst song in the world: Two-Man Giant Squid skewer 2017’s biggest song
The simple mantra of Two-Man Giant Squid is thus: ‘a band in the post-modern world’.
With that wry spirit buttering their bread, as one of Brooklyn’s finest live bands, they proudly tell their audience that they shunned the chance to open a restaurant “compete with caviar” to provide cash-strapped post-modern good times, instead. Weekend beers slosh around in their NYC dance-punk sound as they skewer the bollocks of ‘commercial art’.
So, it seems fitting that as they head to the UK for a May tour, when we asked them to partake in a feature, they agreed to sling shit at 2017’s biggest commercial colostomy. In many ways, ‘Shape of You’ by Ed Sheeran is the antithesis of Two-Man Giant Squid: a trite, self-serious attempt to say “you push and pull like a magnet do” with a straight face and land a bloody big hit in the process.
Two-Man Giant Squid’s latest single, ironically, is titled ‘3 Hits’, and sings of their proud lack of them. The five-piece first sprung up as a hit-swerving solo project for frontman Mitch Vinokur, but when his debut EP caught on, suddenly, the infectious fun in its sound yearned to be played live… and played with friends… and with beers.
That’s the spirit that they’ll be bringing to the UK on tour, and that’s not a spirit that they see reflected in Ed Sheeran’s peculiarly reggae-inflected atrocity. ‘Shape of You’ is music to die to, and to die from. Read the band’s roasting of the 2017 wreck below.
The worst song in the world, according to Two-Man Giant Squid:
Two-Man Giant Squid’s verdict: “Landing on this song was not a slam dunk for us. In thinking about our most hated song, our group took a few detours along the way. We contemplated how many times Imagine Dragons can say ‘Lightning & Thunder’ and even argued about the merits of ‘Suckin on chili dogs’ in John Mellencamp’s ‘Jack and Diane‘. It was a real hate-fest.
But, ultimately, it was Edward Christopher Sheeran who took the top prize. There’s really two reasons as to why. First off, Ed Sheeran tries to get sexy in this song, and that is just something that should never happen. No one wants to hear Ed Sheeran ‘on the job’.
As if that’s not cringey enough, no one really needs to hear Ed Sheeran’s pseudo-rap, either. This song took the boom-clap movement to pop heights we never wanted to see. Edward Sharpe is most famous for his cringe take on it, but we think another Ed gets off too easy in this arena.
And screw it, as long as we’re in full hate mode here, let’s go fully in: the production is what you might find if you typed in ‘tropical house type beat’ into Garage Band. Lyrically, it’s, um, thin. ‘Push and pull like a magnet do’: yes, thank you for defining what magnets do and masking it as a clever simile.
As if it couldn’t get any worse, we finally reach a bridge where Ed has the chance to give the song an unexpected turn… But nope, he just repeats ‘c’mon be my baby’ eight times so I can continue banging my head against a wall.
Don’t get me wrong, Ed is one of the most successful wedding-song artists of all time, and rightfully so. But that’s where we prefer him… singing beautifully to someone on ‘Perfect’ or ‘Thinking out Loud’. He’s beloved by the masses, but let’s be honest, the masses have bad taste. That’s why Greta Van Fleet sells out arenas, and Young Sheldon has seven seasons.
Anyway, Ed, if you want to collab, please hit our line; we adore you.”
Thank you for that, guys. Needless to say, Two-Man Giant Squid will not be invoking the solenoid properties of ferromagnetic materials for a sultry metaphor any time soon. As ever, they’ll just be busy being a band in the post-modern world, and riffing about all that entails. You can check out their forthcoming dates here.
