BRIAN MCFADDEN: ICE COLD AND EVIL

If "sound" is to be qualified as "music" all it needs to do is somehow demonstrate a commitment to rhythm and pitch. Even the most uncoordinated of children can bang a metal pot with a spoon. We can all make music.

The question then, is how Brian McFadden's new single can display all the hallmarks of "a song" and yet be something altogether different. Something undeniably hostile and poisonous. McFadden - formerly of the unattractive boyband Westlife - has penned a tune which scientists are already calling "threatening on a basic, biological level". The fact that it is about date rape (true), contains synth banjos (true), and was mixed in the bunker where Hitler shot himself (probably true) aren't even the worst things about it. The worst thing about it is the voice of McFadden himself. Leering, oddly European and smug, he sounds like a disgraced prince, returning to his homeland after 15 years of exile, completely unrepentant.