Millennium matters

Q. Any good music for the millennium?A. None whatsoever. And things can only get worse with the announcement last week that Michael Jackson has been scouring his massive intellect to come up with a ditty to celebrate the event. Jackson's song, which will probably come complete with the usual banal lyrics of "Let's all love each other and put an end to famine and disease" (get your cheque book out Michael - you're worth more than some African countries' GNP) is already, even in its unheard state, the bookie's favourite to be the millennium No 1.

Coming in at slightly longer odds are the Spice Girls (they haven't written anything yet but then they haven't really "written" anything before) followed closely by Baz Luhrman and his nausea-inducing Sunscreen song. The ultimate AOR nightmare here is that Jackson, Phil Collins, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Elton John all join up in a Band Aid sort of way to release a Happy New Millennium tune which will have you running for the hills.

One of the positive effects of the potential Y2K breakdown is that it would give us a chance to wipe the musical slate clean and when we came to build up the archive again from folk memory, we could all pretend Chris de Burgh never happened.

Remember, the worst is ahead, but even as we speak there are some execrable "millennium music moments" in our midst and you should only approach them with extreme caution. Top of the most unwanted list is Robbie Williams with Millennium, an awful song which no doubt will be played to death over the occasion. And on the topic of radio overkill, prepare yourselves for a deluge of Prince's 1999 song towards the end of the year, whether you like it or not.

Try to steer well clear of Silverchair's Anthem Of The Year 2000 song, as it finds the Australian band in none too good form and the only reasonable thing that can be said about it is that Dave Lee Travis would have liked it. Shamelessly riding the cash-in wave are Third World whose Millennium Symphony is from their Generation Coming album. Symphonic it's not.

And what do we have here? Bearded US guitar types, ZZ Top, have just hauled themselves aboard the bandwagon with the eminently refusable 2000 Blues. Other efforts to cross the road to avoid include Dream Theatre with New Millennium (thanks for telling us, guys, we would never have known); Bounty Killer with Next Millennium (it's not that bad, actually); and Yngwie Malmsteen's Millennium Suite which is anything but, if you know what I mean.

It's one thing releasing the worst song of the millennium, but it's quite another thing for said song to also be one of the worst songs of all time. With that in mind, come on down, Rick Wakeman, because your 2000 AD (Into The Future) is stunningly bad.

Handy tip popsters: avoid millennium topics please. We know what's going on and we don't want to have it warbled in our face. If only there was some way of avoiding the dreaded "novelty" acts who will be popping up over the next while with their "humorous" musings on Y2K and the Second Coming. Head for the nuclear fallout bunkers is the only advice.