Here I sit at work, late into the night, browsing the music blogs while my computer crunches renderings and I’m reading quite a bit about this Mark Ronson character about whom I know nothing at all. More specifically, I keep coming across compliments of his version of Maximo Park’s Apply Some Pressure. Now, I am no Maximo Park acolyte by any means, but I loved their debut album and thought that Apply Some Pressure was an absolutely splendidly uplifting indie-pop gem of a song.

Mark Ronson’s version is so bad it makes me want to punch myself in the head just for having ever heard it. Being an imbecilic glutton for punishment I meandered over to his myspace page (no, I’m not going to link to it – if you’re that bent on self-harm then you are going to have to do it to yourself) where his full abomination of an album is available for preview. It appears to be a big steaming pile of cover versions – oh brilliant, cover versions – all of which are so toe-curlingly awful I nearly fractured my spine, I cringed so hard. It actually makes you contort yourself into some sort of overwhelming spasm of embarrassment – like your body it trying to fold in on itself in an Herculean effort to pretend that it isn’t there, being subjected to this horror. It’s so bad I can’t even summon any vitriol. It’s like musical Kryptonite – honestly, I’m absolutely and utterly aghast.

He actually makes me feel sorry for the Kaiser Chiefs, he’s that bad. I don’t even like the Kaiser Chiefs, but no-one deserves to have virtually their only decent song butchered so horribly. And then, when it’s down on the ground and bleeding, it’s last shred of dignity utterly shrivelled to nothing, he delivers the Coup de Grace. The Allen. Yes, he beats their song to death and then pisses on its bleeding corpse by inviting Lily Fucking Allen to join in his carnival of musical masturbation.

There’s a Jam cover in there too, but I honestly couldn’t even bring myself to listen to it. I swear, if any of you even considers for a second buying this album I am giving up and going home. It’s not even amusingly bad.

Mark Ronson – Apply Some Pressure
Mark Ronson featuring, yes, Lily Fucking Allen – Oh My God
Maximo Park – Apply Some Pressure

I really do apologise. If you listened to those, then you will never get those six or seven minutes of your lives back. It’s just wrong, isn’t it? Christ I need a gin.

And the, er, title was clearly a slight exaggeration.