The unexpected

Two conceptual artists used public opinion polling to incorporate the most unpopular elements of music into a single song, to create a musical piece that all but 200 people will hate: The Most Unwanted Song. The thing is, the result is rather infectious, and completely hilarious. It had me LOLing.¹

The duo Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid:

made their reputations with ironic critiques of the state-imposed ideologies of their native Soviet Union. [...] Upon emigrating to the United States in 1978, they searched for an American secular religion on par with Marxism, and found it in the psuedo-science of public opinion polling.²

And that's how they made this trenchant commentary on the effectiveness of opinion polling, showing that faithfully following the dictates of an opinion poll will not necessarily correspond with success.

What it reminded me most of was Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films (1988) which presaged the clanky, Disney-soundtrackian feel of Unwanted. Yma Súmac was my gateway drug to more extreme and damaging forms of camp, and she might well have been featured in the song: "Ada Dyer" sounds highly suspicious. (Could it be another anagram?)

The other song that comes to mind is Bohemian Rhapsody. If Freddie Mercury had depended upon poll data for his song, he would have steered clear of operatic stylings and extreme rhythm and pitch changes and instead produced a short, likable but mediocre piece that would not have resonated with such a large audience.

This project renews my appreciation for conceptual art. I am going to make a point of getting out to the galleries so I can be confounded by lunchboxes full of horse hair and swizzle sticks made of frozen napalm. I really don't have enough opportunities to feel insufficiently sophisticated.