2021 Contenders: Extreme Earworm Alert!

If you're looking for the best new band of 2021, it's time to call off the search.

I first heard this on Thursday evening. I've listened to nothing else all weekend.

They're from the Isle of Wight.

Earworms #1: Get Down

Hey, Gilbert, where's your berry vest?

I've been listening to lots of cool music lately that I really should be writing about here, when I can find the energy. But I'm also suffering from a repetitive earworm that has been drilling into my cranium for the past couple of weeks and I've no idea where it came from or how to get shut of it.

Get Down is not one of my favourite Gilbert O'Sullivan songs. It's from the self-consciously wacky side of his catalogue that also brought us Ooh Wakka Day and Mr Moody's Garden. The same Gilbert who thought it would be a good idea to call his Greatest Hits album "The Berry Vest..." (do you see what he did there?)

The thing is... (as Sam would say, only for me to continue "...a member of the Fantastic Four"), when he's not being wacky, Gilbert can break you heart into a million pieces. Case in point, two of the saddest songs of the 70s... Alone Again (Naturally) and Nothing Rhymed. If you don't believe me, ask Paul Weller, who called them, "two of my favourite songs, great lyrics, great tunes".

In an effort to remove my earworm then, I'm going to play these two on loop for a couple of hours, and wallow in the blissful misery of them...