Sad clown.

There are some moments in life, we’ve all had them, that are so painful, so torturous, so desperately agonising that they make you question the point of your existence. Moments that make you throw your arms up to the heavens and wail at the sheer over-powering injustice of it all. Moments that have you frothing at the mouth and tearing your hair out, gnashing your teeth and clenching your fists. Moments that move you to wish a brothel was nearby, just so that you could shoot the place up for some sort of release.

Ok, maybe not that last one. Got a bit Travis Bickle there, soz. Anyway, there’s lots of times where things just go inexplicably, horrifically, killing-spree-inducingly wrong. Listening to Michael Bublé’s smug, self-satisfied dirge on Crazy Love is one of those times. Oh, sweet merciful Vectron is it one of those times. This cringeworthy crooning is the work of Satan. Only explanation.

What did we, as an audience, do to Bublé to merit this treatment? The thoroughly awful rendition of Cry Me A River to kick things off? The monstrously naff All I Do Is Dream Of You? The laughably clichéd arrangements that pervade the album? The endless superficiality and robotic lack of feeling evident on every single sodding track? Did someone kill Michael’s puppy when he was a kid? Someone better own up – otherwise this charlatan’s gonna be visiting his own unique brand of vengeance on us all forever.

They use Michael Bublé in Guantanamo you know. To torture the inmates. It’s apparently exceptionally effective, barring the obvious drawback that those being interrogated usually only stand about a minute before they start admitting to everything, anything, just to make the (crime against) music stop. Granted, none of that is true, but fuck me is it believable. If someone played this shit to me I would take responsibility for crimes perpetrated before I was even born.

Thing is, the genre of music that Bublé inhabits isn’t inherently offensive. Honest. It’s the man himself, his cocky bullshit style, and the songs he chooses to cover. Well, ‘cover’ is a wildly generous term – ‘mutilate’ would perhaps be more apposite. He dismembers van Morrison’s Crazy Love, an act of such despicable cruelty that it actually made me grimace in discomfort.

Since these reviews are usually supposed to be even-handed, and that nothing here could exactly be called a ringing endorsement, it must be pointed out that Michael Bublé’s efforts on Crazy Love are technically proficient. The guy can sing, of that there is no doubt. Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes) is a pretty nifty song, a cool little bouncy duet with Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings that even makes the po-faced among us raise a reluctant grin.

Nonetheless, the content on Crazy Love is overwhelmingly turgid. There’s no intrinsic value to this shower of utterly flaccid songs, unless you’re one of those sickening twats who doesn’t actually like listening to music but just likes to have something mild on in the background in order to drown out the incessant screaming voices in your head. Judging by the legions of Bublé ‘fans’ out there, there’s more of those schizophrenic bastards then you would expect.

Cheesy, tacky, pseudo-Rat Pack rubbish from a smarmy, swaggering git. Buy it for your granny. If you don’t like your granny very much.

- Sebastian Clare

Check out the solitary decent song on the entire album...