American Pie

Nice try, yr Madgness, but as with all the important things in life, Killdozer did it first and did it better. Even now one struggles to hold back the tears when recalling Wisconsin's finest Marxist-Leninist grindcore trio and their revelatory version of Don McLean's heavy-handed rites-of-passage 'classic'.

Granted, certain aspects of this William Orbit-assisted sub-karaoke fluff might make more sense in the context of the forthcoming film from whence it hails - the presence of none other than Rupert Everett on backing vocals, for one - but there's no real excuse for Madonna's anaemic delivery, providing it's not an elaborate slight at the lurve generation gimps who regard 'American Pie' as the untouchable Rosetta Stone of Vietnam-era protest pop when in fact it's an eight-minute-long exercise in wannabe Bob Dylan schmaltz. Or maybe even the Queen Of Pop realises there's no way she can possibly match the 'Dozer's creosote-larynxed main man Michael Gerald in the pathos stakes. When Gerald sang, "Well I know that you're in love with him/'Cos I saw you dancing in the gym", it felt like his world had stopped. Here, la Ciccone invests the same words with all the impact of a step class instructor with a hopeless crush on the fat one out of Westlife. All told, it's a blessing she didn't bother recording the whole thing.