The Pogues "Rum, Sodomy & the Lash" [1985]

Just when you thought Irish music couldn't get any drunker. Traditional-sounding tunes with typically lame-ass Irish folk instrumentation like fiddles and the pennywhistle played with such slipshod execution as to infer something resembling the ineptitude of punk rock, The Pogues' "Rum, Sodomy & the Lash" is fronted by a dead-toothed wretch named Shane MacGowan, easily the most hideous casualty of self-imposed debauchery this side of Courtney Love. Somehow his growling brogue wins him points for authenticity, but I'm not too sure who this says less about -- the fan-base of such lice-riddled cretins or the Irish experience in a general sense. That said, otherwise The Pogues simply sound like a poor backwoods version of The Cranberries, and that one might be more drawn to the blathering of MacGowan's drunken lout gimmick does not exactly give a winning endorsement for the rest of the band. Yet they somehow climbed onto the world music bandwagon that emerged in the mid-80s -- a remarkable feat for a gang of such losers who'd likely never kept on any sort of wagon previously. Only the Irish can get away with behaving this unattractively atrociously and still get to tour the States. You think if Ladysmith Black Mambazo wandered around in such a wasted stupor they'd ever be allowed to leave South Africa?