1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear
#94: Ladbaby – I Love Sausage Rolls (2019)
MATT KELLY reproduces a letter reprimanding in no certain terms Ladbaby for the unforgivable indiscretion of his sausage roll song.
From the office of the United Nations Representative of the Commission For The Investigation Of Musical Crimes Against Humanity
To: Mark “Ladbaby” Hoyle and Roxanne Hoyle
It is the duty of this office to inform you that after an emergency session of the United Nations Council for the investigation of musical crimes, wherein sonic torture of an unreasonable and cruel nature is needlessly and deliberately inflicted upon populations, it has been determined beyond any doubt that on the 13th of December 2019, you did knowingly release a cover version of Joan Jett’s ‘I Love Rock And Roll’ with the phrase “rock and roll” replaced with “sausage roll” which, laying aside any discussion of how amusing this is, is a half rhyme at best.
Furthermore, the timing of this release was calculated to maximize the song’s chances of securing the Christmas number one spot in the UK, which it did, meaning thousands of radio listeners and shoppers were subjected to your creation without their consent and with no means to defend themselves.
Further still, the words to said “song” were intentionally designed to cause high levels of discomfort in listeners, reading thus:
“Saw him standing there in the bakery
Holding the biggest sausage roll I’ve ever seen
Didn’t know it would turn me on
But I’d never seen one so long
I want meat! Yeah meat!”
The next verse is unfit to be reproduced in this letter but concerns Mrs Hoyle grabbing hold of Mr Hoyle’s “meat snack” and putting it in her mouth. A generation of small British children was made to contemplate this scene on Christmas morning as their parents thoughtlessly played it after drinking one too many Stella Artois out of a plastic champagne glass – the damage to their psyches is incalculable.
These charges follow the stern warning you were issued the previous year for similar offences in which it was alleged that you somehow made Starship’s ‘We Built This City On Rock And Roll’ even less popular by remaking it as ‘We Built This City On Sausage Rolls’. We have information that you are planning a third strike in 2020. Some reports suggest that this will take the form of an AC/DC parody named ‘It’s A Long Way To The Shop If You Want A Sausage Roll’, though some of us quite like the idea of a Kiss one named ‘God Gave Sausage Rolls To You’.
You would ordinarily now be required to refrain from referring to sausage rolls or other baked goods in any manner that could be described as melodic, rhythmic or witty. However as that is already the case, we ask you to refrain from *attempting* the above. Failure to comply could lead to sanctions, such as being compelled to collaborate with Ed Sheeran.
We eagerly await your silence in response to this letter.