Kanye was appearing on 'Saturday Night Live' which is a comedy programme and therefore pretty apt for this vocal performance. To be fair he does, at one point, get within waving distance of the tune he is attempting to mangle and as Eric Morcambe might have protested he is singing all the right notes, just not necessarily in the right order.

So this is how one of the highest-paid singers in the industry sounds without a sympathetic producer twiddling the knobs (though there is a hint of a vocoder in the background helplessly trying to keep him in the same postcode as the tune). So sit back, relax and get ready to chew your knuckles right down to the bone as Kanye's voice does for music what Agent Orange did for jungles and human flesh in Vietnam.

by Ian McShane