The Ten Year Tabloid Tracks

In 1989, on her wonderful album Kite, the inimitable Kirsty MacColl wrote Fifteen Minutes:

Seven times in seven days
I've sat and wished my life away.
I know the greyness comes and goes
But the sun don't shine
And the snow don't snow.

There's Suzy-Ann with her tits and curls,
Where mediocrity excels
For those vicious boys and their boring girls.
You know it makes me sick but it's a bozo's world.

Then there's always the cash,
Selling yourself for some trash.
Smiling at people that you cannot stand.
You're in demand,
Your fifteen minutes start now

City banker looks are in.
The heartless heart, the chinless chin,
And you'd spill your beans for just a pint of gin.
How you got so holy
And became so thin.

In Sunday papers every week,
The silly words you love to speak,
The tacky photos and the phoney smiles.
Well it's a bozo's world
And you're a bozo's child.

Then there's always the cash,
Selling yourself for some trash.
Smiling at people that you cannot stand.
You're in demand,
Your fifteen minutes start now.

Then there's always the fame.
Autographs now and again.
People who saw you on Blankety Blank
Or in the bank.
Your fifteen minutes start now.

Then, in 1998, Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy brilliantly mined a similar seam in Generation Sex:

Generation sex
respects
the rights
of girls
Who want to take their clothes off
As long as we can all watch,
that's o.k.

And generation sex
elects
the type
of guys
You wouldn't leave your kids with
And shouts "off with their heads" if they get laid

Lovers watch their backs
as hacks
in macs
Take snaps
through telephoto lenses
Chase Mercedes Benzes
through the night

A mourning nation weeps
and wails
But keeps
the sales
of evil tabloids healthy
The poor protect the wealthy
in this world

Generation sex
injects
the sperm
of worms
Into the eggs of field mice
So you can look real nice
for the boys

And generation sex
is me
and you
And we
should really all know better
It doesn't really matter what you say


And finally, this year, Lily Allen took on the mantle in The Fear:

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds
I heard people die while they’re trying to find them

And I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
Cause everyone knows that’s how you get famous
I’ll look at The Sun and I’ll look in The Mirror
I’m on the right track yeah I’m onto a winner

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
And I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
Cause I’m being taken over by the fear

Life’s about film stars and less about mothers
It’s all about fast cars and cussing each other
But it doesn’t matter cause I’m packing plastic
And that’s what makes my life so fucking fantastic

And I am a weapon of massive consumption
And it’s not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function
I’ll look at The Sun and I’ll look in The Mirror
I’m on the right track yeah we’re onto a winner

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
And I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
And when do you think it will all become clear
Cause I’m being taken over by the fear

Forget about guns and forget ammunition
Cause I’m killing them all on my own little mission
Now I’m not a saint but I’m not a sinner
Now everything’s cool as long as I’m getting thinner

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
And I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
And when do you think it will all become clear
Cause I’m being taken over by the fear.

So an anti-tabloid pop gem is written every decade. What I want to know is, did anyone write one before 1989, and who's going to compose the 2019 version? Answers on a virtual postcard, please.

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