This American Life had a great piece this week (originally aired in 1998) about creating music based on the likes and dislikes of the average person. Continued from a previous project creating paintings based on every country's visual preferences, Komar and Melamid surveyed 500 people on their musical tastes and then collaborated with composer Dave Soldier to create "The People's Choice Music." They recorded two songs, one that "will be unavoidably and uncontrollably “liked” by 72 ± 12% of listeners," and one that should be enjoyed by nearly no one. The "wanted" song is a generally unremarkable (but still funny) R&B track with synthesizers and saxophones, but the "unwanted" song is a brash, grating, and continuously hilarious piece of musical genius.

The most unwanted music is over 25 minutes long, veers wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe (which tie at 13% as the most unwanted instrument), banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synthesizer (the only instrument that appears in both the most wanted and most unwanted ensembles). An operatic soprano raps and sings atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans, and “elevator” music, and a children's choir sings jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects for lyrics are cowboys and holidays, and the most unwanted listening circumstances are involuntary exposure to commercials and elevator music. Therefore, it can be shown that if there is no covariance—someone who dislikes bagpipes is as likely to hate elevator music as someone who despises the organ, for example—fewer than 200 individuals of the world's total population would enjoy this piece.

If you just want a taste, skip to around 5:40. I'm not sure I've ever heard a combination of sounds that has made me laugh as hard.

"The Most Unwanted Song"