CHICAGO — Local woman Wendy Sachs felt “incredibly lucky” to hear the worst cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” ever written by a human in her neighborhood Starbucks, confirmed sources who went to Dunkin’ Donuts instead.
“I was enjoying the weird aftertaste of my venti iced coffee when the cafe music changed from the ‘Wicked’ soundtrack to a cover of ‘Dreams’ so bad that I momentarily forgot my mother’s face,” said Sachs. “Imagine if Starbucks gathered a small group of white rappers and 2010s indie folk musicians to hold down Lindsay Buckingham while he poured molten copper down Stevie Nicks’s throat. Actually, that’s too generous. Thirty seconds listening to this cover shattered one of my vertebrae. Two minutes in and I had a vision of the future where my son asked me why we don’t see the stars at night anymore. I don’t actually think the song ever ended; I’m just in hell.”
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol said the updated cafe playlist is part of the company’s new initiative to discourage loitering customers.
“We’ve worked with an array of talented artists to create covers of classic rock songs bad enough to disrupt the human soul. That’s right; God and souls are real and they can be harmed,” said Niccol at an investor conference. “As a company it’s important to look at the sustainability of our business practices and ask tough questions. Questions like who are our customers? Can we audially disintegrate them? Starbucks is a company committed to busting unions, but I believe there’s an opportunity to mentally and even physically harm our clientele as well. We’ve got a long road ahead, but I firmly believe that the road forward for this company is paved with the blood of anyone who stays longer than five minutes.”
Indie folk artist Sven Svenson explained that it takes a lot of work to do an injustice to a beloved song.
“My process always starts by listening to the song multiple times, usually while slowly shaving off all my body hair,” said Svenson. “Then I take the vocals off a Bon Iver track and add every effect in pro-tools at maximum setting. Once that’s set I just mumble the vocal melody of the song I’m covering over the backing track and call it a day. The best part is that this is the only way to make a living as a musician now.”
At press time, Niccol announced that anyone who doesn’t have the Starbucks app is “next.”