Stephen Fry has condemned the state of modern pop music in a new interview, claiming Little Mix to be “horrible” and “toxic” before saying that he’s “not interested” in the state of the pop charts in 2015.

The popular broadcaster and comic actor reviewed a selection of singles released by various artists in 2015 for BBC’s Newsbeat. However, it turns out that Fry isn’t that clued-up on modern pop music, claiming to have “heard of” Adele but very little else.

He saved his most savage criticisms for Little Mix, the 2011 winners of ‘The X Factor’, reacting to their recent single ‘Love Me Like You’ by calling it “horrible! It's just bubblegum pop,” he added.

Stephen FryStephen Fry was interviewed by BBC's Newsbeat

As the English popsters sang the ‘sha-la-la-la, woo-ooo chorus’, the 58 year old asked: “Oh, they're not still singing ‘sha-la-la-la’ are they? It's got bits of Phil Spector right at the background through '70s bubblegum pop into a sort of modern version and it's a hideous, toxic compound. It's basically the musical equivalent of Haribo Starmix.”

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Fry said that he has very little idea about who’s on the Radio 1 playlist at the moment, and wasn’t even going to pretend to be knowledgeable about the zeitgeist. “I could lie, but I couldn't even say what it is. I don't know the names of anybody. I'm not interested,” he admitted. “There's someone called Adelia? Adalia?”

“Adele,” replied the interviewer. “Adele. I've heard of her,” he said.

However, one track by Kentish punk duo Slaves caught his ear in a positive way. “Well, this is good. I like the guitar,” he said, before revealing a love for heavy rock legends Led Zeppelin when he was younger.

“I liked Led Zeppelin enormously, loved them. They were coming up when I was a teenager. I thought they were sensational. And that [Slaves] had at least that sort of guitar-y sound. That prog rock sound.”

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