There’s a lot of bad songs out there and any discussion of worst ever can take on a Mothra versus Godzilla (or Nickelback versus Creed) flavor. But most bad songs go relatively gentle into that good night. Not many keep getting played 20+ years later. So….
What’s the worst song in regular rotation on oldies stations?
I’m going with “Touch Me” by The Doors.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Define “oldies.” If I have to hear “What I’ve Got” or really any goddamned Sublime song again, I’m going to get stabby.
raven
Sweet fucking Home Alabama.
catbirdman
Found myself getting a little misty yesterday for Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds” — iconically good/bad song from the mid-80s.
DougJ
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Hmmm…early 90s is right on the edge.
DougJ
@catbirdman:
That’s a good one.
Steve in Sacto
Ugg, “Touch Me.” It’s like The Doors go Vegas lounge act…
dedc79
Summer of ’69 – Bryan Adams.
Band on the Run – Wings
Everything by the Eagles except maybe I’m Already Gone (“I hate the f***ing Eagles”)
Suzanne
I can always, always do without “The Safety Dance”. Also done with the Red Hot Chili Pepers’ entire catalog.
A station here has rediscovered “A King Without A Crown” by Matisyahu, and I could punch them. God, that song sucks.
dave matson
“King of Pain” by the Police, or any song on the Synchronicity album.
Suzanne
Also “Dust In The Wind”. Fuck that song.
Mudge
Escape (The Pina Colada Song). Hideous in every respect.
KG
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): really? must be a perspective thing, because as a SoCal native of that age, like hearing Sublime as much as possible.
Amir Khalid
I have a particular dislike for the acoustic version of Hotel California.
Pogonip
@raven: Hear, hear! Or rather, I don’t want to hear. 15,000 times was enough! Didn’t Lynrd Skynrd ever record another song?
Our local radio is terrible. Glad I got the iPod.
eemom
Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel. UGH.
Anything by Hall & Oates except Rich Girl.
Anything by Seals & Crofts, except I kind of like We May Never Pass This Way Again.
@dedc79:
I like all those, but I do hate Take It To the Limit.
FridayNext
Electric Avenue by whogivesashit
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: I remember when that song was top 40 in the U.S. you couldn’t turn on the radio for 15 minutes without hearing it. I hated it, it was like having a crown put on your tooth, it went on and and on and on…
dave matson
Anything by the Eagles.
Anything by Bob Seger (with the possibly exception of Hollywood Nights, which I sorta like) are also acceptable answers.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@KG:
It’s because KROQ plays at least one Sublime every fucking hour. I never need to hear another one ever again.
Weirdly, I don’t mind the Dirtyheads (who are basically the same band minus the guy who overdosed) but I can do without Sublime for the rest of my life.
Quaker in a Basement
Gold Dust Woman – Fleetwood Mac
dedc79
@eemom: Good call re Billy Joel. That song makes me want to shove the q-tip in through my ear drums.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
The dino rock station to which I awake during the baseball season seems to have a very special relationship with Sammy Fuckin’ Hagar. I don’t think there’s a good song that’s been recorded with that assclown as the lead vocalist.
KG
I don’t really have anything oldish that I hear regularly that I hate. Maybe it’s because Sirius has done such a good job of dividing up music that I don’t have to listen to a lot of 80s alternative unless I actually switch over to that channel.
Lawrence
@Quaker in a Basement: Have you heard the Courtney Love version? One of her two good songs.
brantl
Anything by Paul McSuckney or Wings.
KG
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): ah, gotcha. another part of the Sirius listening experience then.
marduk
@raven: Yes, a million times yes. Sweet Home Alabama is an offensive abomination.
Pogonip
@dave matson: Night Moves is really overexposed.
Billy Joel: “Sing me a song, piano man.”. No. Please. Don’t. Not again.
Missouri Buckeye
@dave matson: Even Synchronicty I? I’ve always loved the intro to that.
And try listening to “Every Breath You Take” in the way it was intended, as a song about *stalking*.
The ones that currently make me stabby.
“Picture” by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. I *hated* that song from day one.
A big hearty second on “Sweet Home Alabama”, or practically anything by Lynyrd Skynyrd (I hate that I know how to spell that).
I am also over this whole power-pop diva thing that stated with Avril Lavigne and doesn’t seem to ever be ending.
JPL
Fernando by Abba and leave the Doors alone.
Roger That
“Wonderful Christmastime”.
Not that its all that popular or a standard oldie (it is 30+ years old), but “Raydio’s “You Can’t Change That” has not aged well. Dunno how an R&B jam from the stalker POV made it into heavy rotation to begin with.
eemom
@Quaker in a Basement:
omg, Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. Fucking hated that thing when they played it every 10 seconds in 1977, and then I had to hate it all over again thanks to Clinton 1992.
trollhattan
@dedc79:
Special hatred for “Uptown Girl.”
Everything by Foreigner.
geg6
On our local dino rock radio station, I turn the channel when pretty much anything by the Doors comes on. The very definition of terrible music; well, maybe just the lyrics. Morrison was an idiot. Hate that band.
Anything by Styx, Kansas, Yes, ELP…ugh. Just ugh.
Led Zep gets a pass simply because Robert Plant was once very hot. Otherwise, meh to them, too.
And the worst hick band of all time, Lynyrd Skynyrd!!!! Hate everything they ever did and, I don’t care how it will get me flamed, I was disappointed when the plane crash didn’t wipe them all out so that we wouldn’t still be subjected to an even more substandard piece of crap band than the original one.
Just Some Fuckhead
Anything by Richard Marx.
trollhattan
@marduk:
The only saving grace: Neil Young is alive and they’re not.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): YES. Sublime is still, STILL absolutely played into the ground. Badfish is the one that makes me reconsider my hope for a long life.
Botsplainer
Jesus, this thread is like an audio nightmare. So much suck, it is overwhelming my personal notion of things which suck.
Pogonip
@eemom: Yes, I usually like Fleetwood Mac, but that particular song makes me think of Bill Clinton, and I don’t like it or him.
Cap'n Phealy
“Touch Me” is especially annoying for the way it ends with Morrison, semi-sotto voce, intoning the old Ajax slogan ‘Stronger Than Dirt”. (I think it’s only on the single version, which ended up on compilations, otherwise it might have disappeared by now.)
eemom
@Pogonip:
Possibly the most sickening self-tribute ever penned by a songwriter.
Lawrence
Got to go with Driving By Train (Grateful Dead). I don’t get this band at all, but this is the worst of what radio inflicts on non fans. Also, classic rock is the stuff construction workers listen to, not Safety Dance or Phil Collins. And I don’t mean that it’s bad. What survived for me to hear is usually good.
Tynan
It’s probably not old enough, but any time I hear “Ironic” by Alanis Morisette I think I lose a layer of tooth enamel.
the Conster
Lady in Red. Chris de Burgh can DIAF.
ETA: Also Hootie and the Blowfish and whatever abomination that song was they concocted that made me literally want to kill Hootie or whatever his name was.
dlw32
Anything Disco… fine, if you want to dance at a club it can be played there; but it never should have ever been played anywhere else.
Also, I know I’m going to get killed for this, but I never got John Bon Jovi… third-rate hack, Springsteen-wannabe. IMHO
beltane
Here I’ve lived all those years thinking I’m the only one who thought “Touch Me” is one of the most awful songs ever. “Sweet Home Alabama” is just evil, pure evil. Lynard Skynard’s other hit “Freebird” is a lengthy monstrosity meant to steal too many minutes from our precious lives.
Anything by Huey Lewis and the News also falls into the suck category.
Elizabelle
Ah. You’re taking us back to K-Tel All Hell album territory again, dougj?
Not in heavy rotation, but I can’t stand “Afternoon Delight.”
Now to continue down (repressed) memory lane …
satby
I hate just about everything by the Doors, Abba, and I basically agree with Suzanne re: Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’m pretty eclectic in my likes and hates.
Pogonip
@Cap’n Phealy: Thank you! I never could make out what he was mumbling there.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
We Built This City
Arguably the worst hit song of all time.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@geg6:
14-year old boys who misread The Catcher In the Rye the first time they read it- and haven’t yet read it a second time- think you’re a dick.
Missouri Buckeye
@Lawrence: Yeah, I’ve always likes the Hole cover of Gold Dust Woman. But the original holds up for me too.
I’m wondering what the other Hole song that you think is good. My guess is Violet, but Jennifer’s Body is a good song too. Don’t mind Celebrity Skin, either.
More on the stabby side.
Bryan Adams. Hootie and the Blowfish.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: you all are singing it now to yourselves. Your welcome.
BGinCHI
Brown-Eyed Girl.
If you think that’s a good VM song then you haven’t tried.
BGinCHI
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: That got stuck in my head recently and I could not get it out. It was like having a fucking virus.
Worst. Song. Ever.
Iowa Old Lady
On irritatingly bad grammar points alone, “For You and I” wins.
trollhattan
@dlw32:
Ultimately, disco will be erased from history, like the Great Leap Forward.
dedc79
@BGinCHI: It kills me that Brown Eyed Girl comes on the radio all the time, and I’ve yet to once hear them play a single track from Astral Weeks.
Elizabelle
@beltane:
Always felt bad that Huey Lewis and the News was the last show rock impresario Bill Graham ever saw. Heli crash on his way home.
Tim (The Other One)
“Touch Me” was an inspirational choice but I have to go with either “California Dreaming” or “Monday, Monday” by the Mamas and The Papas. That is some out of tune shit.
BGinCHI
@dedc79: They can’t handle the truth.
beltane
My husband loves Abba but has to listen to them in secret. It must be his European upbringing, but the cheesiest pop music like that makes him incredibly happy.
ascap_scab
Manfred Mann – Blinded by the Light.
Billy Squire – Everybody Wants Some.
BGinCHI
If “Ebony and Ivory” was a parody, how would it be different?
Pogonip
@the Conster: The guy in Lady in Red sounds like the type who says to his wife, “When did you get that great red dress?” and she replies “1962.”
Also, that ridiculous muskrat song that got recorded TWICE, by bands who perpetrated other atrocities. America perpetrated “A Horse With No Name” ( another one you couldn’t get away from) and Captain and Tennille perpetrated “Do It To Me One More Time”. (“…seeing as how you only lasted 90 seconds the first time, lover boy.”)
beltane
@Elizabelle: That’s a sad, sad way to go.
trollhattan
@BGinCHI: IF (perhaps only if) one knew a really cute brown-eyed girl at the time the song was first on the radio, then it carries that paring for life the same way any good summer song can.
“Mystic Eyes” remains my favorite Them song.
dedc79
@Iowa Old Lady: Another bad grammar nominee – Take the Money and Run – The Steve Miller Band
Amir Khalid
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
Fortunately for me, I am right now listening to Eddie Redmayne’s Empty Chairs at Empty Tables from that movie musical. So your earworm didn’t take.
Suzanne
@Missouri Buckeye: Malibu and Violet are my favorite Hole songs. But I think they were really good for two albums.
I’m going through our classic rock station’s playlist today, and “Take the Money And Run” also sticks out as something that makes me change the station quickly. A little surprised to see STP’s Interstate Love Song on there b/c I didn’t think it was classic. I love that dong, though. Love STP.
trollhattan
@Pogonip:
I’ll see your muskrat and raise you a dog named Boo. Also, too, if anybody knocks three times I shall brain you with a canned ham, which would comprise an afternoon delight.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: With you on Foreigner, except I truly love “Urgent” with the sax solo by Junior Walker. Always turn the radio loud for that one.
Betty Cracker
Another vote for “Summer of ’69.” Fuck that stupid-ass song. I also have burning pools of hatred for “Angel in the Centerfold.” Fuck that misogynist knob for presuming his masturbatory high school fantasy trumps the agency of its unwitting object.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: “your”
grammar fail damn phone…
gogol's wife
Hmmm, there are a lot of songs people are naming here that I really like. I wonder what that says about me.
I doubt it’s still in play, but I really hated “Alone Again, Naturally.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
I had kind of forgotten how awful that song was until I heard it while I was shopping the other day. “Marconi does the mamba” as a chorus? WTF?
trollhattan
@dedc79:
Steve Miller, killer of languages.
Pogonip
@Betty Cracker: Lighten up. It was a joke. Albeit one that gets played too often.
gogol's wife
Edit function won’t let me put in a close quote on #75.
MomSense
Oh god Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd was the cursed last dance song at every junior high and high school dance. The DJ would make a big deal about announcing it and you would always end up dancing with someone you didn’t know which was awkward for a slow song. Then half way through the song would sort of speed up so there was a confused do we slow dance faster or split apart and do a slow fast dance until it becomes a slow song again.
Amir Khalid
Another song I hate hearing: Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight, a tedious song about a bored husband going to a party with his missus. And this is a song I once heard Clapton himself play live.
kindness
Thank the FSM I’m from a different generation than most of you.
Your musical tastes suck. See what happens when you come of age post 1980’s?
There was so much horrible music put out in the 80s. How come none of you mention Madonna? Why no Adam & The Ants? Where is all the horrible crap that I heard that decade? In truth, in the 80’s I still bought music, I still went to concerts but I wasn’t listening to what was hot then. And thank God Jerry Garcia was still in prime form then….well except for that near death diabetic coma…..
Rasputin's Evil Twin
@Pogonip: I could live a long, happy life without ever hearing anything by Billy Joel again.
Also too, the Bee Gees and anyone even slightly connected with “Saturday Night Fever”. God, how I HATE that fucking album and all of disco.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Also, the King of all bad songs:
“One Tin Soldier”
Quicksand
@geg6:
Oh god yes. But we can’t even blame Mr. Mojo Risin for that “Touch Me” abomination. Robbie Krieger wrote it. As much as it pains me, I’d say JMo is clearly the better lyricist in that band. Ugh. But yeah, it’s all bad.
I am so utterly burned out on “classic rock” that I can’t really stand to listen to it at all anymore. None of it.
gogol's wife
@Rasputin’s Evil Twin:
The BeeGees are gods.
@kindness:
And I’m thinking, they missed all the horrible stuff put out in the 60s.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
YES, horrible, why did you remind me about it?
trollhattan
@beltane:
Suspect Europeans are all brain-wrecked from watching the Eurovision Song Contest as helpless toddlers.
R-Jud
@ascap_scab: Oh God,” Blinded by the Light”. It’s dreadful and unending and my father LOVES it. Every long car trip I’ve ever been on where he drives, it winds up coming on the radio. I am sure some day when I’m his age I will hear it and get all misty-eyed about it, but for now I just fantasize about jumping out of the car whenever I hear it.
cmorenc
ANYTHING by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons – that high falsetto singing is nails on a chalkboard to me.
am
Sugar Ray, Every Morning. No doubt in my mind. Can’t believe it’s been 16 years, but close enough.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Great to dance to, right up there with “Ballad of the Green Beret.”
Amir Khalid
@R-Jud:
The songwriter’s own version or Manfred Mann’s?
trollhattan
@R-Jud:
Funny that I never really related to Springsteen–could this be the reason?
BGinCHI
Honestly, if you turn on any regular FM rock station, almost everything is dogshit. How the fuck can anyone listen to that stuff?
dedc79
@cmorenc: Oh what a night? Oh what a piece of shit song.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@kindness:
I would rather hear “Ant Music” (one of my least favorite 80s pop songs) on a loop than any Grateful Dead song. At least “Ant Music” will actually END at some point instead of noodling off into infinity.
Eric U.
all of them, Katie
the one that still blows me away when I hear it is “space cowboy,” it was a novelty song in the first place and should have gone away in a couple of months, but you will still hear it occasionally.
There are some songs that are on heavy rotation, which isn’t good for any song IMHO. For example, there are about 3 Fleetwood Mac songs that get played all the time. If you just took all the good songs that ever made the top 100, there would never be any repeats, why am I hearing the same few songs over and over again? This is why I can’t stand to listen to the Beatles, I have pathways in my brain that are burnt out because of hearing those songs so many times.
@beltane: I almost walked out of “Mama Mia” because I hate abba so much. I am still at a loss that there are people that wanted to hear abba songs for 2 hours
trollhattan
@Quicksand:
Everyone, be nice and wish Kreiger a happy 69th birthday. Not east years to make it through.
Betty Cracker
@Pogonip: Bitches can’t take a joke.
Baud
Y’all are dissin my favorite songs!
:-)
Elizabelle
OT, but laughing at Wonkette headline on the sidebar.
robo
Anything by Michael Fucking McDonald.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Favorite Dead song is “Bertha” as performed by Los Lobos. Totally works for me and it more or less ends, although come to think of it my (live) version fades at the end….
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Newsmax is still on the mobile site if you miss it.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Heh! We have a lot of pickups, so there’s that.
NCSteve
That one song “Boston” and put eight or nine copies of on its title album. (What? Those were supposed to be different songs? Hm. If you say so.) Also Tom Sawyer by “Rush.”
Tangential, but this did remind me of what I call the “‘Stairway to Heaven’ Kubler-Ross Cycle”
1. The opening. “Oh dear god, not this fucking song again.”
2. The flutes. “Change the channel. Why aren’t you changing the channel?”
3. “Yeah, it makes me wonder too. I wonder why I’m still listening to this.”
4. The bridge and long solo. “Ya gotta admit, the dudes could play.”
5. “AHHND AS YOU WIND ON DOWN THE ROAD . . .”
6. “I really hope no one saw me air drumming with Bonham just now.”
Mike G
Seven smarmy words that maketh me to vomit:
“Mississippi Queen
You KNOW what I mean”
gogol's wife
@Baud:
I miss those “found poems” we could get there.
trollhattan
@gogol’s wife:
I see what you did there (started a joke).
Baud
@gogol’s wife:
Current goodie.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I was surprised Wonkette headlines show up, because I use adblocker.** Delighted to not see Newsmax or any of the insane advertising (mis)placed on Balloon Juice.
** thanks again, schrodinger’s cat!
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
He wouldn’t. … Would he?
Elizabelle
@Baud:
Because if there’s one thing cartoonists do well, it’s draw with one hand while the other one is locked and loaded.
Ripley
Imagine by John Lennon.
Everything Frank Zappa ever farted out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: a masterpiece compared to “Tears in Heaven”. Sure the backstory is heartbreaking, but that’s no reason for radio stations to play that song.
One of the few songs I hate more than Roxanne, the live version of Roxanne.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
That’s not what they do with the other hand.
eemom
@gogol’s wife:
Same here. With exceptions, I like the Doors, Eagles, Foreigner, Bob Seeger, Skynnard, even Abba. Yikes.
Alone Again Naturally is played a lot on XM/Sirius. Always makes me a little sad because I remember how my Dad liked it when it first came out.
Quicksand
@trollhattan:
Oh, I’m sure he’s a splendid fellow, so Happy Birthday Mr. Krieger. But it’s still a terrible song.
And I should also mention that American Pie is a special kind of horrible. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it says that song (McLean version, not Madonna, though that’s bad too) is only eight and a half minutes long. I would swear it’s twice as long as In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, not the other way around.
Baud
I miss Air Supply.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Glad I had not brought my tea upstairs yet.
And Charb approves!
BGinCHI
@Baud: 3rd best Austrian band ever.
Just Some Fuckhead
Any song where they spell words out.
gogol's wife
@eemom:
It seems Boz Skaggs has so far escaped everyone’s scorn.
geg6
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
LOL! I welcome their hatred!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Quicksand: Until this moment I was blissfully unaware that Madge had covered American Pie.
A lot of the songs you guys are hating on are songs I hated twenty, thirty years ago, but now they hit some kind of nostalgia button in my head. Not the Lady In Red.
BGinCHI
@Just Some Fuckhead: Wait, that’s how I learned the alphabet.
NCSteve
@Pogonip: (*light’s lighter and holds in air*) “‘Frayee Bird!’ Play ‘Frayee Bird!'”
bmcchgo
“I Just Called To Say (I Love You)” – Stevie Wonder
Don’t get me wrong, I grew up listening to Little Stevie and love almost his entire catalog. But this song just makes my f**king skin crawl.
gogol's wife
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Lady in Red is heinous, but I love Tears in Heaven.
BGinCHI
867-5309
I hate those numbers.
FridayNext
@Just Some Fuckhead:
How about YMCA? They aren’t really spelling a word, but initials.
Just Some Fuckhead
@BGinCHI: Cool. Sheena Easton taught me how to masturbate.
different-church-lady
Some people would kill Hitler.
I would remove all Peter Cetera era Chicago from the time-space continuum.
Keith P
@Suzanne: Agree 100% about RHCP. Tired, tired songs
Geetar59
“Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” by Rod Stewart. Utter shite.
When I hear that, I can see where the “Disco Sucks” movement was coming from, although “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” was Stewart’s weak-assed take on disco, not the real thing.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She only did about half of it, as I recall. One version that I think doesn’t get enough airplay is Weird Al’s parody, which recaps the plot of The Phantom Menace.
geg6
@Ripley:
With you on the Zappa. And I raise you every piece of dreck put out by the Grateful Dead. Worst band ever. And their fans are even worse.
gogol's wife
Workingman’s Dead is one of the best albums ever made. So is Over-Nite Sensation.
Bill
Skynyrd’s Simple Man.
It’s both musically boring and carries a terrible fucking message. I can’t seem to get away from this damn song though.
Amir Khalid
@geg6:
A quiet aside: One of those fans is our blog host.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@bmcchgo: What’s the song Stevie did with Elton John, Dionne Warwick and somebody else? Hate has blocked it form my mind, but I can picture the video. Elton John said they were all drunk when they filmed it, I think also when they agreed to record it.
ETA: That’s what friends are for. Gladys Knight was the someone else
BGinCHI
@Just Some Fuckhead: Lucky.
BGinCHI
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Choose hate.
DougJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s what friends are for.
Sandav
@dedc79:
The Doors and Steve Miller were among the very worst when it came to lyrics…
Elizabelle
@gogol’s wife: I listened to “Silk Degrees” a few times last month — hadn’t for years upon years, because it was too ubiquitous when it came out, became aural wallpaper — and Damn is that a good album.
And I’d kind of missed how many songs were about people in trouble with The Law.
Boz Scaggs owns a vineyard in California now and still looks pretty good. Life has been good to him. Will have to catch him touring sometime.
DougJ
@eemom:
Alone Again Naturally is a real classic.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: I find Zappa puerile, but I disagree about the Dead. I don’t like all of their stuff, but I find some of it quite good. Their hardcore fans can be disturbingly evangelical, though.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
I don’t think it’s 20 years old yet (and thus ineligible) but I nominate Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit for special consideration. And my long car trip torment as a kid was Islands in the Stream by Dolly ans Kenny
BGinCHI
Wind Beneath My Wings.
Goddamn it, Doug.
jl
For me, most songs in regular rotation are the worst, each in its own special way.
But, usually for me the most irritating songs are by Phil Collins. Something in the Air Tonight comes to mind.
But, then I don’t even know if that song qualifies by the Doug J criteria.
Geetar59
@cmorenc: Completely with you on the Four Seasons (with or without Valli, I don’t care). I have stayed as far away as humanly possible from Jersey Boys and I even think that Billy Joel’s late seventies/early eighties output is pretty good–except for An Innocent Man, his most Valli-influenced record.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Quicksand:
There’s a reason they picked “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” as the serial killer’s favorite song in “Manhunter.”
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I think “Cat’s In The Cradle” is also fucking wretched.
Also “Annie’s Song”.
“You fill out my ceeeeeensuuuuus….”
DougJ
You like Phil Collins?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7aQ1qkCITU
Woodrowfan
Afternoon Delight…
Captain C
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
1) I remember when the Harvard Lampoon did a USA Today parody in the mid-late ’80s, they had a top-10 Billboard-esque list of (fake) songs. IIRC, number 1 was Airplane, with “We Built This City (On An Indian Graveyard and Didn’t Tell Anyone)”
2) BLEEP you for putting that in my head :^P
Berial
“Revolution Number 9” by the Beetles. I heard the full song once and honestly that was one to many.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Suzanne:
Is that what he’s saying? I’m one of those “‘scuse me while I kiss this guy” lyrics people, so I never know what people are singing.
call_me_ishmael
Like many others, I view “American Pie” as an abomination.
Additionally, “Paradise by the Dashboard light” is also nasty, brutish, and very, very long.
Eric
I think when it comes to music everyone is allowed 2 passes that don’t wreck their cool card, one cheesy/bad song that they like for inexplicable reasons and one song that most people consider great that they hate for equally inexplicable reasons:-)
Bill
@Betty Cracker: Is puerile the word of the day around here?
Zappa was a genius. Musically way better than most in his generation.
jl
@DougJ:
Congratulations, you have instigated a thread that brings back so many aural nightmares for me.
I do happen to know a Phil Collins who is a pretty OK guy. Probably not the one you are talking about. I’ll just leave it there.
Edit: Should have typed ‘sonic nightmares’. I wanna seem hep, you know. The ‘sonics’ of Collins songs bug me, even if the other issues his songs have are not that bad. So, yeah, Collins is one of my faves.
wasabi gasp
I had a neighbor with a long daily commute. On the weekends, he would sometimes BBQ or relax in his backyard and, like a security blanket, would always tote his little boombox along. That thing was always, always tuned to his commute station and that kinda made me feel sad for him. It didn’t take long before all I felt was bad for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmmiCeBlQFU
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a band that I think I’m demographically supposed to like– aging Gen-X guy from the suburbs– is The Black Crowes, whom I hate with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns
Hungry Joe
Really? No one has mentioned Chicago?
“After All That We’ve Been Through”
“Saturday in the Park”
beltane
@call_me_ishmael: I had almost forgotten the abomination that is Meatloaf, who I once saw live opening for the Allman Brothers.
jl
@Bill: A lot of Zappa seems like the ‘elevator music’ version of Captain Beefheart to me. Not sure whether that is a good or bad thing. I’ll listen to anything a couple of times and give it consideration. I hate standard rotations with the same stuff repeating too often. Same goes for classical music stations, with results just as insufferable.
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is how I feel about The Dave Matthews Band, another one of my husband’s favorites.
jayboat
@trollhattan:
aaaaaaaarghhh!!!!!!
different-church-lady
@Bill: Musically transcendent, lyrically puerile. Such a strange combination.
Anyone who could come up with this cannot be worthless.
dnfree
@Pogonip: Yes, “Horse With No Name”. As Dave Barry said, apparently quoting another comedian, “You’re in a desert. You got nothing else to do. NAME THE FREAKIN’ HORSE.”
That and the one about MacArthur Park melting in the dark with the icing running down.
eemom
@DougJ:
There are a number of real classics being brutally dissed on this thread, IMHO. : (
Fuckers hating on American Pie….and ALL of the Grateful Dead? Fer realz?
Amir Khalid
@Hungry Joe:
different-church-lady did mention them, or at least the Pete Cetera incarnation.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, and I’m gonna push back against the Terry Kath era stuff HARD.
handy
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Would that include songs like this?
Bill
I love a lot of the music that’s listed here. But for me music fits in to two categories. 1. Good music. 2. Bad music that I like anyway. Usually songs in the second category are nostalgic for me. They take me back to a time and place. Someone mentioned Foreigner above, they definitely fit that mold. Complete 80’s shlock rock, but they remind me of the good time I had when I saw them at the Orange County Speedway in 1984.
Do others have favorite “bad” songs?
Pogonip
“Me and Mrs. Jones.”. “you know, and I know, and we know, and everybody knows that it was wrong…”
If everybody knows why are you spending 4 minutes blathering about it?
And I hope Gilbert O’Sullivan ended up saying ( not singing!) ” Welcome to Walmart.”
schrodinger's cat
Ohai DougJ, miss your snark and wit on the first pg. Happy New Year!
eemom
@Bill:
This.
Hell, I even like Afternoon Delight.
Lurking Canadian
@Eric U.: One is forced to ask why you walked *in* to see Mamma Mia in the first place? With a title like that, you couldn’t have been expecting Stravinsky.
Betty Cracker
@Bill: If it’s not, it should be; it’s an excellent word.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Piano Man. This song makes me want to shoot myself when I have the bad luck to hear it.
Amir Khalid
@beltane:
I remember being disappointed to learn that Meatloaf was not a tall fat man, as I had imagined, but merely a short fat man. I guess I was thrown off by the fact that the first movie I ever saw him act in cast Gillian Anderson as his girlfriend; she’s barely over five feet herself.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: I saw Meatloaf open for Willard Romney. Not live though
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That could be a Beefheart song. Thanks. Once is enough though.
Hungry Joe
@Pogonip: “A Horse with No Name” is automatically excluded from all discussions because it’s far and away the worst song of all time and if you allow it in the discussion is over.
call_me_ishmael
@beltane: That’s probably a good thread idea – who’s the most mismatched opening act vs headliner combination you’ve ever seen. Meatloaf and the Allman’s have to be a good choice there.
I saw Mr Loaf open for the Beach Boys which wasn’t so much bad as it was deeply disturbing in an inexplicable way.
Pogonip
@dnfree: On the other hand, that one did give Donna Summer the opportunity to sing the longest “Oh nooooooooooooooo” in history.
schrodinger's cat
Speaking of Godzilla, is this a match made in heaven?
Amir Khalid
@call_me_ishmael:
Apparently, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band once opened for Chicago.
Just Some Fuckhead
@handy: Ya know, relatedly, I learned the alphabet as A-E-I-O-U and sometimes Y & W. We learned W could be a vowel. (cwm, crwth)
Never found anyone else that learned the vowels that way.
Jerry O'Brien
What are you, nuts?
DougJ
@schrodinger’s cat:
Thanks. Happy New Year to you too!
DougJ
@wasabi gasp:
I only learned a few months ago that that’s not the same song as Wild Thing.
WereBear
“Sometimes When We Touch” by Dave Mason
“Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks
“In the Year 2525” by Whoever-they-heck-they-are
Highly recommend “Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs” though it comes with a warning, and it should.
Amir Khalid
@Eric U.:
You stayed even after you heard Pierce Brosnan sing?
Laertes
If I never heard Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” again, I wouldn’t miss it.
MomSense
REO Speedwagon. All of it.
If anyone needs a mental health break, I just introduced my youngest to chemistry cat. I had forgotten how funny some of the puns are. Lots of giggles going on here.
WereBear
It has to be sung by Richard Harris.
dedc79
@gogol’s wife: early bozz scaggs is fantastic. It’s his later stuff that is unconscionably bad.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@call_me_ishmael: Jimi Hendrix opened for The Monkees.
As everyone should have expected, things went badly right from the start; precious few of the anxiously screaming Monkees fans cared to sit through an act they could neither comprehend nor appreciate. Micky Dolenz noted:
Jimi would amble out onto the stage, fire up the amps, and break into “Purple Haze,” and the kids in the audience would instantly drown him out with, “We want Daavy!” God, was it embarrassing.
And Mike Nesmith observed:
Th[e] night he opened in front of us … he walked into the beast. There were twenty thousand pink waving arms. He would sing “Foxy” and they would shout, “Davy” — “Foxy” — “Davy …” Oh, man, it was a seriously twisted moment. He lasted seven dates.
beltane
@call_me_ishmael: My husband once saw the Violent Femmes open for the Grateful Dead.
Mayur
@eemom: maybe not the Dead, but American Pie is an abomination from the depths of Tarterus.
It is interesting to see how people’s tastes shake out. I can’t abide the doors, Eagles, any of those classic rock radio staple 60s-’70s bands (Chicago, America, Foghat, Free, Mountain, BTO, Steve miller etc), but I do kinda love ABBA and have a weakness for journey, so there you have it.
satby
@geg6: hey now!
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): No, he’s saying “you fill up my senses like a night in the forest”, but it would be less awful if it was “you fill out my census”.
Ahhh, Balloon Juice: where we fight like sorority girls over important issues that matter, but come together to bond over the most important issues that unite us all: pets and shitty music.
chopper
@Baud:
Unfortunately, you and everybody else with a high-powered rifle.
Amir Khalid
@WereBear:
When I finally heard Jacques Brel’s Le Moribund I found it was a magnificent song. Too bad its English version was ruined by Rod McKuen’s insipid lyrics and Jacks’ feeble dleivery.
Mike J
@Suzanne: You came on my pillow…
chopper
fuck you, WordPress! I hope you get website butt cancer!
Laertes
@Bill:
Rush mostly hasn’t aged well, but I still enjoy it because it takes me back.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
24 Hours from Tulsa.
call_me_ishmael
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That actually makes me feel worse for the Monkees than for Hendrix. Those poor buggers.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Bill: Lost my virginity at a Foreigner concert in 1981. I can’t hate that band no matter how awful some of their work has been.
I used to play music for a living. There’s a lot of songs I’d prefer to never play again (because they’re so boring and predictable I can play them drunk and with my eyes closed, and that includes a lot of songs and artists people REALLY like) but I seriously can’t think of any that would go on a hypothetical “no-play” list. I’ll listen to pretty much anything if I’m in the mood to listen to music. Which is not always the case. As I grow older I appreciate the value of periods of silence a lot more.
ETA:
@Laertes: I’m a die-hard Rush fan to the core, and they still put on a hell of a show, but Geddy didn’t stop smoking in time (or at all) and his voice is shot to shit. Was really disappointed in the last tour because of that. Can’t even sing the new stuff never mind the old. Sucks even more because as musicians they’re really at the top of their game these days.
There’s guys 15 years older than him (Roger Daltrey and Roger Hodgson for starters) who haven’t lost a single bit of their range. They took care of their voices. Geddy did not and that’s really fucking sad.
Mustang Bobby
@WereBear: 2525 was by Zager & Evans, which was, mercifully, their only hit.
If I never hear “Do You Know What I Mean” by Lee Michaels again, it will be too damn soon.
Hungry Joe
@call_me_ishmael: Mike Nesmith said he never in his life felt like such a fool as he did walking on stage after Hendrix, though he had fun seeing the looks on the faces of all the fathers who’d brought their 12-year-old daughters to hear Mike, Davy, Peter, and Mickey.
call_me_ishmael
@beltane: I’d pay to see that show. Binge drinking to prepare for the opening act, followed by a few bowls for the headliner.
Quaker in a Basement
@Lawrence: I haven’t. I’ll look for it on Spotify.
Suzanne
@Mike J: Oh lord. LMAO.
smintheus
Stairway to Heaven.
Lizzy L
Fuck y’all. I like most of these songs. However, I would cheerfully wave bye-bye to anything Neil Diamond ever did. And I would be totally happy never to hear Horse With No Name again. Ever. Just thinking about it makes me want to stab something.
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: I guess it’s the reverse of hearing some elevator/on-hold music and realizing they have butchered a favorite!
Otmar
Supertramp: “It’s raining again”
They have so many good songs, so why play this dreck?
schrodinger's cat
How old does the song have to be to be classified as an oldie? I am not a fan of the boy band era of 90s, at all. One example, Savage Garden’s
I want to stand with you on a mountain.
nastybrutishntall
Anything by the Stones except Emotional Rescue and Miss You.
Jumping Jack Flash is the explosion the entire bloated discography makes in my mind when my wish comes true and I never have to hear them again.
Scott
I generally like John Mellencamp but “Jack and Diane” really irritates me.
Agree with a lot of the others but ABBA is beyond cheese into art.
I also have a great weakness for overblown, pompous, epic, prog rock (like Moody Blues and ELP)
Bill
@call_me_ishmael:”That’s probably a good thread idea – who’s the most mismatched opening act vs headliner combination you’ve ever seen.”
Joe Walsh opening for Foreigner.
+44 opening for Fall Out Boy
WereBear
@Lizzy L: Did you see his remake of The Jazz Singer?
Well, don’t.
Laertes
@Bill:
The most shameful guilty pleasure I’ll cop to is Spandau Ballet. It’s not good, but I still smile every time I hear them.
DCrefugee
Anything by Peter Frampton or Journey. Almost to that point with Lynyrd Skynrd and post-Beatles Paul McCartney…
Amir Khalid
@nastybrutishntall:
I’ve always loved Star Star and always will, but the chorus is not safe for radio.
Eric U.
@Amir Khalid: Pierce Brosnan was the funniest part. They made him sing? Didn’t they have auditions? He surely has enough money to get singing lessons. Or maybe he did and the coach couldn’t convince him to breathe. If anyone had told me that it featured abba songs, I certainly wouldn’t have gone, I feel like this information was withheld from me. My step brother said it was supposed to be good, and he is a good ol’ boy, so I couldn’t believe it when the abba songs started.
WereBear
@Bill: Mr WereBear saw Jimmy Buffet open for Frank Zappa.
I saw Kenny Loggins open for Dire Straits.
Elizabelle
@eemom:
Say it ain’t so.
Was watching a pretty good movie a few days ago, and Afternoon Delight came up with the closing credits. Anybody else remember what it was? (Tell me it wasn’t American Hustle …)
Quaker in a Basement
@NCSteve: No “bustle in your hedgerow?”
CONGRATULATIONS!
@call_me_ishmael: Chuck Berry opening for Uriah Heep. Berry’s daughter sang the entire set. That was one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen in my life.
Worst headliner I’ve ever seen, hands down, was The Cars.
Elizabelle
@Scott: I can’t stand “Jack and Diane” either, and it’s ubiquitous. Love “Paper and Fire” and “Scarecrow” and a bunch of other Mellencamp songs.
Saw him open for Bob Dylan a few years ago. He was terrific.
nastybrutishntall
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: Oh God, how I love hating that song. It gives me strength, my hatred.
Mike J
@schrodinger’s cat: Going back to the beginning of the rock era, there are very few vocal bands that I can stand at all. The very idea that musicians are somehow less important than a vocalist who was hired primarily because he or she was attractive always annoyed.
Quaker in a Basement
How about songs you hated back in the day but like now?
I’ll open with “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” by Freddy Fender.
Bill
@Scott:
Me too. Pink Floyd may be my favorite band ever.
Saw Kansas last summer to fill my prog need. Steve Walsh’s voice is shot. Thankfully he retired at the end of the tour.
Woodrowfan
anytime Rush, Yes or the Dreadful Grate come on the radio I switch stations.
eemom
@WereBear:
That’s Dan Hill.
Can’t believe no one has mentioned You’re Having My Baby.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Oh dear God.
@WereBear: ahhh Jesus that might be even worse. Damn. It’s not that either one is bad, but the combo…no bueno.
Bill
@WereBear: Kenny Logins for Dire Straits?! That’s appalling!
Elizabelle
@WereBear:
Zager and Evans.
Have that song on a 45 and cannot bear the thought of playing it again. God only knows what’s on the B side. But I really liked it. Before puberty.
Suzanne
I will just note that I am listening to “Selling the Drama” by Live, and I haven’t heard it in a while, and I forgot how good it is.
gogol's wife
@call_me_ishmael:
I saw Sweathog open for Black Sabbath. Not a mismatch, but I’m blaming my tinnitus on it many years later.
Elizabelle
@eemom: !!! I think that won the thread.
Bleach. Where are you?
Amir Khalid
@WereBear:
Another Brel classic with a weaker English version is Ne Me Quitte Pas. But If You Go Away, despite its meh lyrics, is not quite as wretched as Seasons In The Sun.
schrodinger's cat
@Mike J: Do you like Queen?
wasabi gasp
@DougJ: Hey, maybe it was that one that was playing all the time. I don’t know. Now, I’m all confused…and I can’t believe I just spent ten minutes on youtube trying to figure that crap out.
Laertes
@Quaker in a Basement:
I didn’t exactly hate “Us and Them”, but it was always a boring lull when I’d listen to Dark Side. Now I love it. Don’t know what changed. It’s like broccoli, or bugundy, or Dvorak–I didn’t get it, then I did, and I don’t know why or even when, exactly.
BGinCHI
This thread is whatever the opposite is of therapeutic.
Matt McIrvin
@Quaker in a Basement: In the Eighties, I could not stand The Cure. Made me want to poke my ears out.
Now when one of their songs comes on the radio I have to admit they were (or, sometimes more accurately, he was) actually pretty good. Not my thing, but good. Maybe just because now the songs evoke the era.
Laertes
@schrodinger’s cat:
Cheap shot. Everybody likes Queen.
Turgidson
@Amir Khalid:
Seconded. How that song avoided the cutting floor in the first place, much less became a bit of a hit, has always been totally mystifying to me. It’s just so….lame.
edited to add: Also second any and all references to fucking Steve Miller Band. I can’t make it through ten seconds of any of their “hits” without descending into a homicidal rage. Something about that band just bugs that shit out of me.
Laertes
You know, speaking of Queen, I could really do without hearing Bohemian Fucking Rhapsody again. There are dozens of far better Queen songs, and damn Mike Myers for turning that into their signature track. Damn him right in his stupid face.
Woodrowfan
@Laertes: yep. Myers ruined it for me as well….
gogol's wife
@Quaker in a Basement:
Hated, hated, hated all 1970s Elvis, but watched Elvis on Tour on New Year’s Eve on TCM and now I love, love, love “Lord, you gave me a mountain” and his version of “Bridge over Troubled Waters.”
dedc79
You’re so Vain – Carly Simon
Mike J
@Bill:
Black Oak Arkansas opening for James Brown.
Bill
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Not exactly a mismatch, but I once saw a triple bill of Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and The Dead. Good show, but it made for a weird crowd. It was the mid-80’s, so there were a ton of grown up responsible Boomers there for the nostalgia Dylan, a bunch of teenagers like me there for Petty and of course the Dead Heads. I convinced some youngish wall street type to buy beers for me and my buddy through the whole show and then got shitty and indignant when Dylan played Blowin In The Wind with an electric guitar.
Amir Khalid
@Laertes:
Before you dismiss Bohemian Rhapsody, you should at listen to this famous cover.
Scott
@Bill: Yes, Pink Floyd also. Listened to Ummagumma just recently. Animals is my favorite later Pink Floyd. Love the dementedness of “Careful with that ax, Eugene”.
gogol's wife
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, I love it in French, hate it in English. I have this fantastic cheesy CD by Julian Ovenden (Foyle’s son) where he sings them both in a mashup. It instantly gets better when he switches to French. Weird.
Turgidson
@Berial:
That song would be a harmless/useless throwaway, but I blame it in large part for giving bands the idea that throwing a couple tracks of self-indulgent atonal nonsense onto their albums just for shits and giggles was a defensible artistic choice. That plague goes on to this day, and some of my favorite bands are guilty of it.
brodertown
What, no mention yet of “Josie’s on a vacation far away…”?
Mike J
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not particularly.
Suzanne
@Quaker in a Basement: I wouldn’t say there’s anything I hated that I now like, but I didn’t really “get” hip-hop and rap until I was in college, and I went back and was able to appreciate some of the stuff that was popular when I was younger.
A song that is bad that I love anyway is “Hate My Life” by Theory of a Deadman.
A song I am loving right now is “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” by Iris DeMent.
kindness
@geg6:
I am proudly bowing. Gotta love that hate. If you had ever gone to one of their shows you might say something different. If you could remember it that is. The Dead weren’t my favorite. Didn’t have a favorite. But their shows were more fun than should be legal.
gogol's wife
@Amir Khalid:
And the songs from Umbrellas of Cherbourg are great in French, terrible in English.
WereBear
Thanks! I don’t know why I always get that wrong, but I obviously don’t want to think about it…
Anyone remember “My Sharona?” I kind of like it. Now. When it was at its height of popularity I was on a road trip through the south and I swear it was the next song for five hours over three states.
Pogonip
@WereBear: Remember in The Shining where a terrified Hallorann is driving to the Overlook in a blizzard, and as if he wasn’t miserable enough, ” Seasons in the Sun” comes on the radio? Hee.
burnspbesq
Almost 250 comments, and unless I missed it none of the following were mentioned:
Walk This Way
School’s Out
We’re an American Band
Don’t Fear the Reaper
I Can’t Fight this Feeling
Saving All My Love for You
Love Is the Drug
Margaritaville
Touch of Gray
Walk like an Egyptian
What the hell is wrong with you people?
Lavocat
Hey, fuck you and the horse you road in on, pal, “Touch Me” is awesome. The Lizard King will fuck your shit up!
Seriously? You want a list of them? I’ll limit them to Number One hits from the 1960s just to make it easy.
Let’s start with 1963, the year I was born: “It’s My Party”, “My Boyfriend’s Back”, and “Blue Velvet”;
1964: “There, I’ve Said It Again”, “Rag Doll”, and “Last Kiss”;
1965: “I Got You Babe”, “Eve Of Destruction”, and “Hang On Sloopy”;
1966: “The Ballad Of The Green Berets”, “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!”, and “Winchester Cathedral”;
1967: “Ode To Billie Joe”, “Never My Love”, and “The Rain, The Park And Other Things”;
1968: “Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)”, “Honey”, “Tighten Up”, and “Harper Valley P.T.A.”;
1969: “Hair”, “In The Ghetto”, “In The Year 2525”, “Sugar, Sugar”, and “Little Woman”.
Shit, I could go on and on here (but I won’t). And that’s just the 60s!
Christ, there’s gotta be hundreds (thousands?) of crappy songs from the past 50 years.
But, believe me, “Touch Me” (from 1969) doesn’t even come close.
MCA1
@dedc79: I’ll take ironic, tongue firmly planted in cheek bad grammar like that over Jim Morrison’s bad grammar all day and twice on Sunday. At least Steve Miller liked the way words sounded and could occasionally string them together in an alliterative way. Hell, he invented words to make them rhyme but it was in fun. Morrison was a pretentious moron with Dunning Krueger up the wazoo so it’s pathetic coming from him.
schrodinger's cat
@Mike J: Blasphemy!
gogol's wife
@Lavocat:
“Honey” is really heinous. But are they still playing it on the radio? The only excuse for it is that the Smothers Brothers did a hilarious parody of it.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Did you see Downton Abbey?
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
Of course. Watching it again tonight.
ETA: Are you blogging it this season?
beltane
@kindness: I never listen to the Dead now, but I attended over 60 shows back in the late 1980s and do not regret a single one of them. Now that I’m a middle aged person, I can look back confident that I didn’t miss out on the fun things in life.
Scottinnj
Anything by REO speedwagon
shelley
Wow, just clicked in and 273 responses already. These topics always seem to touch a nerve.
In one survey, Jefferson Starship’s “We Built This City” was voted worst rock song ever.
But I don’t know. It;s the video that’s freaking awful. I always enjoy the song itself.
Hungry Joe
@Turgidson: Weird — Steve Miller has the same effect on me: homicidal rage.
“You’re So Vain” is particularly painful to me because one night while trying to get to sleep in a youth hostel in (I think) Brussels I had to listen to an American guy explain the lyrics, line by line, to someone who didn’t speak English very well. It took forever, and what bothers me the most, looking back on it, is that I didn’t scream “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: I think so, yes.
Mike J
@Lavocat: What’s your problem with Tighten Up? One of the best songs of the 60s.
Berial
@Turgidson: EXACTLY! That is something they should have kept to their damn selves.
burnspbesq
@Lavocat:
Dude, how could you possibly forget “Elusive Butterfly?”
ETA: or “Puff, the Magic Dragon?”
Matt McIrvin
…And I actually kind of like a lot of the songs in this thread even though I know they’re pure cheese. There are some exceptions.
Billy Joel puts this strange combination of genius and hackery into everything he writes. He can write extremely catchy tunes and memorable lyrics, and somehow that actually makes it worse. I think Ron Rosenbaum actually captured the problem when he described the air of “unearned contempt” that fills most of Joel’s lyrics. When I was a kid I actually kind of liked that, because it seemed vaguely rebellious. But in accumulation it just comes across as smug.
“We Built This City” was and is not good, but it’s become famous for being bad; people love to hate it. I think in part because it’s so proud of itself as an example of Rock And Roll while actually being profoundly mediocre.
I’ve just realized that I have no idea what gets played in heavy rotation on oldies stations these days. I think the single worst pop songs ever to get heavy rotation on the radio may have been Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight At The Oasis” and Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney’s “The Girl Is Mine.” But I don’t know if they’ve survived.
Lavocat
@Amir Khalid: You’ve earned your special place in hell for that.
Cpl Cam
It seems like I’ve been hearing that annoying fucking song by Sugar Ray again recently. Sweet Christ how did that song not die with the nineties?
WereBear
@Pogonip: Yes, I do! And I had the same reaction — “Like things aren’t bad enough…”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gogol’s wife: sappy death songs could be a thread of their own
She’ll be riding Wiiiiild.. fire… we’re gonna ride….
gogol's wife
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Somethin warm was runnin in my eyes, / But I found my baby somehow that night
Pogonip
@WereBear: I hated that! ( I hated most of the songs that were played ad nauseam.)
Going back to Donna Summer, don’t forget “Love to Love You Baby.”. Even she hated it, though it made her rich, and she quit performing it the minute she had sufficient clout to do so. Not that I blame her; that had to be pretty embarrassing.
Berial
@burnspbesq: I don’t think I’ll ever consider “Walk like an Egyptian” to be ‘classic’. It’ll only ever be ‘horrible’ to me.
WereBear
“Run Joey Run” is probably forgotten by the radio stations, but I’ll never forget it.
Kathleen
@brantl: Amen amen amen. Also, another vote of hate for Sweet Home Alabama. Anything by the Doors except Light My Fire. Or Eric Clapton. I really hate most of the stuff that was popular during my college years (late 60’s/early 70’s). And while I’m at it, I never ever got Bob Dylan so my secret decoder Baby Boomer signet ring can be ripped unceremoniously from my cold, dead finger.
Bill
@Cpl Cam: I am kind of enjoying watching people about a decade younger than me experience the resurgence of shitty 90’s music for the first. Seeing them hear Sugar Ray again is like the first time I realized Men Without Hats was going to get regular radio play again.
burnspbesq
@Berial:
But it was a huge hit. The worst thing by a band that actually made some really good records (“If She Knew What She Wants” and the best cover of a Big Star song ever, “September Gurls”).
Lavocat
@burnspbesq: It never reached Number One. It entered the Top 100 on 01/22/1966 and I think it made the Top 10. I agree: kinda gay. Still, back then, most songs were like that.
What I continue to be blown away by was how far ahead of their time The Beatles were in almost everything that they did.
I could listen to the white album for the rest of my life and STILL catch sounds I hadn’t heard before.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Laertes:
My mom likes Queen. Also AC/DC, Pink Floyd and fun. She is quite current for someone in her 70s.
srv
@Amir Khalid:
Youts believe Thriller was the most played song in history. Not even close. I can remember 6 or 7 years later you could not go anywhere a jukebox existed and Hotel California was not on rotation every 3 or 4 songs.
Pogonip
@Bill: I’d like a lot of Petty’s songs better if someone else sang them. His voice sounds unfortunately like a duck quacking. Although it’s one of his quackiest, I do like ” I Won’t Back Down” because it reminds me of an extremely stubborn person I know. Nice fella, but he–won’t–budge.
Suzanne
I cannot hear “Don’t Fear the Reaper” without thinking “I gotta fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell”. And “You Oughta Know” makes me think about Uncle Joey, aka Dave Coulier, getting a blowjob. EWWWWWW. And “Tiny Dancer” sounds like, “Hold me closer, Tony Danza”.
I had a roommate who would play the Goo Goo Dolls’ entire catalog on repeat until I almost shot her just to watch her die. Hearing those songs makes the anger come pouring back.
Quaker in a Basement
@Mike J: It MIGHT have been a good idea for a thread, but now there’s no point. You win.
Lavocat
@gogol’s wife: Yeah. Heard it the other day and momentarily lost all rational control. That looming embankment was starting to look pretty tempting.
trollhattan
@WereBear:
Saw U2 open for Ambrosia.
Laertes
@Kathleen:
Okay, I’m more of an old gen-Xer than a Boomer, but I might be able to help. I mostly don’t get Dylan either, but once in a while I can hear it. The thing about Dylan is he’s a great songwriter, while his singing is kind of difficult to appreciate.
So the secret is: look for good Dylan covers. For instance, Cassandra Wilson’s “Shelter from the Storm.” I never realized that was a good song until I heard her do it. I’m sure there are dozens more examples. (And I’d be grateful if someone could point me at a really good cover of Simple Twist of Fate. There’s got to be some.)
Lavocat
@Mike J: No problem at all if you like the lyrics to be simply some idjit telling various musicians to “tighten up” throughout the song. Truly mind-numbingly fucking horrible.
Matt McIrvin
@Pogonip: I hate that Sam Smith dirge that has the same tune as “I Won’t Back Down,” in part because when I hear it it reminds me that I could actually be listening to a somewhat better song with the same notes.
Quaker in a Basement
@Lavocat: Ever hear Wilson Pickett’s take on Sugar, Sugar?
When he sings, “You are my candy, girl,” you almost need a cold shower.
Pogonip
@WereBear: The Overlook’s ghosts probably called the station and requested the song just to try to get Hallorann to flee.
When I mentioned Tom Petty at his quackiest, FY Auto Correct wanted to change it to “quack jest.”. What the quack?!?!
Did anyone else hate “Pillow Talk” by Sylvia? I don’t blame her for leaving her last name off.
Mike J
@trollhattan: I saw INXS open for the Go-Gos.
Suzanne
@Cpl Cam: Which one? Spread your love on flies?
I have been hearing WAAAAY too much Smashmouth as of late. Fuck off and die, Smashmouth. Take 311 with you. Amber is the color of my enema.
A song I always always hated, but is newer than the classics on this thread, is Tubthumping by Chumbawamba.
I used to be irritated by Oasis, now I think they’re okay, but still whiny. “Wonderwall” is grating.
Kathleen
@dedc79: How could I have forgotten America, Captain and Tennille singing “Muskrat Love” – a paean to rodent procreation,
Quaker in a Basement
@gogol’s wife: Aw, heck! You gonna open the whole stinking can of tragedy songs?
Turgidson
I always pretty much hated More Than a Feeling, Cold As Ice, and related Boston and Foreigner hairballs.
Having grown up in the Chicago area, I also came to almost hate Pink Floyd’s and the Doors’ radio hits because the Chicago rock radio stations have some quota dictating that they must play these bands a million times each, every day, or be waterboarded, or something. Play them so fucking much.
Funny thing is I really like Pink Floyd and am generally fine with the Doors (though Touch Me was a great choice to kick off this thread. By far my least favorite “hit” Doors song). But to this day I can’t make it through Comfortably Numb, Wish You Were Here, Money, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, or Light My Fire, Love Me Two Times, or Break On Through. Just heard them so many fucking times in my adolescence.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
It certainly Lit Up My Life.
shelley
Sweet Jesus, remember “Windmills Of Your Mind”? Lyrical hooey that drove me nuts even when I was 10 years old.
And could somebody explain ‘McArthur Park’ to me? Somebody left the cake out in the rain? Go to the damn bakery.
Elizabelle
@Pogonip: Tom Petty? Quacking like a duck?
Will listen for that next time. You might have ruined Mr. Petty for me … (like some of his stuff; some is forgettable)
Howard Stern ruined a Squeeze song for me (not one of their best): tempted by the fruit of your mother …
Mary G
Pina Colada song. Ugh.
I loved Steve Miller back in the day, but I don’t listen to the lyrics much.
WereBear
@trollhattan: That’s not right!
Turgidson
@Laertes:
…or the Byrds playing just about any Dylan song, which they did a lot of, well, in their early years. That’s how I choose to appreciate Dylan more often than not. I like some of his own albums, but don’t find myself wanting to listen to them often.
Kathleen
@Baud: I always confused them with REO Speedwagon. Aren’t they the same group? Also, forgot to mention Steve Miller and Grateful Dead.
Amir Khalid
@burnspbesq:
What have you got against Puff The Magic Dragon? It’s a kids’ song that many people remember fondly.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I always figured Smash Mouth’s “All Star” was in some sense a knockoff of “Tubthumping.”
But I can’t hate “Tubthumping” ever since I heard the cover by They Might Be Giants and the entire Onion AV Club staff.
trollhattan
@WereBear:
Was a weird show, believe you me. But hey, if anybody accuses U2 of not paying their dues….
SatanicPanic
Beatles, Love Me Do. That song is terrible in almost every way possible.
Gravenstone
@Quaker in a Basement: Try this version on for size.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq: You missed “Feelings”, perhaps the worst top 40 hit ever.
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic: STONE HIM! HERETIC! UNBELIEVER! STONE HIM!
Kathleen
@different-church-lady: Who can forget his classic duet with Amy Grant, when Peter warbled “Next time I foul in love”?
Pogonip
@burnspbesq: I really, really HATE “Margaritaville.”
In really old oldies, Janis Ian, ” At Seventeen.”. Lord, that’s depressing. No wonder nobody sent her Valentines. It’s worse than the teenage death songs. At least you can laugh at those. “At Seventeen” makes me feel sorry for the kid and simultaneously annoyed with her because she’s such a drip.
Something warm was running in my eyes but I found my teen angel somehow that night, and now, at seventeen, Patches, the leader of the pack and I are coming to you! (I give you–the all-purpose depressing song!)
Suzanne
Best Dylan covers would be an amazing thread. I like Mike Ness’ “Don’t Think Twice” and RATM’s “Maggie’s Farm”.
However, none of the covers of “Make You Feel My Love” beat Dylan’s.
schrodinger's cat
@SatanicPanic: I agree, I don’t like their Boy Band phase much either.
You can add, She loves me yeah, yeah.. too.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid:
Puff the Magic Dragon, lived by the sea,
and frolicked in the autumn mist in the land by Galilee?
Uh, probably not. Think that was one of my first 45s.
Leave Puff aloooooone.
WereBear
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh, I knew I would be sorry if I read the whole thread.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kathleen: A few years ago there was a nostalgia tour made up of IIRC REO Speedwagon, Boston and Styx. I imagined them all back stage trying to remember whose song was whose. “No, man, I’m pretty sure that’s ours…”
bmcchgo
@Jim, Foolish Literate
We were almost simpatico until you launched into your Black Crowes bashing. Not cool bro, not cool!
Calouste
“American Woman”. Terrible, terrible song.
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est:
Or, as on an album cover with Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty:
Feelins’
Villago Delenda Est
@kindness: I have NEVER understood Grateful Dead fandom. I have plenty of friends who love the Dead, but I have never, ever gotten them. All that endless canoodling they’re famed for…leaves me cold. Meh.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m so old I remember when we made fun of those glitter, newcomers in Champaign. The Arieal Speedway!
Bill
@Matt McIrvin: I have a soft spot for Tubthumping because my oldest kid loved it when she was little. You haven’t really lived till you’ve watched your three year old thrash around singing lyrics written by anarchists.
I also kind of love that Chumbawamba basically did themselves in by instructing fans to steal their record.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@burnspbesq: several of those songs kick ass! Ah… But which ones?
Gravenstone
@Elizabelle:
To think that song spawned a (thankfully shortlived) variety show featuring Starland Vocal Band. A show perhaps more famous for introducing David Letterman to a national audience.
Turgidson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I forgot Styx in my above Boston/Foreigner comment. Come Sail Away and Lady have the same effect on me Steve Miller Band does. Blinding homicidal rage.
Gravenstone
I was pretty much done with Peter Framption while “Frampton Comes Alive” was still a thing.
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Now it’s trance music at Burning Man. Ever thus….
Bill
@Villago Delenda Est:
I like The Dead, but for this same reason was really disappointed when I saw the Dave Mathews Band.
“No Dave, I don’t want to hear a 23 minute version of Ants Marching.”
joel hanes
@trollhattan:
Great to dance to, right up there with “Ballad of the Green Beret.”
Props for reference to Jaime Brockett’s
“Talkin’ Green Beret New Yellow Hydraulic Banana Teeny Bopper Blues”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFVQdpigUrI
gogol's wife
@Calouste:
unless mike myers is involved
Svensker
When the local stations are done torturing me playing Steve Miller’s The Joker, they follow up with Abracadabra…I wanna reach out and grab ya. Right between the eyes, d*ckbreath. I HATE those two songs. HATE them. Yup. Hate ’em.
@Turgidson:
What you said.
FromFlorissant
Anyone else overexposed to “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”? Cannot stand the lead vocals in any AC/DC song.
Kathleen
@Lavocat: Now I do love “Tighten Up” by Archie Bell and the Drells. There was some great late 60’s R&B from Stax and Atlantic records.
Gravenstone
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Hey now, the closing verse popped into my head the other day following one of the many “everyone hates everyone else” threads here. Song might be treacle, but the sentiment is timeless.
srv
@Villago Delenda Est: You obviously haven’t partaken enough of a particular substance. Square.
Turgidson
@Bill:
What’s funny is that a big chunk of his fanbase doesn’t want to hear that either. Or, even worse, any new songs. Just the songs they’ve listened to a million times, preferably note-for-note.
Wasn’t a huge fan of them, but listened to their breakthrough album a fair amount and went to a show as a teenager when they were on the rise back in the late 90s. Was a truly weird experience. Most of the fans seemed wholly unaware that DMB was kind of a noodly jam band and had no idea what to make of it when the band started improvising or played a new song. The energy just evaporated until they played the next song everyone knew.
les
@geg6:
Have you considered sports talk radio?
Hungry Joe
@Villago Delenda Est: A girlfriend showed me that when “Feelings” comes on the radio you can make it not only tolerable, but fun, simply by singing along and substituting “Felix” for “Feelings.”
It works, I tell you.
Gravenstone
@Baud: Oh god! My freshman roommate in college had their greatest hits album. Played it constantly. The horror, the horror…
Although I had a humorous moment of payback when I sent him literally fleeing from the room in fear when “Lucifer” by Alan Parsons Project came on. Apparently that was a little too much for his church mouse self to deal with.
Pogonip
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Hey, while we’re at it, “Catcher in the Rye” is pretentious and overrated and BORING.
Kathleen
@Laertes: There are some Dylan songs I like, especially Hendrix’s cover of “All Along The Watchtower”. And I really enjoyed the Basement Tapes special on Showtime, which featured contemporary musicians creating songs from Dylan’s lyrics. So some of his stuff I do like. I’ve just been wearied by the “persona” for almost 50 years.
Quaker in a Basement
@Gravenstone: Still tedious, but it’s way better than listening to Stevie Nicks croak it out.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike J: I saw Public Image Ltd. open for INXS.
I think I have a much higher threshold for cheese than most of you people. I’ll even sing “This is how you remind me of what I really am!”
eemom
@Elizabelle:
Srsly. I heard Peter and Paul on XM 60s station recently saying they made up a sequel where Jacky Paper grows up and has a little girl who comes back to Honalee to play with Puff. [melt]
srv
And for all you Mothra Haterz, here is some motheducation to enlighten your sub-par minds.
FlipYrWhig
@Villago Delenda Est: There are Dead fans who listen to the music? I just thought it was all code for ph@rmac3uticalz.
Kathleen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, that is too funny! And probably so true.I’m truly enjoying this thread and a lot of laughs.
eemom
@Turgidson:
Aw c’mon. Renegade? Too Much Time On My Hands?
joel hanes
@Villago Delenda Est:
“Feelings”, perhaps the worst top 40 hit ever.
Ahem.
“She ran calling Wiiiilldfiiire.
She ran calling Wiiiilldfiiire.
She ran calling Wiii-iii-illdfire.”
The prosecution rests.
Also:
“Yummy yummy yummy
I’ve got love in my tummy
And I feel like lovin’ you.”
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, and “Schools Out” is great for one reason and one reason alone:
We’ve got no class
And we’ve got no principles.
And we’ve got no innocence.
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes!
OK, also for
Can’t salute you
Can’t find a flag
If that don’t suit you
That’s a drag!
Emma
I am very late to the party but I had read the first few posts before I had to make a run for the bus. So… to whoever mentioned “We Built this City” — boils, I tell you, boils! I have been hearing the same four damn bars of that damned song for TWO HOURS!
wasabi gasp
@Pogonip:
Cite?
Gravenstone
@call_me_ishmael:
Of course I never saw them since I would have been a toddler at the time, but I don’t think anything is going to beat Hendrix opening for the Monkees, ever.
shelley
@Pogonip: Definitely not a book to try and read once you’re out of your teen years.
GratefulDude
@Lawrence: That would be “Casey Jones”. And, also, wrong. ;)
Bill
@Turgidson: It’s weird how some “jam bands” speak to me, and I find others just self indulgent. After Jerry died, some Dead Head friends of mind convinced me to go see Phish because the “are like totally the next Dead maaaaan.” I just couldn’t get in to it.
Emma
@joel hanes: No. No. No. No. I had a roommate in college who loved that bloody Wildfire song. To this day, I daydream of razorblades when I hear it.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I hate you. I had blocked that fucking song out of my mind until now.
I return, I gift you “Run, Joey, Run” which IMO is even worse.
Gravenstone
@WereBear:
Zager and Evans. And yes, I have it on my ipod for pure youthful kitsch nostalgia.
mai naem mobile
Ebony and Ivory mccartney and either MJ or Stevie Wonder
Anything by Van Halen, the Cars and A Flock of Seagulls
Also Huey Lewis and the Men Down Under song
Fleetwood Macs Rhiannon
Pretty much all of John Hughes movie songs including In Your Eyes, St Elmos Fire and Dont You Forget About Me (please please let me forget about you)
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@WereBear:
You are clearly my road trip buddy when it comes to music. How are you on Elvis Costello?
Karen in GA
“Miracles,” Jefferson Starship. The lyrics are what would happen if Spinal Tap played weddings, and if you drink very time you hear the word “baby” you’ll need a liver transplant before the song ends.
shelley
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
Irony Abounds
@Lizzy L: Just when I thought Neil would escape without being mentioned, I got to comment 222. Well, Neil’s Bang recordings are top notch, and most of his Uni/MCA material is great as well. After that his output fluctuates quite a bit, but at 74 (later this month) he still puts on a concert that shames most other acts in the business.
As for all the Billy Joel haters, kiss my ass (and in particular I find Ron Rosenbaum, the author of the article linked above to be a complete dick). I’m reading Joel’s recently published biography and many of the points concerning Joel’s “smugness” and “contempt” are addressed. I agree that popularity isn’t the same as quality, but by the same token, commercial music isn’t necessarily crap, and Joel’s music combines great melodies with lyrics that, while perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea, are not word salads thrown together without any meaning. I recognize Piano Man can be tiresome because it is heard so often, but the fact is when you listen to the song you you can actually visualize a 70’s era piano bar and the people he sings about in the song.
As for 20+ yr old songs that make me want to puke, I’d put Lennon’s Imagine at or near the top of my list. Silly childlike concepts – You can actually hear a Miss USA contestant answering a question with the song’s lyrics “What kinda of world would I like to see? I imagine a world where thera are no countries…nothing to kill or die for…living life in peace… Yeesh, utter garbage IMHO.
Pogonip
@wasabi gasp: Beats me. I read it years ago. Sorry.
Has anyone read “I Hate Myself And Want To Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You’ve Ever Heard” by Tom Reynolds? It’s similar to Barry’s bad-song book.
MomSense
@Matt McIrvin:
He drinks a whiskey drink. He drinks a vodka drink. He drinks a lager drink. He drinks a cider drink.
Elizabelle
@Karen in GA:
LOL. There’s a new thread on its own!
Elizabelle
OT: Ava DuVernay interviewed re Selma on The Snooze Hour tonight.
Now: back to (unfortunately not forgettable enough) music …
Karen in GA
@wasabi gasp: I thought she stopped performing it when she became a Christian.
Tree With Water
When The Lights Go Down In The City.
I rank it #1 because the San Francisco Giants adopted it as a theme song, I’m a fan, and it makes me want to puke every time they crank it up.
I’d rather listen to Sweet Caroline- another song I hate- like they’re forced to at Fenway, than the excremental Lights Go Down. It would be a blessing in comparison.
ixnay
@Laertes: Dylan’s singing is a LOT difficult to appreciate, and his piano playing even moreso. Plus, in live performance, he has no respect whatsoever for the sound he’s putting out. His performance in Boston last year was inexcusable, especially in light of the brilliant opening set by Mark Knopfler. Knopfler’s sound technician proved that it was not the acoustics at the Garden, because he sounded wonderful. Rather, Bob’s sound technician either knew nothing, or he and Bob simply could not have cared less.
Oh, and I’ll still vote for (against?) “Touch Me” – the Lizard King was a poser.
— ixnay
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Amir Khalid: I prefer this cover of Bohemian Rhapsody.
And while we’re on the subject of Abba, the best ever version of Dancing Queen.
Captain C
@Cpl Cam: We’re just about due for the inevitable ’90s revival.
Gravenstone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Timothy …
shelley
Saw a list of the most used pop songs in movie sound tracks.
Sweet Home Alabama, whenever a characters returning home to their southern roots, or just thinking about their southern hometown.
“Walking On Sunshine” Obviously when a character’s suddenly experiencing a burst of happiness or just cutting loose.
And speaking of cutting loose…
The most used song in film and tv.. “Born To Be Wild.”
Poopyman
I for one am not surprised this thread hit 400.
WereBear
Beat you to it, but it is the worst of the worst. However, as a teen, my friends and I would sing along, emoting like crazed weasels, and it helped.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Love him!
Omnes Omnibus
“Proud to be an American”
Captain C
@Villago Delenda Est: As Jerry said:
“We’re like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.”
Poopyman
@Gravenstone: We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
No one cited “Proud to be a Merkin” as one of those songs?
Baud
sees Omnes
Anything by the Clash
skulks away
AliceBlue
@call_me_ishmael:
Saw the Ramones open for Van Halen in 1978. It wasn’t pretty.
Poopyman
@Poopyman: (Shakes fist at OO.)
janeform
My 6th grade class voted Seasons in the Sun the class song and even then I was like WTF?
Hungry Joe
@shelley: It seems like about half the movies with happy endings close with Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”
Hungry Joe
@AliceBlue: Saw the Chambers Bros. open for It’s a Beautiful Day. Thus my lifelong cognitive dissonance problem.
Foonman
Anything by Norman Greenbaum.
Gravenstone
@Poopyman: I’d seen it mentioned by managed to evade the earworm. However, to do it proper justice, I must add this contemporary ditty from my quiet youth.
“Delta Dawn, what’s that flower you have on?
Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?”
Helen Reddy’s version, of course
eemom
I like Seasons in the Sun, only because it reminds me of my daughter’s comment upon hearing it when she was 7 or 8: “If this was real, he’d never make it to the end of the song. He’d be gone by now.”
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
We’re on! Where shall we road trip to?
ETA: I think PhoenixRising is my other road trip buddy, so we’ll need to have at least a four-seater car.
Turgidson
@eemom:
I don’t even know how those songs go. My loathing of Come Sail Away and Lady has rendered me uninterested in knowing anything else about Styx, other than that Mr. Roboto is also terrible.
janeform
IMHO, eemom wins the thread with You’re Having My Baby. Although Proud to be an American is a close second.
Patricia Kayden
Anything by Huey Lewis & The News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6uEMOeDZsA
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: We are on opposite coasts. But I’m willing to fly to Kansas City, have some beef & blues, and pick a destination then.
different-church-lady
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Wait… did you say… AT a Foreigner concert?!?
@ixnay:
Lou Reed and Bob Dylan once had a contest to see who could sing the least notes.
Mike J
@janeform:
I don’t know if that song is in regular rotation on oldies stations. The only place I’ve ever seen it is at those horrible “patriotic” displays around sporting events.
TerryC
@call_me_ishmael: @Laertes: Baez sings Dylan.
wasabi gasp
@Karen in GA: Yes, that’s my understanding, too.
Origuy
The only Sublime song that I know I’ve heard is “Santeria” but I hate it.
What was that song about a women whose husband is shooting blanks so she finds a guy that looks like him and gets pregnant? Yeah, I hate that one, too.
EthylEster
@Geetar59: Bob and Ray did an excellent cover of “If you think I’m sexy”. Which is to say they mocked it to death. But probably nobody knows who Bob and Ray are.
ThresherK
Just got here (late as always) but if you’re looking for a book that tells you why some songs don’t suck while others do, try Yeah Yeah Yeah by Bob Stanley.
And get your YouTube ready; you’ll be using it a lot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@EthylEster: the one from SNL, with Gilda, Lorraine and Jane?
Lavocat
Okay, I can’t resist. Here are the bombs from the 70s (all Number One hits, mind you!):
1970: “Everything Is Beautiful”. “(They Long To Be) Close To You”, “Make It With You”, “Patches”, “Candida”, “We’ve Only Just Begun”, and “I Think I Love You”;
1971: “Knock Three Times”. “Rose Garden”, “Doesn’t Somebody Want To Be Wanted”, “Want Ads”, “Don’t Pull Your Love”, “Go Away Little Girl”, “Gypsys, Tramps And Thieves”, and “Brand New Key”;
1972: “Precious And Few”, “”Rockin’ Robin”, “The Candy Man”, “Sylvia’s Mother”, “Nice To Be With You”, “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast”, “My Ding-A-Ling”, “Burning Love”, “I’d Love You To Want Me”, and “I Am Woman”;
1973: “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”, “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Old Oak Tree”, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”, “Yesterday Once More”, “Half-Breed”, “Heartbeat – It’s A Love Beat”, “Top Of The World”, and “The Most Beautiful Girl”;
1974: “The Americans” (truly fucking dreadful), “Seasons In The Sun”, “The Loco-Motion”, “The Streak”, “Billy, Don’t Be A Hero”, “(You’re) Having My Baby”, and “I Honestly Love You”;
1975: “Mandy”, “Please Mr. Postman”, “Have You Never Been Mellow”, “Lovin’ You”, “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You)”, “Run Joey Run”, and “Mr. Jaws”;
1976: “I Write The Songs”, “Convoy” (probably the worst song ever made!!!!!), “Afternoon Delight”, and “Disco Duck”;
1977: “Torn Between Two Lovers”, “Love Theme From ‘A Star Is Born'”, “Don’t Give Up On Us”, “When I Need You”, “Undercover Angel”, “Da Do Ron Ron”, “I Just Want To Be Your Everything”, “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band”, and “You Light Up My Life”;
1978: “Short People”, “(Love Is) Thicker Than Water”, and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”;
1979: “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)”.
Again, I’m just getting started. It truly is amazing how many dreadful songs are out there.
WereBear
@EthylEster: They are hilarious!
muddy
@Villago Delenda Est: The last couple months I was working a seasonal job in a catalog distribution center, 2nd shift. The only station that would come on in the warehouse was classic rock, and of course it’s not like we could just do without? Young people were bitching that they were sick of hearing it. I said, Pity me then, I’ve been sick of it twice as long as you’ve even been alive. But the absolute worst part was goddamned motherfucking Alice Cooper.
He has a syndicated radio show from 7 till midnight. The announcer says his name. Alice Cooper says his name, the announcer says his name, commercial, then announcer and Alice repeat both names some more times. Canned remarks about the local town so we all feel like we are special to Alice Cooper and he’s talking just to us. We have such transitional gems as a portentious voice announcing, “Alice Cooper is taking a bathroom break… he’s not as young as he used to be…” Every single night. Every single hour. They also brag repeatedly that Alice Cooper plays the songs you won’t hear anywhere else. Except that they mostly consist of the songs in this thread. And they were the same every single night. It was so perfectly wrong you might think it a performance art piece.
The worst song of any performer is the only one he ever plays. Over and over and over. Interspersed with Alice’s bon mots regarding how there was no good music in the 80’s and how he was besties with Jim Morrison back in the day. I never paid much mind to Mr. Cooper (portentious voice: “His mother didn’t name him that!”), well probably had a couple of his albums in 8th grade or something.
I came to loathe him with a true depth of passion. Every night, trying to work, listening to this at top volume. I said we should have a pool where we guessed how often we heard the words, “Alice Cooper” in the course of shift, but of course no one wanted to listen closely enough to count. Thank the gods the focus shifted from inbound to outbound at the warehouse and outbound is too loud for music. Yay, senseless racket!
Quicksand
@Mike J:
Yeah, Lee Greenwood performed it live just a few days ago during an intermission of the NHL Winter Classic game in Washington DC.
Layin’ it on a little thick, are we?
EthylEster
@dedc79: true for many bands. early chicago was OK…with cetera. was he the guy who shot himself?
Tree With Water
@Foonman: You mean he wrote more than one song? albeit a monstrous smash hit that John Lennon and I both liked when it hit the charts.. and i still do..
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@geg6:
I think it means I’m officially old that I think Robert Plant is still hot.
different-church-lady
@EthylEster: No, Terry Kath, the guitarist, accidentally offed himself. That created a void in the band’s leadership and direction that Cetera filled.
The Golux
@trollhattan:
The original lyric, by Paul Pena:
Touchin’ down in New England
Feel the heat comin’ down
First thought is “Lord, I said I’d be there”
But I couldn’t seem to quite get it down
‘Cause I’m goin’ with some hesitation
I’ve got to go and make my way
But there’s so many people, Lord, to talk to
And a whole lotta debts to pay
Steve Miller is kind of a hack.
muddy
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Be sure not to do an image search of recent Rolling Stone covers with him on it then. Looks to have been a big drinker.
BD of MN
I used to host karaoke and 95% of the songs on this thread were sung every damn night I worked. (I always liked when people sang Paradise by the Dashboard Light because it meant I could run to the bathroom and not have to rush…)
except We Built This City, even drunk karaoke singers think it’s terrible.
are we going to hit a tbogg unit here? been awhile….
janeform
@Lavocat: Wow. Seasons in the Sun and You’re Having My Baby in the same year? Go 1974. I have to admit though, I have a soft spot for a lot of those bad songs ’cause I was a kid then. But those two are impossible to like.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Saw the Clash open for the Who. (Ducks)
ThresherK
@eemom: Second that on Styx’s rockers. Something about a healthy creative tension between Tommy’s singing and solos, and Dennis’ keyboards and structuring.
“Alone Again Naturally” was the first song I remember in the rock idiom which had a jaunty tune coupled with morose / depressive lyrics.
different-church-lady
@ThresherK: Such an odd period in pop music, the mid 70s — some of the most depressing songs you could imagine were huge smash hits.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@eemom: Ah, but how do you feel about The Clash? (I could not resist.)
dedc79
@EthylEster: Still alive.
His most recent album had a pretty good cover of Mink Deville’s Mixed Up Shook Up Girl.
ThresherK
@BD of MN: I always liked when people sang Paradise by the Dashboard Light because it meant I could run to the bathroom and not have to rush
I was at a work holiday party (after work, with alcohol, aka something approaching a real party) and the DJ lined up all the men on one side and all the women on the other, then cued up that song. And everyone, couples included, just launched into it without a care in the world. Not karaoke, but a lot of singing going on.
If you ever imagined a musical scene out of “Ethan Frome” by the way of “Grease”…
Lavocat
@Villago Delenda Est: “Billion Dollar Babies” is his rockingest song. Plus the lyrics are creepy-cool:
“We go dancing nightly
In the attic while the
Moon is rising in the
Sky
If I’m too rough, tell me
I’m so scared your little
Head will come off in my
Hands!”
“Welcome To My Nightmare” is another oldie but goldie as well.
Mike J
@BD of MN:
Every DJ I know, radio and club, has a list of bathroom songs for that very reason.
janeform
@Lavocat: re: I Think I Love You. My friends and I used to pretend play to be The Partridge Family. Point Me in the Direction of Albuquerque was awesome.
Lavocat
Alright, cue the thread for BEST songs.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Lavocat: Should be the best songs that don’t get airplay.
The Golux
@Geetar59:
Bob and Ray did a hysterical version of “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” on a TV special back in the ’70s. Totally deadpan, with Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman and Jane Curtin on backup.
WereBear
@different-church-lady: Were you there in the ’70’s? It was not that perky a time.
Lavocat
@janeform: Try watching that show high and NOT non-stop giggling at the surreality of it all. Let me tell ya, THAT is some creepy shit. Sort of like a televised acid trip. Everything so wonderful and nice and shiny and fun and HEY, I KNOW, LET’S ALL PLAY A SONG! Jesus!
Steeplejack
Nice palate-cleansing thread, DougJ!
The fundamental basis of pop music is that it’s one song at a time. It’s the ultimate art form for one-hit wonders. A corollary is that even artists you detest will likely have one song that you like, even if grudgingly.
Having said that, I am at a loss to think of an ABBA song that I theoretically like. I’m sure there is one, but I have suppressed all things ABBA in the Mamma Mia! era.
And it’s all random and personal. I hate “Afternoon Delight,” yet I love “Dancing in the Moonlight.” Go figure.
Steeplejack
I really hate Rod Stewart’s “Maggie Mae.” I heard it incessantly for almost a year when it came out, and it scarred me.
Mike J
@The Golux:
Steve Allen did it with Be Bop a Lula in 1957, and it was a hacky bit then. “Can you believe the crap these kids listen to? Not the good stuff like Flat Foot Floogie with a Floy Floy!”
Pogonip
@Gravenstone: “Delta Dawn, what’s that plant life you have on? Could it be a piece of crabgrass from my lawn?”
In addition to being cursed with a whiny, nasal voice, Helen Reddy (or her manager) had an unerring instinct for selecting really crappy material. Remember the one where the entire song seemed to be “Leave me alone” repeated several hundred times? (It should have been released on a 45, back to back with “Love to Love You Baby,” by Redundant Records.)
ThresherK
@Mike J: But Steve Allen hated, hated, hated rock and roll.
I didn’t see the Bob and Ray; I can imagine them making it about the incongruity rather than the Steve Allen angle.
janeform
@Lavocat: LMAO. I haven’t watched that show in 40 years.
Steeplejack
@Pogonip:
Per my axiom above, at least one good Lynyrd Skynyrd song: “Saturday Night Special.”
Pogonip
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Well, Shareef don’t like them.
I knew I forgot one horrid song! Fortunately someone else remembered to mention “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.”. (No, Rod, I think you’re an annoying twerp with [at the time] ridiculous hair. Now shut up and sit down.)
I am pleased to report that Mr. Stewart has better hair, and better material, these days. And I hope never, ever to hear the overplayed “Maggie May” again. Wouldn’t be surprised if Rod feels the same way.
Steeplejack
@eemom:
C’mon! “Diamond Girl.”
Heliopause
No idea if these are the worst songs in the Oldies rotation, but they are the two that could drive me personally to drastic action: 1. Sweet Home Alabama. If you’ve ever been exposed to “classic rock” in a workplace environment for a protracted period then you know what I mean. 2. Livin’ on a Prayer. Please, dear Lord, just make it go away.
Steeplejack
@KG:
And on each channel they do a good job of mining the deep cuts and not playing just the top 100 of that era/genre.
Karen in GA
@Origuy: Heart — “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You.” My best friend and I loved that song, in an MST3K kind of way. We heard Heart originally gave it to Don Henley, but he didn’t want to record it. Oh, how we laughed upon hearing that.
What a hilarious song.
Steeplejack
@eemom:
Oh, God, yes to this!
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: I’m with you. Only an old grouch would diss Puff.
Steeplejack
@dave matson:
Bob Seger, “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” (implausible lip-sync version).
Also, too, “2 + 2 = ? ,” a great antiwar song.
Lavocat
@Pogonip:If you were a 12-year old boy who just learned about orgasms … and what they SOUNDED like, then “Love To Love You Baby” was a 45 you bought SEVERAL times and played to death because, fer the life of you, you just could NOT get over those amazing moans. Oh, good sweet Jeebus!. Female orgasms to friggin’ music! Whoever thought this up was a friggin’ genius. It was right then and there that I realized that my teenage years were going to be mind-blowingly memorable. And, of course, disco was my gateway drug into funk, and I’ll STILL take a needleful of funk any damned day o’ the week.
Lavocat
@Steeplejack: I do believe you’re forgetting “Call Me The Breeze”. “Simple Man” still holds up as well.
Steeplejack
@robo:
“Yah Mo B There,” with James Ingram.
Karen in GA
@Mike J: To be fair about Flat Foot Floogie, though, etc.
I remember Steve Allen in the 70s doing the same thing with the Donna Summer song Hot Stuff. In fact, he did it long after Donna Summer and disco dropped off the face of the earth.
Gravenstone
@Steeplejack: I’ve alwys been partial to “That Smell”
different-church-lady
@WereBear: Oh, I was there alright. There was no gas, the president was a criminal, everyone was on something, your older siblings might be dying overseas, and your mother suddenly disappeared from your life in the daytime hours.
The only good things about the entire decade were a golden age of comedy and Stevie Wonder.
different-church-lady
@Pogonip:
You mean Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”?
1st gen girl
@eemom: “You Light Up My Life” by Debbie Boone makes me want to barf.
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
God, Harry Chapin! “Taxi.” I hadn’t thought of that wretched song in years. Thanks, preesh.
beth
I can’t read through the whole thread but how about “The Night Chicago Died”? Daddy was a cop…. Even as a kid with zero musical taste (I loved Scott McEnzies'”San Francisco”) I knew that song sucked.
dedc79
@Steeplejack: Really? I love that song.
Oh, where you going to, my lady blue,
It’s a shame you ruined your gown in the rain.
She just looked out the window, and said
“Sixteen Parkside Lane”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@beth: In my memory, that song is followed on the radio by “Billy, Don’t Be A Hero…”
this is looking to be the most congenial five hundred comment thread ever!
Steeplejack
@handy:
I love that song, perhaps inexplicably, although I like the Freeez version better. It was all over New York radio one summer when I was up there on business a lot.
ETA: Well, I guess that was 1983, according to YouTube.
eemom
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
They remind me of some other band…..oh what was its name again…… ; )
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: You are welcome!
eemom
@Steeplejack:
I like Give Me Three Steps.
Steeplejack
@call_me_ishmael:
I had a (believable) acquaintance who swore that he saw Hendrix open for the Monkees in D.C. once.
BruceFromOhio
Did I really show up this late and this far down, only to find no mention of Tainted Love by Soft Cell?
COME ON
different-church-lady
@beth: Buncha damn limeys to boot…
beth
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, which is then followed by “One Tin Soldier”.
Lavocat
@BruceFromOhio: I can’t stand the way you tease.
Gravenstone
@BruceFromOhio: eemom is gonna be soooo cross with you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: Holy crap! both by the same group? I woulda sworn Billy was sung by a woman, but Wiki doesn’t list anyone women in the two bands that recorded it.
@beth: There ya go!
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Paper Lace didn’t hit in the US with “Billy…”, only in the UK. Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods had the US hit version of “Billy…”
eemom
omg, Barry Manilow.
Almost 500, and no one has mentioned Barry fucking Manilow??
(except @Lavocat:, who has some of him on his/her list.)
(but some of your other selections?? NFW.)
Steeplejack
Okay, now that the holidays are over, I will say that I fucking hate that Pogues song “Fairytale of New York.” The worst kind of maudlin Irish drunken self-pity.
beth
@different-church-lady: I had no idea. What would possess a bunch of Brits to sing about that? Weird.
BruceFromOhio
@Lavocat: Sometimes I feel I’ve got to … change the station.
@Gravenstone: Just another day in the forest.
Pogonip
@beth: Also, an F in geography. “Daddy was a cop on the east side of Chicago.”. I’ve been to Chicago. Its east side is Lake Michigan.
eemom
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
@BruceFromOhio: @Gravenstone:
Thread needz moar Omnes.
Gravenstone
@Pogonip: Or Gary, IN.
wasabi gasp
Per Lavocat’s gear switchin’ to best, best, bestest!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJTBfbQoTNk
different-church-lady
1 TBu achieved!
kuvasz
“Afternoon delight.” It completely ruined 1976 for me.
Pogonip
@Lavocat: Funk yeah! In fact I have “Fantastic Voyage” playing right now. This would be a happier world if funk were revived. You can’t stay mad while dancing. I’d like to see all those grumpy kids rapping about depressing stuff get out Grandpa’s old records and learn how to write a FUN song.
But first I want them off my lawn. Dern kids.
beltane
Have we forgotten Rod Stewart?
chopper
TBOGG UNLOCKED
Steeplejack
@Lizzy L:
“Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon.” I softened the pain by giving you the Urge Overkill cover.
I think a lot of Diamond’s pre-Vegas, pre-Streisand stuff is pretty good, but it’s “of an era,” as they say on the home-renovation shows.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: No thread needs more Omnes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@beltane: Young hearts gotta run beat free free to live
time is on your, time is on your side
and Patty gave birth to a ten pound
baby boy
Steeplejack
@Laertes:
Too right! LOL. I was trying to think of some guilty pleasures and drawing a blank—my pop music standards are sluttishly all-embracing—but Spandau Ballet is right in there. “Gold.”
Pogonip
By now probably nobody will see it, but are there any other belly dance aficionadas here, and if so, does anyone else hate that George Abdo song in French that goes on and on and on? And on. And on. I loved George. I learned to dance with George. But he blew it on that one. When you get bored while dancing, the song’s too long!
Lavocat
@wasabi gasp: I’ll give you best, best, bestest, in descending order: Beatles, Stones, Zep, Floyd, and Tull. The entire catalogue of each up to 1982. Eat a few brownies and slap those puppies on the turntable w/ those huge leather audiophile headphones and just drift away. Who needs Top 40 when one has electric British blues and its prog rock descendants?
Steeplejack
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Worst headliner I ever saw (in their heyday) was Jethro
DullTull.eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m just kinda proud that my epic fuck up is the stuff of BJ tradition.
Maybe I can get Cole to make it into a tag line.
Pogonip
@beltane: No, he’s been “honored.”
Pogonip
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Poor Patty.
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I heard that on the radio for the first time in decades. It was like finding and old peanut butter and jelly sandwich of the same vintage in the back of the closet.
HumboldtBlue
@Betty Cracker: My little sister bought that fucking J Geils album and I fucking hated it with the hottest of white hot heat.
Still love me some horns from the Doors though, particularly on Touch Me, so the rest of yiz can fuck off.
Witchy Woman was always a fucking burden on the ears as was anything by Bon Jovi, Styx, Kansas or that band that had the flaming guitar spaceship on the goddamn cover.
beltane
@Pogonip: I missed the middle portion of the thread. Curiosity got the better of me and I forced myself to find out what “Run, Joey, Run” was all about.
HumboldtBlue
@Lavocat: Goddamn you fucking nailed that decade
Pogonip
@chopper: What does that mean?
Did we get to ” Timothy,”” the song about one trapped miner eating another? It was written by the same guy who perpetrated that Godawful piña colada song. A civilized society would never let that man in a studio again.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@beltane: Ha! I woulda said finding an old tee shirt, sleeveless and a neon color, maybe your old Swatch, or a pair of Vuarnets
Steeplejack
@Turgidson:
Steve Miller Band: Another group ill-served by the urge to become radio-friendly and “popular.” “Evil” is a great song—sort of channeling himself as the missing Allman brother. (Tasty guitar solos at 2:30 and 3:55.) And “Living in the USA” worked for me back in the day.
Lavocat
@Pogonip: I was a HUGE Ohio Players fan. My all-time favorite of theirs – even more than “Love Rollercoaster” was “Fopp”. My parents, bigoted, conservative Republicans (I know, redundant, right?), were deeply disturbed over my sudden turn into “Black Music”. I didn’t care. I knew what I liked and I LOVED me some Fopp.
I was going to put a link in for YouTube but it refuses to allow me access for some reason.
Pogonip
@beltane: We’ll be here for you when you are ready to deal with the trauma.
At least nobody ATE Joey.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@muddy: whenever I caught Underground Garage hosted by Steve van Zandt I always liked it because he would find obscure cool shit and play it. Then the light bulb went off that he was Sylvio Dante and (head exploded)
What a talented dude.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@BruceFromOhio: tainted love is GOOD
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
My all-time most successful Christmas present to my mother: I gave her an easy-to-operate CD boombox and the boxed set of Peace in the Valley, Elvis’s gospel songs. (She also loves “regular” Elvis.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Lavocat:
Here you go.
Pogonip
@Lavocat: All the best funk bands came out of Ohio.
different-church-lady
@beltane: Helpful reference list.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
About ten years ago my wife and I went to the Houston Symphony for a pops concert with Burt Bacharach and the emcee introduced him by saying that we were going to hear a lot of familiar that we didn’t realize he wrote. No joke. He had some musicians and several professional singers ( he was on the piano). One of the best and most memorable concerts I have been to.
We bought The Love Songs of Burt Bacharach the next day.
Steeplejack
@MCA1:
God, yes. What is that word/phrase that he coined that inspired a big debate about its meaning and even a movie? I’m blanking.
ETA: Oh, yeah—”the pompatus of love.” LOL.
Pogonip
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: Sorry, Bruce don’t pray that way.
( I like Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go too.)
I remember reading that the Supremes found Where Did Our Love Go inane and only recorded it because Berry Gordy insisted. Likewise with Tom Jones and What’s New, Pussycat. Granted Jones had a pretty strong case, but his manager insisted he record the song and he ended up holding his nose all the way to the bank.
Steeplejack
I am promiscuously replying to stuff as I go down this thread, and I am going to be mortified if the last 39 comments are all me talking to myself.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pogonip: A lot of good ones do have Ohio roots. The Isley Brothers, Bootsy Collins, Kid Funkadelic, the O’Jays, LeVert, and the Dazz Band are among them.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
I’ll just leave this here
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OLK5ZOjWaXE
Thank me later
Lavocat
@Omnes Omnibus: Bless you. My parents absolutely SWORE that this song was obscene. Of course, just swap out the word “Fopp” and you can come up with some interesting lyrics. Plus, who could forget their amazing album covers. I really had a thing for black women back then. THAT would’ve killed my parents.
beltane
@Pogonip: Did the trapped miner wash down Timothy with a Pina Colada?
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
LOL. “Last Kiss” was my little brother’s favorite song when he was a preteen. Now he’s a RWNJ. I hope there’s not a connection.
Teen death songs are great/awful in general.
Lavocat
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, man, you just nailed my funk playlist. EVERY one of those bands, plus Parliament. Good times.
janeform
@eemom: I like Weekend in New England.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lavocat: I kind of touched on Parliament with Bootsy and Kid Funkadelic.
ETA: That list was a major chunk of my fraternity’s dance mix in the early 80s.
beltane
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: I have no words. The guitarist with a beard and no mustache was a nice touch.
Lavocat
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: And I leave you with the song that damned near got me suspended (since it was banned from the school), which STILL rocks to this very day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbjyuDYtAtk
Pogonip
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: In my next life, I want to be a fly on the wall while Mr. Fringe’s grandchildren watch that video.
Steeplejack
Okay, here’s an antique guilty pleasure song: Bob Kuban and the In-Men, “The Cheater.” I’m a sucker for a good beat and a fat horn section.
LOL.
I had heard the song before, but when I got to the University of Missouri in the fall of 1969 I couldn’t understand why all these girls from St. Louis were big Bob Kuban fans (or even knew who he was). Turns out he was the ’60s music god there.
J R in WV
@Bill:
Openers:
Saw the Chambers Brothers open for the Kinks, in Philadelphia, one night on acid. The Bros cooked so good, and the Kinks were . . . terrible. I left after 3 songs. It was awful. 1970 or 71.
Recently, saw Lynyrd Skynard open for ZZ Top. Their sound was so bad I put protectant ear plugs in. Running professional amps at 10 is not how it is supposed to be done. Terrible.
Then ZZ Top did their show. Great sound. Low Key stage set – as in nothing but 2 mike stands, a drum kit, and 2 small speaker stands. They were fabulous.
I saw Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and the Greatful Dead, in Akron, OH in the Rubber Bowl, the stadium up there. It was a good show. Great pharma, old friends, enjoyed every bit of it, even the droning on Dead whatever stoner solos. I was stonered too, so it was OK.
I saw Doctor John the Night-tripper in Mobile Alabama, back in 1971, and at the end of his second set, he announced that there weren’t enough tickets sold for Spirit to perform, so Good night all…
There was a small riot, all the giant civic center windows were shattered, while we walked away as fast as we could walk. Didn’t run, that was bad, just walked really fast.
Rock ‘n Roll! That’s where it’s at, baby.
I also got to see Louis Armstrong as a mere sprout, in St Petersburg, Fla. The Ramsey Lewis trio in High School, lots of great jazz artists, classical stars, Gil Shaheen and the Boston Orchestra at Tanglewood.
Music is such an important part of my life… I can’t say how much I care about the good music there is out there.
Mountain Stage on NPR is a great live music show if you care to check it out. Los Lobos, Taj Mahal, so many greats I’ve seen live on that show.
JG
Margaritaville- Buffet
God Bless the USA – whateverthatcountryguysnameis
New York – Sinatra
Yellow Submarine – Ringo
eemom
@HumboldtBlue:
So DONE with these grotesque sweeping disses. ok, a lot of what’s been mentioned on this thread is not something you’d put into a time capsule…..but that’s a whole ‘nother thing from it being the worst song EVAH…..not to mention condemning whole entire bands/artists that did have some decent tunes to their name.
Example: my 16 year old son and his best friend and I were driving back from a lax game last summer, and Livin’ On A Prayer came on, and we all had a blast singing along. “Woo-oh, we’re halfway there…..wooo-OOH, LIVIN’ on a praaaayer….”
The friend said, “That’s a song you just can’t hear and NOT sing along.”
From the mouths of babes, etc.
Steeplejack
@Kathleen:
The key to Dylan-phobia is to think of him as a composer and not a performer. Enjoy the covers by almost anybody else. A favorite of mine: the Byrds, “My Back Pages.”
ETA: @Laertes: What you said.
beltane
@J R in WV: I saw Dr. John perform at a free concert in NYC. It was one of the better shows I’ve seen.
beltane
The strangest concert I’ve ever seen was Sun-Ra in Central Park sometime in the late 1980s.
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: Well, yeah.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: DO NOT get me started on how much I loathe that song. Encapsulates everything wrong with popular “patriotism” in this country, and the military actively pushes the damn thing.
kindness
I have one thankful thought about this thread.
None of you mentioned Hendrix. And thank the FSM you didn’t because then shit would get ugly.
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
I like Smash Mouth semi-channeling the Doors on “Walking on the Sun.”
Lavocat
@kindness: Heard “Red House” for the very first time when I did pot for the very first time. And I fell in love. To this day, that has to be one of my Top 10 favorite songs of all time. If someone would play a song @ my funeral, I would want it to be this one. Such righteous guitar!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qwk3jdruFE
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
To whomever is left. I don’t think anyone mentioned Meatloaf. Question: what is the “that” he won’t do even though he will do anything for love?
Tossed salad? I really want to know…
Steeplejack
I gotta go watch Elementary, but I’ll be back!
beltane
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: There’s a big serving of Meatloaf near the top of the thread. I prefer not to associate the word “love” with Mr. Loaf so I’ve never given your question much thought.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: Nut graf:
burnspbesq
@Pogonip:
You rang?
eric nny
Dream Weaver
You’re welcome.
burnspbesq
A few more to chew on:
White Bird
China Grove
I Know What Boys Like
Danny’s Tune
Shannon
Heart of Gold
You Are the Woman
Thank You for Being a Friend
Baby Hold On
867-5309
Up Where We Belong
Bill D.
@Elizabelle: OMG. That was the first song I did a search for on this thread. Truly puke-worthy, yet during that time I had to listen to it on occasion as a captive audience in my parents’ car.
The horror, the horror…
HumboldtBlue
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t forget Philadelphia — Blue Magic, the Delfonics, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, The O’Jays, Grover Washington Jr., Billy Paul, Teddy Pendergrass, Soul Survivors, Lou Rawls, Patti, and that list goes on. The sound of my youth and teens, that’s for sure
HumboldtBlue
@burnspbesq: 867-5309
Sorry, that’s a fucking classic.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: I would say that several of those in that list are there because they have been overplayed not because of inherent awfulness.
HumboldtBlue
@eemom: OK, I will give you livin on a prayer, only because it’s an awesome arena rock song and lives in sports venues
Omnes Omnibus
@HumboldtBlue: I was just responding to what seemed to a snarky comment about funk and Ohio, not talking about the best funk cities.
Villago Delenda Est
@HumboldtBlue: Absolutely agree. 867-5309/Jenny a true one hit wonder, and catchy as hell.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nope. All those whiny Poco-wannabes are inherently horrible.
You might have a point about “White Bird.”
And “Baby Hold On” is on the list because classic rock radio inexplicably prefers it to “Two Tickets to Paradise,” which is a truly great piece of ersatz-Springsteen.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: “I Know What Boys Like” is “whiny Poco-wannabe” in what way? We are talking about the song by The Waitresses, right?
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Different category. The whiny Poco-wannabes comprise Loggins & Messina, Henry Gross, Firefall, and Andrew Gold.
burnspbesq
“I know what boys like” was cute the first time. After that it was inane.
On the other hand “Christmas Rapping” is all kinds of awesome.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq:
If limited to them, I concur. When I made my first comment, I was thinking of Heart of Gold, 867-5309, and I Know What Boys Like. Okay, and China Grove.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: Aha, so you concede to my overplaying theory on that one. Excellent.*
*Oh shit, even though we are nearing 600 posts, having it turn into Aging Hipster Lawyers Argue Music is probably a bad turn.
Mike J
@Villago Delenda Est:
I interviewed Tommy Tutone when I was 15 or 16 and they were playing Memphis in May. Of course on the same remote I also interviewed a pig.
Lavocat
How ’bout deeply disturbing songs?
There’s always this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1PLT0GljPA
And this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4
Omnes Omnibus
@Lavocat: I only got about 23 seconds in. I am an indie, punk, funk, and some classic rock guy. Is it really worth investing my time – and remember, I did you a solid earlier?
Lavocat
@Omnes Omnibus: The first one is “Bloodrock” by D.O.A., often voted one of the worst songs EVAH. The second is “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!” by Napoleon XIV, also perennially a runner-up for worst song EVAH. So, no, nothing to see (hear) here.
vheidi
@Suzanne: hah, my junior prom theme song, how ridiculous is that?
Omnes Omnibus
@Lavocat: I will not go beyond that 23 seconds then.
Jesus California
The Eagles don’t confront me none……but that line about putting your love on a shelf and then having to eat your lunch all by yourself?Oh man! That sucks.
Steeplejack
@Lavocat:
Gotta disagree with you on Clarence Carter’s “Patches,” a good song that always leads me to O.C. Smith’s great song “The Son of Hickory Holler’s Tramp,” as well as “Rose Garden,” a great song by one of my favorite lesser artists, Joe South. Lynn Anderson did an okay job on it.
Wag
@call_me_ishmael:
Jimi Hendrix opening for the Monkees at Red Rocks in 1967
Steeplejack
@different-church-lady:
God, I have always loved his guitar solo (at 2:45) in the long version of “Make Me Smile.” I always get a terrible pang of songus interruptus when I get to the point where they cut it out on the short radio version. Only thing worse is the similar truncation of the Doors’ “Light My Fire.”
I always thought Chicago lost a lot when Kath died. They used to be a lot edgier than the bland mainstream band everyone remembers now. “South Carolina Purples.”
Steeplejack
@Lavocat:
I lusted in my heart for Susan Dey. Would love to find her movie First Love somewhere.
Steeplejack
@Lavocat, @Gravenstone, @eemom:
Agreed. I just cited one of their several good songs to remove the cloud of “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama.”
Steeplejack
@HumboldtBlue:
LP art was great, wasn’t it?
Steeplejack
@Pogonip:
We hit 500 comments, a TBogg unit.
Steeplejack
@Lavocat:
Ohio PLayers, “Fopp.”
Steeplejack
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
The un-Bacharach-iest: Love, “My Little Red Book.”
Steeplejack
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
Kudos, sir. That is truly awful.
Nice squaws, though. I was truly hoping they would scalp White Fringe Guy at the end.
For some reason that video reminds me of this (good) song, which you never hear any more: the James Gang, “Midnight Man.” I always thought it was kind of strange how it ends with a female vocal snippet out of nowhere.
janeform
@Steeplejack: Girl You’ll Be a Woman Soon is seriously creepy, and is joined in the creep department by Young Girl. Ick.
Lavocat
@Steeplejack: A cousin of mine destroyed those songs by playing them to death. Plus, “Patches”? Really? I think I’d rather be waterboarded than hear that dreck again.
“Fopp” fucking rocks. I must’ve played that song a good thousand times.
Susan Dey was hot but I also had a thing for the mother, way back before I ever heard of MILFs. Honestly, have some brownies and watch that show to see how seriously messed up it was. I mean, shit, they had a “Magic Bus” and everything. No wonder Danny Partridge turned out to be such a fuck-up. In real life, David Cassidy was arrested a few towns over from me for DWI last year. He looks as old and wrinkled and gray as Keith Richards’ scrotum fer fuck’s sake.
Also, hidden gems: Love’s “7 And 7 Is”, The Music Machine’s “Talk Talk” (later covered by … Alice Cooper), and Whistling Jack Smith’s “I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman”.
Steeplejack
@janeform:
The title is provocative, but I don’t get the creep factor. If you look at the lyrics—helpfully provided here—the singer/narrator seems to be of an age with the girl and is complaining that the olds are putting him down and wanting to make her decisions for her. But she’ll be a woman soon and will be able to make her own choices.
/standard disclaimer about overinterpreting pop music lyrics
Okay, “Young Girl,” no. “Younger Girl”? Yes!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Lavocat:
I’ll agree with you on the vast majority of this list, though I do think that novelty songs can’t really be critiqued one way or the other. I flat out disagree with you concerning “Brand New Key” and “Short People”.
But the song I really need to defend here is “We’ve Only Just Begun”. Yes, it’s treacly to the extreme. Yes, it was originally written as a jingle for a bank that was hawking loans to newlyweds. But there are a few points- in the choruses- when the tambourine starts going, then Hal Blaine starts killing it on the bass pedal/snare/hi-hat, Joe Osborn is ripping off chunks with his bass, and the horns are punctuating it succinctly…It’s worth putting up with the shit to hear THAT.
Steeplejack
@Lavocat:
I love “Seven and Seven Is.”
ETA: And that reminds me of Fever Tree, “San Francisco Girls.”
Lavocat
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): There is just something truly, unspeakably horrible about the Carpenters that causes me to just wig out when I hear their music. It’s almost as if they purposely sat down and mathematically determined how painful they could make a song. I mean, holy fuck, I just want to smash shit when I hear their songs.
Steeplejack
@Lavocat:
I’ve got a soft spot for Clarence Carter. “Slip Away” is a classic, and I love the line in “Patches” about something-something “had to finish school / That was Daddy’s strictest rule.” And “Strokin’” is a great bawdy novelty song.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Lavocat:
And I can’t disagree with you about them 99% of the time. But those moments in that song- [eta] that recording- just fucking kill. That shit is the Wrecking Crew at their rhythmic best.
Steeplejack
This thread has perked me up. The news is terrible and my sore shoulder is killing me, but it has been fun to wander through the funhouse of bad music. Thanks, everyone!
And I’m off to bed.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Plus it was co-written by the quintessential 1970s pop songwriter, Paul Williams.
Yes, Williams catches hell from most people because he was the epitome of 70s schmaltz, but he also wrote “The Rainbow Connection,” which means he can tell all of the haters to fuck if for all time.
NotMax
Very, very late to the party, but felt the need to put out two oldies tunes which have always made me want to rip the innards out of the radio, incinerate them and scatter the ashes to the winds:
Games People Play
Alone Again (Naturally)
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
I’ve got no special love for Williams. I’m neutral about him, I suppose. He only wrote the lyrics for “We’ve Only Just Begun”, anyway, and it’s not the lyrics that grab me- it’s those 30 seconds of music, played twice in the recording. And even that may have less to do with Williams’ partner, Roger Nichols, who wrote the music, than with whoever wrote the arrangement.
I’ve discussed this song a lot, with various folks, over the last ten years, and one of the only people who agrees with me without any urging is a friend who happens to be the featured percussionist for our local symphony orchestra. Every time I post it on FB, Billy chimes in with a big, “Fuck yeah!” He grew up a Hal Blaine fan, knows what he’s listening to…
eemom
The Carpenters’ Superstar, about the forgotten groupie — notwithstanding its overdone 70s orchestration — is a masterpiece of loneliness and longing.
eta: Also too, can’t believe y’all have been talking about We’ve Only Just Begun, with no one even mentioning that hotel horror movie with John Cusack.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@eemom:
Ever heard Sonic Youth’s version?
eemom
@NotMax:
We hit on that one a few hundreds ago.
eemom
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Yikes. That is….interesting.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@eemom:
You wrote something a few hundred back about liking songs that you know aren’t [eta- whoops] any good (that seems like the gist of it anyway). “Alone Again, Naturally” is one of those songs for me. Had I been ten years older when it was released, I’d probably hate it, but I was 8 or 9, and it just struck a chord with me. Here’s another one from about the same time that did the same. Nearly every instinct in me is telling me to laugh or puke, but I love the hell out of it.
Death Panel Truck
@Berial: “Revolution #9” doesn’t qualify, because it is not (and probably never has been) played on the radio.
And you can hate Zappa all you want, but his music isn’t played on radio, either. I’ve never heard a Zappa song on FM radio, ever.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Death Panel Truck:
“Cosmic Debris”? “Dancin’ Fool”? “I Don’t Wanna Get Drafted”? “Valley Girl”?!?!
Or are you younger than, say, 45?
wasabi gasp
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Aside from the “putting up” part, your critique of “I’ve Only Just Begun” is spot on.
eemom
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
I hadn’t heard that one before, but yes, a very sweet song notwithstanding that it might be mockable.
Like many others that I love, that have been mercilessly mocked on this thread. Were it not 4:14 a.m. in my time zone, and did I not have a stress-packed day to awake to in 3 hours, I would gladly list them all. One example.
eemom
@eemom:
Well ok, that video kind of sucks….but it struck me as a very romantic song in its pure radio version, from whence I heard it in my youth.
sheldon vogt
@dave matson: sorry, not buying it. Murder by Numbers is brilliant
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@wasabi gasp:
To each his or her own, I guess. Lyrically, it does strike me as the way a bank would sell “love”. .I’m not a fan of the multi-layered vocal tracks…Or the clarinet in there, either, which comes across as trying to capture some sort of high-brow taste, but doesn’t quite make it high-brow, just…yecch . Reminds me of the way the harpsichord throws this recording off for me- really well-written pop/rock, but just so damned pretentiously dated in the production.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@eemom:
Heehee…I had babysitters back then, and aunts who aren’t too much older than me. I get that whole David Gates-y thing.
NotMax
Thread likely dead, but two more, in case they haven’t been mentioned:
Me and You and a Dog Named Boo
Everything Is Beautiful
Yuck, yuck, yuck.
Lavocat
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): You left out “Montana” and “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow”. And, yeah, I’ve heard each and every one of them on FM throughout my life. And, yeah, they ALL rock.
Poopyman
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Clearly this. You couldn’t go 15 minutes without hearing one of his earlier songs when I was in school in the 70’s, so let’s (please!) ignore Valley Girl.
(And now it’s off to work.)
BruceFromOhio
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: Yuck. I’ll wager you are also a Men Without Hats fan.
brantl
@Geetar59:
What was disco, other than a weak-assed take on dance music?
john carter
Someone should put ALL the suggested songs together and offer it online…maybe K-Tel or Time-Life.
A John Cole CD free with every calendar?
Make a great gift for those you love…or don’t!
Matt McIrvin
Oh, here’s one… I’ve always thought Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” is one of the most boring songs ever written, but I know that one still gets played.
Matt McIrvin
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): “Short People” is one of those songs that ran into the problem that the unreliable narrator just does not work on Top 40 radio. See also the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” and Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing.” You end up having to explain what you meant by the lyrics for the rest of your life.
I say this with some chagrin, because (as implied above) I’m a They Might Be Giants fan, and their whole career is built on the unreliable narrator.
Howlin Wolfe
@dedc79: ME TOO!
Howlin Wolfe
@geg6: ME THREE!!
Egypt Steve
@KG: Ditto. Ever since I went with Sirius I find actual terrestrial radio completely intolerable. Which is kind of too bad because I’d still like to support local alternative radio, in principle at least.
Egypt Steve
@brantl: I don’t know why Rod Stewart ever tried to sing anything other than rock music, which he’s great at, or at least used to be. His new “American Songbook” shit is even more revolting than his disco — and I’m someone who actually likes that stuff quite a bit.
Paul in KY
@dedc79: That’s because it basically sucks.
Paul in KY
@geg6: St. Stephan & Uncle John’s Band are both great songs.
Paul in KY
@jl: That’s a bad thing.
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle:Tom is from Florida, but he sounds like he’s from Minnesota or Fargo.
Paul in KY
@FromFlorissant: High Voltage!
Paul in KY
@ixnay: Bob evidently doesn’t like things to be too polished.
Gus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): It’s because I’m of the time, but I kind of like the first Montrose record. Had it on 8 track (or rather my older brother did).
wasabi gasp
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): While I can slice crap from an album, to a certain extent, I can’t do that with a song. I take it on it’s own terms…and if, for whatever reason, I find it too difficult to do that, the whole thing gets dumped into the can. Great highs won’t redeem unbearable lows. There is just too much good and/or unheard music available to mess around in fragments and crumbs when I can reach for a whole other cookie.
Gus
@Eric U.:
I am at a loss that you went to “Mama Mia” despite a loathing of Abba.
zeecube
anything by BTO.
ixnay
@Paul in KY: Not too polished is one thing; ear-plugging loud and bad, especially considering the price of tickets these days, is something else entirely.
dogwood
Africa by Toto
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: I saw Parliament-Funkadelic open for Isaac Hayes, back in mid 70s. Quite a show…
janeform
@eemom: Totally agree re: Superstar. Puts me in mind of Carly Simon’s Legend in Your Own Time, about the star rather than the groupie.
Paul in KY
@eemom: Agree. There are some people commenting here that have a tin ear or are too hibrow in their musical tastes (IMO).
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: China Grove and Heart of Gold are both great songs. Desist and remove them from your list immediately, or my solicitor will be contacting you!
Paul in KY
@Steeplejack: They lost the heart of the band, when Terry drunkenly shot himself.
Paul in KY
@Death Panel Truck: Thank God they don’t play his stuff on the radio. Think Frank was a great 1st Amendment activist & he died much too young.
Paul in KY
@Gus: Winner Takes it All is a hell of a song.
Paul in KY
@ixnay: According to people who have worked with him (especially when he was trying to suck, so people would leave him alone), if he had a song that was a sure-fire great tune, he’d shelve it or go with another version of it that was much more raggedy.
wasabi gasp
@Steeplejack: No disrespect to Hendrix and all, but this is probably my favorite Dylan cover:
PJ Harvey – Highway 61 Revisited
MCA1
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: HoLEEEE shit. I imagine Christopher Guest watching that video and saying “Oh my god, do I have a great idea for a movie.”
Steeplejack
@wasabi gasp:
That’s a good one. One of my back-burner projects is to come up with a mega-playlist of favorite Dylan covers. There are too many to choose from! I’ve had to divide it up into separate sublists by theme or time period: “contemporaneous” covers (from the ’60s), alt-country covers, etc.
michael talley
Can’t believe all the hatin’ on Zappa. Perhaps if you had listened to the entire album “200 Motels” in a circa 1974 dorm room surrounded by tie-dye and sandalwood whilst huffing on a home-made stainless steel water pipe nicknamed “the iron lung’ you would possess the requisite insight necessary to recognize true genius.
Lynyrd Skynyrd? – fuck that noise.
MDW
“Love Shack” by the B52s. There are many songs I can do without but this is the only one that will send me lunging for the off button.
Bethesda 1971
Hope I’m not too late to vote for “Send in the Clowns.”
Isn’t it ……………………………………………………………………………
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……………………………………………………………………………….rich?
Jebediah, RBG
@eemom:
I could never stand to listen to Bon Jovi, but I will admit that the guy can really write a hook.
Jebediah, RBG
@Omnes Omnibus:
Get that show on TV and I’ll watch it. (Unless you don’t play any of the music you argue about – that would be a lot less great.)
ThresherK
Hey, anyone wonder how Diane (“Titanic, aka My Boat Will Go On”) Warren* got a reputation as a songwriter’s songwriter in this day and age?
*And a thousand other things just as bad.
richard crews
My theory on the Grateful Dead ( who I generally dislike) is ANY band putting out, like a thousand songs, is bound to have a few good ones. I hear it as bland pointless doodling with no melody, and never ending.
Never ending : green grass and hightide FOREVER.