April 21, 2004

I would have voted for anything by Bryan Adams

Posted by Brian

CNN reports that We Built This City by Starship has been voted worst song of all time in what looks like a slightly less scientific poll than we could get by sampling the readership of a random blog. The list of the 50 worst looks like it is designed to bring back bad music memories. Other offenders honored include Paul McCartney (twice), Vanilla Ice, Billy Ray Cyrus and Toby Keith. (TK is on the list only because it was produced by the anti-American liberal media.)

Posted on April 21, 2004 03:59 PM UTC
Comments

That’s ridiculous - Michael Bolton isn’t even mentioned!

Posted by des · April 21, 2004 04:05 PM

Well, it’s ridiculous. The 50 worse songs ever are likely 50 songs that were so bad nobody ever heard of them (and the list would not have been confined to modern pop music).

Plus, why the heck is Simon & Garfunkle’s Sounds of Silence on the list?

Posted by rea · April 21, 2004 04:17 PM

I just wish Norris McWhirter had lived to see this list.

Posted by Anita Hendersen · April 21, 2004 04:20 PM

I agree that the inclusion of “Sounds of Silence” is absurd.

Some of the top ten songs are genuinely awful and some are the kinds of things that one is embarrassed to admit get stuck in one’s mind. But none, not even “Party All the Time,” approaches the awfulness of either #30, “The Greatest Love of All,” or #50, “My Heart Will Go On.”

Posted by Jacob T. Levy · April 21, 2004 04:55 PM

God help me, it’s like a car wreck, I can’t pass by this stuff without looking. Teevee Guide’s Top 50 Sitcoms? Where’d they put Dick Van Dyke? Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists? Does Joan Jett actually play guitar? I watched all four nights of Comedy Central’s 100 Greatest Stand Ups, fer chrissakes.

Half the fun is seeing what a bunch of twenty-and-thirtysomething magazine editors come up with in order to pretend their sense of history doesn’t begin with MTV. (If the Beatles just have to turn up, hadn’t anyone ever heard “Mr. Moonlight”? Would “You Know My Name, Look Up the Number” show a lack of incisiveness? )

But, yeah, “Sounds of Silence” is the sort of silly pose that gives the game away.

Posted by doghouse riley · April 21, 2004 05:21 PM

I disagree with Rea—part of what makes a song truly horrible is being enough of a mind-virus to cause you more and more pain as it twists around in the gaping wound it leaves in your brain. Or something like that. I think We Built this City is an estimable choice, but if there isn’t anything by the Eagles on the list it needs a retool.

Posted by Matt WEiner · April 21, 2004 05:43 PM

I also dropped my jaw when I saw “Sounds of Silence” on the list. Even if they’re refering to the more popular remix with musical backup instead of the mostly acapela (sp?) original, that is not BAD, just annoying. (Note- I am a post-baby bommer who first heard the remix.)

In that sense, this list reminds me a lot of the nominating list for the Razzies, in that a lot of the “honorees” are more annoying than awful. Potentially enjoyable for certain elements, but WAY overexposed. “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” “The Heart of Rock & Roll,” and “Greatest Love of All” fall into this category, with the all time winner being “My Heart Will Go On,” which fit well in the movie and was pleasant the first few times I heard it on the radio, but which by the time the Oscars rolled around made me long for the millinium bug to wipe out technology so I would never have to hear it again.

P.S. The Razzie WINNERS are usually absolutely right.

Posted by Decnavda · April 21, 2004 05:54 PM

I would like to say that Matt it absolutely right and that any “worst song list” is truely lacking if it has no Eagles song on it. I think another fun catagory to think of is the worst song by one of your favorite artists. I love Stevie Wonder and would say that almost everything he has ever done brings a smile to my face. I do, however, think that “I just called to say I love you” is truely a wretched song. Anyone have nominations for the worst of the best.

By the way, “The Lady in Red” is tied for first with “We built this City” as the worst pop song of all time on my list.

Posted by Richard Vagge · April 21, 2004 06:53 PM

I always feel that for some reason, people have to be reminded how bad Huey Lewis and the News actually were. Everyone agrees with me, once I remind them, that whatever they previously thought the worst song in the world was, “Hip To Be Square” was worse. It’s like a sort of Freudian repressed memory thing.

Posted by dsquared · April 21, 2004 07:00 PM

The only really interesting parts of American Psycho are the interpolated music appreciation pieces on Whitney Houston, Phil Collins, and the like.

Posted by chun the unavoidable · April 21, 2004 07:37 PM

Richard, you’re absolutely right about “Lady in Red”, and thanks, it’s stuck in my head now.

Posted by doghouse riley · April 21, 2004 08:19 PM

Frequent reader, haven’t commented much…

My friends and I are working on a poll/tournament where we try to determine the Worst (Hit) Song Ever.

We started with 320 candidates, and whittled that down to 128, and are playing that off against each other.

A lot of those songs (although we have a rule against songs less than 3 years old) are in our tournament, but I think our picks will differ a little.

Posted by Answer Guy · April 21, 2004 10:06 PM

In The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester toys with the idea of how to commit a murder in a world featuring telepathic bodyguards and cops. One of the approaches is to have your mind filled with something like a song from this list just as you’re about to do the deed. Law enforcement tunes in to Starship, misses dirty deed done dirt cheap.

The Germans, interestingly, have a word for this sort of thing (the song, not the aforementioned deed): Ohrwurm. Literally, ear worm.

Posted by Doug · April 21, 2004 11:13 PM

One of my son’s friends did a similiar poll and the Eagles were quickly given a lifetime achievement award because they were on every list.

The lyrics of “Seasons in the Sun” are the worst ever. As a whole “The Little Drummer Boy” is the worst ever, but I get some relief by imagining him stepping on a landmine and slowly dying.

A mediocre list.

Posted by Zizka · April 22, 2004 12:03 AM

Any such list not topped by Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking On Sunshine” is obviously defective. (Kill me now, I’ve got the horrible thing stuck in my head just by mentioning it!) Also, I’d back any of the Britney Spears efforts I’ve heard against “Seasons In The Sun” in the worst lyrics category, although I might place a sneaky counter-bet just in case.

(d^2: I like Huey Lewis and the News, but they did have a few real stinkers and yes, “Hip To Be Square” was one of them.)

Posted by sennoma · April 22, 2004 12:32 AM

Wait, there’s no bottom to worse: I’ve just remembered Dave Dobbyn’s relentlessly awful “Slice of Heaven”. shudder

Posted by sennoma · April 22, 2004 12:40 AM

As doghouse said, this sort of thing is irresistible; I can never encounter one of these debates unmoved. But I have to say that we are suffering here, as the late Bernard Williams used to say, from a “poverty of concepts.” The terms “bad” and “worst” are patently inadequate, and we require at least the following subdivisions (I invite further submissions):

a) Bad in the sense of just plain incompetent — like the bands who used to play for the neighbors back in high school. This kind of bad isn’t interesting enough to be on anyone’s list. We only make lists when there’s a twist of some kind, an adjective or two to attach to “bad.”

b) Bad-in-the-sense-of-incompetent, but in a weird enough way to be intriguing. Bands or singers like this attract attention usually because their incompetence seems to be a function of some sort of dementia. The Shaggs are the example par excellence, but their contemporary Tiny Tim would work as well. They love this kind of thing on American Idol.

c) Bad-in-the-sense-of-incompetent, but probably intentionally so — bad for effect. In this case we’re laughing (if we laugh, and aren’t just annoyed) with them, not at them. Example: Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers — though part of their appeal, for those who find them appealing, is that we’re not totally sure whether they belong in category c or b.

d) Bad in the sense of fatuous or sentimental: e.g., “Seasons in the Sun.”

e) Bad in the sense of pretentious, which is the chief criterion which would justify putting “The Sounds of Silence” on a “worst” list.

f) Bad in the sense of far-below-the-standard-set-by-this-artist, which is how “We Built This City” gets on the list — though its obvious affinity with d is worth extra points and (for some) sends it to the top.

These are not, of course, all the forms of badness, but some of the chief ones that appear in lists of this kind. (It’s interesting to consider what forms of badness don’t attract our attention.) In my judgment, the Eagles aren’t enough of anything to be on a list: they’re too vacuous even to annoy me all that much. I think of that great line from Steely Dan’s song “Everything You Did,” in which a couple is having a fight: “Turn up the Eagles, the neighors are listening.”

Posted by Ayjay · April 22, 2004 12:46 AM

I’m so glad to see the hate for Lady In Red, which is truly horrendous, and I’ve been to several weddings where the bride has deliberately chosen that song to dance to. We Built This City is also a good choice for worst song. I would add the Beach Boys “Kokomo” and Colour Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sexx You Up”.

Posted by maurinsky · April 22, 2004 03:29 AM

What about MacArthur Park? All That She Wants? Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft? In The Year 2525? I’ve Never Been to Me?

What a lightweight list. C’mon, bring on some real horror.

Posted by Cat · April 22, 2004 08:31 AM

Foolish me! I forgot “Good Morning Starshine” !

Just to remind y’all:

Gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby noopy
La la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba nooby abba nabba
Le le lo lo
Tooby ooby walla nooby abba naba
Early morning singing song

Posted by Cat · April 22, 2004 08:33 AM

I anxiously await Tanya Headon’s take on this.

Posted by mitch · April 22, 2004 09:39 AM

Toni Basil, “Mickey,” a hanging offense in and of itself.

Posted by Doug · April 22, 2004 10:00 AM

Zizka wrote:

“As a whole “The Little Drummer Boy” is the worst ever, but I get some relief by imagining him stepping on a landmine and slowly dying.”

A local humorist’s take on this song can be found at: http://www.ericdsnider.com/blog.php?id=26

Posted by Nat Whilk · April 22, 2004 03:43 PM

“Seasons in the Sun” definitely belongs on the list— but how on earth is it that no one’s mentioned “Afternoon Delight,” or (shudder) “Muskrat Love.” I mean, for crying out loud. “Muskrat Love” should have taken the top of several lists.

Posted by nolo · April 22, 2004 04:26 PM

My current girlfriend once kissed Huey Lewis. I’m not sure how this relects on her. Or me.

Posted by andrew · April 22, 2004 05:23 PM

No Bay City Rollers, no Osmonds, no Bachman Turner Overdrive. The people making the list weren’t even trying, really.

Posted by Doug · April 22, 2004 09:21 PM

Aw geez, cat, we’re including show tunes? The list’s gonna exceed fifty songs if you do that: Stephen Schwartz alone has probably written fifty of the worst.

Posted by Mr Ripley · April 23, 2004 12:00 AM

It’s weird, nearly all were enormously popular at one point in time. I’m from the generation in which nearly everybody can still rattle off at least the first verse of “Ice Ice Baby” — on command and laugh hysterically at doing so. And so songs like “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” are naturally going to be stuck in my head forever, just as the Brady Bunch theme and various commercial jingles.
Then there are the songs that are pure slop — bad enough to be criminal: Celine Dion. Clay Aiken. Bete Midler. These people should all be shot.

www.catfishvegas.blogspot.com

Posted by Catfish · April 23, 2004 02:50 AM

Surprised the collected efforts of the Eurovision songfestival have not gotten more. I would gladly recommend The Herreys “Diggi Loo Diggi Ley” as the worst song ever: http://www.bide-et-musique.com/song/2094.html

Posted by zaoem · April 23, 2004 03:33 PM

Surprised the collected efforts of the Eurovision songfestival have not gotten more. I would gladly recommend The Herreys “Diggi Loo Diggi Ley” as the worst song ever: http://www.bide-et-musique.com/song/2094.html

Posted by zaoem · April 23, 2004 03:33 PM

Surprised the collected efforts of the Eurovision songfestival have not gotten more. I would gladly recommend The Herreys “Diggi Loo Diggi Ley” as the worst song ever: http://www.bide-et-musique.com/song/2094.html

Posted by zaoem · April 23, 2004 03:34 PM

Just wanted to mention the inexplicable omission of the Herrey’s “Diggi Loo, Diggi Ley” as well as any other Eurovision winner.

Posted by zaoem · April 23, 2004 06:07 PM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.