one shit wonder - amazing acts that somehow created one of the biggest duds in history

the companion thread to "one hit wonder", what about acts that reliably produced good to great music, but then released one of the worst songs in history. doesn't count if they released a TON of songs that would qualify for worst song ever, has to be just one weird anomaly where you're like "how the hell did THAT come out of YOU?".

I started w/ Bob Seger in other thread, where the song in question was "Old Time Rock 'n Roll". i like most all Seger, and the stuff that's not so good is pretty inoffensively bad, and then you have this completely obnoxious song with dumb rockist lyrics that was a staple at wedding receptions when I was a kid, where all of the boomers would dance goofily on the dance floor.

The Beatles

what's their big 'shit' song for you?

Genesis- Illegal Alien

Gilbert O'Sullivan - A Woman's Place

99% of Blur fans would throw their Alex's Song and Crazy Beat at this thread but I'm quite fond of the latter's Kalifornia-is-druggy-druggy voicebox and erastz Junior Senior groove. It's the lyrics and 'yeah yeah yeah yu-YEAH' that blow.

The problem is also that the song while about a Crazy Beat, is built upon one that is anything but

chuck berry - my ding-a-ling
lonnie donegan - my old man's a dustman

Simple Minds - Alive and Kicking

Alive and Kicking is probably the only Simple Minds song I like from that 1985-87 period, despite it having all the hallmarks of what I don't like about it as a whole.

Beatles is truly a band of many shits imo

The Cure - “Wrong Number”

Immediately thought “surely, Simple Minds has songs far worse than ‘Alive And Kicking?’ Anything from Streetfighting Years for starters…”

Waiting for someone to mention "Shiny Happy People" and for me to FP them because that song makes me cry.

nah I like it -- they were good at kiddy music ("Stand," "Get Up").

R.E.M.'s offenses in this domain were more about terrible albums than terrible singles

Agreed! I've never even listened to the last studio record lmfao.

Belfast Child, surely

which I suppose was their E-Bow The Letter / Paranoid Android

prefab sprout - I hate that for most people they're the wacky hot dog jumping frog band

Apparently sarahell and NickB think the Beatles were an amazing act!

I'd also agree that "Alive and Kicking" was Simple Minds's last good song before delving into alternating pretension and mediocrity. It's fun that they did their own rewrite of "Don't You (Forget About Me)" to counter those who thought they could only have a hit with a song someone else wrote.

Prodigy - Baby's Got A Temper

Trying to think of a band that made good to great music but with one stinky outlier is harder than I expected, I guess 'The Baby Song', but it's barely a song.

Kevin Ayers - Fake Mexican Tourist Blues

The Kinks have many mediocre songs, but "Black Messiah" stands out for being an explicitly and viciously racist piece of shit.

xpost for me, often times the one stinky song is the first one I heard so I didn't realize I liked the band. like Seger...I thought I hated him for years as a kid because of that song.

and yet I am struggling to think of other examples even though I have at least two or three others like this.

OH....Cheap Trick, "The Flame"

(ok i'm aware Cheap Trick have other duds but "The Flame" is the only one that causes me to fly into a rage and break windows)

ehh, on second thought, disqualifying this one. written by professional songwriter, late 80s, not up to the par of others on this list.

The only part in "The Flame" I dislike is when Zander yowls beyond his range in the last minute.

i always feel like this phenomenon happens a lot when an artist with longevity crosses decades and decides to jump onto a trend they're not really equipped for, then recalibrates shortly after.

OOOH

Isley Brothers - Contagious

I was listening to the Hollies 1976 disco-influenced track 'Wiggle That Wotsit' the other day, and it might be the worst track I can think of by a group that had once made really wonderful records, (despite the extenuating circumstances, half the original members had left by that point and they were mainly recording songs by outside writers) I'm not familiar enough with post early-70s Hollies to say if it was a one-off or if they had whole albums of stuff as bad as this, though, so maybe it doesn't count.

Also maybe the least artistically successful attempt by a 60s pop group to 'go disco'

ABBA's I Have a Dream was the only song of theirs I couldn't stand - early embryonic schlager included - at least until Little Things.

lol that song wound up on an ep of Black Mirror (though not their version, a cover created for the show)

I had no idea about that Hollies track and I love the Hollies. going to give a listen after my meeting.

Those recent remixes of Frozen mark Madonna's obvious nadir to me.

I was literally just about to post a YouTube of "Wiggle That Wotsit" but when I was listening to it it didn't sound terrible enough for this thread

just popping in with the thought that the beatles are disqualified because of "hey jude" and "the long and winding road"

prefab sprout - I hate that for most people they're the wacky hot dog jumping frog band

― rincton monkspoon (NickB), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 15:13 (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I like Illegal Alien, Shiny Happy People and The King of Rock 'n' Roll, they maybe all fall into the category of slightly novelty-ish songs by bands that became hits, I can see how that would annoy fans, but none of those songs feel completely divorced from the band's usual vibe, they don't have that "how the hell did THAT come out of YOU?" thing described in the op. Black Messiah is unlikeable, but also seems to be mined from a seam that's there in other Kinks songs

I was going to post the youtube video as well, them miming to the song on Dutch tv, listening to it again maybe it's no so much the song, which is just everyday-bad, but that they look so clapped out and badly dressed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL9lg3dDgQo

This single only charted in Holland (23) New Zealand (11) and Sweden (19)

madness - driving in my car

while there are a few other songs of theirs that i don't enjoy due to over exposure, i absolutely hated this track even when it was released.
and i have never changed my opinion about it.

I love several of these songs including that one. Mostly I like the rickety junkshop rhythm which I can't help but wonder if - unlikely as it seems - it was inspired in some way by Anthony Newley's That Noise (Newley and Madness not being miles apart).

Bonus points though for being the only hit single (that I know of) to mention my childhood home turf of Muswell Hill

xpost

I'm sure I'm quite alone in this, but: Chicago was a great singles band up to "Just You and Me," then everything they do is awful; same with the Carpenters up to "Sing," more or less.

Chicago is such an ingrained part of my youth (school prom theme was "Colour My World") that I can't deny. I'd even push the timeline a bit farther than that single, but the greatness starts to decline.

I'd push the Carpenters' discog out a few more singles too, actually.

I'm sure people here will say that U2 have plenty of bad songs, but "Get On Your Boots" feels particularly egregious.

omg Wiggle That Wotsit is DIRE......holy fuck. great add to this thread.

Brown Sugar

"Rainy Day Women"? Doesn't exactly loom large in the massive body of work but kinda stands out leading off an album like Blonde on Blonde...

tied for biggest hit in America

I feel like there have to be some hip hop artists this applies to, like....i know not all rappers were album-artists so there's often a lot of filler, but even rappers with huge stature make some wtf choices (i.e. Nas's "Fetus", though I don't count him as despite being one of my favorites, he has a fuck ton of songs I hate).

Jay-Z also doesn't qualify as he has multiple shits up in him

"Change Clothes" my pick for worst Jay-Z top ten.

ctrl-f kokomo

good mention map, but i'd say they're like the beatles: multiple crimes were committed.

And I don't know whether this is a factor, but the Beach Boys hadn't been "amazing" for at least 15 years beforehand.

Dire Straits, “Money for Nothing”

Definitely an extreme minority opinion: I was a rabid R.E.M. fan who hated "Losing My Religion" (and then "Orange Krush"). I did love a few singles after that, though.

I hate LMR and most of its parent album, but “Orange Crush” is brilliant (and came before LMR).

I want to say this but obviously not exactly a singles band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlJPqRs0ZLM

fp'd

still dying at that Hollies song upthread.

it goes to prove pop hooks in one brand of popular music don't necessarily map well to others, even though there were definitely lots of non-disco acts successfully navigating disco waters in the 70s (some, like the Bee Gees, deciding to stay there for good).

Leonard Cohen – 'Jazz Police'

big ballad turds in the 90s alt rock punchbowl:
Soul Asylum "Runaway Train"
REM "Everybody Hurts"
Guided by Voices "Hold on Hope"

Performing a song titled "Wiggle That Wotsit" is already a crime against humanity no matter how good the song might be.

The first Lou Reed song I ever heard (on MTV, no less) was "I Love You, Suzanne"... not the worst song in the world, I guess, but also not exactly representative of his appeal (as I would later come to know it).

I feel like there's at least one example out there of an artist releasing a first single that had such a bad reception that they ended up not putting it on an album.

The Avalanches - Frankie Sinatra

Ebony & Ivory - Stevie and Paul McCartney. Think this is the only single they released together but a stinker that should count against both artists

Jazz Police rules!!!

They improvise inside of my head

The Stranglers (feat. George Melly) - "Old Codger". Vying with "Tits" as the most unlistenable piece of shite in their entire catalogue.

The first Lou Reed song I ever heard (on MTV, no less) was "I Love You, Suzanne"... not the worst song in the world, I guess, but also not exactly representative of his appeal (as I would later come to know it).

― Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Wayne Manor (morrisp),

He's always written these throwaway pop songs, often more quietly subversive than the overtly transgressive ones.

The drums are too loud in the mix!

Symptom of the times: an engineer who didn't know how to record the big drum sound. New Sensation is my favorite of his solo albums. I'd know what Lou Reed was capable of as a writer from this album.

Seger had at least as many duds as he had classics. For every "Night Moves," there is a "Like a Rock." Ugh.

immortalized by a car commercial

but see I can still listen to 'Like a Rock' and go 'ok corny but aight', "Old Time Rock 'n Roll" is like the musical equivalent of those Youtube comments saying "now this was REAL music"

Seger has many good hits. It was his birthday last weekend.

i love most of his 70s material, need to acquire more of his albums though

Old time r&r always gets performed by tom cruise in underpants too

Don't even get me started on "Turn the Page."

All of these songs with "rock" in the title are reminding me to nominate Paul Simon for "I Am a Rock."

I see someone has already mentioned "Everybody Hurts," which ruined REM for me for decades.

let me take you to hell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CozoPjQ_sH0

Directed by Peter Bonerz

I see someone has already mentioned "Everybody Hurts," which ruined REM for me for decades.

― Lily Dale, Wednesday, May 10, 2023 8:43 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglin

I agreed for 20 years until I admired the restraint of the mix and how food the strings sound

yeah relistening to it recently after many years i'm kind of amazed by it tbh

it strikes me as weird and audacious now

Pet Shop Boys - Winner. Still don't know what they were going for there.

Dullsville.

The strings, they sound food

They taste like pizza.

we should do a "don't kill yourself plz" pop song poll

a lot of my fav pop songs would fit in that poll.

like "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"

Are we talking like, Collective soul - the world I know? Or is it just the video?

That third eye blind one too?

what's recent one by khalid or someone? 1 900 suicide?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb24RrHIbFk

I have a lot of time for latter-day "bad" Can but there really is no worse song in the world than "Can Can"

I could be wrong but Joni Mitchell never really got BAD, as far as I'm concerned, just sometimes.. tedious? Except "Sex Kills", what a goddamn terrible fucking song. I could type a defence of "The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines", but not "Sex Kills"

I'd call "Dancin' Clown" her nadir.

...and Lou Reed's "Mama's Got a Lover".

"Dancin' Clown," "Laughing Gnome"

I admire the electronic rhythm of "Sex Kills" *shrugs*

And that bass

R.E.M.'s worst is "A Month of Saturdays" from their final compilation album, a truly pathetic attempt to turn the clock back to 1980.

Bowie's worst is his cover of "God Only Knows".

...but none of these that I've named qualify as "worst songs in history".

That one does.

I'll defend you, Halfway.

-Kenny Loggins

ctrl-f kokomo

― ꙮ (map), Wednesday, May 10, 2023

[...]

And I don't know whether this is a factor, but the Beach Boys hadn't been "amazing" for at least 15 years beforehand.

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Yeah but that stuff beforehand is mostly forgotten... whereas Kokomo now sits beside Good Vibrations etc on every BB greatest hits album that gets released.

That's an interesting question, though - do we think a bad song is worse if it's more successful? I was thinking earlier that if a band released a bad song strictly as a b-side, that would slightly ameliorate my judgement: "they obviously knew this is not good, they hid it away, it's just a joke or provocation", etc.

i think the ubiquitous-ness of the song does play a role

For me personally it's the Doors with 'Hello, I Love You'. They have more weak songs for sure, but I'm able to listen to/tolerate/even still enjoy a lot - it's very rare for me to skip a track on a record, but I normally start playing Waiting For The Sun from the second track.

Don't even get me started on "Turn the Page."

Seconded. It’s the spookiest thing Seger’s ever recorded — said spookiness ramped up exponentially if you’ve ever heard it on AM radio while driving at night.

I see someone has already mentioned "Everybody Hurts," which ruined REM for me for decades.

― Lily Dale, Wednesday, May 10, 2023 8:43 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglin

Yep. The first few times I heard it on the radio I assumed it was a jokey b-side. Or a parody of something.

Iggy Pop - "Shades"

Iggy Pop - African Man

I enjoy "Turn the Page", I hate what Metallica did to that song on their awful cover

(xp) It's stupid but I like it

"Turn The Page" is a good example of a song in which the live version so totally slays the studio version that you never hear the latter on the radio. See also: "Free Bird", "I Want You to Want Me", etc.

Stairway To Heaven

hey the controversial music opinion thread is thatta way

Iggy Pop - "Shades"

― Stoop Crone (Trayce)

Beautiful song. I love the chorus.

Yeah, "Shades" is great. NickB's right about "African Man," though; it almost ruins an otherwise killer album.

So the thing about "Everybody Hurts," which I do agree basically sucks, is that I don't think it counts for this because I don't think it has the "how did THAT come out of YOU" factor -- e.g. in some ways it is the same KIND of song as e.g. "You Are The Everything," which is great. I don't think it's weird that the band that released "You Are The Everything" also released "Everybody Hurts" -- you take swings, sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss. Now if I thought "Shiny Happy People" were a shit song, that would be a better example, but as it happens "Shiny Happy People" rules.

I like Everybody Hurtz :(

Same. But I never play it by choice.

Agreed on Everybody Hurts, it just feels like music for other people (which is of course fine)

Stairway To Heaven is bad though, I remember many years ago sitting around smoking weed and someone put it on, just felt like the corniest fucking thing ever recorded.

The Rain Song >>> Stairway

And "Ten Years Gone" is better than both.

“Ten Years Gone” is pretty much the greatest song evah, so yeah…

(I also agree with “Stairway” being one of the reasons that I didn’t get into Led Zeppelin until long after first exposure…)

Pet Shop Boys 'Winner' is a great example. Only truly abysmal single they did (under their own name)

Pet Shop Boys also bear responsibility for "Absolutely Fabulous"

This is how I feel about Led Zeppelin - Fool in the Rain. Literally all of their other radio songs, and pretty much all of their other output, is at least pretty good. But that one makes me want to run screaming.

Jay-Z's "Forever Young" needs to be in this convo

Excuse me, "Young Forever"

Jay-Z ft. Rod Stewart

Jay-Z free-styling over "rhythm of my heart" would possibly be world-ending

"The Motown Song (In the Heart of the City)"

For me and me only, apparently, Mysterious Ways is rock bottom U2 material. Still think so, but then Walk On came along and dethroned it.

PSBs - Absolutely Fabulous definitely sprang to mind. shockingly shit.

For me and me only, apparently, Mysterious Ways is rock bottom U2 material. Still think so, but then Walk On came along and dethroned it.

What? No way. That's one of the best songs they ever made in the post-Joshua Tree era.

Yeah, I’m a non U2 fan but really like that song

See I’m a non-U2 fan and love Mysterious Ways

Huh, i thought everyone always agreed that D'yer Maker is the Led Zeppelin one of these.

xp I always thought that was U2's "baggy" song.

I’m a U2 fan generally and I absolutely would put “Hold Me…” as my #1 favourite of their songs

Huh, i thought everyone always agreed that D'yer Maker is the Led Zeppelin one of these.

Tied with "The Crunge".

Wasn't Absolutely Fabulous credited to Absolutely Fabulous though, for the very reason it was terrible

xp agree on "D'yer Maker", but also "Fool In The Rain" is one of these too.

“D’Yer Maker”, like “St Tropez”, is widely cited as “bad” I guess but they are successful novelty songs in my book

The most I’ve ever liked Pink Floyd was when “St Tropez” randomly came on in the pharmacy, it was awesome accompaniment to buying shampoo

Mentally scrolling through Bowie’s precarious shitty period and it’s nice to know that yes, it just gets worse and worse, that yes the “God Only Knows” cover is bad but what about “Tonight”? And then “Too Dizzy” is worse than that? And then have you heard “Baby Universal”? god, it is so so bad. But the deeper into hell you go with Bowie you know that at the very very bottom you won’t find Bowie at all, you’ll find a Sales brother singing “Stateside”

hi, goon!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulBbzKKgCYg

"Shinin' Star" is too confused to be really bad.

I've always said the worst Pink Floyd song is "Dogs of War", but suddenly I thought of "Not Now John" and I don't know.

"Shinin' Star" is too confused to be really bad.

I mean, it doesn't even work for what it seems to be trying to do, so it's ineffective even at being annoying.

PaulTMA at 9:17 11 May 23

Wasn't Absolutely Fabulous credited to Absolutely Fabulous though, for the very reason it was terrible

"Shinin' Star" is too confused to be really bad.

You mean those chord changes and vocal choices and lyrical gaffes and Mickey Rourke rap don't work?

I've always said the worst Pink Floyd song is "Dogs of War", but suddenly I thought of "Not Now John" and I don't know.

I like "Not Now John." The Final Cut's not terrible at all.

Cool thread with lots of good songs.

But the deeper into hell you go with Bowie you know that at the very very bottom you won’t find Bowie at all, you’ll find a Sales brother singing “Sorry”

Fixed.

Chris O'Leary offered a defense of that Tin Machine single.

For me and me only, apparently, Mysterious Ways is rock bottom U2 material.

The Sweetest Thing is easily the nadir of U2. Mysterious Ways rules.

I mean, I was there in '91 and Bono talk-singing ON YOUR KNEES, BOY was a seismic shock.

The Sweetest Thing, Mysterious Ways and Hold Me Kill Me Kiss Me Thrill Me are three of the maybe six U2 songs I like.

Same here; I'd add "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and "Until the End of the World" as two of the others (I was skimming thru that album earlier... it's been a while).

add "Numb," "Lemon," "The Fly," "Stay (Faraway So Close!)" -- what a run.

for context here's rolling stone's 10 best u2 songs, I actively like one or two of these, about five I actively dislike

1. One
2. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
3. Beautiful Day
4. Sunday Bloody Sunday
5. Bad
6. Where the Streets Have No Name
7. With or Without You
8. Moment of Surrender
9. I Will Follow
10. Even Better Than the Real Thing

Never heard of two of those...

Me liking every U2 song mentioned and even loving quite a few of them

Moment of Surrender is from 2009 and Bad is a live favourite from the 80s

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/u2-band-greatest-songs-bono-the-edge-205104/sunday-bloody-sunday-198195/

Cool, thx (those were indeed the two)

Me liking every U2 song mentioned and even loving quite a few of them

Including "Get on Your Boots"? Sexy Boots!

MoS at 160 on the 2012 Rolling Stone 500 songs list was the peak of their U2 circlejerk. We are poorer for this absurdism being subsumed.

Including "Get on Your Boots"? Sexy Boots!

Okay not that one

the rolling stone top 50 u2 songs doesn't have The Fly, fucking rolling stone.

U2's obvious nadir for me is Songs of Experience - even the one before it has two songs I return to.

I forgot about the cool little keyboard line in "Numb"... also, "Stay (Faraway So, Close)" is another good U2 song that I sort of forget exists (working thru Zooropa now).

Yeah this song kind of rules actually

Including "Get on Your Boots"? Sexy Boots!

― MarkoP, Thursday, May 11, 2023 9:39 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I had half an idea for a song for the ILX comp of "no line on the horizon" for that title, but got in too late.

It was better than the U2 song, but

This has inspired me to listen to Boots for the first time in forever. The riff definitely works as a bassline but the Edge should be doing something else. I can't listen to it with a straight face.

Lemon, Bullet The Blue Sky, In God's Country are in my top 5 and I'm embarrassed to say the other 2.

And I can see those fighter planes

Last Night On Earth was underrated.

Nothin but good U2 songs being mentioned, v good thread here. Ok well boots is the worst, might've worked best as a throwaway on a soundtrack with different arrangement choices, not on an album that was aspiring to be somewhat art rock. Moment of surrender is a really good one imo but as a top ten U2 pick? Insane.

I honestly have never knowingly heard another one of his songs, but I've heard good things about Bobby McFerrin earlier work so feel like 'don't worry he happy' might qualify here.

"Numb" is one of my fave U2 songs but lets be honest, its really a Brian Eno song.

In fact I think its all their most Enoey songs I love. "Unforgettable Fire", "Numb", "Lemon".

I've done a kick-ass version of "Stay" at karaoke

Eno helped layer Numb with the collage noises but quite a lot of the skeleton was there before him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCHCSdTmiIE

Agreed on Boots being out of place on NLOTH, really that whole pop mid-section spoils things a bit.

My top 10 U2 songs would also have Lemon super high. Love Is Blindness (esp live) and Mofo would probably complete the top three.

“The Pretty Things are Going to Hell” is my rock bottom Bowie pick. Turgid slop.

the worst zeppelin song is 'down by the seaside'

yes i know that many of you will rush to defend it but nevertheless

Sabbath had a few missteps during the Ozzy era but "It's Alright" is beyond all sorts of pales, sorry Bill

"Down By The Seaside" is fine, any of "D'yer Maker"/"Dancing Days"/"All Of My Love" I'd be happy never to hear again.

never correct me in front of the children, steve shasta

Do you still do the twist
Do you find you remember things that well
I want to tell you
Some go twistin' every day
Though sometimes it's awful hard to tell

i do not, in fact, remember laughter

It’s really nobody’s business if I choose to become alarmed when there’s a bustle in my hedgerow.

Sure, Absolutely Fabulous is pretty crap, but when it comes to PSBs, surely the winner is The Winner

I'm not a U2 fan, I've never been interested enough to check out their albums so I only know them from the singles, but I think Mysterious Ways is amazing and I've always liked Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me too.

I actually really like a lot of Bowie's lesser-regarded albums, even especially the Never Let Me Down album, and I also think Tin Machine II is much better than the first Tin Machine album. But one song I ever thought much of is Blue Jean (which is possibly one song most people do like from this period?).

Blue Jean is an odd one because I like it but also feel like its charms are much too subtle and intangible to be the lead single from an LP from a major artist. It's like the Side B track 3 that you only start to really appreciate once you've started to tire of the album.

That's a nice take, I can see that!

I love Absolutely Fabulous : (
But I have a major weakness for any minor eurodance melody like that

I had forgotten the existence of “All of My Love,” that i certainly the Zep pick for me. awful song.

My favourite Led Zeppelin song : (

I'm usually not manipulated by what the song is about, personally, to the artist, but once i did learn what "All of My Love" was about it added a layer of poignancy to it for me.

Otoh I still think Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" is a piece of shit

McFerrin is legit. Listen to the voicestra arrangements.

Or the fun record he did with Yo-Yo Ma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTstU-st-7o

xp It's hard to criticize a song written about the singer's dead child.

i think we can still manage it

srsly

I haven't listened to "Tears in Heaven" in a long time, and I generally don't like Clapton at all, but I remember thinking it was better than most of Clapton's songs in that it was about something, and that it was an interesting continuation of the very specific literary micro-genre occupied by the medieval Pearl poem (perle plesaunte to prynces paye) and the Kipling short story "They," in which the grieving father is allowed a brief glimpse of his child in the afterlife.

xpost yeah I mean regardless of what you think of Clapton, Connor's fall was a tragedy.

but so is the song, unfortunately.

I was thinking more of "All of My Love"

“Tears in Heaven” is meh. Lasts for way too long but I don’t hate it.

I think the super bland cover of Marley’s “I shot the sheriff” that somehow made it to #1 is a worse song.

Speaking of terrible covers: Red Hot Chili Peppers doing Love Rollercoaster is also one of their worst singles.

RHCP also didn't really play the funk riff accurately, and that dumb added rap was stupid af

"move over dad cos i"m a double dipper" or some shit like that

Red Hot Chili Peppers doing Love Rollercoaster is also one of their worst singles.

I just threw up in my mouth. Congrats!

I'm only really thinking of terrible songs made at the artists' peak periods, not in their long declines. And as such there can't be an answer better (worse) than ATCQ's "Georgie Porgie" Luckily someone convinced them not to put it out.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you Butch Vig's 1984 novelty song "Go Back to Chicago (The Waunakee Song)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9LLf2z_tpQ

which is probably better known among Wisconsinites of a certain age than anything he did with Garbage. It's pretty bad!

Been thinking about Bowie and I think my nomination is "China Girl"

just you shut your mouth

jk it sucks and belongs on this list, jsut had to give the predictable response to that song

China Girl is like five times as good as Laughing Gnome, come on

The Laughing Gnome is an obscure single from before he was successful, also it slaps.

China Girl's another one of iggy's blunders, still not as awful as African Man though

I like China Girl but feel guilt about it. I rationalized it one way or another for a long time but at a certain point I heard a live version where he says “just you shut your mouth” in a chinese-ish accent and it was just embarrassing. “Oh Grampy Bowie, don’t do that…”

Does it work better with Iggy Pop or is it just bad? I dunno.

If you listen to his singles in order, China Girl is the moment he flips to Nope

What's that really icky Iggy Pop music video from the early 80s? Don't know if I want to go looking for it.

The first person to post "Real Wild Child" gets a flag.

xp Oh yeah it's Bang Bang. Song is ok, video is not ok.

Chris O'Leary offered a defense of that Tin Machine single.

I seem to be the world's biggest Reeves Gabrels fan and the sole person to repeatedly vote him "Bowie's best guitarist" over the likes of Alomar and Ronson (and I do believe I'm right)

TM2 isn't "saved" by Gabrels because he's not the problem, the problem is (for me) that Bowie is aping Black Francis so obviously (and completely missing everything about what makes Pixies work, when it works), it is so grotesque a steal-parody, it insults me as a listener, insults Gabrels as a guitarist, insults Black Francis as an influence and insults Bowie as a creator, it probably insults God as well

But, incredibly Drummer Sales manages to turn in the worst tracks on the album and yeah my vote for "the nadir" is "Stateside" over "I'm Sorry", by dint of the fact that I actually watched all eight minutes of the live version of "Stateside" from "Oy Vey, Baby" and it is the musical equivalent of walking in on your father masturbating

Anyway seems unfair to be shooting guns at Bowie's fishbarrels when, in his classic period, he definitely has a few shits among the diamonds; of his original material I'd fart at "The Secret Life Of Arabia", and if we're including covers, then his garbage take on "Across The Universe" (already an ugly, ugly song to begin with)

The "Bang Bang" video is brilliant. Iggy made a bunch of $5 videos for his Arista albums and they're all great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcUa65cgX9c

and ooh boy Bowie's cover

trying to work out if China Girl would be not terrible if it wasn't so racist but this doesn't seem like a thought worth pursuing

"Across The Universe" (already an ugly, ugly song to begin with)

WTAF

No idea what Bowie's biggest dud for me is - God Only Knows, Beat of Your Drum and Too Dizzy perhaps.

You Belong in Rock 'n' Roll might be his worst lead single. Bless, he tried very hard - perhaps harder than usual - for it to be a UK hit.

RHCP's Love Rollercoaster would have been much worse without AK singing through a megaphone/trapped down the well effect. It's like the record's trying to get rid of him.

I can't stand RHCP, but they have done a lot worse than their version of Love Rollercoaster, it works fine in its context (The Beavis & Butthead movie)

A quick google puts "Across The Universe" at #93 on a Vulture list and at #84 on the Rolling Stone list of "every Beatles song ranked" so I'm not alone here

I don't know if there's really a bad Beatles song

Weird, it's one of my top five. I love the lyrics and the phrasing.

I hate “Honeypie.”

Conrmtrop: I could totally get behind versions of "Across the Universe" AND "Here Comes the Sun" that omitted the Indian pastiche bits.

Like seriously. Record "Across the Universe" without the jai guru deva om bits. Record "Here Comes the Sun" without the unconventionally timed bit.

Both songs improve, and nothing of importance is lost.

Worst Beatles original is "If You've Got Trouble" from Anthology 2, worst cover is "Three Cool Cats" from the first Anthology.

I'm the only person who loves Bowie's "Across the Universe".

hi! Sit by me.

(1) The guitars sound wonderful (2) Bowie's acrobatics on the line "Thoughts MEEANDEEHH like a restless wind in-SIIIIIDE a lettah BOX!"

I am going to be super basic and assert that the best "Across the Universe" cover is by Rufus Wainwright.

Controp cont'd: Lots of very good actual Indian musicians played actual Indian music way better then the Beatles did.

The Beatles were not from India. And their music was working fine before anyone decided it needed a sitar in it.

...but I hate Bowie's "Let's Spend the Night Together".

love that one

love it too, so deranged

across the universe is so teen poetry it makes me cringe it feels like the kind of song I would have written at 15 if I had talent

I don't understand why the bowie version is so hated doesn't he always sound like that?

Sheila Chandra did the raga pop thing way better than George Harrison or any other 60s rockers

Generally I dislike Bowie's covers, not because they're bad necessarily, but because they're consistently the weakest track on any given 70s album. That said, I like "Pin Ups" a lot haha

I don't think John really wrote any bad songs for The Beatles (except "Across The Universe" imo) but Paul's got about ten pieces of shit in there ("Honey Pie" being the worst)

the granny music bashing is way out of control at this point and lennon wrote bad songs at every stage of his career and almost exclusively after 1968

I'm the only person who loves Bowie's "Across the Universe".

Not the only one.

I always assumed that "Honey Pie" was British slang for shit

Not the only one.

OK, we're an exclusive club!

brb gotta take a wicked honey pie

One of Macca's attempts to capture the cornball essence of Tin Pan Alley.

i.e. "Oh no, I just stepped in a honey pie."

Guess I was mixing up honey pots and cow pies.

Pretty sure I would accept a career that includes a dozen or so pieces of corny shit in exchange for a half-dozen indelible, immortal classics, but whatevs

Obvs

I do love that when everyone in the rock world was putting on their serious blues rock faces McCartney was like, "You know what's really cool..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX4u4J6m5Pg

HP isn't great but it gets way too much stick coming from an album that contains piggies and people sometimes act like mccartney is the old corny beatle which is ridiculous

the granny music stuff will surely be reevaluated after his death, it's very much what the kids call "a choice" and even if it doesn't always work for me I appreciate big swings that are so studiedly uncool, then or now

it's interesting to me that he started fucking around with this stuff in earnest when his reputation for countercultural coolness was at its height as part of the psychedelic everythingness vibe of the time and how it retroactively became a mark against him when reputations flipped and there is a def an element of misogyny to the reactions these songs provoke among serious beatle nerds

"only corny" I meant but he is the old corny beatle now too xp

When I'm Sixty-Four is the big offender for me there. I kinda like his other cornball stuff but this is just like every reason to dislike the Beatles rolled into one

I know there’s some interesting shit going on in the vocals but I really really do not like “good day sunshine”

GOOD DAY

SUNSHINE

HULK EAT BREAKFAST

I don’t see Paul’s “granny” music (ugh that term) thing as being that far from the general whimsical children’s book vibe that was a big part of uk psych

I am going to be super basic and assert that the best "Across the Universe" cover is by Rufus Wainwright.

Come on. Laibach take this in a walk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTQcJx7xqAc

i spent several years on a project to find a cover i liked of every beatles original released under the "beatles" name between 1962 and 1970

"what goes on" was the last one i found a cover for (sufjan stevens' cover is good imo, but i don't like it)

for "across the universe" i have clammbon. worst across the universe cover is probably roger waters'. "honey pie" is of course a trifle but i like Göran Söllscher's version.

I don’t see Paul’s “granny” music (ugh that term) thing as being that far from the general whimsical children’s book vibe that was a big part of uk psych

― brimstead

so like toytown?

yeah I think there are definitely parallels in how psych referenced Lewis Carroll stuff and rave referenced tv cartoons, but now I want to walk back what I said because Paul’s top hat and cane stuff is for sure a different impulse

The Boo Radleys - Free Huey and It's Lulu

yeah I think there are definitely parallels in how psych referenced Lewis Carroll stuff and rave referenced tv cartoons

I love making this comparison to people - more-so that end of rave connecting to the more overt whimsy of the Bonzos etc. I'm assuming Kate meant toytown as in 60s toytown pop though - to the UK what sunshine pop is to US where retrospective record collector type genres with rather rigidly defined if still ultimately quite ineffable parameters are concerned.

I am going to be super basic and assert that the best "Across the Universe" cover is by Rufus Wainwright.

Come on. Laibach take this in a walk.

Fiona Apple to thread. One of few covers I'll take over the original

Let's all hug it out and agree that there are some absolutely stellar covers of this song which is not even in the top five Beatles songs.

That could be a topic in itself - songs that are not the original artists' best songs, but that lend themselves to good covers.

*cough* paging Leonard Cohen *cough*

I don't know if there's really a bad Beatles song

Wow. Hard disagreement re "Party." It took Rosanne Cash for me to hearthe sadness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fjsQPS5l-w

list of mostly great songs there

If it’s good enough for Bowie and Fiona Apple it’s good enough for me.

my least favourite Beatles song is Do You Want To Know A Secret, ever since I heard the V/VM version I've found it almost unlistenable.

I’m Happy Just To Dance With You
If I Fell

whaaaaaaaaaat

Not even a big Beatles fan, but those songs are gorgeous and objectively great

I knew I was opening up a can of worms (probably worthy of its own thread tbh) but I must disagree — despite promising hooks, they’re fundamentally trash.

Anyone mention “Batdance”?

That something so fundamentally weird as Batdance became a hit is entirely a good thing, whatever the track’s merits.

"Batdance" rules and I will hear nothing to the contrary

Vicki Vale
Vick
Vicki Vale

OOOOH YEAH

A few years ago we did a thread about universally held opinions and I think we found that there were none.

There is no song so bad that it doesn't have any defenders. And no song so good that it doesn't have any detractors.

hey Duckie
why don't we put the seven inch in the computer

Batdance camouflaged quite well in the UK charts where collage-type things like that were not uncommon so its extra neat it was huge in the US. Also it sort of reminds me of Meat Beat Manifesto's Cutman.

Hey! I like it as well. But after the magnificence of "Lovesexy" it was...um...a surprise at the time.

You Know My Name is one of the best Beatles songs fwiw

Companion thread

POX: Worst Songs by artists you normally enjoy

I was trying to think of a comparison for how a Bobby McFerrin fan might feel about "Don't Worry Be Happy" & I think it might be something like a Yello fan would feel about "Oh Yeah".

I’m a Todd Rundgren fan and I kinda feel that way about “Bang On the Drum All Day.”

Yeah! Like, they aren't totally out of line with the rest of the artists' work, it's just that these songs became society's singular focus on an almost tossed off aspect of one of many things that the artist does.

I cannot believe Bang on the Drum All Day isn't a Bad Manners original.

My disbelief is always the first thing I think of whenever I think of the Todd album let alone the song.

the rest of that album is really good, too. “Influenza”, “don’t hurt yourself”…

"Stand" by REM springs to mind.

^only came to that song through Chris Elliott show "Get a Life"

Wake up Boo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJXPTnPmm78

Crazy Beat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohyqek7fj6Y

Working on a Dreamzzzz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3ZMfPXgd_M

Winner
https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AEO21i-oN0

Crazy Beat is naff but not ever sure it's the worst Blur single when Bang exists

Bang is great. I made my partial (partial) case for Crazy Beat upthread.

the band hate Bang but it's probably my favourite song on Leisure, I will say its charms are kind of fleeting and intangible and it's a bad choice for a single (they should have gone with Sing)

imo Sing is probably the song that would have worked least well as a single - too lengthy, droney and vaporous - but it is the best early Blur song.

I think - as shown on Trainspotting - that Sing is sonically interesting and immediately gets your attention, it would really stand out on Radio or TOTP and show their range. Whereas Bang sounds like every other shuffling post-Madchester indie song and doesn't even have a proper chorus, it's only by listening to the LP a lot that you start to get the feel of it, so it's madness to put it out as your third single, it's like announcing you have no other ideas.

Sing would stick out but I don't think it would have sold to an audience who only know There's No Other Way. Not that 'Bang' sold much either, mind, but I can't imagine 'Sing' would have taken them to TOTP again. The closest thing to it on the 1991 charts would be To Here Knows When which was selling to a fanbase who already knew what the band were about.

"Sing" was left off the US version of Leisure, which disappointed me. I guess the wags at SBK didn't see the hit potential either.

"Honey Pie" might be the worst song in this entire thread.

Underworld - Bruce Lee

Wake Up Boo, much as I do like it, is a good example of a hit song that eclipsed a great, multifaceted band

I also know people who maybe missed the original Britpop era who associate Blur with downbeat pity-fests like Tender, Coffee + TV and No Distance Left To Run. Damon's extracurricular work corroborates that view quite a bit - his default post- Britpop mode is to sound a bit tired and despondent. But in the 90s I remember them being upbraided in the press for being all cheery and chirpy

Bruce Lee is fucking amazing

It’s an instant skip for me, the rest of Beaucoup Fish is so propulsive and then slap bang in the middle, Skym then this lumpen slow plod for 4 minutes. Never understood why it got a single release compared to say, Moaner or Cups.

I can never skip anything on Beaucoup Fish

Moaner got a limited single release at the time of Batman & Robin but was already two years old by 1999. Although I somehow can imagine a radio edit of Cups despite it being 12m long.