Artists badmouthing their best known songs

I was reading the liner notes of Nick Lowe's "Labour of Lust" and saw that he never cared for "Cruel To Be Kind," thought it old fashioned and in fact almost never recorded it. Then there's the stories of Nirvana allegedly almost leaving "Smells Like Teen Spirit" off of "Nevermind" because they thought it sounded too much like the Pixies. And of course, there's always the (apocryphal?) quote from Peter Buck dismissing "Driver 8," saying he could write a whole album like that in his sleep.

I'm sure there are lots of other favorite examples of poor instincts, hubris or whatever.

It's not apocryphal--Peter Buck has badmouthed "Driver 8." (I think what he said was more on the lines of "I could write 10 'Driver 8's a day, and so could a lot of other people.)

Here's the missing quotation mark: "

Birthday Party were vocally very anti Release The Bats when it was becoming a fan favourite. They hadn't moved onto the zenith of their final 2 e.ps yet though.
Think they still played it live for a while but introed it with things like 'here's a song you all want to hear, but we don't want to hear'

I was reading the liner notes of Nick Lowe's "Labour of Lust" and saw that he never cared for "Cruel To Be Kind," thought it old fashioned and in fact almost never recorded it.

Which is especially weird since he did it twice, in two completely different styles . . .

radiohead, creep, obv

I'm not sure if the Teen Spirit story is true, but they purposely didn't play it to their largest crowd ever at the show in Rio which upset many audience members.

Nada Surf didn't play "Popular" in their sets for many years, but I think they started again recently.

And of course, there's always the (apocryphal?) quote from Peter Buck dismissing "Driver 8," saying he could write a whole album like that in his sleep.

well it's a great song so hey! they should do a whole album of "driver 8" redux instead of the last 3-4 horrible R.E.M. albums!

accounts vary on exactly how much rachmaninoff grew to resent his prelude in c sharp minor, but at the very least he used to roll his eyes a lot at concerts.

I have a tape of a very drunk Paul McCartney announcing to the Troubadour circa 1972 "Here's a fuckin' piece of shit song you'll probably clap real hard for...because you're so thick...you fucking assholes" and then tearing through a rendition of "Yesterday" that sounds like it was a Meat Puppets II outtake

Famous: Neil Young's dismissal of Harvest in his liner notes for Decade. (Even provided the name for "the Ditch Trilogy.")

In 1987 Pete Townshend called "Won't Get Fooled Again" "the dumbest song I've ever written. It's dumb to deny the political responsibility of the individual."

I don't think Pete places much value on any of his songs other than monetary value.

The lead singer of Flock Of Seagulls owns this thread.

On various VH1 shows, most notably the One Hit Wonder shows, he complains bitterly about how much he hates "I Ran" and how much he hates playing it at shows.

Ms. Native and I both agree that he comes off as a bitter bitch.

Radiohead still play Creep now and then so I doubt they hate it. Maybe they did for a while around the time but i'm sure they're over it.

Even worse than A Flock Of Seagulls: I once heard Sophie Ellis-Bextor slagging off 'Groovejet' (the bits she didn't write anyway i.e. everything but the verses)

PS is that McCartney story real?! Please upload!

Mick Jagger hates "Tumbling Dice."

that best known Rolling Stones song "Tumbling Dice"

crüt feelin scrappy this a.m.

Robert Plant loathes "Starway to Heaven."

"Stairway to Heaven" too.

De La Soul always sneaks "WE HATE THIS SONG!" into the lyrics when they do "Me, Myself And I"

"Creep" is like top 5 Radiohead songs easy, those guys are dumbasses

that best known Rolling Stones song "Tumbling Dice"

Unless I need bifocals the thread title says "best known SONGS"

Randy Newman - short people
from wikipedia:
"...Newman would later grow to dislike the song and its success, eventually calling it a "bad break," a "novelty record like The Chipmunks"...

the thing is all these guys are posing, they don't really hate the song. they're just sick of playing it, and probably sick of people yelling for the hit from the second they step on stage when they're already planning on playing it and know that playing the one everybody wants to hear early on is just not how it's done. xpost except Newman, probably not posing, was probably really bummed to have his low opinion of the public confirmed by having loads of them identify strongly with one of his unlikeable narrators. Newman otm btw.

Saw Flaming Lips on the small stage at a Lollopalooza back in '94 or so, and Wayne Coyne introduced their big song, which is still their best-known (and you know what it is) by saying "here's a song that you love and we hate."

not sure about creep being top 5 but yeah top 10 at least

when i saw the flaming lips (in 2008 or something) they played that song either as a finale or an encore, which like aerosmith says is kinda how you do it.

course by then they'd had other songs in movies.

Madonna said she feels retarded singing "Into the Groove".

Into the Groove is her best song

iirc Madonna hates that song but he hates 'like a virgin' a whole lot more and is very reluctant to play it live.

What Flaming Lips song are we talking about? Jelly?

I read an interview with the Lips where they said unlike other bands, they enjoyed giving their big hit song to their fans, or something.

don't think Maynard/Tool are terribly fond of "Sober" -- when i saw them live c. 2001-02, some guy front row yelled for it the second they came out, and they obliged and got it out of the way, total rote playing, kinda boring... then launched into a VICIOUS 10-minute version of "Flood" that blew everyone away (peak of the show... never got better). still not sure if they planned to do "Sober" as the first tune, or if it was reactionary to that fella, but hey...

Bernard has been known to finish shows by announcing Blue 'fucking' Monday. They hate playing it.

I gotta say, I mean, I don't know what it's like to play the same big hit every show for 20 years, but I do know a little about playing a song or two that you play more or less every time, and if I ever start to feel a little lol JADED about it mid-song I just open my damn eyes and see people having a good time and boppin around and I think wow you have to be a pretty big asshole to indulge your jadedness about playing the hit. like yeah you may have to work a lot harder to get into it, it may actually involve Jedi-style mind maneuvering to get into the "I still love this" zone. Guess what asshole these people paid to get in, so do whatever mental backflips you gotta do to play the jam. If you wanna be mad at some of 'em be mad at the hardcore fans who hate on the people who love the hit and wish you were more interested in "educating" those people than in showing them a good time

yeah I'm breaking own rule abt work talk I know. to be clear I am talking about "Lord of the Thighs" which was really big for us on the '74 tour, I blame it for all the drugs tbh

idk, if you're invested enough in an artist to buy tickets to see him/her live, i'd assume you're invested enough to know more of their songs than just "the hit"

man that is so not the case!

but tickets for acts established enough to have "a hit" are expensive!

I would say though benching the big hit/hits til the encore is fair enough and a crowd that's pissed about that is unsporting

like if i was a radiohead fan, i don't know how much tickets to their shows cost but it must be at least £40 right? i can't imagine spending £40 on a band if i only knew "creep".

Simple Minds, anyone?

I'm a big fan of getting the hit over with. AC/DC has a deep bench, but when I saw them a couple of times on their "Stiff Upper Lip" tour, they *opened* with "You Shook Me All Night Long." How many bands would have the (big) balls to do something so brazen?

but tickets for acts established enough to have "a hit" are expensive!

I would be willing to bet money, not that I think this could be demonstrated one way or the other, that a not-insignificant number of people in attendance at shows which cost 20+ US dollars to get into (not the top of the chain I know - talking about 1200 seat venues here) know only the major catalogue numbers. as in Radiohead, I would guess that the number of people who go to see them who couldn't tell you the name of one post-OK Computer song is higher than you'd think.

I'd go even further and suggest the more expensive a ticket, the less likely a ticket-buyer is to know more than that act's biggest hits.

All the arena shows I've seen, when the act goes deep, the beer lines go deeper.

i don't understand why you'd spend that much money on a ticket if you don't like it when the band plays non-hits from their back catalogue

I hate it when bands and artists slam their own popular work. When Woody Allen disparages his "earlier, funnier" movies, it seems like he thinks I'm stupid to prefer Sleeper to Shadows & Fog; when R.E.M. makes fun of "Shiny Happy People" it makes those of us who love it feel disowned. One other related annoyance: meeting friends who have just performed in a play after the curtain and them saying "Oh, you should have been here last night" or "tonight was awful." Well, thanks for the news, but until that moment I had been delighted. With good reason (artists are very often poor judges of their own abilities/virtues).

Also, surely Disco 2000 is Pulp's 2nd biggest hit, chart positions bedamned

Trash did sell more than Stay Together in the end

it's also a much better song

my boring opinion on "creep": don't like it much but the KUH-CHUNK's pretty cool

beavis agrees

xpost Maybe Disco 2000 has become a more well known song over the years bus Mis-shapes and it's video were quite big at the time and it's the opening song on their most well known album. It's not my favourite song on A Different Class by a long way but I was really surprised to find out it was the song they all hated.

I always thought Stay Together was Suede's biggest hit but I guess it came out very early in the year when singles don't sell as much. Trash came out in the summer and was only kept off number one by some really big singles (Spice Girls and Robbie Williams first single) I'm glad Trash sold more as at that time they had a lot to prove but they are so wrong about Stay Together, it's a great song.

Glenn Tilbrook on "Black Coffee in Bed" - "It's far too ponderous. It could never be a fast song, but it certainly had the opportunity to be slightly perkier. My vocal is mannered and not very good at all, and I can't stand to listen to it now. It was influenced by what Paul Carrack had brought to the table [on "Tempted"] but without Paul's voice it didn't sound right. We recorded a great demo with Gus Dudgeon but we really fucked it up on the record, which was entirely down to me. This is one of the few Squeeze songs I'd happily re-record because I think I could do a better version."

They do play it noticeably faster in concert.

And when they re-recorded it for Spot The Difference it's the same tempo and not nearly as good. There's a really fast version on Around And A Bout and it's terrible - nothing wrong with the original in my opinion.

Did they do anything interesting on Spot the Difference or is it really the aural equivalent of Gus Van Zant's remake of Psycho?

if it is, I can presume I'll play it, then take the disc out of the changer 20 minutes in and never look back

xpost No and yes, to an extent. Any hardened listener of their greatest hits with adequate hearing can hear the obvious differences right away. 'Take Me I'm Yours' is the most impressive reproduction, though elsewhere you can tell a mile off. For a start, Loving You Tonight is sung by Glenn Tilbrook, who takes some vocal deviations on another couple of songs, Black Coffee and Some Fantastic Place from memory. There's a bonus live disc with the UK version that's worth purchasing for the inclusion of some great rarely played live tracks, namely Hope Fell Down (from Difford & Tilbrook, now stripped of 80s gloss), It's So Dirty, If It's Love and When The Hangover Strikes. It could have been far more comprehensive of last year's setlist though.

you "Creep in top 10 of Radiohead songs of all time" people are nuts, it's easily towards the middle or bottom. and I still 'like' it I guess

It is the very, very, very obvious highlight of the "Pablo Honey" album and may even be in my Radiohead top 10 (which otherwise consists largely of "OK Computer" songs and the occasional "The Bends" song)

Isn't "Stop Whispering" on Pablo Honey? Much better song than "Creep"

u forgot KUH-CHUNK

Miley Cyrus -- whose hit song, "Party in the U.S.A." includes a line about her nodding her head to one of the rapper's tracks -- says she doesn't know which of his songs inspired the lyrics.

"I've never heard a Jay-Z song," the singer, 16, said in an interview before her Halloween concert -- in which she was dressed as Pocahontas -- in Louisville, Kentucky this past Saturday. "I don't listen to pop music."

Then how did it get in her song -- which was recently No. 1 on the Top 40 charts?

"I don't know, I didn't write the song, so I have no idea," she said of the tune, which was written by a songwriting team of Dr. Luke, Claude Kelly and Jessica Cornish. "Honestly, I picked that song because I needed something to go with my clothing line. I didn't write it and ... I didn't expect it to be popular, originally. It was just something that I wanted to do, and I needed some songs and it turned out for the best."

Although she said "Party in the U.S.A." is "not even my style of music," she is thankful for its success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy_3sbeSH5w

Honeyslider instructions start at about 3:00. Does he say starts to smoke or starts to smell? Important distinction

I think a club gig, where people are fans of the band, and presumably know all the b-sides, is different to a festival one. I was quite aggrieved when I saw Supergrass at some festival in Ireland where they played all mediocre new stuff, no hits.

Hmm, maybe Miley Cyrus needs to record an album where she casts out the Miley Cyrus persona and, um.....

Re Bjork, the one time I saw her live, she did "It's oh so quiet" with plenty gusto and some improvised lyrics at the end "something like "oh yeah, so many fuckin boyfriends, it's unbelievable..."

Not on Greatest Hits, presumably because it's a cover version and she doesn't feel attached to it any more.

I suppose she could have done it like Slade do inasmuch as "put it right at the end so you don't need to hear it if you are sick of it" with "Merry Christmas Everybody"

I love "It's Oh So Quiet", but it is rather atypical of Björk. Almost like a conventional pop song (or more like, conventional standard/evergreen)

Thomas Dolby seems to think "She Blinded Me With Science" is pretty stupid and doesn't really represent him, but is thankful for the success.

Gary Numan doesn't seem to really be a big fan of "Cars" (he's much more partial to his other hit, "Are Friends Electric?"), admitting that it was written to be a 'hit song' and that it doesn't capture his style as well as something like "Down in the Park"...I don't even know if his live set these days include it anymore.

he definitely still plays it and also saw him do live vocals on it with nine inch nails a year or two back

Thomas Dolby seems to think "She Blinded Me With Science" is pretty stupid and doesn't really represent him, but is thankful for the success.

If anyone ever wrote a 'hit single' that should have been aware that it might well "define" him... This one.

Jamie - when I saw him he didn't play it, plus I have a modern-era live album that doesn't have it; that said I'm sure he still does at any "high-profile" event

If anyone ever wrote a 'hit single' that should have been aware that it might well "define" him... This one.

I always wondered if that song derailed his career; a number of songs on the Wireless album could have easily became huge - "Europa", "Windpower", or "Airwaves" to name a few. Once he got away from the techno-boffin image I would imagine the record companies weren't really interested in him to the same degree.

Yeah, but those came before "Science".

Whereas "Hyperactive" (which is the one I think of first when I think of TDolby), was after and pretty big.

It seems that a lot of the time, the track that 'defines' you gets defined (itself) after the event(s).

e.g. during Peter Andre's initial run of hits, you will find "Mysterious Girl" is not the biggest, but it's the only one anyone can remember from those days.

Surely this thread is "Artists badmouthing their best known songs" not "Artists who refuse to play the_hit live"? They're not the same thing.

I mean, I completely see why bands who become known for one song to the extent that no one ever wants to hear them play anything else would grow to hate that song. So that might have been true of Creep when Radiohead were touring The Bends just after it came out, considerably less so now. Most bands with a lengthy career and sizeable fanbase get past that stage though.

37 Radiohead Creep (re-emergence) Single Jun 2008 Notes

That doesn't mean anything.

No, it's just the retitling "Creep (re-emergence)" made me laff slightly.

well worth posting then

I have a tape of a very drunk Paul McCartney announcing to the Troubadour circa 1972 "Here's a fuckin' piece of shit song you'll probably clap real hard for...because you're so thick...you fucking assholes" and then tearing through a rendition of "Yesterday" that sounds like it was a Meat Puppets II outtake

wait this is a joke right

But I mean, Thom Yorke is straight-up depressive/mentally ill

uh... seems a bit out of place on this thread. is there "proof" of this, or are you just talkin out yer ass?

It is teh balls, yes (xpost)

Pillbox I <3 u & hate your u/n with an abiding passion just fyi

― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, March 13, 2011 4:40 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

I had to think on this for a minute, but it all makes such perfect sense now..

no disrespect, kind sir!

uh... seems a bit out of place on this thread. is there "proof" of this, or are you just talkin out yer ass?

― thank you ilxor for starting this much needed thread (ilxor), Monday, March 14, 2011 10:59 AM

He has talked openly about his depression (which is mental illness, though I know people don't always refer to it as such because of stigma) and anxiety and periods of hypomania. And I don't see how it's out of place given that what I was responding to was him getting flak in this thread for talking about being miserable.

If Thom Yorke is so depressed he should consider making happier music. Problem=solved.

oh okay; guess i havent read enough thom yorke interviews! xp

I have a tape of a very drunk Paul McCartney announcing to the Troubadour circa 1972 "Here's a fuckin' piece of shit song you'll probably clap real hard for...because you're so thick...you fucking assholes" and then tearing through a rendition of "Yesterday" that sounds like it was a Meat Puppets II outtake

― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, March 12, 2011 11:23 PM Bookmark

I would like Paul McCartney a lot more if he would unleash his contempt like this a little more. Really a hate-filled McCartney solo record could be a beautiful thing.

I'm a big fan of getting the hit over with. AC/DC has a deep bench, but when I saw them a couple of times on their "Stiff Upper Lip" tour, they *opened* with "You Shook Me All Night Long." How many bands would have the (big) balls to do something so brazen?

I remember The Charlatans opening with "The Only One I Know"

when you have as many hits as AC/DC i think it'd be dumb NOT to open with one of them, even if it's arguably the biggest one they've still got plenty in the chamber for the encores

The Church used to have a pretty strained relationship with "Under The Milky Way" - Kilbey thought it was nothing special and was going to put it on The Slow Crack until Richard Ploog insisted that he play it for the rest of the band (who were also pretty "meh" about it). For years, UTMW was always the "bathroom break" song for me and not really all that exciting - I remember one tour the band didn't even play it, instead using a bizarre electro-dance cover version of it as their intro music.

It's been fun seeing them since come to terms with it and realize that, OK yeah there's something about it that people like and they seemed to have discovered it. It was one of the highlights of the tour this year.

Read this paragraph at the Onion AV Club's SXSW Day One recap and reminded me instantly of this thread:

The night proceeded in that sort of a one-for-you, one-for-us pattern of well-worn versus breaking-in (as Le Bon reminded everyone, the set was a dress rehearsal for a world tour), and there was a noted emphasis on sticking to fan-favorite deeper cuts like “The Chauffeur” and “Ordinary World” and ignoring the shouted pleas of the larger crowd—particularly one dude whose cries of “Rio!” turned hilariously mournful as the night wore on.

“I didn’t write it at all,” Rebecca Black said, clearing up a major misconception. “I sang it as they wrote it.”

^ lol

xxp so "Ordinary World" is now an fan-favorite deep cut? *sigh* i'm old...

Yeah, seeing that juxtaposed with "The Chauffeur" is weird enough, but . . . it's not even a deep cut! It was the first single off its album, and it was a top ten hit in the US, UK, Canada and pretty much everywhere in Europe!

"Ordinary World" was probably the first Duran Duran song that most kids born in the early 80s or late 70s were familiar with.

That seems unlikely, at least for kids born in the UK.

It was the first single since "Careless Memories" where I felt they got it mostley right (for me).