The Swamp

howard wrote:Terry Jacks Seasons In The Sun. How many times do I have to tell you guys? This was a #1 song, and marked the end of our nation's greatness.
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Or, Debby Boone. You Light Up My Life.

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OK, I actually think both of these songs are decent in their original renditions:

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You Light Up My Life - Kacey Sisik " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've never been able to get all the way through MacArthur Park, though. It's an odd type of badness--not ear-splittingly painful, but more like strenuous exercise that just isn't worth it. And those are some laughably pretentious lyrics.

That's some pretty bad music from perhaps the worst year of my life. So yeah, bad memories. But on any list like this I always see songs that I thought were pretty good, if not favorites. Taste varies. But personally I liked Cat's in the Cradle and Time in a Bottle, to pick two from that list. I liked other stuff from Chapin and Croce more, but these were solid cuts. Superior to most of what was on the hit-oriented radio that year. As hits go, we were lucky to have those.

And Janis Ian's At Seventeen spoke deeply to me and quite a few other troubled seventeen year-olds. Her earlier song, Society's Child was even better. Written at age 14, she wrote a powerful song about interracial romance (that didn't end heroically). It took a few years, but it eventually got all over pop radio in 1967 -- except where it was banned. No one was doing anything like this back then, unless you read a hidden meaning into It's My Party. Bob Dylan only dreamed of being this cool when he was 14. I'll always be a Janis Ian fan.

Yeah, I gotta throw a challenge flag on At Seventeen too. Pretty darn good song, excellent lyrics. Even takes accounting terms and make them poetic.


And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say - come dance with me
And murmured vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems
At seventeen

So remember those who win the game
Lose the love they sought to gain
In debentures of quality and dubious integrity
Their small-town eyes will gape at you
In dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received
At seventeen


(Fine. I'm a teenaged girl. Sue me.)

I never heard those original versions of SITS and YLIML. But the Boone family, Debby and father Pat gain a special distinction in this discussion. Debby with YLIML and a parlay with Pat turning one of the greatest R+R songs ever into one of the worst records ever - just by being white. Well, really really white.

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Come my Lady. Come, come my Lady.

You're my butterfly. Sugar. Baby.



Crazytown singing Butterfly. That is the worst song ever. Huge hit back in late 90s/early 00s.

mister d wrote:I was coming here to say Love Shack as well but I may have repressed JC's song at 5:11. I might want to rethink this a bit, that one is really horrific.

Funny, I was planning on posting B-52s Rock Lobster. College housemate blasted it on repeat for a couple of weeks. If he wasn't a beast and trained in Karate, we might have done something about it.




Love this thread, though. The first song is so great. some of the worst lyrics I've ever heard, yet he writes something to the effect that he wishes he could find the right words so he wouldn't have to say it in this song. Now I realize it is an ode to Jim Croce.

That Run Joey song is so fucking fantastic. I love it, even though it is a major contender for the title. It reminded me of this great song that pops up in various iterations of Worst Album Covers debates. Julie's 16th Birthday.





My other choice is the Beatles Birthday song. My Sister played it and screamed along 400 times every year on her birthday. She played it repeatedly on my birthday and my Mother's, too. All 3 of our birthdays are 8 days apart.

Oh God. Julie's 16th Birthday is just the worst.

Back in the 70s there was a brief fad for trucker songs. Convoy being the most famous one. And it's dreadful, but this, this is a whole other level of putridness.

I consider Convoy as the first white rap tune. And it is great. Mercy sakes alive. Headed for bear on i - one - oh 'bout a mile outta Shakey town.

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Probably doesn't count, but I'd rather listen to Starship or The Eagles or an entire Snow album than some stoned out fucking "jam band" like Phish noodling on the same shitty song for 45 minutes. I'd rather stick a broomstick in my ear than listen to that shit.

Johnny Carwash wrote:

Or, Debby Boone. You Light Up My Life.

My sister was in love with this song. Drove me friggin' crazy. She just has to sing the first few bars and it drives me up a wall.

brian wrote:Probably doesn't count, but I'd rather listen to Starship or The Eagles or an entire Snow album than some stoned out fucking "jam band" like Phish noodling on the same shitty song for 45 minutes. I'd rather stick a broomstick in my ear than listen to that shit.

Never listened to any early Airplane, eh? (and Phish is pretty damn boring. Have a buddy here that his "job" is basically to tour. I'll admit I went to one of the shows here last year, but very very meh. I am very disappointed that Trey was chosen for the Fare Thee Well shows in Chicago.)

FWIW, I don't have a problem with bands that "jam" and re-interpret their songs. In my opinion, Wilco is probably about as good at that as any band I've seen in the last decade or so as far as taking live versions of their songs and making something really cool and different. But ultimately taking a 5 or 7 minute song and extending it to a half hour is ridiculously self-indulgent. That drives me nuts.

You do realize that the song that Phish typically jams out the longest averages about 20 minutes in length, and it's like 12 minutes on the album.

It may seem like they've been been playing for 30 minutes but it's usually somewhere between 8-12 minutes.

Rush2112 wrote:

Johnny Carwash wrote:

Or, Debby Boone. You Light Up My Life.

My sister was in love with this song. Drove me friggin' crazy. She just has to sing the first few bars and it drives me up a wall.

I worked at a small record store when I was 17. Older semi-suburban crowd. We were allowed to play whatever music we wanted (within reason), and one of the staff - the younger sister of the franchisee - was in love for the first time.

Swear to God she played this song at least twice a day for an entire summer.

Lots. Of. Friends. Listen. To. Endless. Love. In. The. Dark.

Move to have Pruitt disqualified from nominations.

Weatherfrog wrote:Come my Lady. Come, come my Lady.

You're my butterfly. Sugar. Baby.



Crazytown singing Butterfly. That is the worst song ever. Huge hit back in late 90s/early 00s.

This gets my vote. That lead singer is the rapiest.

howard wrote:I consider Convoy as the first white rap tune. And it is great. Mercy sakes alive. Headed for bear on i - one - oh 'bout a mile outta Shakey town.

I like the original version better than the cover.

I'll nominate every bad in the late 90s that had a lead singer that looked like that. I'm not sure what the genre is besides shitty.

That Smashmouth, Everclear, etc. etc. is the crappiest crap that ever crapped.

I'd just like to note that in limited doses, I like both At Seventeen, and Rock Lobster.

mister d wrote:Lots. Of. Friends. Listen. To. Endless. Love. In. The. Dark.

Move to have Pruitt disqualified from nominations.

Understood. But in the dark, any tune that isn't abrasive is fine with me.

Went out with a woman whose go to album was a Linda Ronstadt/Aaron Neville duet collection. Hated it, but to this day, the song "Don't Know Much" evokes a certain reaction.

Pruitt wrote: Hated it, but to this day, the song "Don't Know Much" evokes a certain reaction.

Vomit?

I think he meant erection.

mister d wrote:I think he meant erection.

Booya!

Rush2112 wrote:That Smashmouth, Everclear, etc. etc. is the crappiest crap that ever crapped.

Who sang "Hey now, you're an all star"? Holy fuck.

Rush2112 wrote:That Smashmouth, Everclear, etc. etc. is the crappiest crap that ever crapped.

I'm sure most 90's bands sound the same to a lot of people, but those two aren't really comparable. Alexakis is a pretty renown and legit musician (and I'm not really even a fan). Smash Mouth are clowns.

P.D.X. wrote:

Rush2112 wrote:That Smashmouth, Everclear, etc. etc. is the crappiest crap that ever crapped.

I'm sure most 90's bands sound the same to a lot of people, but those two aren't really comparable. Alexakis is a pretty renown and legit musician (and I'm not really even a fan). Smash Mouth are clowns.

I agree with PDX.

P.D.X. wrote:

Rush2112 wrote:That Smashmouth, Everclear, etc. etc. is the crappiest crap that ever crapped.

I'm sure most 90's bands sound the same to a lot of people, but those two aren't really comparable. Alexakis is a pretty renown and legit musician (and I'm not really even a fan). Smash Mouth are clowns.

I would rather listen to Smashmouth and Everclear than listen to Crazy Town.

I do not think you guys (other than govtchedda) remember how horrible (and rapy!) that song was. They sampled Juice Newton's angel in the morning and changed the lyrics to include the line: "Closer than my peeps you are to me."

Weatherfrog wrote:

P.D.X. wrote:

Rush2112 wrote:That Smashmouth, Everclear, etc. etc. is the crappiest crap that ever crapped.

I'm sure most 90's bands sound the same to a lot of people, but those two aren't really comparable. Alexakis is a pretty renown and legit musician (and I'm not really even a fan). Smash Mouth are clowns.

I would rather listen to Smashmouth and Everclear than listen to Crazy Town.

I do not think you guys (other than govtchedda) remember how horrible (and rapy!) that song was. They sampled Juice Newton's angel in the morning and changed the lyrics to include the line: "Closer than my peeps you are to me."

It is just the rapiest thing I've ever seen. Rapier than Cosby.

Weatherfrog wrote:

P.D.X. wrote:

Rush2112 wrote:That Smashmouth, Everclear, etc. etc. is the crappiest crap that ever crapped.

I'm sure most 90's bands sound the same to a lot of people, but those two aren't really comparable. Alexakis is a pretty renown and legit musician (and I'm not really even a fan). Smash Mouth are clowns.

I would rather listen to Smashmouth and Everclear than listen to Crazy Town.

I do not think you guys (other than govtchedda) remember how horrible (and rapy!) that song was. They sampled Juice Newton's angel in the morning and changed the lyrics to include the line: "Closer than my peeps you are to me."

Wasn't that Shaggy?


Alt take: Crazytown says "it wasn't me."

I'm sure we could (but don't want to) fill with thread with current songs, but I heard Fall Out Boy's Uma Thurman on the radio this morning and it is really bad.

That's atrocious. It sounds like something Maroon 5 would come up with.

Gunpowder wrote:That's atrocious. It sounds like something Maroon 5 would come up with.

It's a hundred milliony times worse than Moves Like Jagger.

rass wrote:

Gunpowder wrote:That's atrocious. It sounds like something Maroon 5 would come up with.

It's a hundred milliony times worse than Moves Like Jagger.

That's not even possible. Moves Like Jagger and Payphone are some of the worst musical works this country has ever witnessed.

This will always be the worst song ever to me. The cringe factor is off the charts.



(But if we are going with songs that were played on teh radio because they were popular and made money for record labels, I'm going to have to research that. My immediate response is Macarena.)

I happened to look at Rolling Stone's 500 greatest songs list (2004 version). Two B-52s tunes are included. Love Shack and Rock Lobster. fwiw.

Gunpowder wrote:

rass wrote:

Gunpowder wrote:That's atrocious. It sounds like something Maroon 5 would come up with.

It's a hundred milliony times worse than Moves Like Jagger.

That's not even possible. Moves Like Jagger and Payphone are some of the worst musical works this country has ever witnessed.

Maroon 5 is on the pantheon of the all time worst forms of entertainment.

And the fact that the lead singer - who has perhaps the most treated voice in music - is a singing coach on a tv show is hysterical.

Okay - courting controversy here. Lou Reed put out some great music - some of his songs are on my perpetual playlist and New Sensations and Live In Italy are all time classics.

HOWEVER - he released a lot of pure shit. None worse than Metal Machine Music a double album of noise that was either 1) A grand dadaist experiment designed to alienate his audience or 2) A way to get out of a record contract. Take your pick. Either way, the result is thoroughly unlistenable.

Which wouldn't have been so bad, except for the fact that towards the end of his life - and long after it became abundantly clear that he was a spent creative force (IMO) - he actually took Metal Machine Music on tour.

Be thankful you weren't at THIS show...



Particularly love the fact that at the end of this piece, the great man cues the band that the song is over. There's a stunned silence and then one pretentious jagoff starts whooping.

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My 14 old daughter has started to listen to really gawd-awful top40 pop music, and I swear, most of the songs in this thread have nothing on what is getting put out there now.

I can live a full and happy live never hearing Sam Smith, Ed Sheeren, or that Hozier "Take Me To Church" song ever again. Or anything by Ariana Grande, Iggy Azalea, or Miley Cyrus.

And I can't remember the name of the band, but there's a current song with a guitar riff at the beginning that sounds so much like U2 that they better be paying royalties to The Edge.

howard wrote:I happened to look at Rolling Stone's 500 greatest songs list (2004 version). Two B-52s tunes are included. Love Shack and Rock Lobster. fwiw.

Shiny Happy People makes me want to kick puppies too so it's possible that Kate Pierson is the problem.

Anyway, this just came on in the car...

The current Top 40 is a cesspool of overproduced garbage, bogus sentiment and sugary pop for teenaged girls.

And it has ALWAYS been that way.

There's still a lot of jamz in the top 40 doe