Bottom three worst hit singles
Okay here is the rules: not including the usual suspects such as novelty hits and tat such as Westlife, Steps and their ilk. what are your suggestion for the worst three really big hits.
First of all:
(Dis)honourable mention: We Built This City - Jefferson Starship
How the mighty fall: in a decade or two, Grace Slick goes from being the scary, drug Shirley Bassy of White Rabbit or the decadent intellectual babe suggesting a Menage a Trois on Triad to this piece of annoying self-congratulatory tat.
But Grace and co and not as bad as what follows. Here in full and in traditional reverse order, are my suggestions of the worst of the worst:
(3) You're Beautiful - James Blunt
This will probably get a play on every radio station in the Western World today, it being Valentines an' all. But sorry JB: going nowhere melody + whine of a voice = BIG turnoff. Plus, is it just me, but aren't the lyrics subtly more sexist than any "Bitches on the Floor put it out right now" rap song?
(2)Africa - Toto.
Pass the sick bag. The apotheosis of AOR with a lyric that should have won the recent "rubbish lyric" thread - just look it up it; is amazingly hideous and hackneyed. Also, technically, listen while the singer tries to make the lines:"I know that I must do what's right. Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengetti" scan with the non-existent melody. AND NOT SUCCEED.
(1) I will always love you - Whitney Houston
Listen as our Whitney squeezes out any genuine emotion from Dolly's original choon and turns it into an antiseptic "Hey people, look at what I can do with my tonsils" exercise. When she hits that final key change like a learner driver clunking though the gear box I am always close to retching. In one song, she spawned the entire Maria Carey and Celine Dion School of Emotionally Empty Torch Singing.
phew glad I got that off my chest.
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Ok here goes
Laydees and Gentlemen in reverse order I give you
3)Lionel Ritchie Hello
Now the song is rubbish, treacle with a large side order of cringe, but it's the video that came with it which makes it so awful.
Picture it, blind girl running her hands over old Li's boat and going off and making a copy of it. Now let's face it if you were blind and run your hands over that emm face you'd run a mile not carve it for posterity!! Oh yes and he was wearing his jacket with the sleeves rolled up!!
2) Stevie Wonder I just called etc etc
What was he thinking? Surely he didn't need the readies, or the fame he already had both. I blame others. Someone should have sat him down and played Superstition and reminded him "That's what you do Steveland" Unforgivable, when you find out it's his most requested song in his entire catalogue, you look at Talking Book and think "What was the point?"
and finally
1) John Miles Music
Argggg it just makes my ear canals want to self destruct.
"To live without my music would be impossible to do!" Well John it's a pity you didn't try, it would have saved us from the most pompous, over produced, self indulgent crap ever to have emerged from a studio. Even the picture on the cover of him as the gallant airman was ill advised.
Ahh that's better, I'm off to listen to my Titanic soundrack
Two out of three ain't bad
Agree with second and third place, but Music simply doesn't fit the Mawkish Bullshit profile required of the truly dismal hit single. He's an obsessive music fan for God sake, just like you and me, he deserves more respect.
Great tune and arrangement, interesting time signatures, some nice guitar work and a complete lack of candles in the sodding wind, little bleeding silhouetteos and yesterdays make it a worthy piece of work in my book.
bbylon zoo no contest
for the contrast between how many people bought it and how rubbish it was
for the contrast between the (admittedly fab) speeded-up mix on the jeans ad and the leaden sub-glam dirge of the 'real' record
for the lyrics
for the totally unaware posturings of jaz mann
for making stiltskin look good
But listen...
...these are three professional musicians and two of the biggest hits in the history of pop. You might say that you don't like them but you can't argue that they were somehow stupid to do what they did.
Ok k,chnnng
Yes fair enough the songs got the kids through college and no doubt paid for the Lincoln etc and yes they were some of the most popular songs on this here planet and yes they are professional musicians but that's still no excuse the songs were crap then and they're crap now!!!
I'm sure Steve Martin looks at his bank account and thinks all the rubbish films I've made over the last 10 15 years are the most popular I've done. That's no excuse from an artist responsible for The Man With Two Brains?
I am with Gordon on this
Popular does not always equate with good. The Nazis, Marxism, the death penalty, the cabbage soup diet and cocaine were pretty popular at one point (and still are in some cases).
Yes but David...
...the criteria specify REALLY BIG HITS. I think that we're working on the "20,000 flies can't be wrong" principle here.
I've been looking for an excuse to post this
I actually have a soft spot for "Africa" and "Music"...
...but Gordon has suggested some REAL frontrunners in "Hello" (also up for the cheesiest video award) and "I just called to say I love you". However, setting thos easide I'll give my alternative top three:
3. American Pie by Madonna - OK, so I was about 6 when the original came out and I used to sing along to it with my elder brothers, either with it on the Dansette or with them strumming on the guitar, but there's just one word... TRAVESTY!
2. Ebony and Ivory - Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder - there are so many mid-late Macca solo hits that could be chosen but this one just edges "We All Stand Together" and "The Girl is Mine" (w MJ) for cheesy vomit inducingness. This gets extra bad points for the depth to which both participants had plunged from their 70s glories - Superstition, Band on the Run, As, Jet etc...
1. Lady in Red by Chris de Burgh - obvious nomination, of course. But there's a bloomin' good reason why it's an obvious choice... BLEEUUUURRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! Say no more!
If you want to play that game.
"Wonderwall" by Oasis. It was tired the day they recorded it. By the time it had been put on maximum rotation by every radio station in Britain, it was like a wet, whipped pit bull, nuzzling at your back door, begging to be put out of its misery. Turgid, strangely pleased with itself and utterly, utterly meaningless.
Seconded
Thirded, and Fourthed.
I like it
I like it. It's a great pop song.
Fifthed
("how sweeeet to be an idiot, and dip my brain in joy"
Yeah, whatever
whoops...
"I'm freeee to post whatever"
I'd like to suggest...
3) Dunblane - "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"
Where the hell were the taste police when someone suggested this one ? The classmates of the victims of the Dunblane massacre singing "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" - it's the sort of thing you come up with when you're at the pub having a "who can think of the least appropriate song" discussion.
2) Wet Wet Wet - "Love Is All Around"
Didn't particularly like Wet Wet Wet at the time anyway and certainly didn't like what they did to this. And then it was number one for 15 sodding weeks - even they hated it by then.
1) Mark Morrison - "Return Of The Mack"
If ever there's a "what's the worst song ever" conversation, I usually chuck this one into the mix and get met with nodding heads, "good call", "yes, I'll give you that one". Can't explain why I don't like it but then I can't necessarily explain why I like some of my favourites either.
Oh good grief
The Dunblane single! When some friends told me about this I took a lot of persuading that it really existed and was convinced that I was the victim of a really sick wind-up. A really, really sick wind-up. And then I heard it.
If Chris Morris had written the idea into a sketch it would make the Brasseye paedogonon episode seem as controvertial as an episode of the Antiques Roadshow. How can satire survive when the real world throws up stories as breath-taking as this?
Anthems
The following three are all anthemic and all equally crap so wouldnt want to put them in any order:-
Paul McCartney - Mull of Kintyre
Rod Stewart - Sailing (only redeeeming factor is it gave money to Sutherland brothers)
Queen - We are the champions
And before we get precious about Punk Anarchy in the UK was complete twaddle too.
My 3
'ersham Boys : Sham 69. Ruined everything that punk may have arguably stood for.
Hey Jude : Beatles. (Yes, come on, surely you don't really love all that interminable la-la-la-la. Ruined TOTP for what seemed like aeons.
Telegram Sam : was that the one with Volman/Kaylan chuntering on, much as above, funnily enough, for ever and ever and ever? If it wasn't, I mean the one in which they did. Or any of them, if I'm fair. (And, no, I didn't bloody have stars in my hair)
Who remembers...
..."Let it Be" by Ferry Aid? How about "The Frog Chorus?" or "Wind of Change" by The Scorpions?
*Shudder*
More for the hall of shame...
That 2004 rehash of 'Do They Know It's Christmas'; yes, it was for charity, but it was a complete mess, IMHO.
Most anything Barry Manilow has put out brings out the worst in me; I remember watching some horrifying live 'duet' on TV between him and some lady he'd pulled out of the crowd doing his nauseating 'Can't Smile Without You'. Have to nominate that song.
Also try Michael Bolton's 'Can I Touch You There'- this actually achieves the remarkable feat of being even worse than its song title.
I remember Stuart Maconie passionately claiming that 'Lady In Red' was the only thing in history that he felt was completely indefensible in every single way on one of those Channel 4 list shows...was most amusing.
But it's..
....a good tune. That's why people still like it. And it's terribly sentimental. Which is why rock critics hate it and real people don't.
Worst
Easy one, this. Bottom three: -
Radiohead Creep
Radiohead Paranoid Android
Radiohead (Oh, you get the idea).
It must be my age
but the singles that scarred me for life and almost put me off buying another record were:
Honey by Bobby Goldsborough
See the tree how big its grown....something about it being a twig rhyming with "what the heck". NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Summer the First Time by (guess who - yes they let him record another one) Some woman of 33 has an affair with a seventeen year old boy. So fantasy island for Bobby.
Shes having my baby - Paul Anka? Set feminism back years.
The seventies have a lot to answer for.
Soppy anthems
Robbie Williams - Angels
Snow Patrol - Chasing cars
Coldplay - Fix you
Cos this kind of stuff is so overused for every bloody moment of triumph over adversity/big emotional moment shown on TV. I know it's not their fault this happened but I already had quickly got sick of them when they became hits - ie they are not really any good anyway. Whereas that Sigur Ros song Hoppiwhatsit gets used just as much and I still like it.
Oh God, Chasing Cars...
...that one always bores me to death, it seems to go on forever in that chugging Coldplay style.
Wasn't 'Honey' the one Tony Blackburn played to death on his radio show? I'll add the caveat that it's before my time... Either way, it is indeed a ghastly load of old schmaltz up/down there with Barry Manilow's worst...
Worst Hit Singles
Oh God, there are so so so many. Here are my own particular horrors.
3- Karma Chamaleon , by Culture Club. It´s so tinny and annoying, the video is crap and What is about? What is a Karma Chameleon? and most importantly, Why?
2-The Final Countdown- Europe ? A staple of crap MOR radio stations the world over. Big-haired. air-brushed, spandex-filled,girlie soft rock nonense.
1- Friends will be friends - Queen. God, Freddie had so many crap songs, some great ones too, it must be said, but this,....this is , ....words fail me ........!
Stock
Aitken and Waterman were responsible for a whole raft of identikit pap. I suppose it may not qualify as the worst ever, as I can't remember much of it, apart from Kylie being "so lucky" but was there any need for it all, really?
I quite like SAW products
It was good, honest, well put together pop. I reckon their work with groups like Bananarama and Kylie stands the test of time. While I wouldn't wanna buy a whole load of their oeuvre, I would certainly turn it up at a party.
10cc I'm not in love
Out of many hits I dislike, this is one of the very few which force me to turn of the radio.
Also Mull of Kintyre. My Mum and Dad bought a single every 10 years, and this was one of them. Aaaaargh!!!!!!
There are others, but I can't remember them. I think it's one of the brain's natural defence mechanisms.