Mike and the Mechanics?

Ballet

Go West. Obviously!

Horrible in every way imaginable and hard to imagine what anyone ever saw or heard in them. Shrill vocals, terrible, meaningless songs, every instrument made to sound as dreadful as possible, painful production, ugly album art. And just look at them - the clothes, the hair - in any incarnation.

Head and shoulders ahead of any other horrors and they've been that way for almost 40 years!

… are the Troggs doing in that list?

.

This may rile some of the massive, and I can only say that it's not my fault, by Crowded House are on the shortlist in that survey! Yes, really, and that in a world where Big Country were allowed to exist.

Stands to reason. Not them, per se, but the whole approaching Beatles' record number of No.1s, standing up sitting down, pubescent girls' bubblegum money lining louis Walsh's cynical little pockets is what rankles. Or maybe I'm just Irish and resent his success? maybe. Nah, they're still shite and my point remains valid.

I chose Scouting for Girls.

Westlife and King Crimson. They're so similar, how am I supposed to choose?

Had to go and see them with an ex many years ago. It was the dullest , boring longest 2 hours of my life.

... even before I got that far in your thread. Closely followed by Stereophonics.

All that was wrong and evil about the world. Possibly not a "band", but definitely a "group" who sold far too many records and made me feel ill for most of my teenage years. Horrible.

Also, why were Sleeper on the list? "Inbetweener", "Sale Of The Century" and "Nice Guy Eddie" are 3 of my favourite songs of the 90s. A great band. And what I've read of Louise's novels (well, the one I have read) was really good.

Shocking behaviour.

What is the point?

The Kooks! if I ever hear them I feel like cutting my own ears off! They are one of the few bands I can think off where I do not like anything by or about them!!

Van Morrison too actually now I think about it - see above reasons!!

Clash. The biggest frauds in the history of rock. Pathologically unhumoured, self-righteous hippies in boilersuits. So contrived, so over-engineered, so freeze-dried that they make The Partridge Family look like Leadbelly.

Sadly there's too many people who can't see past their hetero boy-crushes to appreciate what total charlatans they were.

not sure that happened, sorry.

... but whither The Fratellis?????

I remember them being terminally dull in the seventies but gave them the benefit of the doubt by spotifying them just now. Needless to say I was right and I submit in evidence "Titles" from Time Honoured Ghosts. I'm no fan of the HJH but even I can see this is wrong in every way. Ghastly! And Lord help us they're still going.

Queued all night for tickets, left after about 10 minutes - shite!

be included by the way?

Hey, we haven't bashed Keane for a while, are they now acceptable or something?

Catatonia - worse band for me - sounded like Gladys Pugh from Hi-De-Hi fronting the Sterephonics.

Onka's Big Moka.
Dancing In the Buggering Moonlight

The single redeeming thing they did was split up.
Does that rule them out?

Not good.

How can you have them in the list? "Sale Of The Century" is a brilliant song.

... Wang Chung.

simply ghastly.

or maybe the Bluetones. The template of landfill indie.

Limp Bizkit

those responsible for inflicting "Agadoo" on the human race deserve this honour.

Who? Just take it from me, a band that consists of 3 bass guitars is not going to play anything to dance to.

than listening to Black Lace, or the Tweets 'Birdie Song'.

1. Root canal
2. Full body dermabrasion and dipped in salt
3. Water boarding

There's probably many more but I can't for the life of me believe I would have survived much past this.

1. Worst band of all time: T'Pau.

2. Worst duo of all time: Go West.

C'mon everybody, the Clash as worst band? What planet are you on? Ditto for Coldplay or U2. Else you're all correct, and Brian Eno is wrong? Now you know that THAT just isn't possible!

would I be redundant referencing/recommending Dave Barry's "Worst Songs Of All Time" articles and book ? I know a lot of them were one-offs, but there were some serial offenders in there that might qualify here, like Chicory Tip.

Similarly, Joe Queenan's "America" has a hilarious, savage and highly articulate destruction of Billy Joel, Phil Collins, among other things. Does Billy Joel count as a band ?

And where's Jonathan King in all of this ? He's got a lot to answer for with all the 'bands' he put together.

and I give you...............R.E.M.

...don't fence me in.

Can we have a Top 10?

I mean, how can one choose between The Cutting Crew? Or Mental As Anything? Or Linkin Park? Or The Ordinary Boys? Or Creed? Or The Levellers? Or Tin Machine? Or Primus?

A Top 20 maybe?

Although I can see the merit in Westlife and Lighthouse Family nominations, their considerable success must count against them in this poll i.e. they seem to have some appeal.

Menswear contrived to be a cross between Pulp and Blur - but were actually a pulpy blur (or a blurry pulp). Bad, instantly forgettable songs. Not that this matters because they could have been rescued by a charismatic and witty singer. Nope. Don't even remember his name or anything he said in the many interviews they managed to secure at the time. At the height of pop's last hurrah in the mid 1990's, when records were selling by the million, they sold about twelve.

Cradle of Filth? Or The Mars Volta? If they were to perform together on a double bill, the entire universe would vanish into the resulting vortex of suck.

Fucking horrible tuneless piss weak band

BBB - boring beyond belief

Unlistenable

Singer can't sing. No melodies.

"Energy" - wot? Listen to The Who

"Rebellion" - smartasses with clever manager

"DIY" - OK, but doesn't make for Good Music

(Phew - gasp - feels good to get that off my asthmatic babyboomer HJH loving chest)

the godfathers of landfill indie. I find it almost impossible to understand how anyone could be an actual "fan" of this band.

I have always disliked them. They are hugely overrated and lack the very things that make soul music great - funk, emotion, excitement. I will make an exception for 'What have I done to deserve this', but only because of Dusty. I have nothing against synths and drum machines. I am a big fan of Scritti Politti.

I was talking to my girlfriend about this thread last night & without a moments hesitation she said 'The Fall'!!!! I did consider our future together until she admitted the kooks were piss-poor!

I have yet to meet a lady who actually likes The Fall! Why is that?

p.s. I got my own back by playing 50 year old man, rowche rumble & the container drivers quite loud.....she didnt change her mind!

A true waste of electricity. All the more worthy of the crown as they (well Kelly Jones) really does reside in a vacuum believing that they are important, cultured, talented and liked. Not the vaucous, narcissic, talent free pub rockers they clearly are.

..Killed the Cat. Posh boys defer going into City jobs to form hateful band who go on to record truly hateful debut Straight Back Down to Earth, (being a string of well worn lyrical cliches delivered against a discarded Matt Bianco backing track). Singer Ben Volpeliere Pierrot sports the most punchable face pop music ever produced. I rest my case. Don't say he redeemed himself by not marrying Patsy Kensit. It's not enough.

I mean WTF, as young people have it..

..I forgot about Northside.

Again. I've not gone on about it for a while because others accused me of bringing down the whole vibe, like, man. But here, now, is the platform.

Belle and Sebastian.

I say it again. I hate them. Worst band. Ever. Fey, pretentious, posturing tripe. Turd-polishing production, oh-so-terribly-ironic-yet-doggerelic lyrics, nursery-rhyme melodies all compounded by the love of them by so many tin-eared music journalists. No other band makes me so reach for the radio whilst looking for the nearest window.

And The Fall are fucking shit as well. Sorry. Fucking-ah shit-ah as-ah well-ah.

And The Alarm! Why has no-one mentioned them yet?

Presumably, no-one wants to mention The Scottish Band. (R**R**.. can't type their name for obvious reasons..)

Someone else still probably nailed it with Then Jherico.

And you can't have a go at the Shitehouse Family. It's like kicking a puppy for shitting on the carpet.

.......The Beatles, because I hate them so much but it wouldn't be within the concept so then I was going to say Queen but the same applied so it can only really be..........

.....Sigue Sigue Sputnik

Easy, Shed Seven. Anyone who names one of their songs after a day time quiz show hosted by Henry Kelly deserves banishment to hell.

Properly hideous. I even get panicky when they come on the radio, I just can't turn it off quick enough.

..is a creepy looking dude. That's for sure.

Earlier I piped up about Go West, who were truly awful, but it's this lot I was really trying to summon up from memory.

Athlete. The prosaic, mawkish premature-baby-at-Christmas "Wires" makes my skin crawl.

a dreadful president - and a truly awful band. Actually - you listen to all that sheeny sludge coming out of America these days - Green Day, Killers etc - I'm sure it's all Bush's fault.

They were Brits too - but we had the good sense to give them the cold shoulder - unlike our friends over the pond.

....Russell Crowe's "30 Odd Foot Of Grunt", a vanity project with some of his Australian mates. If he's ever making a movie round your way and this lot turn up, make plans to be somewhere else. Made a big mistake seeing them a few years back.

Also, how come The Red Hot Chili Peppers haven't been mentioned ? Annoying, pretentious, take themselves very seriously etc.

In recent years it's become apparent to me that the Clash are probably the most bogus band ever.

Everything from Joe Strummer, an ex-public school boy, acting all prolier than thou to their fake political posturing. How bloody pretentious is to call an album Sandinista? His most quoted pearl of widom was 'he who f**** nuns will one day join the Church', really profound that Joe!

They sacked their first drummer for merely saying he would like to buy a sports car. They signed to the largest record company in the world, and went on moaning about being 'artistically free'.

Complete hypocrites!

By a mile

so we get a larger and more representative sample. Chimney-Singing, when do you want to announce the results?

I think manufactured bands of the likes of Westlife and Boyzone should not even be considered here. They are little more than karaoke anyway.

As for the worst band of all time I think it has to be someone that takes themselves seriously and even has a modicum of success and has some fans. The band I just don't get at all, and who's success completely baffles me is Snowpatrol.

Listening to paint dry would be more exciting than this boring insipid old twaddle.

Oh and I don't like Oasis either.

I can exclude Westlife, Aqua and all the karaoke puppet bands who've never claimed to be anything they're not, or so-so bands who went dull with success (Stereophonics, Snow Patrol etc). Pompous old duffers who think they're really cool and relevant make me nauseous
(those three descriptions cover pretty much all music made in the late 90s, come to think of it. No wonder I was a bloody miserable teenager...).

In that case the worst band of all time has to be The Incredible String Band. Whenever I heard anything by them over the years I always thought, "that sounds terrible, but loads of people think they're brilliant". I must give them a proper listen sometime.

So about a year ago a pal gave me their entire catalogue as MP3s (purely as sampler material of course) and I started to plough through it. But I gave up after an album and a half. I just cannot be doing with that allegedly "microtonal" singing and the suffocating tweeness.

To listen to any more would be a form of torture.

on that one BrianH. I did the same about 9 months ago. I guess you had to be there. With a half-smoked Camberwell Carrot dangling from your lips. Twaddle of the first order.

Shocking rapping and no tunes. And can I also vote for The Script. Completely insipid uninspired mince.

..all that frowning, sloganeering and general earnestness - and I could never figure out exactly what it was they were cross about.

..but only North Wales, and I know they're from the South. I just can't see how All Surface No Feeling or Motorcycle Emptiness relate to economic hardship in The Rhondda, (if that's what you're suggesting I've missed). It always sounded like sixth form pretension to me.

How do I claim my prize?

The Cranberries been mentioned yet? If not they bloody well should have. Just an awful awful racket.

I actively dislike bands that make an effort to look all dangerous and rock & roll - but are actually bland, business-like and boring.

Rock musicians with acres of tattooage, hair colour and enspikement and piercings a go-go promise to be entertaining individualists and free-form thinkers yet, often, have the personality of Alan Partridge.

..Marilyn Manson. Case surely closed?

but I can't help thinking this thread is pointless. By definition, we'll never have heard of the 'worst band in the world' as they will have zero musical ability or star quality.

The above suggestions are just people's subjective opinions.

Sorry to be boringly rational about it but there you go ;-)

Ship happens.

Awful awful awful.

Also Muse, as discussed above.

..we all know who it is

..

..

(The) Kinks being the exception that proves the rule..

anybody done ocean colour scene yet?.......

Golden Earring,the only time i saw the whole crowd get up as one man and go to the nearest pub.

it's Embrace!

They went from second-rate Oasis copyists to second rate Clodplay copyists.

They also managed to produce the worst ever official England World Cup record in the process, which given the competition is somehow hard to believe.

..may not be the worst, but theyr'e certainly the funniest !