A list of popular songs I hate. Usually unavoidable because of their
permanence in our cultural consciousness.
Here are few qualifying factors for the list.
·
I’m not putting songs are just overused or
played out (“Louie, Louie,” “Iron Man,” “Halleluja,” “Moonlight Sonata,”
“Freebird,” etc.), I actually have to dislike the song and disagree with its popularity
in the first place. I'm also not including songs that have unwittingly inspired annoying memes, like "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be [insert group I disapprove of]"
·
The cut-off year is 2000. As tempted as I am to include “Everything is Awesome” or a Paramore song, they’re not tested enough by time.
·
Fad songs that fizzled out fast (“The Macarena,”
“Who Let the Dogs Out?”). The songs have
to have undeservedly stood the test of time.
·
No, “Stairway to Heaven” is not on this list, because "Stairway to Heaven" is actually a good song.
One of my quirks that I usually don’t give a crap how good
the lyrics are, unless maybe they’re genuinely offensive. I generally judge music by the way it sounds,
so I really couldn’t care less if any of these songs defined a generation with
their message or not (I suspect that’s #2’s claim to fame). There are, however two exceptions on this
list in which the lyrics/messages are so terrible that I don’t actually don’t care that the song sounds pretty
good.
35. “Bring Him Home”
Claude-Michel Schönberg, Les Misérables (1985)
I usually enjoyed this song for the great vocals, but
then when I was sitting through in the 2012 movie I realized something: this
song is really, really boring. It drags on monotonously and its only purpose seems to be to show off the performer’s singing voice.
34. Most of Weird Al Yankovic’s Covers
“Weird Al” Yankovic
I often listened to my dad’s cassette track of Weird Al’s
“Smells Like Nirvana,” but that was only because I didn’t have access to the original. I know I’m supposed to
venerate Weird Al for my geek cred, but I honestly don’t think that “changing a
song’s lyrics so it’s just about something else” qualifies as a “joke.” Ironically, Weird Al actually is really funny when
he’s not doing that. One exception to
this is parts of “Amish Paradise.” “A local boy kicked me in the butt last week/I
just smiled at him and turned the other cheek/I really don't care, in fact I
wish him well/'Cause I'll be laughing my head off when he's burning in hell” is
a pretty good satire of personally nice people who worship an unjust
manifestation of God.
Rupert Holmes, 1979
Yeah, this is a pretty popular choice for a list like
this so I don’t have much to add.
32. “Like a Virgin”
Madonna, 1984
Madonna’s voice is terrible, and she never deserved fame
in the first place.
Whitesnake, 1982
This song is like a strawman version of hair metal made by someone who thinks hair metal is bland.
KISS, 1975
You’d think a band that goes up on stage dressed up like
devils would make an edgier sounding song than this. Well, I guess they were okay aside from this
one.
29. “Signs”
Five Man Electrical Band, 1971
This is one of my exceptions to the rule of judging songs
by the way the sound. This song sounds
okay, but they lyrics are insufferable, preachy hippie dreck.
28. "School's Out"
Alice Cooper, 1972
Due to the cheap relability of making anything about high school, this is one of Cooper's more popular songs, but it has no flow and sounds like a slightly improved Van Halen cover. Don't get me wrong, Alice Cooper is a god, emphasis on "a" and the lower case "g." A fallible pagan god who eventually got some humility and accepted the One True God, and he can make mistakes.
27. “Black Dog”
Led Zeppelin
An uncharacteristically bland song from a great band.
26. “Groovin’”
The Young Rascals, 1967
I usually love good, mellow oldies, but for some reason I
find this song numbing rather than relaxing.
John Philip Sousa, 1896
Sousa is the Bruce Springsteen of classical music. With few exceptions, I’ve always found
American patriotic music pompous and saccharine. Contrast this with the badassery of Soviet
marches. I guess that’s the price you
pay to live in a free country: most of the talent is working privately.
Billy Joel, 1980
Most of us on some level relate to the nostalgia of good
ol’ days, but the real irony of this song is that many of us (including myself)
are nostalgic for the very things Joel is singing against. The rejection of the new makes him look like
a cranky old man complaining about the kids on his lawn. Still, this would be forgivable if the song
actually sounded good, which it doesn’t.
Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” has pretty much the same attitude,
but it’s a fun song to listen to.
23. Almost Anything by Van Halen
Yep, I know I'm a heretic. I just don't get it. Everybody acts like its a cut above the rest, and I don't deny Eddie's talented guitar work, but most of the music itself is bland normie-feed. Particularly bad offenders: "Jump," "Panama," "Hot for Teacher."" I tend to blame David Lee Roth for steering the band in a more popular direction until he was replaced with Sammy Hagar and started playing passably enjoyable music
22. "Free Fallin'"
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1989
I generally like Tom Petty, so it's only natural that his blandest song gets the most radio play nowadays. Yeah, I'm sure there's some deep relatable working class subject matter, but I'm not a lyriccel. Also the guitar riffs that sound they have a bad transmission slip don't help.
Tom Cochrane, 1991
One of the reasons why I lament the extinction of (actual) Oldies stations is that that era had more uniformly enjoyable music. Classic Rock stations are half-enjoyable, half bland, and this sone is a good example of the bland that dominates all the airways. I remember radio stations used to be more tolerable, but I just realized that the reason for this is that a lot of these "classic rock" songs are from the 90's era, when things started going downhill.
Billy Joel, 1977
If you can get past the cloying, bland sound and read the
lyrics, it’s actually a rather offensive song about a guy’s attempting to
seduce and deflower a good Catholic girl.
I mean if you’re going to be that edgy, at least have the decency to
make the song sound edgy. Too bad moral guardians are more offended by metal's ironic Satanism and rap's empty threats.
19. “Even Flow”
Pearl Jam, 1992
Grunge is supposed to sound somber, but you simply don’t
get that impression from a singer who sounds like Foghorn Leghorn doing
karaoke. I’m not sure how this band gets
respect when it sounds so much like, well, Creed. Personally I think grunge was an overrated
genre. Sure Nirvana and Alice in Chains
were ok, but the greatest contribution the whole genre made was one song that’snot even considered characteristic of it. Generation X may seems to be pretty proud of
grunge, but they seem to overestimate how little anyone else really cares for
it. It’s like their dubstep.
18. The National Anthem
John Stafford Smith, 1773
John Stafford Smith, 1773
Look, I’m not criticizing what our country stands for,
but from a musical standpoint “The Star Spangled Banner” (originally “To
Anacreon in Heaven”) is a terrible song.
In fact “song” is a pretty generous description for it; it’s more like a
teratoma of discordant low and high notes.
As a result it’s notoriously hard to perform. What’s more, the melody is completely
incompatible with the rhyming scheme of Francis Scott Key’s poem, changing it
from ABABCCDD to ABCDEBFDGHIHJKLK. I
don’t see this opinion as unpatriotic.
If American is great then maybe it deserves a better national anthem.
Sly and the Family Stone, 1968
I love how Toyota completely killed this song and wore its skin. As far as I’m concerned, though, they can
have it. It’s not a particularly good
song anyway.
Blue Swede, 1974
I was so happy when Guardians
of the Galaxy trailers were finally off the internet and movie screens, as
they kept assaulting me with nasal sonic waves of pain through this song. They should have used the original 1968version, which is actually pretty good.
Fortunately, the sequel used music much better.
Marvin Gaye, 1973
It’s a Hollywood cliché.
Guy’s about to have sex with woman, and then this song starts up. Yet despite its universally acknowledged
connotation, I’ve always had a problem with this song: It doesn’t actually
sound like sex. I’ve always believed
that music should convey the emotion through its sound effectively, and I believe
this song fails at that. Sexy songs
should be energetic, edgy, or smooth, but this song is neither. There’s a strained, tortured quality to the
vocals that suggests to me something else.
This doesn’t sound like a man who’s enjoying sex with woman; this is a
man who’s forcing himself to have sex with a woman to prove he’s not gay. Don’t get me wrong though; I generally like
Marvin Gaye’s work.
14. Most Post-Vatican II Hymns
Catholicism, circa 1965-
For all its strengths, the council was an aesthetic disaster, opening up the opportunity to replace rich liturgy and its beautiful music with bland minimalism and cacophony. In order to be hip, they decided to give the kids what they really wanted, which was...sappy folk music. It amazes me that to find out about people who unironically like this music considering it was something that made me hate going to church as a kid.
13. “Lyin’ Eyes”
The Eagles, 1975
Back in the bad ol’days before the internet, I was
dependent upon the whims of radio DJ’s to listen to most of the music I like,
and this was one of those songs that was the bane of my existence then. The Eagles may be a rock band, but this is by
no stretch of the imagination a rock song.
Not even rockabilly; there is literally no aspect of this song that is
remotely rock. It is 100%, pure,
distilled country. Which wouldn’t be so
bad except they kept playing it on rock
stations. I don’t care if a rock
band did it, it’s not a rock song, don’t play it on rock stations. End of story.
12. “She Loves You”
The Beatles, 1963
There are certain places in which society allows you to
impose capricious exercises in power over powerless people. One instance is running a website, and
another is elementary school faculty.
During my last two years at my grammar school, we had a Grandparents’
Day. The first time we did a pageant
about the decades during which our grandparents lived, and we enjoyed it well
enough. The second year, however, our
Boomer faculty forced us instead to sing this song with the lyrics changed
to “We Love You,” knowing full well that it will not be an enjoyable experience
for us and certainly not for our Greatest Generation Grandparents. They even lampshaded in the introduction that
“We know didn’t like this song when we listened to it [so we forced a bunch of
small children to sing it to you].”*
Anyway, that’s my story. It’s an
annoying song.
Carey Landry, 1975
I've already complained about boring, sappy hymns I've grown to hate growing up in church, but this one takes the cake. I may lose some Catholic points by saying that I greatly prefer "Mary Did You Know" in spite of its questionable theology because it simply sounds better.
10. "Friends in Low Places"
Garth Brooks, 1990
The anthem of obnoxious rednecks who are literally proud of their obnoxiousness and the scourge of Karaoke Night. Drunkards who select this song and make a point of emphasizing the low and high notes (to be fair they already are obnoxiously exaggerated already) are the reason why our great country allows Concealed Carry.
Stevie Nicks, 1981
Yet another song that was the bane of my radio-dependent
years. Being subjected to the crap song
about the “one-winged dove” was a risk I had to take back then with 80’s
stations.
8. “Imagine”
John Lennon, 1971
The second exception to my lyrics rule on this list. When I finally heard it for the first time,
it actually sounded pretty good. But no
amount of musical talent can compensate for its anti-religious and
anti-humanistic collectivist lyrics. It's not just offensive to literally all people of faith, but also anyone who has plans with their lives outside sleeping, eating, and masturbating. As some sort of cultural flex, Leftists insist on playing it at supposedly apolitical evens while disingenuously asserting that "it's the most unifying song ever." Whereas most of us were content with a Scarface poster, this song’s lyrics were practically mandatory
dorm-room décor for the douchiest of college students.
Whether it’s “Born to Run” (1975), or “Born in the USA“
(1984), Springsteen’s popular songs are bombastic, and not in a good way. Surprisingly, I stumbled upon some songs that
sound more like Country and Western; not my thing, but pretty inoffensive. I know this isn’t a popular position, but,
where New Jersey Rockers are concerned, I prefer Bon Jovi.
6. "Take On Me"
a-ha, 1984
While the video gets some credit for its creative visuals, this most basic bitch of basic bitch three-chord songs is extra-frustrating for being the only popular work from what turns out to actually be a good band.
Democracy was a mistake.
Manfred Mann, 1977
The original 1973 Bruce Springsteen is barely tolerable,
but Manfred Mann decided to make it horribly grating and, for some reason,
changed the lyric “deuce” to “douche.”
4. "Creep"
Radiohead, 1992
One inescapable retail song. Whiny, repetitive, and bland. So bad even Radiohead apparently agrees with me on it.
Green Day, 1994
This is practically a place holder for all the garbage
mall punk that Green Day et al. helped pioneer.
I’d include bands like Paramore if they weren’t too recent for this
list.
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, 1980
Oh gosh, this song.
Hollywood freaking loves this
terrible, cacophonic song. In fact it’s
up there with “Hallelujah” and “Moonlight Sonata” for criminally overused movie
songs. It wasn’t
until recently did I find out that Joan Jett actually made some enjoyable music.
Joni Mitchell, 1970/The Counting Crows (2002)
This awful song has been covered multiple times due to the
sheer force of its pretentious hippiness.
It was always a terrible song, but the most unavoidable, and arguably
worst, version of it is the Counting Crows cover, which seems to mandatory
playing for grocery stores, malls, and other shopping centers. Maybe these people find it amusing that the
“parking” sounds all the world like “f---ing” while they can get away with it
in public. Or maybe they like the irony
of playing this song in strip malls, which could be better accomplished by
playing awesome Soviet music.
As for the
pervasive nature of crappy public music, people with good taste are simply too
stoic. I mean you know if they tried to
play Rolling Stones in a store, someone’s gonna complain, and go back to
playing crappy music. So we need to be
like them. We need to fight this fight
too.
*This same faculty, in an apparent attempt to try
something more hip, also planned to make me and my class dance to “The
Macarena” in front of the whole school.
As far as I know, nobody in my class was looking forward to it.
Thankfully a parent pointed out that the lyrics weren’t becoming of an event at
a Catholic school, so the event was cancelled.
Although I can’t help but think that that was a pretext, it was Moral
Guardians and Lyriccels (or at least the pretext thereof) to the rescue for once.
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