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Over at Positive Feedback Online, I ask the unanswerable question,
What is the Worst Pop Song Ever to Chart?
I list my Rogues' Gallery of my Worst 12.
But in truth, while Paul McCartney has two slots, three would be a no-brainer, and it would not take too much searching to come up with four.
But, that would mean that either or both of Paul Anka or Melanie Safka would not get their just desserts.
Zabadak!
john
Follow Ups:
As great as AM was in the 60's, and I can remember being a 5 year-old and loving "A Well Respected Man" and "Satisfaction," by the time the 70's started there was more and more dreck.
My vote for the nadir is "Timothy". Seems it had a curious origin, but it's still a terrible pop song about cannibalism. Of course find me a good song about cannibalism?
P.S. John, Thanks for introducing me to George Kaye and the Moscode 401HR at the HE 2005 (or 6?) I had a great decade with that machine.
@gd.
God, I had blanked this part of my Teen Age Wasteland out.
My sister's best friend, Sue H., was dating Bill Kelley, the
lead guitar player.
All this was taking place in the Back Mountain, outside Wilkes-Barre, PA.
They (the Buoys) were a pretty good garage Band playing the local college circuit.
Oh yeah,
There was an Album also.........
Edits: 03/21/23
GD
https://youtu.be/OQlByoPdG6c
Edits: 03/11/23
Ferguson's single "Thunder Island" from the album of the same name hit #9 on Billboard hot 100. Joe Walsh on guitar!
"Ah-honey, doggone it, I depend upon it...So lay a little lovin' on me"
...or the "Pina Colada Song".The Lucky Audiophile
Edits: 03/10/23
How about "Take a Letter, Maria"?
BTW Mike, I bought your book last week and really enjoyed it. Might you have another in the works?
(nt)
OK, this is off topic. But the slave galley reference reminded me of an all time favorite daily comic strip. Anyway, it is somewhat music related.
I believe it was a Johnny Hart panel from "B.C."
1st frame shows a slave galley with the captain making an announcement: "Men, I've got good news and bad news."
2nd frame: "The good news is we're going to Jamaica."
3rd frame: The men all cheer.
4th frame: "The bad news is our drummer will be Gene Krupa!"
"The only cats worth anything are the cats who take chances. Sometimes I play things I never heard myself." Thelonious Monk
1st frame shows a slave galley with the first mate making an announcement: "Men, I've got good news and bad news."
2nd frame: "The good news is the captain ordered extra rations today ."
3rd frame: The men all cheer.
4th frame: "The bad news is the captain wants to go water-skiing this afternoon."
Listen to any current commercial radio station and within an hour you could have a list.
Without music what is there?
.
A cover of the original by the one-and-only Wayne Cochran. Hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100and went Gold.
...I first met the piano player at summer camp when I was 13, then again when I started college 5 years later.
"Patches" by Dickie Lee was a much worse song in that era.
The Lucky Audiophile
#4 in 1976 and God awful.
Edits: 03/10/23
Various Internet Tidbits:
1) Despite Captain & Tennille's stated uninterest in highlighting "Muskrat Love" as an item in their repertoire, it was the song they chose to sing at a July 1976 White House dinner honoring Queen Elizabeth II: the press subsequently ran a statement from a dinner guest who opined it was "in very poor taste" to sing of mating muskrats before the Queen. Toni Tennille responded to this charge saying: "only a person with a dirty mind would see something wrong. It's a gentle Disneyesque kind of song."
2) The male half of the 1970's duo Captain and Tennille, who isn't a Captain and whose real name is Daryl, grew up Catholic but did so far away from any muskrat stew, in southern California. Both he and his wife/musical abettor Toni Tennille were vegetarians when they released their hit cover of "Muskrat Love" in 1976. And speaking of 1976--and of raccoons!--that same summer, Tennille went to a coke party at Gordon Lightfoot's house where everyone was blasted out of their gourds and oblivious to the fact that a large family of raccoons had taken over Lightfoot's kitchen.
{Blasted out of their "gourds"--a pun on the nickname "Gord."}
3) Being short one track for Song of Joy, Captain & Tennille made an impromptu decision to record "Muskrat Love", including the synthesizer generated sound effects that Dragon had created for the song's performance in their nightclub act, these sound effects meant to evoke the imagined sound of muskrats mating: the eventual 7-inch single version of Captain & Tennille's "Muskrat Love" would feature an "endless loop" of these sound effects created by having the song's end run into the locked groove of the 45.
# # #
john
If I were to list a "top 100 worst" pop songs, just about all of them would be songs that came out over the past 15 years...... And just about all of them would have Auto-Tune......
I mean..... The Tokens' song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to me was one of the all time awful songs, but even that song is a Picasso compared to what has come out over the past 15 years.......
If I were to single out a song in recent time, it's Katy Perry's "Firework"..... But I could have singled out songs by Rihanna, Adele, Eminem, Bieber, Lady Gaga, etc. ............
"The Tokens' song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to me was one of the all time awful songs, "
When I was 13 I used to listen to Cousin Brucey on the radio after my parents sent me to bed. I had a tiny Japanese transistor radio that I would put right next to my ear under the covers. "The Lions Sleep Tonight" was my favorite song!
As a kid I listened to Cousin Brucie and Harry Harrison all the time, especially late at night, when I was supposed to be asleep because it was a school night.
"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was a favorite then, as it is now.
Pop songs back then were meant to be money makers, not to be taken seriously. I think "worst pop song" might be a bit of an oxymoron, as would "best pop song".
I like most all of the ones labeled "worst" in this thread. They bring back fond memories.
Although, I could have done without "Rock The Boat" and "Ring My Bell"
Dean.
reelsmith's axiom: Its going to be used equipment when I sell it, so it may as well be used equipment when I buy it.
Here is the wikipieda link..
"Trying is the first step towards failure."
Homer Simpson
Especially when they got to the part that went:
"Hup Hup" Awinga watt Awinga watt"
Loved that song.
mg16
Actually #2.
I was 5 years old and remember hating my older sister for loving it.
The Flip side, Cry" was #1 making this the saddest (!) Hit Record of, perhaps, all time.
View YouTube Video
Novus Ordo Seclorum
View YouTube Video
Gsquared
Sung by The Shangri-Las, 1964.
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
incessant droning
Just like anything in the English folk tradition of narrative ballads. Gord was consciously tapping into that tradition -- there were a whole slew of shipwreck (and other disaster) songs from the 18th and 19th centuries. One verse melody repeated, no chorus or bridge to break up the monotony.
Hit #4 US
#5 UK
4 weeks at the Top in 1969.
View YouTube Video
Novus Ordo Seclorum
when driving my wife's car with Metal Nation (whatever) there are 2 bands I can't stand, Cinderella and Britny Fox. It doesn't matter which, there's something about the vocals that goes right to the center of the brain with a scalpel
Found here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_considered_the_worst
But why limit 'worst music' to pop songs? Classical music has plenty cringe-worthy material as well. Ravel's Bolero is a good example of excruciatingly monotonous dreck.
Edits: 03/09/23
Ravel's whole idea was to repeat a theme, without variation, and "develop" it only by expanding the harmony as more and more instruments pile in on each repetition. He was apparently quite surprised by its ensuing popularity.
But it is quite a bit more accessible than later "minimalist" works of Glass, Reich, etc., simply because that repeated theme is so catchy.
"why limit 'worst music' to pop songs?"
Because the thread title/idea is "...Worst Pop Song Ever to Chart".
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
.
.
Aaron Copland's "Fanfare" was actually a snippet taken from his Third Symphony..... (I don't know if "Fanfare" or the Third Symphony came first... ) With only minor differences in orchestration..... The beginning of "Fanfare" in the Third Symphony is played by the winds instead of the brass.......I personally think Copland's Third Symphony is one of the all-time underrated symphonic works in the repertory..... An "introspective" read of this symphony can bring a listener to tears. (Too many reads of this symphony treat it more as a "show piece"..... Most notably Leonard Bernstein..... The depth of the music gets totally lost.)
Edits: 03/10/23
I admit I'm biased because of all the times I've been a part of the back row of the orchestra with all the brass and percussion. It's thrilling to play and never gets old.
What don't you like?
Novus Ordo Seclorum
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
Eastbound and Down, by Jerry Reed, except that JR is one of the best guitar players in the history of the planet.
Or Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini?
Or It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To, by Leslie Gore?
Or I Am Woman Hear Me Roar, by Helen Reddy
I could go on ...
Life is hard. It's harder when you're stupid.
No, Sweetie; you can't do "anything" anyone asks you to.
Leslie Gore... how about "It's Judy's Turn to Cry"?
Just as bad as Helen Reddy, in terms of turning young minds to mush.
But Ms. Gore partially atoned with "You Don't Own Me."
I had always assumed the Leslie's real family name was some variant of "Gorodetzsky" or "Horodetzsky," but it turns out it was "Goldstein."
Sad, she died comparatively young... 68. She'd been with her girlfriend for 33 years, which is about 400% longer than half the marriages in America.
ciao,
john
A year later, in 1964, Dusty Springfield recorded a cover of it.
Here's a 2018 version by Whitney Rose.
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