We should do a poll on the worst songs ever made. I'm all about negativity, so I'd like to both see it, and maybe even host it, if there's any interest of course.

I take it people are mature enough to vote for real tripe like Aqua or Ace of Base, and not some really excellent song by an excellent artist just to piss somebody else off.

Any thoughts?

Hahahha...I like this idea. I imagine if you had a lot of people submitting their personal Bottom 100 (or 50, or 25, depending on how easy it is to think of songs we hate), you could come up with a pretty interesting list (and even if people included 'classic' songs that they hate, they probably wouldn't have enough unanimous hate to have much impact on the final list).

Hey, Macarena!

I don't know, worst lists tend to be songs that were popular and overplayed. There are tons of songs worse than songs that end up on these lists and a lot that are by very acclaimed artists.

I Eat Cannibals by Toto Coelo

How about the worst song by a top 100 AM artist?

My list would be chocker full of AOR stuff - Journey,Foreigner,REO Speedwagon
And hair metal

My worst song list would read like Moonbeam's all-time favorites.

(just teasing, bud)

Too funny, Anthony! I've actually made lists like this in the past for both songs and artists. I'd be game for it. And I would hope others would at least give an honorable mention to my most loathed song- "Livin' la Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin.

How many songs have Kiss recorded? If more than 100, then they would hold every single spot in my bottom 100.

I have not been through the entire list, but I don't see how there can be a worse song in the AM 3000 than "Rock 'n Roll All Night"

But would Livin La Vida Loca be your least favorite if you hadn't heard it six million times? If you heard it for the first time wouldn't you think eh, this isn't that good and just turn it off. I doubt you'd say it's the worst song ever.

Anybody who has been music director at a college radio station knows the kind of songs that have made it on to CD's and actually have found a label. If I still had access to those CD's instead of them being in a compost pile somewhere, I could point out at least 4000 songs that are worse than anything you will put on your list.

I can forgive a lot in music, even music I don't like. I can admire the talent and skill of Led Zeppelin, even though I can't stand their music. And sometimes an artist just makes a mistake--Their Satanic Majesty's Request, Metal Machine Music, Around the Sun. I evaluate artists on their accomplishments, not their failures.

For me, the one unforgivable artistic sin is artlessness--just not putting any creative effort into one's music. It's not necessarily laziness, but it's producing something that sounds like it was written by committee and is performed with not a shred of redeeming wit or grace or spontaneity. My pet examples of artless music are Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Britney's "Oops I Did It Again."

However, the worst song in pop history is Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue," not for musical reasons, but because it's a hateful misuse of art.

I'd be game as well, and I think Paul's onto something -- submitting lists that include only songs by the top 100 artists. That way, it would eliminate the possibility of any of the usual suspects showing up... Britney being one of them. Because really, that wouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Livin La Vida Loca at least was tolerable before it got overplayed.

Mambo #5, just about every boy band song ever released, Girls Want To Have Fun, Mo Money Mo Problems (What I call the 'Waaa I'm rich' song), Rollin

My picks for worst songs ever:
1. Limp Bizkit - Rollin
2. Limp Bizkit - Nookie
3. Limp Bizkit - That song where the video has them being executed by drowning in milk
4. Lou Vega - Mambo #5
5. The Backstreet Boys - Backstreet's Back
6. Michael Jackson - That song where the video has Marlon Brando
7. Cyndi Lauper - Girls Want To Have Fun
8. Puff Daddy - Mo Money Mo Problems (Or, the 'Waa I'm rich' song)
9. Fergie - That one with 'It's personal..."
10. Puff Daddy - Victory (Mainly for using a Zeppelin song in a completely awful way).

In a similar vein to scheulse's last pick, did this song ever make it to the rest of the world?

The Right Brothers - Bush Was Right



Whoever does the daily chart by year for 2006 better save this one!

John: Girls Want To Have Fun is in the AM 3000. So is I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys.

Oh.

My.

God.

And people wonder why parody is dead. Does that remind anyone of the movie Bob Roberts?

Rock and roll and politics make a horrible combination. And not just for Republicans—I’m a diehard Obama supporter, but the musician most closely associated with his campaign is will.i.am. Yeesh.

(BTW, Jonah, I doubt the rest of the world knows that one—I didn’t know it, and I live in frickin’ Texas!)

I thought 'Livin La Vida Loca' was pretty cool when it came out. And the Backstreet Boys,and Westlife,and Britney Spears - hey,I was only like 12.

Actually, I detested Ricky Martin previously for his "Copa de Vida" crap, and I was disgusted the very first time I heard "Livin' la Vida Loca". My hatred for this song and its "performer" knows no limitations!

I am a political news junkie and active participant in the liberal blogosphere, so that video was all over the discussion sites I frequent. Everyone got quite a laugh out of it. There are other "patriotic" songs from Bushies I could dig up if you want more pain.

Scleuse - The music on Bob Roberts was actually kind of funny and WAY better than that You Tube abomonation above. (Plus, cut Kelly Willis sang a tune with Bob).

The part that made me fall out of my chair was this: "Democrats are wonderin' how, revenue is goin' up, CAN YOU SAY TAX CUTS!"

Crap, I meant to say CUTE Kelly Willis:

Here's Bob Roberts:

I don't think it's a very good idea to limit this to the AM top 100 artists. That way, if one, me for instance, dislikes an artist, say Bob Marley, I could write 100 Bob Marley songs. It wouldn't be right.

I think we should make the list the usual way. There's an unlimited amount of shit out there, you know.

Take the songwriting of Lennon/McCartney, the skills of Jimi Hendrix, the lyrics of Bob Dylan, the performance of the early Stones and mix it with the looks of mmmhhh... let's say Lenny Kravitz!

I'm sure You WON'T get something like this:



It's NOT a parody!!!

That's great. It's the German Beach Boys. Die Strand Jungen.

That Right Brothers Song almost made me lose my lunch. I think they might have changed their tune on the economy by now. Please tell me it's just a really clever joke told with a straight face.

Rocky, the most recent of their four (!) albums includes song titles like "Stop Global Whining" and "I'm in Love with Ann Coulter." If it's a put-up job, it's an amazingly thorough one. But I'm pretty sure they're for real, or at least think they are.

And, in fact, I hope they are. What makes "Bush Was Right" kind of stunningly risible is that it's utterly toothless. For Americans who like this style of music--in fact, for most Americans who are not rich, Southern, or religious nuts--the bizarrely wrong platitudes they spout about the health of the economy and spreading democracy in Iraq aren't offensive so much as they're kind of sad and weird (kind of like Die Flippers).

Toby Keith's songs are at least aggressive...but the Right Bros. are defensive, which is about the least rock-and-roll thing you can be. They're silly and sad. Apart from the novelty shock value, they're not threatening enough to be troubling.

A 'worst songs by good artists' list would be fun.

You could stick it to Dylan for 'Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts' or 'God Gave Names To All The Animals'.

Or Paul McCartney for 'O-Bla-Di' and just about everything he's done lately. (Did you hear that commercial with 'Everybody Dance Around Tonight?' My god! It's like he took the essence of his old sound and vampirically drained it of it's life energy!)

Also Lennon for 'Run For Your Life' or 'All I Want Is The Truth'. All I Want Is The Truth sounds like one of those liberal or conservative idealogues who goes around screaming that anybody who disagrees with them is a physical manifestation of all negative adjectives known to man.

Not to mention Revolution 9.

Not even touching Prince's pretention-fest that started about the mid nineties and didn't stop until he decided to try being commercial again and failed.

Dylan has entire albums worse than Lilly, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts.

Wiggle to the front wiggle to the rear
Wiggle till you wiggle right out of here...

Most of Dylan's discography is worse than Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts.

I like God Gave Names To All the Animals....

To be fair, I haven't heard Planet Waves or many of those 'genre phase' albums of his.

I think Planet Waves is almost as good as Blood on the Tracks. Both of those would probably be my favorite Dylan albums post '66.

Jump, Jive and Wail by The Brian Setzer Orchestra is disgusting

Yowsah, yowsah, yowsah..

Well, here's a full list of Dylan albums I've heard:

Freewheeling, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, Basement Tapes, John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, New Morning, Blood On The Tracks, Desire, Infidels, Oh Mercy, Time Out Of Mind, Love And Theft, Modern Times

All I meant to say was, I assume his worst songs ever are not on one of those albums, but LRJOH is the worst Dylan song I've heard.

My worst songs ever list would probably read like a Limp Bizkit hits compilation.

Mine would look like an "Indochine" hits compilation, but you lucky foreigners probably don't know that band.

ok. hands down... for the first and last time in my life I would like to quote Tone Loc:

Let's Do It.

OK, so what do you say?

Should we do a worst 100 songs with a free choice of artists?
Or the worst of the top 100 artists?
Or maybe a worst poll of the AM 3000 songs?

I'll be glad to host this anyway, but I must say I'm not such a big fan of alternative number 2, as I don't know the entire discography of so many artists.

Surely the first alternative! All songs have the "right" to be voted. I think many of us have some songs we want to destroy here! And it will be much more interesting to discover which will be our #1 among all songs ever made than among a group defined by us...

If we allow all songs chances are a song with only 3 votes will win. There's so many bad songs, and everyone here will have so different views (top songs we're all influenced by the critics to a certain extent).

Some suggestions

Mmm, I’m not sure if I completely like the idea, but of course I will participate. There are a lot of songs that someone dislikes and others love, and some comments may be easily offensive. Moreover when we’re talking about artist we love: I remember a thread some years ago titled something like “Acclaimed songs that you don’t like” and the first songs that appeared were no less that “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Paranoid Android” (!).

Anyway I think that it’s the only music game in which a Spanish song MUST win. And I’m talking obviously of the infamous “Macarena”. All of you are perfectly aware of the stupid melody, the stupid lyrics, the stupid dance and the unexplainable enormous success. You can read the “official” story on wikipedia. But probably you’re not aware of some other aspects: first (only known recently) the second melody of the first version (the Spanish 1993 version not widely known) was a case of plagiarism perfectly showcased here. Moreover the mix of the song that Fangoria made was the instrumental base of the Bayside Boys that produced the miracle. Well, Fangoria (a techno duo formed by Alaska and Nacho Canut, former members of seminal bands Los Pegamoides and Dinarama) never got the correct money compensation as indirect artifices of the monumental success. So that song surely deserves the #1 in the Top of Pop Infamy.

About my number two: composed by a C&W diva, topped the charts by a R&B diva and it’s systematically destroyed in every karaoke by every female singer who wants to showcase her (usually awful) vocal abilities. All of you know that one, don’t you?

What if we did a nomination process, and then vote for our least favourites from the nominees, or rank our least favourite 20 or 25 from the 100 nominees (or rank our 100 least favourite from 200 nominees, or some sort of combination like that)? That way songs will require more votes to be the "winner"

Would be fun to vote for any song, but I would have mostly europop and french music... most of the real truly horrible american songs does not reach France I guess while Italian (Eiffel 65 !!!) or Romanian (O-zone !) or "Oh my god they are so horrible I don't care where the hell they come from" (Crazy Frog and DJ Bobo !!!! all #1 on French charts !) does

Crazy Frog is Swedish and DJ Bobo Swiss. Nice to know.

I'm wearing the pants, so I decide that this poll is going to take place, you can vote for whichever crappy song that pops into your mind (and probably stays there for a while), and you can send your lists to

runefromnorway@hotmail.com

Let's say 100 songs, and deadline will be.. well, what about August 1st?

Panda: O-Zone are Moldavian.

I have a favourite of my own. "Maneater" by Hall & Oates. And I'm afraid of "Stop, Stop, Stop" by The Hollies. One of few songs to play tricks on me.

"Every Breath You Take"...certainly ain't much fun.

PS. I'm nearly not at all exposed to Crazy Frog.

Can you guys help me identify a few songs I really hate? There are a lot that constantly play during work, and some are really god-awful.

Like the noxiously catchy yet inane song with the lyrics "Starts in my nose..." yadda yadda. Whenever that song comes on I start singing to myself a *good* catchy song just as a buffer of protection for my brain.

Also, the one with 'Must be somebody's baby'. Yeah, if you're so sure she's dating someone else, ASK HER you douche!

Then there's a mainstreamized cover of Big Yellow Taxi that sounds bloody awful.

It's so hard to make a top 100 of the worst songs ever commited because 95 % of the things called by some people "music" that is made in the whole wide world since the beginning of the times is just shitty crap.

I love Somebody's Baby! Probably the only Jackson Browne song I really like.

consider that dittoed, big J.

As for Big Yellow Taxi, you mean the Counting Crows version?

That "starts in my nose..." song is Colbie Callet - "Bubbly". And I wouldn't kick her out of my bed for eating triscuit crackers, that's for sure.

Might be the Counting Crows version. It doesn't sound like their singer to me, but it might be.

Is there a female vocalist in that that says "Why you wanna give it, why you wanna give it, giving it all away?" And does it change the last verse to "A big yellow taxi took my girl away"?

I can't believe Somebody's Baby is by somebody who's actually written really good songs. The tune is so generic, poppy and whiny, and the sentiment is so cheesy, forced and commercial.

Maybe it's a different Somebody's Baby. There's no way that awful song was written by the same person who wrote These Days.

The female vocalist in the "Big Yellow Taxi" remake is Vanessa Carlton. And I wouldn't kick her out of my bed for eating triscuit crackers, that's for sure.

Ok, listened to Jackson Browne's 'Somebody's Baby'. It is the same song, but it's a different version of it. A poppy mainstreamized version. Jackson Browne's version is at least, musically better. (Though the lyrics are still terrible).