Now, see, Cala, you instigator, I thought that even saying "anything by the Moody Blue" would get us off topic and into the morass of musical preferences, when there's so much to be said about songs that we're sick of, even if we once thought they were good.
I used to be thoroughly sick of "Layla" but now the extended guitar-wanking part reminds me of the scene in Goodfellas where they find the dead guy in the car trunk, the guy hanging from a meathook in the slaughterhouse...
Dagger Aleph: I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I was amazed to see you'd driven to Siwa oasis. I adored a great inter-war adventure/exploration book, Libyan Sands by Ralph Bagnold, which is about the first car journeys in the Western Desert. Do you know that book?
Ah, let's play freakonomics with my list. Here's some explaining:
1. radio in my area is pretty bad, so I listen to oldies more than you'd expect;
2. bad songs of the moment go away and are never heard again, so they don't really deserve a spot on the list; bad songs that are Venerable Rock Hits come back over and over.
There's one Bob Seger moment I like, which is the weird break toward the end of "Night moves":
I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain't it funny how the night moves
When you just don't seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in
Early Van Halen played a much too central role in my adolescence to ever really hate it (She was a-seaside sittin' just a-smokin' and a-drinkin' on ringside, on top of the world...).
After college, I thought if I never heard the Big Chill soundtrack again, it would still be too soon.
16: I was thinking about that very passage while reading the coastal thread. I used to drive between Columbus and Chicago at night in the seventies all the time.
Oh, I do love "Just Like Heaven," but I can easily see how others might not love it, or tire of it.
The song I would banish forever, if I could: "Shiny, Happy People." Rah may give me the cold shoulder when I get home tonight for that one, but honestly, that song could be expunged from human history and we would lose nothing.
Also, everything by the Grateful Dead (which would, I guess, include Phish) can go away anytime now.
IDP: actually, I took several buses to get there (I should change my handle to "I Don't Drive"). It's a fantastic place. I have heard of Bagnold's book (anything you read on Siwa seems to reference it), but unfortunately haven't read it.
24: Well I'm a driver, and it's one of the greatest books about driving adventure ever written. But I don't drive as much as I used to.
About Ontario landscape: It's often treated as forgetable, as in the opening chapters of No Such Mischief where the contrast with the terror and grandeur of Cape Breton is obvious, but have you ever read the lyrical memories of it in Galbraith's The Scotch? I wrote a graduate seminar paper on it.
Anything by Paul McCartney post-Beatles. Also, when I'm feeling irritable, any Beatles song that's excessively infected with that happy dopey Paul shit.
Someone's knockin' at the door
Somebody's ringin' the bell
Someone's knockin' at the door
Somebody's ringin' the bell
Do me a favor,
Open the door and let 'em in(repeat)
Sister Suzie, brother John,
Martin Luther, Phil And Don,
Brother Michael, Auntie Gin,
Open the door,let 'em in.
Sister Suzi, brother John,
Martin Luther, Phil and Don,
Uncle Ernie,Auntie Gin
open the door, let em in
There is a really good thread from Michael Berube's site from about a year ago that deals with this topic and tangiential ones. I shall attempt to locate it.
Well, maybe y'all are cooler than me, but I'll defend Floyd to the death, and as a Deadhead, I find "Good Lovin'" invokes too many awesome thoughts to hate. And thank god for Armsmasher.
As for never-hear-again list, I'll throw in "Hey Nineteen" (and most Steely Dan), any Zeppelin song referencing LOTR, "We are the Champions," "Your Body Is a Wonderland," and the entire catalogues of Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, and Kiss.
Good example of a fine song that becomes very very annoying: that damn Hootie and the Blowfish song, "I Only Want to Be With You." (I don't know if that was the title....)
jhupp: I too like the Floyd and the Dead. OTOH I also like the Dan and the Zep. I'm with you though on Ærosmith (except "Walk This Way"! and their cover of "Come Together" rocks hard!), Bon Jovi and KISS (except "All American Man"!)
In my first year of university, everyone on my dorm floor seemed to own a copy of the Steve Miller Band's Greatest Hits. "Time keeps on slipping...slipping...slipping...into the fyoocherrrr" is a lame-ass lyric.
(IDP: haven't heard of that book -- but wow, if he makes s. Ontario sound beautiful.)
Some things get overplayed, and then after a decade without, you get over it. I had one of those one 8 track trips way back, having hitched a ride across upper Nevada with a trio of cowboy-looking guys. Before the interstate was finished, so we had to drive through every little town. We would've anyway, since my hosts knew folks in every town, and we dropped by, woke them up, had some heroin mixed with vodka (I was happily the designated driver) and then went on. Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger. Took 15 years before I could listen to it again.
Yes and Hall & Oates are likely going to require another 20.
Weirdly, I just heard a guitar version of a Floyd song (the one that starts "Oh, so you think you can tell/ Heaven from Hell") as transition music on the black-interest NPR show "News and Notes." Some kind of line got crossed there, though I'm not sure which.
A lot of these - once you cut out the obvious horrors - seem to be pretty decent songs that just get played too often, and maybe give us a giddy little contrarian thrill when we bash them. Saying "the Beatles really suck!", for example, is kind of the music critic equivalent of saying "penis!" really loud in a public place. I assume that anyone who actually hates Dark Side of the Moon is just a soulless little gremlin shriveled by years of spite, for instance.
Wow, it only took until comment #2 for someone to mention a song I have never heard in my thousands of hours of mainstream radio listening.
Right now I divide my radio listening into:
20% - the NPR station that plays jazz, at the times when it is playing NPR shows instead of jazz.
30% - the NPR station that does not play jazz, but
10% - the hip-hop station
10% - the Top 40 station, which is about 80% hip-hop
10% - "Bob FM", which plays songs that are overplayed now, were overplayed 10 years ago, or were overplayed 20 years ago.
10% - the oldies station, which plays entirely songs that were overplayed 30 years ago.
10% - the classic rock station, which plays entirely songs that were overplayed 30 years ago.
Basically the last three stations play almost nothing but songs about which I am inclined to say, "How could anyone possibly want to hear this song AGAIN?" Yet somehow I feel compelled to listen.
The only songs that make me actively change the channel are ones which I know, with 100% certainty, that I, a person with no musical talent, could have easily written both the words and the melody, but I'm not stupid enough to bother. There aren't many of those songs, and most of them are either by the Steve Miller Band or R. Kelly.
A lot of these - once you cut out the obvious horrors - seem to be pretty decent songs that just get played too often, and maybe give us a giddy little contrarian thrill when we bash them.
I don't know about that...I could probably think of 500 songs that we would both agree fit into the category of "obvious horrors".
Has NPR become kind of rubbish recently, or was it always rubbish and I just didn't notice, or some third choice I'm missing?
I would go with the third choice, that it is now much, much better than it was 5 years ago. Presumably because of the money from the McDonald's widow's will.
50: Can't the Guess Who be banned as a cluster? I was given a greatest hits cd by a well-wisher. What do you give a Canadian, was what he must have been thinking.
I wish I had been around to participate in Berube's "hits of the past that were just as popular as those that have become 'oldies', but are never heard anymore" thread. I have an intense interest in songs like that, being the 80's DJ at my college radio station.
The funny thing about Pink Floyd is how little airplay Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here got when they came out. Ditto the Dead: I lived in the SF area from 71-78, and Dead tunes on any station were very rare. That Berube thread tells the tale.
I was mostly getting defensive about the Floyd-bashing.
It's not Floyd-bashing, it's "unbelievably overplayed Floyd song" bashing. There are only about three unbelievably overplayed Floyd songs ("Money", "Wish You Were Here", and "Another Brick in the Wall"), and I fully acknowledge that it isn't Floyd's fault that I never want to hear them again.
I just went downstairs to get the Albany Park penis picture from the scanner to show my wife, and my son was playing Money cranked up. I'm plugged into these threads on too many levels.
When it came out, it was the Coolest Song Evar!, but if you listen to it now, the rap is so simple, slow, and straightforward, it' s like some proto-rap from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, before machines helped laborers rap faster and more productively.
77 makes a good point, but "U Can't Touch This" is actually pretty fast.
When the hip-hop station has its "old school jams" show every Sunday night, there are always a few songs from 1985 or so, by Run-DMC or the young LL Cool J. They do not bear one bit of resemblance to any hip-hop today. To the ears of someone raised on Nas and Eminem, literally any Run-DMC song sounds like it took no talent at all to write, produce or perform. They sound like non-amusing comedy novelty songs.
"it's one of the greatest books about driving adventure ever written. "
My great-grandfather was involved in the Citroen-Haardt expadition, but I've never learned that much about it. Do you know of any good books about it or if this moviet is any good.
I have, thankfully, never listened to enough of the Radio to have quite the levels of loathing that other people in this thread do, but I echo the sentiment about Dave Mathews Band, and would add to that anything off of Jewel's first album.
I happen to like American Pie. and (on preview) Warewolves of London.
Love Shack is a song that nobody should ever have to hear again.
#80: The beat may fast, but the lyrics are simple and unimaginative. And often quite slow, despite the beat. Consider:
Every time you see me The Hammer's just so hype I'm dope on the floor And I'm magic on the mike Now why would I ever Stop doing this When others makin' records That just don’t hit?
The flow here is practically in neutral, with plenty of dead time between phrases.
I have family members who play in orchestras for a living, so every Christmas I get to hear the same lecture about how the Nutcracker is the most overplayed piece of classical music in history.
95: That blog certainly is energetic. The best news is that apparently he has a new song and video called "Hammer Time".
I can imagine his brainstorm a few months ago, looking at his old records, thinking "Wait...it's not here either. No, it's not on this record either. Did I really NEVER record a song called 'Hammer Time'? Wow, I guess I didn't. Well, what better time to do it than now?!"
Oh, and Clown -- thanks for pointing me to that Berube thread. Awesome stuff.
Years ago I was on a roadtrip somewhere and there was a radio station methodically playing all the songs that ever got to #1; when I started listening they were into the mid-60s. It was so weird because so many of the artists were one-hit wonders.
Does anyone remember the pop rendition of The Lord's Prayer from the early 70s, sung by a nun? Sister Janet something, I believe?
61: I don't recognize the lyrics to "Take the Long Way Home".
I've also never heard "Red Headed Stranger" or "Midnight At the Oasis". I know a lot ABOUT these songs, but have never heard them. They aren't played on oldies stations, or classic rock stations.
My contribution: anything by Sublime, particularly "What I Got". 10 years after Bradley Nowell died, that fucking song is *still* getting regular play on the "modern rock" station here.
Now to actually respond to the post, my number one choice would actually be "Dancing In the Moonlight" by some random generic 70's feel-good smarmy bearded douchebag. Number two would be "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight", by the same artist. God, that must have been a horrible time to be having one's formative musical experiences.
My camel is going to bed now, but it is amazing that Maria was present at the creation, and yet is remembered mostly for that song. She was prominantly featured in Scorcese's film about Dylan's development.
108: I still like "What I Got". You have to respect a song in which the same word ("riot") rhymes with two words that themselves could not possibly rhyme ("got" and "high").
112: I like "Santeria" too. I tend to think the fact that the lyrics "And I won't think twice to stick that barrel straight down Sancho's throat / Believe me when I say that I've got something for his punk ass" are never once bleeped on the radio might not have been true if it was a rap song, though.
#114: That may have something to do with the fact that Santeria is just such a peppy, happy-sounding song despite its harsh lyrics. If gangsta rappers would just turn that frown upside down, they probably wouldn't get bleeped so much.
109: "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" was England Dan & John Ford Coley. "Dancing in the Moonlight" was by King Harvest and is not to be confused with the Thin Lizzy song of the same name, which is excellent.
89--Clearly you haven't had the entire Suite beaten into your unconscious.
It'sat least a two-hour suite (the last half of which is pretty much just a potpourri of catchy themes), so the Muzak producers have a lot of options for the torturing.
99: Sister Janet Mead, on Rhino's Super Hits of the 70s Volume 12, along with "The Entertainer," "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo," and "Seasons in the Sun."
115: This is also true for "Semi-Charmed Life", which actually should have been mentioned in at least 50 comments on this thread, so overplayed it is. The phrases "crystal meth" and "she goes down on me" are seldom if ever bleeped.
Not that it makes sense to bleep them anyway...but there is a double standard. Even the word "shit" is usually not bleeped when I hear Alice in Chains' "Man in the Box" on the radio. Meanwhile they take rap songs and bleep every mention of "gun" or "drugs", often making the listen think that the word being bleeped is "dick" or something like that.
Related issue: I remember seeing the video for "The Humpty Dance" at around age 12, and noticing that Humpty Hump said "I once got busy in a (bleep)ng bathroom". I heard a faint "ng" at the end of the bleeped word, leading me to assume that he was saying "motherfucking bathroom", and was shocked that the seemingly innocuous Humpty Hump would use that word.
It was quite a surprise to find later on that it is "Burger King bathroom". I guess MTV didn't want to give them free advertising (the same reason it was always blurring the logos on people's shirts in their videos until a few years ago).
110 -- I gots to go to bed now. But wait -- are you saying that this song Midnight at the Oasis, of which I had not heard til just now, is by Maria Muldaur? Or am I misinterpreting your comment? Cause Maria Muldaur is a wonderful singer from what I know of her work ("Richland Woman Blues" which she sang with Jim Kweskin is one of my all-time favorite female vocals) -- that Midnight song looks pretty lame though. Does she at least sing it really really well?
Addendum to 117: Josh, I should maybe have explained that I used to do a fair amount of ballet. For smallish companies, it's not a choice: you sepnd three months of the year immersed in the frking Ntcrckr, and that's the way it is if you want to stay afloat. Hence: extreme reactions.
#119: MTV also bleeped out the lyric "Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat", simulating gunfire, from Tupac's "Changes", even though the lyric in context condemned gang violence. MTV sucks.
It's also amusing when MTV/RadioBigWigs suddenly realize that a word that they had hitherto not bleeped is actually slang for something they usually bleep. For example, when the chorus to "Gin and Juice" was changed from "smokin' indo" to "smokin' smokin'" after it had already been a hit for a little while. I believe it is happening with the word "skeet" as we speak.
I know that Bon Jovi's entire catalogue has been called out, but in eighth-grade concert band, we played an arrangement of "Livin' on a Prayer" that sill makes me laugh when I hear the drunken masses slaughtering the lyrics (bad, though they already be).
Compromise: a UN resolution agreeing that we really don't like this song, but aren't going go to, like, do anything about it. Deal?
120 -- yes, Maria Muldaur had a hit with Midnight ATO. I agree that she's a talented singer, and in fact I have her debut album (on vinyl, so it hasn't seen the light of day for many years) but the Oasis song is really too much. And was way overplayed.
128: There are a lot of middle-school choruses singing songs that are not ridiculous, but sound absolutely ridiculous sung by a middle-school chorus. In mine, we were made to sing a song called "After All", which I think is supposed to be a duet between two middle-aged lovers who've been reunited after many unsatisfying relationships.
The phrases "crystal meth" and "she goes down on me" are seldom if ever bleeped.
And yet there's an entire verse of that song (which includes the phrase "little red panties") that only gets played on half the stations that play that song.
Also, I liked "Santeria"... the first 500 times I heard it. After that, not so much. (What amazes me is that there are songs that can stand up to that much overplay. No matter how many times I play it, I *still* like Blink-182's "Dammit".)
And yet there's an entire verse of that song (which includes the phrase "little red panties") that only gets played on half the stations that play that song.
That verse wasn't there when we sang it in chorus, either.
Anything with Rob Thomas' voice, or any voice approximating Rob Thomas' voice. Most especially that "Lets Forget About It" shit. Also Creed.
But come on, Smasher, you of all people should appreciate the Smashing Pumpkins. And Pearl Jam, though often schlocky, is also often good, in a schlocky kind of way. Fine, I've got bad taste. But Rob Thomas still sucks my ass.
Actually, you know whose voice I never ever ever want to hear again? Joni Mitchell. It's like fingernails on a blackboard. God, how I hate her singing.
But I get to hear it incessantly because my wife likes it.
#75, I'm very pleased with myself that when you said "best Christmas song ever," I immediately thought of Fairytale of New York. Moments like this let me know that I'm at least a little bit cool.
Joni Mitchell. It's like fingernails on a blackboard. God, how I hate her singing.
You know, this used to be precisely my reaction to her, but now I wonder if maybe Blue is the most beautiful album I've heard. I'm not sure what happened. It can't be that I'm less manly, because I still like some Pearl Jam songs.
I've got to stand up for the Smashing Pumpkins as well, since Siamese Dream is one of the great albums of the 90s. This fact is incontrovertible. I also wish to defend "Just Like Heaven", because that chorus is amazing.
It's tough to really name songs that I'd never want to hear again which weren't just awful to begin with, since I haven't listened to the radio in years. Even at my retail job in college, we had cool managers who would let us play our own music. I would still dump a lot of Tom Petty though, especially "The Waiting" and "The Joker".
Seriously, clean the potato bugs out of your ears and try again.
Believe me, it isn't for lack of exposure, SB. She may be a great songwriter and a great lyricist, but I can't get past that horrible, injured dog soprano.
88, 89: I have three-and-a-half-year-old twin daughters who like to put on the Nutcracker and dance about in little princess dresses. And not just the abridged suite -- the entire fucking thing. I have heard the Nutcracker more than the entire cast of the Mariinsky Ballet put together. If it weren't for the high levels of therapeutic cutons my girls emit, I'd have shredded my eardrums with a screwdriver months ago.
There are a lot of good songs from bands that I like that I am tired of hearing. Right now, I don't particularly want to hear any of the songs off of Tago Mago.
I never liked supertramp, but since I haven't heard their songs on the radio in 20 years I probably wouldn't change the channel.
I could do without ever again hearing any late-80's radio-friendly R&B/hip-hop. Bel Biv Devoe and Bobby Brown, I'm looking at you.
Oh, and any song I used to listen to while putting in late hours as a corporate lawyer has been ruined for me forver. That includes "Hands" by Jewel, "Closing Time" by Semisonic and "You Get What You Give" by New Radicals.
There's a fair amount of Floyd that I like, but "Another Brick in the Wall," any part, is a song that has been played by too many gloomy sophomores (myself included) for me to need to hear it ever again. I can't even enjoy the Richard Cheese cover of it.
However, I never tire of Christmas songs and I'm not even a Christian.
I would like to note that a couple weeks ago, I went to a benefit for the Center for Disability and Elder Law and there was a fine brass band playing, and then all of a sudden this chick got up and started singing "My Heart Will Go On" (Celine Dion). It was possibly the worst six minutes of performance I've had to sit through in my life. When I hear the opening flute of that abomination, I instinctively wince. For the rest of the song, I alternate between wanting to jab boards under my nails and wanting to cry.
"To the ears of someone raised on Nas and Eminem, literally any Run-DMC song sounds like it took no talent at all to write, produce or perform. They sound like non-amusing comedy novelty songs."
I don't know what to say...
Sucka MCs doesn't sound like a novelty song. It sounds shocking and brutal.
Also I like the following Smashing Pumpkins songs: 1979, the one with the string octet, and one other. And honestly probably more if I ever heard them again.
I'm pretty sure that what Elton John did to Candle in the Wind to produce the Princess Diana version is illegal in most southern states. Even if you hated the original, the rewrite is so much worse
Oh, I hate missing a thread like this. Anyway, 35: worst McCartney lyrics ever? Maybe, but I'd still go with "Temporary Secretary":
Mister marks, can you find for me
Someone strong and sweet, fitting on my knee?
She can keep her job if she gets it wrong,
Ah, but mister marks, I won't need her long.
All I need is help for a little while,
We can take dictation and learn to smile.
And a temporary secretary's what I need for to do the job.
I need a temporary secretary,
Temporary secretary,
Temporary secretary,
Temporary secretary.
The chorus is physically painful to listen to.
I wouldn't disagree with any of the nominations of songs to never hear again, except one: "Dancin' in the Moonlight" is one of the great guilty pleasure songs of the '70's. That electic piano rocks, man.
I wouldn't mind losing about 90% of Bob Dylan's music, even the stuff I've never heard. And just a note, but it's no longer the case that oldies radio means "pre-Beatles"; oldies, at least the mass marketed and formatted kind, works on a sliding scale. It's pretty much ditched the fifties now, for instance, and runs up to the mid-seventies. Elton John get played on oldies radio; it won't be long before Cyndi Lauper does as well.
Also: Simon and Garfunkel, "I am a Rock." No, wait; everything they recorded.
The thing that always weirds me out about threads like this is that Billy Joel, whose name I would expect to see at the very top of the thread, goes totally unmentioned until I bring him up.
167 -- ok, that's reassuring.
166 -- Not in a decade? He was in really heavy rotation around here as recently as 2000 -- I think not anymore but "Glass Houses" was so drummed into my head as a lad that I will always think of it as overplayed and react in visceral anger if a song of his comes on the radio.
The best Christmas record ever is the Waitresses' "Christmas Rapping" but I could happily never hear it again.
The Duke Ellington "Nutcracker" is pretty good, still.
I heard a lot of Pat Boone in my youth, and found it far more annoying than Perry Como, and probably still would. I grew up in England, and some days all there was was Cliff Richard. Not good, then or now.
The best Christmas record ever is Run-DMC's "Christmas in Hollis." Or anyway, it's better than the Waitresses (nothing against them). I could happily hear it instead of the usual stuff that they insist on playing for the entire month of December, but I never do.
Xmas Rap is also good but maybe not quite in the spirit.
169 -- probably it is a New York thang -- Billy Joel is inexplicably popular in these parts (or was when last I was paying attention to that kind of thing.)
You know what people I don't understand? The ones who say they like Simon & Garfunkel, but not any of Paul Simon's solo work. Fuck those people, because Graceland is awesome.
I'm one of those fuddy-duddies who preferred Dylan before he went electric, so "Boots of Spanish Leather" is okay.
I must disagree with Silvana about Graceland, but I realize that she must have been about five when it came out and so doesn't remember how absurdly overplayed it was for two years.
162: Absolutely. That guy sings about 3 different notes in the song, none of them well.
163: A friend of mine's father when drunk used to starting ranting, "Bob Dylan should be shot! John Lennon should have been given the Nobel Peace Prize!" Especially amusing as he was a middle-aged Indian guy. I didn't agree with him, but I think he was closer to the truth than ogged.
164: You had to be a beegshot, deedn't ya, you had to prove it to the crowd.
Ogged is much more right than dagger aleph. This proves I was right about Zeppelin all along.
I was kinda not into Dylan for a while, because the overplayed stuff was just too overplayed and Bringing It All Back Home, the album I had and that everyone recommended to me, natters on too much. But The Basement Tapes, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blood on the Tracks are just so awesom.e
*I like the Byrd's "Mr. Tambourine Man" better because it's shorter. Criticism does not apply to "Baby Blue," "Subterranean," "Maggie's Farm," and when I'm in the right mood "It's Alright Ma." And "Bob Dylan's Dream" is funny as hell.
I'm one of those fuddy-duddies who preferred Dylan before he went electric
This is just ludicrous on its face: there is no overlap between the set of such fuddy-duddies and the set of people who think Dylan is overrated. Think about it.
(Also: I think there is a problem with tenses: You are the same age as I, da, or nearly, which means you were not aware of Dylan "before he went electric" or indeed for a while after he did. So better to say "I prefer Dylan before he went electric."
More in the spirit of the initial post, some good songs that are just ruined for me: Aretha Franklin, "Respect" and "Think" (yes, despite the nifty way that guitar part jumps up in the mix at the beginning of the second verse); Eddie Floyd, "Knock on Wood"; Wilson Pickett, "In the Midnight Hour", "I'm in Love", "Mustang Sally"; Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness", "Respect" (again), "I've Been Loving You Too Long", "I Can't Turn You Loose"; and anything on The Best of Sam and Dave.
I love Atlantic and Stax/Volt soul. But combined with the massive exposure these songs get (or got) on oldies radio, I can't listen to these at all.
Also, Peter Gabriel's "Your Eyes" has always driven me crazy. Most boring chorus ever. Two chords can be wonderful thing, but not here. Endless, too.
Hey just to change the subject radically, because that is what I do: are any of you aware that the best book of the rear-so-far was published on Tuesday? It is Jennifer Egan's The Keep and it is a knock-out. You all should go out and purchase it. Several characters would be totally at home in this blog's comments.
193 makes me wonder: Are there songs that couldn't possibly be ruined for you by overexposure? I think I could listen to Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" twenty times in a row.
This is probably the right thread to ask the following in. (Answers should take into account that I really know basically nothing about music, and particularly nothing about all the complicated social stuff it all means to you. No, really, I know less than you could possibly imagine.)
1. A month or two ago, we were at a friend's house who was playing an 80's mix, and Newt became obsessed with the GoGo's 'We've got the beat', to the point of figuring out how to put it on endless repeat as he danced. Does this indicate bad taste or lack of good moral character? He's four, turning five tomorrow.
2. Have I done a bad thing by buying him a GoGo's album for his birthday?
198 -- there are exceptions to that rule. Listen to B-Wo's show when you get a chance. Also: WFMU of northern NJ has many very fine shows, as does WWOZ of southern Louisiana. I'm sure there are others -- the Greatful Dead show on WBAI is excellent but you have to stay up pretty late to catch it.
I do make an exception for most of Nashville Skyline, though not the duet with Johnny Cash (and perhaps not a few others, can't recall right now.) It's the only Dylan record I've bothered to get on cd. Very pretty, even the singing, a very good band, and at least one great song in "Tonight I'll be Staying Here with You." Perfect arrangement on that one, too, with the lovely piano part.
Paul Simon solo can be very good. "Late in the Evening", most of Still Crazy After All These Years (Ray Charles did a great version of the title song at Newport ten years or so ago, killed), some of his early seventies hits. Not so much "Cars are Cars."
month or two ago, we were at a friend's house who was playing an 80's mix, and Newt became obsessed with the GoGo's 'We've got the beat', to the point of figuring out how to put it on endless repeat as he danced. Does this indicate bad taste or lack of good moral character?
I know less about music than you, LB. But I'm firing up "Head over Heels" right now.
I'm disturbed by the hating on the Hootie tune. If y'all are listening to pop music saying things like "Oh no! The pitch is off!" or "Oh no! He didn't sing enough notes!" well, maybe you just don't know how to appreciate pop music.
210: No, they're my dad, who's into white-guy harmony (there's probably a term for that that I don't know.) Whatever category includes S&G and the Everly Brothers.
208 -- I like some solo Paul Simon, especially "Graceland"; but "Still Crazy After All These Years" has always seemed like utter dreck to me. "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" is an amusing novelty song, nothing else on the disc rises to that level. The title song sounds like something Dan Fogleburg (sp?) would sing. "Night Game" is one of the most ludicrous things around.
Nashville Skyline is about where Dylan turned to shit.
216: fuck you, clown. He was just getting warmed up. Rhythm of the Saints is a great record. Anyway, Simon and Garfunkel's flaws are (Paul Simon's flaws x 100).
"Welcome to the jungle" is awesome. That whole album never gets old.
God forgive me, I agree with this. But I have a feeling I didn't hear it nearly as often as Chopper must have when it first came out, so it's not on my "overplayed" list.
I don't understand the hatin' on Paul Simon. Lots of insipid wuss-boy music, sure, but he's written plenty of really beautiful songs.
216: fuck you, clown. He was just getting warmed up.
This I can accept. But 208 seems to think SCAATY is itself a great record, which I dispute. Although I can accept that Ray Charles would have done a kick-ass cover of the title song -- I think Simon singing it sounds like Dan Fogelberg (sp?).
216: You've just got to get into the dreckiness. It's super mellow seventies, with a heaping of romantic angst on top. "Night Game" stinks, as does "Silent Eyes", though. The title track is far too smart to be anything like Dan Fogelberg, and the lyrics to "You're Kind" are so good, they almost make me want to break my rule about always dismissing lyrics (though on reflect, I'd again argue that it's not the lyrics themselves, but a great match of lyrics, music, attitude, and mood.) "Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy" is a masterpiece of self-pity. You gotta give it up for that.
If y'all are listening to pop music saying things like "Oh no! The pitch is off!" or "Oh no! He didn't sing enough notes!"
It's not that "he didn't sing enough notes"--who cares about a number? It's that, because he can only sing a couple of notes, the song has no melody. That's a serious problem in a pop song.
You know what people I don't understand? The ones who say they like the GoGo's, but not any of Belinda Carlisle's solo work. Fuck those people, because Heaven on Earth is awesome.
You know what people I don't understand? The ones who say they like Unfogged, but not any of apostropher's solo work. Fuck those people, because my blog is awesome.
Newt is happy to take anything up with anyone, at any time. The streets of Inwood are strewn with lame donkeys short a hind leg after being drawn into conversations with Newt. He's a lovely boy, but man can he talk.
Is "Come Sail Away" the one with the mermaids that turn out to be space aliens, or the one with the Japanese people that turn out to be robots? I can never keep those straight.
Here is a tip: Never, EVER choose "Paradise City" when you are doing karaoke. You remember it as a fun song, but you quickly learn that the chorus repeats about 48,000 times.
On the other hand, here are some awesome karaoke songs for people who can't sing. You will be screaming so loud no one will care that you can't carry a tune:
-- Cryin'
-- Sweet Child o' Mine
-- Great Balls of Fire
-- Livin' on a Prayer
-- Any rap song (only if you already know the lyrics, because they will be wrong on the screen)
244 is funny to me, because I recently had to endure the trials of a firm karaoke party, where they insisted that the summer associates do a group number. I had to cajole the others, desperately shy, into doing it, and did so by selecting "Livin' on a Prayer."
I, for my part, did a solo rendition of "Manic Monday" because it was, after all, a work party.
Our high school wrestling team played "Welcome to the Jungle" when we ran into the gym at the beginning of a match against another school, to psych them out.
I am not saying this was a particularly clever or effective idea, but there it is.
I have had the following three songs stuck in the past seven days, in chronological order:
"Lies," Violent Femmes (started just by my thinking about it during the infidelity threads);
"Call Me," Blondie (walked into a liquor store on Monday where it was on the radio and the staff was singing along);
and "Saturday in the Park," Chicago (Not sure why, but it popped up before it was mentioned in this thread, and I agree that it's bad.).
209: a radio show worth exposing young Newt and Sally to is WFMU's Greasy Kid Stuff -- they are on hiatus right now but should be broadcasting again in the fall. Lots of great stuff in their archives.
160 is so very true. I really thought that Westminster Abbey was going to blow up when EltonJohn launched into that rendition.
I have to admit to a certain fondness for Simon and Garfunkel. Their 1981 Concert in Central Park was the first CD I ever owned, and The Boxer spoke to my angst-ridden teenage self. "In the clearing stands a boxer; he's a fighter by his trade, and he carries the reminders of every blade that cut him till he cried out in gis anger and his shame/ I aleaving, I am Leaving/But the fighter still remains, yes he still remains."
I so identified with the Boxer.
(previously misposted as comment 48 in the "They Just Keep on Doing it" thread, Maybe I need to revive my inner Boxer in order to take on the Bushies.)
Simon and Garfunkel provided one of my favorite embarrassing high-school anecdotes, involving a punk-rock guitarist friend and "Patterns" -- I'm sure I've posted it here at least once.
Are people tying you down and forcing you to listen to their Overplayed Hits of the Seventies CDs or something?
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:43 PM
Amen, brother. These are solid choices. I'm sure I'll think of more, but for now I'll add Supertramp's "Take the Long Way Home."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:45 PM
Pretty much R.E.M.'s entire corpus. Except Life's Rich Pageant.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:47 PM
For me, it's Sergeant fucking Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, especially "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:48 PM
Now, see, Cala, you instigator, I thought that even saying "anything by the Moody Blue" would get us off topic and into the morass of musical preferences, when there's so much to be said about songs that we're sick of, even if we once thought they were good.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:50 PM
Moody Blues, motherfuckers.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:51 PM
There are many to add, but 1. is right, they do evoke a period. Just naming them does.
Now, I loved living in that period; I was in my twenties. But it's true, and odd, that I don't love those songs despite what would be associations.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:52 PM
6: That's clown-fuckers to you, Mexican.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:53 PM
I was just thinking of thing I want to vote off my iPod. And I like R.E.M., I'm just pissed at them for sounding like R.E.M. lately.
It is so hot here my cat is licking the side of my beer bottle just for the condensation.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:54 PM
I used to be thoroughly sick of "Layla" but now the extended guitar-wanking part reminds me of the scene in Goodfellas where they find the dead guy in the car trunk, the guy hanging from a meathook in the slaughterhouse...
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:58 PM
Dagger Aleph: I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I was amazed to see you'd driven to Siwa oasis. I adored a great inter-war adventure/exploration book, Libyan Sands by Ralph Bagnold, which is about the first car journeys in the Western Desert. Do you know that book?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:00 PM
Ah, let's play freakonomics with my list. Here's some explaining:
1. radio in my area is pretty bad, so I listen to oldies more than you'd expect;
2. bad songs of the moment go away and are never heard again, so they don't really deserve a spot on the list; bad songs that are Venerable Rock Hits come back over and over.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:02 PM
Cala, that's really sad. Such is my respect for you that I won't extend to you my lewd offer of the other night.
Also, Ogged: yes. We must banish Supertramp.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:04 PM
How have you heard Alanis Morrisette repeatedly since 1998? Or was it just that overplayed then?
I'll use my one-time token to rehabilitate The Cure, "Just Like Heaven."
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:05 PM
Heart.
Bob Seger.
Bad Company.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:08 PM
There's one Bob Seger moment I like, which is the weird break toward the end of "Night moves":
That time of year thou may'st in me behold...
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:12 PM
I would defend Seger, but wouldn't want him piped into my cell, I suppose.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:13 PM
Early Van Halen played a much too central role in my adolescence to ever really hate it (She was a-seaside sittin' just a-smokin' and a-drinkin' on ringside, on top of the world...).
After college, I thought if I never heard the Big Chill soundtrack again, it would still be too soon.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:16 PM
16: I was thinking about that very passage while reading the coastal thread. I used to drive between Columbus and Chicago at night in the seventies all the time.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:16 PM
I would defend Seger
As long as your defense doesn't include "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll", because that song makes my skin crawl.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:19 PM
Dave Matthews Band, 'Crash Into Me.' That song can go fuck itself for many years because it was every third song on the radio in college.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:20 PM
You oldsters won't recognize this band, but I'll add everything by Smashing Pumpkins to the list.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:21 PM
Oh, I do love "Just Like Heaven," but I can easily see how others might not love it, or tire of it.
The song I would banish forever, if I could: "Shiny, Happy People." Rah may give me the cold shoulder when I get home tonight for that one, but honestly, that song could be expunged from human history and we would lose nothing.
Also, everything by the Grateful Dead (which would, I guess, include Phish) can go away anytime now.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:21 PM
IDP: actually, I took several buses to get there (I should change my handle to "I Don't Drive"). It's a fantastic place. I have heard of Bagnold's book (anything you read on Siwa seems to reference it), but unfortunately haven't read it.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:23 PM
No, didn't care for that one. Trying to think what besides Night Moves I like. Is Fire Lake ok or do I misremember?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:23 PM
Pretty much anything off the Trainspotting or any of Quentin Tarantino's soundtracks.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:23 PM
Oh, and reading 22 I am reminded that Pearl Jam can go straight to hell.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:24 PM
Apo: you nearly pwned me with The Big Chill soundtrack.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:25 PM
27: oh, for fuck's sake yes. "Alive" and "Jeremy" and that "where oh where could my baby be" shit are on the list.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:26 PM
I used to use Yahoo's internet radio offering, and I swear "Just Like Heaven" was played about every 30 songs.
Barenaked Ladies gets the automatic "Next!" from me.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:26 PM
"Only time will tell if we stand the test of time." How true that is.
But who knew that the things which stand the test of time are often the very worst things.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:28 PM
24: Well I'm a driver, and it's one of the greatest books about driving adventure ever written. But I don't drive as much as I used to.
About Ontario landscape: It's often treated as forgetable, as in the opening chapters of No Such Mischief where the contrast with the terror and grandeur of Cape Breton is obvious, but have you ever read the lyrical memories of it in Galbraith's The Scotch? I wrote a graduate seminar paper on it.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:30 PM
Anything by Paul McCartney post-Beatles. Also, when I'm feeling irritable, any Beatles song that's excessively infected with that happy dopey Paul shit.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:32 PM
Barenaked Ladies
Oh God, that fucking Chinese Chicken song makes me want to jam pencils in my ears.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:33 PM
Surely this has to be the worst Macca lyric ever:
For full effect, repeat three times.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:34 PM
There is a really good thread from Michael Berube's site from about a year ago that deals with this topic and tangiential ones. I shall attempt to locate it.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:35 PM
Well, maybe y'all are cooler than me, but I'll defend Floyd to the death, and as a Deadhead, I find "Good Lovin'" invokes too many awesome thoughts to hate. And thank god for Armsmasher.
As for never-hear-again list, I'll throw in "Hey Nineteen" (and most Steely Dan), any Zeppelin song referencing LOTR, "We are the Champions," "Your Body Is a Wonderland," and the entire catalogues of Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, and Kiss.
Posted by jhupp | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:36 PM
Good example of a fine song that becomes very very annoying: that damn Hootie and the Blowfish song, "I Only Want to Be With You." (I don't know if that was the title....)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:37 PM
Good heavens! I've omitted Meat Loaf!
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:38 PM
Aha! this appears to be the one I was thinking about. Berubé's arbitrary but fun challenge is to name the oldie Too Hideous To Acknowledge.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:39 PM
Barenaked Ladies gets the automatic "Next!" from me.
Every song by Barenaked Ladies sounds like a jingle to a Burger King commercial.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:40 PM
jhupp: I too like the Floyd and the Dead. OTOH I also like the Dan and the Zep. I'm with you though on Ærosmith (except "Walk This Way"! and their cover of "Come Together" rocks hard!), Bon Jovi and KISS (except "All American Man"!)
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:42 PM
In my first year of university, everyone on my dorm floor seemed to own a copy of the Steve Miller Band's Greatest Hits. "Time keeps on slipping...slipping...slipping...into the fyoocherrrr" is a lame-ass lyric.
(IDP: haven't heard of that book -- but wow, if he makes s. Ontario sound beautiful.)
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:47 PM
Every song by Barenaked Ladies sounds like a jingle to a Burger King commercial.
Especially the one with the video that was basically a Burger King commercial.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:47 PM
Some things get overplayed, and then after a decade without, you get over it. I had one of those one 8 track trips way back, having hitched a ride across upper Nevada with a trio of cowboy-looking guys. Before the interstate was finished, so we had to drive through every little town. We would've anyway, since my hosts knew folks in every town, and we dropped by, woke them up, had some heroin mixed with vodka (I was happily the designated driver) and then went on. Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger. Took 15 years before I could listen to it again.
Yes and Hall & Oates are likely going to require another 20.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:50 PM
I'm with you though on Ærosmith
Rocks and Get Your Wings are great albums, you philistines.
Off-topic: Labs, have you been holding out on us? This has to be your other blog.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:50 PM
Weirdly, I just heard a guitar version of a Floyd song (the one that starts "Oh, so you think you can tell/ Heaven from Hell") as transition music on the black-interest NPR show "News and Notes." Some kind of line got crossed there, though I'm not sure which.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:53 PM
any Zeppelin song referencing LOTR
But that's all of them.
A lot of these - once you cut out the obvious horrors - seem to be pretty decent songs that just get played too often, and maybe give us a giddy little contrarian thrill when we bash them. Saying "the Beatles really suck!", for example, is kind of the music critic equivalent of saying "penis!" really loud in a public place. I assume that anyone who actually hates Dark Side of the Moon is just a soulless little gremlin shriveled by years of spite, for instance.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:54 PM
Wish you were here.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:55 PM
All Canadian edition:
1. The landscape of rural Ontario is beautiful.
2. The Barenaked Ladies have some redeemable songs on Maybe You Should Drive.
3. Top song that Must Just Go Away is Bryan Adams, "Summer of '69".
No, wait, it's The Guess Who, "No Sugar Tonight." No, Kim Mitchell, "Patio Lanterns." Gah.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:56 PM
Wow, it only took until comment #2 for someone to mention a song I have never heard in my thousands of hours of mainstream radio listening.
Right now I divide my radio listening into:
20% - the NPR station that plays jazz, at the times when it is playing NPR shows instead of jazz.
30% - the NPR station that does not play jazz, but
10% - the hip-hop station
10% - the Top 40 station, which is about 80% hip-hop
10% - "Bob FM", which plays songs that are overplayed now, were overplayed 10 years ago, or were overplayed 20 years ago.
10% - the oldies station, which plays entirely songs that were overplayed 30 years ago.
10% - the classic rock station, which plays entirely songs that were overplayed 30 years ago.
Basically the last three stations play almost nothing but songs about which I am inclined to say, "How could anyone possibly want to hear this song AGAIN?" Yet somehow I feel compelled to listen.
The only songs that make me actively change the channel are ones which I know, with 100% certainty, that I, a person with no musical talent, could have easily written both the words and the melody, but I'm not stupid enough to bother. There aren't many of those songs, and most of them are either by the Steve Miller Band or R. Kelly.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:57 PM
A lot of these - once you cut out the obvious horrors - seem to be pretty decent songs that just get played too often, and maybe give us a giddy little contrarian thrill when we bash them.
I don't know about that...I could probably think of 500 songs that we would both agree fit into the category of "obvious horrors".
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:58 PM
49-- Already I'm doubting whether that was the lick I heard. Damned halluncinatory memory!
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:58 PM
Is there a difference between Oldies and Classic Rock? I feel like there should be but never listen to the radio, so I've lost track.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:00 PM
Guh...51 should read:
30% - the NPR station that does not play jazz, but instead plays Damien Rice, Richard Thompson, and Laura Veirs.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:00 PM
45: This overplay/lie fallow is my sense of how a song becomes listenable, if it ever was.
Couldn't help Reminiscing, but I haven't heard that in years.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:00 PM
Has NPR become kind of rubbish recently, or was it always rubbish and I just didn't notice, or some third choice I'm missing?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:01 PM
I could probably think of 500 songs that we would both agree fit into the category of "obvious horrors".
I was mostly getting defensive about the Floyd-bashing.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:01 PM
Is there a difference between Oldies and Classic Rock? I feel like there should be but never listen to the radio, so I've lost track.
Oldies generally means songs from before Led Zeppelin, including the Beatles. Classic Rock means songs from after Led Zeppelin and before Motley Crue.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:02 PM
Has NPR become kind of rubbish recently, or was it always rubbish and I just didn't notice, or some third choice I'm missing?
I would go with the third choice, that it is now much, much better than it was 5 years ago. Presumably because of the money from the McDonald's widow's will.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:03 PM
Ned, it's impossible that you haven't heard the Supertramp song. Seek it out; you'll recognize it.
And because I don't know where else to put this, and it needs said: for the last week, I've been commenting with a full-on Taliban-style beard.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:03 PM
50: Can't the Guess Who be banned as a cluster? I was given a greatest hits cd by a well-wisher. What do you give a Canadian, was what he must have been thinking.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:03 PM
Can't the Guess Who be banned as a cluster?
Yes, and we could include BTO also. But I was trying to follow ogged's rule.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:05 PM
I wish I had been around to participate in Berube's "hits of the past that were just as popular as those that have become 'oldies', but are never heard anymore" thread. I have an intense interest in songs like that, being the 80's DJ at my college radio station.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:06 PM
for the last week, I've been commenting with a full-on Taliban-style beard
It only took you a week? Man, that's some hirsuteness. Hirsuetude. Something.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:06 PM
C&C Music Factory.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:06 PM
sj: there are no references to LOTR in "The Lemon Song."
slolerner: you are so, so right about "Patio Lanterns."
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:08 PM
The funny thing about Pink Floyd is how little airplay Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here got when they came out. Ditto the Dead: I lived in the SF area from 71-78, and Dead tunes on any station were very rare. That Berube thread tells the tale.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:08 PM
Also, I feel compelled to defend anything with Steve Cropper and Donald "Duck" Dunn on it. So Labs, good job covering your asterisk.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:08 PM
"What I Like about You" by The Romantics
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:08 PM
I was mostly getting defensive about the Floyd-bashing.
It's not Floyd-bashing, it's "unbelievably overplayed Floyd song" bashing. There are only about three unbelievably overplayed Floyd songs ("Money", "Wish You Were Here", and "Another Brick in the Wall"), and I fully acknowledge that it isn't Floyd's fault that I never want to hear them again.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:09 PM
Oh yeah, and every Christmas song ever.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:09 PM
I might have to add Warren Zevon, "Werewolf of London".
I think we're putting the rust-belt classic rock stations out of business.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:10 PM
What is this "Patio Lanterns" song? Not all of us are Canadian, you know.
That does bring to mind a song by a Canadian which is incredibly overplayed in America - "Insensitive" by Jann Arden. Is it also overplayed in Canada?
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:11 PM
Oh yeah, and every Christmas song ever.
What about the best Christmas song ever written?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:13 PM
I just went downstairs to get the Albany Park penis picture from the scanner to show my wife, and my son was playing Money cranked up. I'm plugged into these threads on too many levels.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:14 PM
Has anyone listed to MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This" recently?
When it came out, it was the Coolest Song Evar!, but if you listen to it now, the rap is so simple, slow, and straightforward, it' s like some proto-rap from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, before machines helped laborers rap faster and more productively.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:14 PM
Patio Lanterns.
Although, now that I think about it, "Go for a Soda" is objectively much, much worse.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:16 PM
Coolest Song Evar!
Please, Hammer, don't hurt yourself.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:17 PM
77 makes a good point, but "U Can't Touch This" is actually pretty fast.
When the hip-hop station has its "old school jams" show every Sunday night, there are always a few songs from 1985 or so, by Run-DMC or the young LL Cool J. They do not bear one bit of resemblance to any hip-hop today. To the ears of someone raised on Nas and Eminem, literally any Run-DMC song sounds like it took no talent at all to write, produce or perform. They sound like non-amusing comedy novelty songs.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:17 PM
I've never heard of Jann Arden, myself. Or at least I don't think I have.
Kim Mitchell is an early-eighties Canadian rock dude, and is mediocrity personified. "Go for Soda" also sucks, and is preachy to boot.
On preview, I see that slolerner beat me to it.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:18 PM
#72, 75: This is why Scientology is not a real religion. No songs.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:18 PM
"it's one of the greatest books about driving adventure ever written. "
My great-grandfather was involved in the Citroen-Haardt expadition, but I've never learned that much about it. Do you know of any good books about it or if this moviet is any good.
I have, thankfully, never listened to enough of the Radio to have quite the levels of loathing that other people in this thread do, but I echo the sentiment about Dave Mathews Band, and would add to that anything off of Jewel's first album.
I happen to like American Pie. and (on preview) Warewolves of London.
Love Shack is a song that nobody should ever have to hear again.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:18 PM
"Too Legit to Quit" seemed so over-the-top I took it for intentional comedy. Was I wrong?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:19 PM
83 was me.
Posted by NickS | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:19 PM
80: Yeah, those shows are pretty much the unfrozen cavemen of rap.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:19 PM
The best part of "2 Legit 2 Quit" was the embarrassingly literal hand motions that went along with the rapping of the chorus.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:22 PM
Oh, I've got one. The entire motherfucking Nutcracker sucking Suite.
(I can occasionally make an exception for the Snowflake dance. All the rest of the songs need to go into deep storage for a century.)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:22 PM
88: When do you actually hear the Nutcracker Suite, other than during performances of the Nutcracker?
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:23 PM
Or the appearance by a mummified James Brown. I wondered what was being sent up. The Apollo? Nation of Islam?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:24 PM
#80: The beat may fast, but the lyrics are simple and unimaginative. And often quite slow, despite the beat. Consider:
Every time you see me
The Hammer's just so hype
I'm dope on the floor
And I'm magic on the mike
Now why would I ever
Stop doing this
When others makin' records
That just don’t hit?
The flow here is practically in neutral, with plenty of dead time between phrases.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:25 PM
Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger.
You shut your mouth! Willie is a god!
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:25 PM
90: During which performance of the Nutcracker Suite?
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:25 PM
Sometimes, in a dark hour, I find myself not pleased to hear a song by CCR.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:29 PM
Don't forget to check out MC Hammer's blog.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:29 PM
I have family members who play in orchestras for a living, so every Christmas I get to hear the same lecture about how the Nutcracker is the most overplayed piece of classical music in history.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:29 PM
Following up on my #91, "My name is" by Eminem has a very, very slow beat, but quick, complex, and creative lyrics.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:31 PM
95: That blog certainly is energetic. The best news is that apparently he has a new song and video called "Hammer Time".
I can imagine his brainstorm a few months ago, looking at his old records, thinking "Wait...it's not here either. No, it's not on this record either. Did I really NEVER record a song called 'Hammer Time'? Wow, I guess I didn't. Well, what better time to do it than now?!"
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:32 PM
Oh, and Clown -- thanks for pointing me to that Berube thread. Awesome stuff.
Years ago I was on a roadtrip somewhere and there was a radio station methodically playing all the songs that ever got to #1; when I started listening they were into the mid-60s. It was so weird because so many of the artists were one-hit wonders.
Does anyone remember the pop rendition of The Lord's Prayer from the early 70s, sung by a nun? Sister Janet something, I believe?
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:33 PM
Hammer's blog makes up for its low content and its garish fonts with its horrible, horrible loudness.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:33 PM
3. Top song that Must Just Go Away is Bryan Adams, "Summer of '69".
No apostrophe, please. Per the man himself, the song's title isn't about the year between 1968 and 1970.
Posted by Josh | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:34 PM
Midnight at the Oasis can go on the list too. 'Send your camel to bed.'
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:35 PM
And I'm surprised that "You oughta know" made Labs' list, and not "Ironic".
Posted by Josh | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:35 PM
The essential Bryan Adams.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:37 PM
And I'm surprised that "You oughta know" made Labs' list, and not "Ironic".
That's pretty—no, I can't do it.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:38 PM
61: I don't recognize the lyrics to "Take the Long Way Home".
I've also never heard "Red Headed Stranger" or "Midnight At the Oasis". I know a lot ABOUT these songs, but have never heard them. They aren't played on oldies stations, or classic rock stations.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:38 PM
102 -- For the benefit of you younger folks, the lyrics to MATO. I don't know if this still gets played, but only a little is too much.
Midnight at the oasis
Send your camel to bed
Shadows painting our faces
Traces of romance in our head
Heaven's holding a half moon
Shining just for us
Let's slip off to a sand dune Real soon
To kick up a little dust
Oh, Cactus is our friend
He'll point out the way
Come on 'til the evening ends
'Til the evening ends
You don't have to answer
There's no need to speak
I'll be your belly dancer
Romancer
And you can be my sheik
I know your daddy's a sultan
A nomad known to all
With fifty girls to attend him
They all send him
Jump at his beck and call
But you won't need no harem, honey
When I am by your side
And you won't need no camel
Oh no
When I take you for a ride
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:39 PM
My contribution: anything by Sublime, particularly "What I Got". 10 years after Bradley Nowell died, that fucking song is *still* getting regular play on the "modern rock" station here.
Posted by Josh | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:39 PM
Now to actually respond to the post, my number one choice would actually be "Dancing In the Moonlight" by some random generic 70's feel-good smarmy bearded douchebag. Number two would be "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight", by the same artist. God, that must have been a horrible time to be having one's formative musical experiences.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:42 PM
My camel is going to bed now, but it is amazing that Maria was present at the creation, and yet is remembered mostly for that song. She was prominantly featured in Scorcese's film about Dylan's development.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:43 PM
105: Don'tcha think?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:43 PM
Sorry, 108. There are very few karaoke bars in Tokyo with "Santeria" in the catalog, but when I find one, I sing it.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:43 PM
108: I still like "What I Got". You have to respect a song in which the same word ("riot") rhymes with two words that themselves could not possibly rhyme ("got" and "high").
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:44 PM
112: I like "Santeria" too. I tend to think the fact that the lyrics "And I won't think twice to stick that barrel straight down Sancho's throat / Believe me when I say that I've got something for his punk ass" are never once bleeped on the radio might not have been true if it was a rap song, though.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:46 PM
#114: That may have something to do with the fact that Santeria is just such a peppy, happy-sounding song despite its harsh lyrics. If gangsta rappers would just turn that frown upside down, they probably wouldn't get bleeped so much.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:49 PM
109: "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" was England Dan & John Ford Coley. "Dancing in the Moonlight" was by King Harvest and is not to be confused with the Thin Lizzy song of the same name, which is excellent.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:50 PM
89--Clearly you haven't had the entire Suite beaten into your unconscious.
It'sat least a two-hour suite (the last half of which is pretty much just a potpourri of catchy themes), so the Muzak producers have a lot of options for the torturing.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:52 PM
99: Sister Janet Mead, on Rhino's Super Hits of the 70s Volume 12, along with "The Entertainer," "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo," and "Seasons in the Sun."
Posted by Kreskin | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:53 PM
115: This is also true for "Semi-Charmed Life", which actually should have been mentioned in at least 50 comments on this thread, so overplayed it is. The phrases "crystal meth" and "she goes down on me" are seldom if ever bleeped.
Not that it makes sense to bleep them anyway...but there is a double standard. Even the word "shit" is usually not bleeped when I hear Alice in Chains' "Man in the Box" on the radio. Meanwhile they take rap songs and bleep every mention of "gun" or "drugs", often making the listen think that the word being bleeped is "dick" or something like that.
Related issue: I remember seeing the video for "The Humpty Dance" at around age 12, and noticing that Humpty Hump said "I once got busy in a (bleep)ng bathroom". I heard a faint "ng" at the end of the bleeped word, leading me to assume that he was saying "motherfucking bathroom", and was shocked that the seemingly innocuous Humpty Hump would use that word.
It was quite a surprise to find later on that it is "Burger King bathroom". I guess MTV didn't want to give them free advertising (the same reason it was always blurring the logos on people's shirts in their videos until a few years ago).
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:55 PM
110 -- I gots to go to bed now. But wait -- are you saying that this song Midnight at the Oasis, of which I had not heard til just now, is by Maria Muldaur? Or am I misinterpreting your comment? Cause Maria Muldaur is a wonderful singer from what I know of her work ("Richland Woman Blues" which she sang with Jim Kweskin is one of my all-time favorite female vocals) -- that Midnight song looks pretty lame though. Does she at least sing it really really well?
Posted by Clownae | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:55 PM
"Semi-Charmed Life"
Wildly, absurdly overplayed, and yet I still find myself singing along. Also, I salivate whenever anybody rings a bell.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:58 PM
99: Thanks Kreskin. God, that has to be the weirdest song ever.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 9:58 PM
Addendum to 117: Josh, I should maybe have explained that I used to do a fair amount of ballet. For smallish companies, it's not a choice: you sepnd three months of the year immersed in the frking Ntcrckr, and that's the way it is if you want to stay afloat. Hence: extreme reactions.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:00 PM
#119: MTV also bleeped out the lyric "Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat", simulating gunfire, from Tupac's "Changes", even though the lyric in context condemned gang violence. MTV sucks.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:00 PM
Also, "Life Goes On."
To bed.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:01 PM
It's also amusing when MTV/RadioBigWigs suddenly realize that a word that they had hitherto not bleeped is actually slang for something they usually bleep. For example, when the chorus to "Gin and Juice" was changed from "smokin' indo" to "smokin' smokin'" after it had already been a hit for a little while. I believe it is happening with the word "skeet" as we speak.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:03 PM
#126: I believe it's "endo", not indo. Strunk & White, 2nd ed, p. 48.
And on the Chappelle show, Dave said something to the effect of "when they figure out what skeet means, we're going to be in a lot of trouble."
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:06 PM
I know that Bon Jovi's entire catalogue has been called out, but in eighth-grade concert band, we played an arrangement of "Livin' on a Prayer" that sill makes me laugh when I hear the drunken masses slaughtering the lyrics (bad, though they already be).
Compromise: a UN resolution agreeing that we really don't like this song, but aren't going go to, like, do anything about it. Deal?
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:12 PM
Kitty has already signed the resolution, by the by. Get on board!
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:13 PM
120 -- yes, Maria Muldaur had a hit with Midnight ATO. I agree that she's a talented singer, and in fact I have her debut album (on vinyl, so it hasn't seen the light of day for many years) but the Oasis song is really too much. And was way overplayed.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:13 PM
128: There are a lot of middle-school choruses singing songs that are not ridiculous, but sound absolutely ridiculous sung by a middle-school chorus. In mine, we were made to sing a song called "After All", which I think is supposed to be a duet between two middle-aged lovers who've been reunited after many unsatisfying relationships.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:15 PM
The phrases "crystal meth" and "she goes down on me" are seldom if ever bleeped.
And yet there's an entire verse of that song (which includes the phrase "little red panties") that only gets played on half the stations that play that song.
Also, I liked "Santeria"... the first 500 times I heard it. After that, not so much. (What amazes me is that there are songs that can stand up to that much overplay. No matter how many times I play it, I *still* like Blink-182's "Dammit".)
Posted by Josh | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:17 PM
And yet there's an entire verse of that song (which includes the phrase "little red panties") that only gets played on half the stations that play that song.
That verse wasn't there when we sang it in chorus, either.
Thanks folks! I'm out of here for the night.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:18 PM
Anything with Rob Thomas' voice, or any voice approximating Rob Thomas' voice. Most especially that "Lets Forget About It" shit. Also Creed.
But come on, Smasher, you of all people should appreciate the Smashing Pumpkins. And Pearl Jam, though often schlocky, is also often good, in a schlocky kind of way. Fine, I've got bad taste. But Rob Thomas still sucks my ass.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:29 PM
Actually, you know whose voice I never ever ever want to hear again? Joni Mitchell. It's like fingernails on a blackboard. God, how I hate her singing.
But I get to hear it incessantly because my wife likes it.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:43 PM
#75, I'm very pleased with myself that when you said "best Christmas song ever," I immediately thought of Fairytale of New York. Moments like this let me know that I'm at least a little bit cool.
A friend of mine recorded a guitar and dulcimer duet rendition of it, which probably doesn't turn you on that much, but I enjoyed it.
Posted by jhupp | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:47 PM
Apostropher is banned!
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:49 PM
Seriously, clean the potato bugs out of your ears and try again.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:49 PM
This thread made me laugh several times.
I nominate "Tie a Yellow Ribbon." Also, more recently, "Candle in the Wind." And that "Na na na na hey hey hey goodbye" thing.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:53 PM
Joni Mitchell. It's like fingernails on a blackboard. God, how I hate her singing.
You know, this used to be precisely my reaction to her, but now I wonder if maybe Blue is the most beautiful album I've heard. I'm not sure what happened. It can't be that I'm less manly, because I still like some Pearl Jam songs.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 10:59 PM
"Horse with No Name" and "Wildfire". God, I might have to kill myself right now.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:01 PM
God, I might have to kill myself right now.
That's a sin, LOL.
Posted by God | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:05 PM
I've got to stand up for the Smashing Pumpkins as well, since Siamese Dream is one of the great albums of the 90s. This fact is incontrovertible. I also wish to defend "Just Like Heaven", because that chorus is amazing.
It's tough to really name songs that I'd never want to hear again which weren't just awful to begin with, since I haven't listened to the radio in years. Even at my retail job in college, we had cool managers who would let us play our own music. I would still dump a lot of Tom Petty though, especially "The Waiting" and "The Joker".
Posted by JAC | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:09 PM
Seriously, clean the potato bugs out of your ears and try again.
Believe me, it isn't for lack of exposure, SB. She may be a great songwriter and a great lyricist, but I can't get past that horrible, injured dog soprano.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:13 PM
88, 89: I have three-and-a-half-year-old twin daughters who like to put on the Nutcracker and dance about in little princess dresses. And not just the abridged suite -- the entire fucking thing. I have heard the Nutcracker more than the entire cast of the Mariinsky Ballet put together. If it weren't for the high levels of therapeutic cutons my girls emit, I'd have shredded my eardrums with a screwdriver months ago.
Posted by jmcq | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:14 PM
I would still dump a lot of Tom Petty though, especially "The Waiting" and "The Joker".
Tom Petty >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Steve Miller Band.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:14 PM
That's a sin, LOL.
God is BANNED!
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:16 PM
List of songs in English labeled the worst ever
Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs
The WORST Pop Songs of All Time!
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:34 PM
#125: You mean the Beatles song or the Tupac song?
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:40 PM
There are a lot of good songs from bands that I like that I am tired of hearing. Right now, I don't particularly want to hear any of the songs off of Tago Mago.
I never liked supertramp, but since I haven't heard their songs on the radio in 20 years I probably wouldn't change the channel.
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 12:22 AM
I could do without ever again hearing any late-80's radio-friendly R&B/hip-hop. Bel Biv Devoe and Bobby Brown, I'm looking at you.
Oh, and any song I used to listen to while putting in late hours as a corporate lawyer has been ruined for me forver. That includes "Hands" by Jewel, "Closing Time" by Semisonic and "You Get What You Give" by New Radicals.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 12:50 AM
There's a fair amount of Floyd that I like, but "Another Brick in the Wall," any part, is a song that has been played by too many gloomy sophomores (myself included) for me to need to hear it ever again. I can't even enjoy the Richard Cheese cover of it.
However, I never tire of Christmas songs and I'm not even a Christian.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 1:13 AM
How is it that no one has mentioned Hotel fucking California?
Also, I second 21. I refuse to be friends with and/or date anyone who professes a liking for Dave Matthews Band and/or Barenaked Ladies.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 3:40 AM
I would like to note that a couple weeks ago, I went to a benefit for the Center for Disability and Elder Law and there was a fine brass band playing, and then all of a sudden this chick got up and started singing "My Heart Will Go On" (Celine Dion). It was possibly the worst six minutes of performance I've had to sit through in my life. When I hear the opening flute of that abomination, I instinctively wince. For the rest of the song, I alternate between wanting to jab boards under my nails and wanting to cry.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 3:46 AM
My ex-girlfriend's cat used to meow along to "My Heart Will Go On".
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 4:08 AM
"To the ears of someone raised on Nas and Eminem, literally any Run-DMC song sounds like it took no talent at all to write, produce or perform. They sound like non-amusing comedy novelty songs."
I don't know what to say...
Sucka MCs doesn't sound like a novelty song. It sounds shocking and brutal.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 4:15 AM
I find it interesting how many of these songs I've never heard. I think of myself as reasonably knowlegdeable about music.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 4:17 AM
Whoever mentioned Zevon upthread is going down.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 4:27 AM
Also I like the following Smashing Pumpkins songs: 1979, the one with the string octet, and one other. And honestly probably more if I ever heard them again.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 4:28 AM
I'm pretty sure that what Elton John did to Candle in the Wind to produce the Princess Diana version is illegal in most southern states. Even if you hated the original, the rewrite is so much worse
Posted by NBarnes | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 4:45 AM
Oh, I hate missing a thread like this. Anyway, 35: worst McCartney lyrics ever? Maybe, but I'd still go with "Temporary Secretary":
Mister marks, can you find for me
Someone strong and sweet, fitting on my knee?
She can keep her job if she gets it wrong,
Ah, but mister marks, I won't need her long.
All I need is help for a little while,
We can take dictation and learn to smile.
And a temporary secretary's what I need for to do the job.
I need a temporary secretary,
Temporary secretary,
Temporary secretary,
Temporary secretary.
The chorus is physically painful to listen to.
I wouldn't disagree with any of the nominations of songs to never hear again, except one: "Dancin' in the Moonlight" is one of the great guilty pleasure songs of the '70's. That electic piano rocks, man.
I wouldn't mind losing about 90% of Bob Dylan's music, even the stuff I've never heard. And just a note, but it's no longer the case that oldies radio means "pre-Beatles"; oldies, at least the mass marketed and formatted kind, works on a sliding scale. It's pretty much ditched the fifties now, for instance, and runs up to the mid-seventies. Elton John get played on oldies radio; it won't be long before Cyndi Lauper does as well.
Also: Simon and Garfunkel, "I am a Rock." No, wait; everything they recorded.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 5:06 AM
I can't believe nobody has mocked 38 yet. That song sounds like the promised Hootie they'd turn on pitch correction, and then didn't, as a prank.
"You Oughta Know" is a much better song than "Ironic."
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 5:12 AM
I wouldn't mind losing about 90% of Bob Dylan's music
JL, stop giving Ogged cancer.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 5:40 AM
The thing that always weirds me out about threads like this is that Billy Joel, whose name I would expect to see at the very top of the thread, goes totally unmentioned until I bring him up.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 5:55 AM
162: Awww. You have restored my faith in the Mineshaft. Not that I know exactly which song that is, but a Hootie song "fine"? Bwa.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 5:59 AM
Probably because I haven't heard Billy Joel in well over a decade.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 5:59 AM
Billy Joel is covered by proxy in Gaijin Biker's links above.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 6:06 AM
167 -- ok, that's reassuring.
166 -- Not in a decade? He was in really heavy rotation around here as recently as 2000 -- I think not anymore but "Glass Houses" was so drummed into my head as a lad that I will always think of it as overplayed and react in visceral anger if a song of his comes on the radio.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 6:13 AM
What kind of lame-ass radio stations do you listen to that Billy Joel was in heavy rotation this decade?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 6:25 AM
The best Christmas record ever is the Waitresses' "Christmas Rapping" but I could happily never hear it again.
The Duke Ellington "Nutcracker" is pretty good, still.
I heard a lot of Pat Boone in my youth, and found it far more annoying than Perry Como, and probably still would. I grew up in England, and some days all there was was Cliff Richard. Not good, then or now.
Posted by dave heasman | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 6:44 AM
Hey, I like the Billy Joel song "The Downeaster Alexa."
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 6:45 AM
Some Smashing Pumpkins is ok, but "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" needs to die.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 6:48 AM
The best Christmas record ever is the Waitresses' "Christmas Rapping"
No way -- that distinction can go to no other than the John Fahey Christmas Record.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:10 AM
At night, when the bars close down,
Brandy walks through a silent town,
and loves a man, who's not around,
she still can hear him say:
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:10 AM
The best Christmas record ever is Run-DMC's "Christmas in Hollis." Or anyway, it's better than the Waitresses (nothing against them). I could happily hear it instead of the usual stuff that they insist on playing for the entire month of December, but I never do.
Xmas Rap is also good but maybe not quite in the spirit.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:11 AM
169 -- probably it is a New York thang -- Billy Joel is inexplicably popular in these parts (or was when last I was paying attention to that kind of thing.)
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:12 AM
Also "Father Christmas" by the Kinks is a really, really good song.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:13 AM
Hotel Fucking California. Yes yes yes.
True fact: I have had three friends who've fucked members of the Barenaked Ladies.
Simon and Garfunkel may as well have recorded only five songs ever, since I never hear anything other than those five.
And Bob Dylan is the most overrated rock musician in the history of rock. He's got some good songs, but nothing that merits the adulation he gets.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:17 AM
You know what people I don't understand? The ones who say they like Simon & Garfunkel, but not any of Paul Simon's solo work. Fuck those people, because Graceland is awesome.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:23 AM
Cancer, da. Stop giving it to him.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:23 AM
He's got some good songs, but nothing that merits the adulation he gets.
This is just wrong.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:30 AM
Graceland is awesome.
This is correct.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:31 AM
I'm one of those fuddy-duddies who preferred Dylan before he went electric, so "Boots of Spanish Leather" is okay.
I must disagree with Silvana about Graceland, but I realize that she must have been about five when it came out and so doesn't remember how absurdly overplayed it was for two years.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:32 AM
162: Absolutely. That guy sings about 3 different notes in the song, none of them well.
163: A friend of mine's father when drunk used to starting ranting, "Bob Dylan should be shot! John Lennon should have been given the Nobel Peace Prize!" Especially amusing as he was a middle-aged Indian guy. I didn't agree with him, but I think he was closer to the truth than ogged.
164: You had to be a beegshot, deedn't ya, you had to prove it to the crowd.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:33 AM
Clown and I are polar opposites.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:34 AM
dagger aleph, the other 268 Simon and Garfunkel songs trend awesome.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:37 AM
Ogged is much more right than dagger aleph. This proves I was right about Zeppelin all along.
I was kinda not into Dylan for a while, because the overplayed stuff was just too overplayed and Bringing It All Back Home, the album I had and that everyone recommended to me, natters on too much. But The Basement Tapes, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blood on the Tracks are just so awesom.e
*I like the Byrd's "Mr. Tambourine Man" better because it's shorter. Criticism does not apply to "Baby Blue," "Subterranean," "Maggie's Farm," and when I'm in the right mood "It's Alright Ma." And "Bob Dylan's Dream" is funny as hell.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:39 AM
186: The five that I know might even be awesome, I just can't tell anymore because I've heard them so many times.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:39 AM
I'm one of those fuddy-duddies who preferred Dylan before he went electric
This is just ludicrous on its face: there is no overlap between the set of such fuddy-duddies and the set of people who think Dylan is overrated. Think about it.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:39 AM
Fcuk htis, Im' going all typoes from heer on ot.u.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:40 AM
187: Ogged is much more right than dagger aleph
I'm really hurt by that.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:42 AM
(Also: I think there is a problem with tenses: You are the same age as I, da, or nearly, which means you were not aware of Dylan "before he went electric" or indeed for a while after he did. So better to say "I prefer Dylan before he went electric."
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:42 AM
More in the spirit of the initial post, some good songs that are just ruined for me: Aretha Franklin, "Respect" and "Think" (yes, despite the nifty way that guitar part jumps up in the mix at the beginning of the second verse); Eddie Floyd, "Knock on Wood"; Wilson Pickett, "In the Midnight Hour", "I'm in Love", "Mustang Sally"; Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness", "Respect" (again), "I've Been Loving You Too Long", "I Can't Turn You Loose"; and anything on The Best of Sam and Dave.
I love Atlantic and Stax/Volt soul. But combined with the massive exposure these songs get (or got) on oldies radio, I can't listen to these at all.
Also, Peter Gabriel's "Your Eyes" has always driven me crazy. Most boring chorus ever. Two chords can be wonderful thing, but not here. Endless, too.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:43 AM
)
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:44 AM
The truth hurts, da. (But the truth is all there is. You can't hide from the truth, 'cause the truth is all there is.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:44 AM
192: Thanks Clown. I don't want people to think I'm the same age as Idealist.
All you Dylan-lovers: don't you think that the ratio of his good lyrics to crappy lyrics is in the neighborhood of 1:15?
It seems beside the point to criticize his singing, but his singing does really suck.
I have no beef with the music/tunes/musicianship.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:45 AM
Hey just to change the subject radically, because that is what I do: are any of you aware that the best book of the rear-so-far was published on Tuesday? It is Jennifer Egan's The Keep and it is a knock-out. You all should go out and purchase it. Several characters would be totally at home in this blog's comments.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:47 AM
So, the sense I'm getting here is that oldies radio should be avoided. Or perhaps all radio, everywhere.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:48 AM
rear-so-far s/b year-so-far.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:49 AM
193 makes me wonder: Are there songs that couldn't possibly be ruined for you by overexposure? I think I could listen to Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" twenty times in a row.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:49 AM
199: I liked it better the first way.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:50 AM
This is probably the right thread to ask the following in. (Answers should take into account that I really know basically nothing about music, and particularly nothing about all the complicated social stuff it all means to you. No, really, I know less than you could possibly imagine.)
1. A month or two ago, we were at a friend's house who was playing an 80's mix, and Newt became obsessed with the GoGo's 'We've got the beat', to the point of figuring out how to put it on endless repeat as he danced. Does this indicate bad taste or lack of good moral character? He's four, turning five tomorrow.
2. Have I done a bad thing by buying him a GoGo's album for his birthday?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:50 AM
198 -- there are exceptions to that rule. Listen to B-Wo's show when you get a chance. Also: WFMU of northern NJ has many very fine shows, as does WWOZ of southern Louisiana. I'm sure there are others -- the Greatful Dead show on WBAI is excellent but you have to stay up pretty late to catch it.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:51 AM
The first time I even heard Graceland was in 2000.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:51 AM
203--Hm. I must confess that I'm scared of B-Wo's show, but I should get over that and listen in, I know.
(Gotta run!)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:53 AM
201 -- yeah I know all about which way you like it better.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:54 AM
202: The Go-Gos are approved of. I'm not sure I'd appreciate it on endless repeat, though. Have you thought of hooking him on "Chain Gang"?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:54 AM
I do make an exception for most of Nashville Skyline, though not the duet with Johnny Cash (and perhaps not a few others, can't recall right now.) It's the only Dylan record I've bothered to get on cd. Very pretty, even the singing, a very good band, and at least one great song in "Tonight I'll be Staying Here with You." Perfect arrangement on that one, too, with the lovely piano part.
Paul Simon solo can be very good. "Late in the Evening", most of Still Crazy After All These Years (Ray Charles did a great version of the title song at Newport ten years or so ago, killed), some of his early seventies hits. Not so much "Cars are Cars."
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:55 AM
month or two ago, we were at a friend's house who was playing an 80's mix, and Newt became obsessed with the GoGo's 'We've got the beat', to the point of figuring out how to put it on endless repeat as he danced. Does this indicate bad taste or lack of good moral character?
I know less about music than you, LB. But I'm firing up "Head over Heels" right now.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:55 AM
The ones who say they like Simon & Garfunkel, but not any of Paul Simon's solo work.
These people are from opposite world, where up is down and good is bad.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:55 AM
Another cool typo in 203.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:55 AM
Lb,
1. No.
2. Yes.
Just kidding about the second one. Your child will eventually lose the capacity to get freakishly into songs; you should indulge it.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:56 AM
I'm disturbed by the hating on the Hootie tune. If y'all are listening to pop music saying things like "Oh no! The pitch is off!" or "Oh no! He didn't sing enough notes!" well, maybe you just don't know how to appreciate pop music.
The Go-Go's are cool.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:57 AM
Your child will eventually lose the capacity to get freakishly into songs; you should indulge it.
Labs, you have a kid? Or did you just turn into a ten year old girl right before our eyes?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:58 AM
210: No, they're my dad, who's into white-guy harmony (there's probably a term for that that I don't know.) Whatever category includes S&G and the Everly Brothers.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 7:58 AM
208 -- I like some solo Paul Simon, especially "Graceland"; but "Still Crazy After All These Years" has always seemed like utter dreck to me. "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" is an amusing novelty song, nothing else on the disc rises to that level. The title song sounds like something Dan Fogleburg (sp?) would sing. "Night Game" is one of the most ludicrous things around.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:00 AM
213; It's not "the pitch is off" or "he didn't sing enough notes" but "God, Hootie is lame."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:04 AM
dagger, it's possible that you're insane.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:12 AM
Whoever was hating on Halen and Heart needs to step. Panama is a fucking awesome song. As is Barracuda.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:13 AM
Also, I never, ever need to hear "Welcome to the Jungle" again. God.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:14 AM
Chopper, come out and fight me. "Welcome to the jungle" is awesome. That whole album never gets old.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:19 AM
Nashville Skyline is about where Dylan turned to shit.
216: fuck you, clown. He was just getting warmed up. Rhythm of the Saints is a great record. Anyway, Simon and Garfunkel's flaws are (Paul Simon's flaws x 100).
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:19 AM
Le Freak really doesn't belong on that list.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:20 AM
That whole album is awesome.
"Welcome to the Jungle" is played before every Vikings kickoff. It's done been ruint.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:21 AM
"Welcome to the jungle" is awesome. That whole album never gets old.
God forgive me, I agree with this. But I have a feeling I didn't hear it nearly as often as Chopper must have when it first came out, so it's not on my "overplayed" list.
I don't understand the hatin' on Paul Simon. Lots of insipid wuss-boy music, sure, but he's written plenty of really beautiful songs.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:23 AM
221 is correct.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:25 AM
Dear god. 107 is Why They Hate Us.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:27 AM
he's written plenty of really beautiful songs.
The surgeons took your manhood, didn't they?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:27 AM
Your heteronormative mind tricks don't work on me, Come Sail Away boy. Paul Simon is good stuff.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:34 AM
Come Sail Away
That's one song where the cover fucking blows the original away.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:37 AM
216: fuck you, clown. He was just getting warmed up.
This I can accept. But 208 seems to think SCAATY is itself a great record, which I dispute. Although I can accept that Ray Charles would have done a kick-ass cover of the title song -- I think Simon singing it sounds like Dan Fogelberg (sp?).
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:45 AM
216: You've just got to get into the dreckiness. It's super mellow seventies, with a heaping of romantic angst on top. "Night Game" stinks, as does "Silent Eyes", though. The title track is far too smart to be anything like Dan Fogelberg, and the lyrics to "You're Kind" are so good, they almost make me want to break my rule about always dismissing lyrics (though on reflect, I'd again argue that it's not the lyrics themselves, but a great match of lyrics, music, attitude, and mood.) "Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy" is a masterpiece of self-pity. You gotta give it up for that.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:53 AM
If y'all are listening to pop music saying things like "Oh no! The pitch is off!" or "Oh no! He didn't sing enough notes!"
It's not that "he didn't sing enough notes"--who cares about a number? It's that, because he can only sing a couple of notes, the song has no melody. That's a serious problem in a pop song.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:55 AM
I'm not showing the last several comments all of a sudden, even though they were there just a minute ago.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:56 AM
You know what people I don't understand? The ones who say they like the GoGo's, but not any of Belinda Carlisle's solo work. Fuck those people, because Heaven on Earth is awesome.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:57 AM
232 -- well it's been a long time. Perhaps I should take another listen.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:58 AM
Re: the early Bob Seger discussion. I like "Turn the Page."
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:59 AM
You know what people I don't understand? The ones who say they like Unfogged, but not any of apostropher's solo work. Fuck those people, because my blog is awesome.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:59 AM
GB -- Newt will want to take that up with you.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:59 AM
washerdreyer is banned! Banned! Banned!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:00 AM
Newt is happy to take anything up with anyone, at any time. The streets of Inwood are strewn with lame donkeys short a hind leg after being drawn into conversations with Newt. He's a lovely boy, but man can he talk.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:01 AM
Is "Come Sail Away" the one with the mermaids that turn out to be space aliens, or the one with the Japanese people that turn out to be robots? I can never keep those straight.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:01 AM
218: It is possible that I'm insane, but not because of anything I've written on this thread.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:02 AM
Here is a tip: Never, EVER choose "Paradise City" when you are doing karaoke. You remember it as a fun song, but you quickly learn that the chorus repeats about 48,000 times.
On the other hand, here are some awesome karaoke songs for people who can't sing. You will be screaming so loud no one will care that you can't carry a tune:
-- Cryin'
-- Sweet Child o' Mine
-- Great Balls of Fire
-- Livin' on a Prayer
-- Any rap song (only if you already know the lyrics, because they will be wrong on the screen)
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:03 AM
244 is funny to me, because I recently had to endure the trials of a firm karaoke party, where they insisted that the summer associates do a group number. I had to cajole the others, desperately shy, into doing it, and did so by selecting "Livin' on a Prayer."
I, for my part, did a solo rendition of "Manic Monday" because it was, after all, a work party.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:07 AM
Our high school wrestling team played "Welcome to the Jungle" when we ran into the gym at the beginning of a match against another school, to psych them out.
I am not saying this was a particularly clever or effective idea, but there it is.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:08 AM
I have had the following three songs stuck in the past seven days, in chronological order:
"Lies," Violent Femmes (started just by my thinking about it during the infidelity threads);
"Call Me," Blondie (walked into a liquor store on Monday where it was on the radio and the staff was singing along);
and "Saturday in the Park," Chicago (Not sure why, but it popped up before it was mentioned in this thread, and I agree that it's bad.).
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:14 AM
high school wrestling team played "Welcome to the Jungle"
This might have been more effective and clever.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:15 AM
#248: That is an awesome commercial.
I suggested playing wimpy music when the other team entered the gym, but no one else liked that idea.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:29 AM
209: a radio show worth exposing young Newt and Sally to is WFMU's Greasy Kid Stuff -- they are on hiatus right now but should be broadcasting again in the fall. Lots of great stuff in their archives.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:42 AM
(I can't guarantee they've played the Go-Gos but the Go-Gos would definitely not be out of place on a Greasy Kid Stuff playlist.)
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:44 AM
160 is so very true. I really thought that Westminster Abbey was going to blow up when EltonJohn launched into that rendition.
I have to admit to a certain fondness for Simon and Garfunkel. Their 1981 Concert in Central Park was the first CD I ever owned, and The Boxer spoke to my angst-ridden teenage self. "In the clearing stands a boxer; he's a fighter by his trade, and he carries the reminders of every blade that cut him till he cried out in gis anger and his shame/ I aleaving, I am Leaving/But the fighter still remains, yes he still remains."
I so identified with the Boxer.
(previously misposted as comment 48 in the "They Just Keep on Doing it" thread, Maybe I need to revive my inner Boxer in order to take on the Bushies.)
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 9:59 AM
Simon and Garfunkel provided one of my favorite embarrassing high-school anecdotes, involving a punk-rock guitarist friend and "Patterns" -- I'm sure I've posted it here at least once.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist |