THERE are a lot more terrible songs in the world than the shortlist of five
Musicology ran a few weeks ago.
So here are some more tragic moments in music - all equally as bad as those on the first list.
As you'll see, this week's inductions into Musicology's Hall of Shame come from a range of genres - pop-rock, nu-metal, psychedelic, boy-band pop, and hip-hop - which just goes to show once again that there's really only two kinds of music: good music and bad music.
So here it is - the second installment in our ongoing series of the worst songs of all time.
Always< /i> - Bon Jovi (1994)
THERE'S nothing wrong with ballads but it's usually a case of ``less is more'' when it comes to writing a good ballad - something that no one bothered to tell Jon Bon Jovi (or Celine Dion or Bryan Adams for that matter). One sure-fire way to tell if a ballad has crossed over into the excesses of melodrama and sappiness is to see if you could ever earnestly recite the lyrics to a lover or prospective partner. Let's try a line from Always: "I'll be there 'til the stars don't shine/'til the heavens burst and the words don't rhyme''. "'Til the stars don't shine''? So you're leaving at the crack of dawn then? And if you can successfully woo a woman by telling her you'll love her until "the words don't rhyme'', then she's probably not worth wooing.
Nookie - Limp Bizkit (1999)
WHEN Ben Folds fake-whined "you all don't know what it's like being male middle-class and white'' on Rockin' The Suburbs, he was mostly pointing his satirical piano-playing fingers at Fred Durst - the poor-me whingeing, tough guy wannabe who fronted nu-metal pioneers Limp Bizkit. Nookie features Durst undermining the heavy grooves by bitching about some girl dumping him for another guy, leaving poor Fred looking ``like a chump''. If you wanna sound like a metal band, Fred, then don't moan about your ex. That's what really makes you look like a chump... or an emo. But the icing on top of this is abomination is the coup-de-grace chorus, "I did it all for the nookie/come on/the nookie/come on/so you can take that cookie and stick up your yeah!''. The mindboggling inanity of those lyrics renders me speechless.
Hang in' Tough - New Kids On The Block (1989)
LISTENING to NKOTB sing about how "tough'' they "hang'' is like listening to your grandma try to talk like a black rapper - it's unconvincing and embarrassing for all concerned. Not only are these late '80s poster-boys as tough as a sheet of toilet paper in a thunderstorm, they're responsible for kicking off Boy Band Mania - the most poisonous epidemic to sweep the globe since the Black Death. But it was a difficult decision picking just one NKOTB song for this list. This One's For The Children was a very close second - a song so wrapped up in its own importance and commitment to saving the world that it starts off with possibly the most overblown preachy opening line of all time - "This is a very special message so all of you please listen''. If you have to tell people how special your message is, it ain't that special.
The Laughing Gnome - David Bowie (1967)
THE only thing worse than a crap song by a crap artist is a crap song by a great artist. All music legends have their off-moments but this spacey Bowie oddity is a real low for the one-time Ziggy Stardust. The song is like trying to tell a child a bedtime story while you're out of your head on acid. The experience makes everyone just feel weird and confused. Over some pseudo-Syd Barrett psychedelic pop, Bowie converses with a gnome and swaps puns centering on the word "gnome''. It's not funny, despite what Bowie and his gnomic friend think. It's like being the only person at the party not on drugs. Not surprisingly, this flopped on release. Surprisingly, it was a hit when re-released in 1973. Not surprisingly, it flopped again upon the second re-release in 1982. Why do they keep releasing this song?
Crank That - Soulja Boy (2008)
AT the risk of sounding like a grumpy old fart, Crank That is a shining example of everything that's wrong with popular music today. If this tuneless, pointless, incomprehensible piece of melody-free garbage can rule the charts for as long as it did, then what hope is there for our children? Like most songs that hinge on a newly invented dance craze (hey Macarena! I'm looking at you), this call to "do the Superman'' plumbs new depths in irrelevance. I've read an explanation for what the "Superman'' thing means in this otherwise meaningless song but it can't be reprinted in a family newspaper, so instead I'd just like to mention that I refuse to call this "rapper'' by the full name Soulja Boy Tell 'Em because it's a stupid name. Who's telling who what? If Soulja Boy is telling me something, it better not be about cranking anything.
*Stay tuned for future installments of Musicology's worst songs of all time.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter