Normally, on Friday, I try to give my readers a musical theme. Be it The Best Albums Ever Recorded or some deep dive into my CD playlist. I put stuff out there for people to think about and respond to. It gives me a chance to revisit some music I haven’t heard in a while or better yet, I discover songs that may be buried in some random album I forgot about.
Today’s column is not that.
Today, I am going to attempt to put together a small list of some of the worst rock music of the past 60 years or so. Now, you say, that will be a herculean task if it weren’t so easy.
You all know my feelings about the current state of Rock and Roll and music in general, it sucks. This is not a recent phenomena. If you recall way back when, I did some high school math and basically came up with a formula for great music. I don’t recall the exact numbers but I think it may have been around 3,000 songs out of the 100+ million that have been recorded. So, again using that high school math, that leaves us with over 100 million bad songs. Not really, but you get my point. Picking the worst is easy, picking the best is a challenge.
Back to that list of bad songs. This list isn’t about bad musicianship, it’s about songs that out and out suck. Songs that you will never leave on if you are in your car or songs that you wonder how they ever made it to your playlist. I am talking about songs that literally make me wretch. I am overstating it obviously but these are songs that just should not have been recorded. Period.
Granted the pool is very large so I have narrowed the selection process down. First, the song should be in regular rotation on something(FM radio, SiriusXm). Second, it has to be a song that you (or me), under no circumstances, would listen to in its entirety. Third, being overplayed does not count. A lot of great song have been beaten to death, these are not those songs.
My first entry is “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger. This song is the worst song ever written, ever performed, ever spun on a DJ’s record player. Nothing can come close. I do not care what it is about. I do not care nor do I believe that Night Ranger was a talented group with some modest success. They suck, the song sucks. End of story.
Another group that could fit the Night Ranger mold (being atrocious) is Men Without Hats. The “Safety Dance” may be the only song on this list that is from that New Wave pop era of the mid 80’s. This song is dumb. It is phenomena. Why was it recorded? Another song that I could care less about the lyrics or meaning or that the band was from Canada. Who cares?
The rest of my list will be a little different. The groups that did these songs were popular, talented and some were legendary. The question will always be, Why?
Let’s start with a group that should never have recorded anything after, lets say 1968-1969 because as time went on, the songs got worse and worse. The Apex song by The Beach Boys has to be “Kokomo”. The harmonies are typical for the Beach Boys, which is to say excellent but it is a horrible piece of music. Why would any station play this song when the Beach Boys have recorded dozens of great songs, you have to wonder.
An easy selection is Starship’s “Built This City”. While Starship was some half assed attempt at bringing back the magic of Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship, it failed at every turn. Paul Kantner couldn’t stop trying to be this progressive avant garde artist and he formed this mess while fighting legal battles with the original Jefferson Starship. This is a horrible song and Starship should have been put in rock jail for putting it on vinyl.
Here is an obscure one for sure, “Secret Love” by Stevie Nicks. The first time (and only time) I heard this song I wondered why would someone so talented put such crap out there? Then looking into Stevie Nicks catalog of solo work, I realized that the bulk of her solo stuff was lousy and then it all made sense. I am no fan of Nicks. I cant take that whole BS persona she puts out there, twirling around a stage and like she is some mystical angel. Give me a break. She is a talented singer songwriter and her accomplishments are well deserved but when you really dig into her catalog, you see it’s mostly horrible filler material and this song, for some reason, just sent me over the edge.
My next song (or songs) is an actual catalog of songs. Being from Long Island, I should be a huge fan of KISS but I am not. I have said in previous articles that I thought they were overrated and I could not stand listening to anything they ever recorded. So, I will put their whole catalog on this list. There is not one song here that I can actually listen to and there a few songs that would stand with “Sister Christian” as the absolute worst recordings of the 20th Century. Take a song, throw it at me and I will destroy it like all the others. With all that being said, I can see how they made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They were (and still are) wildly popular and besides any place that would induct Green Day should be allowed to induct KISS.
Here is a favorite of people like me, “Africa” by Toto. I am not sure why this record is so bad, it just is. It is too catchy, too poppy by a group of moderately talented musicians. I am perplexed because all in all, it is not the worst song I have ever heard but it is a song I just can’t stand listening too.
I sort of have a tie here. Grand Funk Railroad at some point lost its way and produced several really, really bad songs and I can’t nominate them all because its like trying to pick your enemies, it’s hard to have a favorite. However here are three: “Were An American Band”, “Locomotion” and “Some Kind of Wonderful” are all hard to listen to. This, once again, proves that great Rock and Roll bands should just hang it up and rest on their laurels instead of trying to recreate magic they don’t have anymore. Abysmal recordings.
Never a favorite of mine, Foreigner was very popular for a time and they sold an awful lot of records, emphasis on “awful”. Again, trying to pick this bands worst song is of course, a matter of taste (or distaste) but I will put out “Dirty White Boy” as the bottom of the smelly heap. In compiling a list like this, I think any song you choose by Foreigner could be a contender.
Same with REO Speedwagon. Throw a dart at their catalog and no matter what song it lands on, a case could be made for it sucking so bad you could play it over and over at a CIA Darksight and get any terrorist to flip. I saw them live at Dark-sight years ago and they were almost tolerable. Maybe because it was free or I had too many beers that night, not sure.
The aforementioned Green Day is another group that I can honestly say that I have never listened to one of their songs all the way through. Is it fair to say anything they have done is terrible when I actually haven’t heard it? I don’t know about you though, if the first 30 seconds of a song do not catch my attention, I flip to another song. That is Green Day to me. It’s my column, I make the rules. Green Day is here.
Another group that I could take or leave was Styx and while “Too Much Time on My Hands” was my pandemic theme song, “Mr Roboto” hovers in that space of stupidity that few can ever reach. What does it mean? Why do I care? Granted Rush wrote some songs that you needed an unabridged Cliff Notes to understand, Styx just didn’t have the talent to do the same and this song is a perfect example of an idea only the author understands. Dumb and all copies should be banned.
That is just a very small list of some of the worst pieces of music pretending to be Rock and Roll ever recorded. There are hundreds if not thousands more but I kept it to music you may hear frequently (except for Stevie Nicks) on whatever music source you listen to. Thats not to say that The Who, for example, didn’t have some really bad songs, they did. The Beatles, I couldn’t find one. The Stones, yeah there are some bad songs in that catalog but they recorded over 400 songs so chances are pretty good. The Eagles, mediocre songs, filler material but nothing bad enough to make my list. And so on.
If you haven’t figured this out by now, I wrote this column for enjoyment and a couple of laughs. I am no musician and never pretended to be one. I am no critic but I do have opinions and this is a reflection of my opinions. You disagree, let hear it. You agree, same thing. We are fortunate that we live in an age where we really don’t have to suffer listening to the 9 minutes of Richard Harris’s “McArthur Park”, we can just go to the next station or song on our playlist.
One side note. I truly believe that, other than Billie Joe Armstrong, artists know when they put out crap. They do it for numerous reasons and financial would seem to make the most sense. I don’t hold it against them. I just think if they actually cared they would have done a better job.
You are incredible, Who, I ask you, who can put a smile on my face when it seems, Rome is burning. I'm still chuckling over your list. I had to read it a 3rd time to actually start laughing. Thanks Again for your Friday music opinion!
I am glad my acerbic wit is not lost in these times of zero humor