Simple premise: post the worst tunes you ever bought on single.
I’ll start us off, then let’s see how long and low we can go in our race to the very bottom….
EMF – “Perfect Day”. Christ, this is so much worse than I remember it.
Musings on the byways of popular culture
Simple premise: post the worst tunes you ever bought on single.
I’ll start us off, then let’s see how long and low we can go in our race to the very bottom….
EMF – “Perfect Day”. Christ, this is so much worse than I remember it.
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Kaisfatdad says
Oh dear! What possessed me?
Well I was on holiday in San Francisco and they were a local band……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKzTmMUhu2k
“hangs head in shame”
Poppy Succeeds says
This. I bought this. Oh God.
Bingo Little says
Oh… just…….. wow.
Ahh_Bisto says
They have a brilliant wiki page. It includes such gems as:
“They released a number of singles, but their album was never released after Edgar absconded with the recordings.”
“In addition to television performances, the group cut a music video for “Gypsy Girl” that UK television was not allowed to show before 10 pm because it depicted a bonfire. A more simple video was made for the song that simply depicts the band performing was used for daytime showings. In this video, Philomena’s underwear is shown briefly under her dress in a couple of dance breaks.”
Best of all for breathless excitement
“The original demo of “Who’s At The Door?” has recently been transferred to digital and cleaned by Colum Muinzer.”
duco01 says
I hang my head in embarrassment, Afterworders … but I have some recollection of owning this single, once upon a time…
Big Sound Authority: “This House (is Where your Love Stands)”
Oh, the shame! the shame!
badartdog says
Nah – that’s ok. Better if you don’t actually watch the clip, admittedly, but the song’s far from awful.
RChappo says
I bought the 12″ single of that!
I still quite like it though.
fentonsteve says
I’ve got the 12″ of that. The album’s just been re-released in 2CD form by Cherry Red.
Tiggerlion says
Doesn’t Beany win this thread? All he has to do is select at random from any one of thousands of his singles.
Ahh_Bisto says
Yes, but how does he select the WORST?
It’d be measuring adjustments of awful in angstroms.
Kaisfatdad says
Come on guys! Don’t knock the Beanster. He consistently ploughs his own furrow and knows what he likes. And comes up with some gems too. Loved that metal Bee Gees tribute band,
This thread is the Walk of Shame for those of us who have strayed from the primrose path off good taste.
I loved Jilted John. So foolishly I bought this sequel.
Ouch!
Ahh_Bisto says
I played True Love Stories to the kids the other day. It still elicits giggles
Beany says
I have the Graham Fellows 1979 single Men Of Oats And Creosote. Sadly not on YouTube but like a very early John Shuttleworth.
Ahh_Bisto says
In my defence…oh fuck it there is none
Doctor and The Medics – Waterloo
Rigid Digit says
I bought that too. My only defense (if it is a defense?) was the presence of Roy Wood.
You’d have thought I’d have learnt my error after buying the debut album (Laughing At The Pieces) – but oh no, and went and splurged another £3.49 on THIS.
Ahh_Bisto says
I used to tell people that the Anadin sisters were the two girls in Kubrick’s The Shining.
fentonsteve says
Top AW fact: their bassist went on to join Acid Jazzers Corduroy. So he redeemed himself.
davidks says
I was young, and I fancied her.
Debbie Gibson – Shake Your Love
Kaisfatdad says
I was young and I fancied them
Maybe I should call a lawyer at this point.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Up!
ganglesprocket says
I bought this. Admittedly for my Dad one Christmas to annoy him. He played it over and over to annoy me and when I moved out of home it had mysteriously appeared in my pile of singles.
29s in, there’s Jeremy Clarkson. As if it couldn’t get any worse…
Rigid Digit says
Ignoring Football (including: Aberdeen, Arsenal, Everton, England World Cup Squad, Scotland World Cup Squad) and “novelty” stuff (including: Kenny Everett, Firm, Spitting Image, Snowman – in fairness, none of these are actually that bad), I have got this nestling in the collection.
Bobby G – Big Deal
Why?
Rigid Digit says
I bought this because it was a Promo Copy.
I was young,. foolish, and thought anything on a white label, or with a Promo marking was worth a mint.
Survivor – I Can’t Hold Back
It’s certainly no Eye Of The Tiger of Burning Heart * is it?
* this is the 1985 re-issue and would’ve had Burning Heart on the B-Side, but this is a one-sided promo
Beany says
I never bought a WORST single, just one that was LEAST GOOD. What better reason is there for buying a single? I bought the Reginald Bosanquet single back in the early ’80s.
Most of my recent purchases – LPs, CDs, singles, books – sit in boxes in my vinyl room awaiting a much delayed sorting. A quick glance show 4 charity shop singles by Daniel O’Donnell – they ARE all autographed – and a doublepack single of Gloria by Jonathan King. Well someone HAD to. He did write the English lyrics and is credited as the co-writer.
Rigid Digit says
1986, Frank Bruno is rapidly becoming the “Nations Favourite Boxer” (ie he loses a lot, and the Brits do love an underdog). What else is there to do but release a single celebrating the man.
Johnny Wakelin – Bruno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK8li9innYk
Not: I didn’t actually buy this, I won it in a Radio 210 phone-in competition. The prize was 10 singles (or basically, what they could find laying about the office that no-one else wanted), and this was one of them.
Beany says
Ditto Brian Clough. Sports people have form.
Black Celebration says
It was a rare visit to a nightclub. Cinderellas in Guildford, rather than anything actually good in London. I danced to this and thought it was an incredible version of Madonna’s Holiday, with a rap that was so clever it was almost beyond belief. I quizzed the disinterested bloke at HMV the next day over what it might be. He knew what it was and bagged it up for me.
Sprinted home. Put in on. Oh crap.
Beany says
Even I would not have that in the house… however I do have this Madonna “copy” song. I was shocked to find this TOTP video. I never knew it was a hit!
davebigpicture says
We have a winner Shirley?
Now make it stop.
Black Celebration says
Bloody hell that’s bad.
Junior Wells says
That is just appalling Beany in every way. Video, version of the song. How on earth did you come to acquire it ?
I really think the mods are going to have to review your membership of the blog.
Bingo Little says
Hey!
This song was the first dance at my wedding!
Kaisfatdad says
Do you by any chance work as a bus driver, Bingo?
Seriously though, the target audience for that song was probably three year olds. They doubtless thought it was supercool to have groovy pop girls singing one of their favourite songs.. To knock it is rather like having a go at the Tweenies because they aren’t Led Zeppelin.
Ahh_Bisto says
I sense the hand of Andi Peters in that choice of performer
If we’re having Mad Donna, then we need No Way Sis!
ivylander says
The first single for which I ever parted with money is also the most atrocious. I mean, really atrocious. It’s a young love/early death/narrator contemplating suicide story that will make you long for death’s sweet release….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3PL7vvWbng
Fin59 says
It was challenging. It was brave. It was iconoclastic. It was appalling
Christmas With Satan – James White
Beany says
Love it. Don’t have it. Never heard it. Resigns from Afterword.
Kaisfatdad says
Hmmm. I also confess to finding it mildly enjoyable. But I kept thinking of the Fast Show’s Louis Balfour sitting in the audience and digging it somehow.
Mmm. Nice!
Almost Simon says
1984, I was 12, I bought two 7″s from Woolies, Puss in Boots by Adam Ant (I still like it, no shame,) and this. The tune is okay, lyrics poor. Very lightweight. And yes, I still have it in my 7″ box.
moseleymoles says
Don’t know if this was the worst but I parted with pocket money for this. Oh dear
Deviant808 says
I had a phase as a bit of a Spice Girls completist (you didn’t know there was such a thing did you?), even collecting Coke cans to send off for the “Step To Me” single.
There’s no excuse for this though
(“Out of Your Mind” – True Steppers featuring Dane Bowers with Victoria Beckham)
Bingo Little says
That tune made good its promise to “punish you”.
retropath2 says
I don’t think there is such a thing as a bad single, their often ghastliness sufficient to warrant the outlay. I have legions of 7 inch shite, grateful and glad I never bought their 12 inch siblings, meaning LPs, not the big 45s. But here’s one you’ll remember, from some old tarts who make my beloved Chumbas seem like Beethoven, Camper Van or Ludwig, your choice:
Having said, anyone ever get round to the b side? Thought not.
Sewer Robot says
“Simon Templar Simon Templar Simon Templar Simon Templar
He drinks champagne from a slipper when he goes home with a stripper”
I believe it was actually a double ‘a’ side…
Sniffity says
Along with
“Michael Boooooth’s talking bum….he has the only talking bum in the land”
Locust says
Well, this is pretty bad (but I did like it at the time) – “Prostitution Twist” by Barbie (Alexander Bard in drag):
Campo says
I kind of liked the original, I liked football. I bought it out of curiosity without actually hearing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FyN-aJa0gk
Campo says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FyN-aJa0gk
duco01 says
The heading at the top of that Youtube video of Gazza slaughtering Fog on the Tyne ends “lyrics GOOD QUALITY”. I’m afraid I’ll have to differ there.
chiz says
I like to think I was quite the hip young thing in 1979 because I bought some of the finest pop singles ever made, and still have them – The Jam, Blondie, Squeeze, The Police, and many more. But the illusion is shattered by the inescapable proof that I also bought Living On An Island by Status Quo. If we’re being charitable we could put it down to a momentary loss of critical faculties, but in truth it’s much worse than that. I think I actually quite liked it.
Bingo Little says
It was circa March 1999. I was at uni, and knocking around with a gang of mates.
One of said mates, a chap with notoriously appalling musical taste, had a birthday imminent, and the rest of us were sorting out some gifts for him. Among them, it was decided, should be the CD single he wanted but was to ashamed to go and buy himself. We drew lots. I lost.
After no small amount of trying to wriggle out of it, I trudged into our local HMV – the very same HMV in which I had been tastefully building my collection for the past two years, ordering obscure records on import and chatting away with the more knowledgeable heads behind the till – plucked the below from its place in the racks and marched it to the nearest counter, holding it between forefinger and thumb like it might explode. Not my finest moment.
Steerpike says
I hardly ever bought singles – they weren’t cool. So when I was trying to be a cool teenager I had a West Coast phase – obscure stuff, you know – cool stuff.
Fireball were obscure but in retrospect, certainly not cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahZldCCTBnE
Black Celebration says
When you really really like an artist and they collaborate with an artist that you really really dislike – the results can be hilarious.
A part of me likes this very much and another part of me cringes at the thought of actually buying it (which I did). Watching the video now is a strange experience – it’s very cool isn’t it? No wait, it’s bollocks. I am a mess over this one.
Ahh_Bisto says
Bill Sharpe was studio manager at the BBC in the 70s and worked with John Peel and John Waters, becoming friends with both of them. If Peel was presenting TOTP and Shakatak were on (which they seemed to be every week for about a year circa ’83) then he’d always introduce them with the words “with my mate Bill Sharpe”.
Here they are, coming on after Gillan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k0EytNHQ7E
Ahh_Bisto says
John Walters!
Dave Ross says
I win……… but I loved it then and I love it now but I know it’s awful, truly awful and out of my collection of 80’s pop smashes it’s the worst
Thompson Twins “We Are Detective”
bricameron says
Broadway could probably make a ‘Musical’ out of it though.
Harry Tufnell says
Fish, barrel, shotgun…
The first record I ever bought with my own money was “Two Little Boys” by a certain Mr Harris.
Mousey says
It was 1967, and there was a sale on at one of the record stores. I couldn’t go, I must have had a piano lesson or something, but my friend Colin was going, and I said if there’s something there that’s really good get it for me.
“No Milk Today” by Herman’s Hermits had been a recent hit (this is in New Zealand so a few months later than the UK, if anyone’s following this) – so I must have included HH in my list of bands whose product was worth purchasing at sale price.
Next day Colin came to school and said, enthusiastically “I got you ‘East West'”.
This turkey –
ivylander says
Wow. Had forgotten how appalling this was….
Freddy Steady says
Rick Wakeman….anyone?
Poppy Succeeds says
For the record, I really like Perfect Day by EMF.
Bingo Little says
I liked it enough to buy it, but – yeesh – that production is absolutely hideous.
Hamlet says
Ah…that Adam Rickett song. A mate of mine at Uni in 1999 – who occupied the room above mine – was in the process of coming out, and he played that song to merry death. I know every word, and they still quietly curse me down the years…
When I was in my teens, I used to buy one record/CD a week – this was my rule, and it naturally led to some terrible purchases during fallow periods. ASDA used to sell post-chart hits for as low as 1 pence, and I picked up a copy of Simply Red’s Remembering the First Time for 1 p. It is, quite frankly, staggeringly bad. It’s worth hearing just to confirm how bad it is. I actually don’t mind Simply Red that much; they’ve done some good radio records, but this was just like being dribbled on by a halitosis-suffering uncle at a family buffet.
JQW says
I’ve never really been into purchasing singles.
I did acquire this one, though, from a ‘reduced to clear’ rack on the counter of a long since defunct record shop, for 10p.
I was robbed.
bricameron says
In all it’s glory…
Bono’s Uncle.