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THE THREAD OF SH**E!

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Here at The Afterword we pride ourselves on our good taste, our fine musical ears and on the fact that we just know what’s what.

But just as yin needs his yang, as light needs darkness, as God needs Satan, so we need to know what’s bad just so that we know what is good.

Amongst this small group of people, in this unregarded corner of the internet, I am vaguely known for my hatred of U2. The truth is, I don’t hate them because they are terrible, my hatred is there because they are mediocre, a far worse crime than being terrible, especially if this crime is abetted by strange popularity amongst the public at large. See also Adele and Ed Sheeran. Most things are terrible because they are mediocre and popular.

But can we define and recognise what is actually terrible? So terrible it acquires a strange grandeur? Provoking a realisation in the listener that only an actual genius could be this uniquely terrible?

I would say that Jim Morrison’s “Lament For My Cock” falls into this category wholeheartedly. It’s shockingly awful, from his unspeakable “poetry” album An American Prayer, which many years ago I paid actual money for in a shop but quickly got rid of. I wish I’d kept it now.

This is not “so bad it’s good.” That category does not actually exist because if something is good it is by default not bad.

This is terrible. Genius.

Are there other examples?

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Comments

  1. Deary me…….The remaining members of The Doors should be held accountable for releasing that….One thought though, there used to be a thing called “Wyatting” whereby you would walk into a pub and put on he very worst track on the jukebox to watch the punter’s reaction. I would love to do this with Jim’s horrible lament.

  2. Considering how great Forever Changes by Love is it has to be said that Arthur Lee came out with some complete shit too. I remember a solo album he released that I too jettisoned pretty quickly. There was one track with the repeated chorus ‘Oh what a dish, she smelled just like a fish’ .
    Truly awful.

  5. Ok I’m thinking about the epic grandeur and utter seriousness of Jim and little Jim. I think the songwriters behind Joy knew it was a shite novelty hit (it is). But this. It’s EPIC GRANDEUR and UTTER SERIOUSNESS alright:

  7. For many of us (me), thread like this is catnip, as it allows grandiose dismissals of those articles of faith held dear by others. In truth, I am more kindly disposed to those pitiful enough to kneel at the altars of excrement than I might seem. More to be pitied than despised, you know, all of that. So, who, Matthew, will it be tonight? Do you know, I think it may be the Jim-dissers? Because they fail to appreciate the full glory of his muse? Nah, Lament for My Cock, a gap in my aquaintance if truth be told, is likely just the load of old, um, cock it sounds, along with Horse Latitudes and all the other bilge he spewed in spoken word. But my wrath is that the other three, a glorious drummer, an eloquent guitarist and a magnificent keyboardist when behind him, without him were just an empty shallow racket. Jimbo was shite without his band, but they were shitier still without him.

  9. I’m sure I’ve seen some admiration expressed here in the past for the late experimental guitarist Derek Bailey.

    I am not in that number. His avant-garde improvisations I cannot fathom and actively dislike.

    I’ve never heard play a tune end to end, but to be fair it does seem that he is a capable player. He’s hitting some precise harmonics here, he knows scales and chords yada yada yada

    But it’s fucking awful. He annoys me because he sounds like me, and I’m shite on the guitar.

    • I humbly disagree. This is merely a sixties band being mediocre in the 80s and selling a shit ton of records. While the song is rubbish, I simply don’t accept that it comes close to ascending the Everest of shite that is “Lament For My Cock.”

      I just don’t begrudge a large payday for Grace Slick and co. I mean, they were actually good once, then they “went shite” got paid, then fucked off. But not before “Nothin’s Gonna Stop Us Now” And is that really better than “We Built This City”?

      Well paid mediocrity ain’t gonna cut it on this thread folks. TRY AGAIN!

      • I do begrudge a large pay day, and this is not mediocrity it is much much worse than that. And as it is the worst record ever made then Nothing is Gonna Stop Us by definition must be better

      • I’m sorry but dai is right – the song is resolutely, wall-to-wall, 100%, no-holds-barred shit. It’s really, really shit no matter what context one spins. Even if it was created by a one-day-old baby it’s still shit. Even if was recorded under sniper fire in war-torn Bosnia, it’s still shit.

        I listened open-mouthed when I first heard it thinking it was a try-hard euroband trying to copy The Thompson Twins. When I learned it was Starship that made it worse because the slurry pouring out of my radio was intentionally bad.

  12. I apologise for this in advance. This was my go-to for Wyatting back in early 80s St Albans. Neil from the Young Ones, B side to Hole In My Shoe, Hurdy Gurdy Mushroom Man. Very deliberately very very bad.

    • Is it wrong to admit owning a copy of Neil’s Heavy Concept Album (on both vinyl and CD).
      And almost putting his cover of My White Bicycle on the recent Afterword CD Swap offering.
      And owning both Bad News albums.
      And seeing Bad News at Donnington, at the Reading Festival, and at Hammersmith Odeon
      ?

      (Did I just say that?)

      • Hole in my shoe was the fifth single I purchased and so I know, at a push, every word to Hurdy gurdy mushroom man. The B side of the first single I bought was, however, SHITE.

        O Sanity

  13. This is the tune (!) I used to reach for when it was time for my friends to leave the hospitality of my teenage home. No further hints were required…

      • Oh man! That rapper is visibly dying inside! He wants to be anywhere but in front of thousands of people rapping to a slap-bass cover of help sung by Kylie! I hate to say this but existential anxiety is pouring out of this, unintentionally perhaps, but it’s there.

        I was thinking simply NOT SHITE till the rapping began and it SOARED LIKE SHITE CARVED INTO THE SHAPE OF AN EAGLE FIRED FROM A CATAPULT, ALSO MADE OF SHITE.

        The THREAD OF SHITE comes up trumps again, good work sir.

  15. I am too tired to think of something terrible from some artist I respect, so, I will choose one of those musicians who would do an interprétation of some famous pièces of music and pack it up in an album, lp or cassette transforming it in some kind of muzak. A french singer called him “le Mozart du Walkman”. At the time, anyone without a knowledge of classical music would show of its taste by playing those fragments.
    Once at a relative’s place, when every cassettes were played , I put this cassette as a background music. In the castle’s garden , close to the swimming pool, I suddenly felt transported in a lift or in a medium-sized supermarket.
    Ones get used to everything, then, at the end of the cassette came mr clayderman’s own composition I couldn’t describe it well at the time, but thanks to Father Ted I have a good exemple, it reminds me of a variation of “My lovely horse”, but more kitsch. Ping pong under the trees will stay in my unmusical hell together with chili con carne by this choir that calls Itself a group.

  16. Shite is expressively more shitey if it plops from a golden buttock, viz Starship above. This has way way more stench than that, as, despite the idea being average and the execution OK, it is the joke that spins it into the shitosphere. (Reader, I laughed when I heard about it, smiled as I heard it, told a couple of people about it, played it to them and then, embarrassedly, smelt the error of my ways.)

  17. A friend had moved to Palmers Green in north London, so one evening I and a few others went up to see him.
    We went to his local, which was very much a suburban pub, with a very white, middle aged, middle class clientele. Nonetheless it had the novelty of a video jukebox.
    I was browsing the contents, when I spotted this was available. I had the album Jugula, so I knew the song was pretty bad. I didn’t know until that moment that a video existed, so despite knowledge of how bad it was I had to play it. As the full horror was revealed, I don’t think anyone dropped their pint, once awareness of it seeped into the collective consciousness, but for half a minute or so jaws dropped and there was a stunned silence.
    Roy Harper, with Jimmy Page, presents Advertisement. (The live footage was taken from a gig in Battersea Park, which I was at – I haven’t been able to spot myself in the crowd shots, but it would have been nicely symmetrical if I could have been seen both on the video and there in the pub).

    • BLOODY FLAMING NORA!

      That is just appalling. It’s something that 14 year olds drunk on cider for the first time would think was amazing and literally anyone else with ears would just faint with horror. But featuring the Kashmir hitmaker? Dear God! My wife almost came down the aisle to Kashmir you know. The sheer horror of this makes me glad she didn’t.

      This may have stolen the thread thanks to the proximity of Page. Shite from a golden buttock indeed.

  18. Ooh, you little beggars…there are too many to mention.

    Honourable mentions must go to the following songs:

    More than Words by Extreme: long-haired, sixth-form rubbish. Foul harmonies and a teenage boy’s idea of romance: “Well, if you actually did like me, you’d sleep with me.” Run, dear lady, run. Makes you want to burn your stereo.

    MOR by Blur: little more than a limp cover of Boys Keep Swinging by David Bowie, but without crediting him. My mum, who isn’t even a Bowie fan, noticed the blatant rip-off. This song does not need to exist.

    The Only Thing that Looks Good On Me is You by Bryan Adams: I think he’s done some good songs, but this one actually contains the lines: “Yes, it’s you/it could only be you/nobody else will ever do/yeah, baby, it’s you that I stick to/Yeah, we stick like glue.” Lyrics by Little Acorns Nursery Group, ages 2-5.

    • You BASTARD.

      This has triggered me. Too many shite holidays. Too many occasions drinking fishbowls full of some horrendous cocktail called something like “I Suck Your Cock” in Falaraki or Magaluf or similar because I thought it would be funny to get a mate to ask for that from a bar man.

      My early twenties were awful. They were like this. I am amazed I am in my forties, and indeed married.

      • This is a deep, deep well my friend. I broke you in easy, now let’s really find out what’s down there… while in the UK this is chiefly heard at parties for the under-7’s as a man in a smelly monkey suit urges everyone to dance along, on the continent in summer it’s as inescapable as Japanese knotweed.

  21. I realised not a long ago that the real reason I could never like U2 is that they take themselves far to fecking seriously. They don’t have an ounce of fun in them. Ffs lighten up guys.

    Check out their appearance on Graham Norton, someone who is usually guaranteed to get anyone relaxed, they’re vibe is that of a stagnant pond.

    • Ooo … Each to their own

      The Manics debut album was a triumph of hype over substance (with added 6th Form Poetry), and by the second they looked like they lost there way. The Holy Bible is not their best album (but is still darn fine). After Richey Edwards, they softened their sound in pursuit of commercial success (and got it).
      There’s that mid-period when the albums were “OK” – I really wanted them to be better.
      Since Send Away The Tigers, I think they have started to consistently deliver.
      My view: Not Shite

      • I actually like Generation Terrorists.

        I first had it on cassette, and the amount of time I spent listening to it while depositing 10p coins into either Star Force or Legendary Warrior…

        There’s a reason second class degrees have two divisions, and in my case it was arcade games. Arcade Games and Beer. Arcade Games and Beer and Football.

    • Absolute nonsense, The Holy Bible is one of the greatest albums ever made, Everything Must Go is awesome and they have had a remarkably consistent career over more than 25 years.

      If you don’t like this, you don’t like great music:

  24. Shite is an easy one to fall back on – often it comes down to “stuff I don’t like”.
    For me that would be: Ed Sherran, Sam Smith, any of those X Factor-ish singers that think getting 200 notes into a single phrase is what makes a record, Dance Music, Dub Step, Contemporary R&B (as wkipedia calls it).
    All this stuff shifts units, and is therefore not shite to someone
    (I’m still not convinced by Talent Show warblers)

    Having said that …

    Thinking about my past listening enthusiasms, I would be hard pushed to defend:
    Hardcore Thrash Metal (Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Extreme Noise Terror …) – what was I thinking?

    But
    Maroon 5 – awfully bland, don’t you think

    • I attempted a definition of SHITE in the OP.

      I am also a man who saw Napalm Death, Nuclear Assault, Kreator, Lawnmower Deth, even fucking Xentrix. I also used to have a tape of the hellish piece of shite “Speak English Or Die” by S.O.D.

      I cannot defend any of this.

  25. Bon Jovi – can’t be doing with all that pretty boy Heavy Metal/Hard Rock stuff
    See also Poison – Unskinny Bop really is incomparable tosh

    … and then I admit to buying and wilfully continuing to own albums by White Lion, Great White, Warrant, and other Hair Metallers

    • But when I was a teenager in the eighties you had to pretend to like them. Because for some reason, girls who didn’t like chart music all seemed to like them. And usually girls get this stuff right. So I decree hair metal as NOT SHITE even though I never got it at all.

  27. Going out on the ledge here a bit…

    I genuinely hate Mariah Carey and Whitney. They’re bad for music.

    Technically, I grant you, wonderful. But absolutely no passion or feeling or warmth into their songs. It’s all technique and melisma. They are directly responsible for – and I will never forgive them for this – American Idol, BGT etc etc.

    Better version of “I will always love you”? Well, not fucking Whitney’s, that for sure. None of the insecurity in Dolly’s. And Bobbie Gentry can outsing both of them. (OK, not difficult since Whitney probably has a dry voice now, but you get my point)

    • I’m totes agree, can’t imagine either of them ever pleasing my ears. But… I watched the documentary about Whitney last year and while it didn’t make much of an impression on me (I can barely remember anything about it apart from the facts we all know) it did introduce me to her mother’s group, The Sweet Inspirations, and particularly this amazingly brilliant song (shouldn’t be on this thread at all, but any excuse etc). I’ve probably played it most days since first hearing it. Just knocks me out with its superbness.

      • Melisma is not in itself “a bad thing” – in moderation it can be undoubtedly impressive. But since Whitney’s enormo-hit and (moreover) the advent of Maria , its become the modern gauge of “proper” soul singing for a generation. Witness any TV talent show…the audience always go knee-jerk nuts at any note held and mucked around with for more than two seconds.

        Whitney was a very fine talent but with a generally poor choice of material. But I find Maria deeply irritating and self-indulgent to the point of being unlistenable.

  28. Clearly Coldplay. The colour beige in audio form: pedestrian , insipid, mannered mid-paced plod so mediocre that it was easy to forget some songs even while they were in progress. They continue to be offensively inoffensive, not bad as such, but almost Zelig-like in their transience, with tunes that slip away from
    You almost as you hear them, They did do a good job playing the Paralympics to be scrupulously fair, so they do get a bit of credit.

  29. “I Want To Break Free” by Queen is SHITE. Freddies voice set at peak screech. Brian May’s guitar interlude so fucking twee and grating. The video is supposed to funny? Just awful. I’m not Queens biggest fan, it’s just Freddies voice I can’t get past but I accept their appeal and there are a couple of absolute bangers. IWTBF must therefore have been a giant piss take. Awful no redeeming features at all. SHITE. I don’t need to post it because you’ve all heard it at least once open mouthed and subsequently reached for the off button surely…..

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