Very simple. The worst track by your favourite artist. I was listening to All Mod Cons in the car today and yet again barely made it through English Rose. It’s just so awful. The weedy acoustic arrangement and insipid melody. The waves-on-shore effects straight from Bobby Goldsboro’s Summer the First Time. Weller’s gruff bark tortuously unsuitable for such a ballad. And the lyrics oh man. ‘For no bonds can every keep me from she’. A key change that would get Westlife off their stools. It goes on and on. This is on the same album as Tubestation, In The Crowd and A-Bomb in Wardour Street. It’s clearly the worst song recorded by The Jam.
So a few rules. No skits, intros or covers. We’re after original stinkers. Less interested in hearing why English Rose is the best song ever than finding out what is the worst Dylan, Stones, Smiths, Richard Thompson, Van the Man track ever.
Beatles fans – http://www.heartachewithhardwork.com/2006/05/beatles-from-worst-to-first-1-206-191.html
is every single song recorded by the Fabs rated from 206 to 1.
Did you have all mod cons when it came out? I kind of know what you mean about English Rose and tbh couldn’t really listen to any Jam stuff since the early/mid 80s, but I remember around 81 singing English Rose to myself on the bus going somewhere and thinking it was poignant and sublime. I think a lot of people remember the impression songs like this made on them when they were released, or if they came to it when they were young.
Fwiw I always thought Sound Affects was overrated, and The Gift underrated …
Paul Weller was embarrassed by it, and the it was excluded from the listing on the rear.
One word ‘she’.
Yeah, maybe him chillin wit him Jamaican bredren hat de time him wrote dat.
This is just awful, the rest of the LP is sublime but this….
Well, it’s definitely of its time, but I’m very fond of it.
Joni Mitchell: ‘Tax Free’: clunky, tune-free rant against American right-wing religious fundamentalism. Shame, as I don’t mind ‘Dog Eat Dog’ generally (one of the better albums of her later works).
In the ‘blindingly obvious it doesn’t need to be written’ corner, REM’s ‘Shiny Happy People’.
Phantom by The Sisters Of Mercy
Quark, Strangeness And Charm, Back on the Streets, Kerb Crawler and everything on the Hawklords album by Hawkwind
502 by Megadeth
View From A Hill by The Chameleons
Phantom’s alright! Certainly better than either track on the first 7″, or some of the Floodland era b-side filler like Ozymandias.
Phantom splits even hardcore Sisters heads and Ozymandias is just
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGjoZQjFh3g
Still better than Phantom!
Quark, Strangeness And Charm
Are you mental?
(Totally agree on Megadeth’s abominable “502” though)
“Einstein was not a handsome fellow”
My case rests.
Seamus by Pink Floyd springs to mind!
I’d go for the whole Saucerful of Secrets album apart from Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.
Elvis Costello – Deep Dark Truthful mirror
Richard Thompson – Pyscho Street
I know what you mean about DDTM – clunky lyrics and tune, I never understood why he loves it so.
Never much cared for DDTM until I saw Elvis play it on the last spinning wheel tour, when it connected and was the first highlight of many that night.
Now, Richard Thompson. Let me say that I revere him above all other musical artists, but I could compile a whole album of duffers before I reached Psycho Street (and no, it isn’t very good). There’s the mawkish stuff which finds favour with a large part of the fan base (From Galway to Graceland gets a special commendation here); there are the ‘humorous’ songs which just come across as mean spirited (there is often one of these per gig, and I can’t bring myself to applaud Madonna’s Wedding or whatever), there’s the mystifyingly popular Persuasion (pretty enough tune, bland lyric from Tim Finn but oh that …. pause).
So, having established that over nearly 50 years he has accumulated a number of misses, what’s the nadir? I think it has to take into account his often misogynistic world view , or portrayal of misogynistic characters who don’t necessarily reflect his own opinions if we’re being generous, and award the laurels to Modern Woman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0qQS1vYkLQ
*whispers* I adore ‘Persuasion.
We have been here before haven’t we.
The Beatles – Revolution #9 – unmitigated, self indulgent tripe.
But I find the following track Goodnight incredibly soothing immediately afterwards if you actually subject yourself to the whole thing, like a hot bath after an assault course.
Absolutely Jayhawk – I think Good night is a wonderful song beautifully sung by Ringo.
IMHO it stands up by itself – it doesnt need that dreadful dirge before it to make it sound good, it manages that all by itself.
Kate Bush – “Big Stripey Lie”.
Personally I think the rerun of Rubberband Girl on Director’s Cut is even more of a disaster!
I’m currently mired in the ’80s in my Dylan odyssey, so there’s plenty to choose from, but I’ll go for this, surely a contender for Ugliest Song In The World:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjrJJgQsX9k
You have yet to get to ‘Wiggle Wiggle’ – keep your powder dry
I am so not tempted to click Play.
Oh I reckon Ugliest Girl in the World makes Wiggle Wiggle sound like Desolation Row. You’ve correctly identified the nadir @minibreakfast, and the good news is it’s all up from here. Although I’ll admit that in the case of Under the Red Sky the gradient is very slight indeed.
All The Tired Horses. Terrible turgid filler, not even trying to write a proper song.
Grateful Dead – Victim or the Crime
Quite embarrassingly poor.
I can forgive the Dead many things, but not that.
Oh, and ‘Picasso Moon’ is shite, as well.
And then, of course, there’s the song that all Deadheads love to hate: “Keep Your Day Job”.
Criticising the Dead is completely against my nature, but I must admit that this number is staggeringly bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iFhI1bGELQ
John Martyn – Sugar Lump (on Bless the Weather). No lumps please, phoned in blues.
Stiff Little Fingers – Closed Groove.
That is NOT the way to close an absolutely perfect, storming debut album
Death Rape 200 by Wiseblood (aka Jim ‘Foetus’ Thirlwell). It’s a seven-and-a-half minute loop of the last few seconds of Motorslug.
I know it’s a cover, but have you heard the version of Let’s Get Physical on RevCo’s Beers Steers & Queers CD? It’s the sound of someone hitting a snare and then a distorted voice screaming “PHYSICAL!” looped for fourteen minutes. Not Mr Jourgenson’s finest quarter hour.
That ‘someone’ is Chris Connolly, read his autobiography – Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible and Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock.
It explains a lot and is still my favourite ‘rock star’ anecdotes book.
I was just going to post that!
Two things, Revolution #9 is a brilliant piece and REM’s worst is a the unlistenable dirge that is Everybody Hurts. It almost makes me like Imagine.
Yes, I nearly went for ‘Everybody Hurts’ but I suspect I might like it again if I don’t hear it for about, oooooh, 10 years or so?
Suggesting EH is the worst REM track is bullshine, over exposed and for some over wrought but there is stuff on Around The Sun and Reveal that stinks worse than a million rotten eggs
EH helped me through a tough time yeah cliché but feck it) , wonderful vocal, sensitive sparse backing etc
Yep, it’s a wonderful song.
On reflection, I think ‘over-exposed’ is perhaps the problem but I don’t think that’s particularly the fault of the song or the band. And fair point about tracks on ‘Around the Sun’ and ‘Reveal’.
I do think it’s over-wrought but I can see how moving it can be/is (and was once for me).
*madly backpedaling* 🙂
keep digging, sister 🙂
Almost all of Automatic is overfamiliar because of how many singles they ripped from it but it’s still my favourite album of theirs
Ha!
Has anyone suggested an edit function?
I suspect there is a bit of snobbery going on, as the song was enthusiastically taken up by ‘civilians’. I mean snobbery on the part of other REM fans. Not me, no sirree.
Too late, Ruby. Tooooo laaaaaaaate…..
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/AZOnb
Whaaaaaat? Also… WHAAAAAT? You are deaf or having a laugh and I claim my £5.
Oh goody, the old ‘Revolution #9 is shite, no it’s not it’s brilliant, no it’s not its shite’ debate. Never tire of it. I’m with lp33 on this one by the way
White Album? Shite Album..
A title that’s now back in vogue…
Oops, that should be Death Rape 2000.
Shit, I totally missed that. Whoops!
I think I win, because here’s those popstrel scamps THE RADIOHEADS with their latest toetapper POP…IS…DEAD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuCY7ldETM8
Oh yes, I’m sure Thom wakes up screaming at night when he has nightmares about that video
I’d blotted that one out of my memory. If you’d have asked me, I’d say it wasn’t even on the debut album, but turns out that it is!
It wasn’t originally, but has appeared on deluxe versions.
Ah, ok… it’s a “penalty track”.
Genesis. Whodunnit.
Yes. Man In The Moon.
I’ll see your Man In The Moon and raise you Circus Of Heaven
Chinese Whispers by New Model Army (off the White Coats EP). Really not very good at all, but then I once knew an American guy who had got into them on the basis of that track and swore it was their best.
It’s been a Van love-in here so let’s redress the balance. Plenty to choose from, especially from his many dirges about how awful it is being a famous rock star being ripped off by the ‘music business scene’. I’ll go for Songwriter off Days Like This in which Van asserts that he is a songwriter, inviting the riposte from unbelievers that on the evidence of this song he isn’t a very good one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjmk86fhDww
Exceptionally good call. It was a funny era in the 90s, when suddenly everyone was calling everything “great songwriting”, rather than it being just a good record. Van wanted a piece of the action.
There’s another song on that record that features the words “take the piss” (I think Brian Kennedy repeats them, making it even worse).
John Fogerty’s quality control has generally been extremely high which does make the final Creedence album Mardi Gras seem like an act of deliberate sabotage. Allowing his colleague band members to write and sing their one songs resulted in the horror that is Stu Cook droning his way through Door to Door, about the pain of being, yes, you guessed it, a door to door salesman. Fogerty opening the album with his own song and the lyric ‘I’m looking for a reason to stay’ told you all you needed to know.
I am fascinated by the Mardi Gras story. Door To Door makes me think of Taxman, a non writing band member writes-about-what-he-knows and the first thing that comes to mind is his petty annoyance. In this century Cook/Harrison would be internet trolls.
Another thing: Don’t Pass Me By by Georgia Satellites is one of my favorite songs. When they covered this their story (not necessary true) was: we were uncertain about covering our heroes John and Paul, so we did Ringo. I think a Satellites-like boogie band could likewise make a decent cover from Stu Cook’s Sail Away.
The spiritual one has form on this. My nomination for worst Beatles track would be the particularly spiteful and mean-spirited ‘Piggies ‘
Ralph posted a very revealing interview with Fogerty on the recent CCR thread where John is extremely scathing about his bandmates’ efforts on the last album.
The Police – Every Breath You Take.
And no – it’s not over-exposure. I was a huge fan back then and I distinctly remember the day when they announced on the radio that they would play the new single from The Police, and THAT came on the radio.
I was appalled. Worst dirge I’ve ever heard (well, apart from artists who only does dirges), the melody, the clunky playing, the lyrics, his singing: it’s all awful all of of the time.
It’s the only Police song I haven’t ripped to my WMP library, even those awful Andy numbers are left in there, but not this one. Over my cold dead body.
TBH, my least favourite Beatles tune is probably In My Life, but I don’t think anyone’s going to agree with me on that one…it’s inexplicably well liked. Then again, I’m one of those insane people with a massive fondness for Revolution #9…
Nah, it’s their best song.
Revolution #9 is well done. It is successful for what it is. It can’t be their worst song. That would be Honey Pie or Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. Or even Rocky Racoon.
Rocky Raccoon does go on a bit
I mean Wild Honey Pie, it’s pretty short though. Within You Without You is a bit of a drag also.
Has the world gone mad? This many Beatles tracks mentioned and no shout-out for Mr Moonlight.
you guys are so lucky in your parallel universe. I wish the version of The Beatles in mine had also decided to scrap Ob La Di before recording it.
I’m with you, Locust. Every Breath You Take is awful, words, music, the whole thing – and I was a big fan too back in the day.
As always, you have excellent taste, @carolina! 🙂
Nick Drake -Man in a Shed. Nick trying to be light hearted.
Van der Graaf Generator – that Aerosol Grey Machine
Last ditch attempt at undergraduate humour – it’s not big, not clever…..
I bow to no man in my love for the mighty Slade, but this is dreadful.
Slade – The Hokey Cokey
Bet the Quo were gutted they didn’t think of recording that?
Calling Saucy n Chiz.
Maybe these boys.
Bloody hell, I bore myself sometimes
I like everything David Sylvian has done. Even the stuff I don’t like listening to I like anyway cos it’s always so bonkers and Sylvian. Except World Citizen, which I think is rubbish. Banal cliched crap lyrics offering a “War, war is stupid and people are stupid” level of insight.
There’s plenty to choose from with Depeche Mode. As with all risk taking, pioneering bands there are occasional lapses in judgement. Don’t click on this.
Wilco – ‘Less than You Think’. Jeff thought we might like to experience one of his migraines.
Thanks for reminding me Steerpike. When I first bought that album I listened to that track in its entirety (from memory about 18 minutes) thinking something was going to happen. It didn’t. For me it is wilful vandalism and spoils a great album. What was the point?
Willard Grant Conspiracy do something similar with Chinese New Year (New York) on their 3am Sunday@Fortune Otto’s album.
Prefab Sprout – Michael
Sounds like it was written and arranged in a mechanics pit using a discarded Oblique Strategies card with the words “Phone it in”.
The Dan are never bad, but everything being relative, this one eats Winalot.
http://youtu.be/7RuxkqOg_jQ
No way. Gaucho is flawless form start to finish. You gotta go with something from The Royal Scam or Pretzel Logic. Sign In Stranger or Charlie Freak are the ones for me.
I’ll beg to differ, although I agree on Gaucho.
Sign In Stranger is dark and mysterious about the mob and, maybe, obtaining a new identity. However, the piano part is the best feature, piano part only bettered by Fire In The Hole.
Charlie Freak is genuinely heartbreaking. Very unusually for a Dan track, the protagonist displays some emotion. By the end, he is ridden with guilt. The sleigh bells are a nice ironic touch.
If I had to choose my least favourite of theirs, I’d say Your Gold Teeth II. It sounds happy for god’s sake! Steely Dan can’t be happy. Mind you, I can’t be sure. The lyrics are the most opaque in their entire oeuvre. The rhythm, a kind of swinging bossa nova, makes me sea sick. I have to say, the guitar solo (Denny Diaz) is superb.
You gotta be kidding Charlie Freak is the business.
I love Glamour profession. Some of their later output pales in comparison to this.
The Who, then. “Miracle Cure” is dreadful but I don’t think it even counts as a song – it’s just exposition, really, which lets it off the hook. My vote goes to “Squeeze Box” which is one of those that probably seemed a great idea, and really funny, at the time. But it’s not.
Omigod but this is shit……
In fact, any football ditty by anyone will be their nadir, from New Order to Rod Stewart.
I love most things by The Smith but I’ve never really liked How Soon Is Now. However, Bobness, occasionally of this parish, can’t stand them but thinks it’s a great song.
I can’t much stand ‘Vicar in a Tutu’. I love everything else they have done but it’s too self-consciously quirky and ‘funny’. Nothing can spoil ‘The Queen is Dead’ for me but that comes close. I know it references all the usual 60s films and is a celebration of sexual liberation and blah blah blah but it just annoys me.
To be fair the last minute or so is great: the repeated ‘I am a living sign….’ to the sudden stop.
Meat is Murder, the track, would be my choice as their lowest point,
I agree with that. I find Meat is Murder unlistenable.
A bit controversial but I feel the same about Girlfriend In A Coma too
If you can get past the cow sounds, ‘Meat is Murder’ is OK. (I may be missing the point somewhat here.) I am a committed veggie though, so OOAA.
Yes I don’t much like ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’. I don’t know why. I have always had a sense that Morrissey can’t write about women and this is an example. (‘Pretty Girls make Graves’ being another.) To be fair, ‘This Night Has Opened My Eyes’ is interesting in a ‘L-Shaped Room’ /’Taste of Honey’ kind of way.
I feel I may need to do some more backpedaling at some stage.
How Soon is Now is a corker. An all time classic of all time.
Why anyone would listen to anything else by the Smiths is beyond me.
But this is the gist of a conversation that’s kept us going at the pub for a good few years now…
One mean’s meat is another man’s poison.
See the Oasis thread for further details.
We still need entries for
the Stones
The kinks
David Bowie
The clash
U2
Amongst many others
Anyone familiar with Bridges to Babylon?
The Stones – Sweet Neo Con
Bowie – a song about a gnome
Kinks – pretty much everything after 73
The Clash – all of Sandiista side 6
U2 – Sunday bloody Sunday
How about ALL of Cut The Crap except This Is England?
This Bowie number from ‘Absolute Beginners’ is a stinker.
Is it as bad as this?
I think “Modern Love” is the Dame’s nadir. It’s something Modern Romance/Howard Jones would have rejected.
Scratch that. I’ll tell you what Modern Love sounds like. It’s like the Dame was indoors one Saturday early evening in the early 80s and was watching Russ Abbot’s Madhouse and he saw one of the Vince Prince musical numbers and thought “That’s it!! That’s the sound I’ve been looking for”
I don’t think it’s his worst. It’s not great though. I recall his hairstyle went into decline at this time which makes me wonder if there is some correlation between bad hair and bad records for Bowie. In the video it looks rather as if he has had a blue rinse. When his hair improved again in the 90s so did the music. Perhaps this theory can be applied to other rock stars and their dips in quality?
Yes agree the ‘Serious Moonlight’ era saw Dave with the hair of a much older lady. And those pastel linen suits. Altogether not a good look, but worse was to come before any 90s upturn.
But Modern Love the track isn’t half as bad as either of those clunkers from Absolute Beginners. And Patsy Kensit’s contribution to the soundtrack is even by her standards awful.
Modern Love is a fantastic track!
Sorry taken me a while to point that out
I was all ready to blame Moose for reviving this thread – but no!
And this one from the Kinks is a dog. ‘She’s Bought A Hat Like Princess Marina’ from ‘Arthur’.
https://youtu.be/5DdlUJTycKo
‘Complicated’ by The Rolling Stones is, frankly, a bit of a drag…
https://youtu.be/pVRtpdHHMf8
How about “Goin’ Home” from Aftermath? At 11 minutes and 13 seconds it is at least 8 minutes too long…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-rQPJrmpsw
Actually I got the Clash. we’re a song down on our new triple Lp. I know lets get a kid who can’t sing to cover one of our classics;
Defy anyone to say they don’t find this excruciating
Down Home Town by ELO (from Face The Music). From an album that is roughly half and half sublime vs. rushed filler.
D’Yer Maker by the Led Zeppelins, anyone?
I’d say The Crunge is worse than D’Yer Maker. The funk really wasn’t their metier…
I don’t care too much for anything off In Through The Out Door either.
In Through the Out Door is unfairly maligned…..in general…..it does, however, contain their worst song by a country mile…..and the same song contains Page’s worst recorded solo….
Hot Dog!
Proof if you need it….
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BndMLWGQLRM
D’yer Maker I like. It’s a good tune. The Crunge is bad.
Oasis – Little James
One of the first Liam songs to make it to record. On this evidence, how bad were the ones he scribbled before this?
I’m sure there is well meaning sentiment in there, but it is a real duffer.
Listen (if you really want to)
The Jungle Line by Joni Mitchell.
And it’s on my favorite Joni Album. What a stinker!
I know people regard it as a pioneering, early World Music track or whatever. I don’t care. It’s bloody awful!
Re: The Jungle Line by Joni Mitchell
I used to dislike it, but it’s sort of grown on me over the years.
I find it helps if one considers it as a sort of pioneering, early World Music track.
A few;
James – I Wanna Go Home. Self indulgent tosh. Even worse live!
Elbow – Open Arms. Stop trying to rewrite that big hit!
The Fall – I’ve Been Duped. Yep
New Order – Jetstream. Awful
@mavis-diles Have you not heard the ELO stink-fest that is Beatles Forever? Maybe it doesn’t count because it remains unreleased and Jeff Lynne seems to deny the existence of it, but it’s baaaaaad…
Or try The Battle Of Marston Moor from the first album – such a stinker that Bev Bevan refused to play on it.
Not sure that qualifies as a mark of quality or otherwise.
The story of him refusing to play on it is in his own head, I suspect. It was already finished before he heard it. It’s a Roy Wood solo track that got stuck on the album (alongside Whisper in the Night and Look at Me Now).
I am (sadly) familiar with Beatles Forever, I can only assume he was trying to get out of his contract around that time. Some fans speak highly of it, but not me. I think Down Home Town is worse.
Beatles Forever was broken up and recycled into Jeff Lynne’s forgotton solo single “Video!”, a minor hit.
The Stones-Brand New Car. Stinks The Place Out
REM-The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight. Love them -but dear god….
Pink Floyd-The Dogs Of War. Clunky & Clumsy.
I’m not even sure it qualifies as a proper track, but I’ve always hated Mother’s Lament by Cream.
This type of drunken/stoned cod music hall spoof was all the rage in the wake of Sgt Pepper, so it must have seemed like a real hoot to the band when they decided to tack it on the end of the mighty Disraeli Gears.
In fact:
Oi! Clapton, Bruce and Baker! I admire your instrumental dexterity on your chosen instrument and your merging of heavy blues and psychedelic improvisation is second-to-none, but if you were to come round my house with your awful exaggerated cockney enunciation and wobbly pub piano, ruining one of my top 5 albums of all time, I’d have to say – Oi! Clapton, Bruce and Baker! NO!!! GET OUT!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yvxmAS7L48
Hey, that’s one of my childhood nursery rhymes you’re slagging off! (Another being Boris the Spider.)
Incidentally, my Mum recently gave me her copy of Disraeli Gears. Despite her and Dad no longer have anything to play them on , he’s grimly hanging onto his portion of the collection. I was surprised to learn that this was hers rather than Dad’s, and for about five seconds “Wow, my mum is even cooler than I thought!” went through my head, before she ruined it by saying, “Well I just had to buy it, it’s got such a pretty cover!”. FFS, mother.
Your mum sounds OK to me, especially if it was the original blue Reaction label pressing. That day-glo cover was a real thrill in late 1967.
In fact , along with Sgt Pepper and the Incredible String Band’s 5000 Spirits, it would have to be one of the best covers in a year of great covers.
It is on the blue Reaction label. They bought a lot of records from the naffy when my Dad was posted with the RAF in Berlin, in the late 60s/early 70s. It’s a modest collection, but it’s all killer no filler and I’ve got my beady eyes on it. 🙂
I love the design of the Reaction label – none more mod!
You know the entire Reaction output consisted of just:
3 LPs (2 x Cream + The Who – A Quick One)
1 EP (Ready Steady Who0
18 singles (most by Cream and The Who, but also a couple of real rarities – eg The Birds (featuring Ronnie Wood and credited to “Birds Birds”) and a Billy J. Kramer cover of an obscure Bee Gees song
Reaction was owned by Robert Stigwood of course and quickly turned into the much less interesting RSO records (Robert Stigwood Organisation)
…and as you may gather, Disraeli Gears is a big favourite of mine
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt351/mojoworking01/Gears021_zpsu273cvdi.jpg
Gary Numan – I Sing Rain, 1999 (yes, THAT 1999!) U Got The Look and most , of the Machine And Soul album
I’m trying to think of a bad Roxy Music track. The Numberer, maybe?
Clutching at straws there, Tiggs – and I’m not surprised. I can’t really think of one…
Tigs – you’ve been trying to think of a bad Roxy Music track for nine years. Nine. Years.