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Traditional companion thread. Universally Disliked Songs.

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One of the pleasures of being part of a rockular music forum is the breadth of musical taste on display. I am not sure if we will all reach a conclusion about a universally liked song; but can we all agree on a stinker?

I’d like to insert a couple of guidance notes:

1. Perhaps we should avoid the novelty songs like Mr Blobby? We know they’re shit. I’m more interested in knowing if we can unite behind the awfulness that is M People’s Sight for Sore Eyes, for example. Why? Enforced jollity. That’s why.

2. As we are at the dogs’ business end of the spectrum, we don’t have to post videos do we? If there’s too many in a thread, my phone can’t cope.

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Comments

  1. Other enforced jollity crimes are :
    Right by your Side – Eurythmics.
    Dance into the Light – Phil Collins.

    Before you think I’m just a grumpy old sod, I’m OK with upbeat songs. If it sounds like they’re really into it, you won’t hear any objections from me.

    In my “just say no” group:
    Darlin’ – Frankie Miller
    Rubber Bullets – 10CC
    Abracadabra – Steve Miller Band
    Send in the Clowns – Streisand, Marti Caine, Judy Collins

  3. Stevie Wonder – I Just Called to Say I Love You
    Chris de Burgh – Lady in Red

    The two above are safe bets I’d say. On a more personal slant…

    The Black Eyed Peas – Tonight’s Going to Be a Good Night
    Eric and the Vominos – Wonderful Tonight

  5. All Around My Hat is my nadir. As, at least nominally, a folkie, should I ever mention my love of the genre, there is always some utter plank who, in all seriousness, says, what, like Steeleye Span’s AAMH……

    • Same here. I like folk, and really like Steeleye, but AAMH is the one (below-par) song of theirs that is often wheeled out when the subject of folk comes up. Yes, it was The Hit, but they have produced many tracks that are far more interesting and more representative.

      Off the top of my head:

      When I Was on Horseback
      Thomas the Rhymer
      Sevwn Hundred Elves
      Long Lankin

        • Hard Times is OK, and certainly better than AAMH, but I prefer their more story-based songs where more things happen.

          I recall a review in Q that referred to British folk music as including lots of songs about, IIRC, “mariners, murders, maidens, and madness”. Those are the ones I really like.

    • When it was in the charts I was at afolk club seeing Peter Bellamy someone asked for “All Around my Hat”. He said he’d do it but may be influenced by other versions.
      “All Around my Hat TWANG”. I don’t think he was a fan either that’s the song not our very own Twang.
      Silly Wizard weren’t fans either likening them to Black Sabbath when they saw them at Glasgow Empire.

      • Hardly……The chugging guitars are Quo class, at best. Quo certainly thought so, subsequently covering it. The present day Steeleye now suggest they play it as a cover of the Status Quo cover. It is still shite.
        If you really want Folk sounding like Black Sabbath, catch The Magpie Arc, who do an olde folke song, Gil Brenton, that comes precious close, church bells and all, to Sabbath in their prime. Annoyingly, they also have a song, The Mantle, with guests, Maddy Prior and erstwhile Span producer, Ian Anderson, which is very AAMH, and disposable.

        • I think they were referring to the loudness of the Span. I did see a mention on YouTube of the Quo with M Prior singing AAMH I decided not to check it out now maybe I will*

          Yes I decided not to check the Magpie Arc one out as I’m not a fan of the flautist one**

          * probably not.

          ** apologies to those that are.

  6. It’s a nice enough song, lyrics are corny but ok. A father and daughter singing it – yuk!

    “The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars get red
    And, oh, the night’s so blue
    And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid
    Like, “I love you””

  7. Does anyone like Stickle Back?, utter bottom feeding trash. Pick any song, their tune “Superhero” (?) seemed to be programmed ad nauseaum on Radio 1 in the dim and distant past.

    Anyone like (N)ed She(e)rin?, I’ve never met anyone in real life who has a single good word to say about him. Again take your pick anything from the totally craptastic discography.

    I’d say Wonder’s Called to Say is more charmless / bland than offensive to the senses but I get why people find it irksome when Wonder has so many innovative, brilliant records in comparison.

    Presenting this one I do, kinda, give it a tepid like – but I understand it is *very* treacly, cloying and irritating (and its unexpurgated Songs in Da Key of Life LP version runs on and on) Isn’t She Lovlely.

    You get the feeling, like a disappointed parent on term report day, that there was “room for improvement”.

    • It’s not snobbishness on my part but can anyone explain the universal success of Ed Sheeran? He seems a good bloke (apart from supporting Ipswich), the songs are pleasantly bland, unmemorable but nothing to get excited or angry about. Yet he sells a zillion records, fills stadiums etc. Why?

        • I took an entirely irrational dislike to The Sheeran as soon as I saw him. There’s no logic to it at all – I just knew I wouldn’t like his music. I have heard nothing since to persuade me that I was wrong.

          By all accounts he’s a really nice bloke, and clearly he’s found an extremely profitable sound, but I can’t hear anything unique in his music or lyrics. I also don’t understand how he sells out stadiums when, based on the few clips I’ve seen, his act consists at least in part of him on a guitar plus a looping pedal. If I’m going to pay stadium-sized prices for gig tickets, I want Rammstein setting things on fire, the E Street Band, Pink Floyd with lasers and Spitfires (or lasers on Spitfires!), or Madonna going weirdly, magnificently OTT, not an unassuming bloke and a footpedal. Can his songs really be that good that his fans consider that a good night out?

          Still, I expect he lives in a house made of solid gold, so what do I know?

          • I don’t do earnest. Ed Sheeran is earnest. So is a lot of folk-rock, singer-songwriters, Americana, schlock “slowies” for tonsil hockey with some honey in polyester in the Pink Toothbrush, or “Nights In White Satin” (for similar tonsil-hockey slowies with a vision in cheesecloth at “headz”, the weekly greebo night at a 70s pub in the middle of town).

            I DISKARD IT ALL.

          • I also have no time for him musically but I think the hook for so many people is instantly hummable tunes and a “just one of us” persona.

            Likewise Lewis Capaldi – I love that he’s a pop star but I struggle to get through any of his songs.

      • I might be the only one on this forum but I will defend him. He is a likeable and talented live act. He’s no Paul Simon or Leonard Cohen, but he makes good use of the talent he has. Seems like a lovely bloke as well.

    • Ed Sheeran is a good thing. He can knock out a tune, can sing and seems to do very well live. I could probably list acts for the rest of the day that are worse.

      Galway Girl was shite though.

        • Not looking for acts that are worse than Ed Sheeran (last count, 2 million three hundred and eighty five), just a plausible explanation why he’s so huge. According to what I have listened to, he should have had three or four chart singles, an album that Mums bought in droves one Christmas for their daughters but is now running a carp lake empire in Suffolk and supporting a shit football team. Instead, he rules the world (fact check needed)

          • My brother has very extreme tastes in music. eg. Industrial Noise that literally sounds like heavy machines malfunctioning, was asked to be a steward at three nights of Ed Sheeran playing at a GAA stadium. To everyone’s surprise, he came away with a grudging respect for him as a performer. He commented that he could see why people liked him. That’s praise indeed from my brother.

            • I don’t think I’d choose to listen to Ed Sheeran recreationally, but when you hear his stuff it’s not particularly surprising he’s massive.

              I genuinely don’t mean this as a cuss, but he strikes me as the Paul McCartney of his generation: down to earth persona, bit cheesy, knows his way around a tune that will appeal across ages and demographics. Very much a melody guy.

              Sheeran has never written anything as good as the Frog Chorus though.

  9. Good call on Steve Milliband’s “Abracadabra” further up, I’d also nominate “All That She Wants” by Ace Of Base, or literally anything by Black Eyed Peas.

    My personal off-centre choice would be “Sweet Bird Of Truth” by The The… I have loved this record in the past, and love Matt Johnson’s work in general, but in this day and age I find the lyrics (the last thoughts of a US Air Force pilot being shot down over the Middle East) to be viscerally too difficult to listen to…

        • That was the charm and some editions were actually brilliant. And then the joy of records like The Model or Geno or Going Underground getting to no. 1

          • It was massively important. My perception was that the whole world knew about GU going straight in at Number One. Its success meant that we’ll get a socialist government imminently and nuclear disarmament would surely follow. Guaranteed.

    • I’ll defend it.

      It’s been tainted by its enormous success, but it is a very, very effective power ballad and it’s hard to listen to it without conjuring up happy images of Alan Rickman in his Sheriff of Nottingham get up.

      I’m not sure I would go so far as saying I love it, but I certainly don’t dislike it. Enough time has passed since its lengthy period of ubiquity that the pain has faded.

  12. I’d like to nominate I’ve Never Been To Me by Charlene.

    Sample lyric:

    I’ve been undressed by kings
    And I’ve seen some things that a woman ain’t s’posed to see
    I’ve been to paradise but I’ve never been to me…

    Enough said, I think.

      • @dai Not that I want to give the impression that I have pondered the lyrics of that song, but that interpretation had never occurred to me (a sheltered life, perhaps). The song had always given me the “ick”, but its ickiness has now been increased.

    • Craig Ferguson referenced this in a comedy routine 35 years ago.
      “ i’ve seen some things, that a woman ain’t s’posed to see”
      “Probably a king’s dick!”

    • That Charlene record is awful, but unfortunately I have a connection to it. It was only Number 1 for one week, and that was the same week I got married. I couldn’t have picked a worse song to be my wedding week Number 1 if I’d tried.

      The Number 1s either side of that awful record, were Goody Two Shoes, and Happy Talk. I’d at least preferred one of them.

      I had a double whammy that year as well, as on my 21st Birthday in March, the Number 1 was the just as awful Goombay Dance Band with the execrable Seven Tears.

      • @alan33 sounds like it could be a topic for a whole new thread, but just to reciprocate – No1 on my wedding day was East 17 with Stay Another Day. … not that I knew that before just looking it up.

        Oh, and on my 21st, it was I Know Him So Well by Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson.

          • Ha! So we’re Brothers in Arms then…Oops, that might be another one to consider for this thread.
            Bloody Charlene, not just a one hit wonder, but a dreadful one hit wonder, who rained on our parade. That summer of ’82 has a lot to answer for.

      • I also fail to understand the hatred. They’ve done some good songs, rock quite well in that mainstream, crowd-pleasing North American way, and don’t seem to take themselves over-seriously.

        Despite their supposed awfulness, they have sold a squillion records, so they must’ve done something right.

  16. The most interesting ones are those by an acknowledged major artist capable of greatness, when they come up with terrible songs, not at the tail end of their career when inspiration has gone, but in their imperial phase. Eg A Man Needs A Maid by Neil Young. Awful.

    • I think it’s OK. Not one of his best though. I guess people object to the sentiment. There are more questionable lyrics.

      Regarding the category, there’s Maxwell’s Silver Hammer for one from a band who weren’t always the best judges and tolerated some ropey choices.

        • That was in sarky response to the radio stations banning Give Ireland Back To The Irish.

          Why do people generally get Paul’s intentions wrong? It’s the same with We All Stand Together, which is invariably paraded as Exhibit 1 in the Paul Is Crap trials…when any fule kno that it’s a song aimed at children from a children’s animation?*

          *And notwithstanding, it’s an utterly charming song in its own right.

          Stop Press…see below. Amirite?

            • Yeah, I like We All Stand Together. I may be very wrong, but I’ve wondered if Mr. Bellamy from Memory Almost Full was another song from that project that snuck out. It has a similar tone.

              • And I’ve always liked Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. There are worse songs on Abbey Road. The one about ‘wanting her’ for instance which must surely be on a loop in Hell. Then there’s something about an Octopus.

                • If I may be allowed to develop this theme m’lud. My client has a well-publicized love for all things Music Hall as previously exemplified by such items as When I’m Sixty Four, Honey Pie and Martha My Dear. They may have been intended as well meaning pastiche initially but, members of the jury, you must ask yourselves if these songs succeeded in transcending this level of mere ‘tongue in cheek tribute’ and became, instead, rather fine examples of the melodic popular format with perfectly well chosen lyrics to match the relevant atmosphere of the overall works. Now, if we look at Maxwell’s Silver Hammer we can see this finely honed lyrical gift once again to the fore- “PC thirty one/says we’ve caught a dirty one” for instance. Or “Rose and Valerie/Screaming from the gallery.” Or how about the sheer comic tension of “writing out fifty times/ I must not be so oh oh oh.” So what? We may never know. The answer remains firmly locked in the mind of its creator. Now, some of you might argue that my client’s partner in the songwriting craft offered a starker and more, ahem, ‘real’ view of the world through his offerings and, of course, it is entirely up to you to consider if moaning about his mum, or complaining endlesslythat no one likes his new girlfriend, or blabbing on tunelessly about wanting to free a gentleman with a beard from Attica State prison constitutes a more nourishing alternative. The decision is entirely yours.

                  • May I also point out that “Paul’s Granny Music” (as his colleague called these songs) meant that Beatles music reached a wider age group, than they otherwise might, with all the associated publishing royalties from cover versions.

                  • One person’s clever lyrics set another person’s teeth on edge. I can’t be doing with all jaunty music hall nonsense and if you’re telling me Lennon did some awful stuff, we’ll I knew that and it doesn’t make McCartney’s misguided adventures any better. I have a lot of time for Martha My Dear though. I wouldn’t bundle that in with the others. Seems people bend over backwards to defend Macca – see how they run to get you.

          • Yup, and was a great 2 fingers response.
            “So my old writing partner can do politics, but not me. Have that …”
            Paul vs John – always tend to fall on Paul’s side – the joy that has come from his pen far outweighs the duffers.

          • Do children’s songs need to be schlock crap? Give children decent songs and they love ’em. Ask my sprogs who, in deference to their years, were raised on Louis Jordan and Prefab Sprout.

      • Oh I don’t mind Maxwells Silver Hammer – it’s a novelty song and not meant to be any more than that. If there is a Beatles track I’d put in the dock my personal bete noire would be Fool on the Hill – pretentious lyrics with high degrees of heviosity, a turgid melody – and that bloody flute…

    • I agree. I quite like The Eurythmics due to being blown away by Love is a Stranger., which was a non-hit when first released. So when I heard their new one(s) I tended to like them. Not Right by Your Side though.

      I’m going to leap to the defence of “Thete Must be an Angel…” that has been given a pummeling up there. I’ve always liked it and still do.

  17. Paul McCartney’s roll of shame:
    Frog Chorus
    Pipes of Peace
    Mull of Kintyre
    Ebony and Ivory
    The Girl Is Mine
    Wonderful Christmastime

    Cannot stand to hear any of these one time more.

    • Frog Chorus was a perfectly serviceable song for small children recorded forty two years ago. I can never understand the ire towards it from grown adults. It’s not like you ever hear it played on the radio either. Frog Chorus is not trying to be Paperback Writer. Yes, we’ve all seen that bit in Smashie & Nicey End Of An Era, before anyone posts the clip.

    • In his oral history of Wings, McCartney tells a story of how at the height of punk a group of skinheads pulled up next to him in a car and told him how much they loved Mull of Kintyre. An unlikely story that made me wonder if Macca realised they were taking the piss. I have avoided Mull of Kintyre for years, but had a recent listen and found myself thinking “hmm, that’s not a bad song after all”.

      Ebony and Ivory is still guilty of crimes against humanity though.

    • We all Stand Together (not Frog chorus) is magnificent. Pipes of Peace is a lovely song, Wonderful Christmastime is overplayed but fine. The Girl is Mine is more of a Michael Jackson song. If you have heard Mull of Kintyre live with the Toronto pipe band as I have it is stirring and emotional.

      McCartney’s worst for me are Freedom and Spies Like Us, maybe Give Ireland Back to the Irish as well.

  18. Angel Of The Morning. Along with a million other “big pop ballads”. Not my favourite genre.

    Curiously Angel was written by Chip Taylor who wrote the absolute pop classic Wild Thing.

    Not only that, the songs have the same chord progression.

    And a further fun fact pop pickers, Taylor’s brother is none other than actor Jon Voight

    • And how can she be ‘looking’ anyway?
      I suppose ‘Hello, is it me you’re using your other enhanced senses and hard-earned adaptive communication skills in the face of a fundamentally discriminatory social infrastructure to find?’ just didn’t scan well.

        • I’m not sure if Lionel had actually seen the bust of his head beforehand. If you look at the reveal scene, he looks a wee bit pissed off. “It looks nothing like me! Are you blind or som…oh yes: you actually are.”

          • I do wonder how she was able to make any likeness of him at all. Did someone describe him to her? (“He’s got a bit of a mullet”). Did she get a real artist to model a head that she could put her fingers over to get a sense of his dimensions? Maybe she had a male friend who looked like Lionel, and she could touch him up? Or maybe she crept into Lionel’s flat, slipped him some Mickey Finn, then explored his features while he slept it off?

            Most mysterious. I remember being an early teen with a painful crush on a girl in the 6th form, whose face and hair I adored – sort of a brunette Lady Di look. Having this song as a soundtrack just didn’t help at all, drippy youth that I was.

          • I do wonder about that video. He’s a teacher isn’t he? And she is a student. He’s just like that old man in that book by Nabakov!

            Aside from that particular seam of creepiness, the video director must have thought that the prospect of a pretty young student falling for Lionel was very slim – so they made her blind! How was Lionel with this?

  21. It’s got to be,ee, ee, ee, ee, etc perfect by Fairground Attraction. A song I despise. You may well ask me why? and that is, indeed a fair question. I am afraid I can give no rational answer but I hate it with a visceral passion.

  23. Zombie- I once heard it a funeral.
    Crocodile Rock- Lost a friendship after turning stereo off mid song.
    Hotel California- Just mentioning it starts that wheedling guitar solo in my head.

  26. Just add everything from the Universally Loved thread, for good measure. I like most things, really. It takes a lot of energy to dislike pop music. Unless it’s All Around My Hat by the talented but (to me) unlistenable Steeleye Span.

    • Interesting. It takes me no energy whatsoever to dislike certain songs…very often the reaction is strong and immediate, but in all cases it’s never something I have to work at.

  28. I liked and still like Dire Straits but detest Money for Nothing. Unadulterated shite.
    Sting – Fields of Gold – dreadful.
    Virginia Plain – not Roxy’s best moment.
    Rebel rebel – garbage.

    • See upthread. Sat on your todd, absolutely no reason to be listening to this. Stood in a pub with a bunch of your mates singing along – absolutely timeless tune delivering joy to millions.

  30. “Do Do Do,. De, Da, Da, Da” Sting should’ve offered 100% of the royalties to Andy & Stewart. They’d get the money, but be saddled with writing that clunker.

    • I think they would be very happy as long as they got the money as it seems to be the main concern of three elderly and no doubt already very wealthy people.

  32. A couple from Phil, plus a stinker from his mate Rod.
    Sussudio
    A Groovy Kind of Love
    Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?

    Also:-
    Cliff Richard- Millennium Prayer
    Elton John- Candle in the Wind 1997
    Michael Jackson- Earth Song
    Meatloaf- I’d Do Anything for Love
    Pretenders- Brass in Pocket

  33. Don’t know about ‘universally disliked’ but the songs I can’t stand are the ones that are everywhere, every day.

    I’m off to town tomorrow and the chances of me not hearing in a chazzer Mr. Blue Sky, Sweet Caroline or something I won’t really know other than it is from bleedin’ Rumours are 50/50. I’m fascinated by the idea that a significant percentage of the population are willing to hear the same fifty songs all the time. Check out the train wreck that constitutes the UK album chart c. 2020s.

    Never really even used to happen at Christmas. The first time I heard War Is Over was when Lennon died, and when Merry Xmas Everybody was reissued in about 1983, I’m not sure I’d actually heard it since 1973.

  38. Classic by Adrian Gurvitz reached number 8 in the UK charts. Surely nobody – including those who bought the song – could feel anything other than pity/shame about it? “Gonna write a b-side…gonna write it up in Teesside.”

  40. Wake me up before you go go

    The lyric doesn’t work and its nauseatingly cheerful. Jitterbug. Fuck off

    Overly cheerful music makes me very angry.

  42. For the record, I like all of the following so they are no longer contenders:

    A Groovy Kind of Love
    All Around My Hat
    All That She Wants
    Candle in the Wind 1997
    Chasing Cars
    Crocodile Rock
    Dance into the Light
    Everything I Do I Do It for You
    Fields of Gold
    Fly Away
    Grace Kelly
    Hotel California
    I Just Called to Say I Love You
    I Wanna Know What Love Is
    I’d Do Anything for Love
    Imagine
    Lady in Red
    Mmm Mmm Mmm
    Money for Nothing
    Mull of Kintyre
    Mr Blobby
    Ocean Drive
    Perfect
    Purple Rain
    Right by Your Side
    Send in the Clowns
    Sight for Sore Eyes
    Sussudio
    There Must Be an Angel
    Wake Me Up Before You Go Go
    What’s Going On?
    Wonderful Tonight
    Zombie

    What can I say? Little room for hate in my life. 🙂

  43. That’s a very useful veto list. Makes us think more about what actually is a universally disliked song on this forum and not resort to the usual suspects. So here’s some more. Will anyone at all speak up for these?

    I believe I can fly
    Wind beneath my wings
    Margarita Time

  44. On the Word In Your Ear podcast about a new John Peel book, David Cavanagh’s co-writer) can’t recall his name) opined that there’s no such thing as bad music, there’s just music that some people don’t want to listen to. That struck me as a reasonable attitude, as it has helped when trying to reconcile whether it’s the song, the artist or the recording that gets up people’s nose.

    For example, All Kinds Of Everything by Dana is beyond naff.

    All Kinds of Everything by Terry Hall and Sinead O’Connor is wonderful.

  45. The worst song ever recorded (and strangely a hit all over Europe) IMO is the awful “Words” by F.R. David. It goes from embarrassing to pathetic when the weedy “rock-out guitar solo” makes an entrance… Yikes!

  46. Passenger and ‘Let Her Go’

    One of those turgid, banal stiff as a board chord progressions you learn in your first month on a guitar that goes on and on fucking on with lyrics rhyming the ‘o’ sound.

    Fuck off-o

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