Don't forget the songs that made you cry

[j4]

Worst songs list, snarfed from bopeepsheep.


1. We Built This City ... Starship

Hey, I like this track. I don't think I do own it, but that's an oversight.

After this unpromising start, I find that I don't actually own many of these at all:

2. Achy Breaky Heart ... Billy Ray Cyrus
3. Everybody Have Fun Tonight ... Wang Chung
4. Rollin' ... Limp Bizkit
5. Ice Ice Baby ... Vanilla Ice
6. The Heart of Rock & Roll ... Huey Lewis and the News
7. Don't Worry, Be Happy ... Bobby McFerrin
8. Party All the Time ... Eddie Murphy
9. American Life ... Madonna
10. Ebony and Ivory ... Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
11. Invisible ... Clay Aiken
12. Kokomo ... The Beach Boys
13. Illegal Alien ... Genesis
14. From a Distance ... Bette Midler

Oh, okay. I taped the Greatest Hits of Bette Midler from a CD at the library, because I wanted a copy of "The Wind Beneath my Wings".

15. I'll Be There for You ... The Rembrandts
16. What's Up? ... 4 Non Blondes

Um, my dad taped Bigger, Better, Faster, More (the album) from a library CD. I listened to it once. Does this count?

17. Pumps and a Bump ... Hammer
18. You're the Inspiration ... Chicago
19. Broken Wings ... Mr. Mister
20. Dancing on the Ceiling ... Lionel Richie
21. Two Princes ... Spin Doctors

"Little Miss Can't-Be-Wrong" and "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" were much better versions of the Spin Doctors' only hit.

22. Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)
23. Sunglasses at Night ... Corey Hart
24. Superman ... Five for Fighting
25. I'll Be Missing You ... Puff Daddy
26. The End ... The Doors
27. The Final Countdown ... Europe

I bought this. On 7" single. About four years ago. I like it!

28. Your Body Is a Wonderland ... John Mayer
29. Breakfast at Tiffany's ... Deep Blue Something

Um, I got my sister to include this on a compilation that she did for me of selections from Now n (27? 28?).

30. Greatest Love of All ... Whitney Houston
31. Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm ... Crash Test Dummies

See 29.

32. Will 2K ... Will Smith
33. Barbie Girl ... Aqua

No, but I love this track. It's great.

34. Longer ... Dan Fogelberg
35. Shiny Happy People ... R.E.M.
36. Make Em Say Uhh! ... Master P featuring Silkk, Fiend, Mia-X and Mystikal
37. Rico Suave ... Gerardo
38. Cotton Eyed Joe ... Rednex
39. She Bangs ... Ricky Martin (NOT William Hung)
40. I Wanna Sex You Up ... Color Me Badd
41. We Didn't Start the Fire ... Billy Joel
42. The Sounds of Silence ... Simon & Garfunkel

Yes! The whole album! (Pedant points to bopeepsheep for spotting the single/album singular/plural thing.) I love it. It's one of my all-time favourite albums. Somebody tell me why this is in the "worst songs ever" list?

43. Follow Me ... Uncle Kracker
44. I'll Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) - Meatloaf

I think this is on one of those godawful "Greatest Whatever in the world ever" albums I got cheap somewhere. Maybe.

45. Mesmerize ... Ja Rule featuring Ashanti
46. Hangin' Tough ... New Kids on the Block
47. The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You ... Bryan Adams
48. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da ... The Beatles

Only accidentally, because I've got all the Beatles' albums on vinyl.

49. I'm Too Sexy ... Right Said Fred

Aw, come on. I think I have this on tape somewhere, but it was, y'know, a product of its times. And our youth club sang it on karaoke once.

50. My Heart Will Go On

I, um. I bought a pirate copy of a Celine Dion album just for this song. And I bought the piano music for it. Clearly I have no taste.


This isn't the worst songs ever, though, by any means: where's "Carry My Urn to Ukraine"?

Comments

[simont]

Somebody tell me why this is in the "worst songs ever" list?

duranorak linked to this list a few weeks ago, in a form that gave some explanatory text about each entry: http://www.blender.com/articles/article_786.html

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

fwiw, I used to be rather fond of "The Final Countdown", and I still like both "The Sound of Silence" and "I Would Do Anything For Love".

I hate "Breakfast at Tiffany's" with a passion, it earworms me vilely, and I want to know why "Tubthumping"'s not on this list. I can sympathise with "Ice Ice Baby" being there, too.

My stalker once got me, as a birthday present, a tape of dance remixes of "My Heart Will Go On". I have found it most useful as background music for writing scenes of considerable discomfort.

I am not being earwormed by any of the above, because I have a strong one already present; I am not 100% sure of the name of the tune, it's a nice waily jazz clarinet piece, I think it may be "Blues to Strip By" [ though I am not sure of that last preposition, it could be "to" ] which could be mildly embarrassing if it were to come out and anyone were to recognise it. That and the electronica versions of the Glorious Ninth from A Clockwork Orange which we saw Friday night, which I really must post about.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

We were amazed that we didn't hear Europe's 'The Final Countdown' just before the fireworks in Prague on 1 May. Was it all over UK television?

I own only one of the 50 songs, but that's because I'm no fun.

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Barbie Girl is on my "Songs To Code To" list. Sometimes I just need something to keep the non-coding bits of my brain occupied while the coding bits get on with the job. Actually, I'm Too Sexy makes that list as well, come to think of it.

[nja.livejournal.com]

Of the ones I've even heard, these are defensible:

• Bobby McFerrin - I can admire the technique but not the results.


• The Doors - I own this. Loved the Doors as a teenager but even at seventeen I could tell that this (and When the Music's Over, their attempt to do the same thing on the second album) were the result of a not-very-bright man trying to do something well beyond his reach.


• REM - I own this too. They tried all sorts of things on Out of Time, even if you don't like the results at least they were having a go at something different (I prefer mumbly obscure REM).


• Rednex - I don't own this, but I do have a compilation of Western Swing which includes a version from the thirties or forties. It's dreadful too.


• Simon and Garfunkel - Classic, and far better than Dylan's po-faced folkie period.


• Beatles - see REM. Loved it as a child, and there are worse things on the White Album. Most of them written by John "allegedly better than Paul" Lennon. Julia, for example.

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Dylan's po-faced folkie period

Dylan wasn't po-faced; the critics were, though.
See the
Bootleg Series 6: Live 1964 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000AZKGM/026-9218784-8088428).

[nja.livejournal.com]

There's plenty of po-faced Dylan before he turned into Judas (exhibit A: The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll; exhibit B: Percy's Song [remarkably even more tedious than TLDOHC]; exhibit C: Masters of War [War is BAD, mkay?]). There's evidence on the first Bootleg volume that he grew out of the finger-pointing stuff fairly quickly, but he could be incredibly humourless in the early days.

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Po-faced or opportunistically playing to his po-faced audience?
I know where my money is.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Surely no song with "Ukraine" in the title could be a bad song? It's the greatest nation in the world!

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Surely that's Latvia?

Or Kenya. Forget Norway, etc.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

According to Toyota, it's Canada.

The Toyota ads that say this are the kind of thing that would make sense as "come to Canada" ads if one were playing them in Swansea or China or Saudi Arabia. Playing them in Canada really seems to be missing something vital.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

In Prague, for the European unity celebrations, there were 25 little tents containing representatives of the 24 extra nations and the European Parliament.

Most of them were handing out tourist literature. Latvia had a glossily-produced brochure "Latvia: a land, a nation, a state" explaining in minute historical detail why Latvia was a real nation and not some random bureaucratically-carved-out lump of homogeneous Balticness; its stall had large posters covered with closely-printed text about foreign direct investment. Sweden had large adverts for Gripen fighter planes; the European Parliament handed out bandes dessinees, in Czech, about a heroic MEP's fight against water pollution; and nobody could get near the Cypriot stall because it was the only one that handed out plastic bags to put all the tschotkes in.

The lady minding the UK stall (filled with Walker's shortbread and Scotch whiskey) was wearing a Keep The Pound T-shirt.

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

“Whisky” dammit. :-)

Glad to see the Moray economy being promoted in a far-away country of which we know increasing amounts. Must join the crowds going there myself at some point.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Actually, "Carry My Urn to Ukraine" is a fantastic song. I only mentioned it because it was, briefly, Top of the Flops (http://www.scbd.connectfree.co.uk/flops/index.html).