OK, it’s Just Getting Worse. (Part I)

A couple of days ago, I started the countdown of AOL’s 100 Worst Songs Ever.

Some quick responses came, and of course there was Nick’s live-blogging the event in my comments section. But it was Yellojkt’s comment about not being aware of some of the songs that struck me. The AOL site has a link to each song in the list, so if it’s not familiar, I can just click and listen to the badness. Through this method, I’ve learned that I do know most of these songs; perhaps I’ve succesfully blotted them from my memory.

So with that, let’s resume the count with Number 50.

50. “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”, The Proclaimers. Some songs are woulda-coulda-shoulda, when a decent single is resurrected by some deejay and it becomes more famous on that second go-round than it was when it was first released. This is more like Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”, where a song that’s several years old suddenly becomes hot because it appeared in a movie. At any rate, this one I can take or leave, depending on my mood that day. If I put it on the list, it would appear at a lower position for that reason.

49. “The Bad Touch”, The Bloodhound Gang. I agree with AOL on this one; the Discovery Channel thing was pretty clever.

48. “(You’re) Having My Baby”, Paul Anka. Yeah, this was treacle then and it’s treacle now. I’ll give Anka points for sneaking the veiled reference to abortion through, though.

47. “C’mon and Ride It (The Train)”, Quad City DJs. In the last post, I noted that a bunch of songs have the word “Song” in the title, as though we would be unclear on that point. You’ll also notice that many songs on this list have some portion of the title in parentheses, as though further explanation is needed. We’re up to nine of the bracketed songs. Just saying.

46. “I Touch Myself”, The Divinyls. I kind of like this one; I wouldn’t have listed it. I’ll say this, though: I’ve seen recent pictures of The Divinyls, and while I’m not ordinarily a sexist, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say this chick really can’t carry off the sex kitten routine anymore.

45. “We Like to Party”, Vengaboys. The only good thing that came out of this song was that creepy Uncle Junior-looking guy in the Six Flags commercials.

44. “Laffy Taffy”, D4L. What’s cool about this song is that there’s actually some dispute brewing over who wrote it. And it’s not a couple of people blaming each other; they’re actually both claiming credit.

43. “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back), Backstreet Boys. (Ten.) This song kind of reminds me of the story behind Todd Rundgren’s “I Saw the Light”: he banged out the song in a matter of minutes by stringing together a bunch of clichés. The lyrics to this song have that same sort of thrown-together feel.

42. “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, Billy Joel. This is the song that ended the 16-year cycle of pop culture lists broken up by a chorus. It started in 1958 with “Follow the Rock” by the Bay Bops, then came “Life is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)” by Reunion in 1974.  Billy Joel’s song appeared in 1990. Fortunately, nothing like this happened in 2006. Here’s an interesting note: I was in the audience for the video’s World Premiere. Take that, bitches.

41. “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”, Eiffel 65. (Eleven.) This is one of the songs I had to play to jog my memory. Four seconds in, I said, “Oh, FECK!” and stopped playback.

40. “Sometimes When We Touch”, Dan Hill. Overwrought, “I’m so conflicted” nonsense. More clichés strung together. And here’s one of those times when I do a little research and the result is “yeah, that figures”: one of the writers (and there are THREE) is Barry Manilow.

39. “Physical”, Olivia Newton-John. This is one of those songs that was so ubiquitous when it was on the charts that I got sick of it in short order. So I have no problem with this one being here.

38. “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”, Meat Loaf. (Twelve.)The best thing about this oddball mashup of musical styles (is it rock? Is it opera?) is that it generated this:

37. “I Love Rock and Roll”, Britney Spears. Some songs aren’t meant to be covered. This is definitely one of them, unless you’re Joe Piscopo breaking out the Sinatra impression. And speaking of which, why the hell isn’t Madonna’s “American Pie” on this list??

36. “Party All The Time”, Eddie Murphy. Here’s a true story: back when Eddie was just starting to hit the big time, he had a girlfriend named Lisa. Lisa and I lived close to one another because we were classmates at Adelphi University. It would be a bit much to say we were friends, but we knew each other. Not that she’d remember me or anything. She was a very pretty, really sweet and smart girl. It wasn’t long after his star began rising that he dumped her unceremoniously. Even then, three or four years before this bit of nonsense came out, Eddie Murphy was buying into his own hype. I like to think that stuff like The Adventures of Pluto Nash, The Haunted Mansion and Imagine That is an example of karma coming around to bite you in the ass for things like breaking Lisa’s heart and “Party All The Time”.

35. “Tubthumping”, Chumbawamba. Did you know that there are at least nine different mixes of this song out there? You’ve got your original mix, the album mix, the “Danny Boy” mix, the MAWR mix…screw it. I was going to defend this song but the hell with it.

34. “Jump, Jump”, Kris Kross. Meh, I kind of like this one. I’d give it a pass. There are certainly bigger musical crimes than this one.

33. “Informer”, Snow. I didn’t know this one, so I played the audio clip on AOL’s site. I really, really liked the opening segment of this song. And then it turned into pretty typical crap.

32. “The Loco-Motion”, Kylie Minogue. This is another one of those “Last in the Cycle” songs (cf. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” above). There was a “Loco-Motion” that made the Top 40 charts in the 1960s (Little Eva), the 70s (Grand Funk), and then the 80s (Kylie). LaToya Jackson recorded it in 1992 and if it had charted, it would have continued a pretty cool chain, I think. Each one pretty much reflects its time and I give this one a pass, too. Incidentally, the song that knocked Grand Funk’s version out of the #1 spot? “The Streak” by Ray Stevens.

31. “Mmm mmm mmm mmm”, Crash Test Dummies. In his book All The Trouble in the World, P.J. O’Rourke writes: "Even the bad things are better than they used to be. Bad music, for instance, has gotten much briefer. Wagner's Ring Cycle takes four days to perform while ‘Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm’ by the Crash Test Dummies lasts little more than three minutes."

OK, that’s all I can take for now. The Top 30 will be out in another couple of days.

I’m going to follow this series of posts with a short list of my own. If you have suggestions, by all means send me a note (don’t put it in the comments). You can email me at claudecall(at)hotmail(dot)com.

Comments

[yellojkt]

It is getting worse. These are some truly awful songs. But if 'Gloria' by Laura Branigan isn't in the top ten, they've got it all wrong.

[Michelle]

Not sure where you got your information about the song "Sometimes When We Touch", but there were only two writers listed on my old 45 and neither of them were Barry Manilow.
The song was written by Dan Hill and Barry Mann (not Manilow... not the same person).
Barry Mann has written/co-written countless hits, but only had one as a recording artist, "Who Put The Bomp" in 1961.

[Claude]

Yello: It's on MY list, but not on AOL's. Not to be a spoiler (for a list that's, you know, freely available), but they kind of punk out on some of the top 10.

Michelle: I'm going to stand by this one for the time being; it appears in far too many places. Manilow did record the song in 1996 and this is the thing that makes it a little murkier. But I've seen the writing credit as Dan Hill, Barry Mann (as you note), and Manilow. I'm going to keep digging, though. Thanks for your note.

[Nick Koliarakis]

More comments...

“I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”, The Proclaimers - I actually never knew about this song since I had stopped listening to the radio full time right before this song came out. But this would mots definitely NOT be on my list.

“(You’re) Having My Baby”, Paul Anka - This would be in my Top Three All Time Worst songs. I agree it's VERY treacly! What line makes the reference to abortion? I never knew it had that reference. Also, look for an EXTREMELY OUTRAGEOUS act from the original Gong Show that used this song. I won't even describe it here - so outrageous it is!

“I Touch Myself”, The Divinyls - I always liked this, its not so subtle reference to autoeroticism notwithstanding. Somehow the song made me forget that, just like the lush arrangements and quality vocals on "Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band can make one forget what THAT song is about!

“We Didn’t Start the Fire”, Billy Joel - I don't know how this made any Worst Song list. That's great that you saw the World Premiere of the video in person. I can't make that claim for any music video! Having said that, some BJ videos can be a bit weird (this one is like that towards the end). But none can match "She's Right On Time" from the "Nylon Curtain" LP in terms of weirdness. Other BJ videos like "Tell Her About It", "Allentown", "Keeping The Faith", are okay, however.

“Sometimes When We Touch”, Dan Hill - A song I can listen to and, in fact, don't mind listening to. But it definitely lays it on thick in terms of the sensitivity. I think that Hill did better in his duet with Vonda Shepard (sp?). IIRC, his son had run with street gangs in Toronto and Hill was directly affected by this in some way. IIRC, I read this on Wikipedia. Will research further.

“Physical”, Olivia Newton-John - I remember that I could not get away from this song during the Fall of 1981. It was EVERYWHERE! I see that the song has its hooks and all, but I didn't like the way they dressed up Olivia in the leotards to veil the song's suggestiveness. The song is NOT about exercise!!!

“I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”, Meat Loaf - The comeback single for someone who really could, and should, have had a more illustrious career. "Bat Out Of Hell" always will have a place in my music collection as one of the biggest Tour de Forces of the rock era.

“I Love Rock and Roll”, Britney Spears - Never heard this. Is this supposed to be a re-make of the Joan Jett song? Jett herself was the Queen of Remakes - Linda Ronstadt notwithstanding.

"Party All The Time”, Eddie Murphy - One of my more favorite songs during my Adelphi years. I used to re-hash it and sing "Why Do I talk dirty all the time, dirty all the time, dirty all the time?" in reference to EM's gratuitous use of profane language. I did indeed know that he had a girlfriend who was @ Adelphi when you and I were there. She was a bio major, in fact. I didn't know you knew her!

“Tubthumping”, Chumbawamba - No problem with this one. Any group that does an official World Cup soccer song (for England in 1998) is okay with me!

“Jump, Jump”, Kris Kross - I agree with you in giving it a pass. This is not a "Worst List" song in my book.

“The Loco-Motion”, Kylie Minogue - Only saw/heard this version of the song a couple of times. I was not impressed with the fact that it was being re-done the way it was.

“Mmm mmm mmm mmm”, Crash Test Dummies - I'm actually more familiar with "Weird Al" Yankovic's parody of this song called "Nightly News". Check it out sometime!

[Nick Koliarakis]

BTW, looked up those Anka lyrics. I do give him credit for singing that! But the song is still hard to take in a treacly kind of way.

[Claude]

For those who didn't look it up, the abortion line is "You could have swept it from your life but you wouldn't do it". Remember that this was only about a year after Roe v. Wade. Also, there were two episodes of the Gong Show notable for the song. One was a pair of boys dressed as a vagina and an umbilical cord singing the song; the other was an entire show of acts singing that song.

And yes, the Britney Spears song is a cover of Joan Jett.

[Nick Koliarakis]

Yes - the first of the two Gong Show references you made was the act I was referring to (and didn't want to mention). The act called themselves "The Embryo Twins".

As far as the lyrics - I never really paid attention. But again, credit to Mr. Anka and whoever else was responsible.

Again, I never heard the Spears version. But I am guessing I would like JJ's better.