Like herpes, bad pop songs are the gift that keeps on giving. Here are a few that drive me up the wall.
I made the mistake of testing out my resolve when I decided to listen to a Songza.com “100 Worst Songs of All Time” playlist, which is based upon the AOL Radio blog’s list. Technically, there were only 96 songs on this 100 song list. Some of the songs on this list are ones I would consider cheesy, like Warrant’s Cherry Pie or The Divinyls’ I Touch Myself, but not worthy of the label “worst of all time”.
There were some really putrid and atrocious songs on that list. Here are a few of them.
Sometimes When We Touch
Sessions presents…The Wussiest Man in America
There is such a thing as being too sensitive. Seriously, dude, if being touched by a woman upsets you that much, you might want to consider becoming a monk.
I Am Woman
I wasn’t going to put this one on a playlist from hell because I consider this song a piece of musical cheese more than an aural abomination. Then I remembered that this anthem for women’s liberation and message of female empowerment was also used in a tampon commercial. Plus the line “I’m still an embryo/with a long, long way to go” is pretty bad.
Britney Spears’ version of I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Thanks for laying a biggest, fattest, foulest smelling turd in the history of poop all over my ‘tween years, bitch. I hope that karma pays you a visit when the manufactured pop twit of the moment decides to drop a deuce all over your youth.
Popozão
This is why hangers-on, spouses and/or Z-list celebrities should never make records. Ever.
Hollaback Girl
We get it, Gwen. You can say the word “shit”. Now stop.
Jenny from the Block
Nothing says you’re still grounded and down to earth like a song whose lyrics consist of you rubbing your success and newly acquired material possessions into everyone’s face.
You Light Up My Life
This was one of the most popular songs of the 1970s and a prime example of the schmaltzy type of counter programming to disco and arena rock. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’s not singing about a boyfriend. Debby Boone is singing about God. What makes this song even worse is that it’s now used to hawk plastic surgery. (“Give yourself the gift of a Lifestyle Lift”).
If this song was about God, isn’t using it to help sell something that is technically tampering in God’s domain a sacrilege?
Some Girls (Dance with Women)
This is the skeeviest song I have ever heard. It sounds like it’s sung by a socially-inept, mouth-breather who lives in his parents’ basement and the closest he’s ever gotten to a threesome is a date with a blow-up doll and a broom handle.
Achy Breaky Heart
This song gives me flashbacks to a time when country line dancing went mainstream and people would show up at wedding receptions in “western” gear and country line dance to every. frickin’. song. I was at one wedding reception and I swear this swarm of country line dancers just showed up to dance and not because they knew the bride or groom. They didn’t interact with anyone and the only time they stopped was either to pee or when the DJ or band leader kicked them off the dance floor for the grand march and related festivities. A part of my soul died the day I saw these people country line dancing to AC/DC. I have never recovered from the trauma.
Cotton Eye Joe
There’s nothing so wonderful as you going to eat at Texas Roadhouse, then having to be somewhere after, so you need your server to bring you your bill, but they can’t because they and all the other servers are too busy dancing to this piece of shit song to do their job.
That’s my one pet peeve about Texas Roadhouse in general.
My Humps
If this song was intended to get people aroused, hot and bothered or horny, it has the opposite effect on me. It’s sad when referring to your boobs or ass as “lady lumps” make every cheesy, flowery and purple prose-type euphemism ever used in romance novels to describe female body parts sound epic and profound.
Liquid Dreams
You know, the world just doesn’t seem to have enough songs about nocturnal emissions.
Honorable Mentions
My dislike of these songs is well documented on this very website. Some of these appeared on AOL’s list, some did not.
Escape (The Pina Colada Song)- The Plot: (yes, this song has a plot) Two twits are bored with each other, so they independently decide to cheat on each other by placing personal ads and arranging a date. Then it is revealed that not only are they each others mystery date, but somehow they’re okay with the fact that each of them tried to cheat on each other. Next time try couples’ therapy.
Afternoon Delight-I know that people who aren’t old enough to remember when this was originally released think this song is cool because of the movie Anchorman, but it’s still a bad song. It’s the whitest, blandest, most un-sexy ode to the nooner ever.
The Macerena-What is there not to hate about this song?
(You’re) Having My Baby-Most people agree that this is a pretty hideous song. When I think of my own pregnancy, my first thought is of the horrendous morning sickness I experienced. So when I hear lyrics like “I’m (you’re) a woman in live and I love what’s going through me (you)”, I think that these people are freaks if they enjoy the constant nausea and vomiting. On top of that, this song also contains a reference to abortion, which is pretty tasteless, regardless of what side of the argument you happen to fall.
Chevy Van-This song did not appear on AOL’s list of 100 worst songs ever, but it should have. A majority of the list are songs from about 1995-2009 and this one is from the mid 1970s. This is one of the skeeviest songs ever because the singer looks like he belongs on the sex offender registry and he’s singing about picking up underage girls in his van.
Anything by Nickelback-I suppose I could pick one song, but my hatred for Nickelback is as wide as it is deep. I hate, hate, HATE Chad Kroger’s voice, which has the timbre and pitch of someone who gargled battery acid and thumbtacks at the same time and it irritates me the same way that fingers scratching down a chalkboard does to most people of a certain age. (Look it up on You Tube, kids.) I guess if I had to pick out one song by them that epitomizes everything I can’t stand about Nickelback, it would be Rockstar, their sad and pathetic version of the song Cover of the Rolling Stone. Instead of being somewhat humorous and cynical, Nickelback’s song makes them sound whiny and even douchier than they already are.
Are there songs that you think should have been on this list? Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments.
Linking up with Yeah Write’s weekend grid-The Moonshine Grid.
Whew! I’m not guilty of liking any of those! I think I’ll avoid listening to that those 100 worst songs.
Sometimes, I’m a masochist,which is why I listen to this. I was surprised, though, that this list had songs that I wouldn’t consider to be the worst of all time, but rather some good old fashioned musical cheese. I suppose it’s a matter of perspective. If a song makes me feel grossed out, disturbed, or stabby, it goes on my personal worst list.
Well, there were 18 reasons why I don’t listen to pop music. Thanks for the firm – and hilarious – reminder!
You’re welcome.
Yes! Fergie and her humps her humps her lovely lady lumps. Good. GOD. How is it that no one was like, “Um… as a representative of the music industry and a lover of not-crap I’m gonna go ahead and say ‘no’ and add a ‘WTF were you thinking?’” Though said music industry has spawned Nickelback so maybe that was too much to hope for.
The same music industry gave the okay to that song about wet dreams, too. *sigh*
I agree. For the ones I knew, they’re pretty awful. I graduated high school in the 80s and was tortured enough in my youth. I remember liking Escape when it came out though, but I was always struck, too, that they weren’t made at each other for trying to cheat, lol.
I also graduated from high school in the 80s, and there were some pretty bad ones from then, too. Most of them didn’t make this list.
Omg! When I woke up this morning I had — wait for it — Sometimes When We Touch going through my head. No idea why. And now, here I am, having just read that it’s on a 100 Worst Songs list. How am I not surprised?
Not sure what it says about me that I only recognize 3 of those songs. Light up My Life is an annoying song but I have fond memories of singing it and making up dramatic hand motions to go with it as a kid.
LOL! My “fond memory” song from when I was a kid is “I Got the Music In Me.”
That was a good list. The one that sprang to my mind not on your list was “You’re Beautiful” that guy wailing on about seeing the girl on the subway. ARGHHHH. Made me crazy.
Bahaha–good choices. There are just so many bad songs, it’s hard to whittle them down.
This made me laugh. A lot of these songs don’t bother me because they weren’t intended to be serious in the first place. I detest pretentiousness and snobbery, so the music I don’t like tends to be “indie” stuff where the artist is being all “deep” and “edgy,” which us proles couldn’t be expected to understand. WHATEVER.
Jenny from the block always irritated me for the reasons you mentioned. It’s not like this is a woman who has remained down to earth, so the song suggests a lack of self-awareness that’s disturbing. And I don’t like Katy Perry because the timbre of her voice makes my ears bleed.
Sometimes When We Touch makes me cry every time I hear it. And not for bad reasons. I think about a third of these songs (mostly the older ones) are just lovely. That said, I’m a huge cheeseball.
I’m working on a list of “bad” songs that I kind of like.
I’ve thought and thought and I still can’t figure out how Nickelback is still around. Everyone I know hates them. Except my boss. So apparently there are still some people out there funding their existence.
Very well written and I enjoyed this very much. I love music so I was sucked into this post. I too am a hs graduate from the early eighties. So these are all famaliar and unfortunately can sing each lyric from most of these. Sad huh. But I must say I feel somewhat ickey cause of Chevy Van. I never actually looked at the lyrics (though I can sing it) and I never saw the guy who sings it, But I need to take a good shower cause I liked the song! I’ll never look at that song the same again. Also, I like Gwen…but that was not a very good song of hers.