Re: Classic rock anguish

This is an obvious follow-up on Nosepail's post to the "Free Bird" thread:

Which classic rock song, in your opinion, brings the least pleasure to the human race?

BTW, Nose, I respectfully must disagree with your nomination of Boston's "Smokin'."

Tough question since one man's pain is another man's pleasure. I would not hesitate to nominate either "Cheeseburger in Paradise" or "Friend of the Devil," but both of those songs have spawned cult followings dedicated to living out the lifestyle advocated by their creators, so some poor benighted souls must like them.

I'm sure it's heresy to nominate a Beatles song of any sort, but I friggin' HATE "Birthday." And "The Ballad of John and Yoko" also causes tooth gnashing on my part.

Enduring "Mony Mony" in the hands of a wedding band with a liquored up audience doing the "hey get laid" chant has got to be the equivalent of a 15 year stint on Devil's Island. But the original song is harmless enough.

"Lay Down Sally" is also a little sojourn in Hell any time it comes on the radio.

But in the end I'll go with "Paradise by the Dashboard Light."



Post Edited (09-16-10 15:06)

grand funk railroad-we're an american band.

because no one cared enough to even ask 'em where they were from in the first place.



Post Edited (09-16-10 21:11)

America "Ventura Highway" will always be my classic example of Bad Songwriting.

"Ventura Highway in the sunshine
where the days are longer, the nights are stronger then moonshine"

Okay, first of all they rhymed "shine" with "shine." Which I could let go were it not for these other atrocities:

I live near the Ventura, I drive it a lot - the DAYS ARE NOT LONGER! I have never gotten off it, checked a clock and noticed that *dramatic sting* I'd lost time! No Einstein-ian phenomenon here, although being stuck on it during rush hour can make it seem like it, har har.

And how are nights "strong"? Huh, huh? Freakin' awful, awful song.



Post Edited (09-16-10 15:21)

God, don't get me started on America. I still can't get past:

Chewing on a piece of grass
Walking down the road
Tell me, how long you gonna stay here, Joe?
Some people say this town don't look good in snow
You don't care, I know.

And the alligator lizards in the air.

Fucking brilliance.

Ah, blasmo, if you're taking aim at poorly written cliches strung together as a pseudo-anthem for the working class, you've got to take aim at "Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy, which as near as I've ever been able to tell is nothing but a string of nonsense phrases strung together - "Everybody's workin' for the weekend/everybody's goin' off the deep end/ you want a piece of my heart? / you better start from the start / you wanna be in my show? / come on baby let's go." The hell is all that rot supposed to mean? What does it have to do with the weekend?

And hell, I'm an Echo and the Bunnymen and REM fan, so I have a huge tolerance for meaningless bullshit phrases strung together and passed off as meaningful lyrics. But at least make 'em sound cool.

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you better start from the start

Good gravy, that's as bad as America (back to them again) singing "The heat was hot." From another all-time-worst candidate, "A Horse With No Name," a song made doubly offensive by it's ripping off of my man Neil Young's style to the point that many poor deluded folk actually think it is Neil.

I love that Loverboy song, I mean, why not get rid of everything but the hooks from three different songs and cram them together, along with a bunch of cliches meant to be yelled out loud? It's like they took pop songs down to their essence, getting rid of the chaff and leaving...


Whoa, whoa,whoa, I was talking about Loverboy here. Yeah, that song not only makes no sense, it can't.

I wonder how ex-X-Ray Spex member/Loverboy keyboard player Paul Dean dealt with all that. Probably by lying on a bed of money with many beautiful women.

MrFab wrote:
>

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you better start from the start

>
> Good gravy, that's as bad as America (back to them again) > singing "The heat was hot." From another all-time-worst > candidate, "A Horse With No Name," a song made doubly offensive > by it's ripping off of my man Neil Young's style to the point > that many poor deluded folk actually think it is Neil.

You guys have reminded me of some truly awful groups and songs, Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Lay Down Sally, Meatloaf ... hate 'em all.

But, I have my guilty pleasures. I happend to like Bachman Turner Overdrive in a fun, stupid band kind of way. Elton John, got no problem with him.

What really triggered my response here, and specifically to this post, though, is something I saw on Facebook today and it amused me to no end. I had no one to share it with, maybe ya'll will find it amusing, too, or maybe it is just me.

Today on Facebook a friend of mine's "likes" came out as, "I like Neil Young and the Yiddish language." It's just a juxtaposition I never could have imagined seeing. I could have imagined Neil Young paired with a lot of things; Yiddish, not so much.

Jay

If what you're after is actually more like "which one is the most harmful" to the human race, then I'd be forced to say "Don't Stop Believin' ", or "Livin' On A Prayer", since both songs are nothing but poorly written cliches plastered together without any logic or reason, except to set up the chorus, which is the sort of thing I hate. And both are held up as anthems to the working class, loved by many, and thus, crap is king.

I await those who will defend those songs here, whose opinions I obviously respect. But still...

And Bon Jovi is classic rock because it's played on classic rock station more than actual classic rock, these days. I guess that counts.

Margaritaville. Top that.

"Hotel California" – The Eagles

I'm not a person who reflexively hates everything associated with The Eagles, either. I thought Joe Walsh was great on "The Drew Carey Show," for example.

First of all, it's too long – those 6 minutes feel closer to 40. Then, there's the fact it's been played to death for almost 35 years. I've never intentionally listened to it, and I've still heard it hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Musically, it's just not interesting at all. Henley's voice is at its most irritating, nasal coke-drippingly thin and reedy (which is actually some sort of achievement, but whatever). Finally, we get to the lyrics. Ah, the lyrics. So many ways we could go with this, but I'll share a recent exchange about the words, courtesy of Wikipedia:

In a 2009 interview, Plain Dealer music critic John Soeder asked Don Henley this about the lyrics:

On "Hotel California," you sing: "So I called up the captain / 'Please bring me my wine' / He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since 1969.'" I realize I'm probably not the first to bring this to your attention, but wine isn't a spirit. Wine is fermented; spirits are distilled. Do you regret that lyric?

Henley responded, "Thanks for the tutorial and, no, you're not the first to bring this to my attention—and you're not the first to completely misinterpret the lyric and miss the metaphor. Believe me, I've consumed enough alcoholic beverages in my time to know how they are made and what the proper nomenclature is. But that line in the song has little or nothing to do with alcoholic beverages. It's a sociopolitical statement. My only regret would be having to explain it in detail to you, which would defeat the purpose of using literary devices in songwriting and lower the discussion to some silly and irrelevant argument about chemical processes."

I rest my case.

I AM a person who reflexively hates everything associated with The Eagles. Hotel California is a painful song, but it's epic, well-crafted, has acoustic and electric parts (i.e. it evolves), etc, etc. Kind of like Stairway To Heaven in a way. So I cant say it's the worst. It's at the least: ambitious. Life In The Fast Line, however. Ugh!

Jermoe, that story about Don Henley is too damn funny. I wish the interviewer simply got up from his chair, kicked Mr Henley straight in the nuts, spat on him, and said "I hope Walden Woods gets turned into a low-income housing development" while the lungee dripped off his cheek.

> a 500 pound horny nympho

Are you referring to one of the band members?

Anything by Eddie Money.

Based on my own personal bad attitude, I was going to suggest something by Styx (probably either "Fooling Yourself" or "Mr. Roboto," or maybe "Come Sail Away," or ... oh jeez, don't get me started). But I'll go with Reno's nomination. Jeez, how that song ever became a hit is beyond me.

Great suggestions here, though ... proving that one man's garbage is another man's, uhhh, even worse garbage.

Oh, and contrary to popular misunderstanding, Loverboy guitarist Paul Dean and X-Ray Spex bassist Paul Dean are not the same human being. They're two different guys, one born in Canada in 1946, the other born in the UK about a decade later.

Spin Magazine was wrong about Paul Dean? Shows how much I care about Loverboy that I didn't bother to check...

Also, the first time I heard the "Hell Freezes Over" version of Hotel Cali., I thought it was the Muzak version. It still is.

Elton John's stuff doesn't bother me if it's not meant to be anything at all serious. So, "Philadelphia Freedom" is fine, but "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" is not.

I changed my attitude towards Styx after seeing their "Behind the Music". They made me laugh too hard to hate. I like that they wanted to tour, Dennis didn't, so they kicked his lame ass out. Tommy Shaw: "I just couldn't do songs about robots anymore."

And lest I forget the worst of all: Steve Miller, the poet of the OKC Zoo Amphitheater.

Bachman Turner Overdrive - Takin Care of Business. Yeah, thanks for reminding me I'm a working drone with nowhere to go.

Bachman Turner Overdrive - You Aint Seen Nothing Yet. Insulting me yet again, this time for having discriminating taste when it comes to women. I suppose any lovin is good lovin, even when it comes from a 500 pound horny nympho.

Billy Joel - Captain Jack - Gettin all high, mighty and judgmental on someone who keeps getting high to escape adulthood. Remind me again, why is my world so dead, Mr. Joel? Is it 'cause I haven't bought a single one of your albums?

Elton John - Anything except I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues I find excreteable.

> Anything except I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues I find excreteable.

Wow. Am I to infer a level beneath that?

I dont mind "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues". The level beneath that includes "The Bitch Is Back" and "Saturday Night Allright For Fightin". Yuck! Truly excretable!



Post Edited (09-16-10 17:16)

All right, I'll come out with it. I'll walk the plank, tip-toe on the ledge, do cartwheels on the high wire.

I get chills when I listen to Styx's Lady.

For me, it has to be Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock & Roll." Five reasons:

1. If you put the term "rock and roll" in your song, the song has to actually rock. False advertising. Provides a cheap and unearned nostalgia fix of the worst kind.

2. The song is way overplayed. Sporting events, weddings, any event with a core demographic of people in their mid-40's, dentist's offices, supermarkets, movies, TV shows, etc. It Just sneaks up on you when you least expect it (except, by now, you should be expecting it.)

3. The self-satisfied smugness of the narrative. The idea that that idiot knows what real rock and roll sounds like is appalling. Today's music ain't got the same soul. Speak for yourself, dude.

4. The people who like this song. When it is played they actually act as if they know what good rock music sounds like and that this song is celebrating such music. Galling.

5. Tom Cruise.

How can it be that no one has seen fit to mention that greenish-hued ... unnaturally fetid ... steaming CESSPIT of maggot-ridden OFFAL known collectively as STYX? How is that possible?

They named their band after a river that the dead have to get carried across on their way TO HELL! The departed have to pay for this, mind you! Clearly, this is the giveaway.

Utter drivel dressed up in the worst pretensions and going nowhere meaningful. They make ELP sound graceful and restrained. They make Meatlof sound debonair. They make me wanna PUKE!

:::Cue: Bill Hicks' bit about taking shrooms at AstroWorld:::

"The Grand Illusion?"
"Lady?"
"Too Much Time On My Hands?"
"Babe?"

I won't even need to bring out the big gun(s) for this debate. Where's Eric Cartman when you need him to prove a point?



A musical cloaca. Give me Spinal Tap any day.

"Hideous-Bands-Make-Me-Throw-Up" Also-Rans: Bon Jovi

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(((Edited to add: Oops! In my apoplectic fit, I missed it. Some of you did mention Styx!)))

It's so good to know that I'm not alone! I thought I was the only one!"



Post Edited (09-17-10 03:17)

I come not to praise Styx (who I listened to a lot in high school), but I have a whole laundry list of classic rock acts that make me cringe worse (many of which have been listed here already): BTO, REO Speedwagon, Meat Loaf, Bon Jovi, Damn Yankees, Grand Funk Railroad, Eddie Money...

Especially Eddie Money. I don't get the appeal of that guy at all.

But he has two tickets to paradise! Come on!

(insert Ronnie Spector wailing here)

Queen

This comes with a disclaimer. I actually think Queen are an excellent band musically; but their lyrics are some of the worst I've ever heard.

I wanted to contribute to this thread and prepared by turning on the local classic rock station on the way to work. On comes "Killer Queen." I sing along with every word...realizing that the song makes no sense.

She's a killer queen
Gunpowder, gelatine
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind

It has some sweet piano and tasy guitar playing, though.

Even worse is "Fat Bottomed Girls"--incredibly misogynistic lyrics sung by a gay man, no less (I suppose one could call that irony)--that has no seemingly redeemable qualities other than the HUGE Roger Taylor drum fill about 3/4 of the way through. Oh, and some nice guitar riffs in drop-D tuning, but that's about it.

"Another One Bites The Dust" - no comment

The best worst Queen lyric is at the end of "One Vision," when Freddie's listing all the things he wants some entity to give him ("Gimme one heart, gimme one mind...) and he concludes with a dramatic:

"...just gimme – fried chicken!"

Apparently that was the scratch vocal, and they never got around to replacing it. I'm not kidding.

Steve Miller's only redeeming quality is the fact that his cover of "Jet Airliner" probably put some well-deserved money in the pocket of Paul Pena, who Genghis Blues demonstrated to be one of the most remarkably likable human beings of all time.



Post Edited (09-17-10 11:25)

I love Queen's lyrics for that very nonsensicality (a word I think I just made up). I dig Bowie's lyrics for the same reason, though Bowie often seems to think he's creating poety, while Queen knows perfectly well their libretto is ridiculous.

Some thoughts on Steve Miller. I think the stuff he did pre-The Joker is very good...a decent mix of psych, country, bluegrass, blues, and general weirdness. Then....he became a pop singer. And so ensued the string of hits that the classic rock stations now play into the ground. None is worse IMO than "Take The Money And Run." Utter tripe with some poor grammar thrown in to boot. There's not even a quick guitar solo to possibly redeem it. Instead, we get some extra strumming of the main riff really fast a few times. Lame.

Taking the band's whole catalog into account (or at least the portions of it that I've heard), I have to nominate Styx as the most horrible rock band in history. Supertramp is a close second.

And this thread has made me see some "classics" in a new light, such as Steve Miller: "Don't be suspicious, now don't get suspicious ..." Jeez, Steve, you found a word that rhymes with suspicious earlier in the song; what, couldn't think of another? "Northern California where the girls are warm, so I could be with my sweet baby, yeah ..." Wow, you're telling us it's an opportunity-rich environment, and yet you're going there to be with one girl? No wonder she gets suspicious.

And Bob Seger: "Today's music ain't got the same soul ..." Wow, how could I spend more than three decades hearing that song, without picking up on the irony of that line? "Don't wanna hear 'em play a tango ..." Seriously, Bob, when's the last time you went anyplace where the tango was played? I have to give him props, though, as he sings, "Call me a relic, call me what you will / Say I'm old-fashioned, say I'm over the hill ..." Okay, sure Bob, it's a given. Thanks.

If I had to name the worst band of all time, I would have to go with Toto. Not only was their music every bit as bad as Styx, Journey or Supertramp, but they lacked any ambition to even be any good. Say what you will about those other bloated whale carcasses, they were at least trying to do something. They weren't any good at it, but at least they had ambition. Toto's only ambition was to sound like those other knuckleheads.

But then they had the nerve to actually be arrogant about their uselessness in interviews and on one occasion in Creem compared themselves favorably to the Clash by claiming "craft is more important than content" - ie, a collective of studio hacks with nothing to say and no interesting way to say it were still more worthwhile than four working class yobs (well, three working class yobs and one diplomat's son passing himself off as a working class yob) who weren't instrumental virtuosos but had plenty to say and were constantly looking for ways to say it.

Other crimes by Toto:

Ripping off the artwork for XTC's Drums and Wires and I think possibly getting nominated for a Grammy for it. (They were up for some award for that album cover, I know, but it may not have been a Grammy)

Shoplifting Ultravox's "The Voice" in its entirety for "Stranger in Town," but at least by that point they'd moved on to higher grade of victim.

Screwing Rosanna Arquette and writing the blandest song of all time about the experience. At least Peter Gabriel managed to come up with "Digging in the Dirt" when he docked at the same port, which isn't his best song but at least indicates some level of feeling about the whole thing.

So screw Toto. Bunch of assholes. They even managed to bland the hell out of Sparks just with their proximity on Introducing. Hearing Styx, Journey or Supertramp can at least fill me with nostalgia for carefree days in high school in the late 70s. Hearing Toto just fills me with the numb ennui of encountering beings completely lacking anything resembling a human soul.

Many fine points here. I'd just like to add that Toto is a really bad name. If you look at it as an homage to the fictional dog, it's lame. If you consider the Latin translation, it's amazingly pretentious.

Up is definitely one of the better post-relationship albums. One can only assume Toto's Isolation is among the worst...I'm not going to listen to it to find out.

He just couldn't find a good melody to "Darling, that dress doesn't make your ass look fat".

Don't worry. Be happy.

Steve Miller...brrrr. I've always been amazed that he can be so goddamned smug while singing a terrible line like "Abra-abracadabra...I wanna reach out and grab ya." Seriously - he wasn't even trying.

Oh, this is fun. I just got through telling someone that I thought casting Sasha Cohen as Freddie Mercury was a brilliant move, since only he could possibly recreate Mr. Mercury's ability to become an erection on stage.

Now, if we're going with actual hate, and I mean "grrr...destroy all evidence of its existence" sort of hate, then Toto is right up there, next to Steve Miller and Bon Jovi. For me, Bon Jovi is the nadir, as he's (they're) held up as some sort of working class idol by a lot of people, and may be the least talented. Toto has some musicianship, and Steve Miller has some older stuff that's good, but Bon Jovi? Nothin'.



Post Edited (09-17-10 13:37)

I've long said "American Pie" is one of the worst songs ever, but there certainly are a few here which would give it a run for its money.

I'll give "American Pie" its props. Without it existing, Weird Al Yankovic wouldn't have had the base for his brilliant "The Saga Begins."

"American Pie" ending after the first chorus? Fine. "American Pie" ending after the whole song? Torture. Having to endure some 10th grade teacher's observations on what the song's "images" mean? A freaking waste of out tax dollars. Trust me...

And, oh yeah, "Wonderful Tonight". Sounds and reads like someone who was too tired to get out of bed to write and record a song.

"And, oh yeah, "Wonderful Tonight". Sounds and reads like someone who was too tired to get out of bed to write and record a song."

Not to mention that's it a not very well disguised insult to the lady in question. The singer is just telling his girl what she wants to hear so she'll hurry up.

I must protest that Eric Clapton's hideous "Wonderful Tonight" hasn't been mentioned yet. The song is not wonderful, tonight, or any other night.

What other pop song argues so convincingly that its creator is a soulless wackjob?

May God have mercy on your soul Eric.

I think it would be a toss-up between "A Horse with No Legs," and "Paradise...Dashboard." Twenty years ago I lived London under the pretense of a study abroad program. I went over there thinking that the pubs would be enlivened by spirited discourse over which of Roxy Music's first four albums were the best. Instead, every pub played Meatloaf, the Grease motion picture soundtrack, and Transvision Vamp. Extended visits since then has confirmed that Transvision Vamp is no longer played.

Bob Seger - Like A Rock. I'd rather listen to "Old Time Rocknroll" a hundred times than be subjected to that one again.

Billy Idol - "Mony Mony" Maybe not quite "classic" rock, but still... (ditto for the collected works of Bon Jovi).

Johnny Cougar - "Pink Houses". Ain't that America? Not for me sunshine! (Not to say that he totally sucks - I admit "R-O-C-K in the USA" and even "Jack and Diane" as guilty pleasures - but that scraped the bottom of his "populist" stuff)

Three Dog Night - The collected works (actually do they even qualify as "classic" rock?)

"Is This Love" by Whitesnake which I thought for about 20 years was by Foreigner. And while we're on those blokes, "I've Been Waiting For A Girl Like You", geez at least they didn't write BOTH!

I remember reading that the Rolling Stones' first US tour for a couple of years (I think it resulted in that live album that featured a ponderous Going To A Go Go) ended up making less millions than Foreigner’s tour later that year. Sheesh.