Arbitrary but fun Monday for a change
Oldies radio lies, man.
More specifically, the “oldies” canon, having congealed over the past decade into a reliable rotation of “Bus Stop,” “Spirit in the Sky,” “You’re So Vain,” and such, nicely demonstrates the point—made twenty-odd years ago by any number of literary critics and theorists—that the process of canon formation is inevitably “partial,” in the sense that it does not (and does not attempt to) retrieve the past “as it really was.”
Instead, it presents us with the past as we now like to think it really was. There’s nothing necessarily insidious about this process; it’s not as if Oldies Radio represents history as told by the victors of some global slaughter. Besides, most of the victors, like Norman Greenbaum’s ubiquitous one-hit wonder, survive to this day because they’re really pretty decent little pop songs (or, at the very least, they have a catchy riff and a cool guitar sound that still sounds tolerably cool thirty-five years later). Granted, there are plenty of oldies—think of Seals and Crofts’ handful of contributions to Western Civ—that should be allowed to die a dignified death. But there are hundreds more that have been purged from the Oldies archives altogether. Some, like Paper Lace’s hideous “The Night Chicago Died,” have a ghostly existence as “oldies novelty” tunes, the kind of thing you have to hear every five or six years just to wonder what the hell people were thinking. Hiding behind the oldies novelty tunes, however, is a vast legion of cultural dreck that no Oldies station will touch—even though it once ruled the charts.
Sure, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” was a horror. And it was the number one song of 1973. But what is there to say of “Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose?”—Tony Orlando and Dawn’s followup single, which wound up as number 34 of the year? Or, God help us, “Who’s in the Strawberry Patch with Sally?” No oral or written language known to humankind can adequately express the profound and promiscuous badness of these songs. Likewise, Gilbert O’Sullivan is justly renowned for having written the world’s most bathetic tune, “Alone Again (Naturally)” (as one critic put it, “the worst potential influence on the direction of pop music since Tiny Tim”). But how many of us remember—or care to remember—that we were subsequently treated to three or four more “hits” from O’Sullivan, each of which was even worse (though, of course, not more bathetic)?
You don’t believe me? Fine. Then you deserve this:
Told you once before, and I won’t tell you no more
Get down, get down, get down
You’re a bad dog baby
But I still want you around.You give me the creeps, when you jump on your feet
So get down, get down, get down
Keep your hands to yourself
I’m strictly out of bounds.
Don’t make me quote O’Sullivan again. You’ll regret it.
Similarly, Helen Reddy’s bizarre, groundbreaking portraits of women with mental illness (“Delta Dawn,” “Ruby Red Dress,” “Angie Baby”) have been wiped from our collective public memory, together with Bobby Sherman’s neo-existentialist “Easy Come, Easy Go” and Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods’ searing antiwar anthem, “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero.” And while this Funes-like blog is more or less content to call to mind Looking Glass’s “Brandy,” an inoffensive piece of pop fluff that wound up at number 12 for 1972, who, I wonder, will dare to put in a good word for Wayne Newton’s “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast” (number 10 that same year) or Mouth and MacNeal’s “How Do You Do” (number 25) or Daniel Boone’s “Beautiful Sunday” (number 42)?
The selectiveness of the Oldies Canon is understandable enough. All of us (that is, all of us of a certain age) want to believe—and want others to believe—that we were listening to “Brick House” in ‘77 when, in fact, we were being subjected to Leo Sayer’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” five or six times a day (a classic Paradoxical Song, in Janet’s famous phrase, like Orleans’ “Dance With Me” insofar as it is utterly—nay, rigorously—undanceable). Even worse, if we were to be reminded of the existence of Gallery’s “It’s So Nice to Be With You” or Cher’s “Dark Lady,” we might realize that we were not merely subjected to these songs but, in fact, fond of them. And then we would not be able to face ourselves, now, would we?
(Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t fond of that crap. Not me! Along with the rest of the seventh grade, I was hoppin’ and boppin’ to the Crocodile Rock. Which, I believe, was recorded by the Velvet Underground.)
So here’s today’s Fun Game. What’s your favorite example of an Oldie Too Hideous to Acknowledge? Extra points will be awarded to suggestions that carry with them an obvious tinge of remorse (for example, I’ve always thought that Helen Reddy’s cover of Leon Russell’s “Bluebird” was perfect for her voice, so all my Helen Reddy examples above are tinged by remorse-by-association). And extra extra points will be awarded to suggestions so hideous that they derange the entire thread.
Is 23 years old enough (for the song)? If so, “I’ll Find My Way Home” by Vangelis gets my vote.
And if that isn’t repugnant and/or old enough, I submit Melanie’s 1971 hit “Brand New Key,” which always makes me uncomfortable.
Posted by Paul on 10/17 at 04:19 PMAmazing fact: Gilbert O’Sullivan released 22 studio albums, but a whopping 39 best-of’s. I think this diproves at least one of the laws of thermodynamics.
“In the Year 2525” is the gold standard for leaden awfulness, but it might not strictly qualify as “pop”.
“Torn Between Two Lovers” can never replace the part of my soul that withered and died the first time I heard it.
Posted by on 10/17 at 04:36 PMa) Thanks for exhuming “Get Down” from its previously permanent grave in my memory. I’ll be singing it all evening.
b) “Seasons in the Sun”
Posted by on 10/17 at 04:38 PMThe Ballad of the Green Berets supposedly topped the charts in 1966.
Admittedly I think I’ve only ever heard the Residents’ “Third Reich N’ Roll” version.
Posted by on 10/17 at 04:38 PMOk, how do you feel about the Carpenters? Too obvious?
How about this sickly sweet ballad, with lyrics that comment on the oldies nostalgia phenomenon?
Carpenters - Yesterday Once More
When I was young
I’d listen to the radio
Waitin’ for my favorite songs
When they played I’d sing along
It made me smile.
Those were such happy times
And not so long ago
How I wondered where they’d gone
But they’re back again
Just like a long lost friend
All the songs I loved so well.
Every Sha-la-la-la
Every Wo-o-wo-o
Still shines
Every shing-a-ling-a-ling
That they’re startin’ to sing’s
So fine....I’m afraid that my ‘60s-’70s pop music knowledge has already been shaped by the canon via those “Best of” albums and tapes they used to advertise on Saturday afternoon tv in the ‘80s.
p.s. (does not fit into Hideous category) I never thought I could listen to Joan Baez after my mother over-played her in my early childhood. After seeing interviews with her in new Bob Dylan documentary, I have a whole new respect for the woman and her music.
Posted by on 10/17 at 04:53 PMThere was so much drek (tho there was good stuff, too) at the time frame being covered. How about the Cowsills? Don’t really remember the titles, just that I cringed when I heard them on the ol’ car radio.
Posted by on 10/17 at 04:57 PM"Judy’s Turn to Cry” by Lesley Gore. She should’ve stopped after the slight but funny (OK, perversely so) “It’s My Party” (and I’ll cry if I want to) and, if you want yer tinge of remorse, “You Don’t Own Me,” which, musically awful though it was, I still remember with fondness. There was so damned little of that sort of thing to brighten the spirits of us larval patriarchy-blamers in the early Sixties.
Posted by Ron Sullivan on 10/17 at 05:00 PM(I’ve Been to Paradise but) “I’ve Never Been to Me”
Runner-up: “The Night Chicago Died”
Posted by on 10/17 at 05:22 PM"Muskrat Love” by Captain & Tennielle - an utterly execrable interplay of vapid lyrics, insipid vocals and muskrat sound effects.
Posted by on 10/17 at 05:23 PMAnything—ANYTHING—by that weasel high-school I-gotta-have-it-or-I’ll-die you’re-not-a-woman-unless-I-lay-you Gay Puckett (rhymes with --) and the Union Gap (in the head, I think). Either most hideous dreck ever written—or spot-on renditions of whining sex-starved high school boys.
Posted by DaBarr on 10/17 at 05:27 PMFor me, it’s a tie between Paul Anka’s “Having My Baby” and “Knock Three Times” courtesy of Tony Orlando and Dawn.
My husband and I used to amuse ourselves on long car rides by singing snippets of the worst oldies we could recall. It’s amazing how much I can remember of the worst music of the seventies when I struggle to remember the passwords to my many different computer accounts.
Posted by Ancarett on 10/17 at 05:31 PMI heard the Banana Splits theme song (the Tra la la la song) on the radio on Saturday, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.
Posted by on 10/17 at 05:31 PMBack on topic, the song “Please Come to Boston” by Dave Loggins should be put out of its misery.
Posted by on 10/17 at 05:33 PMManfred Mann and His Earth Band recorded a cover of Springsteen’s “Blinded by the Light”. Given that the original was Springsteen’s first song on his first album, and that it was just so full of life, even given it’s faults as a song, it just pure pain to hear Manfred butcher it up with synth & over-production. Ick.
Music porn, really.
And, to add insult to injury, this is to date the only song Bruce has written that’s gone #1.
I saw Springsteen on his latest tour (solo) on what was supposed to be the last stop in Vancouver B.C., and he did a version of “Blinded” that just held the room on edge. Awesome tour, the guy’s a natural solo performer.
Posted by on 10/17 at 05:35 PMHow about “Modern Girl” by Sheena Easton? From 1981, it is definitely part of that modern-girl-in-the-working-world trend made most famous by “9 to 5,” but from the immensely lame pseudo-strings beginning to the schmaltz-fest chorus, it is such a horrifying vision of female independence. Take the last verse:
She used to dream
About him all day long
Soon as she gets home
It’s him on the telephone
He asks her to dinner
She says I’m not free
Tonight I’m gonna stay at home
And watch my T.V.And no, I don’t own the 45 of it with the immensely sincere bared-shoulder picture of Sheena herself, or anything.
Posted by furious on 10/17 at 05:45 PMWhoops...I didn’t notice that Michael had already mentioned “The Night Chicago Died.” But what the hell--so truly awful it deserves two mentions.
Got another one: “Chevy Van” by Sammy Johns. If your grandkids ever ask you “What were the 70s like?” you’ll have a ready answer.
Oh, and anything ever recorded by Mac Davis.
Posted by on 10/17 at 05:51 PMIt’s too easy to just list the entire recorded catalog of Journey, I suppose ...
One per decade:
1950s: Pat Boone, “Tutti Frutti”
1960s: Every Mother’s Son, “Come on Down to My Boat”
1970s: someone already got Terry Jacks ... hmmm ... Kansas, “Dust in the Wind”
1980s: Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’”
Posted by Steven Rubio on 10/17 at 06:04 PMIt’s way too obvious to be mentioned, but Starland Vocal Band’s “Afternoon Delight” beats out Manilow’s, “I Write the Songs”. And not from the 70s but feels like it was, gooey in the sidewalk burbling up with each footfall padded by an unraveling bell bottom blue jean hem, is Richard Harris singing, “MacArthur Park”.
All that sweet green icing melting in the rain makes us forget the novel badness of the first verse:
Spring was never waiting for us, girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance
Between the parted pages and were pressed
In love’s hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pantsI can smell those jeans steaming. I can’t smell the cake.
“Afternoon Delight” I was forced to listen to repeatedly while I was working at a frame shop. Every afternoon at three o’clock it played, and played again and again the rest of the day, but somehow it was the treatment at three o’clock to skyrockets in flight that drove me nuts and made me worry for the future of my generation. I saw them standing in an elevator singing. I didn’t think of it as elevator music, it’s just how I saw it. When the song came on, there they were, dressed in winged dove white, on the elevator, riding up and down singing. Maybe it was the reference to fish that made me think of holy ghosts descending through the escape hatch in elevators. I don’t know.
There’s no remorsing “but” there.
“MacArthur Park” does somehow have that remorsing “but”. It’s discombobulating for all the wrong reasons but underneath there’s a real itch of dangerously pained psyche, sword in hand, beginning to disembowel itself for you. More to do with Richard Harris than Jimmy Webb, I’m sure.
Posted by Idyllopus on 10/17 at 06:08 PMMe and You and a Dog named Boo.
In related news, it seens Dolly Parton has just covered the old Gene Raskin chestnut “Those Were The Days.” She does a fine job if you like semi-bluegrass.
Posted by Chris Clarke on 10/17 at 06:10 PMI’d second anything by Tony Orlando and Dawn--what about “Tie A Yellow Ribbon” (about a convict coming home after doing his time, now a sign on the back of every other car that says “Yeah, I voted for Bush, so shoot me"--and I would, if I weren’t a pacifist). Anything by the shame of Urbana/Champaign, REO Speedwagon, particularly “Ridin’ the Storm Out” ditto for that abomination known as Jefferson Starship ("Jane," “Built That City.” Not that I ever listened to any of that crap, or anything.
Posted by on 10/17 at 06:18 PMToo easy. Ones that haven’t been mentioned yet;
Playground In My Mind - Clint Holmes
Watching Scotty Grow - Bobby Goldsboro
You Are So Beautifull To Me - Joe Cocker
I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing - The New Seekers
I Love - Tom T Hall
I Can Help - Billy Swan
Undercover Angel - Alan O’DayPosted by on 10/17 at 06:21 PMtranscend the canon! this fantastic internet radio station basically reproduces an AM radio broadcast ca. 1967, complete with commercial and crappy songs. they reallly loved the harpsichord back in the day, you’ll discover.
they may even play my favorite, the top ten hit from late 1967 “Open Letter to My teenage Son,” though I’ve never caught it:
“And if you decide to burn your draft card,
“then burn your birth certificate at the same time.
“From that moment on, I have no son.”Posted by on 10/17 at 06:21 PMBobby Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe” may not qualify as a pop song, maybe crossover Country, but it sure got a lot of airplay. It was one of those songs that made me dive for the buttons on the car radio.
“Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Joe MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”But what were they dropping into the water off the Tallahatchie Bridge?
Posted by on 10/17 at 06:23 PMYummy Yummy Yummy (I’ve Got Love in My Tummy)
Bad Bad Leroy Brown
All by Myself
Sometimes When We Touch
And a song that went something like “My name is Michael/I’ve got a nickel”
Posted by on 10/17 at 06:27 PMQuicker posters already nailed the first few to pop into my head:
1. “The Year 2525” is the worst of all because there’s no quibbling about it. It’s quantifiably bad.
2. “MacArthur Park” contains the stupidest attempt at “poetry” in all of pop lyrics: “Someone left the cake out in the rain.”
3. Anyone notice how Gary Puckett frequently pursues a pedophilia theme? My nearest Oldies station is in Salt Lake City. They play Union Gap a lot. Hm.
I’d rag on Tommy James et Les Shondells but I’ve seen too many nifty women earnestly bop to ‘em.
Posted by dswift on 10/17 at 06:35 PM"Sometimes When We Touch” by whoever the hell it was did that song.
I’m tempted to also include “anything by Dire Straights” but that might be a little too snobbish. But maybe not.
Posted by Brian on 10/17 at 06:36 PMI think you just can’t beat Meat Loaf for tuneless bathos, especially “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”
Posted by on 10/17 at 06:44 PMUncle Kvetch - you are certainly living up to your name. The nice lunch I had suddenly doesn’t feel so nice.
Posted by on 10/17 at 06:47 PMEsther and Abi Ofarim:
You’re the lay-dee, you’re the lay-dee that I luv/I’m the lay-dee the layuh-dee hoo
I think this thread is now officially a BIOHAZARD.
Posted by on 10/17 at 06:51 PM"Heartbeat, It’s A Love Beat” by Tony DiFranco and the DiFranco family. God awful.
And a sarcastic thank you to the person who mentioned “Undercover Angel”. That is one evil earworm.
Posted by on 10/17 at 06:59 PMMaybe I am dating myself but I sometimes still get “Everytime You Go Away” by John Waite stuck in my head and I have not heard that song in years.
Posted by on 10/17 at 07:08 PMI heard the Banana Splits theme song (the Tra la la la song) on the radio on Saturday, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.
Posted by blah on 10/17 at 04:31 PMSomewhat off topic, but did you ever notice the similarity to this and the refrain in Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier”?
Posted by on 10/17 at 07:10 PMAnd extra extra points will be awarded to suggestions so hideous that they derange the entire thread.
“Ballad of the Green Beret.”
Posted by on 10/17 at 07:16 PMMelanie’s 1971 hit “Brand New Key,” which always makes me uncomfortable.
Ah. Yes. Now, Paul. You say this song makes you “uncomfortable.” When precisely did you first discover that your mother had a pair of “roller skates,” may I ask?
“Muskrat Love” by Captain & Tennielle - an utterly execrable interplay of vapid lyrics, insipid vocals and muskrat sound effects.
Scylla, you get extra extra points. I heard those muskrat sound effects a few months ago, quite by accident, and thought that something terrible was happening to my radio. Which, of course, it was.
As for Gary Puckett: the truly hideous thing is that Oldies Radio doesn’t realize how hideous he is. As a result, he continues to get airplay, and that disqualifies him from this competition. “Woman,” “Young Girl,” “Girl Woman” and “Young Girl Woman” can all be heard on any oldies station, from Salt Lake City to New York City.
Greg: yeah, this is an easy one (but it’s Monday!). Thank you, however, for “Undercover Angel.” Extra extra points for that piece of crap. “Chevy Van” is bad, but it’s ordinary big-wide-bellbottoms bad, begging your pardon, Uncle K. “Undercover Angel” is right up there with the DiFranco Family (extra extra points to hjshorter too!) for sheer unbearableness.
Carpenters: yeah, too obvious. Besides, they’ve been the subject of a tribute album, and have therefore been reclaimed for Tongue-in-Cheek Seventies Appreciation Day. We want stuff that’s even worse than that.
And on the Sixties front: “MacArthur Park” doesn’t count. That’s the great Jimmy Webb ("Wichita Lineman") after he’d eaten enough acid to turn his brain to Corn Chex. So it deserves its own category. And Ron, don’t get down on “Judy’s Turn to Cry.” Yes, it’s an abomination, but when you play it backwards you can hear the young Miss Gore saying, in a scary lugubrious voice, “I . . . buried . . . Judy.” Which is kind of cool, I think.
Posted by Michael on 10/17 at 07:22 PMJackie Blue - Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Wildfire - Michael Murphyand I guess my sympathy entry, in light of her BF’s mysterious dissapearance/faking-his-own-death, is ‘Have You Never Been Mellow’ by Olivia Newton John.
Posted by on 10/17 at 07:45 PMMichael, if Uncle K doesn’t get vomit points for
“I’ve Never Been to Me” (#8) - that makes ME very uncomfortable!Please tell us that’s not your, “tinge of remorse” song.
Posted by on 10/17 at 07:47 PMWildfire--Michael Murphy
Baby I’m a Want You--Bread
Fernando--Abba
Reunited--Peaches and Herb
Hotel California--EaglesOh, please, make it stop!
Posted by Laura on 10/17 at 07:49 PMSpiders and Snakes - Jim Stafford
Makes you wish you had an ice pick for some reason.Angel in the Morning - Juice Newton.
You want bathetic....
“Just call me angel of the morning, angel
just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
Just call me angel of the morning, angel
then slowly turn away,
I won’t beg you to stay with me
through the tears of the day,
of the years, baby baby baby.”.Love Goes where My Rosemary Goes - Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods?
If I remembered this one correctly I truly need a life coach.Posted by on 10/17 at 08:01 PMIn my early teen years, the local top 40 station ("Wixy 1260, Suuperr Rrradioooo!” in Cleveland) had a “poll” of the listeners. Cherish, by the Association, was voted the best song in history. Not long afterward, I began experimenting with drugs. I’m not suggesting that there was a direct causal link. I’m just sayin’....
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:03 PMWell, he’s a Sir now an’ all, but I actually liked the incredibly syrupy Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John.
You know that I love, love, love, you
yes I do!
Philadelphia freedom!Thats just a terrible song with those streaking violins and warbling flute to start. God help you if you remember it, it’s playback tenacity is fearsome.
I’m cranking Floyd right now to get rid of it.
Posted by paradox on 10/17 at 08:05 PMMentioned three times already, MacArthur’s Park should be fully vetted in this thread. But no, there’s more. There are the hundreds of terrifying covers of the song that we were forced to endure - led by the heartbreaking site of Waylon Jennings, the outlaw himself, undertaking a particularly dreadful crack at it in the mid-70s.
I’m not sure that I will sleep tonight
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:06 PMAnything by Tommy Roe… painful.
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:08 PM"Love Grows” was Edison Lighthouse, sven. One-hit wonders almost as repellent as Bo Donaldson. And I almost mentioned “Spiders and Snakes” in the original post—I scrapped it for “Dark Lady,” but yes, Jim Stafford and Mac Davis both merit much rotten fruit for their fetid country-pop crossovers.
And OG, I have to confess that I’d never heard “I’ve Never Been to Me” until I Googled it five minutes ago. All I can say is wow, that’s some fucking terrible music right there. “I’ve been undressed by kings,” indeed. Now you’ve made me think of the Captain and Tenille’s pair of “sex” songs, “Do That To Me One More Time” and “You Never Done It Like That.” Uncle K gets vomit points and extra extra hemorrhaging points as well.
Damn you. Damn you all.
Posted by Michael on 10/17 at 08:10 PMMany thanks to Oaktown Girl for the props.
The closest I ever came to divorcing The Hubby was when he told me that he used to think Mac Davis was “hot.” “Baby Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me"--now that’s some bad badness. I have a special fondness for that whole “I realize I’m irresistible, Baby, but please, just try” thing.
I am in total agreement with Michael about “MacArthur Park.” That song plowed straight through Bad like an 18-wheeler, and went all the way to the Sublime.
Oh, that reminds me: “Convoy.”
As for the Carpenters: “Sing a Song” has to be the all-time low/high. How can you go wrong with a cloying chorus of 7-year-olds? Karen & Richard were truly the Hummel figurines of pop.
But we really shouldn’t be so 70s-centric. I think consideration must be given to the 80s, which gave rise to its own cursed subgenre: the novelty rap. And in that department, the one to beat is Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me.” What’s an industry mogul to do with a son with popstar aspirations and no discernible talent? When the mogul in question is Berry Gordy, it’s simple: you hire Michael Jackson (then in the full flush of Thriller-mania) to sing the chorus on the kid’s record about 700 times, while Rockwell “raps” a couple of verses. It was a fragrant, steaming pile of poo--and it went straight to number one. Top that, beeyotches.
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:10 PMUncle K gets vomit points and extra extra hemorrhaging points as well.
Oooh! Only 15 more points and I qualify for the Olivia Newton-John box set! Sweet!
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:16 PMYou know, I’d like to think that I’ve got taste in music…
But I really like “Brandy.”
Or maybe it’s just the memory of “Brandy.” I’ve always thought it was just a good pop song. Just to spite everyone, I think I’ll talk my bandmates into playing it. Loud. Maybe even fast.
Funny, though, my memory of this song comes primarily from them playing on the Flip Wilson show.
Howabout Barry Manilow’s “Mandy?” It sounds like “Brandy” and we can just rotate the two so “Brandy” can get off your list.
Respectfully,
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:26 PMFrom the year of my graduation from high school:
1. Three Times A Lady—Commodores
2. How Deep Is Your Love—Bee Gees
3. You Needed Me—Anne Murray
4. The Gambler—Kenny Rogers
5. I Just Wanna Stop—Gino VanelliIs that enough? I’ve got more.
Posted by KathyR on 10/17 at 08:28 PMNo problem, Uncle Kvetch. You deserve it! (A dubious distinction at best!) And thank you for spelling out my name. I really dislike the initials “O.G.”. It sounds way too masculine to my ears, with all due respect to women who happen to have OG for their initials.
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:31 PMGino Vanelli’s People Gotta Move.
With a few beers in me I might even try to defend this tune but “… you come on for right, you come on for wrong, you come on for zeal ’cause the tones of your bones makes you feel....” makes it tough to do sober.
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:36 PMI see there was a mention of Juice Newton’s remake, but no one mentioned yet Merry Lee rush’s original of the truly, truly awful “Angel of the Morning.” What is even more upsetting is that the song’s “composer,” Chip Taylor also wrote the wonderful, “Wild Thing,” and is the brother of Jon Voight and the uncle of Angelina Jolie.
There is one song of the inimitable Oeuvre of Gary Puckett which is repressed by the Oldies cannon and that is “Lady Willpower.” which I have heard only once on oldies radio and that was in Ohio driving to Columbus from Athens 14 years ago from the OU film conference and that made a carload of academics very, very quiet. Was there a fourth hit that has been repressed by oldies radio and my brain? Do not tell me.Posted by on 10/17 at 08:43 PMI am not a believer in censorship, apart from the music of Gary Puckett. His songs are all disturbingly dodgy ‘barely legal’ rape fantasies and his ‘singing’ is redolent of a dentists drill during root canal work. What’s more, oldies station programmers seem to always put him first on their teamsheet.
‘Beneath your perfume and make-up
You’re just a baby in disguise’‘And on that sweet and velvet night
A child had died, a woman had been born’What really disturbs me is that at perhaps 60 years old he is probably still churning these songs out.
+ Songs people seem to think are good but are actually very bad: Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton - hideous & Where the Streets have no name by U2 - less fun than an ear infection & Everybody Hurts by REM - Mawkish empty headed crap. Everything by the Eurythmics apart from Sweet Dreams, pretty much everything by Queen.
+easy and obvious suggestion : Lucky Stars by Dean Friedman.
all time low :Escape (the Pina Colada Song) by Rupert HolmesBrenna - pedantic point but everytime you go away was Paul Young, Missing You was John Waite.
SneakySnu and others - I think a case can be made for the Carpenters fitting into a similar category as Abba, actually being really good quality, but possibly overplayed.
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:43 PM"Lay a Little Lovin’ On Me” by Robin McNamara.
“My Baby Loves Lovin’” by White Plains. Here’s a sample:
My baby loves love
My baby loves lovin’
She’s got what it takes
And she know how to use itProbably the only instance in which someone celebrates their lover being anatomically normal.
“98.6” by Keith
“Crimson % Clover” Tommy James & the Shondells.
Posted by Randy Paul on 10/17 at 08:45 PMbobby goldsboro - watching honey grow ("Honey"?). Everytime I heard that all I wanted to do was an Anthony Perkins on Honey, 12-inch chefs knife and all.
The New Vaudeville Band - Winchester Cathedral. Eeeew. So faux cheerful that a maniac on prozac would go out of control.
Posted by Jo Fish on 10/17 at 08:46 PM"The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia”, by “Mama’s Family” star Vicki Lawrence, seems to have been airbrushed (deservedly) from the Top 40 more thoroughly than any song of the period. Thinking about it for about 10 seconds (more than the song deserves), the song is transparently a Southern Gothic version of a Cher tune, down to Lawrence’s diction ("that’s the night that they hong an inn-oh-cent may-un").
Don’t know what Michael’s problem is with Jim Stafford (pre-Byrds bandmate of Gram Parsons, btw), though, that wah-wah in “Spiders and Snakes” is the shiz. Similarly, “Rub It In”, by Billy “Crash” Craddock, is just simply too cool for oldies radio; too bad, the tune is wonderfully evocative of the Redneck Riviera in the time that George W. Bush was wrecking rent houses there.
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:48 PMJo Fish,
You’re mixing “Honey” and “Watching Bobby Grow.”
Posted by Randy Paul on 10/17 at 08:51 PM"But we really shouldn’t be so 70s-centric. I think consideration must be given to the 80s, which gave rise to its own cursed subgenre: the novelty rap. And in that department, the one to beat is Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me.”… Top that, beeyotches.”
Ohhhhhh, crap 80’s. Should be able to totally embarass myself in that catagory. Let’s see...not a rap but still a steaming pile: “Too Shy” by Kajagoogoo? (IMO should win on band name alone)
Or maybe “Mr Roboto” by Styx? Of course, they were crap in the 70’s too. My favorite scene in the late lamented series Freaks & Geeks features Nick serenading Lindsay with an a capella rendition of “Lady”. Makes me cringe just thinking about it.
Another bad, bad 70’s song: “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” Kiss’s 1979 foray into disco.
Posted by on 10/17 at 08:56 PMMichael:
This thread made google GarY Puckett ande Isaw a picture of him now and these two “fun facts.”
In 1968 Gary Puckett and The Union Gap had six consecutive gold records and sold more records than any other recording act...including the Beatles.They played a command performance at the White House for Prince Charles and Princess Anne by special invitation of the President.
That president had to be Karen Carpenter’s number one fan, Tricky Dick himself. Yuck.
And salty dog just trashed some pretty good songs. Hey, I could bash most of Billy Joel, but oldies radio plays evey song of his including ones no one ever listened to.Posted by on 10/17 at 08:59 PMThing is, those 80s songs don’t exactly fit the criteria because no one idealizes the era (except Peggy Noonan), and so there isn’t some “Big Chill” mythology for the songs to conform to. There is such a thing as 80s radio, but they play “Died In Your Arms Tonight” and “Shattered Dreams” right along with Prince and U2. The airbrush hasn’t been at work on the 80s, at least not yet.
Posted by on 10/17 at 09:02 PMLOL, Michael. My friends and I have a version of this discussion ALL. THE. TIME. especially in regards to ‘80s nostalgia. All that ‘80s flashback stuff that started in the mid-90s (!) always imagines the ‘80s as all New Wave and College Radio all the time. Yeah. Right. As a friend of mine once said, “When they start playing Billy Squier, *then* they’re reliving the ‘80s.” So here are my nominees for the *forgotten* dreck of oldies radio, the 1980s edition:
Billy Squier, “My Kind of Lover” ("The Stroke” doesn’t count because it does get some ironic play)
Night Ranger, “Sister Christian”
Mr. Mister, “Broken Wings”
John Parr, “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)”
Billy Ocean, “Lover Boy”
and
Samantha Fox, “Naughty Girls Need Love, Too”
Posted by Tina on 10/17 at 09:09 PM"Ouga Chaka Ouga Chaka Ouga Chaka ...”
You know what I’m talkin bout - Hooked On a Feeling by Blue Swede!
Posted by on 10/17 at 09:09 PMWonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton
Seconded. GodDAMN I hate that song, and I have to hear it at every damn wedding I go to. The plodding, dirgelike music is bad--Clapton “singing” it as if 7/8 of his brain is busy calculating next month’s royalty check is worse--but add that godawful lyric about a woman whose sole function is to seek the approval of Her Man once per verse ("Was I alright?"), and you’ve got a slop trifecta. P.U.
I think a case can be made for the Carpenters fitting into a similar category as Abba, actually being really good quality, but possibly overplayed.
That’s what puts them into an especially poignant category, IMHO, saltydog: Karen Carpenter was an excellent singer with a gorgeous instrument. That makes it all the more sad.
I hated ABBA back in the day but have since learned to love them--but I’m much more forgiving of cheesy, throwaway (but expertly made) pop than I am of sappy, treacly ballads, however well sung.
Posted by on 10/17 at 09:11 PMI thought of one! My Sharonna. I took some mental digging, as I’m from a slightly later generation.
kth is right about 80’s music. It is almost reverse airbrushing. You listen to an 80’s tape and get Hungry Like the Wolf and Might as Well Jump. No Talking Heads or Blondie or even Police.
Posted by on 10/17 at 09:19 PM"Slow Dancing (Swaying to the Music)- Johnny Rivers
Sappy. Very, very, sappy.
Posted by on 10/17 at 09:29 PM"All Out of Love” - Air Supply
Here’s a little taste:
“I’m lying alone
With my head on the phone
Thinking of you till it hurts
I know you’re hurt too
But what else can we do?
Tormented and torn apart
I wish I could carry
Our smile and my heart
For times when my life seems so low
It would make me believe
What tomorrow could bring
When today doesn’t really know,
Doesn’t really know”Dude, I think I’m gonna hurl....
Posted by on 10/17 at 09:42 PMDunno why everybody’s so down on the soundtrack to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. My nomination would be Wings at the Speed of Sound.
Posted by on 10/17 at 09:43 PMSheena Easton: ``(My baby takes the) Morning Train”
Leo Sayer: ``When I Need You.”
Come to think of it, Morning Train wasn’t half bad.
Live it, or live with it.
Posted by on 10/17 at 09:45 PMA third for Clapton’s gawd-awful “Wonderful Tonight.” It’s almost enough to ruin his entire career. Were it not for the Layla album, it would be.
Posted by on 10/17 at 09:48 PMNo, no, no. I still have fond memories of MacArthur Park. And Crimson & Clover, too.
And P. P. Arnold (who was a looker) covered Angel of the Morning in England. I even owned the LP: Kafunta.
This is supposed to be about the bad stuff. Not the guilty pleasures.
Posted by jim on 10/17 at 09:54 PMForeigner--"Waiting for a girl like you”
Styx--"Babe," which is even worse than “Lady.”
I cracked up when I saw “Sometimes when we touch” on the list. When that song comes on the radio, I make fun of my husband, because he has fond memories of slow dancing to it in high school.
And I highly recommend checking out Dave Thomas’ imitation of Richard Harris singing “MacArthur Park.” It’s in the first volume of SCTV on DVD. In fact, SCTV had sketches involving many of the truly horrible songs mentioned here.
Posted by on 10/17 at 10:09 PMAnything by Bobby Goldsboro--although “Honey”, a tribute to the relationship between a moron and a sadist, is especially detestable:
Came runnin’ in all excited
Slipped and almost hurt herself
And I laughed till I cried</blockquote>About half of Neil Diamond’s songs are intolerable as well.
“I am,” I said
To no one there
An no one heard at all
Not even the chairand, of course,
Song she sang to me
Song she brang to me
Words that rang in me
Rhyme that sprang from mePosted by Ereshkigal on 10/17 at 10:19 PM’I’m Your Captain’ - Grand Funk Railroad
‘WOLD’ or anything else by Harry Chapin, as he whined and griped his way onto the charts.
But if you want to get really creepy, don’t be afraid to go back, back, back to the early 60s, back before the British Invasion, where you will find the mouldering remains of the long-forgotten tradition of teen death songs. There were a whole string of these morose hits, but the one that most makes my skin crawl is Dickey Lee’s ‘Patches,’ which ends with the singer crooning out his intention to commit suicide. “Patches, I’mmm coooming toooo yyoooouuuuuu!” Yakk!!
And I definitely second ‘My Sharonna’ and ‘Ballad of the Green Berets.’
Posted by on 10/17 at 10:33 PMDOA - some stupid song about a kid who dies in a car accident and doesn’t want to be dead. Always got played late at night on FM radio and earns my vote as “song that sucked the worst.”
Posted by on 10/17 at 10:34 PMkth - I idealise the 80’s so there!
Steve - which good songs did I trash? I didn’t see any good songs in there. And if you could bash Billy Joel, why hold back?
Kvetch - big up yourself. We Carpenteros know that every nananana and every wowowowo still shines. However, you are right - Sing a Song is truly terrible. However, when I was about 12 I starred in a Christmas pantomime and was deeply smitten with a girl whose name I forget. Anyway, her solo in the show (I played a clown, I think) was to sing, Sing a Song. So that rescues it a little for me. A similar crime was committed by ABBA with Thank You For The Music, which describes itself in its first line.
Emma Anne - no no no My Sharona is superb.
Nobody - you blew it by adding the caveat defending the rest of Clapton’s career. As an okay guitar player, he has made some bad bad music. Remeber I Shot the Sherriff? In fact he went through the whole of the 70s and much of the 80s trying to be other people - Marley, JJ Cale, Phil Collins. Recently he has started trying to be Robert Johnson. The man can’t decide what music to play just as he can’t decide whether to grow a proper beard or not. Perhaps Layla should be nominated as his only possibly good song, and even then everyone knows that Duane Allman invented the riff.
Can I add some more? The list could go on. How about Phil Collins ballads. One more night? One more shite more like. They are all terrible.
Neverending Story by Limahl makes Too Shy sound like Janaceks string quartets. This is made much worse by the fact that Limahl always seemed to go on and on about his ‘clever’ name. His real name was Chris Hamill - d’ya see what he did there?
Should I Stay or Should I go by The Clash - awful, thrown together rubbish.
Most of Elton John’s catalogue
Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel
Classical Gas
The Living Years
In the Summertime....I am losing the will to live.Posted by on 10/17 at 11:05 PMThis is pretty far back in the thread, but wrt Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning,” as a child I could never understand what the deal was with her teeth. You know, “Just brush my teeth before you leave me, bay-bee!”
Some of my votes: “More than a woman” Bee Gees; Clapton’s MTV Unplugged version of “Layla” and what about Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive”?
Of course I can’t forget “Rosanna” by Toto—just try getting THAT out of your head!! “Meet-chew all the WAY! (ba da ba) Ro-SAN-aan-aan-NA!”
Posted by on 10/17 at 11:07 PMEreshkigal - just read your post and feel I must warn you. Criticizing “The Diamond” is illegal in most states and internationally, and can lead to long prison sentences and/or being sent to Coventry.
Posted by on 10/17 at 11:11 PMKth and Emma Anne, I beg to differ. There’s plenty of ‘80s airbrushing out there. Movie and TV soundtracks, for example, sometimes just remember the good stuff (whether top 40 or not). Case in point, tonight’s episode of “Medium” (which, btw, had a good first season but now kinda sucks) had flashback scenes set in 1987 in a cheezy bar in Phoenix. In the background they were playing was The Pretenders. What they *should* have been playing, had they been true to life, is Mr. Mister’s “Broken Wings” (a 1986 song still being played ad nauseam in ‘87). They also got the clothes wrong, but that’s off topic.
And as for the ‘80s mixes with Hungry Like the Wolf, etc. that’s a helluva lot better (and more oft-remembered) than, say, Glass Tiger’s “Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone).” Thank god for small ironies!
And hey, wasn’t that the point of the game— stuff that’s *so* bad even the oldies stations and nostalgia trips have forgotten them?
Posted by Tina on 10/17 at 11:18 PMCornelius Brothers and Sister Rose, Treat Her Like a Lady
America, Sister Goldenhair
At This Moment, Billy Vera and the Beaters
Another Done Somebody Wrong Song, BJ Thomas
Go All the Way, the Raspberries
Build Me Up, Buttercup, the Foundations
Come and Get Your Love, Redbone
Cracklin’ Rosie, Neil Diamond
Don’t Pull Your Love, Hamilton Joe Frank and Reynolds
Oh Babe, What Would You Say, Hurricane Smith
...you know, it’s amazing how really useful it is for this exercise to have no pride at all
Posted by julia on 10/18 at 12:03 AMRich, “Brandy” is OK. And the drummers in the house should like the little sixteenth-note flourish on the bass drum under the words “good wife” in the chorus—that’s a nice touch. And saltydog, I’m not a believer in flaying, except for Gary Puckett. On the Clapton front, “Wonderful Tonight” must be retired, not least because it is about nine minutes long. I know. I have had to dance to it at a wedding.
But the 80s bring up a host of vexing questions, which you’ve all handled most admirably. First, there is such a thing as reverse airbrushing, precisely because 80s nostalgia was packaged—beginning in January 1990—as “faux” nostalgia (thus paving the way for VH1’s “I Love the 90s” and “Best Week Ever"). So no one invested the decade with any serious feeling, even though, as you all know, the first three or four years of the 80s featured some fine music (very little of which made it to Big Radio, though). The contradictory result, I think, is this: on one hand, we are constantly fed The Tubes’ “She’s a Beauty” as an 80s hit even though nobody actually listened to it at the time, while on the other hand we like to think everyone was listening to Remain in Light even though they weren’t. This makes no sense: both “She’s a Beauty” nor “The Great Curve” were largely obliterated by Rod Stewart’s “Young Hearts” and whatever by P.A.T. Benatar, but there you have it. And yet (making 80s music citations still less coherent) both Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion and Napoleon Dynamite feature Cindy Lauper’s “Time After Time” as a kind of unironic marker of wistfulness and innocence, and this seems to me just about right. Oddly enough, that song has aged exceptionally well.
But all this is beside the point, since (for now) the 80s are part of the best of yesterday and today, rather than Oldies. Oldies go up to (and include) Billy Joel’s “My Life,” but no further. Classic Rock, however, manages to include U2, the Police, and the truly regrettable songs of Bruce’s Born in the USA.
I only wish the Eagles didn’t get such heavy airplay in all three formats.
Ouga Chaka, everyone! And thanks for the Vicki Lawrence flashback, kth. I won’t forget you for that.
Posted by Michael on 10/18 at 12:08 AMI am surprised that no one has mentioned “I Want to Know What Love Is” by Foreigner.
Also, the nadir of Clapton is “Tears in Heaven.”
Posted by on 10/18 at 12:09 AMOkay, I may be technically cheating by nominating a song that was released several years before I was born, but it really precisely fits the memory-hole qualifications that Michael set forth.
We all like to remember The Animals as those nice boys who did “House of the Rising Sun” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”, but the reality is that Eric Burdon then spent most of the rest of the 60s churning out some of the most unlistenably awful psychedelic tripe known to mankind, the absolute apotheosis of which was the ear-rending, seven minute and 27 second (give or take a century) opus Sky Pilot. It’s got it all: aimless guitar noodling, earnestly awful lyrics, and enough self-satisfied hippie buillshit to drive Eric Cartman into an aneurysm. The first time I heard it on the radio, I kept expecting Frank Zappa’s voice to cut in at any moment to reveal the joke, but instead it just kept… getting… worse.
I keep an mp3 of it around to remind people that drugs don’t always make for better music. Sometimes they just make you a stoned moron.
Posted by Doctor Memory on 10/18 at 12:15 AMAh, but without Watching Scotty Grow, we wouldn’t have the Dead Milkmen’s Watching Scotty Die.
Posted by on 10/18 at 12:56 AMWonderful Tonight- creepy hymn to the trophy wife
Posted by on 10/18 at 01:04 AMKC and Sunshine Band? “That’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it...” One shudders just thinking about it.
But my winner of this “contest” is:
Elton John’s covers of “Lucy in the Sky...” and “Pinball Wizard” which were simply Sir Elton turning both songs into dull, 4/4 pop marches with arrangements and production quality that were perfectly horrid. Considering Sir Elton’s raw talents as a musician and songwriter, this was, as Leonard Pinth-Garnell might say, “Bad radio.”
Posted by mitchell freedman on 10/18 at 01:05 AMMaybe I don’t understand the rules, but am somewhat surprised to not have seen “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” yet. Made especially memorable for me when my seatmate on a late night bus ride home from a swim meet chose the precise moment it was announced as best song of the year on some mid-Ohio radio station (’70? ‘71?) to vomit down the side of the bus.
And it may just be a personal problem, but my hand routinely breaks the speed of sound flying to the dial when I hear the tortured beginning sounds of Steve Miller’s “The Joker”.
In fact I have come to believe that if I hear the words “Space Cowboy” I will be maimed, “gangster of love” struck dead, and if it gets to “Maurice” the world will come to an end.Posted by on 10/18 at 01:11 AMAlso, the nadir of Clapton is “Tears in Heaven.”
Posted by blah on 10/17 at 11:09 PM
You may be right, but I tend to think of the Clapton oeuvre as bottomless. No matter what awful thing you dredge up, there’s still something worse that managed to get airplay. Because the John Mayal Bluesbreakers album with Clapton (he’s reading a Beano comic book on the cover) may be my favorite, and because I take guilty pleasure in Cream, I like to think that Clapton, like the McCartney of urban legend, died a few decades ago and has been replaced by a lookalike.
And Doctor Memory, no rant on the awfulness of Eric Burdon should leave out “Spill the Wine” or “San Franciscan Nights.”
Posted by Dr. Drang on 10/18 at 01:21 AMDon’t speak ill of the Pompatus of Love.
Posted by Dr. Drang on 10/18 at 01:26 AMMichael, I wonder if your take on The Tubes’s “She’s A Beauty” is a regional thing. It was a big hit here in the Bay Area, and everybody was listening to it, even those of us from the hardcore schol of Funk. I had the impression at the time that they were a local band, but now I’m not sure. I found their website, but could not find any reference to their history. Why don’t I just go and look at the original album (which I had), you ask? My dad gave ALL my record albums away while I was out of state, didn’t even ask me. I’m still traumatized. Priceless, irreplaceable vinyl.
Mitchell - “Pinball Wizard” still gets some airplay, but I will lobby for you to be “awarded points"* for the “Leonard Pinth-Garnell” reference. Beautiful.
*(Hey, that “Billy Madison” quote is paying off already!)
Posted by on 10/18 at 02:41 AMY’know, this is like taking a walk down memory lane; and getting mugged. But I’d like to know what’s the matter with you folks; didn’t any of you hate “You Light Up My Life” by Debbie Boone enough to mention it?
Posted by on 10/18 at 03:10 AMI’m sorry, but I must say that I’m pretty disappointed. I skimmed through most of this message board, but just didn’t see the kind of answers I wanted. To me, the whole point of this was to name toss-off songs that followed-up hit singles and whatnot. The pop musical equivalent of sloppy seconds and dirty thirdies, so to speak. It was about halfass songs which once got regular airplay, but are totally forgotten about today. And deservedly so. This is the stuff that would never have gotten airplay, had it stood on its own. And they’ve now been disappeared from musical memory; blotted out, leaving less than a stain.
Yet, most of the answers here are the same standard songs that all of these kinds of lists have. This is Dave Barry territory all the way. Because most of the songs given here are the hit single that we know the artist by. But rather than being forgotten about, they’ve been fully remembered; and in many cases are part of the Oldies canon. Their biggest offense might be that they’re played too often; and not forgotten about enough.
And most every one of the songs listed on this board is well-remembered by people. Hell, there are a few of these songs, like “Muskrat Love” that I know much better from discussions of bad songs than I know the actual tune. I have no idea how it goes, but I know that it’s famously bad. “MacArthur Park” is another that I know better from it’s infamous badness. I remember the stirring “and I’ll never have that...” part at the end, but the rest of it’s justifiably blank. Nor can we include Barry’s worst-song winner “I Am, I Said”; because it is well-remembered and is played often. I even like it (I’m a Neil Diamond freak).
But these all come from a canon of their own: The Worst-Song canon. Everyone knows them, but the list is far from complete and only consists of certain remembered songs. The same ones that everyone else knows and recite every time the conversation turns to bad songs. And I just didn’t think that was the point being discussed. Rather than exposing the flawed memories of people who wish to forget the twenty-two albums of Gilbert O’Sullivan they purchased; we’re just getting more flawed memories of standard “Worst Songs”.
So I’m sorry, but as a whole, this comment board gets a Big D Minus in my book. Some of the answers were good. But too many just seemed to miss the point and gave us songs that are both remembered and played semi-regularly in the very canonized line-up that Mr. Berube was kind enough to mention. He started the ball rolling, and it was totally dropped. Rather than mentioning songs that have been purged from the Oldies canon, you’ve called forth a separate canon. And that missed the whole point.
So nice going, guys. You’ve spoiled my night. Thanks for nothing. I won’t be leaving a tip.
Posted by Doctor Biobrain on 10/18 at 03:26 AMDoes anyone remember “Indiana Wants Me” by R. Dean Taylor? I’ve never heard it on the radio so it must be considered too much of a novelty. Same with “The Year of the Cat” by Al Stewart.
Posted by on 10/18 at 03:36 AMI, too, was disappointed by the “Macarthur Park” dogpile.
You’re not the only ones with a Dave Barry book, y’all. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
(By the way, I nominate “I Should Have Wiped Better” by Roy Orbison, even though I just made that up.)
Posted by on 10/18 at 04:19 AMThree letters: E, L, O.
Posted by on 10/18 at 05:15 AMRich, “Brandy” is OK. And the drummers in the house should like the little sixteenth-note flourish on the bass drum under the words “good wife” in the chorus—that’s a nice touch.
Indeed. And Looking Glass was actually a heavy rock band from Rutgers—the album is quite unlike the single.
I’m going to toss ‘Winchester Cathedral’ onto the pile, along with ‘Popcorn.’ ...And Lou Christie’s ‘Lightning Strikes.’ And ‘Sky High’ by Jigsaw.
...And David Geddes, all-inclusive.
Posted by Gavin M. on 10/18 at 05:28 AMSongs that (1) were hits, (2) have (as far as I know, but then I don’t really keep up) never received significant airplay since, (3) are burned into my very DNA, and (4) are rather less than stellar:
Showaddywaddy, “Under The Moon Of Love”
Suzi Quatro, “The Wild One”
Gary Glitter, “Now I’m Back With The Boys Again”
Sailor, “A Glass Of Champagne”
what’s his name, “Convoy”
what’s their names, “Save Your Kisses For Me”
Chris Spedding, “Motorbikin’”
Disco Tex and the Sex-o-Lettes, “I Wanna Dance Wit’ You”
Silver Convention, “Fly Robin Fly”
whoever it was, “When You’re Hot You’re Hot”
Ramjam, “Black Betty”
Mother’s Finest, “Somebody To Love”
Mary Hopkin, “Those Were The Days” (actually, I like this one)I’m sure I’ll think of as many more as soon as I hit “submit.” Also, there’s a bit of a UK bias, as that’s where I was living at the most susceptible age.
The embarrassing thing about the Eighties isn’t the bad music that everybody knew was bad, it’s the bad music that people thought was cool, like “Safety Dance” and The Thompson Twins.
And y’all: “Cracklin’ Rosie” and “My Sharona” fucking rock. “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Grows” is pretty cool too.
Posted by Tim Walters on 10/18 at 05:30 AMIf Clapton died and was replaced by a (sucking) robot, where do you draw the line?
It is my firm belief that the non-sucking portion of his career is exactly coincident with the second side of “Live Cream, Volume 2.” No idea why he was famous before that, no idea why anyone continued to care afterward.
Someone mentioned “Layla” as a saving grace… but even that one gets airbrushed in our minds. Credit Allman with the part that you like, and blame Clapton for the dismal outro…
LLR
Posted by on 10/18 at 07:12 AMHey, Doctor Biobrain, why so mean? Some people showed up to suggest songs they hate, some people did the Worst Song thing, and some people stayed within the “purged-from-Oldies” parameters. That’s just the way the Internets work. It’s no big thing—I mean, it’s not like it’s Judith Miller or college football or something. What, you think you’re like the smartest person in the world?
Whoa. Just checked your website. Turns out you are the smartest person in the world. My bad.
Mitchell, thank you for Leonard Pinth-Garnell. That young Aykroyd kid had promise, back in the day.
Posted by Michael on 10/18 at 07:44 AMI’m w/ Uncle Kvetch. My guilty pleasure is that I really like ABBA, even Fernando (tho not my favorite). No accounting for taste!
Posted by on 10/18 at 08:44 AMI am most grateful that the oeuvre of Darryl Hall and John Oates seems to have been consigned to the dustbin of memory—at least around here (NYC) I have not heard a song of theirs played on oldies radio since I’ve been listening, i.e. about 10 years—they were quite popular when I was a child and I always felt a lurking fear that “Private Eyes” would be in constant rotation when I grew up.
And on a vaguely related note, how is it that Billy Joel survives when H & O do not? He is equivalently bad—even worse since he is more prolific, there is more bad there to be heard.
Posted by Jeremy Osner on 10/18 at 09:06 AMSlightly “edgier” than what you’re looking for, but ...
It’s
It’s
a ballroom blitzPosted by Roxanne on 10/18 at 09:12 AMThen there’s the theme-song from Billy Jack:
One Tin Soldier (rides away)
Posted by Roxanne on 10/18 at 09:15 AMYeah, Meatloaf sucks. I wish they would put his records away already. I kind of like “Ode to Billy Joe”, which is good because one of the radio station plays a recent cover of it frequently.
Two songs that I feared, as a young man, I would have to listen to forever, are: “Walkin’ on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves, and “Neunundneunzig Luftballoon"/"Ninety-nine Red Balloons” by whoever it was that sang that “song”. These seem both to have moved off the regular play list although I have heard both of them on oldies radio not too many years past.
Posted by Jeremy Osner on 10/18 at 09:21 AMOkay, one more ...
Midnight at the Oasis, the Maria Muldaur version.
Posted by Roxanne on 10/18 at 09:23 AMI lied. Just one more. And this one is truly, truly hiddeous:
Puff, The Magic Dragon
Posted by Roxanne on 10/18 at 09:26 AM