The World-Famous Official ‘Spill 30-Day Musical Challenge
(Rules)
Day 25 topic: a song you hate from a band you love
Please include song name & artist in your post for Chris
.
The World-Famous Official ‘Spill 30-Day Musical Challenge
(Rules)
Day 25 topic: a song you hate from a band you love
Please include song name & artist in your post for Chris
.
I’m certain there are people here who will strongly disagree with me on this, but I really don’t like Light My Fire by the Doors. Although the organ solo in the middle is quite cool, I don’t like the lyrics much, it doesn’t really go anywhere and I really think if it wasn’t Jim singing it, I’d hit the skip button every time, feel free to tell me what I’m missing…
Don’t have a problem with this song but The Doors did cross my mind for this question – Riders On The Storm and LA Woman are tracks I’ve blown quite cold on, having been very hot on them when I loved the band a lot more than I do now. Now, I’m pretty fond of them, tend to prefer the songs credited to Robbie Krieger than to Jim Morrison and certainly no longer wish to write poetry like Jimbo, but hate doesn’t really feature.
I’m glad that they had a hit with it, but this and the two you mention are far from their most interesting work in my opinion. Similarly, I am over the wanting to be a poet like Jim phase too.
Have to say I’ve always preferred Shirley Bassey’s version (and not even ironically):
Shirley’s version is more palatable to me, certainly.
It’s got to be this really
“I don’t see what’s wrong with it” – Kevin Rowland.
Sorry Kevin…it’s not There There My Dear is it?
I’m hoping that Richard Thompson counts as a ‘band’ for these purposes – he has one in this clip anyway (including Shawn Colvin, for some reason).
There are 4 RT songs that I greatly dislike, and of the four this is the one I dislike most – so again, I hope that counts as hating it. He’s taking the piss out of an upper-class young woman who’s trying to be down with the kids by dressing like them; but, says RT, she’s a hypocrite because it’s only a fad with her and soon she’ll be back in the twinset and pearls.
Which is all well and good, and far be it from me to say you shouldn’t take the piss out of posh folks. I think you should! But ‘bone through her nose’? It’s as if RT is saying OK, she looks pretty ridiculous, but AT LEAST she hasn’t got a bone through her nose, because (he implies) this would be really horrible.
So? So I think it’s racist. (However, it’s fair to say that no-one I’ve ever mentioned this to agrees with me.)
Bone Through Her Nose by Richard Thompson
I just looked at the lyrics out of curiosity. I can see your point but I just take it as mocking faux tribalism. But then again it’s a bit sweeping to suggest that all genuine tribal people have bones through their nose so maybe it is a bit. I can see the point he’s making.
Don’t know what year this song was written, but the first thing i though of was Madonna, because i remember this interview with Michael Musto -
Ooo – well, the album came out in 1986. I’m amazed at your memory – when was that article published?
Much later than that, it looks like 2000. Sometime after Madge moved to the UK and took up with Guy Richie and started to speak with a faux English accent.
Ah – I’m not familiar with her accents. (But a friend of my sister’s works at the place where they got married!)
(and RT has a song about that called Madonna’s Wedding)
Not surprised. If he had a go at Mr. Sting, Madonna was probably fair game as well.
Rent me Scotland, that’ll do…
Know what you mean TFD. Sometimes you think maybe you’re being too picky, or that surely you’re not hearing what you think you heard. A lot of time your gut is right though.
I was following Dorian on Twitter until he compared the Tahrir Square demonstrations to the crowd at a hip hop concert.
I’m not labelling anyone I don’t know well, but I do trust my gut about what’s right for me.
I can see what you mean, sometimes someone just uses language that strikes the wrong chord, I wouldn’t think he meant it in that way though as I haven’t read/heard any other evidence that he has racist inclinations, have you?
Possibly just an ill judged turn of phrase.
Oh no – I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way. But it still makes me uncomfortable.
Yup, probably all innocent. But it’s like stuff said in anger. Easy enough to excuse, but it still came from somewhere.
Which for the bnefit of Chris was Dexys Midnight Runners – Because Of You
Which should have been posted in reply to my original post (sigh)
What, up there?
.
…………………………………………………..Over here?
.
……….. here, perhaps?
I have to say that Dexy’s are a mystery to me. Then again all i really know is Come On Eileen which i absolutely loathe (sorry, all!). Tried to listen to a few other noms, their charms still escape me.
Always liked Because Of You as a classic TV example of the White Horses Paradox – a great theme but terrible show – and I loved Dexy’s for what they did with and about Northern soul (Geno and their Johnny Johnson and Chuck Wood covers the stand-outs)….that was sort of before hearing much Northern soul. Now – they tick so many boxes for that time – lyrically, tunefully, the soul aspirations, punk anger, political intensity – but I’m surprised to find some of it now sounds a little incoherent, not just because of Kevin’s diction either. Weirdly, less than the sum of their parts though, I dunno, more years may bring another re-appraisal.
Amy, you should try Geno for starters. I would consider it pretty difficult to dislike. In fact, I would say that of most of “Searching for the Young Soul Rebels”. “Don’t Stand Me Down” is also a work of absolute genius, but a little less accessible. I can understand the “Eileen” dislike!
Saw them eight or so years back playing the Royal Festival Hall – one of my top five gigs ever. There was talk of imminent new material but it never seemed to appear. Shame.
Donding Geno as the one to start with! My second favourite record ever. As for Come On Eileen, it was the song that got me into them when I was 12, and I still think it’s good although hard to listen to without images of lots of Dad Dancing at weddings. It’s one of those songs that seems superficially happy with more under the surface I think. I would unfashionably argue that Too-Rye-Aye is the best album – after all it has All In All, Old, and Until I Believe In My Soul for starters, and I still like the version of Plan B on there as well. But all 3 albums are obviously execllent.
Bish – you saw them on the same tour I did. Wasn’t the gig ou went to the one released as the DVD? Did you not even like the version of Come On Eileen they did there. They seemed to rescue it from all those wedding discos somehow, or maybe that was just me.
Still can’t cope with Because Of You. Just too lightweight for me, and Rowland seems to be entering his middle aged crooning phase. It’s the “intense” Rowland I like as you can probably tell. They played it at the gig – I guess I could let it pass in it’s role as “lightweight first song of the encore” role, but don’t expect me to like it. It’s just frustrating that Burn It Down, Plan B, There There My Dear, and All In All were all missing but this was included, but I guess that’s Rowland – does what he wants rather than going for obvious crowd pleasing.
Ok, Geno was sort of lovely. Kind of an English Beat-ish vibe. Gave a listen to There There My Dear, not bad either. But i still detest Come On Eileen.
The inherent flaw with Dexy’s were that they were in a ‘reinventing the wheel’ syndrome -it had been done before and was superior. They were more of a live act as KR’s vocal deficiency was amply made up by the emotion and tension both he & the band created, I remember him being very antagonistic towards the audience.
To their credit I probably wouldn’t have found ‘The Horse’ if it wasn’t for them, oh and the horns were always the business!
@albahooky – I think Dexys did at something different at the very least in terms of the lyrics. I got into them when they were in their “celtic soul” phase which was hadn’t been done so much, although some have suggested they were nicking ideas wholesale from Van Morrison (and Rowland appears to now agree)
@amylee – The English Beat – or The Beat as we English know them – were local contemporaries of Dexys in Birmingham , though no doubt Kevin Rowland held them in contempt as this appeared to be his default position on most of his contemporaries, especially those from Birmingham.
I actually quite like “Come On Eileen” too, wyngate – I can just understand Amy’s antipathy. Dissociated from all wedding disco connections, it has a great air of (entertainingly self-aware) sexual desperation about it: “My thoughts, I confess, verge on dirty…” I think it’s a witty lyric – or would be if you could make out what Kev was singing!
To my shame, as a teenager I watched rather a lot of “Brush Strokes” – and was rather fond of “Because of You” in a better-than-yer-average-theme-tune kind of way. But it’s not great in the context of the Dexy’s canon. But then, as I’ve said before, I could listen to Kev sing most things. There are even bits of the “My Beauty” album that I love.
Maybe that RFH gig was released on DVD – not sure. Will have a google…
@bish – I’m getting confused it was at the Royal Court in Liverpool. It was called It Was Like This (confusingly the same name as the early Dexys repackage CD a few years before) and initially came out with a picture of Rowland at the gig on the cover. Shortly after it was rereleased with a picture of the “gypsy look” Rowland from 82, seemingly deemed the only way to sell it to the public. It features interviews with 3 of the band but not Rowland. I wonder what the interviewer had done to upset him? (It doesn’t take much)
Didn’t realize they changed the name to English Beat for our benefit. (unless there was already a band here with that name). They had a few hits here and were fairly popular, no doubt helped along by David Wakeling and Ranking Roger’s MTV friendly beauty. No Doubt said that they were a big influence (a band i respect a lot but can’t love, probably due to Gwynnie’s screeching).
There was already a band called The Beat in the US, hence our Beat became the English Beat for US purposes, but were still known as The Beat over here.
Probably the crappiest thing I have by Miles Davis- and there are certainly worse tracks, but I don’t own them and don’t admit to having heard them- would be Red China Blues, from Get up with it, which taints an otherwise awesome album with MOR mediocrity.
I haven’t listened to this all the way through for years, and doing so now has really wrecked my evening, thanks a lot tin.
Donds to that sentiment.
OK, this not a band I love-love-love, but I used to listen to them a lot up until a couple of years ago…
Steeleye Span – All Around My Hat
In my memory it forms part of an unfortunate triumvirate, the other two parts of which are ‘Day Trip to Bangor’ and the execrable ‘Floral Dance’ by Terry Wogan. I’m probably getting my dates mixed up, but they all seem to me to have been novelty songs quite high in the charts in a short space of time, belonging to the great-aunts tipsy after the WI outing school of knees-up.
* Apologies to any great-aunts, WI members or tipsy knees-uppers partaking of today’s blog!
Spot on. deedlee-dee, pom-pom-pom. All crap. And Steeleye Span were supposed to have some credibility…
Oh, I liked Steeleye Span and have very fond memories of this song, the children like singing along to it too, but then, I’ve dated two Morris Dancers, so I’m probably more tolerant of sing-a-long folk than most.
I think they have worse songs, for me, Alison Gross is skipped more often because of the awful and loud electric guitar at the end.
Each to their own though.
Dond. This and Gaudete make me want to perforate my eardrums with pencils.
I don’t know this one so i’ll have to give it a listen after my coffee. But (waiting for more red arrows here), out of all of the great British female folk singers, i like Maddy Prior’s voice the best of all.
better than Sandy Denny? Hmm, I do like Maddy Prior’s voice, but no one can beat Sandy for me. I’m not going to shoot you with arrows about it though, I’m very fond of Jacqui McShee’s voice too, but not fussed about Anne Briggs who people rave about.
@ Amylee, when I was a little kid I wanted to be Maddy Prior! Then I got older and realised a) I couldn’t live with her dress sense and b) it was actually June Tabor I preferred on the ‘Silly Sisters’ stuff – and she [JT] remains one of my very favourite singers to this day.
Maddy P. has been doing some quite interesting stuff with other singers in recent years though, ‘Maddy & the Girls’, including her daughter Rose Kemp.
@ Beth
I love ‘Alison Gross’, especially the distorted guitar! And I am desperate to see the Morris dancing film shown at that little Texan festival tfd attended recently…
Oops, that was only supposed to be ‘be’ [as in Maddy Prior] in italics
Huh? Little festival? Morris-dancing film?
June Tabor is appearing at the Festival Hall with the Oysterband on September 14, debbym – any chance of you popping over?
I’ve only seen JT once before – it was in MK and I went with Jean-Pierre, my former next-door-neighbour; I was very excited because J-P was a friend of JT’s so I knew I’d be meeting her afterwards. In fact the whole concert was pretty much a disaster. Not many tickets had been sold, because it was just after she’d released her jazz-flavoured album which hadn’t been popular; the hall was freezing cold – she said when she came back on after the interval she was tempted to suggest we all went into the ladies’ for the second half as it was much warmer there; and she had a bloke accompanying her on piano and one of the piano pedals squeaked THROUGHOUT – they didn’t even fix it in the interval. So when I did meet her I was pretty anxious, but she was fine about it and said she’d played in much worse places…
As for Maddy Prior, I’ve always found her kind of embarrassing – perhaps because I used to get compared to her. (Actually it was only the hair.) My favourite women folk singers are Sandy Denny and Shirley Collins.
@Beth, Debby
yep, better than Sandy’s, which is why i ducked. Better than Annie Haslam, better than Jacqui McShee, and June Tabor maybe in a close second place.
I also like Maddy’s sense of humor too, when she said that she thought that Black Jack Davy was actually about a bit of rough.
@debby(m) I like the rest of Alison Gross, I just find the loud bit at the end rather too loud! It sounds as if I must check out June Tabor, any help with where to start, I’ve somehow missed out on her altogether?
@treefrogdemon – oh dear that sounds like a terrible gig, was she grumpy when you met her afterwards? I did weaken and actually join in with some Morris dancing whilst at Glastonbury festival one year, it was fun, but I can’t say I’ve fully embraced the lifestyle.
I don’t think the 70s was kind to any female folk singers, they all looked a bit silly, but the singing was still great. I should listen to more Shirley Collins too, I think.
I think this is my cue to confess in a VERY tiny voice that I find a little Shirley Collins goes an awful long way… Having said that, I do own an awfilly expensive S.C. boxed set, because I think the songs are so important!
I do like Maddy Prior’s singing, and I love Jacqui McShee, Sandy Denny, Linda Thompson, I even like the girl from Renaissance (whose name I’m ashamed to say I don’t know – where’s Kalyr when you need him?)
@tfd
Much as I’d love to make June Tabor with the Oyster Band, I really can’t see it happening. My German favourites LaBrassbanda are playing open-air in Hamburg on September 14th, and I’ll consider myself lucky if I manage to get to that!
Debby -
That’s Annie Haslam from Renaissance.
@beth: no, she was fine about it. I would start with her first album, Airs And Graces, if I were you.
I also very much like the singing of Cathy LeSurf – an incredible high voice. I have a friend who knows her, and she lives near him, so I’m hoping to get to meet her one day.
On Renaissance – Jane Relf, sister of Keith, was the singer to start with.
I quite like All around my hat, the one that makes me wish the band had been eradicated at birth is New York Girls with Peter bloody Sellers.
bethnoir has reminded of a Doors song I always skip (I’m OK with Light My Fire). If I had liked it, it would have been a good choice for a funeral. As it is, all the screaming and cod psychology turns me off totally. Yes, it’s The Doors, ‘The End’
But doesn’t its use in Apocalypse Now redeem it?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd2cy_the-end-apocalypse-now_music
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DHXZpPW_qJyM
Try again
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DHXZpPW_qJyM
Give up
See, I would classify that as one I like, but only want to hear once a year or so, along with ‘When the Music’s Over’ and Arlo Guthrie’s ‘Alice’s Restaurant’.
When I know all the words and something is very long, I’d rather spend my music listening time on something else. I do know what you mean though.
One of The Doors songs I actually do quite like, especially in Apocalypse Now. That said I’m not so keen on listening to it all the way through.
Well. Spoiled for choice for Stones tunes, Hang Fire was my first thought, a right piece of shite. But i’ve put up too many Stones tunes so far, and may want to get a few more in, so i guess i ought to look further afield. Bowie coughed up a fair amount of crap. But i think i’ll go for an artist that i love, and a song i’m probably supposed to like but can’t stand.
Prince – Little Red Corvette
(close runner up – 1999)
This is interesting, I quite like that song, what is it that makes you hate it? The concept? The words or the music?
I’ve had Darling Nikki stuck in my head all weekend and I know I haven’t listened to it for about 5 years!
I knew i was going to get red arrowed for that one! I have no idea why i can’t stand it, probably a combination of the music which doesn’t do much for me, and gross overplayment. I think his first song here was I Wanna Be Your Lover which i totallly loved. Then i think it wasn’t until the Purple Rain album that i fell back in love with him again, permanently.
As to Darling Nikki, maybe it’s best to exorcise the demon and give it a listen!
have exorcised it now, thanks
Yeah, I’d be interested to know why you dislike those two Prince songs too, Amy. I’m not a massive, massive fan of his, but both (particularly 1999) have always struck me as kind of fun.
I was right, i did hit a sacred cow! Again, i think it was just that i didn’t like them all that much to start with, but they just got so overplayed at the time. Maybe just a bit too top 40 for me, but then i absolutely love Raspberry Beret which i never got tired of. I guess i love Prince best as a funkmaster though.
No sacred cow for me. Just intrigued as to what it was about those two songs that particularly irritates! The song of his that I’ve never much liked is “My Name is Prince”. The sound’s good and I don’t mind the self-aggrandising sentiment but the lyrics are just a bit trite.
Ha, there you go. My Name is Prince is one of my favorites. Proper hard funk it is! I also like the songs where he lets rip with the guitar solos too, he’s a first rate guitarist.
Well, there you go! My favourite Prince song is almost certainly “If I Was Your Girlfriend”. Which I appreciate isn’t likely to be everyone’s top choice!
This is a slightly qualified nomination, in that I only “love” Dave Lee Roth era Van Halen anyway. (I don’t have a problem with Sammy Hagar; I just believe that two ace bands were ruined to create one merely average one when Hagar sacked his early-80s band to join VH). But back on topic: I absolutely LOATHE
Van Halen – Jump
and have done really from day of release. It’s subsequent disco ubiquity just rubs salt in my wounds. Yet I can’t properly articulate why I hate it so much. It can’t be because they’d “gone pop”; listen to Dance The Night Away from Van Halen II – how “pop” do you want?! But I still love that (playing as I type, precisely because it demanded an outing when I thought of it.
But Jump . . . It’s just . . . meh!
And it annoys me disproportionately that it is the first tune non- or casual- fans mention when you say the VH name.
Gah! Need some proper speed-solo metal now to banish the thought …………………………..
Original quote found on youtube concerning the Hellsongs cover
I love Jump (please tell me we can still be friends!) Dance the Night Away is a frighteningly catchy little bugger, isn’t it? My favorite has the be Unchained though. I loathe all of Diamond Dave’s gigalo garbage.
Oh Unchained is ace!
“C’mon Dave, gimme a break!”
One break c-o-m-i-n’ uu-uu-pp!!
Cue monster guitar from Eddie.
We can still be friends, Amy, because nothing you say will ruin the memory of DLR’s gig at Bradford St. George’s Hall all those years ago: one of the best of my entire life.
It is a crap song.
Mind you, I never liked Van Halen anyway, but Jump is shite.
whereas I don’t like Van Halen, but do like Jump. I was quite young when I first heard it though, so as someone else said, my taste filters were not in place at that time.
I can’t get past Dave Lee Roth’s zany personality. It’s all a bit… Timmy Mallett. Soz, Darce!
Roth nailed John Brim’s Ice Cream Man, though. Only Van Halen song I like.
They’re not my favorite band. I also detest crap like Hot For Teacher. But i do love Unchained, and fluff like Jump and Panama.
Dropped in whilst waiting for a couple of tech issues to be resolved at work -
@ Carole – I was being polite with “Meh!” Yours is more accurate.
@ Beth – no slight at you, but that’s exactly what gets my goat. Thanks. Pax?
@ bish – I know what you mean, but there is a valid artist behind that persona. Not necessarily one with good quality control, but still… I would tell you that even Blimpy would recommend you read DLR’s autobiog, but I suspect that would make matters worse, not better.
@ tinny – oh, yeah!
@ Amy – what bloody time is it over there?! Don’t you ever sleep, woman? Blimey, I thought I was bad.
It’s now 6:20 am. I was out most of the day, went to bed around 12:00, and sadly can’t seem to sleep for much more that 5 hours straight, so was up at 5:30.
Ah. Sorry. That’s not so bad then. For some reason, I’d pegged you as being on Pacific time. Are you Eastern or Central? (My head isn’t working well enough to compute what difference BST, rather than GMT, makes.)
Eastern. I’m smack on the east coast, literally on the ocean, about an hour south of Boston. Fintan and GF are on left coast time, about 3 hours later.
Oh, so for me, that’s 5 hours later than GMT.
I don’t like the VH original, but I do like Aztec Camera & Paul Anka’s take on it though …
This is a tough one off the top of my head. If there’s a song I don’t like, i’m able to dismiss it pretty easily.
Ooh actually here’s one, Somebody’s Calling Me by LCD Soundsystem. Plodtastic.
Poor LP overall, saying that I have problems listening to the first LP. I may have to give it a spin soon.
I’m really struggling with this one, there aren’t many songs I hate, particularly by bands I love. So I’ve plumped for one I skip, if I’m listening to the CD, which is “Eskimo” by Damien Rice:
Sorry Damien, it just doesn’t work for me.
NNOOOOOO, Ali, surely not.
I bloody LOVE Eskimo. In fact I persevered learning the basics of Audacity specifically to chop off the extended silence and hidden tracks at the end of Eskimo, so that I could add it to my Walkman.
Well, t’would be a dull world if we were all the same!
I do love The Beatles. I know the Ringo track on each LP was a light-hearted thing, and I sometimes like it. But they should’ve stopped him singing Carl Perkins. So for me, it’s Everybody Wants To Be My Baby – The Beatles, without a link !
CORRECTION !
Following some looking up on Wikipedia… Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby isn’t the one I’m thinking of. It’s still not great, but it was sung by George on Beatles For Sale.
My actual nomination is The Beatles – Honey Don’t which was sung abominably by Ringo with the band not really trying terribly hard.
By way of post-appalling-cover-therapy, here’s CARL PERKINS.
Bunnymen – Ocean Rain
Overblown twaddle.
I used to love it, now just find it a bit dull. Seven Seas could have been one for this topic for me. There I was turning up to school in a Bunnymen t-shirt to school everyday and then they release that as a single – painful. (Apologies to whoever chose Seven Seas the other day). In between them though is My Kingdom which I still really like- the “greatest album ever made” is a very mixed bag.
I really like Ocean Rain (and picked Seven Seas the other day, but only cos I couldn’t find a My Kingdom link). Saw them do the whole album at the Albert Hall a year or two back. It was ace.
I’m annoyed I missed the Crocodiles/Heaven Up Here gigs last year, I just couldn’t afford it at the time. That said if they announce they are doing the whole of Porcupine I might have to stoop to underhand means.
I see they are doing Ocean Rain agian this year.
OK, I’m feeling the need to wimp out on this one. Either I can see the point of most tracks by the bands and artists I love, that hating the worst of them seems like misplaced energy. So I’m falling back on the convenient shite-bucket that is the lazy Christmas cash-in record. Motown churned this stuff out and probably provided a few contenders and the horrible materialism of 8 Days Of Christmas by Destiny’s Child really comes close (but is actually quite catchy), whereas this half-hearted trudge through a song that never screamed out the need to be re-done as sulky R&B truly stands out as a pointlessly mediocre moment for a terrific group:
TLC – Sleigh Ride
The Beatles were a very large part of my youth being 15 when they were first on Ed Sullivan . They were there as a constant for the next 6 years & provided a huge portion of my personal soundtrack. I loved them then & still do now even if their elevation to icon status has made them the most overplayed band on the planet. I still put Rubber Soul into my rotation on a regular basis. But there is one tune I positively loath & can remember my reaction the first time I ever heard – ‘might be time for the boys to move on!’. This is that song. The wanker impersonation band in this video couldn’t even do a send up of it without the gag reflex coming on.
The Long And Lonely Road – The Beatles
Yeah, there’s a lot of the later stuff that I find fairly dreadful.
Fintan – have you heard the version from the “Let It Be – Naked” album released a few years ago? It may not redeem it for you, but it certainly sounds a hell of a lot better without Phil Spector’s strings and choirs (which McCartney always hated).
Barbryn -I’ve got the Naked album & I’m in agreement about the Phil Spector touchs being tripe but that’s not why. It’s the song itself – both maudlin & plodding – with little lyrically (for me anyway) to even come close to saving it. The unspectorized version of Let It Be however is the real deal. I bought the 45 of that ’cause Apple released it as a single before Phil got his grubby little paws on it & buried George’s beautiful lead. I use to use the 45 for mixed tapes. Let it Be is easily my least listened Beatles album because those two songs made it really difficult to get through a side as LIB was side 1 & LAWR was side 2.
“It began during the making of the record Recent Songs when he worked with the fusion group Passenger. Often the band would sneak bits of jazz riffs into the songs, which Cohen admitted he had to watch out for. Between Cohen and the band grew an understanding that if he caught them playing jazz riffs (augmented fifths or sevenths is the example he gives) he would call them on it. Initially he was himself the jazz police. It took 9 years (1979-1988) for the song to develop and be recorded; a testament to Cohen’s well know practice of working and reworking pieces of poetry and songs in time consuming detail” – (allegedly)
Leonard Cohen – Jazz Police
I can take the specifically ’80′s sound Cohen had during this period – also the jarring this causes to me on the album…but what peeves me so bloody much is the Backing Vocals – lovely and everything – but so much like Star Trek I can’t listen to it… skip track now.
(this is the best I could do – most bands I love make good songs by luck rather than judgement – so I don’t really expect a whole body of perfect work)
Donds. I wish I’d thought of that one. I’m almost tempted to go for Lenny’s original Hallelujah, which is a shite version of a great song.
Oh god, there are so many choices here.
Could it be Led Zeppelin’s awful cod-reggae D’yer Mak’er or the even worse The Crunge from the same album?
How about The Grateful Dead’s Dancing in the Street cover or the mawkish I Will Take You Home?
There are more, far too many more. I won’t even venture into the area of when band’s change direction when a major member leaves (e.g. Genesis).
Anyway, this is truly shit;
ELP Jeremy Bender
Apologies for the greengrocer’s apostrophe in “band’s” there.
I think I was going to structure the sentence differently but never checked the punctuation.
I love Dyer Maker, but agree that The Crunge was awful.
I think The Beatles could feature quite prominently on this thread.
Mine is
Run For Your Life
I think John Lennon disowned this one. Horrible misogynist crap. I would dearly love to erase it from the Rubber Soul album.
Yes, that is eminently hate-able, horrible song.
It does make you wince. I just never listen to the lyrics ’cause the tune will get me through. Glad to know John rethought it though.
I could do without the lion’s share of Abbey Road.
Most of side 2 of Abbey Road sounds like they couldn’t be bothered to write whole songs. The 1st side’s got the appallingl Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Octopus’s Garden on it. And it’s considered (by many) as a classsic album. Money for old rope, I say, and I love the Beatles.
See, I’ve always thought of side 2 of Abbey Road not so much as “couldn’t be bothered to write whole songs” as the sound of a band who have so many ideas pouring out that they’re impatient to move on to the next one. And I loved Maxwell and Octopus’s Garden as a child, and can’t dislike them now. But I’ll grant you the best two songs on the album are George’s.
Hm, so many to choose from. Was tempted by the Bunnymen’s take on “People Are Strange”, but seeing as both they and The Doors have been comprehensively covered… On a completely different note, love loads of their stuff but I can’t bear Belle & Sebastian’s “I’m a Cuckoo”.
Every band or artist I’ve ever liked has recorded songs I don’t like. Ain’t gonna name ‘em though.
Oh, go on!
Carole’s already mentioned my choice, ‘the mawkish’ I Will Take You Home
The Dead were an all-American band but never succumbed to the all-American weakness for sentimentality. Until this last song on their last record.
Ain’t no way the Bogeyman can get you
You can close your eyes, the world is gonna let you
Your daddy’s here and never will forget you
I will take you home
Brent Mydland was a sad case who couldn’t cope with being, well, who he was as opposed to who he thought he was supposed to be. Daddy was a junkie who dropped out of life a couple of years later, making the lyrics not just mawkish.
The rest of the band shouldn’t have put it out on a Dead album: there’s nothing of anyone other than Brent in it. But no-one else had any material and, y’know, we don’t really do decisions, man.
I’ve been able to listen to it twice. I won’t inflict it on you.
PS. As well as often murdering Dancing in the Street, they also did an appalling version of Hey Jude.
I thought you might have said Touch of Grey. Kind of like Poco’s Crazy Eyes – turning the wrong people into a great band for the wrong reasons.
Should that be ‘..turning the wrong people onto a great band’? I understand that sentence.
No, I can’t blame the song: I quite like it. Perhaps, again, American sentimentality played its part, as Garcia’s resurrection (a word for today) was the start of the popularity explosion. TOG was the symbol of that second coming, courtesy of MTV.
I love that song too. I’ve been listening to a lot of Dead lately, and it occurs to me that Garcia may well have a marmite voice, and maybe that accounts for some people’s (puzzling) dislike of the Dead. I guess it could be seen as a bit thin and whiny. I happen to love it and my favorite Dead songs are the ones with him as vocalist.
Due to drugs and cigarettes, Jerry’s voice changed dramatically over the years. In 66/67 he did this weird vibrato thing and by the end he sounded like a wheezy old man. But he always delivered feeling; some of his phrasing on the emotional songs is wonderful. Maybe he didn’t have the depth in his voice (he described Brent as a real singer and Bobby & himself as shouters) but the sincerity made up for it. I’d much rather listen to Jerry try & fail any day than hear Brent do his ‘soul singer’ routine.
But then, I’d rather listen to the Dead try & fail than virtually anything else.
Huh? What’s wrong with Touch Of Grey?
tfd: if you haven’t already gathered, TOG was the Dead’s only top ten hit, due to the MTV video and more airplay than usual. It caused a massive increase in concert audience size and many of the newbies (or Touch-heads as they became known) were simply attracted by the ‘scene’ rather than the music. Trouble became commonplace at gigs and even got so bad at one point that the band issued a stern ‘cool it, man’. But, as I said, you can’t blame the song.
Oh, thanks, Chris; no, because of my having unaccountably missed out on the Dead back in the day, I don’t know any of the history. I love Touch Of Grey myself.
I couldn’t handle Bob Dylan as a born-again Christian. (Can’t really stand anyone who becomes a born-again anything.) After enjoying Desire and Street Legal so much and seeing him perform brilliantly at Earls Court and the Blackbushe ‘Picnic’ in 1978, his next offering included this:
What was that all about? Was Dylan trying to prove he wasn’t what everyone had been saying he was over all the years by writing crap that would never had made it onto any album if it had been recorded by anyone other than him? Not even the ‘mysterious’ final 3 lines could save it.
He lost me for 10 years, until Oh Mercy came out.
Bob Dylan – Man Gave Names to all the Animals.
Same here, Tempus – I’m now imagining a comedy sketch where Eve is complaining that the names Adam’s choosing are too macho (“Lion! Bear! Wolf!) and in the end he lets her name the smaller, fluffier ones.
Serve Somebody is one of my fave Dylan songs though.
I agree with webcore that there is always going to be a song, or songs, that fall into this category.
The volume of work that most bands have put out over the years means that sometimes the quality slips.
And as DsD has pointed out, a change in personnel can have a huge impact on writing or playing style and leave a band looking (and feeling) nothing like the original.
I have followed Pink Floyd almost from their beginnings and they have almost been 3 bands.
With Syd in the early days they where psychadelic. Roger Waters turned them into his personal angst machine. After he left they struggled to make an impact and the bitterness of the split became evident in the writing.
The last track on “The Division Bell” sums up their loss and the nostalgia becomes withering.
The video does not help the music one bit.
Pink Floyd…………”High Hopes”
I agree, I love many incarnations of the Floyd and wanted to support the later version as I rate David Gilmour over Roger Waters (please don’t shout at me), but it isn’t their best, is it?
By the way, is anyone else finding this topic a bit painful? I’ve been feeling guilty about dissing the Doors all night and had to listen to Live at the Matrix to make up for being mean about them!
Forgive me, Jim.
I love the Doors but they did cough up some serious garbage too. Must say i don’t have a huge problem with Light My Fire though.
I can relate here. As a teenager I loved the Doors ( it was pretty incredible how little known they were back then, I really had to search for Absolutely Live) but, as I age like a ripe Stilton I find Jim’s more “poetic” ramblings and the rather stodgy “blues” backing on some of the songs less than inspiring.
I still buy the albums though ( when I can afford them) even the cruddy “Live in Philadelphia” type that are full of drunken, plodding numbers.
Ahh, but we’re also implying that we like everything else the artist / band did, so I think it’s probably OK.
I love the Velvet Underground, if someone made musical underpants that played Sister Ray I’d probably buy them ( though I’d also be looking for the bootleg version that played Sweet Sister Ray too).
However, from the off I’ve had , and I realise this will be controversial with some RR posters, a total aversion to Waiting for the Man.
I don’t know what it is. In fact I love the bass playing on this and the bit at the end with the piano but, overall , I can’t stand it anymore. Especially in the Live 1969 incarnation where it is slowed down to a drugged out crawl.
I much prefer White Light/White Heat to the banana album. Whilst there are great, nay, classic songs on the latter (and I do include I’m Waiting For The Man in that category), the sound of WLWH is so much more involving (yeah, maybe that was the point; Brechtian alienation, etc, etc).
Have you heard Moe Tucker doing this as a sweet little lost soul? Quite effective. It’s on Spotty.
“nd I realise this will be controversial with some RR posters”
I think I can beat that in that I much prefer the Charlie Harper cover version. Not the UK Subs cover which is a bit predictable (faster, louder, shoutier vocals), but the Harper cover which is a surprisingly low key version.
Ubu,
Perhaps it’s your over-familiarity with the tune that makes you ambivalent about it ? As for me it’s one of the greatest songs ever recorded.
I wondered about that but, if my memory serves me well, I’ve always felt that it let the album down.
I can’t put a finger on why, really.
If only they’d let Nico sing it !
There are many contenders for this topic but I would say off the top of my head the song Electronic Renaissance ruins what otherwise is the perfect album, namely Tigermilk.
Electronic Renaissance – Belle and Sebastian
Ah, poor Belle and Sebastian. First thing I thought of, too. Hooboy do I dislike this song!
Belle & Sebastian – Beyond the Sunrise. Yuck.
I’m going for Bowie, and I could have picked albums here, but for the sake of the challenge it’s this :
TVC15 – David Bowie
I remember liking this as a teenager but it now annoys the fuck out of me
I can think of far worse Bowie songs/covers than TVC15 which I still quite like, Across the Universe for instance, although it could be the song itself I can’t stand rather than his version of it.
Volare was horrible.
And TB’s clairvoyant pick for this topic is Brass In Pocket by The Pretenders. Can that really be a song he hates by a band he loves?
I usually love The Pirates, both with and later without Johnny Kidd. However, whilst the guitar is fine on this, the vocals do leave a bit to be desired. Not their scene at all, should have left it alone.
“Do The Dog” – The Pirates
I’ve been having difficulty with this. Still think I might come up with the perfect answer, but really can’t think of it right now.
I think I’m going to have to pick a Belle and Sebastian song too, even though I think they’ve been hard done by on this thread already (for what it’s worth, I love “I’m a Cuckoo”, like “Electronic Rennaissance”, but agree that “Beyond the Sunrise” wants a slap).
“If You Find Yourself Caught in Love”. I don’t really hate this, in fact I love bits of it, but the happy-clappy Christianity and pacifist naivete make me cringe:
But-but-but “I’m a Cuckoo” is so irritatingly twee! It’s more of a jingle than a song. How can you love it? Oh, I forgot – we’re all different… For what it’s worth, I don’t mind “If You Find Yourself Caught In Love”. But I think the whole “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” album is a bit disappointing. The only song I unequivocally love on it is “Wrapped Up In Books”. Perhaps because it’s the one I most identify with!
But-but-but…
Dear Catastrophe Waitress is my third or even second favourite B&S album. “If She Wants Me” and “Piazza New York Catcher” would easily make a composite B&S top 10; I wasn’t at all sure about the idea of Trevor Horn producing them, but I think it works brilliantly, particularly on “Step Into My Office Baby” and “Stay Loose”. As for “I’m a Cuckoo”, I think there’s an undercurrent of bitchiness and hurt (“We lost a singer to her clothes” – take that, Isabelle! “You know I loved you / It’s all over now”) that saves it from tweeness – that and the lifted Thin Lizzy riff.
But, yeah, each to their own…
And Belle & Sebastian take the prize! Loved in general yet hated in four specific instances. A Marmite problem for those who love Marmite?
TB nominated It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career as another of his predictive selections: could he have meant it for this topic?
No, I really don’t think so, that’s an undeniably great song. IMHO. I’d stick with his Brass In Pocket pick – I can just about imagine a Pretenders fan hating this from overexposure, although I’d be surprised.
With respect bishbosh to pick any B&S song and criticize it for being twee seems a bit odd.