Bad songs say so little

Okay, the snow banks are crusty and filthy and the edges are littered with doggy-do. I dropped off younger daughter at school really late, and her last words to me, delivered over her shoulder as she stood in the middle of her classroom were: "It's not going to be a great day..."

Seeing as I'm in a crappy mood anyway, I thought I'd adopt a really poor attitude and muse about songs I hate. As almost none of you know (because this was from a really early post when no one was reading my blog), I have a Launchcast station. Usually I concentrate on how it delivers my favourite songs, along with songs it thinks I will like, but it also has a feature where you can, with a click of your mouse, tell it "Never play this on my station again". Of course, if I'm feeling particularly cruel, I'll rate the song at 30 or lower which accomplishes the same thing, just to show how much I dislike and disdain a particular thing-purporting-to-be-a-song.

I thought I'd run a few selections past you today. Now, usually I provide a link or a YouTube video to illustrate musical selections, but these are songs I can't stand, that set me diving at the radio to switch it off, so why torture you? If you're determined to torture yourself, you're welcome to google these things...

This is not a comprehensive list. There are millions of songs I hate. These are titles that occurred to me while sitting in the coffee shop this morning, paying bills. (Another mood-killer.) The seventies are over-represented. Maybe my next post should be There really was good music available in the seventies; it just won't be evident by perusing this list.

Here we go, hold your nose and plug your ears:

1. Hotel California by The Eagles. One of the most pretentious songs ever written, with a melody that goes nowhere. Launchcast has something called "Fan Stations", and I made the mistake of playing The Beatles Fan Station. It played "Hotel California" three times. In half an hour. (A really good idea when selecting a "Fan Station" at Launchcast, by the way, is choosing someone you like who isn't that popular. Stone Roses work well, as do Billy Bragg, or Lyle Lovett. Forget The Proclaimers, their fan station just plays eighties drek. Not that all eighties music was drek -- uh another possible post: There really was good music available in the eighties... I think I'm getting side-tracked because I don't want to list the next one...)

2. Double-whammy here. Kashmir and Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. I actually used to like these songs, but they've been played to death, and they go on and on and on...

3. For the Love of Him by Bobbi Martin. I feel guilty even mentioning this song, because it's sunk into obscurity and it needs to stay there. Trust me, it was awful. Syrupy, banal, anti-feminist. (Shudder)

4. Another double-whammy: Feelings and My Way by anybody. Cheap shots, I know. Why, why, why are these songs popular?

5. Any song about oral sex. I'm looking at you, Aerosmith. Yeah, yeah, it feels good, it's natural and without it, life would be less pleasant, but the same can be said about taking a dump. I don't want to hear a song about it, okay? Maybe mention should be made of "Going Down" by The Stone Roses, which, admittedly, is a lovely melody; in fact, it's the prettiest little ditty about cunnilingus ever. The problem is... It's about cunnilingus, people; let's not sing about it.

6. Black Water by the Doobie Brothers. I didn't much care for this song in the first place, but there's a really, really disturbing scene in St Elsewhere which is otherwise one of my all time favourite TV series: It's when Boomer is trapped in his apartment with a psychotic rapist/murderer who has been released from prison. Boomer is tied up and gagged in a chair, while his wife is bound and gagged to the bed and the creep starts singing "Black Water". (Double shudder.)

7. Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. Because it drives me cra-a-a-a-ze-e-e-e...

8. The Reason by Hagendaz Hoodenhof Hoobastank. Never has a group name suited a song so well. This is one of those songs that spoiled a summer for me. The radio just kept playing it, and those over-grown adolescents kept whining, whining, whining....

Can we stop now? Looking at this highly unscientific and disorganized list, I see that it consists of songs that I loathed from the get-go, and songs I grew to despise through overexposure. Now, just because I hate to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth and a buzzing in your ears, I'll offer you a song that falls into the second category --- but has been redeemed by my very favourite fan-vid creator The Big Blue Meany. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this woman is a genius, and only she could take an over-blown, overplayed song like "Drops of Jupiter" and turn it into the perfect musical rendition of what happens to Donna in the fourth season of Doctor Who:
Hope your day is shaping up into something better.