Bad Songs By Artists You Like

[SteelEdges]

So I was reading about Jethro Tull - an amazing rock band whose style seemed to evolve with every album - on TV Tropes. There's not a Jethro Tull song or album I hate. Artists who experiment and try new styles in any medium are artists I love, especially if it's still distinctly them.

I got to the Nightmare Fuel section, where I learned about a song I've never heard called Left Right. TV Tropes says it "begins with nearly a minute of horrible mewling noises, making it a First Note Nightmare." How bad could it be?

If you listened to Left Right just now, you would know: pretty fucking bad. I have no idea why Ian Anderson thought starting a song with a whole minute of demonic mewling, grinding, wailing noises sounded good. A few seconds of it would be bad enough, but it's enough to ruin the song.

It got me to thinking after a while: what are some bad songs by musicians or artists you genuinely like? It's better if you include a link to listen to it; even better if you explain why it's bad.

 

[Kink]

Creep by Radiohead

 

[Ununhexium]

Adele is a talented singer but all of her songs are exactly the same so I'm just gonna say Adeles music as a while

 

[The Avalanches]

Most overrated song on Wildflower, including Frankie Sinatra.

 

[Nix_Hex]

Led Zeppelin - All My Love

This song is garbage. The synth does not fit at all, Plant's vocals are super pitchy, the key change is gross, and that keyboard solo ... wow. This would make more sense if it were Peter Frampton or Rod Stewart, but this is ZEPPELIN. Come on, they could have done better. I'll give the lyrics a pass because they're about Plant's unborn son (I think?).

Speaking of wildly popular rock bands that have sold hundreds of millions of records, here's a song that anyone with functioning ears should dislike.
Pink Floyd - Learning to Fly

It sort of sounds like Pink Floyd, especially the chorus which is basically a ripoff of "Us & Them" from Dark Side. But it just seems like a lazy, cut+paste Pink Floyd album. That music video is fun though, just turn off the volume I guess.

The thing I'm starting to notice as I get older is that although the general "sound" of popular music changes with each decade, those decades indeed morph into the next. That's why we still had "80s" sounding drums and synths in early 90s, pre-grunge pop rock. It was an awkward change but it eventually faded away until grunge/post grunge, gangster rap, Britney, and boy bands took over. MY POINT is that Pink Floyd started to wane right when the 80s sound took over; they tried to latch onto it, but failed. Learning to Fly is a prime example.

Time to move onto one of my favorite bands ever:

Smashing Pumpkins - The Crying Tree of Mercury

If the first 5 notes of the song didn't make you roll your eyes, cringe, or laugh, then I don't know what to say. Now listen again, then read the second visible comment:
"Tony Godinez1 month ago
I miss this song. Makes me think of sensual love-making with my ex Leah."
Are you cringing yet? Did you even make it through the entire song? And who makes love to a Smashing Pumpkins song when Nine Inch Nails exists?
The album it's from, Machina, was supposed to be their big "return-to-form" to the world of arena rock after the very depressing and almost completely electronic Adore (which is a much better album, ironically). This was a band that you just knew was going to die. Nu-Metal bands like Korn, Deftones, and Limp Bizkit already had a ton of momentum from the mid-to-late 90s and were were "rollin'" into the 2000s. Tool released Lateralus that same year, and System of a Down and Linkin Park were soaring in popularity soon after. At this point, Billy Corgan's dictatorship was crumbling down, and nobody gave a shit about the Smashing Pumpkins anymore. Machina was an overproduced, overly-ambitious mess with almost zero promotion behind it, and to no one's surprise, it ended up sucking. The funny part is, all three of the singles that came from this album were awesome, but again, zero promotion.

 

[Myzozoa]

All 3 of my fav lady gaga songs are totes trash i suppose

 

[ant]

Chris Cornell is my favorite song writer and artist in general, but he has this sort of weird pop song with Timbaland that is the worst thing ever

Why Chris why

 

[Aladyyn]

Well, No Doubt and Megadeth have both made full albums that are pretty much pure garbage...

Push and Shove is probably the single worst album I have ever listened to. It's that bad.

The second worst is Super Collider, but that at least has one good song (Kingmaker)

 

[RODAN]

absolutely fucking terrible

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

Metallica - The entirety of St. Anger. Even Load and Reload have some pretty good songs ("King Nothing" off of Load, "Fuel" and "The Memory Remains" off of Reload), but St. Anger is just a huge steaming pile of shit. Probably the worst album ever made by good musicians (except for Lars Ulrich, he is not a good musician or a good person by any metric)

 

[Bughouse]

I really like Jessie J but I just can't with this song.
It rhymes "I got to have ya" with "Abracadabra."

 

[Nix_Hex]

Metallica - The entirety of St. Anger. Even Load and Reload have some pretty good songs ("King Nothing" off of Load, "Fuel" and "The Memory Remains" off of Reload), but St. Anger is just a huge steaming pile of shit. Probably the worst album ever made by good musicians (except for Lars Ulrich, he is not a good musician or a good person by any metric)

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to bring this album up lol. I know I railed on Machina pretty badly, mainly because they're in my top 5 and I'm obligated to criticize Smashing Pumpkins but holy hell, St. Anger is beyond words bad. James squeaked like a prepubescent boy, no solos (not a problem with most bands but it's Metallica, throw your fans a bone), bass played by their boring producer Bob Rock, and Lars Ulrich using a .... I don't know, an industrial trash can? ... for a snare to emulate that garage band sound. FYI I know several die hard Metallica fans, and they can find legit reasons to back up (Re)Load but no one has been able to defend St. Anger. I saw metallica live in 2009, and guess which songs they conveniently left out in favor of their classics and Death Magnetic which they were promoting at the time? That's right, St. Anger got shafted completely.

 

[Kyergr]

Creep by Radiohead

man creep is a great song

 

[Kyergr]

revolution 9 by The Beatles

 

[ethan06]

Creep by Radiohead

morning bell/amnesiac is actually awful :/ can't find it on youtube but it's probably for the best
(https://soundcloud.com/radiohead/morning-bell-amnesiac)

 

[Kink]

man creep is a great song

A song that thom yorke hates himself became their staple recognizable tune. It's not a bad song, but compared to what Radiohead created and what they represent to musicians, it's cringe.

 

[Beta.]

A song that thom yorke hates himself became their staple recognizable tune. It's not a bad song, but compared to what Radiohead created and what they represent to musicians, it's cringe.

I mean, it doesn't mean it's a bad song. It is a decent song, it's not ear wrenching terrible, it is a good song, it's just like Blur's song 2. The band hates it, but a lot of people like it. May be cringe in some form of 90s emo sense, I don't see it personally. Maybe because I listen to midwestern emo, but barring that. Just because they are better musicians musically, doesn't make it bad either. Of course everything, and I mean everything of Kid A and OK computer are better than Pablo Honey, but it is their first album. It's not The King Of Limbs, where that album is questionable in it's quality. Pablo Honey was good for what it was, and just because Radiohead becomes a much more higher quality from their sophomore on does not mean Creep was bad.

It sort of sounds like Pink Floyd, especially the chorus which is basically a ripoff of "Us & Them" from Dark Side. But it just seems like a lazy, cut+paste Pink Floyd album. That music video is fun though, just turn off the volume I guess.

The thing I'm starting to notice as I get older is that although the general "sound" of popular music changes with each decade, those decades indeed morph into the next. That's why we still had "80s" sounding drums and synths in early 90s, pre-grunge pop rock. It was an awkward change but it eventually faded away until grunge/post grunge, gangster rap, Britney, and boy bands took over. MY POINT is that Pink Floyd started to wane right when the 80s sound took over; they tried to latch onto it, but failed. Learning to Fly is a prime example.

I can't really object to it being mediocre, learning to fly is predictable; I personally enjoyed a momentary relapse to an extent some songs, yet I don't think it is their greatest. But I don't see how it is Us and Them at all. I don't see the resemblance in too many ways to say it is a ripoff. Not saying you're wrong with it not being good, it's okay, but not their best, it is alright, but not something I would want to have a sit and listen again.

I mean, if it is an consolation prize, Their next album, Division Bells is not Pink Floyd's best album for only two reasons: Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall.


To actually answer Steel's question, The new American football LP is short of expectations, and just sounds like another Owens album. compare this.

to this anticlimatic song.

American Football had good songs on the second LP, but nothing can compare to when Mike Kinsella was a newbie at writing songs, and somehow came up with a 9 song classic album.

 

[Nix_Hex]

Beta. what I meant by being a ripoff of Us & Them is more like, a watered-down and neutered version of the chorus. It's trying to sound like Pink Floyd instead of having its own sound. Take AFI for example (it's the first analogy I could think of lol).

A good song:

This is the second track to their classic album Black Sails in the Sunset. This is a band in their prime, playing relentlessly and urgently.

A watered down version of the previous song:

This is from their album Sing the Sorrow, which was a commercial breakthrough. It's not a bad song, but it's no Porphyria. And no, it's not about "one song is fast, the other is slow" to me. Rather, it sounds like they're trying to be AFI while still meeting the expectations of a wider, more commercial audience. It lacks the heart and soul that makes the previous song so damn good (despite my overall disinterest in punk). Also, I'm not ripping on Sing the Sorrow as a whole, because The Leaving Song Pt. 2 is an amazing song.