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Apologies to my single-digit readership for not updating in a few months... but circumstances (procrastination, school, the need to make all blogs a substantial length, the rise and fall of the planned Phoenix Wright: The Musical publicity release and MICHAEL FUCKING HAMMOND) prolonged my absence. I have another mega-blog in the works, but right now I feel inspired to finally complete my ever-growing list of worst songs ever.

Some blogger dude on some website (might've been Roger Ebert, or PopMatters) recently pointed out that the true worst movies ever aren't the lowest-common-denominator ones - the Snakes on a Planes, Soul Planes, Epic/Date/Superhero Movies of the world, or anything involving Paris Hilton or Uwe Boll. Unless you're utterly deluded, you shouldn't actually expect anything of them, and even if you do spend your money or bandwidth, at least they're forgettable. On the other hand, the movies that people do expect something from, but are absolute, complete trainwrecks - Water World, Ishtar, Battlefield Earth, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet etc. - are truly terrifying.

Same goes for music. Though terrible, no one cares about Hanson or Simple Plan. So I've gone for artists who terrorized an unexpecting world on their debuts, or ones you thought were only average or unspectacular, the ones you heard years ago on Mix 101.1 FM before you realized half the songs they played were disco and got under your skin, hibernating and growing larger over the years until you randomly come across them again on YouTube at which point they cause you to wake up screaming, screaming in the night yelling, "LINDA PERRY'S MOUTH! LINDA PERRY'S MOUTH!" before the infinite blackness of Linda Perry's mouth swallows you, and you lapse into a restless sleep once again.

Public (internet) opinion seems to support most of these songs too, hurray for credibility. But someone has to compile them together.

6. (bonus track) Europe - The Final Countdown



This is the only one on the list that I can actually confess to liking - because I find the above video too hilarious. Though I'll be surprised if you last longer than 30 seconds - because that's when the vocals come in. Which is a shame, because you'll miss the highlights - the random dude who walks onstage and checks the amp, and the other random fat dude who WALKS PAST THE CAMERA AT 1:45! Whenever I gig, THAT BAND playing THAT SONG literally serves as my direct inspiration. We'll never be that good.

Actually, the drummer's not that bad, you have to give them that.

And it may not be the original Europe version, which itself isn't any good, but that performance is far more entertaining.

5. Nitro - Long Way From Home



Aah, Nitro, everyone's favourite Out. Fucking. Rageous. hair metal band. Jim Gilette's "six octaves and a sixth of the tone", glass-shattering voice is rivalled only by Michael Angelo Batio's four-neck quad guitar.

So why this and not any other Nitro song (all of which surely qualify)?

Power ballad. And accompanyingly cheesy video.

They're so inept at songwriting that they don't even sound like they're writing a power ballad because every other glam band at the time was; it's as if the record label knew that without one, the album would sell absolutely zero. But it still did.

4. 4 Non Blondes - What's Up?



Why are successful professional songwriters like Max Martin, Dr. Luke, Diane Warren, Linda Perry etc. what they are? Because they were too ugly, and sucked too hard in their respective solo careers to make it. Would they choose to write songs for brats like Avril Lavigne to sing?

Have you ever read one of those "Songwriting for Dummies" or "How to Write Lyrics" books written by "acclaimed" songwriters, like the woman who wrote the 102 Dalmatians theme with a chorus consisting solely of "diggity diggity dog"? That's right, creative geniuses dispensing invaluable advice like "you don't have to rhyme - Eye of the Tiger uses 'tiger' and 'rival' so it's commercially proven to be okay!" Well, before Linda Perry was one of those people, she must have gone through Songwriting 101, working through all the checklists in those books and shitting out one of the most contrived songs ever. This my accurate depiction of her "artistic" process".

Maximize your appeal:
"What do the kids like these days?"
Linda flicks on MTV; it's 1992 and she watches the top ten video countdown.
"This grunge thing, eh? But I don't want to scare off the baby boomers with those heavy guitars, so let's strum some acoustic chords! And let's call the band 4 Non Blondes so we don't seem stereotypical!"

Instrumentation:
She checks her How to Play Guitar book; the first chord listed is A major.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit has a guitar solo in it... I like how it's just the vocal melody so you can sing along, even if you know not what it means. Too bad I can't really play guitar."
So she plays a non-guitar solo consisting mostly of As.
"I have to escalate the dynamics in the chorus like in Smells Like Teen Spirit too! I'll play a few A power chords on electric guitar, but we can't mix it too loud or we'll frighten the old folks."

Lyrical brainstorming (what does your target audience like?!!!):
"How do I make it appeal to both the old and the young?"
She opens her American history textbook to a chapter about old people and reads about some hippie guys at Woodstock. Something about being inspired, peace, smoking pot and caring about what's happening in the world. She thinks of a line for each theme.
Inspiration: "this great big hill of hope"
Peace: "this brotherhood of man"
Drugs: "get real high"
She couldn't think of a line for the last one herself, so she stole from Marvin Gaye, using "What's Going On". Sadly, the record company made her change the song's title (a very unconventional technique increasing the risk factor - not including the song title in the lyrics!).

Vocal melodies:
Rule number one - use notes that fit with the chord progression.
"Hmm, the chorus starts with an A major chord, so I'm not allowed to use any notes other than A, C# and E."
Rule number two - consider the singer's vocal range.
"I have a big vocal range! So let's make the line span an octave!"
Rule number three - when you're writing the hook at the start of the chorus, use something wordless, it's catchier.
"How about 'hey-uh, hey-uh, hey-uh hey!' And I'll yodel it because I can!"

Professional songwriters are the bane of my existence.

And I realize both the previous songs have been suggested by Idolator as amongst the worst songs ever, but I knew of them before then. I take no pride in having such bragging rights.

Also, Linda Perry has a very large mouth.

3. Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive



Naff. Camp. Cheesy. Cringeworthy. Do you even like music described by those adjectives, yet alone songs that utterly live, breathe and embody them whilst pretentiously attempting to jump on the feminist bandwagon and make a statement of socially acceptable and musically inoffensive (i.e. punk is too loud) "defiance"?

How do you know the girl dancing onstage has a penis? She's dancing to I Will Survive.

Disco is a terrible genre overall, but if you have to make an exception, don't pick the shittiest song of the entire movement. Go listen to later-period The Jackson 5 or Off the Wall.

2. Six Feet Under (featuring Ice-T) - One Bullet Left



Good death metal is good. Bad death metal generally isn't offensively terrible, it's just boring and sounds the same as all other death metal. This is bad, but it has something to distinguish it as truly bad: gangsta rap. And it combines the best of both - indistinguishable growling, repetitive shitty chromatic heavy riffs and gory lyrics with empty gangsta posturing!

Chris Barnes left Cannibal Corpse because he decided he didn't want to play only death metal that was fast. Struck with inspiration, he decided to play death metal that was slow. And they called the genre... "death 'n' roll"!

But a few years later, he'd run out of ideas. So he looked for inspiration through more unconventional takes on metal... like combining it with rap! Enter Ice-T, formerly of rap/metal hybrid Body Count, who did the whole "Cop Killer" anti-police controversy thing years after N.W.A.'s "Fuck Tha Police" - a true sign of originality.

I'm going to post the entire lyrics of this song, just because I feel like it. Jump forward to 1:27 on the video for Ice-T's brutal rapping.

I'll kill all the haters
They'll never stop their deaths
We'll bread and burn and murder
Each of you to the last
Return to make it final
One bullet to your head
I know it just won't happen
A world that's free from pain
So I'll just use my freedom
To fucking kill and maim them
Reduce their heads with lead
Not ever gonna stop us
Not 'til the last one drops off
Not 'til they die and rot up
Not ever gonna stop
Not 'til the last one drops

One bullet left - one bullet left - one
One bullet left - one life to die - one
One bullet left - one bullet left - one

For some reason you motherfuckers think this is
Some kind of motherfuckin game
You ain't gonna realize until I got some fucking
Steel pointed at your faggot-ass face and blow your
Motherfuckin dome off your goddamn shoulders
You motherfuckin critic-ass bitch motherfuckers
Catch you comin out your motherfuckin house
Bleed!

I put the gat to your face and head and blast
Blow your fuckin face off, rock you with the
Sawed-off, blow guts all over your bitch
Leave your stankin in a six foot ditch
Run up in your house with a tek out
Duct tape your spouse with a gun in her mouth
Smack your kids up you think I give a fuck
I'll call the fuckin pigs on myself
Barricade the black with the ATF
I don't give a fuck bitch I pray for death
Grab your little girl by the neck
Bust her in the chest
And throw her on the lawn
Call CNN it's on, get this on TV
The last one's for me
Aim with the pipe down dead in my head
And squeeze
Leave the whole wall red

One bullet left, one bullet left - one
One bullet left - one life to die for
One bullet left, one bullet left - one
One bullet left - one life to die for

Always got one bullet left
One of fifty to their fucking chests

1. Leonard Nimoy - The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins



Literally everything about this song is wrong. The actor known for portraying Spock on Star Trek having a singing career is wrong. His awkward baritone voice is wrong. Him appearing in the video with his Spock haircut is wrong. Him frolicking with multitudes of jailbait-age girls in the video is wrong. Their wearing of pointy elf ears is is wrong. Their wearing of "hobbits unite" badges is wrong. Their dancing like rabbits is wrong. Their bobbing up and down is wrong. Trivializing great books like The Hobbit is wrong. Using "He fought with goblins! He battled a troll!" in any non-polka metal song is wrong. The constant key changes - including one during the chorus that REVERTS BACK TO THE ORIGINAL KEY AFTER THREE SECONDS - is wrong. The vocal harmonies are wrong. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SONG IS WRONG. IT IS OFFENSIVE TO MUSIC.

And holy shit, I'd never seen the full version I just posted until today...