SONGS EVERYONE ELSE LOVES THAT I HATE!

28 Responses to SONGS EVERYONE ELSE LOVES THAT I HATE!

1. October 1, 2009 at 6:45 pm

   Rob Steen says:

   Hate is an exceedingly strong word, Sir Barney, but I reserve all the loathing in my body for one “song” above all – Bohemian Rhapsody. Overblown, overdone and over here.

2. October 2, 2009 at 9:12 am

   Mark Pringle says:

   Sod Marvin, sod James Taylor: check out Junior Walker’s version of How Sweet It Is! Redemption in one.

   Same way Donny Hathaway redeems the putrid bilge-water that is John Lennon’s Jealous Guy.

   However, no-one has redeemed that loathsome mawkathon, Bob Marley’s Redemption Song.

3. October 2, 2009 at 10:58 am

   Barney Hoskyns says:

   I’d say Boho Rhapsody is an invalid selection because numerous people loathe it. I’m looking for songs that people – e.g. wedding guests and the like – seem to adore. Oddly I can’t really recall Jr Walker’s version of “How Sweet…”

4. October 3, 2009 at 7:56 pm

   Richard Riegel says:

   Barney, you give me hope when you say that “numerous people loathe” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” — our movement is growing. As for “How Sweet It Is,” it’s hardly my favorite tune from the Motown canon, but I think “bland and insipid declaration of amour” fits Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” even better.

   Now on to today’s topic: I’ve long found Derek and the Dominoes’ “Layla” vastly overrated. In fact, there have been a couple of times when I’ve heard it on the radio that I’ve laughed out loud at its overblown pretentiousness. Yes, yes, I know that Eric Clapton and Duane Allman worked their fingers to the bone on those guitar figures, and they’re certainly well done, but the total performance just seems ridiculously aimless to me. And of course it’s considered Classic Rock to the nth power here in Amerika. Bah, omfug! I won’t even bother to cite Hendrix’s all-round supremacy in this arena; I can top “Layla” with a lesser-known contemporary single that covers essentially the same topic (sexual longing) with far greater economy and immediacy and headlong passion: Spirit’s “I Got a Line on You.” Yes!!

5. October 5, 2009 at 9:13 am

   Barney Hoskyns says:

   Can’t quite go with you on ‘Layla’, Richard. While most of Clapton’s output leaves me cold, there is a surging intensity and amorous desperation to ‘Layla’ that probably has more to do with Duane’s presence on it – not to mention Jim Gordon’s – than EC’s.

6. October 5, 2009 at 1:08 pm

   Tim Footman says:

   Great swathes of the more lauded moments of Led Zep, Springsteen and Pink Floyd leave me numb. Hey, ‘Comfortably Numb’. That’ll do.

7. October 5, 2009 at 1:20 pm

   Simon Frith says:

   Just to say that I think Bunny Wailer redeems Redemption Song.

8. October 5, 2009 at 3:21 pm

   Tycho Manson says:

   “Stairway to Heaven”, no contest. But maybe that’s excluded on the same grounds as “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

9. October 5, 2009 at 5:16 pm

   Pete Wingfield says:

   Barney, you surprise me, what’s not to like about Marvin’s “How Sweet It Is”? You’re right though Mark, Junior’s version is great. And I like James T’s too…

   Don’t know about “My Cherie Amour”, but Stevie’s radio staple “I Just Called To Say I Love You” (ashamedly his best-selling UK single) takes some beating. Overall though my vote would go to the dreaded “Imagine” by John Lennon – three turgid minutes of empty depressing nihilism. Dash it, the thing’s not even grammatical – “and no religion too” indeed!

10. October 6, 2009 at 2:14 am

    Erik Hage says:

    “Wild Horses,” by the Stones. Through an early encounter with my parents’ record collection, I became acquainted with the Burritos’ version first–Gram’s vocal is so soulful and wounded, like he’s in genuine pain. That became the definitive reading for me. Jagger sounds utterly unconvincing by comparison, like some jetsetting knob trying to fit in at an Everglades hootenanny.

11. October 6, 2009 at 8:52 am

    Priya says:

    Joe Strummer (with the Mescaleros) certainly redeems “Redemption Song”, if it needed redeeming in the first place.

12. October 6, 2009 at 9:43 am

    Joel McIver says:

    ‘Mustang Sally’ by whoever it was and ‘Young At Heart’ by the Bluebells make me want to go on a killing spree in a shopping mall.

13. October 6, 2009 at 9:59 am

    Leyla Sanai says:

    I absolutely second Joel’s proposals. Both are also popular covers by failed bands of sixty-year-old rockers playing at their pals’ weddings because no one else will have them.
    I loathe Dexy’s Come on Eileen, and my heart sinks like a stone whenever its faux folksy intro strikes up.
    I have a special kernel of revulsion in my heart for anything by Wet Wet Wet, and Love is All Around incites acute nausea, though whether it’s the teeth-rotting sugariness of the song itself or the sight of that cocky coiffured twat who fronts the band is unclear.

14. October 6, 2009 at 10:14 am

    Jonh Ingham says:

    What?? No-one’s mentioned ‘Lady In Red’?

15. October 6, 2009 at 10:26 am

    Barney Hoskyns says:

    Leyla and Joel have got the hang of this – ‘Come On, Eileen’ and ‘Young at Heart’ are precisely the sort of thing I was looking for: songs that lots of people with reasonable taste adore but happen to make your stomach churn.

16. October 6, 2009 at 10:55 am

    Mark Pringle says:

    Actually, how come no-one has mentioned the elephant in the living room that is…

    Imagine. By Lennon or anyone else stupid enough to cover it.

    Ghastly ghastly ghastly. A pathetic tune saddled with lyrics of such breathtaking inanity.

17. October 6, 2009 at 11:37 am

    Barney Hoskyns says:

    Mark, Pete beat you to it… and you’re absolutely right, ‘Imagine’ HAS to be the #1 Song that People Love but SHOULD hate! I also concur with Mr Frith that Bunny redeems ‘Redemption Song’ (which I confess I don’t hate anyway). And Erik, I’m sorry but for me ‘Wild Horses’ is Micky J at his most sincerely impassioned…

18. October 6, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    Cliff White says:

    OK, so why hasn’t anybody else so far mentioned Hey Jude?

19. October 6, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    Barney Hoskyns says:

    Good call – the Beatles backlash starts here!

20. October 6, 2009 at 7:16 pm

    Mark Pringle says:

    Sorry Pete! Missed that.

21. October 6, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    John Grayson says:

    It has to the Clash – London Calling. Brash bandit lyrics from the Public School-educated gangsters. Finest moment “London calling and I…….. live by the river’. In a nice penthouse apartment maybe?

22. October 6, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    Simon Witter says:

    What Leyla said.

    I must confess amazement at the anger vented against ‘Redemption Song’ and ‘Wild Horses’. I just don’t get that. And ‘Lady In Red’ is surely off limits, as everyone has always hated it (same goes for ‘I Just Called…’). I imagine that, even though it funds his retirement, Chris DeBurgh secretly hates it.

    I can understand why people would hate ‘Lay-lur’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, but I’m afraid I can’t join your cause.

    On the other hand I feel physically ill when faced with any of the critically-lauded outpourings of The Smiths – and I say that as someone who suffered them live twice before they’d released a single record – most of Elvis Costello’s work, Paul Weller’s post-Style Council solo years, New Order’s later dance stylings, Nirvana’s ‘genius’ and the bulk of Bruce Springsteen’s work. And that’s just scraping the surface. I have no interest in being gratuitously iconocalstic – I simply don’t get it. To misquote Macca’s Ringo diss (as some are talking Beatles here), Springsteen isn’t even the best act in Jersey – at least Bon Jovi are funny.

    On the upside, I have recently started to really get Todd Rundgren who was, until recently, on the above list – a fact that would surely have got me barred from RBP for life.

23. October 6, 2009 at 11:20 pm

    Paul Kerr says:

    American Pie, Madonna buried it but McLean puled the trigger.

24. October 6, 2009 at 11:21 pm

    Paul Kerr says:

    That’s pulled (or pressed) by the way.

25. October 7, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    Barney Hoskyns says:

    ‘London Calling’ is another great choice – title track from one of the most overrated albums ever made!

26. October 8, 2009 at 12:17 am

    Tim Clifford says:

    Off on a tangent from the general kicking being delivered to the Beatles and Stones in this thread, I’d like to nominate

    Private Dancer by Tina Turner

    Could Mark Knopfler, the song’s writer, be prosecuted for living off immoral earnings? The lyrics may begin with a putdown of men who go into strip clubs, but right now somewhere in the world there’s a beady-eyed sex tourist ogling a bar girl half his age while this execrable song plays in the background, notching up another few cents on Knopfler’s royalty cheque.

    True, it helped resurrect Turner’s career, indeed elevated her to global superstar status.

    But the notion of a mother in her 40s, as Turner was at the time the LP came out, adopting the persona of a lapdancer is disconcerting. It throws up uncomfortable questions of racial and sexual stereotypes. Imagine, if you will, the reaction a record company exec might get if he suggested to Joni Mitchell that she cover Kelis’s Milkshake, for example.

    Private Dancer demeans the listener, the performer and the writer. With its “Deutschmarks or dollars, American Express will do nicely thank you” line, Knopfler wrote the soundtrack for the international sex trade.

    For that reason, I can’t bear it. In fact, I would say that every time I hear the song it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth – except some people might take that comment the wrong way.

27. November 13, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    Mark says:

    Anything by U2 especially their later stuff when they really want to sound like stadium rockers but fail miserably. It all sounds the same to me but I guess that’s the secret of staduim rock music.
    My wife nominates ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas’. Not sure I am with her with that one.

28. November 13, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    Mark says:

    And another one, Bob Marley and The Wailers..bland, bland, bland