Watched VH1’s 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever over the weekend, and while their list has some merits, they have a few major errors... I will now attempt to adjust the list by swapping out certain songs:
1. “We Built This City” – replace with LFO’s “Summer Girls”
- “Summer Girls” is by far the worst song ever recorded EVER! Terrible beat, ridiculously amateur lyrics… I once saw an interview with them in which they discussed how everything in the song is true: “New Kids on the Block did have a bunch of hits, and Chinese food does make me sick.” Yeah, so does this song. If they were so intent on singing honestly, they should’ve sung about how they are talentless suck-asses.
3. “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” – replace with Kid Rock’s “Bawitdaba”
- The comedians on the show claim that they don’t know what it means to “Wang Chung” (Do they also not know what it means to turn Japanese? Or to she-bop?)… I don’t know what “Bawitdaba” means, but I can assume it translates into “Kid Rock blows.”
5. “Ice Ice Baby” – replace with Vanilla Ice’s “Play That Funky Music”
- I still own the cassette of To The Extreme, although I haven’t listened to it in at least a decade… but having listened to the whole album at one time, I know that he did much more damage to Wild Cherry than to Queen & David Bowie.
10. “Heart of Rock N Roll” – replace with Justin Timberlake’s “Rosalita”
- Possibly the worst sing-along section in all of recorded music. It’s bad enough that Justin sings off-key during it, but I think he purposely rounded up the worst group of singers possible to make him sound that much better. At least N’Sync could harmonize (or at least used computers to do so).
12. “Hangin’ Tough” – replace with New Kid’s “Step by Step”
- All I remember about this song is a horrible rap interlude with lines like “Step 1: We can have lots of fun. Step 2: There’s so much we can do.” Why I remember that, I don’t know, but it’s embedded into my brain and I’ll never forgive NKOTB for that.
15. “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” – replace with Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be”
- You gotta be kidding me that this song was ever popular.
16. “Final Countdown” – replace with Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out”
- How “Final Countdown” made the list boggles the mind. I could wake up every morning to this song and be psyched for the day. And how did Baha Men not make the list? No, seriously. I don’t even need to write anything to justify this, cause I think you all already know how bad that song is.
19. “You’re the Inspiration” – replace with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Red White & Blue”
- People claim that Chicago went downhill during the 80s… well, I was never a real Skynyrd fan, but they have an unparalleled plummet if their entire new album is as bad as their patriotic first single, with lyrics such as “My Daddy worked hard, and so have I,
paid our taxes and gave our lives to serve this great country, so what are they complaining about? Yeah we love our families, we love our kids, you know it is love that makes us all so rich. That's where were at... if they don't like it they can just get the HELL out!” Flows like butter, eh?
24. “Sussudio” – replace with Madonna’s “American Pie”
- The show pointed out with this song that even a Grammy-winning, hugely-successful singer wasn’t safe from this list. Using that logic, I point to possibly the worst cover ever recorded. She turned a poignant, clever homage to great music of the past into a techno train wreck that made me long for the great music of Madonna’s past. And she had the gall to edit out 4 verses... which, come to think of it, may not have been a bad thing, since it made her version much shorter.
29. “I’d Do Anything for Love” – replace with Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”
- She ripped off the song structure and video, but made it sound much much worse.
32. “Broken Wings” – replace by Geri Halliwell's "Look at Me”
- Her first single after she left The Spice Girls has a bridge section that sounds worse than the entire Spice Girls catalog mashed together and played at once. I've never changed a channel during the first time I've heard a song faster than I did during that song.
40. “What’s Up” - replace with Ce Ce Peniston’s “Finally”
- One of the first reasons why I hate dance music. At least the song opened her up to jokes about her name.
50. “Sunglasses at Night” – replace with Third Eye Blind’s “Losing a Whole Year”
- Stephen Jenkins screaming “I remember you and me used to spend the whole goddamn day in bed.” And I remember when bands used to have talent. The falsetto voice singing the title during the chorus is the musical equivalent of nails across a chalkboard.