I'll take a break from writing about Thailand to talk about some memories I have of songs that were absolutely huge hits in my youth that I think are just awful and made their way to the top of the charts for various reasons despite being less than fantastic songs or even songs that anyone should have listened to in the first place.
Closing Time: Semisonic
This song was played in literally every single bar that I would go to for obvious reasons at ahem.... closing time. I don't know if that was the band's intention but it certainly worked and as far as I know they went back to the obscure corner they are from right after this one came and went. It is probably still played at a few places here and there when the bar is going to shut
With trite lyrics that include "I know who I want to take me home" repeated over and over again as well as a rather uninspired musical progression I can't understand anyone being enthusiastic about this tune but they were and likely still are. I thought it was dumb then and I think it is dumb now.
Empire State of Mind: Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys
I've always hated it when songs use their chorus to feature the name of a city, thereby all but guaranteeing the fact that at least the people from that place are going to like it out of I guess some sort of city-centric patriotism. Jay-Z is a good lyricist, but this is some of his weaker stuff and the use of a city name is such an old trick to get attention. There are many other examples of this mostly involving either NYC or California and even a song out there called "North Carolina" by Petey Pablo I think his name was.
I guess the idea is to get as many people listening to your songs as possible but this tired trick always irritates me and even when this song was popular I would turn it off when it would come on.
Who Let the Dogs Out - Baha Men
There have been multiple parodies of this song and with good reason. My favorite parody of it happened in a show called The Flying ConChords where one of the members joins a stupid band to make stupid, but catchy music and ends up making millions because of it. I think it says a lot about society when something as terrible as this song gets bought by so many people.
I remember being in clubs and seeing the idiotic masses pump their hands in the air and going "Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo!" during the chorus. It's also to this day featured at sporting events to try to pump up the crowd. I hated it the first time I heard it and I roll my eyes in the rare instance that I hear it to this day.
Any song by Courtney Love / Hole
If it hadn't been for her famous ex-husband, none of us would know who the hell she is. I do not believe that she was involved in the creation of these songs even though she claims to have been. She is a pretty fantastic actor but is also a rather annoying celebrity who hurls insults at others.... OK, I take that back, that's pretty ballsy of her to do that and I like it. However, when her album Live through This came out it sold like crazy and you can't tell me that this isn't because of Cobain's suicide since it was their 2nd album and I didn't even know there was a first album until doing research for this writeup.
To me Courtney Love sounds like some drunk chick at karaoke that won't stop going to the mic even though nobody wants to hear her sing. She's whiney, has a very limited vocal range and screams, poorly, most of the time.
I guess a lot of people disagree with me on this because Love has been nominated for 4 Grammys throughout her musical career. I would rather listen to almost anything else other than Hole, except for maybe Who Let the dogs Out.
Do you have any songs that stick out in your mind that the world appeared to love but just rubs you the wrong way? Let's talk about it