19. Lionel Ritchie – ‘Hello’ Does anyone else get ever so slightly scared by the video? How is the blind love interest’s sculpture so worryingly accurate? Is Lionel Ritchie really that creepy? He shouts hello with such exclamation, and so many times, you can’t even just ignore the song, you’re stuck listening to the repeated greetings of a gibbering idiot.
18. Bryan Adams – ‘Everything I Do, I Do It For You’ This Robin Hood soundtrack song was Number One in the UK for 16 weeks. 16 consecutive weeks! Who was still buying it? After four whole months of Bryan Adams telling you to “look into my eyes,” you’d have thought there was nothing left to see. But no, people kept buying it, the result being fits of cold sweats every time we see a bow and arrow. (This isn’t that often, admittedly.)
17. Eric Clapton – ‘Wonderful Tonight’ Didn’t he used to, erm, play rock music and stuff? Quite handy with a guitar, if we recall. The former Yardbirds and Cream member went all slushy with this tribute to his other half, Pattie Boyd, taking ages to get ready for a party. It’s frustrating when that happens, sure, but there’s no need for a syrupy four minute track to immortalise it.
16. Celine Dion – ‘My Heart Will Go On’ Sure, Titanic was a tragedy. But the real disaster was having this song unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Unlike the ship in the film this song soundtracked, it just wouldn’t sink. It was everywhere, winning Oscars and Grammys, while ingraining Celine Dion’s irritating, exasperating warble on a world not quite ready to realise it was absolute drivel.
15. Keane – ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ Back in the days before Keane singer Tom Chaplin was a plump, pompous, infuriating rehab-attendee, he was still plump, pompous and infuriating. This kicked it all off, the high vocals, plonking keys and empty sound adding up to a hollow track of stabbing irritation.14. The Bangles – ‘Eternal Flame’ So awful it was deemed fit to be covered by Atomic Kitten. “I watch you when you are sleeping/You belong with me,” was apparently romantic, but in The Bangles’ sharp voices it sounds more like the behaviour of a deranged stalker. Naturally, it was a tasteless hit worldwide.
13. Sherman Brothers – ‘You’re Sixteen’ The question is, how old were the Sherman Brothers? Sure, sure, 16 is legal. But the age of consent is 12 in the Philippines – that doesn’t make it right. Regardless of that, the song is just plain, cheap, nasty, throwaway, boring music. Ringo Starr did a cover version. Hmmm…
12. Westlife – ‘Flying Without Wings’ Westlife release a song, it gets to Number One, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe the nation has a soul. The Irish crooners have been belting out slight variations of this formula for years now, but never more excruciatingly than on this 1999 hit. It all comes to a head at the chord change, when even if you’re hearing the song on the radio, you can picture them getting out of their stools, fists clenched, faces punchable.
11. Goo Goo Dolls – ‘Iris’ Songwriter Johnny Rzeznik is rumoured to have ended a long spell of sobriety when he penned this cult favourite. If Alcoholics Anonymous needs any help convincing people of the dangers of drink, that’s as good an incentive as any. You can still catch them peddling this at festivals, if you’re unlucky.
10. Savage Garden – ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ Darren Hayes reels off lines supposed to be of life-altering importance and earth-shattering beauty as if he’s reading a shopping list. Some kind of twiddly nonsense is going on in the background, and it ends with him squealing rather pathetically. But at least it knocked Elton John off the top of the charts.
9. Mariah Carey – ‘Hero’ She’s obviously pretty demanding, a bit detached from reality and more than a little unhinged. But she (or her management) knows how to sell records. Now, she’s shifting millions of sub-R&B; in 1993, schmaltzy, tear-jerking ballads about looking inside yourself were all the rage. Naturally, Mariah out- schmaltzed and out-cried all the competition.
8. Paul Anka – ‘You’re Having My Baby’ “You’re a woman in love/And I love what's going through you.” Or: “Whoa, the seed inside you/Baby, do you feel it growing.” Or even: “Having my baby/What a lovely way of saying/What you’re thinking of me.” Shameful sexism, vulgar imagery and downright shoddy lyricism combine in one of the most shockingly ghastly moments in music history.
7. Phil Collins – ‘Groovy Kinda Love’ The problem here is all in the lyrics. You can’t get much cheesier than “When I’m feeling blue, all I have to do/Is take a look at you, then I’m not so blue.” The worst part is that this is a cover! Collins took a truly atrocious song and somehow managed to make it so trashy it would be even more popular with middle England. Nothing groovy about that.
6. Nilson Harry – ‘I Can’t Live If Living Is Without You’ Agonising power-pop of the highest order, Nilson Harry stretches the boundaries of taste in this churning epic. None of the notes sound right, the lyrics are cobbled together and the whole thing relies on an enormous chorus that is just sickeningly needy. More depressing than romantic.
5. Barry Manilow – ‘Mandy’ Just edging Westlife’s version of the same song in terms of drippiness, this poppy ballad is utterly soaked in maudlin affection. That Barry Manilow’s ‘Mandy’ manages to gather up such an abundance of tackiness into just one song is its main achievement.
4. Chris DeBurgh – ‘Lady In Red’ Bill Bailey has him very high up his patented ‘Scales of Evil,’ chiefly for infecting music with this tribute to a woman (maybe his wife, maybe Princess Diana) wearing a bright dress. Ending with the inspired lyrics of “Lady in red/lady in red/lady in red/I love you,” it is destined to grate on you at weddings forever more.3. Donny Osmond – ‘Puppy Love’ He’s presenting some horrendous quiz show on daytime television now, but even that isn’t as nauseating as this memorably juvenile take on love. It could be deemed as cute and innocent, but is produced with such a layer of sheen you feel it is plastered onto you. Being fourteen is no excuse, this is plain rubbish.
2. Billy Rae Cyrus – ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ Country music, mullets and broken hearts don’t seem essential ingredients for an enormous crossover hit, but that’s all Billy Rae Cyrus had to work with. To make matters worse, it led to line dancing, the refuge of the elderly and the insane. Breaky isn’t even a word.
1. James Blunt – ‘You’re Beautiful’ He sits on the edge of a cliff for the entire length of the video. If they’d known what they do now, surely somebody would have pushed him before he jumped, wouldn’t they? The ultimate pitiful singer-songwriter’s definitive song, it’s painstakingly bad. “But I won’t lose no sleep on that/’Cause I’ve got a plan/You’re beautiful.” That’s not a plan, is it, now leave us alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment