Before the list a couple of notes:
1) I know the list is heavy on 70’s soft rock but quite honestly, this was some of the worst music ever to come out over the airwaves. And I promise it’s not that I hate soft rock. I looked at newer soft rock list with songs by Dido, Norah Jones, Seal, etc. all of it perfectly acceptable and in some cases enjoyable. It’s just that awful decade.
2) I (mostly) limited myself to one song per artist to give some more variety
3) The criteria I used was “not just dislike or don’t care… actually annoyed by the song”.
4) The other “rule” was these are songs that are pretty well known. I excluded bad obscure songs of which I would need a much longer list!
And now, the list...
10) Cheap Sunglasses - ZZ Top. Sorry boys, you just screwed up a nice musical catalog with this one. Dull, musically uninteresting and downright annoying. Definitely enough to get me reaching for the button quick.
9) Black water – Doobie Brothers. If I never hear this song again, it will be too soon.
8) Colour my world/saturday in the park/if you leave me now – Chicago – I know, I broke my rule but I couldn’t pick one as any more hideous than the other. Lest you think I hate Chicago “Stronger Every Day” is a big time fave.
7) Waiting on the world to change - John Mayer. Hopefully this song reminds us all that they are still making and playing bad music today. I’ve been so poisoned by his voice that if he writes a song I like in the future I may never hear it due to my split second auto-reflex to hit the station button.
6) Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton. This song is unique in that I didn’t always hate it. I think I actually borrowed somebody’s album once and taped it. So therefore it wins the “farthest fall” award. I’m not sure when it hit me that it’s a really bad pseudo-love song.
5) Hold onto the Nights - Richard Marx. Very difficult to just pick one Richard Marx song but in a basketball team of midgets looking for a point guard, this one is it.
4) Tuff Enough - Fabulous Thunderbirds. What the hell was America smoking when this song came out that gave it any commercial success at all?
3) If you could read my mind - Gordon Lightfoot. The man who taught us all about the greatest Midwestern maritime disaster of all time also had this “wreck” several years earlier.
2) Leader of the band - Dan Fogeleberg – I have nothing against Dan and his “folky” ways, I just think this is one of the worst songs ever written. For a while my loathing for it was so complete that I used to listen to it again and again to understand why I hated it so. I’m still wondering.
1) Summer breeze - Seals and Crofts. The year was 1972. The Watergate break in was dominating the headlines. Musically, as Dickens said, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. While some artists were just starting to push the envelope of what FM radio could be, others were wallowing in a folk-spun hell of harmonic tones and gentle lyrics. Such was Seals and Crofts. Nothing symbolizes the “lost decade” of pop music more than this song. It somehow reached #6 on the charts. Kids, if your parents are between 40 and 50, don’t let them tell you that music was better “back then”.
