In my bleaker moments–like say, every time I dwell on the current spluttering state of what we keep hearing from the media is now everyone’s favorite “niche” interest, popular music–my best friend will remind me that if I do choose suicide, he will show up at my funeral only to play this song on his accordion*:
After he shouts it directly into my dead face, he will then pass the funeral director a five dollar bill to install a speaker in my coffin so I can be haunted by its yucky yodelling yarl for the rest of eternity, or until the CD player breaks. Sometimes, when I am feeling low and/or drunk, I do like to marinate in its stripey-socked-and-dreadlocked evil, because it reaffirms that keeping on kicking is worth avoiding the alternative. This is not VH1-style secret-ironic-enjoyment. This is some kind of Catholicism-bred penitence for the fuck-ups of my generation; no pleasure can be wrung from it. I know that my feeling this song is the worst is not necessarily a minority opinion among music fans–there are many Google hits from fellow haters also declaring it the “worst song ever” to prove this, as well as the canon-building cable TV list show schlock–but if you do know of something more heinous, I’d almost certainly like to know what it is, if only so I can change my funeral plans.
*Not kidding about the accordion part, either.
Okay – Cotton Eye Joe is pretty bad
It should be noted that Linda Perry, after leaving 4 Non Blondes, signed James Blunt.
Jesus does that woman hate peoples ears.
@natepatrin: Please don’t let them hurt the children.
the worst song of the 90′s, if i’m not mistaken, is i believe, by blessid union of souls. and it has nothing to do with their shitty-ass name, either.
Sorry if this is genre-hopping, but that “Back at One” song by Brian McKnight induces severe (yet…restrained) throat-vomiting every time. I mos def hate all that utterly banal, saccharine, faux R&B more than this flannel fluff.
Worse songs:
“Intuition” by Jewel, and “My Love Is The Shhh…”
This is actually a very good song.
In all seriousness, I’d be interested to have someone tell me what’s wrong with it.
There was a lot of godawful shit out in the 90s, so much so that I pretty much stopped listening to new music for 8 or 9 years there. There are a lot of sacred cows from that decade who, objectively, often made much worse music that this. I’m looking at you, Nirvana, Pearljam and Alice in Chains, among others.
At least this is melodic and lyrically competent, which puts it ahead of 99% of grunge.
I could honestly live out the rest of my life very happily if I were to never hear another Alice in Chains song ever again. Thankfully, I know what station *not* to turn to in order to make this dream come true…ahem, K-Rock.
Oh, and you can also tack any song ever written by Coolio onto that wish.