Top 10 Worst Songs by Great Bands

Quick. Name your favorite band. Now name a song of theirs that you do not like, or think is awful. Most legendarily great musicians will release at least one dud. Here is my list of the 10 worst songs by great bands/artists.

10) Shiny Happy People – R.E.M. From 1991’s Out Of Time, this song is the ultimate sugar song. It is so full of sweet sappy goo that it that national cavity rate increased by 20% in 1991. It will make you cringe. It will make you long for the days when R.E.M. made great music.

9) Come Together – The Beatles. That’s right, not even The Beatles were immune to flaw. This song, from 1969’s Abbey Road, just sounds as if they were cutting and pasting their way through it. Not their best work. Anybody who says that The Beatles were infallible is just a nostalgia freak who fails to live in the world of reality.

8) I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing – Aerosmith. From the 1998 Armageddon Soundtrack, this song exemplifies everything wrong with having a classic rock band doing a song written for soccer moms. This is one thing that Aerosmith should have missed. How do you go from Sweet Emotion to this?

7) Rock The Casbah – The Clash. First of all, I am not implying that The Clash were a great band. They were good, but great? Sorry. This song, from the 1982 Combat Rock album, is so overplayed, so cheesy, so dull, that it’s sad. London Calling is so much better.

6) River of Dreams – Billy Joel. From the 1993 album of the same name, this song has one of those annoying choruses that will get stuck in your head like auditory shrapnel on a speed train to your nervous system. There was no reason that this song should have been recorded, let alone be a huge smash hit. What’s wrong with people?

5) I Can’t Dance – Genesis. Genesis is one of the most successful bands of all-time when you take into account all their albums and those by their members (Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Mike (and the Mechanics) Rutherford…). Naturally they couldn’t hit a home run every time. This song, from the 1991 We Can’t Dance album, physically hurts when you hear it. Plus, the implications found in the words make the song lame. Bad choice guys.

4) My World – Guns N’ Roses. From the outstanding 1991 Use Your Illusion II album, this clunker was the worst decision since General Custer underestimated the Sioux. Hey Axl, you are a rock god…ROCK god, not rap god. What in the world were you thinking? This song single-handedly destroyed Guns N’ Roses. It was the last track on the last great record they ever made. It jinxed their shot at immortality. Awful, bad, wrong.

3) Even Better Than The Real Thing – U2. When it comes to U2, arguably the best band of the past 30 years, it would be too easy to cite a song from their disco/dance/pop days. This song, from 1991’s Achtung Baby masterpiece of excellence, is a sub-par effort. The keyboards fall flat, the lyrics are bland, and the whole thing just sounds like a bad car commercial. If there is a dark spot to U2’s otherwise remarkable career, this is one.

2) Start Me Up – The Rolling Stones. This song, from 1981’s Tattoo You, is so overplayed, especially at sporting events, that there should be an outright ban on it. It was never one of their best, it’s not even on the list of their top 50 songs, so why does it resonate louder than almost anything they’ve ever done? Come on people, this is the band who gave us Gimme Shelter and Sympathy For The Devil! What’s your fascination with Start Me Up? Lame.

1) Fire – Jimi Hendrix. From the 1967 Are You Experienced album, this song, by the greatest guitarist of all-time, is the pinnacle of dreadful abominations. Jimi was so talented, so gifted, so cool, but this song just doesn’t fit in with his repertoire of awesomeness. To add more insult to injury the song is now prostituted all over the world in the form of TV commercials, soundbites, and other similar vexatious nuisances. Maybe we can get the water from the river of dreams to extinguish this fire and then all the shiny happy people can come together and rock the casbah through a world even better than the real one that Axl Rose lived in. Maybe, just maybe, then Phil Collins could dance. And, Aerosmith, that would be something you don’t want to miss; just as long as Start Me Up is still banned.


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