Hey, that misspelling is just as ironic as my song! Don’t you think?
If you’ve been reading my blog for long enough to notice what I post on Mondays, and that many of my post titles contain lyrical references, then you probably figured out that I kinda like music. And if you’ve been reading my blog long enough to know that dead possums and crazy laundry product mascots are actually a thing around here, then you probably also know that I’m pretty weird. Mix the two together, and it means that, yes, I have a pretty fucked up taste in music.
Not quite THAT fucked up. I’m weird, not deaf.
I often use the word “scattershot” to define my musical tastes, because it’s kind of like blindly firing a shotgun inside a record store. There’s really no defining traits that I seem to universally love or hate about songs…. it’s almost a matter of randomness what my ear is going to like and what makes it want to bleed out. That means I really like a lot of songs that most people want to banish into the vacuum of space, and conversely dislike quite a few songs that have attained a sort of vinyl godlike status in our society…
At least even I think this guy’s music sucks a large amount of ass.
I could do a series on some of my favorite musical guilty pleasures, but it would probably end up being 70% new millennium pop, 25% disco, and 5% Starland Vocal Band. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun for those of you who take a little pride in your musical joy buttons, does it? But do you know what would be kinda intriguing? What about those songs lots of self-professed music junkies seem to love that I want to smash over some Rolling Stone editor’s head? What if I dedicated 30 weeks to trashing some of the most revered, most cherished, most………… iconic music of the rock and roll era?
Yeah! Being the contrarian that I am, I love rubbing other people’s noses in the fact that I think their cool shit is just plain shit. And so, two years after I counted down my Top 30 Cover Songs of All Time, Scratchy and the Sponkies are gonna do a little weekly double dipping, and every Wednesday for the next seven months will help me reveal 30 of my absolute least favorite songs that have invaded pop culture over the past six decades! From the bad to the very worst… we guarantee you will find yourself gasping over at least a few of these seemingly blasphemous submissions! And believe me…. nobody out there is safe!
You wouldn’t dare include the greatest rock and roll band of all time in here, would you!?!?
Like hell I wouldn’t! Even you guys put out some really shitty garbage that people still seem to give you a pass on…
Maybe I should take a moment to sort of define what I’m considering to be “iconic” songs. First of all, I’m disqualifying anything done by a perky poppy artist in this century…. so no Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, P!nk, Lady Gaga, Timberlake, Da Biebs, et. al. While I’m sure the thirty-somethings of the 2030’s will begin talking about that bunch with reverence compared to whatever trash is on the radio 20 years from now, I’m not ready to call any of their stuff iconic just yet… even if I don’t consider it all to be garbage…
Don’t cry Taylor. I still love your sick beat®…
While there will certainly be some stretches made for the purposes of this countdown, I’m basically considering a song to be iconic if it has at least one of the following properties:
- It is well revered by a large group of “real” music fans (Bonus points if it routinely ranks high in lists of all time greatest songs)
- Is a song that is considered to be an/THE anthem of a certain musical genre, group of “real” music fans, or certain segment of society… or is considered to be a cult classic.
- Has become so excessively overplayed in any/all radio/music formats these days that any redeeming value it once had has long been lost.
Only one song per artist was considered for this countdown. Songs were rated by how much I dislike them and how iconic I believe they are considered to be. The higher we go in this countdown, the larger both of these factors will be in the songs…
Let’s get the hate parade started!
To whet your appetite, and to give you an idea of what you can expect over the next 30 weeks… here’s a few songs I considered for the countdown that didn’t quite make it into the Top 30. Some dishonorable mentions, if you will….
Space Oddity – David Bowie: One of my cherished followers is a huge Bowie fan, and even that won’t stop me from saying how much of a piece of outright ass this song is. If I want to hear about Major Tom, I’ll queue up the Peter Schilling…
This is more my style of space oddity.
What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye: Yes, I’m going to punish this song with brutality. Other than doing the best version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” Marvin did nothing worth listening to that didn’t include Tammi Terrell. I could have included the awful “Sexual Healing” here, but it lost out on iconic points…
Faith – George Michael: 95% of solo George Michael sucks ass. 95% of Wham! kicks ass. Tell me again, George, why did you break up the duo anyway?
Oh, that’s right. I better go find a medium…
The Sounds of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel: I don’t really hate this song (Which is the only reason it failed to make the Top 30)…. but like just about everything else S&G did in the 60’s, someone came along later and made it a whole lot better. The same thing happened to Tommy James, but at least his originals weren’t rendered impotent by the later, more awesome covers. This is probably the most iconic of their songs, and it also easily got the absolute best cover version of them all to make it look even more meek by comparison…
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida – Iron Butterfly: If you have to be stoned for a song to be listenable, it’s just not good music. Especially if it’s like the musical version of War and Peace…
Hey Soul Sister – Train: I failed to include this song in the countdown only because I refuse to believe there are more than ten people in this world who actually think it’s any good…
I’ll bet it’s playing on loop in the waiting room of Hell as we speak…
Hey Jude – The Beatles: Holy fucking shit…… is this song over yet!?!? Paul McCartney, songwriting genius, was so bereft of ideas, he apparently had to fill the entire last half of the song with a neverending chorus of “Na na na nas.” They should strip his knighthood for that…
I’d rather flush myself down this drain than listen to you na na na nas, Paul.
So, are you excited? Are you ready to question my musical preferences yet? Or maybe just smack the shit out of me instead?
Go ahead. I already have brain damage.
We’ll get this anti-earworm party started next Wednesday!!!
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
Ha, I feel the same way about “Hey Jude”. Sorry, Mer 🙂
I am so nice to let Merby take out her frustration on me. My cheeks will probably be bruised by the time this countdown’s over…
But ES…Yoko loves you!
I’m sure she does. But she keeps my cats from sleeping…
Meow, meow oooooo, meow!
It’s okay…not one of my favorites anyways. 🙂
WTF are you doing cracking on Faith???? I love that song and it never fails to make me happy. Even if it’s just the song and doesn’t include blue jeaned ass.
Meanwhile, you have TWO cherished followers that adore Bowie….or am I not cherished? Ha! (And I’m not too crazy about Space Oddity myself…shhhh!)
Two!?!? Is Hottie reading my blog in secret and just not commenting? Shit, I don’t want to offend her, so I’ll have to cancel the whole countdown now!
Faith isn’t the worst solo George song, but it’s definitely the most overplayed. I’d rather hear George sing about his Monkey than shake his blue jeaned ass…
I just assumed she was…..I bet she is! Hey, some like monkeys, some like ass, that’s why Baskin Robbins has 32 flavours…..ha!
Oh yeah…this is going to be fun (insert maniacal laugh here). 😉
I’m only gonna take about half of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame down with me. Should be enough sacred cows roasted to have a barbecue!
I can’t stand the simon &furuncle song… it that is the sound of silence then give me lots of noises… ;o)
LOL! Maybe Weird Al could redo that song as “The Lots of Noises”
Yep – I’m definitely up for it………my musical tastes are all over the place too…..so this will be interesting indeed, Some of the really BIG songs over the years were imminently flushable and I’ll be anxious to see if my flushables are aligned with some of your other followers flushables. Gosh that’s a lot of F words……….
Pam
There will be F words all over the place in this countdown…. both in the posts and in the comment sections! And I don’t think any of them will be flibbertigibbet…
Okay, I’ll admit that not all of The Beatles music is pure awesome. I HATE the song Blackbird so much that each of the 3 times I’ve seen Sir Paul in concert, I cringed and started singing “nanananana” to myself until it was over.
I got tired of being seemingly the only person who hadn’t listened to any full Beatles album a few years ago and played them on YouTube while I was doing my comics (I think they’ve all since been removed from YT). I now realize I wasn’t missing anything since most of their album filler is thoroughly wretched. Among their better known songs, if I was to pick their most iconic song I don’t like (even moreso than Hey Jude), it would probably be A Day in the Life…
Okay…I am trying hard not to smack the shit outta you for that…finding my happy place….aw, fuck it. *Smack*
That sound you hear is me crying like a bitch…
Bwahahaha….
Ooh…am looking forward to this different tact. Sound be interesting especially given at times, I have found (maybe hide tide but who knows) some of the aforementioned notables on my most despised list and other times, I found myself happily singing along in the car. Not a big fan of most of Sir Elton’s stuff though I know others adore his music. I just like the man. Make sense? 😇
Elton’s had so many hit songs….. we’ll have to see if one of them makes my list or not!
Bravo! Bravo! I think I’m going to really like this countdown. I hate all those you just mentioned, too!! I can’t wait to read more.
We shall see! The countdown contains a bit more variety than the dishonorables, so I’m sure I’ll hit one or two you do like along the way so you can be properly upset at me! 😉
🐿👍🐿
ody N biskit; therz a hole list oh songs round heer that we lovez…goin kleer bak ta like …well de food servizz gurlz gran parentz time…..everee one likez songs frum diffrunt genres… N generationz; ore they shuld… even if they dont say sew….we haz sum fave from de 40’s !!! N yes, even all de gratez has stuff that stunk… sew it made it two de “B” side…lookin for werd ta theeze postz ! 🙂 ♥
My countdown doesn’t quite go back to the 40’s, but I think I have every decade from the 60’s to the 2010’s covered with at least one song!
Looking forward to more of your countdown. I am in one accord with you so far.
We shall see how it goes. As luck would have it, I’ll be starting off by trashing one of the most iconic songs of all time next week….
I usually hate covers, but even I have to admit this cover of Sound of Silence is awesome!
I’m not much on Disturbed’s genre of music, but this and their cover of Genesis’ “Land of Confusion” are both amazing! The latter just missed my Cover Song countdown, and the former had not yet been released, or it would have scored very high…
I am a huge Genesis fan – but the album with Land of Confusion on it gets hardly ever played here, it’s more Wind and Wuthering and Trick of the Tale for me. And then there were three, too. The later ones are not that much my cup of tea.
I only learned of Peter Gabriel era Genesis about 15 or so years ago, and can’t say I’m much of a fan of that iteration…. then again, mainstream radio in America completely ignores pre-80’s Genesis… so we get solo Phil Collins and the group’s 80’s hits. The Invisible Touch album was HUGE here….
I loved the story telling they did in the older songs.
I’m excited!!!
Sounds of Silence. Disturbed. Hell Yeah. Land of Confusion. Disturbed. Hell Yeah. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. Hell Yeah. Disturbed.
Don’t get me wrong. I have a mixed (and sometimes really bad) play list. I also like Daniel Powter’s Bad Day, and I listen to opera when nobody else is around, and sometimes I crank up the 38 Special, and I like Fritz and the Tantrums anytime, and Rancid, and Jingle Cats. And sometimes I like Brazilian music and pretend I’m walking barefoot on a beach with cocktails and a tall handsome man. But yes, I’m looking forward to your new ICONIC SONGS posts. I trust you on this one.
Jeeze, I wonder what Buster would pick for his iconic songs?
Disturbed covered U2? I didn’t know that, and I’ll have to look it up! Other than Vertigo and Pride in the Name of Love, I pretty much hate U2’s entire catalog… though I oddly didn’t include them in my countdown since there isn’t any certain song of theirs that seems to be an iconic one…
Buster would probably choose Stayin’ Alive for his most hated iconic song, since he believes it mocks him…
All of U2 is going to Hell for spamming my iPhone with their bad album a few years ago. Get out of my playlist U2.
Good choice Buster. I hate that song but it is so fitting for our stinky friend.
There must be something wrong with me. I can’t get all worked up over pop music. I used to get all worked up over classical music or the occasional album, but most songs don’t mean much to me … with a few exceptions (Rod Stewart’s “You are my heart” is one and I can’t remember the other).
I was actually that way in my teens, the age when people seem to most enjoy whatever the modern music is. I still haven’t completely warmed up to early 90’s music of my high school years, but being forced to listen to pop again at Mecca opened my mind back up enough to be able to enjoy some of the newer stuff…
Disturbed Yes!!! Love them! but I disagree ABOUT Ironbutterfly! In Da God A DaVeda is Awesome! but then I’m an old headbanger! Your spot on about “Soul Sister” YUCK!! and a few others you got right also! Your taste in music is pretty good, I’d give you a B- Bill! ❤