New one going around. Come ON! All The Kewl Kidz are doin it! LGM, Roxanne, Norbizness, Hey Jenny Slater and A Small Victory (with whom I share a graduation year).
Music Outfitters will give you the top 100 songs of your graduation year; you strike the nasty ones, bold the ones you like, and make snarky comments about the rest. It's a universally appropriate demonstration of radio suck (and this is the appropriate time for the patented KE shilling for XM Radio).
My graduation year is, of course, (ahem. old fart alert) 1980.
So: Songs in bold are OK; songs with strikeouts suck, and songs in italics are weapons grade suck, only suitable for reprehensible use in Abu Ghraib torture cells, or for painful infliction upon Republican gatherings.
1. Call Me, Blondie
2. Another Brick In The Wall, Pink Floyd
3. Magic, Olivia Newton-John
4. Rock With You, Michael Jackson
5. Do That To Me One More Time, Captain and Tennille
6. Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Queen
7. Coming Up, Paul McCartney this guy was a BEATLE?
8. Funkytown, Lipps, Inc.
9. It's Still Rock And Roll To Me, Billy Joel It's still SUCK to me, BJ.
10. The Rose, Bette Midler
11. Escape (The Pina Colada Song), Rupert Holmes
12. Cars, Gary Numan
13. Cruisin', Smokey Robinson
14. Working My Way Back To You/Forgive Me Girl, Spinners
15. Lost In Love, Air Supply
16. Little Jeannie, Elton John
17. Ride Like The Wind, Cristopher Cross
18. Upside Down, Diana Ross
19. Please Don't Go, K.C. and The Sunshine Band
20. Babe, Styx Italics aren't enough for the level of loathing I have for this song. Suck doesn't begin to describe it. This is the sound that pederast priests hear in hell, while the claws of demons continually disembowel them through their esophagus. This is the sound Jeffrey Dahmer heard that made him rape, kill , and eat young men. This song could convince Mother Theresa that God doesn't exist. The music made Robert Moog regret inventing the synthesizer; the lyrics are adolescent tripe that would embarrass a semi sentient baboon. the sound is akin to listening to four thousand fingernails screeching across four thousand blackboards, amplified by seven thousand watts of power, through rusty Radio Shack speakers; while hyperaggressive shrews filled with caffeine claw their way out of your eye sockets. While being audited. Naked. after hearing this song, I'm surprised it took the remaining members of Styx twenty years to kick that sap Dennis DeYoung out of the band; I would have just killed him before I had to hear it again. If anything, THIS is the song that made me punk. It's just a hateful song, OK?
21. With You I'm Born Again, Billy Preston and Syreeta
22. Shining Star, Manhattans
23. Still, Commodores
24. Yes, I'm Ready, Teri De Sario With K.C.
25. Sexy Eyes, Dr. Hook
26. Steal Away, Robbie Dupree
27. Biggest Part Of Me, Ambrosia
28. This Is It, Kenny Loggins Kenny Loggins is evil.
29. Cupid-I've Loved You For A Long Time, Spinners
30. Let's Get Serious, Jermaine Jackson
31. Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer, Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes
32. Sailing, Christopher Cross
33. Longer, Dan Fogelberg
34. Coward Of The County, Kenny Rogers
35. Ladies Night, Kool and The Gang
36. Take Your Time, S.O.S. Band
37. No More Tears (Enough Is Enough), Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer one thing the freepers have right is the hatred for Barbra Streisand, although for the wrong reason
38. Too Hot, Kool and The Gang
39. More Love, Kim Carnes
40. Pop Muzik, M sometimes yes, sometimes no.
41. Brass In Pocket, Pretenders Holy shit, how did this get through the impenetrable layers of suck?
42. Special Lady, Ray, Goodman and Brown
43. Send One Your Love, Stevie Wonder
44. The Second Time Around, Shalamar
45. We Don't Talk Anymore, Cliff Richard
47. Heartache Tonight , Eagles The Eagles have a special place in my Hall of Suck. If the Eagles never existed, would we have had to tolerate Hootie? I think not!
48. Stomp, Brothers Johnson
49. Tired Of Toein' The Line, Rocky Burnette
50. Better Love Next Time, Dr. Hook
51. Him, Rupert Holmes
52. Against The Wind, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
53. On The Radio, Donna Summer
54. Emotional Rescue, Rolling Stones Too many drugs and too much time at Studio 54.
55. Rise, Herb Alpert
56. All Out Of Love, Air Supply
57. Cool Change, Little River Band
58. You're Only Lonely, J.D. Souther
59. Desire, Andy Gibb
60. Let My Love Open The Door, Pete Townshend Not a strong effort by windmill-boy, but given the competition, you had to be heartened by this song even showing up. I had a friend in these days who threatened to send a bottle of cognac to Pete; always maintained that he was better before he stopped drinking. Paul Westerberg has the same problem.
61. Daydream Believer, Anne Murray I don't even particularly care for the Beatles, and yet you managed to disgrace this song, you Canuck shitbird.
62. I Can't Tell You Why, Eagles Told you fucks to go away, damn it.
63. Don't Let Go, Isaac Hayes
64. Don't Do Me Like That, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
65. She's Out Of My Life, Michael Jackson I hated Michael Jackson before it became fashionable to hate him; I hated him for his music alone.
66. Fame, Irene Cara don't live forever.
67. Fire Lake, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
68. How Do I Make You, Linda Ronstadt
69. Into The Night, Benny Mardones
70. Let Me Love You Tonight, Pure Prairie League
71. Misunderstanding, Genesis Even if it was an over-popular song, this was a strong album, and my first foray into Genesis and prog music.
72. An American Dream, Dirt Band
73. One Fine Day, Carole King
74. Dim All The Lights, Donna Summer
75. You May Be Right, Billy Joel Better effort, Bill; but don't get your hopes up.
76. Hurt So Bad, Linda Ronstadt
77. Should've Never Let You Go, Neil Sedaka and Dara Sedaka Like you need more than one Sedaka to reach high levels of suck.
78. Pilot Of The Airwaves, Charlie Dore
79. Off The Wall, Michael Jackson
80. I Pledge My Love, Peaches and Herb
81. The Long Run, Eagles Please.
82. Stand By Me, Mickey Gilley
83. Heartbreaker, Pat Benatar
84. Deja Vu, Dionne Warwick
85. Drivin' My Life Away, Eddie Rabbitt
86. Take The Long Way Home, Supertramp well, at least it doesn't make me retch.
87. Sara, Fleetwood Mac No.
88. Wait For Me, Daryl Hall and John Oates
89. Jo Jo, Boz Scaggs
90. September Morn, Neil Diamond I don't care if he's retro-cool.
91. Give Me The Night, George Benson
92. Broken Hearted Me, Anne Murray
93. You Decorated My Life, Kenny Rogers
94. Tusk, Fleetwood Mac The best way to tolerate this song is to listen to Camper Van Beethoven cover it. They covered the whole album. It's worth it.
95. I Wanna Be Your Lover, Prince
96. In America, Charlie Daniels Band don't make me puke.
97. Breakdown Dead Ahead, Boz Scaggs
98. Ships, Barry Manilow
99. All Night Long, Joe Walsh No. You're one of the Eagles, you still die.
100. Refugee, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
Aggggh. I guess it's been a long time since radio hasn't sucked. This year still suffered a savage hangover of disco and soft-country-rock; the impact of MTV was just starting to be felt.
I can see why by 1980 I really no longer listened to much radio; even though Madison had a couple of decent stations, it just wasn't worth it.
Ack. this was an unnecessary stroll through a malodorous time; I did not enjoy it. Not one bit. Now I feel all squicky. I need to go lie down.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Can't resist the music meme...
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Ouch. A bit harsh on the Styx aren't we? An annoying bit of saccharine, to be sure, but it was the theme song to my prom. So it immediately brings back memories of making out with Jenny in the balcony of our high school auditorium.
ReplyDeleteThis is the music of your life. You should learn to embrace it, good or bad. Since I graduated the same year you did, my list is the same, and with the exception of anything by Rupert Holmes, I have great associations with most of the songs.
I take that back. Even the Pina Colada song has a certain kitsch value. And since it reminds me of another little hottie, Sarah, well -ding-ding! We have another winner.
Sorry man. I stand by my excoriation of Babe. It's not an indictment of Styx in general, they were just an honest workingman's rock band and the second real concert I ever saw.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, my friend, you forget the schmaltzy sound of Babe oozing at you from every Muzak speaker; it was friggin omnipresent, it got played on soft rock stations, top 40, even crossover on regular rock stations. There was no sanctuary from this tossed off tripe, that was basically warmed over Lady, with any musical efforts removed and replaced with warmed-over Kimball Organ noodling.
Besides, I thought the rant had a certain brutal lyric quality to it.
Your affection for this music may at least be understood, if not forgiven, by the events surrounding it in your memory. But that does not salvage the music itself; A mound of feces surrounded by the great works of Shakespeare is still crap. At this late date, you need to disassociate the truly important parts of those times (i.e. Sarah and Jenny) from the inconsequential background.
This ain't the music of MY life, bub. My music in 1980? Clash. Costello. B-52's. Boomtown Rats, Blondie, Utopia, Cars, Talking Heads; even BOC, Led Zep, Rush, AC/DC, Queen, ZZ Top. Supertramp. Cheap Trick. Genesis.
But in no way did my playlist at the time contain the Eagles.
And the WHOLE ISSUE of prom themes is best dealt with at another time. Suffice to say, in my opinion you should have threatened to pull a Carrie if the theme wasn't changed.
Thanks for the visit Z. Don't forget to hit The Big Red Link up there to the right.