"Worst" Recordings by Well-Known Artists

An unbearable song by my favorite band:

No Return - The Kinks

 

I love that song! How about "Art Lover" or most of "Everybody's in Showbiz" - yeechh.

 

The only filler track on an otherwise exceptional album. Fit the album's concept, I guess. It did have a concept, right?

ED

 

If my research is correct, More to come isn't a Steely Dan song. That's from the 1968-71 period, prior to the first album.

I disagree with the Guess Who selection. Maybe it's my Wpg. roots coming out. Follow Your Daughter is a nice song. Great arrangement, nice world beat feel.

On the Elvis Costello pick, you're joking right? One of my all-time favourite Costello b sides is Wednesday Week.
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I couldn't agree more Mikey, except for maybe

Actually all of the cover tunes on Beatles For Sale make me cringe as well as Baby's In Black, I'll Follow The Sun, What You're Doing, and Every Little Thing (Ringo's timpani and all).

Quote from a review I found on Beatles For Sale.
"Banged out in a hurry for the 1964 Christmas market, Beatles for Sale sometimes sounds it, loaded with ill-conceived covers..."
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This and the Bowie - Jagger - Dancing In The Street remind me of some other not so great duets.
Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder - Ebony and Ivory
Mick Jagger & Michael Jackson - State of Shock
Not a great song at all, but I liked the version Mick and Tina sang at Live Aid much better.

 

Re: on to The Bard

Woe, a big HELL YEAH to that one. That whole album was crap IMO.

 

Re: on to The Bard

I started to mention Wiggle Wiggle a few pages back but I deleted it on the grounds that I haven't yet heard anything from the "Dylan" album (ie, the album of "Self-Portrait" outtakes that Columbia released after Dylan briefly jumped ship to Elektra(?) in the early 70s). From what I've read, there are songs on there that are probably even worse than Wiggle Wiggle...

 

Don't worry, they're all better than WW. Dylan is a MUCH better album than Down In The Groove.

 

Hello skysaxon.

I love Art Lover. One sign of a great group is that these things happen.

I don't mind the mediocre songs in Showbiz. I'd say that I don't mind mediocrity but ill-conceptions. Constipated Bossa Nova by the Kinks is ludicrous.

And from Steve:

I'd say the key thing is that it ends with Waterloo Sunset.

 

If that was the case, God bless that lunch!!

Rare Earth did a great cover of Temptations' I'm losing You, only surpassed by Rod Stewart.

 

and the Stones do a great version of Just my Imagination (Running away with me).
Check out the live version on the Ft. Worth 78 Soundboard show also!

Joe Lee

 

Apparently you haven't heard the album version of "I'm Losing You," or "Get Ready" for that matter....better find a doobie to last the course, Pablo, you'll need it...

BTW, the quote you attributed to Steve was actually mine. And, yes, good idea to end with "Waterloo Sunset" and to start with "David Watts." One of the great rock albums of alienation and loathing. Mr. Ray wasn't really happy in his time, was he? I can imagine him back in the Victorian era, hanging with Holmes & Watson...and some afternoon tea.

ED

 

I’ll bet I’m in the minority here, but I think Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” is the sonic equivalent of Syrup of Ipecac. Or how about Rod Stewart’s cover of Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train”? Not for the squeamish.

 

Hello Ed.

I confess to having never heard the Lp version of any cof the two. I just have a greatest hits compilation (one of the first CDs I ever got) and the Masterpiece Lp.

Anyway I meant as covers go...

Ray openly wrote:

This is the age of machinery,
A mechanical nightmare,
The wonderful world of technology,
Napalm hydrogen bombs biological warfare,

This is the twentieth century,
But too much aggravation
It's the age of insanity,
What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem.

Ain't got no ambition, I'm just disillusioned
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna be here.
My mama said she can't understand me
She can't see my motivation
Just give me some security,
I'm a paranoid schizoid product of the twentieth century.

You keep all your smart modern writers
Give me William Shakespeare
You keep all your smart modern painters
I'll take Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci and Gainsborough,

Girl we gotta get out of here
We gotta find a solution
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't want to die here.

I was born in a welfare state
Ruled by bureaucracy
Controlled by civil servants
And people dressed in grey
Got no privacy got no liberty
Cos the twentieth century people
Took it all away from me.

Don't wanna get myself shot down
By some trigger happy policeman,
Gotta keep a hold on my sanity
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna die here.

My mama says she can't understand me
She can't see my motivation
Ain't got no security,
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna be here.

This is the twentieth century
But too much aggravation
This is the edge of insanity
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna be here.

 

Hi Pab,

Geez...reading those lyrics printed out, don't suppose he's too happy in this century, either Oh well, ya take what ya get....

ED

 

To Miike

Well, maybe, just maybe, I could reconsider Wednesday Week.
But, no way Follow Your Daughter Home. Perhaps it has a "world beat" (but, what world?). The lyrics are absurd, which is why it made the cut.
As for More To Come, I considered it Steely Dan because it is Becker/Fagen, who, as we know, have always been Steely Dan. And, it is on the "fabulous" CD "Roaring of the Lamb", Classic Rock CD 1116, p1993 Charly Holdings, Inc. The CD also includes such classics as Ida Lee, A Horse In Town, Stone Piano, Take It Out On Me, This Seat's Been Taken, Oh Wow It's You, Android Warehouse, and the amazing A Little With Sugar. Seventeen cuts, all in pristine mono, except A Horse In Town, taken from really cruddy vinyl.

Other candidates for volume two of "Duds":
John's Music Box Mamas and Papas
Melody for an Unknown Girl Paul Revere and the Raiders
Anniversary of World War III (three minutes of silence) West Coast Pop Art Experimental Pop Art Band
Cat Killer Steppenwolf
She's Goin' Bald Beach Boys
Revolution 9 Beatles
Plenty of Lovin' Nazz
Knapsack Bad Company
One More Try Rolling Stones
I Would Be Happy Beau Brummels
I'll Be Standing By Foghat
Grandmas's Lament John Mellencamp
O Holy Night Destiny's Child
Don't Worry Kyoko Plastic Ono Band
Oh Daddy Fleetwood Mac

 

What the heck is wrong with this one?Yeah, it's a little sloppy, but it's a great slab of early Stones!

All GREAT tracks, esp. I'll Follow The Sun--my favorite early Beatle song. And Words Of Love has to be one of the BEST cover versions of all time

 

BEATLES FOR SALE caught a tired but game band between the energy and innovation of AHDN and RUBBER SOUL. No wonder they did covers: no time to write new songs! It's always been a favorite of mine, though not up to their very best. "I'll Follow The Sun" is a quintessential McCartney ballad, and "Words Of Love" was the one chance officially to pay homage to a deep influence not just on them but the Stones and some lesser lights(the Hullaballoos, anyone? ). I have no idea why anyone would have a problem with "Oh Daddy," either. As for "Rev 9," place it in context and it works; otherwise, as I've posted, good for keeping all manner of pests away; I've listened to it so many times for the last 34 years I'm immune to its annoying nature(which is why it's fun to annoy pests by playing it!)

ED

 

Holy cow, I haven't seen a reference to the Hullabaloos since I hit puberty!
I just remember tweed trousers and platinum blonde wig-hats...and one track (I'm a gonna love you too) on the Rhino British Invasion CD's. I caught them on the Hullaballoo tv show, once.
16 magazine did a story on them, too, heh heh. next big thing.

 

How could anyone pick the brilliant "Darkness" album as being bad? It's Bruce's best work - terrific from start to finish...

I don't get this one - the Stones produced MANY crummier songs in their early - and mid, and late - days. "One More Try" chugs along quite nicely - it's a good little track...

While "My Girl" indeed bites, "Beg" isn't a bad cover from the Stones, and "Just My Imagination" is a very good cover...

 

"The Beach Boys"- Kokomo
or that awful digital remake of California Dreamin.

 

Lou Reed "Metal Machine Music"... Doesn't matter which side, it's all the same.
Phil Collins "Tomorrow Never Knows"... Pathetic paint-by-numbers
Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me"... Yeeeesh
Motley Crue "Helter Skelter"
Yes "Tales Of Topographic Oceans"... See "Metal Machine Music"
Celine Dion "You Shook Me"... Celine as Headbanger?

More to come...

 

People hearing the Hollies for the first time musta thought "What's the BFD about them?!" Ghastly rendition.

 

The Hollies What Comes Around album with Stop In The Name of Love is out on CD. Wounded Bird released it.

 

Does that song S**K or what? Good one...