Is A Part Of
One of the easiest ways to write something that’ll attract attention to you is to make your own All Time Top 10 or 40 or 100 Best Whatevers List. The only thing easier (and more attention-whoring) is an All Time Top 10 or 40 or 100 WORST Whatevers List. I’ll admit I’ve done a few myself, but I don’t make it so easy on myself. I’ve written about the Best Summer TV Shows of All Time, the Best “Bad Clowns” (NOT the Worst Clowns) and not really the worst, but the Most Overrated Celebrities (“We wish them well, but, mostly, we wish they were better”).
And I have recently witnessed an unprecidented proliferation of “Worst Pop Songs” lists on and off the Web. The trend could be traced back to 1993 when Dave Barry actually wrote a newspaper column (they were simpler times) and got a massive response (mostly via snail mail, how quaint) to his own suggestions of the Worst Songs Ever. the top three from his survey were (3) Paul Anka’s “You’re Having My Baby”, (2) “Yummy Yummy Yummy” and (1) anybody’s version of “MacArthur Park”. If you want to see any more of his list, you have to buy the book.
All remained quiet on the Worst Songs front until two years ago when rock-music-magazine-nobody’s-ever-heard of Blender got some recognition for its Bad Songs list, and next thing you know, VH-1, the BBC, WFMU, and even some people without a TV or radio station have gotten in on the act.
Most recently, nouveaux blogger (who’s also a veteran TV writer/producer for “M*A*S*H”, “Cheers” and a dozen lesser comedies, former major league baseball announcer, L.A. disc jockey who used the name “Beaver Cleaver” and one of the people I am most in awe of in the business of show) Ken Levine put out an exhaustive but unranked list. Then CNN.com entertainment writer Tom Leopold has gone the Dave Barry route, trolling for sucky song suggestions after giving his own vote to the awfulness that is Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey”.
And now, AOL.com’s free streaming radio service, which already has specialized narrowcasting channels for fans of Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Anime Soundtracks and Sports Bloggers, have opened up a stream playing “The Top 111 Worst Songs of All Time”. Like Dave Barry, AOL does not have a full list openly available, but unlike Barry, you can listen for no charge (except maybe the forfeiture of your immortal soul), and that’s what I did during a surreal 8-hour period last weekend, while doing other stuff on my laptop, interrupting myself every 4 minutes or so to log the latest AOL-designated bad song, so now I am somewhat ashamed to be able to present their entire countdown (if you follow the -more inside- link)… Is that all? Of course that’s not all! Click Here.
