The beauty of being into music is that your tastes are ultimately subjective. People may shepherd artists and songs into good and bad categories – or more than likely adopt a more intricate filing system – but in reality the world is your turntable to spin upon alone.
But then the beauty of personal opinion is that we can tear these walls down as and when we please. Some songs just plain stink. These choice cuts of rotten song-meat can elicit reactions of horror and hilarity in equal measure. Screw subjectivity, we’re here to alert the public to the evil lurking just a few clicks away. We could have just filmed somebody burning a bin full of nu-metal CDs, or grabbed the local Kung Fu master to chop and kick his way through a box of Counting Crows merchandise but where’s the fun if you don’t share in my pain? What is the point in evil existing if we do not confront it?
If you’re expecting a rant on the likes of Bieber and his crew, you won’t find it here. They’re easy targets and judging by the popularity and reaction to Bieber’s recent televised roast, everyone’s in on the joke now. Obvious novelty songs don’t count, nor does Rebecca Black (she was 13, give her a break and blame the parents!) or Rick Astley because that joke is older than Cher.
brokenCYDE – ‘Freaxxx’
You just know this song is gonna be bad-ass as soon as you see not one… not two… but three (!) Xs tacked onto the end of the title. brokenCYDE are boundary pushers, rebels, icons.
Uhh… no. Freaxxx is about as iconic as syphilis – more irritating too – and the only boundary it will push is the one between your foot and the accelerator pedal as you consider driving off a bridge your best option right now. From the squelchy canned beats to the guy screaming like he’s trying to cough up an eagle, this tuneless hell-pit is a failure from the get go. It’s a 12-year-old boy’s approximation of life when you get a bit older. Freedom, money, no set bedtime = boozing with hot chicks all day. Or, if you’re brokenCYDE: Rental car, pink t-shirts with BITCHES graphed on the front and terrible hair = well… we’re not sure yet either.
The song peaks when the group – with a guy in a pig costume tagging along – take turns at lunging towards a group of disinterested teenage girls and screaming “LIARRRR!” for a few seconds. It’s amazing what can be achieved with collaboration, isn’t it?
Freaxxx is the sound of any alcohol-free, parentally-monitored underage disco in any town hall or high school across the country. From the hideous and misguided lyrics to the bad fashion and (probably) lingering sense of body odor and cheap deodorant to the weird anti-woman vibe throughout, it’s an undeniable (s)hit.
Blood On The Dance Floor – I Heart Hello Kitty (NSFW lyrics)
It’s hard to even make sense of any of this. “Meat sucks”? What does that even mean? Blood On The Dance Floor have always been a weird and creepy duo that write really weird and creepy songs but this Hello Kitty-inspired slice of Satan’s ass is just too much. Can you even IMAGINE walking up to a bandmate with lyrics such as “I’ll fuck you in the club, on the ground, mop it up. Relax, relax… it’s my sexy track!” or “Show me how you’re such a hoe. Bitch I’ll make you fucking cry. Get down on your knees and blow. You’re such a fucking cutie-pie!” and then just dropping phat beats to create this masterpiece. The world is a crazy enough place to begin with, but it got a whole lot worse when this track was released.
The freaky violent sex-obsessed pair were also responsible for Candyland (in which a child’s voice says ‘I’ll suck you ’till it snows’) and Scream For My Ice Cream (sample lyric: ‘Got a monster in my pants and if you ever get the chance, gonna cram it down your throat and make you gasp for air and choke’). Really lovely stuff, guys. Well done!
Fuck these guys. They deserve to be made fun of. Next!
Vanilla – No Way, No Way
Yeahhhh… trust us, this isn’t a parody or some contrived practical joke. It’s real. That only makes it more terrifying.
British girl group Vanilla – who thankfully never resurfaced after this one release – tested the very limits of human patience and decency with the totally bizarre No Way, No Way. To be frank with you ladies and gentlemen, we’re not sure which part of this song is the worst bit. Is it the weird and stilted video of the four girls strutting around a swimming pool? The way the blonde one absolutely fouls up the line “you can hold me in your aaaarrrrmmmmsss!” on the first bridge? Or the fact the Muppets’ manah-manah song was ripped off of as the basis for it?
There are too many questions with answers we don’t really want. Sometimes you can go TOO far.
Michael Bolton – Can I Touch You… There?
Woah woah, Michael… what the fuck, man? Stop doing this creepy guy thing, will ya? Can I Touch You… There? Seriously guy, come on.
If the title wasn’t weird enough anyway, the ellipsis just adds a layer of ugh; as if Bolton’s either about to finally lose his virginity or he’s so terrible at the art of fucking that he has no idea what he’s doing in the first place. Add his terrible hair and the faint whiff of ‘sex tourist’ that the video gives off and it really is a contender for one of the worst songs ever… and we haven’t even talked about the cod-world music overtones of this whole thing. Somebody call the morgue.
Insane Clown Posse – Miracles
There might have been a time – when you were a bit younger – where you thought ICP were somehow dangerous or had some evil potential. As we talked about in our Fetish Encyclopaedia series, clowns can be pretty scary figures. Throw in some gun-hand poses, violent lyrics and BAM! You’ve got yourself a bit of a cult.
A cult is exactly what ICP became. Thanks to their well-respected and totally-never-mocked fanbase of Juggalos/Juggalettes they became more a lifestyle than a rap collective. A crappy lifestyle, but a lifestyle nonetheless. But just as the joke began to wear thinner than a supermodel with terrible self-esteem, Miracles came onto our radar. The world united as one to mock ICP until they were blue in the face. Warring nations set aside their differences, laid down their arms and laughed until they wept upon each other’s shoulders. The Governor of Indiana decided he would allow gay people to listen to music just for this one song. It was a great time to be alive.
Miracles is the musical version of a child tugging on your trouser leg and asking “Why?” to everything you say. The duo’s wide-eyed wonder at everything around them doesn’t exactly match the likes of Albert Camus when it comes to dwelling on existential matters, but it’s vaguely admirable. The lyrics however, are an absolute joy to behold:
Look at the mountains, trees, the seven seas,
And everything chilling underwater, please.
Hot lava, snow, rain and fog,
Long neck giraffes, and pet cats and dogs.
They seem happy enough. Just talk about weather systems and domesticated animals and they will be putty in your hands. The crowning glory – the sparkling jewel of this entire composition – is the immortal line “Fucking magnets, how do they work?” Roundly mocked online to this day, this question just about sums up everything wrong with this song. If it helps guys, it’s when negatively and positively charged electrons become attracted to each other.
… but hey, there’s probably worse songs out there, right? Let us know if you have any musical nightmares of your own. Who knows? Part two may be just around the corner!
