50
CÉLINE DION
“My Heart Will Go On” 1998
And on and on and on…

Lop off all but the first 20 seconds of this monster ballad, and it still merits a slot on this list for the unconscionable crime of adding pan-flute solos to the pop lexicon. But it doesn’t stop there: With a voice full of ornamental quivers and trembles, Canadian dynamo Céline Dion pushes arena-size schmaltz into the red, first cutting her syllables preciously short, then strangling each one out. Never has a song about all-consuming love sounded so trivial and been so inescapable — it powered the Titanic soundtrack to a year-topping 10 million copies sold, and made millions more pray that an iceberg would somehow hit Dion.

Worst Moment The third chorus, where she goes from soft to eye-bleedingly loud.

49
RIGHT SAID FRED
“I’m Too Sexy” 1992
The answer to Spinal Tap’s question “What’s wrong with being sexy?”

Right Said Fred were horrible, bald novelty Brits whose one claim to fame was a song that announced that they were “too sexy” for most things, from “New York” to “my cat.” Alas, singer Richard Fairbrass resembled Midnight Oil’s Peter Garrett, and was therefore “too sexy” for precisely nothing. The song spawned a welter of grating catchphrases starting with “I’m too sexy” repeated endlessly by annoying people: “I’m too sexy for my tractor,” etc. Disturbingly, the Freds, as nobody calls them, are still going.

Worst Moment The so-called chorus, in which, instead of mumbling, Fairbrass tries to sing. Stop it. Stop it now!

48
THE BEATLES
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” 1968
You can practically hear them gritting their teeth

The Beatles proved conclusively that there were two things they could not do: play reggae and feign enjoyment. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” was a ska track recorded at a point during the White Album sessions when the Beatles would happily have beaten one another to death if only they had had some clubs on hand. As a result, this sounds less like reggae than the desperately chirpy songs Cockneys used to sing to keep their spirits up while the Luftwaffe rained death on them during the Blitz.

Worst Moment The woefully unconvincing laughter in the final line: “If you want some fun — heh-heh-heh-heh! — take ob-la-di-bla-da!”

47
BRYAN ADAMS
“The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You” 1996
It’s Great-Uncle Disgusting — from Canada!

When Adams chose to do sexy after 15 years of chaste, aw-shucks rockin’, even his fans were stunned — as if they’d just seen a stag film starring Richie Cunningham. “I don’t look good in no Armani suits,” he leered in the song’s only believable moment, before suggesting he’d rather “wear” the song’s female protagonist over a blues riff like someone explaining ZZ Top to an accountant. This wasn’t the creepiest track off his album 18 Til I Die; that accolade goes to a song called “(I Wanna Be) Your Underwear.”

Worst Moment “…There’s only one thing that fits me like it should.” Ick.

46
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK
“Hangin’ Tough” 1989
Boy-band blueprint!

It sucked the Swing out of New Jack, bleached the Blues out of Rhythm &, and featured white boys calling themselves “funky” despite some very unfunky denim vests. This Boston quintet triggered a hormonal rush among 13-year-old girls and intense confusion among their boyfriends, and paved the way for megaselling boy bands who ran low on talent and high on dumb hats. This 1988 hit was all crossed arms and scowls, but the tuff-guy routine didn’t gel: These nancy boys make the Sharks and Jets look like G-Unit.

Worst Moment The boys warn: “Don’t cross our path or you’re gonna get stomped!” Scary!

45
JA RULE FEAT. ASHANTI
“Mesmerize” 2002
The most hated man in hip-hop — for good reason!

Many rappers sing poorly, but none as irritatingly as Jeffrey Atkins. In 2001, he went from a raise-da-roof club grunter who treated women like car doors to a tone-deaf warbler who swore he worshiped them — and cried in his videos to prove it. On this 2002 duet with the reliably transparent Ashanti, he can’t contain his horny side, repeating a cracked-voiced mantra about “Your lips/Your smile/Your hips/Those thighs” and admitting his “fetish for &$#%ing you with your skirt on.” Gains points for honesty; loses many more for coming off like an ogling doofus.

Worst Moment The two-note chorus, which is a laundry list of female body parts.

44
MEAT LOAF
“I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” 1993
Bitch-titted balladeer seeks dictionary

Forget that this song comes from Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and that pop albums can’t really have sequels. Forget that it’s 12 minutes — and crammed with pianos, choirs and every over-the-top adornment that producer Jim Steinman could get his hands on, it feels twice that length. No, this epic chunk of histrionics’ worst offense is that it doesn’t make any sense. You wouldn’t do what, exactly? It’s OK for rock songs to be dumb. But not stupid.

Worst Moment Shamelessly aping “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” the boy-girl duet kicks in at around the nine-minute mark.

43
UNCLE KRACKER
“Follow Me” 2000
Sleaze-rap DJ goes solo, blows like Hootie

Breaking out on his own, the leading light of Kid Rock’s “Detroit playas” reneges on his boss’s promise to “cause chaos” and “rock like Amadeus.” He does, however, cause nausea and rock like Muzak with his nobody-saw-it-coming lite-FM stylings, hummin’, strummin’ and practically promisin’ to tuck you in at night. The unexpected bonus? It gives hope to everyone awaiting the Terminator X collection of Air Supply covers.

Worst Moment Knowing every rhyme before it happens — the first time you hear the song.

42
SIMON & GARFUNKEL
“The Sounds of Silence” 1965
If Frasier Crane were a song, he would sound like this

From the terrible opening line, in which darkness is addressed as “my old friend,” the lyrics of “The Sounds of Silence” sound like a vicious parody of a pompous and pretentious mid-’60s folk singer. But it’s no joke: While a rock band twangs aimlessly in the middle distance, Simon & Garfunkel thunder away in voices that suggest they’re scowling and wagging their fingers as they sing. The overall experience is like being lectured on the meaning of life by a jumped-up freshman.

Worst Moment “Hear my words that I might teach you”: Officially the most self-important line in rock history!

41
BILLY JOEL
“We Didn’t Start the Fire” 1989
Can you fit a cultural history of the twentieth century into four minutes? Uh, no

Despite its bombastic production, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” resembles a term paper scribbled the night before it’s due. As the song progresses, Joel audibly realizes he can’t cram it all in: The ’70s get four bellowed words amid the widdly-woo guitars and meet-thy-maker drums. The chorus denies responsibility for any events mentioned, clearing up the common misconception that Billy Joel developed the H-bomb.

Worst Moment “China’s under martial law, rock & roller cola wars!”: No way does conflating Tiananmen Square with Michael Jackson selling Pepsi trivialize a massacre.

40
COLOR ME BADD
“I Wanna Sex You Up” 1991
Small-penis alert!

These Oklahoma R&B smoothies looked like rejects from a Benetton ad and sounded like flunkies from the Keith Sweat School of Horny Jamz. This is one long string of fake falsetto moans — there’s more heat in an Herbal Essences commercial — and the imagery ranges from perplexing (“We can do it till we both wake up”) to downright unpleasant (“Makin’ love until we drown”). Not recommended for the bedroom, unless your bedroom also features leopard-print picture frames, mirrored ceilings and a five-gallon tub of Astroglide from Costco.

Worst Moment Toward the end, la-la-la’s creep in under whispered phrases like “Lay back and enjoy the ride.”

39
RICKY MARTIN
“She Bangs” 2000
La vida proves not to be so loca after all

The arrangers of Ricky Martin’s follow-up to “La Vida Loca” worked with the fevered desperation of men who had been driven to the desert and made to dig their own graves at gunpoint: first with the hooting 180-piece horn section, then the percussion played by a crateful of ADD-afflicted chimpanzees, and — finally, in a last-ditch effort at the fade — a male chorus as numerous and frenzied as the Red Army Choir let loose in a Cuban whorehouse. The ingredients of its epic predecessor are all here — but it’s all wrong, and worse still, unintentionally hilarious.

Worst Moment “She looks like a flower but she stings like a bee/Like every girl in his-to-ry!”

38
REDNEX
“Cotton Eye Joe” 1995
Just what the world needed: a Swedish techno-bluegrass crossover

Novelty European techno is not a genre noted for its multitude of artistic high points, but “Cotton Eye Joe” may well be its nadir. A Country & Western record made by people who evidently hate C&W music with every fiber of their being, it layers a thumping beat with every hillbilly cliché known to man — twanging Jew’s harp, people shouting “yee-haw!”, bluegrass banjo, horses neighing — and then tops it off with a vocalist singing in what may be the most risible American accent ever committed to tape.

Worst Moment Rednex have spent more weeks at number 1 in Germany than any other artist of the last 25 years.

37
GERARDO
“Rico Suave” 1991
He was Vanilla Ice for the Telemundo set

Long before Ricky Martin lived la vida loca, another fleet-footed, sexually ambiguous Latino star crossed over to pop-chart glory by turning an otherwise forgettable dance-pop tune into a ubiquitous and dreaded catchphrase. In the verses, this Don Juan in a bandanna boasted about his insatiable libido over a cheesy Casiotone beat, but it’s the chorus that really sticks in our cabeza: Reeeeeeeco. Suuaaaaaave. No es bueno.

Worst Moment Nothing brings a dance floor to a screeching halt like the line “I’m used to good ol’-fashioned homestyle Spanish cooking/If I try that, I’ll be puking.”

36
MASTER P FEAT. SILKK, FIEND, MIA-X AND MYSTIKAL
“Make Em Say Uhh!” 1998
Cristal meets constipation!

A lot of ideas occur to people in the shower, but the hook for this Dirty South smash sounds as though someone thought it up on the toilet during a strenuous bowel movement: Master P and a small army of cronies groan “Unnngghhh” no fewer than 25 (!) times here. Rapping, P mumbles, falls behind an already wooden beat and is generally trounced by the phenomenally speedy Mystikal, who tries to pump some crunk back into the sinking ship with an eleventh-hour guest verse.

Worst Moment Each hook, which sounds like the “before” section of an Ex-Lax ad.

35
R.E.M.
“Shiny Happy People” 1991
What were they thinking?

It’s difficult to imagine the circumstances that led R.E.M. — intelligent, literate, subtle even when rocking out — to record this. Not only is “Shiny Happy People” an annoying song, but you also get the distinct sense that it’s going out of its way to annoy you. What other explanation is there for its riff — which sounds like a cellphone ring tone chosen by a sociopath — or its lyrics, which resemble something you would force children to learn as a punishment, or the backing vocals of B-52 Kate Pierson, which defy rational description?

Worst Moment “Throw your love around, take it into town, put it in the ground, where the flowers grow.”

34
DAN FOGELBERG
“Longer” 1979
Dear Mr. Fogelberg: Why not consider a stage name?

Having trouble placing this song? Imagine you’re in a dentist’s chair with a 10-inch steel drill about to bore into your molars when this Muzak classic pipes in through the office speakers. The singer sounds like he could be your patchouli-scented sixth-grade history teacher, whispering politely about being in love with you longer than there have been fish in the ocean, higher than any bird ever flew. Then the violins kick in. Then you pray for the sweet, sweet relief of the drill.

Worst Moment Any musician who uses the phrase forest primeval with a straight face must be stopped.

33
AQUA
“Barbie Girl” 1997
Scandi-wegian pedo-pop alert! Erk!

Brilliant idea: Take a child’s toy, turn it into a twisted sexual fantasy (“Kiss me here, touch me there”), set it to teeth-rotting synth-pop like a robot pony kicking children to death and hawk it like Happy Meals to the under-13s. Perhaps the gambit sounded acceptable in helium-huffing singer Lene Nystrøm’s native Norwegian, but in English it’s just plain wrong. Barbie manufacturer Mattel sued, but that didn’t stop “Barbie Girl” from casting a blight on 1997. One question sprang to mind if you were unlucky enough to catch the video: Weren’t they a little old to be doing this?

Worst Moment “Rapper” René Dif’s basso profundo “Come on, Barbie, let’s go party.”

32
WILL SMITH
“Will 2K” 1999
On New Year’s Eve, the Fresh Prince drops the ball

In 1999, the incoming millennium sent most rappers into doomsday mode, but not Will Smith. He was writing a celebration jam so wildly dorky it makes your local bar mitzvah DJ look like a member of the Strokes. Having jumped from ’hood to Hollywood, Smith can’t make the return trip: His overearnest, G-rated rhymes about fun bob along to an unlikely “Rock the Casbah” sample — you can practically see Joe Strummer wondering if he came to the right party and inching toward the exit.

Worst Moment In the running for the Worst Pun Ever award, Smith raps, “The new millennium — excuse me, Will-ennium.”

31
CRASH TEST DUMMIES
“Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” 1994
The worst hum in music ever

You know that jerk at your office who can burp the alphabet? That’s the way Brad Roberts sings. On this 1994 single, his voice is a ludicrously bassy croak as he narrates supposed “slice-of-life” stories that land with a dull thud: A car hits one kid and turns his hair white; another’s covered in birthmarks; the last has genuflecting, churchgoing parents. Sure, white hair’s weird and evangelicals are weirder, but why are you telling us this? Moreover, why do you insist on humming the chorus? You sound like E.T. crossed with Barry White, dude!

Worst Moment Any time Roberts sings a vowel.

30
WHITNEY HOUSTON
“Greatest Love Of All” 1986
“Sexual chocolate!”

Immortalized by Eddie Murphy’s lascivious funk band in Coming to America, this heartrending über-ballad is still best known as Whitney Houston’s career zenith, before the marriage and the drugs took hold. Backed by a piano and what may or may not be a high-school symphony, Whit is at her proto-Mariah overexuding best, belting out platitudes about the joys of loving oneself above all others. Truly an anthem for the ’80s.

Worst Moment Picture a whacked-out Whitney and Bobby staggering through Israel in his-n’-hers prayer robes, then listen to the climactic line, “They can’t take away my dignity.”

29
DEEP BLUE SOMETHING
“Breakfast At Tiffany’s” 1995
So bland, you can actually forget you’re listening to music while it’s playing

Less a song than an experiment to see how mundane college rock can become before it ceases to exist altogether. Texas’s Deep Blue Something matched frantic acoustic guitars to a perky melody and a lyric that re-creates the experience of being cornered at a party by a stranger who insists on telling you his romantic problems in excruciating detail: “So I said.…She said.…And I said.…”

Worst Moment Has there ever been a more boring line in a song than “And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it?”

28
JOHN MAYER
“Your Body is a Wonderland” 2001
Get this man a cold shower

“Ohhh,” the women of the world sigh, “why can’t I just find a nice guy — you know, someone who’ll compare my breasts to a theme park?” Yearn no more, ladies! Drool never sounded as sweet as it does on this slow-stirred ode to daytime sex — but even from the otherwise charming Mayer, it’s still drool. What’s more, sunny acoustic guitars belie some creepy undertones: When Mayer rasps “Discover me discovering you” and “I’ll use my hands,” it sounds as though he’s sitting in a dark room, playing pocket pool to a camera he planted in the women’s lavatory.

Worst Moment Mayer describes the “deep sea of blankets” on his bed. Ewww!


27
EUROPE
“The Final Countdown” 1987
The worst thing to come from both the band and the continent itself

Eschewing such traditional hair-metal concerns as girl-chasing and “steel horse”–riding, this Rocky 4 theme from the poodle-permed Swedes found frontman Joey Tempest announcing that he was off to Venus, “ ’cause maybe they’ve seen us!” — proof that English lyrics are best written by people with a working knowledge of the language. Tempest’s nonsensical caterwauling was backed by music that somehow managed to be fascist in its bombast yet also coma-inducingly dull.

Worst Moment The synth trills remind us that before they were a crappy metal band, Europe were a crappy prog-rock band.


26
THE DOORS
“The End” 1967
The most pretentious rock star’s most pretentious song

Bombastic? Lugubrious? Sounds like it was recorded in a large metal shipping container and mixed by drunks? It must be a Doors song! Painful in so many ways, “The End,” for starters, has none. (OK, it’s 11 minutes and 45 seconds long.) Over anemic jazz noodling, Jim Morrison intones lyrics that would make the kid wearing the pentagram T-shirt in the back row of homeroom blush with shame. For example: “Father…I want to kill you/Mother…I want to unh-grblgrauauauauaugh!”

Worst Moment According to online lyrics guides, that last vocal eruption actually contains the words that constitute the most appropriate response to the song: &$#% you.

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