We’ve had these features on the blog called “In Defense of…” where we stand up for something music-related that we feel needs it. In the past it’s been a band, or an audience opinion, or an unpopular feature at concerts.
But I just discovered that Wikipedia has an article titled “List of music considered the worst.” It’s albums and songs that have been noted for having been called, more than once, the worst music ever.
A note about the article itself: look at all those “citation needed”s and “clarification needed”s in the opening paragraphs. That means it is objectively bad at being a Wikipedia article. One might wonder why the article cites Buzzfeed listing Nickelback’s “Rock Star” as the number 2 worst song ever but lacks mention of the number one song from that list, “Nookie.” One might disregard anything that cites Buzzfeed as a source for being total bullshit. But I was intrigued by the high standards the article sets out for itself, amalgamating “polls” from “a combination of reputable sources” across media despite its black hole of source material.
Wikipedia has standards. It’s a good way to get as much detailed information as possible on a subject and it’s more on-point and in-depth than most non-crowdsourced encyclopediae [citation needed]. Bad or uninformed or non-culturally-relevant pages get taken down or fixed up all the time. And so this is, through the technicality of not having been taken down or labeled a “stub” article, Wikipedia’s subjective list of the worst music.
Most of the references are dated. But it’s pretty fun to read.
What I’ve done is to give these red-headed stepchildren of music another chance. I’ve cross-referenced a few of the “worst albums” with five-star reviews (looking for genuine ones) on Amazon and hand-selected some of my favorite parts (I don’t claim to have birthed the concept of exploiting Amazon’s reviews for entertainment; in fact a version for bad movies can and should be found on the podcast How Did This Get Made). Some of them are just not great albums in an otherwise great discography (Squeeze by The Velvet Underground) or just misunderstood avant-garde concepts (Having Fun With Elvis On Stage by Elvis Presley), but I thought it would be fun to look at some of the truly hated stuff and match it with an internet commenter’s defense.
And, y’know. [sic] for everything.
Kevin Federline – Playing with Fire
All these other reviews are 100% predictable, unproved garbage
“(POST THE REVIEW, IT NEEDS TO BE POSTED)Whats the most pathetic thing is, all these reviews saying this is bad is trash. They say its bad because everyone tells them too. If the media and tasteless jerks didnt tell these people to hate him, They,would,NOT.
…
The fact is he is honest and real on this album. He’s true about his life, his lifestyle and about him. “Playing with fire” is a really decent hip hop track. This is way better than most new hip hop rappers, This has meaning, the truth, great production. Kevin deserves more respect than he gets.
…
So, if your gonna hate him, its almost always because the usually false media or tv tells you to. So get over that, and get to see what he, and this album really is. “Put ya middle finger up, if you really dont give a f*ck”, that is a example of exactly how he fells. and exactly what the false haters deserve.
Thank you.”
Yeah, take that hip hop rappers! Extra points for the thank you at the end.
Crazy Frog – Crazy Hits
Show your kids you can be fun too!
“My boys under 10 loves this CD and we listen to it during family time. It’s a great way to show your kids that you can have fun with them, and maybe even enjoy the music too! It’s a great collection of songs that will have you tapping your foot and singing along. The remake songs aren’t supposed to sound just like the original sound track and artist, that’s the point, or kids wouldn’t listen to it. This CD is created for kids and fun loving adults, so if you’re a music buff and particularly like the original version, don’t listen to the crazy frog unless you have a sense of humor. The idea is to attract children and let them be crazy with the CRAZY FROG. This mom loves this CD, my kids love this CD, let your hair down and chill out with the crazy frog!”
This made me legit sad for every parent everywhere.
Peter Frampton, The Bee Gees, Various – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Great Music
“I guess the response was overwhelming for a CD release, but I couldn’t wait for the release of this music on CD, so I bought a turntable, cakewalk software, and created my own digital tracks. Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees are great. Back in the 70’s, we didn’t have CD’s, so the whole album had to be great, because there was no way to easily skip to the next song. This CD is definitely worth the money.”
This seems to be more of a review for the compact disc format than the soundtrack. I also like how a five star review is really psyched about skipping certain tracks.
Limp Bizkit – Results May Vary
Don’t believe the 1 star people
“…for the listener who has some taste on HARMONY, this album is their BEST. Do you know what harmony is? It’s not the noise, the rhythm or the screaming. It’s the thing that makes you go “wow this is sounding good now”. Everything else helps in creating a certain mood in music (in LB’s case, the mood of wanting to kick the ceiling), but HARMONY ALWAYS makes whatever mood MORE POWERFUL. It’s the sugar in the candy, the salt in the soup. Is this album you find ceiling-kicking mood with great harmony to go with. The guitar provides ambiences that sound alien, in the good sense, and send the most sensitive musical souls to another galaxies. The bass helps define harmony with dissonancies (chords that make a moment sound a certain way, be it dramatic, happy, sad) and sets the rhythm for some songs as well. The drums sound of course squashed (because of compression used to make it loud) and too separated, this is expected because today for this kind of music a more defined punch is prefered instead of naturality of sound. However the drummer knows how to be dynamic (not playing heavily all the times). Fred, I don’t even pay a lot of attention for the instrument section is so good, but he is always connected to what the band is doing and does different things as well to combine, this is called HAVING EARS and is the most important thing for any member of a band, to be able to play to what the other members are doing.
This is getting too long.. If you like to jump but also like something that transmits strong moods, and is not only shallow entertainment, RESULTS MAY VARY is for you.”
Strangely enough, I found this one in the dictionary when I looked up ‘harmony.’
So I’m a little stumped. I wanted to do an even 5 (that’s like 10, but for lazy people) reviews but only stick to the albums section of this. Unfortunately, X-Factor 2009 3rd place “winner” Eoghan Quigg, whose album, I should remind you, is important enough to have Wikipedia take note of its shittiness, has only one review on Amazon, and it’s 1-star. So here’s an excerpt from the best (only) review of what has been mathematically proven to be the worst music of all time:
Eoghan Quigg – Eoghan Quigg
The worst album of the year?
“The other cover versions here are all of similarly laughable value. Quigg’s fairly awful voice can’t convey emotion or any hint of depth; it’s the sort of music you often hear in supermarkets who won’t pay for the rights to play the original version, with the added difference being that there will be a small army of mentally challenged simpleton fans describing this album as “OMG amazzzinng lol” as I write this.”
If they are, they haven’t been to Amazon.