These Are the Times Legendary Musicians Legendarily Blew It
If you ever accidentally make a hit song, do yourself a favor: immediately retire and fade into obscurity. This goes for hit movies and really good tweets, too.
The Beach Boys: ‘Kokomo’ (1988)
In retrospect, this has come to be seen as the song that excised the Beach Boys from the zeitgeist. Stereogum has called it “a monument to mediocrity. To this day, it serves as a textbook cautionary tale of a once-beloved group poisoning its own legacy and goodwill by making smarmy ‘80s yuppie pablum.”
Elvis: ‘Having Fun with Elvis on Stage’ (1974)
Elvis’ manager, Colonel Tom Parker, devised a brilliant plan to profit off of Elvis without having to share any money with him: produce a record with zero songs. This was 37 straight minutes of contextless stage banter.
Lou Reed: ‘Metal Machine Music’ (1975)
Legendary rocker Lou Reed set aside his typical genres, and any semblance of composition or melody, and released a 64-minute screech of distorted guitar effects.
Lou Reed Dragged Metallica Down With Him, Too
Reed and Metallica’s Lulu (2011) got a 1 out of 10 on Pitchfork, and lots of other publications dragged it for being among the worst albums ever made. But Reed had broken out of pop-music jail and was experiencing creative nirvana: “I don’t have any fans left. After Metal Machine Music, they all fled. Who cares? I’m in this for the fun of it.”
Starship: ‘We Built This City’ (1985)
This Jefferson Starship spin-off created an earworm that has appeared on everyone’s worst songs list from GQ to Blender to Rolling Stone. Even lead singer Grace Slick has called it “the worst song ever.”
Britney Spears: ‘PopoZão’ (2006)
Kevin Federline’s first (and only) album, Playing with Fire, landed him Metacritic’s lowest score ever. Spears co-wrote the only song you’d recognize, “PopoZão,” but it went so embarrassingly, ironically viral, they took it off the record entirely.
The Beatles: ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ (1968)
It’s become a pop-culture staple, but John Lennon and George Harrison hated this song. A listener poll in 2004 also found it to be the worst song ever recorded, and Blender declared it the 48th worst of all time.
Napoleon XIV: ‘They’re Coming To Take Me Away,’ Reversed
Napoleon XIV released the semi-joke song “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” in 1966, and it became a cult sensation. But they pushed their luck with the B-side: the same song in reverse, titled “!aaaH-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er'yehT.” If a bar owner wanted the A-side in their jukebox, they had to endure the B-side abomination occasionally playing.
Charlie Puth: ‘Nine Track Mind’ (2016)
Puth featured on Wiz Khalifa’s massive hit “See You Again” in 2015, and rocketed to stardom. When he released his own album the next year, his celebrity instantly deflated. Pitchfork wrote that the album was “aimed exclusively at hairlessness: children, prepubescents, the discomfitingly waxed.”
Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder: ‘Ebony and Ivory’ (1982)
Before Kendall Jenner solved racism with a can of Pepsi, before Instagram influencers solved racism with black squares, Paul McCartney solved racism with this song.
The Bee Gees, Aerosmith, Steve Martin and a Bunch More (1978): ‘Soundtrack to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’
Soundtrack to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was a glam rock/disco Beatles cover album. It holds the dubious distinction of being the first ever to go reverse platinum — record stores sent four million copies back to the distributor, which ruined RSO Records.
Bobby McFerrin: ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ (1988)
The Village Voice has declared this the worst song of all time, and Blender wrote that “it’s difficult to think of a song more likely to plunge you into suicidal despondency than this.”
Tony Bennett: ‘Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today!’ (1970)
Columbia Records basically put a gun to Bennett’s head and told him to record an album for them. He didn’t have any original material lined up, so he produced this uninspired cover album, including a dramatic spoken-word rendition of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.”
Vanilla Ice: ‘Ice Ice Baby’ (1990)
The Houston Press says this song single-handedly “set back the cause of white people in hip-hop by a decade.” If my rap career is any indication, we still haven’t recovered.
