Presidents of the United States of America: Peaches
We have another contender in the worst rhyme competition, and let me tell you folks, these guys came to play. Here:
Peaches come from a can,
They were put there by a man
Actually, they were almost certainly put there by a robot that replaced the last poor working stiff on the production line about 20 years before they recorded this, but you know, artistic licence, and anyway such pedantic nit-picking seems a little untoward when assessing this level of art, doesn’t it?
The rest of the lyrics are if anything similarly ambitious:
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat me a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
I’m not sure why fully a third of this three minute opus is sucked up by a devolution into what must have seemed at the time like an uproariously tongue-in-cheek parody of 1970s Kung Fu movies, but again, criticism seems churlish in light of all the work that plainly went into the production.
Special thanks to brother Mark for reminding me about this one. It came that close to being overlooked.
Smash Mouth: All Star
The whole video goes by, and there’s lots of crowd-pleasing action, I guess, but nobody ever actually smashes this guy in the mouth! What a rip. Like, if near the end somebody gave buddy here a six pound sledge to the teeth, I could have gotten behind the whole project, despite it being such a tuneless, one note, rat-a-tat assault on the whole concept of songcraft that I once dubbed it A Musical Tribute to Morse Code.
Limp Bizkit: Endless Slaughter
I’m going to suggest, as another of my fits of empathy and human compassion all but overwhelms me, that you not listen to any of this. No, not one second, not a single note. It’s really that bad.
On the other hand, if you don’t whole-heartedly despise young white males yet, and really feel you ought to, who am I to stand in the way? These guys were the darlings of misogynist Caucasian bullies and brainstems all over the same dumbass Red State hinterland where they pack them in at Trump campaign events, and their concert crowds resembled nothing so much as Junior Klan rallies without the pointy hats. It got so bad that lead singer Fred Durst himself became frightened and disgusted, and this is him quoted in 2009 in Rolling Stone – God’s truth:
For years I looked into the crowd and saw a bunch of bullies and assholes who tortured me and ruined my life. They were using my music as fuel to torture other people, even dressing like me. The music was being misinterpreted, and the irony affected me and we stepped away . . . I don’t even listen to any type of music that’s like Limp Bizkit at all. I love jazz music and sad music. I’m a sentimental guy. I’m a romantic guy.
Before you forgive him, though, that’s what he was saying in 2009, and Endless Slaughter was released in 2014.
Insane Clown Posse: Miracles
Fun fact: fans of this outfit call themselves Juggalos.
I’d be prepared to argue that this isn’t any worse than any other rap/hiphop song, except this one is supposed to be an appreciation of the wonders of the magical world around us, so why in the name of all that’s holy are they so frickin’ angry? In a tone better suited to a screed about what happened to Rodney King, they rave about the sublime mysteries of the Universe thusly:
Stop and look around, it’s all astounding
Water, fire, air and dirt
Fucking magnets, how do they work?
And I don’t wanna talk to a scientist
Y’all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed
Then there’s the Milky Way and fucking shooting stars, not to forget fucking rainbows after it rains.
Funny they don’t mention the motherfucking sound of fucking kittens purring their fucking feline guts out. Guess they must be dog people.
Sir Mix-A-Lot: Baby Got Back
I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking any song that includes the sentiment My anaconda don’t want none / Unless you’ve got buns, hun can’t be all bad, right?
But it can. It can be all bad.
It’s beyond me why so many American States persist in imposing the death penalty, when it would be simple, using only inexpensive off-the-shelf technology, to strap the condemned into chairs, and make them watch this 24/7 on an endless loop, while ratcheting up the cruelty by repeatedly dangling the prospect of a lethal injection but never letting them have it. Sorry, Sonny, the Governor went and commuted your sentence again. Don’t give me any nonsense about it not passing constitutional muster. With this Supreme Court?
Spin Doctors: Cleopatra’s Cat
At their best these guys were unbearably impressed with their own cleverness, yet most people were able to tap their toes to Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong for a while, until it started to get annoying. But Jesus, what the hell is this? What’s it for? Released as the lead single off their second album, apparently in the belief that they could catch lightning in a bottle twice – their first one was absolutely huge, everybody owned it, shit, I think even I owned it – Cleopatra’s Cat, for reasons which should be all too obvious, went down like something dropped by the RAF over Hamburg. And that was pretty much that for the Spin Doctors.
Hootie and the Blowfish: Only Wanna Be With You
OK, so it’s arguable that Hootie and his band weren’t all that terrible, and even that this song isn’t really so awful as to merit the sort of good, down-home shit-kicking we like to dispense around here, but it’s just that they and it were sooooooooooo huuuuuuuuuuge, even though they and it were sooooooooooooo mediocre. I read somewhere that their first album went something like 16 or 17 times platinum. Yet I’ve heard Corn Flakes commercials that were catchier. In fact, I think Barry Manilow may actually have written a Corn Flakes commercial that was catchier.
Still, Hootie (Darius Rucker, actually) always seemed an affable sort of fellow, and he and the band were obviously under no delusions about how great they were – I seem to remember one of them self-deprecatingly referring to himself and his mates as Homey and the Goldfish – so I wouldn’t be sticking it to them except I wanted an excuse to include this, honestly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen:
Hansen: MMMBop
Nothing against these poor little girls young fellers, really, but when you make ABBA sound like the Sex Pistols I can only take so much, fair enough?
Styx: Mr. Roboto
I haven’t been able to prove any connection, but I can’t shake the feeling that the same diabolical monsters that later brought us such Gowan bean-feasts as Criminal Minds and Strange Animal perfected their formula with Mr Roboto, realized the sheer mind-roasting power of what they were able to get people to buy, and decided that doing it once or twice a decade was meting out as much as they had the heart to inflict – plus, listen, you push your luck too often and you can find yourself in the Hague sharing a bench seat with Slobodan Milosovich, while a bunch of people in robes debate how small your cage should be.
Taylor Swift: Me
I do not like Taylor Swift. Everything about her massive pop toooons is so calculated, so cunningly ear-wormy, that it all sounds like it was written by an algorithm concocted by a committee of former boy band producers in consultation with somebody at Apple. Why, she herself looks like she was designed by an algorithm, and my suspicion is that she’s actually a hologram, she’s so supernaturally blonde and lithe and leggy and perfect – it actually puts you off. Plus, while nobody could blame her for maintaining a lifelong vendetta against Kanye after what he did to her at the VMAs, she’s always in a blood feud with somebody, and repeatedly throws hissy fits on record, like we’re supposed to give a flyer about her latest bad break-up.
Nossir. I just don’t like her.
the needlefish 