# And when they were bad they were horrid (musical acts) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 23, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859 "2017-03-23T19:10:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/1 "2017-03-23T19:10:23Z")
Last year when Adele’s \*Hello \* was at the top of the charts and she was on a trajectory to super stardom / canonization we had a thread in which I couldn’t praise her enough. I still think she has an outstanding voice but man, if I never had to hear \*When We Were Young \*again I’d consider tithing. Ditto _Someone Like You_. It’s not from overexposure - I loathed both of these songs from the first. Adele is one of those who, to me, when her songs are good they _very good_ but when they’re not they’re utter dreck. Same with Taylor Swift. Most of her stuff that I’ve heard is just fun, catchy, enjoyable pop fluff and then I hear the likes of _Style_ and I want to put a bounty on her head. Whose music do you find yourself hating as often and with as much gusto as you like them?(I don’t think that was grammatically correct but I assume you dig). ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/2 "2017-03-23T19:20:30Z")
Duran Duran are my favourite band of all time but I don’t like “Wild Boys” and pretty much everything after that. ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/3 "2017-03-23T19:43:25Z")
I love love love me some Cheap Trick. I still listen to their first 5 albums regularly. The Budakon Complete Concert CDs are in my car as I type this. _Rockford_ was amazing and showed that 70s band still had it in 2004. That said… they’ve got some real turds in their catalog, especially the late 80s comeback power ballad era. “The Flame”, their misguided cover of “Magical Mystery Tour”, some Dianne Warren dreck whose title I’ve blocked from my mind, and the no-excuse-for-being-this-bad-because-they-wrote-it “Can’t Stop Fallin’ Into Love”. The Clash’s _London Calling_ is one of my favorite albums of all time. _Cut the Crap_ …um… is not. Paul McCartney is a songwriting god… who also penned “Wild Honey Pie” (my candidate for worst Beatles song), “Wonderful Christmastime” and “Ebony and Ivory”. For my own sanity I have to pretend he only provided vocals on “The Girl Is Mine” and did so at gunpoint. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/4 "2017-03-23T20:00:11Z")
> [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > Duran Duran are my favourite band of all time but I don’t like “Wild Boys” and pretty much everything after that. Duran Duran have some pretty low notes in their repertoire, and when I first heard The Chauffeur I thought it would be one of those phoning-it-in writing exercises meant to fill out an album, until they got to the “sing blue silver” part at which I thought to myself “wow, they really pulled that off in the end!” ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/5 "2017-03-23T21:58:34Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Duran Duran have some pretty low notes in their repertoire, and when I first heard The Chauffeur I thought it would be one of those phoning-it-in writing exercises meant to fill out an album, until they got to the “sing blue silver” part at which I thought to myself “wow, they really pulled that off in the end!” Interesting. It’s always been one of my favorites of theirs (and one of my “pretend I’m a stripper” songs :o ) ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/6 "2017-03-23T22:10:34Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Interesting. It’s always been one of my favorites of theirs (and one of my “pretend I’m a stripper” songs :o ) have you seen the video? That and the full, uncut “girls on film” video form an important part of my teenage years. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/7 "2017-03-23T22:12:03Z")
Emerson, Lake & Palmer. It’s hard to believe the band that [did this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLS0Med0s6E) also [did this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cM1ab-i4h4) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/8 "2017-03-23T22:20:20Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > I love love love me some Cheap Trick. I still listen to their first 5 albums regularly. The Budakon Complete Concert CDs are in my car as I type this. _Rockford_ was amazing and showed that 70s band still had it in 2004. That said… they’ve got some real turds in their catalog, especially the late 80s comeback power ballad era. “The Flame”, their misguided cover of “Magical Mystery Tour”, some Dianne Warren dreck whose title I’ve blocked from my mind, and the no-excuse-for-being-this-bad-because-they-wrote-it “Can’t Stop Fallin’ Into Love”. > > The Clash’s _London Calling_ is one of my favorite albums of all time. _Cut the Crap_ …um… is not. > > Paul McCartney is a songwriting god… who also penned “Wild Honey Pie” (my candidate for worst Beatles song), “Wonderful Christmastime” and “Ebony and Ivory”. For my own sanity I have to pretend he only provided vocals on “The Girl Is Mine” and did so at gunpoint. Don’t forget about Cheap Trick covering “Don’t Be Cruel”. That was cruel to eardrums. :smack: I’ve always loved “Wonderful Christmastime”. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/9 "2017-03-23T22:32:49Z")
I love early U2. There’s songs in their later work that are still good. Some of that later work though… :smack: Lemon, especially, made me fantasize about throat punching Bono so hard he had to leave the business. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/10 "2017-03-23T23:08:15Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > I love early U2. There’s songs in their later work that are still good. Some of that later work though… :smack: Lemon, especially, made me fantasize about throat punching Bono so hard he had to leave the business. Oh yes, there was a big change. I was pretty much over them after _October_. Their stuff just seemed to become so boring and preachy. I mean, if you want to get political fine, but at least have decent music behind your sermons. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/11 "2017-03-24T01:56:59Z")
2 of my favorites, Aerosmith and Alice Cooper sucked real hard at times in the late 70’s when their partying was catching up with them. I mean sucked bad. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/12 "2017-03-24T02:10:13Z")
I’ve listened to every Harry Chapin album about 1000 times. Some of his songs are pure genius. Even past “Cats in the Cradle” (which isn’t one of my favorites) and “Taxi”, there are many real works of art in his catalog, like “Story of a Life” and “Burning Herself” and “Sniper”. And then there’s “Laugh Man” and “Pretzel Man”, quite possibly the worst songs ever inflicted upon an unsuspecting populace. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/13 "2017-03-24T04:00:21Z")
The Kinks could be horrible in their early 1970s rock opera phase . Much better with shorter songs. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-when-they-were-bad-they-were-horrid-musical-acts/782859/14 "2017-03-24T12:32:50Z")
Chuck Berry was famous for the varying quality of his live shows. The songs were classic, but Berry traveled alone and would go to a place where musicians hung out and hire a band on the spot. The musicians would know the songs, of course, but often they had never played together, and they could sometimes be barely competent. He actually used some people who went on to become big names (Elton John, for instance), but it was hit or miss and he could end up with a bunch of people who could barely keep the beat. With the right backup, it could be a terrific show. With the wrong one, it could be painful to listen to.