For me, it’s Judy Collins- I think her version of “Both Sides Now” is the definitive version of the song and flat out rocks, and is one of the best songs to come out of that era. On the other hand, I could pull my hair out anytime I have the misfortune to hear “Send in the Clowns”. Anyone else have an artist with two songs you find on such radically opposite ends of your taste spectrum?
Kate Bush. I absolutely LOVE “Wuthering Heights” and can listen to it for hours. I can’t stand “Babooshka”…it’s just creepy…
If I don’t just stick to one of each, I nominate Paul McCartney for the artist with the most amazingly good songs and amazingly bad songs written in one lifetime. God bless him, he’s a legend, and I love him…but he has written some really bad stuff. AND he’s written some of the greatest pop songs of all time. Guess it’s a testament to a really long career!
Having just returned from a store playing “Wonderful Christmastime”, I gotta say “Amen to that!!”. The guy who wrote “Yesterday” and “Maybe I’m Amazed” also squeezed out that turd?!?
R.E.M. managed to hit both extremes on the same album. “Man In The Moon” is an amazingly beautiful song; “Everybody Hurts” makes me want to kick Michael Stipe in the nuts.
Wonderful Christmastime to me reeks of a pompous ego saying “I’m Paul McCartney- I can write any old shit and have it become a classic”. Uh no, you have to put forth at least a little effort, even if you’re Sir Paul.
Well, it gets played every Christmas, so I’d say it IS a Christmas classic. Of course, it’s easier for a song to become a Christmas classic than any other type of classic ever imagined or ever to BE imagined, so that’s not saying much.
You have a point, but also note there’s only a finite number of Chistmas songs by popular modern artists- you pretty much hear every single one of them during the holiday season ad nauseum, good and bad. 
Actually, I don’t understand the hate for that song. McCartney has done much worse (e.g., My Love, Ebony and Ivory). It’s not a major work, but I don’t see why so many people hate it.
My candidate is the Steve Miller Band. I can name some superb songs they’ve done (Space Cowboy, Living in the USA, Going to Mexico, Little Girl, Your Saving Grace) and some utter crap (The Joker, Take the Money and Run, Abracadabra, Fly Like an Eagle, Rock 'N Me).
Aerosmith:
Utter brilliance: Train Keep A-Rollin’
Utter shit: Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing
John Mellencamp:
Good:
Bad:
This is oouuuurrr country
I generally dislike Madonna, but I love Like a Prayer and utterly despise and feel like annihilating the song Music, which not only doesn’t evoke music, but actively screeches like fingernails on a chalkboard made from the ground-up bones of Gilbert Godfried.
As a performer (not songwriter, obviously), Josh Groban does an astounding job on Christmas music. His “O Holy Night” is sublime.
All his other music makes me want to take an icepick to my eardrums to escape it if I have to listen.