I think some songs are not just good, but great–except for just a certain part which makes them a lot worse. My big example of this is Michael Jackson’s PYT. I hear it as seductive and intimate, with “I’ve always wanted a girl like you.” But when it goes to the bridge, “Pretty young things, repeat after me,” I can’t stand it. Suddenly it’s not about one specific PYT, but just PYT’s in general. The intimacy is lost. I think the song would be better without it.
Perhaps I just volunteered for a beheading, but you don’t have to agree with me on PYT. I’m just wondering if there are songs you have the same feeling about, where it’s amazing except for this one part that really irritates you. What are they?
The beginning of “Roam” by the B-52s starts with this horrible Enya- or Sarah McLaughlin-style warbling, but then the song starts to kick buttocks shortly afterwards. (I think the song in general is very good, rather than excellent.)
Theresa Andersson is a one-person-band kind of dealio, she sings this song called Na Na Na, and it’s wonderful and melodic. Then she ruins it by having a squealing violin interfering with it at the end.
On Judy Collins’s “Someday Soon,” the drummer I think keeps hitting the rim in a way that makes it sound like a cd-player is malfunctioning. Click…click…click… Takes me right out of the song.
America’s “Sister Goldenhair” is the only song by them I like, but the “bop shu bop bop de bop shu bop” near the end just sucks.
It seems like nobody has a bad thing to say about “Something,” but that line “You know I believe, and how” is such a miserable lyric that it ruins the whole song for me.
John Mellencamp’s Rain On The Scarecrow is an excellent song, except for that darn beeping sound that plays throughout the second half of the song. It sounds like a truck’s backup warning.
I just played this to see what you mean, and I’m surprised that those rim shots should stick out so much to you. It seems to me that they’re mostly buried by the lead guitarist (James Burton) thwacking a muted string on the same beats whenever he doesn’t have a fill to play. (But when does play fills they’re so pretty.)
Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romace” is a pretty decent song until she starts singing in French. For all I know her pronunciation may be impeccable but to me it sounds like a character in a sitcom pretending to speak French (think Joey on Friends). Then, after that auditory assault she sings the line “I don’t want to be friends” only it comes out “fwiends”. Come to think of it, it’s the most annoying part in the video too.
There’s a Beck song that has about a full minute of guitar feedback at the end of it that makes me insane. I can’t think of which song it is, though. (I know he uses feedback in a lot of his songs, but this one is excessive.)
The song Sing on Annie Lennox’s album Songs of Mass Destruction starts with something so painfully earnest and well intentioned that it grates so much that I always skip the song. An African woman says
“This is a call for the national implementation of mother to child transmission prevention program in all the maternity hospitals in South Africa. The song is [unintelligible]”.
OK, fine sentiment. The thing is, I’m not in South Africa. I agree, it’s a good idea, and something that I’m quite sure the South African government could easily accomplish. But, the thing is…I GOT IT the first time I heard the song. And the second. And every time I listen to the album. It has become a huge turd in the punchbowl of this album.
Bad Company. “Feel Like Making Love”. Pretty nice song until da-dump DUMP, da-dump DUMP, da-dump DUMP… it neither makes it a headbanging rock song nor adds to what it was doing up until then.
Three Dog Night.It’s For You. Short little ditty, almost a cappella, up until right at the end when they build some tension like they’re going to jam hard. Which they don’t. It ends there. So why bother???
I have to dissent about the organ solo on Light My Fire. Love it.
First, I don’t like the way he titled the song “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” when the title should obviously be “Last Dance with Mary Jane” which are the words in the song.
But more annoying than that are the lines, "I was introduced and we both started grooving/I said, “I dig you baby, but I got to keep moving on/Keep moving on.”
The first line has twelve beats and the second line should have fourteen beats. Which means Petty has to sing the second line as “said I dig you baby but I got t’keep moving”. Which brings me to my main problem. Grooving rhymes with moving. Grooving does not rhyme with moving on. So Petty has to sing it as:
I was introduced and we both started grooving
said, "I dig you baby, but I got t’keep moving
on
keep moving on
There’s a definite pause between moving and on. And then after a beat Petty repeats himself. It makes it sound like he forgot the last word of the line and caught himself a beat too late and is trying to cover for it.
And there’s no reason for it. “Got to keep moving” makes as much sense as “got to keep moving on” and fits the rhyme scheme.
As for the video…necrophilia? Really Tom? Who decided that seemed like a good idea?
Breath deep
The gathering gloom
Watch lights fade
From every room
Bedsitter people
Look back and lament
Another day’s useless
Energy spent
From an otherwise enjoyable Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues. I was odd among my acid loving friends back around 93-96 for liking such an unconventional (read: non-Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd) band, but most got into The Other Side of Life Tonight and other Moody Blues hits. But the second the voice-over for Nights in White Satin started we all pretty much laughed our asses off, in a bad way, no matter our state of mind.
In Sade’s “By Your Side” there’s an acoustic rhythm guitar being strummed, and on every major change of chord, there’s a screeeeech from the guitarist dragging his obviously dry-as-a-bone, calloused paw along the guitar strings. Why this was left on the record, I don’t know, but I can’t hear anything but, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Also, since it was pointed out to me, I can’t unhear the “what?!” that punctuates the chorus of “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child. It goes:
*
Actually, on listening, they may actually be saying - WORK?! - but I think it’s - WHAT?! - but either way…
The Fugees cover of Killing me Softly is a beautiful song sung by Lauren Hill with the terrible call/response crap near the beginning and some random weirdness at the end, it drove me so crazy I actually edited the song.
stupid crap starts around 35 seconds in
my edit
I just wish there was a version with all the verses, they dropped one part of the song
