Here’s the best source of bad music I’ve found. Prepare to spend all day there.
Also, you need some Wesley Willis.
Maybe a bit too obscure for what you’re looking for, but anyway…
Click on the song “My Gift To You Is My Words” by Black Nova:
This will either cause more donations than you can handle, or your listeners will all commit suicide.
How about something for the avant-garde? The Holy Modal Rounders’ first two LP’s were amazing psycho-delic Old-Timey. Two guys singing, playing guitar, banjo & fiddle. Still classic. Later, they added more musicians & took a lot more drugs. (Amphetimines, mostly.) Some of their later albums have their moments, but Indian War Whoop is really painful.
Long unavailable, it’s inexplicably back in print. You can’t order it in time for tonight’s show. But ask you neighborhood old hipsters if they have any copies; they will probably pay you to take them off their hands.
Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman To Me” should have the donations pouring in.
Is it really bad that I love some of the songs y’all are posting here?
Anything from Pat Boone’s “metal” album, “No More Mr. Nice Guy”.
“Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” - Cher
“Indiana Wants Me” - uhhh, I forget
“Swingin” - John Anderson(?)
“Loving You” - Minnie Ripperton
“Alone Again (Naturally)” - Gilbert O’Sullivan
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Slim Whitman
Boxcar Willie
How could I forget the awful '70s song “Wildfire”? The song with the dude warbling about his girl and a pony, getting “lost in a killing frost.” Dave Barry referenced a reader who wrote to him that a “killing frost” will kill your vegetables, not large mammals, and certainly not be the cause of anyone getting lost.
Jethro Tull’s “Thick As A Brick” - that crapfest is an entire album-length song. I’d throw in one side of Metal Machine Music, too, but since your show’s called the Zen Arcade, that might appeal to your target audience.
Somewhere about 40 years ago WBAI was having a pledge drive. Steve Post had Marshal Efron on. They decided that until the pledge came in, they were going to play “Mr. Bojangles” by Jerry Jeff Walker again, and again, and again. I think it worked pretty well. The badness of a song increases exponentially with the number of times it is played.
Oh, you have just got to hear the cover version by Big Daddy.
“Backfield in Motion” – Mel and Tim
“Rosecrans Boulevard” – Johnny Rivers. By Jim Webb, who wrote “Mcarthur Park.” This is worse.
I actually kind of like it, but I bet “The Last Farewell” by Roger Whittaker gets on a lot of people’s nerves.
There’s a lot of bad jazz out there. I’m not just talking about that “smooth” pap that’s an insult to the name of jazz. I’m talking about the stuf that consists of random banging with fists on the piano, horn players trying to blow small rodents out their spit valves and random pointless drumming all mixed together in different time signatures.
A couple minutes of this may be tolerable, but any more of that just shatters the nerves. Of course for your purposes, this may count as nuclear warfare and your victims may be in no condittion to accede to your demands, but…
Rod Stewart, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”
Paul Anka, “Havin’ My Baby”
Anything by Bobby Sherman
Anything by Anthony Newley
Donna Fargo, “The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.”
You also might want to check out the Portsmouth Sinfonia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsmouth_Sinfonia
Take Good Care of Her, by the Partridge Family
Actually, threaten them with a whole Partridge Family hour. . . ::Evil Laugh::
No one has mentioned Rick Astley - “Never Going to Give you Up” yet? C’mon, just playing the song is an internet meme itself.
No, if you want to do a full hour by one artist, I say you have to go with Lou Reed.
How about some of the sappier songs used in Fallout 3?
“Way Back Home” - Bob Crosby And The Bobcats
“Happy Times” - Bob Crosby And The Bobcats
“A Wonderful Guy” - Tex Beneke
Did you know there’s a Swedish Elvis “impersonator”?