Hmm… I’m having trouble thinking of anything that fits for me in this genre.
Stairway to Heaven is probably the closest, but I wouldn’t say I hate it. I do skip it or whatever if it comes on, but sometimes I still listen and I can imagine enjoying it again someday.
I don’t care much for Bennie and the Jets, and will usually skip it. I don’t think I’ll ever like it very much. And the fact that it seems to be one of Elton’s most popular to play on easy listening stations or whatever kind of pisses me off because he did so much better. Not a huge fan of** Rocket Man** either but I don’t dislike it as much as Bennie.
I came in to mention this, although I dislike the acoustic version just as much, but for different reasons. The reason I hate the original version of Layla is for the solos at the end. I play slide, it’s Duane Allman and Eric Clapton playing at the same time, it should be a treat. Since they duel at different octaves, Duane sits up above the 12th fret playing this shrill, noodling, piercing sustaining solo that just goes on forever. I’ve never liked it.
The acoustic version? It’s just a lame, slow, easy listening cover of a song I’ve learned to dislike in the first place. It lacks the drama of the original, which sells the first half until those solos start up.
I have expounded on my hate of Sweet Home Alabama more than once on these very boards. Lynyrd Skynyrd can take their governor and shove 'em right where their “clear conscious” seems to reside.
REO Speedwagon’s “Take it on the Run” makes me immediately change stations and pull over until the urge to barf passes.
In the last two years, I’ve started to hate all Joni Mitchell songs. Used to like her, ages, ago, but now they sound pretentious and her voice is really, really annoying. I change stations when I can, and even walk out of stores when one of her songs comes on.
Can’t think of any beloved songs that I hate, but I really don’t see anything going for the two big BTO hits Takin car of Business and You Ain’t Seen Noothin Yet. But I don’t know if there are there any hardcore fans of those songs, just people who won’t turn the dial when the songs come on.
OP nailed it in one. “American Pie” is 37 minutes of Boomer nostalgia porn dressed up in tortured pseudo-clever metaphor. The only thing worse than people who sing along with the whole thing are the ones who feel the need to explain it (“The jester is Bob Dylan! When he says The Marching Band, he means the Beatles!”)
Huh, I like or even love about 80% of the songs mentioned and only wish I could hear them more often!
I don’t like most of Elton John’s songs, in particular “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. Can’t say why, other than the 70’s were a bad time for me and most of his stuff sounds the same, middle of the road. (Oddly, the Elton John songs I do like, “Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting”, “Benny and the Jets” and a smallish handful of others - I REALLY like.)
Don’t like southern rock of the 70’s - what is that awful droning song about “oooh that smell”. “Dust In The Wind” - hate. Bob Seegar, 90% - hate. Huey Lewis and the News - HATE HATE HATE…but I love the Doobie Brothers and Michael McDonald.
Will add Seals and Crofts - “Diamond Girl”, “We May Never Pass This Way Again” - radio station filler, to be turned in search of something better.
The Doors - Riders on the Storm, 20th Century Fox - when the Doors worked, they were edgy, open and interesting; when they didn’t, they were pop dreck.
I’ll take a risk and put out Crosby, Stills and Nash - Teach Your Children Well - glorious harmonies and uplifting songcraft, but I can’t get past the dreck of the Summer of Luv lyrics and my cynical view of a group that turned Laurel Canyon hippie folk into big business.
I agree with a lot of nominees - but I wonder how much of it is the simple over-playing of the songs on the radio? There are many listed that I did like, but that got over-played. I was never much of an Eagles guy, but totally respect their songcraft and the durably great listenability of their arrangements. But come on - I could never hear one of their songs again and be able to write out the arrangements in my sleep…
I think this is a salient point. I can actually recall hearing “Stairway to Heaven” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the first time. They were groundbreakingly marvelous songs at the time.
After hearing each about 1.33 million times, not so much.
