I think this is a surprisingly hard question to answer - artists can be bad on so many different levels. The ones that unequivocally suck don’t tend to bother me, but the ones that are involved in stuff I care about, but don’t do it well, can be really aggravating. I can easily see how someone could not stand the Blues Explosion, for example - I mean just not tolerate their very existance, but they’re clearly far from being the worst ever.
I find a lot of 80s metal can be extremely lame and awful. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest etc on the Uk side, the likes of Van Halen, WASP, motley cure on the US. Sounds like unlistenable pussified pop music these days. It’s like those bands just didn’t have the intelligence to see that the way forward lay in a synthesis of classic rock and punk from the 70s, so they just went ahead and played a piss-weak version of both. Iron Maiden are particularly bad, as their hugely successful (and pretty impressive, if I’m being honest) marketing brand means that they’re still going strong today - so we’re still subjected to their little girl’s version of hard rock in 2010.
Aww man, I read the thread title too fast and thought it was “worst artists ever.” I was going to say that the guy who nailed a toilet to the wall in the (Boston) MFA’s modern art exibit was. Just a standard toilet. Nailed to the wall. Six feet off the ground.
So…I guess I have to go with Anal Cunt instead. I’d link to some of their songs, but I don’t hate any of you.
I prefer to just read the song titles! Worryingly, I’ve actually heard worse bands than AC… even seen a couple from time to time. Grindcore can throw up some, well, disturbing people.
I was going to dump on Yoko Ono again but I see someone beat me to it.
As a side note, the absolute worst guitar solo ever recorded appears in the Bonzo Dog Band’s “Canyons Of Your Mind” (though of course, it was intentional).
The thing about Nickelback, is they’re so fucking banal. They are the Wal-Mart of rock, shifting low quality aural crap… Wait that’s not fair, I don’t hate Wal-Mart.
I recall someone telling me that Tiger Woods is a Nickelback fan. That fact, more than his philandering and jackass behavior toward the media, makes me hate him with an intensity. Now I know he’s the most boring human being alive.
Nu-metal owns this thread. Limp Bizkit, anyone? What a pile of shit that was. But the worst band to me is one that actually has some talent, but insist on milking the same fucking formula to the point of parody. And they take themselves way too seriously.
It’s the whole package. Lame rapper. Whiny bitch singer. Pointless DJ. Bushy haired dude that looks like he doesn’t want to be there. Seventh grade lyrics about how hard it is to live in the suburbs.
The worst I ever saw live was a band called the Gravel Pit, opening for They Might Be Giants. At one point, the lead singer checked his watch, and people cheered.
(That was an anomaly. I’ve seen TMBG four times, and the other three opening acts rocked. (Cub, Lincoln, and the Presidents of the United States of America))
Oh god, Rush. They’re awful. They are just so incredibly pretentious and their music sucks too. Because of the CanCon laws they are all over the radio here in Canada too.
I’d still rather listen to Rush than to Nickelback though.
Wild Man Fischer makes all of these people sound like virtuosos.
Re: Yngwie Malmsteen, I listened to something where he was pompously describing his own brilliance and then he played the scales, lightning fast. Thing is, it was just, y’know, the scales. As the Good Rats sang on “Tasty,” “We had a flying guitar man/Maybe the fastest in the land/But he was going nowhere fast/Speed ain’t nothing without class.” They had to be singing about Yngwie.
I have never been sold on the “genius” of Frank Zappa. He was far from the worst, but he just may be the most overrated.
I was going to say Yoko Ono, but if the OP thinks Bon Jovi are, “one of the very worst bands still active and churning out product today,” I can see this thread is just self-important poseur crap.
The Waitresses. OK, so the only song I’ve ever heard from them are “I Know What Boys Like” but the music is so boring and the singer sounds like she’s tone deaf.
