Friday, August 20, 2010

America's taste in music has sucked a long time.....

I love Sporcle. It's a trivia site where you can answer questions on a wide range of topics with varying degrees of difficulty. From the starting lineups of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1992 - 2010 to the words to the Soft Kitty song from The Big Bang Theory, basically anything anyone has an interest in, they have a quiz for it.

Anyway, I was going through it tonight and I came across a new music quiz - Can you name the popular artists who have never had a #1 song? It then had a list of songs, the years they came out and the performers peak on the Billboard chart. Here's the page the quiz is on then an example with the answer:

Can you name the Popular artists who've never had #1 Hot 100 hit (1955-present) on the Billboard chart? - sporcle


As I went through the quiz, I was amazed at some of the artists who have never made it to #1. After taking the quiz, I went to the Billboard charts to first make sure that was the case, then come up with a list of some of the worst songs ever to be #1. Here's what I came up with.

Singers/Bands that never made it to #1:

Peaked at #2
Bruce Springsteen
Journey
Green Day
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Bob Dylan
Moody Blues
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Tom Jones
Johnny Cash

#3
James Brown
The Cars
Sarah Mclachlan

#4
Led Zeppelin
REM
Steely Dan
Alanis Morissette

#5
Cream
Garth Brooks
The Pretenders
Willie Nelson
Bonnie Raitt

#6
Nirvana
The Kinks
Little Richard

#7
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Joni Mitchell
KISS
Jackson Browne
Crosby, Stills and Nash

#8
The Clash
Lynyrd Skynryd
Grateful Dead

#9
Talking Heads
The Who
Patsy Cline
Van Morrison

#10
Metallica

Below #10 - Elvis Costello (19), Jimi Hendrix (20) AC/DC (23), Ella Fitzgerald (27), Bob Marley (51), Black Sabbath (52).

I'm not a fan of some of these people. I'd rather hear the sound of my teeth being drilled than a 29 minute version of Truckin' by the Grateful Dead or some Bob Dylan. But that doesn't mean I'm not stunned to hear that they were never #1. And I can't figure out how bands like The Who or Metallica and especially James Brown or Springsteen never made it to #1. You would think that the music that did make it to #1 had to be brilliant, moving pieces that raise the spirit and yet also compel you to get out on the floor and shake that ass. But no!!!! There are songs that have been #1 that are among the worst ever put to record, tape, CD or MP3, with one song so noxious, so foul, that it placed a stranglehold on our nation for months at a time.

Here are some of the so-called best songs of their era:

Disco Duck by Rick Dees

Don't Worry, Be Happy - Chuck D said it best.....

Rollin' by Limp Bizkit - I know no one who ever liked Fred Durst. His mom probably changed her name

We Built This City by Starship - Maybe the worst song ever....no...there is another....

Batdance and Cream by Prince - Now I love Prince, but both those songs were pieces of crap

4 songs for Jennifer Lopez - Wow....each one suckier than the last. What does she bring to the table now that Kim Kardashian has brought forth an ass for the new millenium?

Believe by Cher - South Park said it best, no need to add to it.

Gettin' Jiggy Wit it and Wild Wild West by Will Smith - Good thing the acting worked out. These were probably why there was no theme song to Hancock or I am Legend.

My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion - and my stomach will lose all that is in it.

Butterfly by 311 - wow, just unforgettable tripe, Insipid poser rock. Made me long for the stylings of Sugar Ray. (not really)

Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue by Toby Keith - made me wish for a second I was Canadian

How You Remind Me by Nickelback/ With Arms Wide Open by Creed - Overwrought, fake singing and self importance coming out of its pores. A Christian band like Creed will make you question your faith in a deity that allows a band like that to celebrate in his name. Scott Stapp should have been hit with a lightning bolt years ago.

I can't really comment on most songs since 2008 because I've never heard of most of them. But that stupid Kesha song(I refuse to put a f'n dollar sign in her name and can't find the cent sign) was #1 this year for 9 weeks. But the worst abomination ever perpetrated on American music was a song that was #1 from July 11th to October 16th in 2009. Yes, the Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling". "Born to Run" never made it to #1, but this piece of shit with lyrics lifted from a 3rd graders notebook was #1 for OVER THREE MONTHS!!!! And you know what band was #1 for almost three months before that? Yep, the f'n Black Eyed Peas with a song called "Boom Boom Pow"that was #1 from April 18th to July 10th.. I never heard it, but I have to believe it's better than Baba O' Riley, Brown Eyed Girl, Smells Like Teen Spirit and Even Flow combined.

For just under six months, America's ears were hijacked by some of the worst prefab crap ever made. And combine that with the fact that Fergie had 3 #1 songs by herself before that and it makes me want to puncture my eardrums. Thankfully "My Humps" only made it to #3, or I may have lost faith entirely.

H.L. Mencken was right when he said "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public". We all like to think that the time we were growing up was so much better than it is now, but musicians have been throwing crap against the wall for years and we've been buying it. It's a matter of personal taste, but you can't tell me that Purple Haze is not as good of a song as Ghostbusters. But people looking back hundreds of years from now will see which one of those was a #1 song and we as a society are worse off for that.