I'm a music fan. I like a lot of different kinds of music. I would consider myself a populist. I don't go deep into any particular genre nor do I have any clue who the hottest indie band is right now. I know some of the words to "Call Me Maybe" as well as "War Pigs", "Okie from Muskogee", and "Christmas in Hollis". Some would call my tastes "eclectic" - me, I just say I like a lot of different shit.
However, in this column, I would like to address some of the universal slips that make a potentially good song go bad or make a bad song go to "remind me to jab a Q-Tip way too far in so I don't ever have to hear that crap again" levels. Some of these are genre specific, but some stretch across the landscape to suck the life out of all types of music. Of course this list isn't exhaustive (there are millions of ways to make a song suck), but these are a few of the more egregious examples of how to kill a good song.
1) "The Crappy Rappy": Here's the situation. Good tune, good beat, good lyrics of a solid R&B song that you are jamming to in your car. The song hits about 2 min and 30 sec and what happens? Some junk rapper who must have naked pics of the singer or something gets hold of a mic for the next 30 seconds and wipes all the good mojo from the song. No more singing along, no more cool car shoulder dances. The radio is now turned down and you go back to staring blankly at traffic. I'm looking at you MC Shan from "Informer". I'm staring at you guy who says "A Capello" in Tony Toni Tone's "Feel Good". P. Diddy - get the hell away from the mic when Faith Evans is singing. Lastly, to Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, aka the jackass that completely ruins "The One" from Mary J. Blige, if you ever grab a mic again, I truly hope it is only to say "Table 12, your order is ready". Under no other circumstances should you, or any of you other guys, be allowed near a microphone or stage again. Please, record producers, if your out of work buddy that hangs out at the studio and just begs for "one shot" and wants to rap on what you feel could be a smash single, remember what I say. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR SOME UNKNOWN JACKASS WHO CAN'T RAP!!! If he was that good, he/she wouldn't need to get that "one shot" by latching on to someone else's track.
2) "The Crossover": This infliction on society came around the mid 90's. What happened here is that a lot of artists in R&B and Country don't write their own songs. The songwriters themselves figured this out and decided "hey, since R&B lovers don't exactly peruse the country stations often, why not sell the song to 2 artists and earn some extra cash." I don't blame them, I blame us. We allowed them to do this and in the process, songs that are sappy oversung crap get airplay in two genres. The largest example of this was "I Swear" by John Michael Montgomery and All-4-One. Both JMM and A4O were mid level talents, but both got all star airplay with a song that, I'm sorry to say, isn't any good in either format. The fact that I then had to avoid this turd on 4 or 5 stations as opposed to the 1 or 2 made for difficult radio listening in the era before Itunes / Pandora. Other Crossover attempts that sucked include: Don't Want to Miss A Thing (Aerosmith too sappy - Mark Chestnutt even worse), Piece of My Heart (Janis - good but I think a bit overrated, Faith Hill awful), and Sweet Child O'Mine (Loved GNR's- Sheryl Crow's version sucks). The only real success here in my view is Whitney's "I Will Always Love You". She nailed it. Of course no one sings like Whitney and she is dead now. Hopefully this tomfoolery died with her.
3) "Star Search Screeches": I remember watching Star Search as a kid. There was one guy who was a singer that won a bunch of times in a row. Sam Harris was his name. Sam was a little white fella that would belt out well known songs and add about 37 runs and screaming that the audience of Star Search apparently just flat out dug. Youtube that now and you wonder who is strangling the cat while singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". Though Sam is my favorite example, it is the ladies of R&B that typically have the most issue here. Vocal gymnastics has a place. I like hearing someone that can sing. However, every note doesn't require an additional run on for 10 minutes nor do I need to hear you scream every note like your house is on fire. Jennifer Hudson and Christina Aguilera, please step forward. Both of you can sing, but let's just take a breath or two on a couple of tracks okay? No need to bludgeon the audience with your vocal "talent". The other one that used to kill me on this was Reba McEntire. Reba had a good, not great, voice, and I like some of her songs. However, her runs combined with a country twang could get downright vomit inducing and typically ended with me yelling inappropriate comments at my television or radio.
4) "The Talking Song": This was originally my wife's pet peeve that I am now fully on board with. If your name isn't Johnny Cash, sing the damn song. I don't want to hear your poetry reading set to music. Shawn Mullins and his "Lullaby" might be my least favorite non-REM song. He sings for two seconds, which should be about all he needed at karaoke to show he couldn't sing, but then he spends what seems to be another hour telling us about a story that NO ONE CARES ABOUT. Just awful on all counts. You know who else tries to get away with this garbage - deep voice R&B guys. We get it, your balls dropped at age 6 and your voice only went lower from there. It's cool, can we move on now? Boyz II Men and "End of the Road" is a great example. This is a solid 90's heartbreak song, right? Well, the SINGING is a good heartbreak song, but the 10 minute diatribe from Barry White's illegitimate son just kills it. Put the low voice away and get back to being the bass of the barbershop quartet.
5) "I Am An Artist" Vibe: Unless this is We Are The World or Farm Aid, can we ease up on taking ourselves so seriously? Eddie Vedder in the movie Singles was a funny young singer. He gets a couple of hits in the grunge movement and all of a sudden he mumbles interviews in a bad Bob Dylan impersonation while bitching about the Rainforest. Coolio gets pissed at Weird Al for lampooning "Gangsta's Paradise"? Really Coolio, that track shouldn't be made fun of? You should have told me that when I was laughing at your hair while you rapped to Michelle Pfeiffer about a movie that made about $12. REM - get over yourselves. Your music sucks and you are Weezer without the sense of humor. Everybody Hurts - yeah, they sure do, especially after listening to that pile of garbage. Lastly, the perfect example of this was Scott Stapp, who I really think thought he was the second coming of Jesus in the "Higher" video. I think he truly believes he is bringing his audience to the promiseland with nothing more than a wife beater and some really overdone hand gestures. Now, maybe these actions don't affect the songs, but if you can't shake an image of douchebaggery while listening to someone sing, chances are the enjoyment is just slightly diluted. Let's realize that at the end of the day, you are just like the Soggy Bottom Boys - some guy is paying you money to sing "into his can".
As I said before, this is not a complete list. Even with the offenders above, I only scratched the surface on the examples that could be used to destroy songs for the listener. However, this was written to give notification to the offenders that we are on to you. No longer will you be allowed to suck without notice. This is me putting YOU on notice! I hope you only can dry your tears and hide your guilt with the millions of dollars earned through royalties while I SHAME you on a blog that I write for free. Oh wait, nevermind. Keep up the good work!
JB3
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