Songs Which Display Great Talent Yet Suck Anyway

1. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – Crosby, Stills and Nash

 

Though liking much of their material, this one screams hippie dippie nonsense at its worst. I picture this being recorded on the floor of a studio with a crowd of groovy fans in a circle, sitting cross legged around them as they jam. Incense, pot smoke, and suede jackets with tassels fill the air. Everyone smiling and nodding around the circle, as they contemplate how deep this tune is, man.

Of course a bongo solo rears its head, right around the 5 minute mark! After which an already meandering, goofy track somehow becomes even worse. Yes, we must endure two and a half more pap-tastic minutes , during which patchouli-laced poetry about catching sparrows is your least concern.

This home stretch really sends me over the edge, starting where the hand claps kick in. I’m sure that the doot-dee-doot-doot-doot-doot-dee-doot part features some skillful harmonies. It still sounds terrible. Then when someone starts warbling whoa whoa whoa whoa  atop this, that’s where I reach my breaking point. Maybe they had peace n’ love in mind, but it makes me want to climb through my speakers and punch someone.

2. Emotions– Mariah Carey

 

While known more as a zany “celebrity” now than as a singer, Mariah did crank out the hits once. But these haven’t aged all that well. Even retro stations specializing in this music rarely play them – and it’s possible that Emotions is her most egregious offender.

Much like Judy, this is a mostly normal track. Up until the dog whistling kicks in, anyway. Music, um, scientists, or whatever, claim she has a five octave range, and unleashes the highest notes ever heard in a hit pop song, but I don’t care, and neither will you.

Maybe prolonged torture made this seem longer, but I swear the official YouTube video is shorter than what radio and MTV used to play. And at the height of its popularity, you would hear this song every five minutes.

So be thankful. Back then, that dog whistling would seemingly drag on forever. Either way, nowadays nobody would listen to this twice.

3. Clap – Yes

 

One theme which is beginning to emerge is that these songs all start out tolerably enough, within reason, before flying off the tracks. Then again, the outright atrocities I probably flipped away from after five seconds, which is why they’re not on this list. These debacles lure you into their web with seeming normalcy, and that makes them all the more devious. Yet whereas the first two do so via bad decision making, i.e. elements which could have been chopped off near the end, this one falls into the “a bit too much throughout” category – and fairly soon at that.

You realize at the outset that Steve Howe must be an amazing guitarist. If you like this kind of music, you might even dig this, at first, and wonder why you haven’t heard it before. But if so just give it a minute, and the answer will become apparent to you.

This is the sound of a guitarist cramming every trick he ever learned into the space of one song. The only problem with that approach is that there’s nothing memorable about any of this whatsoever. It sounds like one giant mishmash, akin to a 50 piece orchestra all playing different tunes at once. There’s no melody, structure, rhythm, or anything else to hang a hat upon here. You will not be whistling this tomorrow. If you can even make it to the end, you have greater fortitude than most of us.

David Lee Roth has gone on record claiming that Eddie Van Halen didn’t write guitar solos, not the way fans think of them. He says Eddie would record six or seven different solos, then play with volume sliders in the studio to blend them, and make it sound cooler and crazier than it actually was. I don’t know if that’s actually true, and doubt that this is what Howe’s doing here. But that’s what it sounds like. Every guitar solo Van Halen ever recorded sounds better than this monstrosity. At least Van Halen solos blended in well with the song, or had a melodic component if standing alone, and that’s the whole point. The dustbin of obscure trivia is filled to the brim with your Yngwie Malmsteens of the world, who could play but not write a tune. Clap falls into this dumpster. It’s all the more sad in that I’m sure Howe poured a ton of effort into this, envisioning this as some compositional masterpiece, yet it’s unlistenable.

4. Believer – Imagine Dragons

 

Though this band is not my cup of tea, I have seen them live and know Dan Reynolds has a great voice. And as revealed during a mini-set on this tiny stage in the arena’s middle, during which the band actually rocked out some, they can play when they want to. This sound stripped down to just drums and vocals with maybe a keyboard dash is strategic, in keeping with today’s pop landscape where smash singles are nearly a cappella.

All is fine with Believer, too, up to one cringe inducing point. This questionable choice to launch into a “hearing impaired rapper” breakdown in the middle, that whole hibbidy-bibbidy segment or whatever. Sure, if trying this at home, most of us would come off like an even bigger ass. The only problem is, this sounds really stupid regardless, even stemming from a skilled vocalist.

Granted, like the others, I’m sure these guys are laughing their way to the bank. But much of what we are told must be good in one era, because it is popular, is a punchline by the next. This hibbidy-bibbidy business is going to age very poorly and – at best – someday this group will be praying for an ironically-so-bad-it’s-good status.

5. Bicycle Race – Queen

Speaking of which, this might be the mother of all songs in that vein – even if I will admit to intentionally playing this one every few years or so, just for a good laugh. What’s not to like? Everyone knows about Mercury’s pipes, and the always amazing guitar work from Brian May, plus the complex arrangements we have come to expect. It’s also insanely catchy.

However, the lyrics are abysmal even for cartoonish rock. This makes you wish they’d hired Graham Nash to write about sparrows instead. As it stands, we are stuck with a hamfisted attempt to replicate a Bohemian Rhapsody style epic, but with far sillier words.

“I don’t even want to know what kind of gay innuendo this is,” a friend once joked, yet I don’t even think that can explain this away. These aren’t subculture euphemisms on display here.

Freddie goes from lamenting that Jaws isn’t his scene, to informing us that he would accept Cartier if offered. Whatever the subject, you can safely allow your problems to melt away…because fat bottomed girls are heading your direction in a bicycle race!

To really nail this point home, there’s even a bicycle bell breakdown in the middle, which derails all momentum. What the hell were they thinking? is typically the first question anyone asks upon listening to this turkey. Yet if you will examine the lyrics carefully, I think Freddie has covered this, too. According to him, any time someone says “Coke,” he immediately thinks “caine.” That tells you everything you need to know about Bicycle Race.