So you may have noticed that this year I have been doing a
series on my blog called “Charting 1996” which has been a journey through the
year 1996 and the ARIA charts of the time. Why 1996? Well 1996 is around the
time that I became interested in top 40/pop music as I would watch Rage on ABC
back in the days when they did their top 50 countdown and listen to Take 40
Australia with Barry Bissell on the radio.
However It’s time to look back on the year that was 1996 and
delve into the songs that SUCKED and I’ll be honest here, the pickings for bad
songs were very slim as the music mostly ranged from excellent to being dull
(Dull isn’t something to put a song on the worst list for because if dull was a
factor, there’d be several songs that’d be contenders.
1996 was a strange year for the charts where the constant
turnover meant a song would stay in the top ten for a couple of weeks and then
leave. We also had songs that spent weeks on top of the charts…one of those
being on this list, we also got a tonne of covers hitting the charts.
So to make this list, the songs had to make ARIA’s year end
list for 1996 and keep in mind that this is just my opinion, my views should
not stop you from enjoying these songs if you like them…somehow.
Let’s start with a cover that takes the magic of the
original and turns it into mush…
10. “Father and Son” by Boyzone
1996 saw several new boybands hit the Australian charts
including Backstreet Boys, No Mercy and Human Nature but the new boy group that
claimed the spotlight in early 1996 was Boyzone, a group from out of the UK who
were very successful over there and had moderate success in Australia beyond
1996 but this cover of Cat Stevens iconic song “Father and Son” is just
passionless droning that sucks the passion, comfort and charm that the original
version had. It sounds like Boyzone just sang this out of sheer desperation for
something to release because it feels so empty and lacking the comforting
warmth of the original.
Oh, and they replaced the guitar with piano and strings to
make the song sound not just passionless in the vocals but fucking manufactured
which is something I am sure Sufjan Stevens was not intending for the song.
Ugh, time to move on.
Boyzone weren’t the only British boy band to try and fail at
making a cover, here’s proof.
9. “How Deep Is Your Love” by Take That
Take That were another British boyband that rose to
prominence in the UK in 1995 and sadly their success continued with this cover
of the Bee Gees 70s hit “How Deep is Your Love” in 1996 and oh dear god, it
says something that Glee did this song better in the 2010s and I don’t even
LIKE Glee all that much, this cover sounds like four drunk guys on a cheap
version of the Love Boat all doing really bad karaoke, it is incredible how off
key and monotonous they all sound.
Also why do the backing vocals sound louder on the second
verse than the actual lead vocals and why does it all sound like I am on some
sleepy bad beach holiday for those forever meant to be single?
The original had an energy, warmth and groove that this flat
badly produced garbage doesn’t have, its no fucking wonder Robbie Williams left
Take That because shit like this gave him very good damn reason to walk his own
way.
Taking a break away from bad cover versions to talk about a
song that if it hadn’t been released in 1996, I’d have thought Taylor Swift had
wrote it.
8. “Who Do U Love” by Deborah Cox
Deborah Cox is a Canadian singer songwriter and actress who
somehow combined a sample of Soul II Soul’s music with Cox really trying hard
and mostly failing to be the next Whitney Houston all the while having lyrics
that are so god damn toxic that they remind me of some of the more horrible
Taylor Swift relationship songs (think “I knew You were trouble” and “You
Belong With Me”) because “Who Do you Love” is just ugly.
This man has just walked out on Cox and now she’s wondering
who he could possibly want or love more than her because it’s a ‘mystery’ why
he left her for another woman because after all there’s no other women out
there that is good enough for him and how dare he want and love another woman
enough to walk out on her. The lyrics here really do paint Deborah Cox in a
rather unflattering light, she comes across as narcissistic and obsessive in a
way that is creepy.
This song is just a creepy, badly written clusterfuck however
if you want to find absolute awful that was ahead of it’s time then we have…
7. “Hey Lover” by LL Cool J feat. Boyz II Men
So LL Cool J and Boyz II Men are acts I actually respect within
the realm of 90s hip hop and R’n”B, Boyz II Men made pleasant r’n’b jams that
were chill enough to relax too while LL Cool J did bust out some pretty
incredible hip hop in the mid-90s which is why it’s such a shame that their
collaboration resulted in this garbage.
This song is one of those “Imma steal your girl” songs which
makes it ahead of its time considering the proliferation of these sort of songs in the 2010s.
Now Boyz II Men frame the song as the man this girl is with is neglects her but
honestly the rest is so god damn creepy and the fact LL Cool J says its his
mission to take this girl off this other dude is not cool, if she isn’t happy,
she’ll break up with him.
The chorus that pretty much just moans “Hey Lover” is freaking
gross especially as she isn’t LL Cool J or Boyz II Men’s lover just yet.
Then again when it comes to creepy love songs, there is
Bryan Adams…
6. “The Only Thing that Looks Good on Me Is You” by Bryan
Adams
At this point, Bryan Adams was at the height of his powers,
he’d had a number of huge hits in the early part of the nineties (cue “Everything
I do (I do it for you)”) and honestly this song isn’t his worst…we’ll get to
that…but the reason this song is here is because of the lazy song writing on
display where Adams complains he doesn’t look good in designer wear or anything
else except for his partner which is all kinds of questionable by the way. All
men scrub up well in a suit as a rule, Bryan!
The production is this flimsy sounding guitar which tries
for a rock sound and Adams sounding like he is out of breath the entire time or
he horny which would make sense because the song sounds like he wrote it with
his penis.
So yeah stepping away from the bad and somewhat creepy love
songs, we need to deal with what can be simply described as noise.
5. “Boom Boom Boom” by The Outhere Brothers
.
I was going to give this slot to “One of Us” by Joan Osborne,
a song that has gotten worse with time however “Boom Boom Boom” by The Outhere
Brothers is excruciating to listen to in between that synth noise that sounds
like a bed squeaking and the thumping distorted noise that passes for melody…geezus
christ, just stop already.
Then there are the lyrics which alternate from being
painfully repetitive even for an alleged dance song to being about orgasms and
having sex of which none of it sounds even vaguely romantic but just rather
childish eg “Slip my peter into your folder” and even in one line a vague reference
to stealing this girl. Gross.
Thank goodness these brothers disappeared back to where they
belonged.
I did say Bryan Adams would another appearance on this list…
4. “Let’s Make a Night to Remember” by Bryan Adams
You know Bryan, you didn’t have try to knock off Bruce
Springsteen so hard with this song, it’s genuinely weird how much the songs
wants to be akin to Springsteen but fails. There’s something that is just inherently
sleazy that makes my skin crawl and honestly makes “The Only thing that Looks
Good on Me Is You” even worse.
The whole song feels less like Bryan Adams and more like
homage to Bruce Springsteen except I am sure Bruce would have rejected the less
than romantic and really rather sluggish and drowsy production around a song
about having sex and the references to sweat dripping off this girl. Adams also
sings the song with all the enthusiasm of discovering that his favourite shirt has
been eaten through by fucking fire ants.
At least, Adams didn’t desecrate one of the greatest soul
songs ever like this next group did…
3. “Sexual Healing” by Max-A-Million
It should be a crime do soul legend Marvin Gaye a dirty like
this, it really fucking should be, the only positive coming from this crappy
garbage is that a small town in America was powered by Marvin Gaye spinning in
his grave. Max-a-Million tone back the sexual tension that was in the original to
turn the song into something Shaggy would have rejected in 1995! The production
isn’t anywhere near close to as sexy as it seems to think it is.
Also the rap verses are pretty terrible and lazy, here’s an
example: “And I know me love you know I ain't been creepy creeping. When you
spread out yuh legs ah me no get yuh lazy. A rubba dubba I'm ya lover I know
you feel me baby”
THAT IS NOT ANYWHERE NEAR CLOSE TO SEXY!. If you want real
sexual healing in music seek out Marvin Gaye’s original…it’s far better than
this crap will ever be.
Although if you are looking for something sexy, don’t ask this
next guy…
2. “Sometimes When We Touch” by Newton
So I have made no bones about the fact that I hate the
original version of this song that was released in 1976 by Dan Hill mainly
because the lyrics switch between being overwhelmingly sappy to Hill being an
absolute piece of shit as he refuses to let this girl move on. Dan Hill himself
even admitted back in 2010 to a Canadian website that the song is stupid.
So in 1996 along comes Newton, a dance artist, from the UK
who decided to put his spin on the song and yeah makes the song worse. Yeah it’s
got the pianos at the beginning but then from about the chorus on it goes into
full dance mode which doesn’t match the soppy nature of the lyrics at all and
also Newton is not an impressive singer at all and that note at the end sounds
like he just got scalded by hot water or had a scare.
Either way kill this cover and the original with fire.
So we have reached the top of the list and for awhile I wasn’t
sure what my top pick was going to be, in the end I went with the song that has
stuck around and become a lingering shit stain on pop culture, we expose our
children to this SHIT and the number one goes to…
1 “Macarena (Bayside Boys Remi x)” by Los Del Rios
Bad dance songs in the 2010s have been commonplace but they never
really stick around however in 1996, this song stuck around at the top of the
charts for nine whole weeks and yet the issues with this song stretch for miles
from the strange gurgling bleating goat noises that once you hear you will not
get out of your head to the horrible
giggling teenage girl style lyric delivery in the verse by one of the woman who
claims her name is Macarena obnoxiously laughs off the fact she has admitted to
cheating on her boyfriend.
At least the chorus is fun and is literally the only thing
worth caring about. FUCK this trash. “Macarena (Bayside Boys Remix)” The worst
hit song of 1996, see ya all later.
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