Blender Presents: The Top 50 Dead Iraqi Children Ever!

"Karen O. is the most impulsive performer in years."—Blender

I don't know who's handing out the handjobs at Blender, but the amount of media coverage dedicated to their VH-1 (and now Best Buy) tie-in 50 Worst/"Most Awesomely Bad!" Songs Ever is appalling.

[Strangely, I got loads of email about this written-at-3AM potshot of a piece; a German music magazine wanted to purchase and print it, which I turned down because...I mean, come on, is it any better or different from the Blender list, ultimately? Feel the self-effacement from moral new-Dad two years later... I've left this basically as-is, with sure-to-expire YouTube links to most of my suggestions.—10/14/06]

Taking shots at Grace Slick's late-era drug confusion and talking up Karen O as...someone worth talking about? It'd be grotesque revisionism if the actual reason wasn't ruffling as few feathers as possible. I can appreciate that VH-1 needs to keep the catty OMG Best Week Ever! content coming, but next time, get ballots from people who didn't learn about music from VH-1. A closer look at the gutless safe plays:

50. "My Heart Will Go On"—Celine Dion (1998)
Popularity shouldn't enter into this equation. Yes, you can make a stronger case to more people by using a common example, but coupling popularity with proximity is a gross mistake, critically speaking. Disregarding her recent fame, what distinguishes Celine Dion from a hundred other mediocre "divas" from the 1970s inclusive? As with every entry on this list, this one lends the VH-1 soapbox to a dozen unqualified flakes who'll wax valley girl, "Oh my God, this song was like so overplayed, every time I heard it on the radio I just wanted to smash it!" You go, badass!
Replace with: "Do That To Me One More Time"—Captain and Tennille.

49. "I'm Too Sexy"—Right Said Fred (1992)
The first in an inexcusably long list of harmless novelty songs only a twelve year-old could give a shit about distancing themselves from. Who goes out of his way to point out the questionable merits of an nth-rate Lisa Stansfield knock-off? It was a fad; look up the word sometime.
Replace with: "Sesame's Treet"—Smart E's.

48. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"—The Beatles (1968)
Oooooh, burn—the holiest of holies! Grow a pair and call out the real travesty in their kid-gloves catalog.
Replace with: "All You Need is Love"—The Beatles.

47. "The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You"—Bryan Adams (1996)
Given the ashen diet-soda-and-Atkins ghouls they'll have on camera, it's probably wise to stay away from puns about things that look good on other things, though this video is, critically speaking, beyond words (is there an AVID filter called "Cobainize"?). We will of course drown in sub-hack Canada jokes for the length of this segment. In keeping with the opportunity for tedious cultural one-liners, replace with: "Lunatic Fringe"—Red Rider.

46. "Hangin' Tough"—New Kids on the Block (1989)
Attention wannabe music critics under the age of 30: only very young girls paid attention to NKOTB. Find me one piece of serious journalism about them that doesn't involve Donnie Wahlberg setting a hotel carpet on fire. In terms of shock value, running these guys down is on par with tearing apart a Rainbow Brite doll. Plus, I'm a Masshole, so, just straight-up: fuck you. We're rough.
Replace with: "Shang a Lang"—The Bay City Rollers, and watch Ned's Atomic Dustbin cover the Rollers' "Saturday Night." You will not make it to the end, I promise you.

45. "Mesmerize"—Ja Rule featuring Ashanti (2002)
Token misogynist inclusion granting uptight, irritating commentators a pulpit to "get serious for a minute, because as a woman I really take offense to this song." Indistinguishable from hundreds of equally fetid hip-hop odes to getting laid.
Replace with: "Baby Got Back"—Sir Mix-a-Lot.

44. "I'll Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)"—Meat Loaf (1993)
Hey, you hit the side of a barn. Good job.
Replace with: "Secret Garden"—Bruce Springsteen.

43. "Follow Me"—Uncle Kracker (2000)
Definitely more offensive than "Steal My Sunshine," right? A mere seven songs into the list, it's already obvious these hacks are scanning the NOW! CDs they rely on to "keep in touch." Granted, the song's a piece of shit, but I can think of worse.
Replace with: "Picture"—Kid Rock feat. Sheryl Crow.

42. "The Sound of Silence"—Simon & Garfunkel (1965)
The second of three pale attempts at controversy, this is transparent assassination of an unfashionable era by proxy. There's plenty of shit worth trashing on this record—"I Am a Rock"; fucking "Kathy's Song"—and I could name a dozen other Simon & Garfunkel tunes I'd prefer never existed, but none of them rate as one of the fifty worst ever recorded, even for shock value.
Replace with: "American Dream"—Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

41. "We Didn't Start the Fire"—Billy Joel (1989)
Fish in a barrel: Joel was washed-up for years before this last-ditch boomer-guilt glam comeback, and wrote plenty of Hoboken-hobo bullshit at his fraudulent po-faced peak. I'd listen to this on loop for three days over "Piano Man" twice.
Replace with: "Tell Her About It"—Billy Joel.

40. "I Wanna Sex You Up"—Color Me Badd (1991)
See 46; find me someone who took these guys seriously in the first place.
Replace with: "Pop Goes the Weasel"—3rd Bass (forgot about the cross-dressing, didn't you).

39. "She Bangs"—Ricky Martin (2000)
Sure.

38. "Cotton Eyed Joe"—Rednex (1995)
The de facto national anthem for desperate, drunk, spoiled-rotten, mid-'90s post-collegiate babies, driven to meat-market one-night stands they still wake up crying over. In other words, Blender's senior editorial staff.

37. "Rico Suave"—Gerardo (1991)
The cusp before Nirvana was a dire time for pop music, but "Rico Suave" was more entertaining, even as an ethnic novelty cut, than Snow or D-Nice.
Replace with: "Everything's Gonna Be Alright"—Naughty By Nature.

36. "Make Em Say Uhh!"—Master P featuring Silkk, Fiend, Mia-X and Mystikal (1998)
Are you fucking kidding me? DUH-NA NANAAAAAAAAA IS GENIUS. The beat sucks, but seeing this and "Cotton Eyed Joe" on here is another giveaway: they had a few volumes of Jock Jamz wedged in with the NOW! comps.
Replace with: "Ha"—Juvenile. Man was I wrong about "Ha". Someone who knows a lot more about hip-hop than I ever will called me out on this; I went back and listened to it, was hooked, and had it on loop for two months.

35. "Shiny Happy People—R.E.M. (1991)
Could be the most inexcusably stupid entry on this list. "Stand," you fucking retards, "Stand." You can't complain about the stench from a shit R.E.M. took three years earlier—you have to go to the source. Solid evidence that most contributors liked "Stand" and think of their 10th grade boy/girlfriends when they hear it. Overcompensating late-bloomers, each and every one.
Replace with: "Stand"—R.E.M.

34. "Longer"—Dan Fogelberg (1979)
Blender in "AM Gold sucks" shocka!!! The only people that really hate this song work at Guitar Center. Let it go.
Replace with: "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"—Gordon Lightfoot.

33. "Barbie Girl"—Aqua (1997)
Shitting on something like this is about as badass as yelling "Fuck Old Navy!" in a mall. Yeah, it's annoying, but it's catchy as hell, and succeeds wildly on those terms. You can't hate a song because of the people who listened to it.
Replace with: "I Kissed a Girl"—Jill Sobule. Wait, maybe you can hate a song because of the people who listened to it...

32. "Will 2K"—Will Smith (1999)
Can anyone even remember this song? "I guess he's caught in some wild, wild traffic..." Barely a hit, so, I guess there's some deep, academic reason this can't be replaced with, say: "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson"—DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.

31. "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm"—Crash Test Dummies (1994)
A song "Weird" Al parodied? That's just spineless.
Replace with: "Shine"—Collective Soul (FYI, to this day, thousands of people do not realize that is a drum machine).

30. "Greatest Love of All" —Whitney Houston (1986)
Should have been much, much higher.

29. "Breakfast at Tiffany's"—Deep Blue Something (1995)
Top ten. Who took the greenback shit to green-light the 5th Ave video shoot? Also, is this guy in jail for date rape yet?

28. "Your Body is a Wonderland"—John Mayer (2001)
Really not that bad. Dave Matthews Lite, Birkenstock-wearing pap, sure, but it pulls some interesting moves, melodically and in terms of production, from the best MOR album rock of the '70s.
Replace with: "Grace"—Jeff Buckley.

27. "The Final Countdown"—Europe (1987)
Every one of the hypocrites voting for this is A) trying to tell you the Darkness are a good band, and B) "ironically" banging their heads at Heavy Metal Karaoke every Thursday. When will you accept yourselves?
Replace with: "Battleship Chains"—Georgia Satellites.

26. "The End"—The Doors (1967)
Top three.

25. "I'll Be Missing You"—Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112 (1997)
Number one. There is no question. The most heinous crime committed in pop music history. Fuck Sean Combs.

24. "Superman"—Five for Fighting (2000)
I can get behind this, but they've got it way too high on the list. Swimming with shit like Ben Folds and Nada Surf, who can really pick out the worst soccer mom rock of the last five or so years? This is as good a place as any to note that more than half of these songs are variations on Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major."

23. "Sunglasses at Night"—Corey Hart (1984)
Top ten. Executives decide to rip off "Sweet Dreams," replacing genius unisex siren with cardboard cutout Vuarnet model. An atrocity.

22. "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)"—Toby Keith (2002)
I can't wait to see Mr. Three Names—Michael Ian Black—drive his one-trick pony into the meatgrinder on this one. Dude, you can admit it, dance around it, make fun of it, whatever—hang up the watching-it-all-slide-by jaded queen routine and sack up to the table. Philosophically speaking, this is the thinnest decision on the list. You want to get on your horse about intolerance and ignorance?
Replace with: "The Star Spangled Banner"—Francis Scott Key.

21. "Two Princes"—Spin Doctors (1992)
Again, the guilty consciences of a dozen insecure 26-36 year-olds that fucking loved this song in high/grade school and can't wait to tell everyone they were above it. Sell it somewhere else, this song's only horrible because it reminds you your life is a lie.
Replace with: "New Potato Caboose"—The Grateful Dead.

20. "Dancing on the Ceiling"—Lionel Richie (1986) (did this really happen?)
19. "Broken Wings"—Mr. Mister (1985)
18. "You're the Inspiration"—Chicago (1984)
Harmless fluff from a fluffy era. Overall, Mr. Mister may be one of the most embarrassing bands of the decade, but "Broken Wings" is no worse than "Safety Dance" or "Send Me an Angel"; it's phenomenally produced and not at all bad on its own merits. And how is "Dancing on the Ceiling" Top 20 as opposed to say...Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love"? Chicago, yes—Cetera wore a fucking Bauhaus t-shirt in this video, I mean...what the fuck. The most glaring example on record of a costume designer being cooler than her subject.

17. "Pumps and a Bump"—Hammer (1994)
Fair game. Embarrassing and definitively shallow, this was arguably the most egregious re-badging maneuver by a recording artist, ever. But the shift invalidated MC Hammer completely in the public eye, and nobody even heard this song. For punch, you gotta replace with: "Pray"—MC Hammer.

16. "What's Up?"—4 Non Blondes (1993)
Top five.

15. "I'll Be There for You"—The Rembrandts (1995)
Complete drivel, but at least it had a couple of hooks...take down something even more vanilla and replace with: "All I Want"—Toad the Wet Sprocket.

14. "From a Distance"—Bette Midler (1990)
If this sucks, so does "The Rose." The boys on this list have some mighty Oedipal issues to work through, hating this song so much. And as critics decided on taking a shot at Midler, they missed one of the most obvious gaffes in AOR album history.
Replace with: "Buckets of Rain"—Bette Midler & Bob Dylan.

13. "Illegal Alien"—Genesis (1983)
Phil is way too easy a target, they're not even listening to the song. It's just, "Phil's a ham, the song is lame." Fucking wrong. The scale-drop after the break is an excellent change-up, the harmonies on the choruses are first-rate, and casual racism is HOT STUFF. If "80s keyboards are lame," why the fuck are you hyping Scissor Sisters? Get your story straight next time.
Replace with: "The New"—Interpol.

12. "Kokomo"—Beach Boys (1988)
Silence! A highly original little ditty from out of nowhere that, cry me a river, they overplayed when you were young. Don't be an ingrate, your parents deserve music too.
Replace with: "When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going"—Billy Ocean.

11. "Invisible"—Clay Aiken (2003)
In one sense, this pretty much wipes out the whole list, because nobody even remembers "Invisible," less than a year later. In this case, I'm giving VH-1 a break: it's important to recognize the damage Pop and American Idol have done to the music industry from the top down.

10. "Ebony and Ivory"—Paul McCartney + Stevie Wonder (1982)
What's wrong with this song? Guaranteed they spend the whole special talking about the awkward video. Nice criterion, MTV babies. Wings is nowhere on this list. For shame.
Replace with: "Mary Had a Little Lamb"—Wings.

9. "American Life"—Madonna (2003)
Pointing a gun at Madonna, shooting blanks. Not real impressed by this selection given the multitude of alternatives.
Replace with: "Live to Tell"—Madonna.

8. "Party All the Time"—Eddie Murphy (1985)
At least it has an actual chorus! How this charts Top Ten and neither Bruce Willis nor Don Johnson show up is beyond me. No matter what you grab from this category, I pity the editors who have to reduce two hours of the same one-liners from these self-styled wannabe comedians down to a minute.
Replace with: "Must Be the Money"—Deon Sanders.

7. "Don't Worry, Be Happy"—Bobby McFerrin (1988)
What a sad flock of sheep it takes to continue smearing this song twenty years later. Yes, McFerrin's a dork, and fucking Robin Williams stinks it up to high hell in the video, but we're talking about songs, people. Name one that sounds anything like this. You've got a serious "cool" complex if you can't appreciate "Don't Worry, Be Happy" on any level.
Replace with: "Don't Wanna Fall in Love"—Jane Child.

6. "The Heart of Rock & Roll"—Huey Lewis & the News (1984)
The joke continues to be on critics, who don't realize Huey Lewis knew exactly what he was doing. Dude is the original Fred Durst. Huey's still sucking all the way to the bank—my parents saw him at the Cape Cod Melody Tent in 1999.
Replace with: "Velcro Fly"—ZZ Top.

5. "Ice Ice Baby"—Vanilla Ice (1990)
4. "Rollin'"—Limp Bizkit (2000)
3. "Everybody Have Fun Tonight"—Wang Chung (1986)
2. "Achy Breaky Heart"—Billy Ray Cyrus (1992)
All solid nominees for canonization as truly shitty songs, in every case atrociously thin on ideas and insidiously designed to reach the widest commercial audience.

1. "We Built This City"—Starship (1985)
Like I said, it's just too safe a play to make fun of something like this. Out-of-touch hippies see a band they smoked their first jay to "still rocking"; it gives them hope, and the former members of Jefferson Airplane get some much-needed cash for a small price: their souls. Yeah, it sucks, but it's not the worst song ever recorded.

So. What is "The Worst Song Ever Recorded"?

"The Flame"—Cheap Trick (1988)
Aging B-list stadium rockers with a bizarrely successful live album hit the hairspray and go power-ballad with a "Sister Christian" knockoff five years too late, and they didn't even write it. The guitar "solo" follows the vocal melody note-for-note, and in an era of Pavlovian slow-song lighter-lighting—a practice that should have died ten years earlier—it's called "The Flame." Half of America thinks this was on the Top Gun soundtrack.