1.Kiss – Rock n roll all night- it’s warm with an instant flavor packet of melodic stadiumness. It is the Ramen noodles of a rock song….no substance, but it will take the hunger away and fool you into temporarily thinking you had something, you had nothing.
2. Bob Seger -Old time rock and Roll -“just take them old records off the shelf, I’ll sit and listen to them by myself’…why don’t you do that Bob- Horrible song which may have faded away had it not been for Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear in “Risky Business” .
3. Billy Joel -Still Rock n Roll to me– This song actually made it to number 1 for two weeks in 1980- What dark days these were…Bette Midler released “The Rose” which is better than this(Don’t get me wrong, I am not a fan of Bette, but if I happen to end up in a Mexican prison and they give me a choice of these two songs to listen to, not knowing what implications making this choice will lead to, I will take “The Rose” and hope for some “wind beneath my wings” to get the hell outa there!) Also in 1980 Michael Jackson was the still untarnished “king of pop/good angel” with “Rock with You” at the top of the charts (he had yet to hang babies out the window, marry Lisa Marie Presley for a couple weeks and sleep with 10 year olds) I am not judging here…I am just saying… he had some quirky habits.
4.Jefferson Starship– We built this city (on Rock and Roll) -Bernie Taupin was in on writing this??? Is this the same Bernie that wrote the great songs with Elton John? How do you go from “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” to this?- And Grace Slick was part of this mess? “one pill makes you change the name from airplane to starship and sing on one of the most insipid tracks of all time”. (that is a reference to Jefferson Starships’ “White Rabbit” for those that may not know-a great rock song)…What happened here? San Francisco must be some kind of city for people to produce this crap in an effort to keep paying the rent so they can stay there…that is the only reason that makes any sense.
The Final Countdown anyone?
Just realised the flaw in that suggestion. I did make a list myself of these by some bizarre coincidence. Rock n roll lies by Razorlight, Rock You All Around The World by Judas Priest, Rocky Racoon by The Beatles and Boyz Are Gonna Rock by Vinnie Vincent were on mine…
The great thing about music is that it is subjective. There is also this “exposure” thing as to really hate a song, you have to hear it a lot. I picked some that got played over and over at some point. That could be when they came out or in the case with Kiss, it gets played on that dreaded “Classic Rock” radio format all the time. “The Final Countdown” is interesting as I forgot how much I dislike that one but that intro is working a hole in my brain as I remember it. I always liked “Rocky Racoon” because it is a fun song. And really, defending the choices we put on these lists is what it is all about. I plan to do some more….thinking worst and best cover versions of songs next…
When We Built This City first came out, I had a test while riding in the car. If you heard “we built this city” and couldn’t get the station changed before they sang it a second time, you were dazed from driving too long and needed to stop and rest.
I don’t have the data on how many accidents this song caused, I’m gonna guess- more than a few…