Least Favorites

Lots of people post top ten lists. Let's try a slightly something a little different. I was driving home this evening, and for some reason I started thinking about what my least favorite songs were. (Actually, the reason was that I was thinking about my post about John Mellencamp's new album, and a couple of his songs that I really don't like very much popped into my head) .

Of course, there's so much garbage music out there, it's really hard to choose which ones are the worst, but I settled on criteria for two categories of least favorites. Here are the categories, and my selections.

Least Favorite Song That Was Very Popular During A Period When I Generally Liked Things That Were Popular

In this category, the process is pretty simple. If you haven't liked most popular music for the past 15 years, don't pick anything from the last 15 years! Go back in time to whatever period it was when your own tastes in music most closely matched what was popular, and pick a song that everybody else liked but you really hated! And my selection for this category is, without question: "Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners. I could never fathom why this song became popular. With the disco era mostly over, and the heavy metal, hip-hop and grunge eras not yet started, the early 80s was a time when I could actually bear to listen to both "Top-40" and "AOR" (album-oriented rock) radio. But this song just got on my nerves.

Least Favorite Song By One Of My Favorite Artists

I think the title for this category is pretty much self explanatory. No matter how good the artist is, they can't be great on every song. In this category, I have a few selections: Blondie's cover of "The Tide Is High", The Grateful Dead's "Shakedown Street", The Beatles' "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey", and The Rolling Stones' "Miss You" all fit this category pretty well, but I'm going to go with Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody" because he's done so much music that I love for so many years, but the Slow Train Coming album and this song in particular are not the message that I'm looking for from him. It was his right, of course, to explore that musical and personal direction, but I don't have to listen to it.

So, what are your least favorites?