I strongly object that "We built this city" is the worst song of all time.
Especially when we live in a world where "Sweet Caroline" (specifically sung by Neil Diamond) is a thing.
Especially when we live in a world where "Sweet Caroline" (specifically sung by Neil Diamond) is a thing.
Bob Dylan made three records of Christian music and 80% of the tracks from those are definitely worse than anything anyone’s discussing here.
There’s bad, and then there’s bad. The bad stuff is so bad it doesn’t even come up in worst-song conversations. Nor in so-bad-it’s-good conversations.
Many fans rejected them at the time because of the culture shock of his religious pivot, but that reaction was about the content, not the music, and has long faded. Nowadays it's understood that the sudden-fan-alienation-move is a Dylan thing, just like when he went electric at Newport in the first place.
I'm not gonna argue that "Man gave names to all the animals" is one of Dylan's finest, but I'd be interested to know which specific tracks you think are terrible, because those records are full of great songs, and so are some of the outtakes.
If you want awful Dylan I think you're a few years too early–Empire Burlesque anyone?
I sometimes like religious music, so that aspect’s not a deal-breaker for me. One of my favorite local bands was kinda secretly a Christian rock band, they just veiled the references enough and shifted things more-poetic so they didn’t sound ultra cheesy from the very first line like that stuff usually does, and probably some listeners didn’t even notice (they didn’t bill themselves as Christian rock and played normal venues). I love the couple of very-Christian tracks on Springsteen’s Nebraska.
> If you want awful Dylan I think you're a few years too early–Empire Burlesque anyone?
Sadly(?) that album-trilogy is the latest Dylan I’ve heard, so I can’t say whether it gets worse (but I’d believe it).
1: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k8rGB_NGkgen0y...
It's bittersweet
More sweet than bitter
Bitter than sweet
It's a bittersweet surrender
It's bittersweet
More sweet than bitter
Bitter than sweet
It's a bittersweet surrender
(these 8 lines are repeated 4 times through the song)
Or "Ghostbusters" (sorry, Ray, loved your earlier stuff)?
Or Huey Lewis and the News entire catalog?
... I don't know what to do, I'm always in the dark ... Once upon a time, there was light in my life But now there's only love in the dark ...
Under no circumstances can "power of love" be a bad song
On its own, it's probably not something I'd want to listen to much, but while watching the movie, it was fantastic, just like the rest of the movie.
It's much like any soundtrack music. The music by Howard Shore on Lord of the Rings probably isn't something you want to listen to by itself while you're jogging or whatever, but in the movie it's a perfect complement.
Their early work was a little too "new wave" for my taste, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically.