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Post by #Infinity on Nov 27, 2017 19:11:40 GMT 10
For me personally, it was difficult coming up with a list here because I quite enjoy 80s songs virtually by default, with most of the decade's worst material simply being mediocre rather than painful. For now, I can only really come up with a bottom 8 songs of the 80s as opposed to a full bottom 10, and even then, only my number 1 pick is anywhere near as horrible as the songs I featured in my 2000s and 2010s lists.
8.
It feels like Chicago spent the entire decade writing the exact same song repeatedly, but this is easily the most tasteless of all their 80s ballads. It lacks the loud-drummed, hair metal bombast that their later power ballads can at least claim to have, and is instead just dully schmaltzy.
7.
This here would be the epitome of mid-late 80s ballad blandness. It has dumb, inane lyrics but none of the passion or enthusiasm that make even the cheesiest 80s love songs enjoyable.
6.
This song just seems extremely contrived, in my opinion. It's a tonal harbinger of all the lackluster dance songs from the early 90s that feel underwritten and stiffly gleeful. I don't exactly dislike it, but I'm also wholly disinterested by it.
5.
Sadly, rapping didn't quite translate as well to Adam Ant as it did to Talking Heads' Tina Weymouth or Blondie's Debbie Harry. This sounds more like a crude jam session in somebody's garage amidst a night of heavy drinking than a serious studio product.
4.
Early 80s new wave and post-punk was delightfully innovative and diverse, but unfortunately, with so much experimentation, you're certainly bound to eventually wind up with something that fails, like this. The composition itself is not so bad actually, but those vocals...yikes.
3.
Okay, I have no idea what kind of drugs Phil Collins was on to have put out this catastrophe the same year he released "In the Air Tonight."
2.
I'm actually mostly an apologist for New Kids on the Block and consider songs of theirs such as "You've Got It (The Right Stuff)" and even "Hangin' Tough" to be carefree floorfillers with great hooks and infectious rhythms. This, on the other hand, is pretty darn pathetic.
1.
Hands down, without any contest whatsoever, this is the absolute worst song of the 1980s I've ever come across. It's atrocious in almost every way possible. First of all, Sophia George has one of the most irritating and feeble singing voices this side of William Hung; if Diana King represents Caribbean female singers at their strongest, George showcases how pathetically limp and colourless they could get. Second, the lyrics. Oh god, those lyrics are hideous. It's bad enough the chorus is a childish schoolyard taunt with strongly homophobic undertones, but the verses don't even make a lick of sense, basically just being a long list of nursery rhyme clauses that have no thesis and are purely obnoxious instead of delightfully hooky. There are plenty of songs from the 1980s that I find forgettable or stale, but this is the only one that I genuinely, flat-out despise, just as much as I loathe the worst songs of the 21st Century such as "M.I.L.F. $" and "Wiggle."
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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2017 4:22:10 GMT 10
Everything by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Boring
Everything by Kylie except 'Got To Be Certain'. A singer she is not, she should have stuck to acting
'Ride On Time' by Black Box (worst song of the 1980s). A boring shouty mess
'We All Stand Together' by Paul McCartney (he really should know better!). Ridiculous
'Party Fears Two' by the Associates. Just no.
Everything by U2. Boring
'I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues' by Elton. A wrist slitting dirge.
'Vienna' by Ultravox. A boring slab of pretentious self indulgence.
'O Superman' by Laurie Anderson. Just what the funk is that about?
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Post by SharksFan99 on Nov 28, 2017 15:23:14 GMT 10
"Money For Nothing" is often regarded as one of the defining songs of the '80s (mostly due to it's groundbreaking music video) and while I do appreciate it's significance and influence on pop culture at the time, this song does not appeal to me whatsoever. The guitar riff is quite ordinary and the song is simply too repetitive for my liking. I wouldn't be upset if I could never listen to this song again.
Again, another song which simply doesn't capture my interest. It probably doesn't help that radio stations flog the song to death.
I'm not a fan of Axl Rose (or Guns 'N Roses, for that matter), but this song in particular is incredibly overrated and I honestly don't see the appeal in it.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2017 4:45:23 GMT 10
O silly me, o silly, silly me! How could I have forgotten that utter borefest otherwise known as 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart'? Hate it with a vengeance and a passion.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Dec 8, 2017 18:21:47 GMT 10
O silly me, o silly, silly me! How could I have forgotten that utter borefest otherwise known as 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart'? Hate it with a vengeance and a passion. I'm not particularly a fan of it either, although I personally think that there are worse songs out there! 
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2017 4:10:54 GMT 10
Yes, Shark, there are. 'Ride On Time' by Black Box for instance.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Dec 27, 2017 12:57:55 GMT 10
This song from 1989 is pretty bad. To be honest, I would personally consider this to be one of the worst Australian songs of the '80s. Prior to the release of this single, Collette was a model. She had no previous experience with music, which is quite obvious with how poor her vocal skills are. Incredibly, it managed to peak at #5 on the Australian ARIA Chart and #4 in New Zealand.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Dec 29, 2017 10:04:36 GMT 10
I can't believe Charlene's cover of "I've Never Been to Me" was so successful worldwide. It's quite bad in a number of aspects. The music video is extremely cheap and tacky. There are hardly any transitions/visual effects and the choice of scenes are repetitive. I also personally find the song to be really uninspiring and soppy.
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Post by #Infinity on Dec 29, 2017 15:44:06 GMT 10
I got sort of into this song at first because of its slick melody and classic production, but unfortunately, everything else just kind of kills it. Fancy's prissy voice doesn't exactly bring much to this sex jam in the first place, but good lord, is that chorus a bomb. Spelling out words in the middle of a major hook is already one of my most hated pop song clichés, as it typically just sounds childish and shows extreme laziness to me. However, making "S-L-I-C-E, slice me nice" your only lines and then repeating the phrase several times over? Yeesh, it wears pretty thin, especially when your singer can't sell his suaveness in the slightest. Why say the letters to the word 'slice', anyway? Even Ottowan's scathingly outdated "D.I.S.C.O" sounds less awkward; at least the word 'disco' isn't used regularly directly after being spelt out, and the verses even expand upon the cliché to give it more purpose.
The terrible chorus isn't even the only spot where the lyrics fall flat; the line, "I'm like a cake that wants to be baked" just doesn't sit well with me at all, probably because not only is it a clunky rhyme, but also because it's a simile, and not a very effective one at that. The following lyric, "I'm like a pie made for hungry guys," is guilty of the same, but possibly even clumsier. What does he even mean when he says "cut me in two?" Unless he's got a death wish or something, that imagery is completely confused and meaningless, as far as I'm concerned. And no, for the record, I don't think this song is supposed to be implicitly homosexual, even though I've read vague suggestions that Fancy himself is queer; it was only 1984, and the video has him hitting on a woman, anyway.
Whatever the case, this is still just a horribly disjointed and irritating song that really undermines what's usually enough for me to like early/mid-80s dance pop by default. I would probably put it at #6 on my original list.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Dec 29, 2017 16:01:26 GMT 10
What does he even mean when he says "cut me in two?" Unless he's got a death wish or something, that imagery is completely confused and meaningless, as far as I'm concerned. I believe the lyric is just a poor attempt at extending off the message conveyed in the "I'm like a pie made for hungry guys" line. My interpretation of it, is that it's metaphoric for Fancy wanting to have sexual intercourse with someone. It has the same underlying meaning as the "slice me nice" lyric, albeit the latter is much less subtle and more definite in it's meaning.
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Post by #Infinity on Dec 29, 2017 16:17:53 GMT 10
I believe the lyric is just a poor attempt at extending off the message conveyed in the "I'm like a pie made for hungry guys" line. My interpretation of it, is that it's metaphoric for Fancy wanting to have sexual intercourse with someone. It has the same underlying meaning as the "slice me nice" lyric, albeit the latter is much less subtle and more definite in it's meaning. I get the connection to pies and cakes, but it still makes no intuitive sense as a metaphor. You can't just compare any mundane action to having sex when the implied shapes and motions don't correlate whatsoever. Things such as electric plugs, car engines, rockets, make sense as sexual innuendos because they're intuitively comparable to intercourse. Slicing cake isn't. Heck, even Warrant's "Cherry Pie" works perfectly fine lyrically. Yes, a cherry pie is supposed to be tasty, but not only is is used as a metaphor there instead of a simile, there isn't any distracting focus on cutting the dessert like there is in "Slice Me Nice." Because it's so simple and direct, it feels very natural to imagine the woman's privates as a cherry pie, whereas "S-L-I-C-E, slice me nice" just leaves me attempting to suspend my disbelief to no avail.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Dec 29, 2017 16:32:31 GMT 10
I get the connection to pies and cakes, but it still makes no intuitive sense as a metaphor. You can't just compare any mundane action to having sex when the implied shapes and motions don't correlate whatsoever. Things such as electric plugs, car engines, rockets, make sense as sexual innuendos because they're intuitively comparable to intercourse. Slicing cake isn't. Heck, even Warrant's "Cherry Pie" works perfectly fine lyrically. Yes, a cherry pie is supposed to be tasty, but not only is is used as a metaphor there instead of a simile, there isn't any distracting focus on cutting the dessert like there is in "Slice Me Nice." Because it's so simple and direct, it feels very natural to imagine the woman's privates as a cherry pie, whereas "S-L-I-C-E, slice me nice" just leaves me attempting to suspend my disbelief to no avail. True, but that's the purpose of it being metaphoric. It's not literal in the sense that it actually is what it is implying. For instance, it's like when you hear someone say they that are experiencing a "rollercoaster of emotions". It implies a meaning, but it's not based on surface value. I believe those retrospective lyrics were intended to convey the same meaning as more common sexual innuendos, such as plugs, car engines etc. The only reason why it doesn't particularly make any sense, is because the lyrics are nonsensical and it's poor songwriting. It's metaphoric in the idea that it is extending off the "I'm like a pie made for hungry guys" lyric. If you were to evaluate the "cut me in two" lyric without considering the previous line, it wouldn't make any intuitive sense. That's just my interpretation of it anyway.
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Post by #Infinity on Dec 29, 2017 16:39:33 GMT 10
I get the connection to pies and cakes, but it still makes no intuitive sense as a metaphor. You can't just compare any mundane action to having sex when the implied shapes and motions don't correlate whatsoever. Things such as electric plugs, car engines, rockets, make sense as sexual innuendos because they're intuitively comparable to intercourse. Slicing cake isn't. Heck, even Warrant's "Cherry Pie" works perfectly fine lyrically. Yes, a cherry pie is supposed to be tasty, but not only is is used as a metaphor there instead of a simile, there isn't any distracting focus on cutting the dessert like there is in "Slice Me Nice." Because it's so simple and direct, it feels very natural to imagine the woman's privates as a cherry pie, whereas "S-L-I-C-E, slice me nice" just leaves me attempting to suspend my disbelief to no avail. True, but that's the purpose of it being metaphoric. It's not literal in the sense that it actually is what it is implying. For instance, it's like when you hear someone say they that are experiencing a "rollercoaster of emotions". It implies a meaning, but it's not based on surface value. Of course metaphors aren't supposed to be completely literal, but in order for them to be poetic and effective, they should at least be congruent. Cutting a cake does not make me think of sex, not even in the slightest.Just because you tie the lyric to a metaphor that does have potential as a sexual innuendo doesn't make it any more intuitive. Is a song like this here anything more legitimate than hilariously awful just because of the mundane implied meaning? Actually, to be honest, even R. Kelly's trip to the zoo sounds more like actual sex than Fancy's cake-cutting fetish. When your lyrics are less dignified than even the most self-parodistically desperate R. Kelly sexual metaphors, you know your lyrics are incompetent.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Dec 29, 2017 16:54:41 GMT 10
True, but that's the purpose of it being metaphoric. It's not literal in the sense that it actually is what it is implying. For instance, it's like when you hear someone say they that are experiencing a "rollercoaster of emotions". It implies a meaning, but it's not based on surface value. Of course metaphors aren't supposed to be completely literal, but in order for them to be poetic and effective, they should at least be congruent. Cutting a cake does not make me think of sex, not even in the slightest. It doesn't make me think of sex either, but it depends on the context that it's used in. "Slice Me Nice" is clearly based on sexual undertones, so despite the nonsensical nature of the "cutting a cake" line, it would ultimately be intended to convey a meaning which supports the rest of the song. I would suggest that it is more intuitive in it's meaning, because it's more abstract and doesn't convey a clear, definitive message. It's completely open to interpretation. The only thing we do know, is that it's intended to be based on a sexual undertone of some kind, like the rest of the lyrics.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Jan 10, 2018 14:50:41 GMT 10
This song from 1988 is quite bad. It was a Top-10 hit in many countries around the world, however it only peaked at #83 in the US.
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