Nowadays, it's not hard for us to find stuff that really ticks us off. There's no avoiding it. Look at the front page of the paper -- news about the debacle in Iraq, the presidential campaign that we're already sick of, and, for some reason, Paris Hilton. The sports section? No refuge for dismayed Yankee fans. Arts section? More news about those damn $250 Police tickets. Business? Gotta love reading about how the music biz is a dead industry walking, and how we'll all have to buy music by the ringtone in five years.
This list is a reminder of a bygone era. A simpler time, when something as innocent as a godawful song was all it took to piss us off. Annoying hit songs were harder to avoid back then, before everyone had his entire record collection on his iPod and before there were three satellite radio stations for every man, woman and child on earth. These songs were drummed into our heads on the radio, and later on MTV and VH-1, and they've stuck in our craws ever since, the way a sesame seed gets stuck in a dental bridge.
These aren't our 10 least favorite songs, or what we think are the 10 worst songs ever recorded. No, these are the songs that, half an hour after we hear them, still leave us muttering to ourselves, "How could anyone have liked this song which, if anything, is slightly less pleasurable than sticking red-hot tongs in our eyeballs?"
10. MY LOVE - Paul McCartney & Wings (1973). It's hard to believe that a mere four years before this was recorded, Paul was working on Abbey Road. But it's the lyrics -- the chorus, specifically -- that really puts it over the top for us. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa," Paul meaningfully intones, "whoa whoa whoa whoa. My love does it good." We don't think he ever would have had the guts to play it for Lennon had the Beatles still been a going concern in '73. It's unfortunate that Henry McCullough's brilliant guitar solo was wasted in such a putrid little tune.
9. THE BEST- Tina Turner (1989). Tina Turner had a much-deserved comeback in the 80's. We all read about her terrible life with Ike, and we embraced her every move after her not-bad remake of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" got the ball rolling. Unfortunately, the downhill slide began with the atrocious "We Don't Need Another Hero," from that Mad Max movie. (Why the hell was that a hit?) But, the nadir of Miss Turner's existence is "The Best." (Actually, the nadir of her existence was probably getting beaten by Ike. But you know what we mean.) "You're simply the best/better than all the rest/better than anyone...." Uh..."better than you two over there/ and uh....better than that woman with with the baby stroller....and uh....better than all the rest...oh, said that already." We get it. It IS called "The Best," for Pete's sake.
8. I DON'T WANT TO WAIT - Paula Cole (1997). This one pisses us off for one line, pretty much: "Say a little prayer for I." What the hell is that? Since Paula Cole's not a Rasta, we can only conclude that she was too lazy to come up with a line that rhymed with "Say a little prayer for ME." "Damn, what the hell rhymes with 'me'? Ahhh, screw it -- 'Say a little prayer for I.' " The fact that this song was not only a monster hit, staying on the charts for a full year, but also became the opening theme for Dawson's Creek, means that we still hear it every now and then 10 years after the fact, which leads us to conclude that the gods hate us. N.B. Tony once saw Paula eating lunch in the West Village, and seriously contemplated dumping his chicken salad on her head.
7. WHO WILL SAVE YOUR SOUL - Jewel (1995). Back in the mid '90s, it seemed like Jewel could do no right, cranking out one horrific, annoying single after another -- all of which stormed the VH-1 playlists and the Hot 100. But her first was the worst. "Who Will Save Your Soul" features Jewel folkily crooning, growling like a blueswoman (albeit a white blueswoman from Alaska), and cooing like a six-year-old, all within the 12 seconds or so of the insufferable chorus. Preachy lyric plus annoying singing plus dull melody equals pissed off Tony & Sal.
6. CROCODILE ROCK - Elton John (1973). Elton's vast output has its merits, of course. But damn, this song pisses us off. We assume it was intended as a '50s rock and roll pastiche, but it removes all the passion and excitement that characterized the music and leaves in all the lame crap, like the sub-Frankie Valli chorus. It's like an episode of Happy Days set to music, but not the good early episodes. This is like one of those later episodes from 1980, where everyone has the blow-dried disco haircuts even though it's supposed to be 1962, and whenever Chachi walks on the set all the girls scream and applaud for about four minutes. That's what this song is like.
5. EVERYBODY HURTS - R.E.M. (1992) R.E.M. is one of our very favorite bands. But oh lordy, does this song piss us off. On what's otherwise one of the best albums of the '90s (Automatic For The People), Michael Stipe whines and screeches his way through a trite self-help lyric and a shopworn melody. Stipe is an excellent frontman, but he should never, never try to make like a soul singer. Would you want to hear Solomon Burke singing about legumes or Cyrus Vance? Didn't think so.
4. UNDER THE BRIDGE- Red Hot Chili Peppers (1991). For four albums, the Chili Peppers rocked and funked and kicked our butts with their unique brand of James Brown-meets- Funkadelic-at-a-hardcore punk party in the Cali Valley. Did they sell any records? Not really. But they finally hit the big time with their Number Two single, "Under The Bridge," a clumsily written confessional of lead singer Anthony Kiedis' drug days. How it managed to be so successful with such insipid lyrics and the now legendary off-key caterwauling of Kiedis -- a trait that went unnoticed when the band did what they did best, which wasn't playing ballads -- is beyond us.
3. DIRTY LAUNDRY - Don Henley (1982). How does this song piss us off? Let us count the ways. "KICK'EM WHEN THEY'RE UP! KICK'EM WHEN THEY'RE DOWN! KICK'EM WHEN THEY'RE UP! KICK'EM ALL AROUND!" Let's start with that. Then throw in the super-cheesy 80's production that's so dated it makes a Rudy Vallee 78 sound more current, and of course, Henley's delivery of the line, "Bubble-headed bleach-blonde," and what you have is a musical ipecac.
2. I GOT YOU (I FEEL GOOD) - James Brown (1965). This one is obviously a great song, but it pisses us off because for a while in the '80s, it was used in the trailer for every lame comedy film that Hollywood spewed out. So, 20 years later, we can't hear it without also hearing a voiceover in our heads saying "He's a rich stockbroker with a thing for race cars. She's a sexy mechanic with a filthy mouth. Judge Reinhold and Shelley Long star in..."
And the #1 song that pisses us off...
1. ZOMBIE - The Cranberries (1994). Sinead O'Connor's first two records weren't so amazing that we needed a replacement when she decided to give up music and become a lesbian Rasta nun. But Dolores O'Riordan felt different, and her irritating brogue was heard on the radio and in department stores throughout the mid '90s. We still can't decide what's more annoying, the chorus ("In yer heee-eead! In yer heee-eee-eee-eead! Zah-ham-beh! Zah-ham-beh! Zah-ham-beh!") or the fact that it appealed to everyone from age six to 65.
Idea: Put these 10 songs in a playlist and blast it over the Tora Bora mountain range. Watch how quickly Bin Laden surrenders.