Songs that annoy you/send you into a rage?

[inkyatari]

  We Built This City has to be one of the biggest piles of excrement ever foisted on the listening public. 

Which was written by the usually pretty amazing Bernie Taupin.

[freebrickproductions]

I actually like We Built This City. IMHO, it's not a bad song and doesn't deserve all the hate that it unnecessarily gets. I almost wonder if the hate for it mostly stems from the several former members of the band leaving and the remaining members taking the group in a new direction.

Black Water by The Doobie Brothers is another song that I hate as it just annoys me. Especially since the group produced Long Train Running which is one of my favorite songs.

[Buck87]

Van Halen's version of "You Really Got Me"

[adventurernumber1]

I actually like We Built This City. IMHO, it's not a bad song and doesn't deserve all the hate that it unnecessarily gets. I almost wonder if the hate for it mostly stems from the several former members of the band leaving and the remaining members taking the group in a new direction.

I agree. I like the song as well, and I have never understood why it gets so much hate. 

Jefferson Airplane was a great band from the 1960's (and they had some good music), which later evolved into Jefferson Starship (through member changes and such), and then eventually into Starship (after even more members left), which is the artist of the song "We Built This City." It may not equal the great work that came out of the original state of the band in the past, but I still don't see why so many people think it's that terrible. Who knows, maybe it might be just because of different members being in the group, but I haven't a clue.   

[Rothman]

Don't forget Starship's song from Mannequin.

[Buck87]

This talk of We Built This City reminds me of one of my favorite misheard lyrics:

[sparker]

I actually like We Built This City. IMHO, it's not a bad song and doesn't deserve all the hate that it unnecessarily gets. I almost wonder if the hate for it mostly stems from the several former members of the band leaving and the remaining members taking the group in a new direction.

I agree. I like the song as well, and I have never understood why it gets so much hate. 

Jefferson Airplane was a great band from the 1960's (and they had some good music), which later evolved into Jefferson Starship (through member changes and such), and then eventually into Starship (after even more members left), which is the artist of the song "We Built This City." It may not equal the great work that came out of the original state of the band in the past, but I still don't see why so many people think it's that terrible. Who knows, maybe it might be just because of different members being in the group, but I haven't a clue.   

My own disdain for the song is based not so much on the new composition (or devolution, depending upon one's standpoint) of the band -- when the album was released in late '85, I actually purchased a copy, hoping for the best.  But the album was full of formulaic pop, devoid of virtually all of the musicianship (tasty Chaquico riffs being prominent by their absence) that made the group listenable even in its more mundane and/or lugubrious moments.  The addition of co-producer Peter Wolf's synthesized rhythmic lines (full-on forward in We Built This City, but echoing his first appearance on the previous (w/Kantner & Co.) album Nuclear Furniture (1984) with the forgettable ditty Magician, which had decent Slick vocals (although she seemed like she was running out of breath) but set against a truly annoying synthesizer rhythm section, courtesy of the aforementioned Mr. Wolf.  Repeating himself in We Built....., it doesn't fare better on a decidedly treacly song.  Maybe I'm just pissed that the fact is that the city -- or at least a large part of its musical history --  was built on the original Jefferson Airplane and successors, not Mr. Wolf and his dependence on electronic trickery.   Maybe the revered Mr. Taupin had a good (if presumptuous) song in him -- but the end product hardly did anyone involved justice.     

[sparker]

Don't forget Starship's song from Mannequin.

You mean Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now?  Standard-issue Diane Warren song (her compositions were all over the charts in the late '80's and early '90's; even Heart recorded one of her numbers and another one ended up in the James Bond film License To Kill); Starship was merely the vehicle for delivering that song; it required two distinct vocals, and Slick & Thomas did that reasonably well.   At least it was competently written and recorded, unlike much of their album fare.

[inkyatari]

I totally forgot "Candle in the Wind."

I love Elton JOhn, but this song..  I hated the Marilyn Monroe version, and loathed the princess di version.

[roadman65]

  We Built This City has to be one of the biggest piles of excrement ever foisted on the listening public. 

Which was written by the usually pretty amazing Bernie Taupin.

I remember once a station in NYC called Z100 who changed the lyrics to We Built This City on Z100 in the first verse.   They dubbed over the word Rock N Roll to add in their own chorus to say Z100 to be funny.

I also heard that WPLJ did the same thing with Huey Lewis' Power Of Love as that station used to call themselves Power 95 and a friend of mine heard it ( I did not though) but he said they overdubbed Lewis signing the Power of Love part to fit the station's nickname.

To me that was annoying as We Built This City was all right by me.  I know most down hard Starship fans hated that song even Paul Kantner who was a life long member of the band.  I believe he booked right before the song came out as Nuclear Furniture was his last appeared album (at least for the first run of the band as I heard they reformed again using the name over as they did with Jefferson Airplane in 1989).   Kantner hated the sound that the band was leaning for and that song was the poster song of his point.  The song was not typical Starship sound and therefore it got criticized just as when Genesis came out with the album And Then There Was Three, the first album by that band with the later sound and not the traditional Genesis Progressive sound, or even Van Halen 5150 where everybody did not want to like any song off that album cause David Lee Roth was no longer singing them.

[sparker]

  We Built This City has to be one of the biggest piles of excrement ever foisted on the listening public. 

Which was written by the usually pretty amazing Bernie Taupin.

I remember once a station in NYC called Z100 who changed the lyrics to We Built This City on Z100 in the first verse.   They dubbed over the word Rock N Roll to add in their own chorus to say Z100 to be funny.

I also heard that WPLJ did the same thing with Huey Lewis' Power Of Love as that station used to call themselves Power 95 and a friend of mine heard it ( I did not though) but he said they overdubbed Lewis signing the Power of Love part to fit the station's nickname.

To me that was annoying as We Built This City was all right by me.  I know most down hard Starship fans hated that song even Paul Kantner who was a life long member of the band.  I believe he booked right before the song came out as Nuclear Furniture was his last appeared album (at least for the first run of the band as I heard they reformed again using the name over as they did with Jefferson Airplane in 1989).   Kantner hated the sound that the band was leaning for and that song was the poster song of his point.  The song was not typical Starship sound and therefore it got criticized just as when Genesis came out with the album And Then There Was Three, the first album by that band with the later sound and not the traditional Genesis Progressive sound, or even Van Halen 5150 where everybody did not want to like any song off that album cause David Lee Roth was no longer singing them.

Actually, Kantner was really pissed at Mickey Thomas, whom he (with some justification) suspected of colluding with Peter Wolf and the RCA A&R department to force him out of the group.  By that time, Thomas had been collaborating on songwriting with mostly Craig Chaquico but occasionally with Slick.  Since Kantner had been the one to hire Thomas in the first place (replacing the ever-moody Marty Balin) he felt that his trust had been betrayed; it was a bit less so with Chaquico (who stuck with the group until about 1988), since Kantner had brought him on as a 16-year-old wunderkind on his duet (w/Slick) album Sunfighter back in 1971.  However, Kantner never worked with Chaquico again, replacing him on later efforts (the ill-fated KBC Band of 1986 and the later Jefferson Starship iterations) with another "young gun", Mark Aguilar.  Chaquico eventually went on to do "New Age" acoustic guitar work.  And Mickey Thomas still plies the trenches on occasion with "Mickey Thomas' Starship" (still churning out treacle, IMO).  Kantner was still playing (as much as his health would allow) with those J.S. iterations until his death in early 2016; the fact that he made it to age 74 (considering he was a 2-pack-a-day smoker) was itself something of a physical miracle.  To the end, he'd hold court at Vesuvio's Bar on Columbus Ave. in S.F. at least three nights a week, taking over the big back booth with his various cohorts and pontificating on all things political and social -- I'd get into arguments with him there on a regular basis back in the '80's:  he the unreconstructed radical, myself ever the old-fashioned pragmatic liberal (he certainly didn't appreciate that particular combination).  The last time I talked to him at that place was back about 2014 when my GF and I were coming out of dining next door at Brandy Ho's Hunan restaurant; we were walking up the street and saw him through the window, so I decided to introduce her to Paul.  Right off the bat he made the off-the-cuff comment to her that "are you sure you can't do better than him?"  -- referring to me sarcastically (his forte'!).  She had a good laugh about that.  He didn't look terribly well that evening -- but was smoking like a chimney anyway; we engaged in a bit of small talk and left.  That was the last time I saw Kantner before he died a bit over a year later.  He does leave a legacy of a whole genre of music (IMO a must-have album is his 1970 quasi-solo effort Blows Against The Empire).  RIP -- he didnt' have a lot of P in his lifetime.   

[inkyatari]

I remember once a station in NYC called Z100 who changed the lyrics to We Built This City on Z100 in the first verse.   They dubbed over the word Rock N Roll to add in their own chorus to say Z100 to be funny.

I also heard that WPLJ did the same thing with Huey Lewis' Power Of Love as that station used to call themselves Power 95 and a friend of mine heard it ( I did not though) but he said they overdubbed Lewis signing the Power of Love part to fit the station's nickname.

I remember that the local music station when I was a kid, WLS, had the song Fire by The Pointer Sisters.  They changed the lyric "You turn on the radio" to "you turn on WLS"

I also remember that the Huey Lewis song "The Heart of Rock and Roll" had a list of cities at the end, and they mentioned every big city in the US EXCEPT Chicago.  I'm guessing the local radio station contacted the record company, because a version where Chicago and Kansas City were added was released soon after. I've never been able to find this version.

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

The Safety Dance! I don't think it's good for general listening, but just good humor from the music video and the history behind it.

And nowadays I'll hear Hotel California being overplayed.


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[20160805]

The Safety Dance! I don't think it's good for general listening, but just good humor from the music video and the history behind it.

And nowadays I'll hear Hotel California being overplayed.


iPhone

TSD is my 6th favorite song

[CapeCodder]

The Safety Dance! I don't think it's good for general listening, but just good humor from the music video and the history behind it.

And nowadays I'll hear Hotel California being overplayed.


iPhone

You know, we can dance if we want to.

[freebrickproductions]

The Safety Dance! I don’t think it’s good for general listening, but just good humor from the music video and the history behind it.

And nowadays I’ll hear Hotel California being overplayed.


iPhone

You know, we can dance if we want to.

We can leave your friends behind...
Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance...
Well they're no friends of mine.

[roadman65]

When Men At Work first came out I hated them for the new sound they had.  Remember that was the time rock progressed into something different as previously the 70's sound still ruled pretty much.

Friends of mine used to argue with me and say it was the Police and not Men At Work that were the first to pioneer the sound.  To me the Police still sounded 70 ish but now that I look back at it the Police do sound very 80's and a ton of other bands before Colin Hay started singing "Who could that be knocking at my door" had the new sound.

Also when Bowie did Lets Dance that through me into a rage as it was not the normal Bowie sound I was accustomed to hear.  In fact to everyone around I grew up with we though David went disco as even R & B stations were playing that particular song on their playlists of the time. It did have a new kind of beat I must admit and hard to get used to.

Now I do not mind that song as I got older.

[roadman]

I totally forgot "Candle in the Wind."

I love Elton JOhn, but this song..  I hated the Marilyn Monroe version, and loathed the princess di version.

When I first heard the Princess Di version of "Candle in the Wind", my immediate thought was "Wow.  Here's a man with all this great talent, and he decides to remake a mediocre song instead of creating something original."

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

I can relate to being fond of Elton John, but Bennie and The Jets... I just find annoying.

[inkyatari]

I can relate to being fond of Elton John, but Bennie and The Jets... I just find annoying.

That's my absolute favorite song of his!

[Brandon]

Nothing sends me into a rage, but I do have some I strongly dislike:

Bon Jovi. :-C~

[inkyatari]

Nothing sends me into a rage, but I do have some I strongly dislike:

Bon Jovi. :-C~

I absolutely dislike 99% of bon joki's output

[freebrickproductions]

I can relate to being fond of Elton John, but Bennie and The Jets... I just find annoying.

Same here. I wonder if a studio version exists as well, because all I ever hear is that live version.

[inkyatari]

I can relate to being fond of Elton John, but Bennie and The Jets... I just find annoying.

Same here. I wonder if a studio version exists as well, because all I ever hear is that live version.

That is the studio version.  That's all sound effects.

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

I wonder if it was rendered through a can.


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