Worst Songs of the 80's By The Headbunny I spent some time going through a bunch of music from the 80's (CD's, tapes and such) and I wondered about what I considered to be the worst tracks of the decade. The 80's spawned some pretty bad stuff but it was hard to pick a song that really turned my stomach. It's easy to come up with stuff in a genre you can't stand (anything by Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Allman Brothers, Michael Jackson's 80's output.) It would also be too easy to go after Toto, Air Supply or REO Speedwagon, as tempting as it is. The trick is to come up with songs that really bother you because you either liked the genre or the artist per se. Some of the worst songs of the 80's: Get Down Tonight - Shriekback This is the classic example of a good band doing the wrong thing in every way possible. Shriekback had been suffering declining record sales and had lost Dave Allen around the time the album Go Bang was put together. Go Bang has some good moments on it but this horrible cover of KC & The Sunshine band's party anthem obliterates them. The felony is compounded with a rap breakdown in the middle. Ugh. Girls With Guns - Tommy Shaw I've always been a fan of 'power pop' so this fits the genre category for me. Tommy Shaw was reeling from a Styx power struggle that had seen the rockin' party boy reduced to a bit player in Dennis DeYoung's vision for the band. He decided to go off on his own and create some of the worst music ever heard. until he joined Ted Nugent's Damn Yankees of course. I'm completely unaware of how the title has any meaning at all to the song - is it a metaphor? Who the hell cares?! It also features a classic 80's style keyboard lick that should be enough to curdle your blood in seconds. We Didn't Start The Fire - Billy Joel This one comes under 'greatest violation of the listening public' category. Michael Stipe and the rest of REM should have been able to sue the hell out of Joel for this blatant Baby Boomer styled rip-off of "It's The End Of The World As We Know It." It has elements of one of Joel's better songs ("Pressure") but it fails utterly on every level - an accomplishment in and of itself. We Are The World - Various Artists What the hell were they thinking? The UK track "Do They Know It's Christmas" was at least a catchy song. This was Johnny-come-lately crap of the highest order that radio stations played over and over as a 'feel good' track. May the Cube Be With You - Thomas Dolby It's worth noting that if you type in the phrase "worst songs of the 80's" into Google you get a link right at the top for Dolby's page on the web. Somewhere in that addled brain of his he decided to venture into P-Funk styled bump and grind for his album Aliens Ate My Buick. Luckily, not many people ever heard the disturbing results. However, one of my college roommates decided that this was his favorite album for some period and I was forced to listen to it repeatedly. While I could deal with the not so subtle innuendo of "Hot Sauce" it was impossible to listen to the aforementioned track. Even the name still starts a shudder down my spine. Theme from Dragnet - The Art of Noise This is a perfect choice because I love almost everything these folks have ever done, from their earliest work to their (slightly questionable) recent album. However this little slice of hell is the pea under the mattress of their catalogue. I'm sure the money was too good to pass up but something in their collective thought process should have flagged this as a bad idea. (Especially if they saw the early reels of the movie - oy gevalt!) Finally, one that technically is from 1991 but it sticks out worse than any other I can think of. Radio Song - REM I've always had a problem with post-Green era REM but this one takes the cake. Out of Time saw the band give up the ghost of Southern Gothic music and move into pop nirvana. It would take a long time to catalog the sins of Out of Time but Radio Song paired sappy strings, a preachy Stipe and. KRS-One?!?!? This one got more play than it ever should have due to the fact that it made music directors look 'hip' to play a song that was critical of them. ©2001 Fluffybunny.com. All Rights Reserved. Don't make us come after you.