Those Who Can't Do, Make "Worst Of" Lists

[filkertom]

Blender (a subsidiary of Alpha Media Group and a spinoff of Maxim Magazine, last I checked, so we're not exactly talking the smartest guys in even a small room) names Sting as their Worst Lyricist, invoking his "mountainous pomposity (and) cloying spirituality."

I think they were just pissed because they had to look stuff up to know what the songs were about.

What are your choices for most pretentious lyrics ever, and why? I'd cop to most of the songs in the musical Jekyll/Hyde, because they try to hard so make the Oh So Dramatic Situation as fraught as possible by spelling out every single detail in such a way that you realize the whole show could've been over in one act. Right behind that is "Reflections" from Disney's Mulan, trying to be both generic and specific and managing only to be cloying, and "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton, which has all the deep meaning and soul-searching you'd expect from a fifteen-year-old writer of Pokemon fanfic.

(Oy. On the Blender front page, they have an article on Vanessa Carlton. She's into "ass beats". Whatever that may be.)

Comments

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

Well, to give them some credit, Every Breath You Take has to be top-ten "Oh, Ick!" pop songs of all time. Along with "Johnny, Get Angry", "My Boyfriend's Back"....

(I've read his comments about it being about big brother, but from reading the lyrics, I take that as revisionism. The "baby, baby, please" kind of ruins his claim.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Oh hell yeah. Classic stalker material.

I would argue that the other two are merely dumb or shallow, not pretentious. Although I am now recalling "The Night Chicago Died"....

[ldwheeler.livejournal.com]

Heh. He's spoken of writing "If You Love Someone, Set Them Free" specifically as an antidote to the Vile Evil Poison with which he inflicted the world with "Every Breath You Take." Catch is, "Free" never caught on the way "Breath" did.

It does have to be annoying to write a song about dysfunctional, borderline abusive relationships and then see couples adopt it as Their Song. The same thing happens with R.E.M.'s "The One I Love."

[celtickittenmew.livejournal.com]

Without a doubt the MOST pretentious piece of crap I've heard lately is Avril Lavigne's, "When You're Gone." That song is as sappy as it is a pale attempt at personal depth in a public venue. Of course, it is only scarcely ahead of the ever attrocious "Big Girls Don't Cry," by Fergie. Billboard, please hire some music reviewer with ears that are not either perpetually flat or tuned to fluff!

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Oh, pretty much anything by Andrew Lloyd Weber.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Word. Um, words :-)

The man who single-handedly destroyed Broadway for musicals, until revived by Disney and Mel Brooks.

[kinsfire.livejournal.com]

I read that front page article, and they certainly didn't treat her like the hottest thing. If anything, they seemed to be ridiculing her. Given her answers, that was pretty easy to do.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'll have to look at it. But, remember the old adage about Any Kind Of Publicity. It's not exactly true, but it's not completely false either.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Jeff Lynne - ELO.

Dude, you're in a 70's pop band with a string section growing out of it's side like a cojoined twin. Cut back on the Heavy Meaningful Lyrics!

I still love my ELO, but damn some of those song border on ose!

uhm...

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

Why did Weber come up when talking about pretentious lyrics? He's the composer, not the lyricist, at least most of the time. The lyrics in W&R musicals are Rice's fault.

And sure, most of Rice's output is arguably pretentious - and Sondheim's, too, for that matter ("pelf"? Seriously, Stevie? And rhyming it with "wealth"?!), but that doesn't stop me enjoying the heck out of it. :)

Seems like a lot of Classic Rock bands tend toward the pretentious lyrics-wise, starting with Led Zep. Jethro Tull may be the most egregious violator. Some Rush, too, but for the most part Peart seems to manage to come off as just really that smart, rather than pretentious.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

#include <std_rant_aboutimagine_by_john_lennon>

And much though I really like it, Karn Eval 9, 3rd Impression by ELP...

[devospice.livejournal.com]

You know, it's funny. I've actually looked up the definitions of several words in songs by Carcass. Those guys liked to use million dollar medical terminology in their songs, mostly on the album Necrotism: Descanting The Insalubrious. (Had to look up 3 of the 4 words in the album title alone.)

As for pretentious songs, I'm gonna go with "Sexyback" by Justin Timberlake for $500, Alex.

[youngcurmudgeon.livejournal.com]

Heart Full of Love from Les Miz. What kills me is there's a chance when Cosette gives Marius a chance to shut up ("Cosette! I don't know what to say!" "... Then make no sound!") and he just keeps singing.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

"Rock Me Amadeus", for the Chronology in which Mozart paves the way for Falco.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

"I've Never Been To Me". BLEECCCHH!

And I have some terrific nominees in the category of "Worst Arrangement of a Perfectly Good Song"

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

My first thought on "most pretentious lyrics" is MacArthur Park by Jimmy Webb (famous performers include Richard Harris, Waylon Jennings, Donna Summer).

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Also most obscure...

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

This'll get me killed by Live Casts everywhere, but...any of the lyrics written by Richard O'Brien for Rocky Horror Picture Show or Shock Treatment. Especially after writing a detailed cast script for RHPS, and having read the lyrics in detail, I began gritting my teeth.

Ritz never met a rhyme he didn't like. Ever. Even if he had to bash the rest of his lyrics into incomprehensible mush, he'd make the damn lines rhyme!

Second worst: whoever wrote Boy George's "Karma Chameleon." Think about it: "Red, gold and green...red, gold and green..." What in hell was that? The inside of somebody's mouth after dental work without teeth cleaning?

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Traffic lights.

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

I recently went through YouTube looking for videos of songs I hadn't heard in forever, and I only yesterday realized just how BAD the lyrics are to "Get Up (Before the Night is Over)" by Technotronic.

Party all night, cut the fight
Do what's right and you just might
Win a battle you never fought
Just by checking the records you bought

WTF?!?! Mind you, I did not miss the song for its sparkling clever lyrics (I have the Bloodhound Gang for that; "lonelier than Kunta Kinte at a Merle Haggard concert" = win). I was just distressed to find I liked anything about a song that bad.

Oh, and most pretentious...does "Without Me" by Eminem count, or does it get a pass because the hip-hop music scene mandates at least one song where you talk about how you are a better singer, a a better writer, and better in the sack than everyone else?

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

Hey, Sting may be pretentious on occasion, but he's also a (%#(% brilliant songwriter. So I say meh to Blender.

And if I hear one more frickin' song declaring "I'm the greatest" after their single was #1 for two weeks on Billboard's "Songs For Red-Headed Lefthanded Capricorns" list...I'm gonna smack someone. Just sayin'.

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

'song declaring "I'm the greatest"'

I have a general aversion to any song in which the singer/group sings about their own singing/playing. (Exception given to Dr. Hook or anyone else who makes fun of their own singing/playing.) I was seriously hurt when an example appeared on a Carlos Santana album.

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

I don't know that it's so much pretentious, but "Unfaithful" by Rihanna is the biggest slice 'o' drivel I've come across in recent years. I ranted about this at length last year.

When it comes to pretentious, though, you can't beat Jewel. "I got my eggs and my pancakes too, I got my maple syrup, everything but you" makes me want to burn down a Denny's. I remember Mad Magazine making fun of her poetry book in a beautifully scathing way, with faux-poems like an ode to her dyslexia containing the phrase "the words danced on the page like legless kittens on a skillet."

-=ShoEboX=-

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

In the desert, you can't remember your name,
For there ain't no one for to give you no pain.

I'll stand by this. Despite the many, many, many contenders.

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Thank you.

-=ShoEboX=-

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

By the way -- if you haven't read Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs, I most sincerely recommend it. Just have Jack Daniel's and Brain Bleach to hand.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

I'd cop to most of the songs in the musical Jekyll/Hyde

Oh lord, that's one of the prime examples I pull out to show people what I mean by "awful lyrics." Granted, I've only listened to the Concept album--so maybe it's improved since then--but even the magnificient Anthony Warlow singing the lead (the sole reason I bought it) can't wholly redeem the songs from their exceedingly clunky lyrics.

The world has gone insane!
And parasites are eating at my brain!
...The world has lost its head!
And every evil hour is filled with dread!
I'm floating on a lake--but upside down!
And when I try to breathe, I start to drown!

Try singing that with a straight face at a moment of high drama.

[tony-goldmark.livejournal.com]

Does Sting even write his own lyrics? He never struck me as much of a wordsmith.

It's been almost ten years since anyone gave more than half a crap about them, but the purveyors of the most pretentious lyrics the world has ever known - not necessarily the worst, just the most pretentious - has got to be Creed.

"i'm the greatest" lyrics

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

Sometimes these are so over the top they go right through terrible and back around to funny. Case in point; Lou Bega, of "Mambo Number Five" fame. Most of his stuff seems to be braggadocio, but the lyrics that stand out are from "Can I Tico Tico You?":

The only style I play is my. self-made hits!
And it kicks like that? 
Yo, it really does.
Was it number one?
Hey yo, it really was!

I got the swing;
The king's back in the ring;
Ladies throw their bras when I start to sing!

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I'll nominate "Atlantis" by Donovan. Pretention and woo-woo, all in one neat little package! Which is not to say I hate the song. It's an outstanding example of one of the styles from its period, and a must-have on any Psychedelic-60s playlist... but egad, those lyrics.

For that matter, Donovan's other two major hits, "Mellow Yellow" and "Hurdy Gurdy Man," aren't much better; they just lack the woo-woo factor.

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

He also did a song called, I Love My Shirt. Not sure about pretentious, but very high on the "You said...what?" scale.

(And, yes, I'm a big Donovan fan....)

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I think pretentiousness is overrated as a sin. There are worse offences.