Songs you love by artists you can't stand

[Mike Blakesley]

Do you have songs that you can't help but like, even though you can't stand the artist involved?

One that stands out for me is "A New Day Has Come" by Celine Dion. Overall, her music drives me nuts but that song makes me listen every time. I'm sure more will come out as I think about it.

What about you? Songs you like, by artists you hate.

Mike B.

DISCLAIMER: Thread idea stolen from the Alan Parsons mailing list

 

[Trevor]

Most of Weird Al Yankovic's songs. I think the guy is beyond weird, but everytime I hear one of his songs, I can't help but to laugh!

 

[LPJim]

"Side of the Road" by Lucinda Williams is one of the most beautiful ballads I've ever heard. She's a great songwriter, but I don't especially care for her vocals in large doses. Her other songs are mostly hard-edged blues numbers, not my favorite style and totally different from that one song I truly treasure.
JB

 

[Harry]

I generally cannot stomach anything by Rod Stewart but since he did one song with The Corrs, I was "forced" to accept at least that. So his song "Ooh La La" from WHEN WE WERE THE NEW BOYS with The Corrs playing backing is at least acceptable.

(But I made sure to purchase a used disc so as not to give the over-rated foghorn any of my money!)

Harry

 

[Dave]

I'm not much of a Joe Cocker fan, but I think his version of "Feelin' Alright" is one of the best songs there is...!

The musical backing seems to be very compatible, too... I can imagine Leon Russell playing the piano on this one, (which I'm quite sure there were plans for him, as well as the other musicians on Cocker's later albums to) but Artie Butler and the other musicians who backed him on this number pound it out very well...!



Dave

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Rod Stewart - good one, Harry. I'm no big fan of his either, but he had one song "Gi'me Wings" (from the album FOOLISH BEHAVIOUR) that I really liked, and I was kind of a fan of "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy" during the disco era. But most of the rest of his stuff.....not for me either.

 

[DAN BOLTON]

It may be a heresy here at the forum, but I always liked Kenny G.'s SONGBIRD...it has a New York -jazz flavor to my ears that is kind of remeniscent of Bob James' ANGELA, the theme from "Taxi". I can't explain it, it's just a feeling I get when I listen to it. I never got that feeling from anything else he's ever done since, though. I sometimes think he should have stopped there.

We're still friends, right?


Dan

 

[Captain Bacardi]

YOU! OUT OF THE GENE POOL!!!!!!


A couple of mine are George Michael/Wham for "Kissing A Fool" and "Careless Whisper".

Lionel Richie - "All Night Long" and "Hello".

Little River Band - "Reminiscing" and "Light Of Day"

KC & the Sunshine Band - "I'm Your Boogie Man"



Capt. Bacardi
...wondering if I should now go to therapy online....

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Well out of all the Kenny G I've heard, I would say I like "Songbird" the best. It reminds me of a nice girl I used to hang out with, so that's a good thing.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

Rod Stewart is a really good choice of artists I can't stand. I do, however, like his version of "Your Song" which appears on the "Two Rooms" tribute album for Elton John & Bernie Taupin.

Ed

 

[seashorepiano]

Good topic, Mike. Well, let's see. Songs I love by artists I can't stand... Chris Montez's "Face I Love" would be among them.

 

[Trevor]

I think we are missing many "One Hit Wonders" in this topic.

Who has bought a album (CD) based on 1 song on the radio, and have the rest of the album sound nothing like that one song? ? ? Cardigans "lovefool" cd.

or

Who has bought a album (CD) based on 1 song on the radio, and have the rest of the album sound exactly like that one song?! Enya - Sail Away... Great Song, but the whole album sounded like that one song!!! 50+ minutes of that. (should be a warning - "don't drive while listening to this CD")

 

[JMAR5]

I know Trevor....what comes to mind is Madonna's Confessions on the Dance Floor. It all sounds the same to me.

 

[Dave]

I like the abbreviated version of "Your Song" by Andy Williams--he leaves the part about "Sat on the roof, kicked off the moss" off... (How does a roof have MOSS on it anyway?)

Though the "It's for people like you, yeah... Keep it turned on!" part is my favorite; usually go right to the "Excuse me forgetting, but these things I do, you see I've forgotten if it's green or it's blue" then that last line when I sing it...



Dave

 

[Actorman]

That's funny, Dave. I never interpreted that lyric as literally kicking moss off the roof. I always took that to mean the singer of the song was kicking the allegorical "moss" off of himself. A play on the old saying "a rolling stone gathers no moss." He (the singer) has "gathered moss" but is so inspired by his love that he's "kicking it off" to write her a song.

This might actually be a fun topic for a separate thread: interpretations of strange lyrics.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I always thought that lyric was "kicked at the moss," meaning just absentmindedly kicking at some moss on the roof. For a definitive answer, I dug out my copy of CAPTAIN FANTASTIC on LP, which came with a book containing a picture of the original handwritten lyrics to "Your Song," Well, proof is still doubtful...in the picture, it looks like "kicked of[/i] the moss" which really makes no sense, so I have to believe "off" is correct since it turns up that way on lots of lyric sites. I don't have the original ELTON JOHN album it appeared on...are the lyrics included there?

 

[Rudy]

I'm confused: I've got Captain Fantastic on SACD sitting in front of me, but can't find "Your Song" on it. Was that just something that was part of the album artwork in the original LP? I think I might have it buried waay somewhere downstairs. This song is on the album named Elton John, which I didn't get on SACD yet.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

The LP came with two booklets and a poster. One of the booklets, "Lyrics," contains a photo of a framed copy of the original handwritten lyrics to "Your Song." The song, itself is not on that album.

 

[Dave]

...I never interpreted that lyric as literally kicking moss off the roof; always took that to mean the singer of the song was kicking the allegorical "moss" off of himself... ...A play on the old saying "A rolling stone gathers no moss"... ...He (the singer) has "gathered moss" but is so inspired by his love that he's "kicking it off" to write her a song...

You may be right about that...; guess that never might'a occurred to me that these were only metaphors...

...This might actually be a fun topic for a separate thread: Interpretations of strange lyrics...

Yes, glad I gave this Thread, yet another interesting angle...; and sorry if I might'a also thrown this Topic a lil' off the track...



Dave

 

[Dave]

I like the abbreviated version of "Your Song" by Andy Williams--he leaves the part about "Sat on the roof, kicked off the moss" off... (How does a roof have MOSS on it anyway?)




Dave

Forgot that I was familiar enough when this song came out to have heard "Up On The Roof" (by Laura Nyro, most likely, covering The Drifters song) so I think I liken that lyric passage, 'bout "sattin' on the roof", and all to that!


-- Dave

 

[jfiedler17]

Good topic for a thead, actually.
I really despise most of Celine Dion's music, but her first album's shockingly listenable, and I actually really enjoy "If There Was Any Other Way." But then, that song also sounds like absolutely nothing else she's done since then and sounds more a Taylor Dayne record than your standard Celine Dion fare.
I don't care for most of Madonna's stuff, either, but there's a couple singles of hers that that I quite enjoy. "Borderline" I've always really liked, but then, in many ways, it's a bit of a clone - by the same author, too, I believe - of Stephanie Mills' "Never Knew Love Like This Before." "Cherish" is a fantastic adult-contemporary single, but it's not very reminiscent of her usual material and even sticks out like a sore thumb on its parent album (Like a Prayer.) "Crazy for You" is a great record, too, but again, it's a fairly unique ballad in her catalog, and John Bettis (who co-wrote it) has gone on record as saying he initially was really skeptical that the song would work for her.

As far as albums that sound nothing like the hit singles they yielded? I agree the Cardigans is a great example of that. An even better one is Filter's Title of Record. I thought "Take a Picture" was an absolute knockout of a single and bought the album just for that song, only to discover they were actually an industrial band a la Nine Inch Nails. I eventually warmed up a little to the rest of the album, but needless to say, that was a bit of a shock at first. Or, to use an A&M example, how about Extreme's Pornograffiti? A hard-rock album whose hit single ("More Than Words") sounds more like an Everly Brothers song.

BTW, I agree with you, Captain, about "Kissing a Fool" and "Careless Whisper." Easily George Michael's two greatest moments, and it's unfortunate that the former wasn't a bigger hit (yeah, it still made the Top Ten, but it was the only single from Faith to miss Number One, and I very seldom hear it on the radio these days, either.)

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Another good example for me is "Circus" by Uriah Heep. I didn't like their music at all, but had listened to the album "Sweet Freedom" after someone brought it back to the store "defective." I remember looking at the vinyl, looking for obvious defects and I could tell there was this really soft song among all the heavy metal, so after the customer left I tried it out. As per usual, I hated the rest of album but that song was a winner. It still gets frequent play on my iPod today.

 

[AM Matt]

I liked the song "Hero" by Mariah Carey (from 1993 "Music Box") as well as "You Need Me" & "Sent From Up Above" from her debut 1990 CD. I can't stand her yelling though!! Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[Mike]

I agree with Jfiedler on "More Than Words" by Extreme. After hearing the song on MTV I bought the album, that's when I found out that they are not that kind of band. None of their other songs were anything like "More Than Words", it's all some kind of funk heavy metal which I can't stand.

Mike

 

[jfiedler17]

I liked the song "Hero" by Mariah Carey (from 1993 "Music Box") as well as "You Need Me" & "Sent From Up Above" from her debut 1990 CD. I can't stand her yelling though!! Matt Clark Sanford, MI

Yeah, "Hero" is an unusually great song for Mariah. Ironically enough, I don't know if you've ever read about the history of that one, but she actually wrote that one for Gloria Estefan to record (for the Dustin Hoffman movie of the same name), and everyone who heard it, Tommy Mottola in particular, urged her to keep it to record for herself, but she fought against it for a long time because she detested the song and didn't think it accurately represented her and the kind of music she wanted to make. But, then, mind you, she's always had a bit of an inaccurate read on what her strengths are, and the kind of music she wants to make is stuff like "Fantasy," "Heartbreaker," "Loverboy," etc. - painfully sample-heavy hip-hop that just keeps recycling the same, almost-scat-like melody over and over and over again until you can barely tell most of the songs apart. (And I can't tell you just how many of her hits since the mid-'90s I confuse for other ones!) There is a decent amount of good songs on her earliest albums ("Make It Happen" is another that I like), but her music's undeniably become less melodic over time, and the bulk of the music she's made in the last twenty years or so just sounds she just went into the studio and just improvised a melody in one take on top of some pre-programmed rhythm track, rather than actually sitting down in front of an instrument and composing a more traditional melody and then building a track around it, like she clearly did for something like "Love Takes Time" or "Vision of Love," and her music's just taken a massive artistic dive over the course of her career as a result. I think "Hero" was her last genuinely strong single. I really lost interest after that point. Not that pursuing a more R&B-oriented path as she did was necessarily a bad call, but the stuff she gravitated towards was just not my idea of R&B at its finest. But then, that's also a matter of personal taste, and I also think R&B in general has taken a noticeable dive since the '80s, save for the occasional artist like John Legend or Musiq Soulchild or Maxwell. (Now those guys are my idea of quality R&B songwriters!)