I can't stand it!

[alan nagsworth]

What popular hits can you no longer tolerate, by bands you otherwise really enjoy, due to their being overplayed on 'classic'/contemporary music video channels/TV compilations, or commercial radio?

Here's two stonking obvious ones:

Nirvana - 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'
Alright, let me start by saying I love 'Nevermind'. I went through a farty subversive knobhead stage in my life from the ages of 17-22 because "Kurt can't play guitar and his vocals are retarded and Grohl is the only decent member of the band" but I came back to it on a revivalist tip this year, and it's just cracking. The attitude is bang on, the drumming is explosive as fuck and the riffs really are raw as hell. In short, I'm not ashamed to say it is a definitive classic.

However! I will only ever play this album from track #2 onwards, because I find 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' to be so tedious now that all it summons are waves of nostalgia from everyone saying how ground-breaking it was for the grunge scene, and oh that great video in a high school basketball hall, and the slow-mo shots of Kurt all bedraggled with hair in his eyes, BAH! In comparison with the rest of the album, I bet it's really not a bad track for someone approaching it for the first time, having never heard any of the tracks before, but it conjurs up (for me, anyway) unnecessarily obsessive teenagers drooling over the track like it is the answer to all the questions in the universe, and I can't stand it any more!

Green Day - 'Basket Case'
I'm already fully aware that both of these bands are probably strongly disliked on this forum already, but speaking as someone who is still a big fan of everything this band did pre-'Nimrod', this one track drives me bananas. Every fucking day on MTV2 (when I would watch obsessively as a teenager, waiting for a video exclusive from The Hives or whatever) this bastard track would be played at some point, and eventually I got so sick and tired of trying to explain to my contemporaries that there was so much more to this band that one freakin' song! It doesn't help that most of the greebo kids with whom I loosely acquainted myself pinned this song to their ripped-thumbhole hoodie sleeves because they were all apparently 'a bit mental lol' and felt like this song aptly summed up their kerazy angst-addled brains. 'Dookie' is great but I make a frantic dive for the stereo if I'm not already in close proximity, at the end of 'Pulling Teeth' just so I don't even have to hear the opening lick and "Doooo you have the time"...

Okay NOW IT IS YOUR TURN TO WRITE STUFF.

[Spiteface]

Journey - Don't Stop Believin'

I don't know if it is because of it being done on X-Factor or some other such bullshit, but I've been hearing this song more and more recently, to the point that I have become sick of it.  The turning point I think came when i was waiting for a bus one evening and I saw a group of drunk "women" singing this, badly.  It was then that it dawned on me that it had become the new "Is This the Way to Amarillo", and brought up memories of how the many shit parodies of the Peter Kay video for that I saw.  And the inevitable shit dance remix of the Journey song I recently heard rammed that point home.  I won't link it here, because it's fucking awful, but if you insist, look up "Northern All Stars"

There's a bunch of those dance remixes that fucking bug me, including a few Kings of Leon ones doing the rounds.  Especially because they're of more recent songs of theirs that I'd heard too many times already.  I do not own any KOL albums, bt I was aware of them when the first album came out, and I remember liking some of the singles like "Molly's chambers", and I just thought they were a wacky little band with wacky facial hair.  Then they morphed into a fucking stadium rock band or something.  Ultrabeat's version of "Use Somebody" is especially wretched.  And it has one of my music video pet hates - douchebag miming playing a guitar.  Complete with cunty shades.  Again, I won't inflict it upon you by linking it here.


The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work

I will freely admit, I was not actually aware of The Verve until this and "Bittersweet Symphony" came out.  I got into them when I was by chance watching M2 (MTV2 when it was really good) in the early hours of the morning and they played "She's a Superstar", and I also heard "This is Music" when listening to Radio 1 broadcasting the Haigh Hall gig, and they opened with it.  Anyway, this led me to getting the first two albums, and the early singles, and being even more mystified that "The Drugs Don't Work", being the dreary tuneless drivel that it is, became the band's first #1 single.  It's not even the best ballad Ashcroft ever wrote - that honor goes to "History".  It's not even the best thing on "Urban Hymns". And Nick McCabe -one of the best "indie" guitarists of the 90's - is reduced to slide guitar in the background, when before he would drown Dickie Ashcroft out with his glorious racket, and it would RULE.  It gets overplayed to this day, and made it onto far to many "Best Anthems in the World Ever" type compilations.  As I say, not even the Verve's best attempt at the big string-laden Ballad.

Toploader - Dancing in the Moonlight

I shouldn't have to explain this one to you, but it is also one of the many reasons I despise Red Dragon FM.

[rjd2]

Sigur Ros - Hoppípolla

Beautiful song overused horribly by talent shows and other rubbish in the last few years. I can't listen to it anymore sadly.

Sia - Breathe Me

The song used over the final scene of Six Feet Under, its a perfect fit for the finale of one of my favorite shows ever. Sadly it pops up on trailers everywhere these days. I have been told that Hollyoaks use it quite a bit as well.

Kings Of Leon... Sex On Fire

I didn't mind the track when I heard it first, but I can't listen to it anymore because it was EVERYWHERE for ages.


Andre 3000...Hey Ya

Same as above.

[alan nagsworth]

Journey - Don't Stop Believin'

Fffffff... yeah. That track is on a CD that gets played on constant rotation in the bar at work and it drives me fucking insane. Bunch of awful 80s ballads which were (admittedly quite shit in my opinion, but nevertheless) individually tolerable at some vague point in the past.

'Golden Brown' by The Stranglers is one of, if not the utmost, greatest songs I've ever heard, but it's also on this CD and while I can listen to it about three or four times in a row in the comfort of my own home, I am getting pretty damn sick of hearing it at work now. The juxtaposition of the song and the scenario of labouring under it are just not enjoyable.

[The Boston Crab]

There's an interesting thread in that.

Edit: So I'll start one.

[rudi]

Groove is in the Heart - Dee-lite, William it was really Nothing - The Smiths, I Am the Resurrection - The Stone Roses oh my I could do about twenty of these. Fabulous songs that you hear at every single bloody Hey Ya - Outkast gathering, be it wedding, funeral Rock Lobster - B52s, work do, bah mitzvah bloody anything so when you say you really don't want to Just can't get Enough - Depeche Mode dance you're accused of being some kind of musical snob rather than feeling like the poor bloody thing should be allowed to rest for a few years in peace...

[non capisco]

The flipside of this for me is Blue Monday by New Order which I've never got sick of hearing in any context, it always sounds amazing.

I think I'd have to nominate Iggy Pop's 'Lust For Life' which is undeniably a great record but at one point after its use in 'Trainspotting' seemed to be soundtracking everything, show-jumping montages, daytime DIY shows, you name it plus there were the endless Trainspotting parodies and references where footage of anyone running down a street was set to 'ba-dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-da-dum'. I realise it's about 13 years on now but that drum intro doesn't make me think "fucking A!" but rather "oh, yeah, this." If I put that album on I usually start at track 2.

[rudi]

Ooh good call.