Songs containing things you both love and hate

[jobotic]

Spirits having Flown by the Bee Gees.

When they sing it's not so good, when they don't it's wonderful. I wish there was an instrumental.

[Ray Travez]

I've always liked that because it sounds deliberately rubbish, like a teenager trying to impress you with their guitar skills. Makes me laugh every time.

If it bugs you that much you can always mute the left channel while it plays.

My left speaker's not working on the PC, and it's definitely better. However, the main thing I don't like is that the song has this velocity, and then it stops for this bit that is, as you say, a kind of musical joke. Beck does this sort of thing a lot; wrong-footing the listener, and I usually like it, but I wish it wasn't on this one. There's a real build to this song, climaxing when the heavy guitar comes in, and it's an interruption to that. For me anyway.   

[Icehaven]

Bright Eyes' Ship In A Bottle, lovely song, trips along nicely until halfway through when for some godforsaken reason there's several bars with a sample of a screaming baby. It sounds terrible and basically wrecks the rest of the song, fuck knows what he was thinking.

[SteveDave]

All songs by The Last Shadow Puppets contain both the wonderful Alex Turner and the despicable Miles Kane.

[Norton Canes]

Meta-choice: Erasure - Love To Hate You

Not even meta. It's a real banger but it shamelessly lifts its melody from I Will Survive.

[Brundle-Fly]

MacArthur Park. I've always found the arrangement of the actual song rather syrupy but the Pearl & Dean Asteroids/ cop show instrumental break at the 4:50 mark is stupendous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPMpeNDIGdk

[Sin Agog]

That 100 Gecs album.  PC Music's squirrelly, never predictable, almost Oblique Strategies-inspired production is always great, but those fucking vocals took some getting used to.  Also the chopped & screwed emo-punk songwriting was never something I dug at the time, so how am I s'posed to like it in even brattier form here?  And yet I do.  Even think the ridiculous send-up of autotune wouldn't have worked delivered in a more straightforward manner.  Still, lot of boxes I'd never have intentionally ticked.

[Endicott]

The whole of " Steve McQueen" by Prefab Sprout (1985)Genius songs, horrid 80s production. The song " The King Of Rock N Roll" from 1988 is the culmination of this.

Thomas Dolby at his sublime best. 80s? It's timeless, and you have gone on my list.

[Thomas]

I'm seduced by 'Pumpkin' until Tricky comes in.

[Dusty Substance]

MacArthur Park. I've always found the arrangement of the actual song rather syrupy but the Pearl & Dean Asteroids/ cop show instrumental break at the 4:50 mark is stupendous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPMpeNDIGdk

Possibly my all time favourite song. Certainly in my Top 10.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

R.E.M. - Harborcoat. Wonderful, moody slice of jangle pop. Can't fault the verses, the guitars, the build in the prechorus. Then - CHORUS! Three badly mixed voices singing three different sets of lyrics at once. Ghastly - wanton - mess. Who signed off on that one?

Very good call. Can't stand the chorus. The delivery is really weary and going through the motions, in contrast to the snappy and immediate verse.

[EOLAN]

Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire

Love: Doris Day, Bardot, Marilyn Monroe.

Hate: Stalin, Children of thalidomide

[non capisco]

Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire

Love: Doris Day, Bardot, Marilyn Monroe.

Hate: Stalin, Children of thalidomide

In a song that lists Stalin and AIDS I like that it's 'rock 'n' roller Cola wars' that finally push Billy over the edge.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

That clunky ragtime piano solo in the middle of Something In The Air by Thunderclap Newman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBH_0Nqp61w

It's a revolutionary call to arms disguised as a dreamy hippie pop song, a heart-tugging thing of subversive wonder, which is suddenly interrupted and RUINED by Les Dawson. That sounds brilliant in theory, but it's crap.

[Sin Agog]

The Sugarcubes.  There's a young Bjork in a cool, catchy post-punk group with dollops of lovely flanged bass, and then there's Einar, who sounds like a comedy robot from another planet sent to invade every bridge and break he appears on.

[Cuntbeaks]

Pi by Kate Bush. Blissed out number lyrics cruelly sabotaged by the inane chorus. Keep meaning to create a version without said chorus.

See also Hammer Horror.

[SteK]

Frightened Rabbit, Good Arms vs Bad Arms, great song, but one line irks me;

"I decided this decision some six months ago"

Can you decide a decision? Surely that's extreme tautologism?

[SteK]

Very good call. Can't stand the chorus. The delivery is really weary and going through the motions, in contrast to the snappy and immediate verse.

Love that song - and the chorus!

[jobotic]

The Sugarcubes.  There's a young Bjork in a cool, catchy post-punk group with dollops of lovely flanged bass, and then there's Einar, who sounds like a comedy robot from another planet sent to invade every bridge and break he appears on.

I showed this thread to Einar and he said Ouch! This really hurts!

Hope you're happy.

[Sin Agog]

Poor Einar.  If it's any consolation, I bet I'd be well into him if he went solo or were in another band more worthy of his unique talents...

Literally just googled his solo album Ghostigital this second and started playing it, and this line delivered by a doddery, beshawled, rollerskating Einar came on and cracked me up: "When I hoover down the street, I have a little fart so I move a little quicker down the street- it's fantastic!"  Einar, you're alright. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNoIP-HTtR4

[phantom_power]

In a song that lists Stalin and AIDS I like that it's 'rock 'n' roller Cola wars' that finally push Billy over the edge.

It always amuses me the fist-pumping way he intones "children of thalidomide"

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It always amuses me the fist-pumping way he intones "children of thalidomide"

Yep.

Still, it's a fucking cracking song because of that not to mention TREEBURRRR IN VER SUUUUUEEEEEEEEZZZZ

[phantom_power]

Due to mishearing the lyrics to this when I was a child and not knowing much about global politics, I thought the Bay of Pigs was in Beijing

[jenna appleseed]

In a song that lists Stalin and AIDS I like that it's 'rock 'n' roller Cola wars' that finally push Billy over the edge.

oh god, yes.

It always amuses me the fist-pumping way he intones "children of thalidomide"

I know, it's hilarious.

and what did Californian Baseball do to Billy to make him so angry?

eta: don't forget the legendary 'space monkey mafia'.

[phantom_power]

It's obviously Space, Monkey Mafia, him being a big fan of third rate britpop and big beat bands

[TheMonk]

Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street

The verses are just sublime, super chilled, mysterious and dreamy.
The choruses are a crime against music and saxophones can shove themselves up their own arses.

I'm not sure I've read anything on here i disagree with more. The song is clearly perfect.

[Sherman Krank]

Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street

The verses are just sublime, super chilled, mysterious and dreamy.

The choruses are a crime against music and saxophones can shove themselves up their own arses.

[Tag] Bob Holness leaves thread in tears [/Tag]


For me Clive, it has to be most Cardiacs songs.

Edit: See also, Frank Zappa's egregiously long guitar solos in otherwise great songs.

[Dr Syntax Head]

Auto intoxication by Manic Street Preachers. Love the verses but the chorus just sounds really lazy. And when James does that compound bend cliche (guitar players know what I mean) in the outro chorus I skip the song. It's just so not JDB and totally ruins the song for me. But those verses are brilliant.

[Menyatta Zondatta]

I'm gonna go with 'We Hate You' by Electric Wizard. Actual music's great imo, really enjoy the heaviness of the guitars, the build in is amazing as well. Problem so the lyrics, which are so incredibly edgy that it kinda messed with the actual experience of listening to it. If you tune em out though it's still a great track, and I'd venture that the lyrics are more enjoyable if you're more into metal than I am.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Auto intoxication by Manic Street Preachers. Love the verses but the chorus just sounds really lazy. And when James does that compound bend cliche (guitar players know what I mean) in the outro chorus I skip the song. It's just so not JDB and totally ruins the song for me. But those verses are brilliant.

Funny, I think the verses are completely by the numbers and unremarkable musically. At least the chorus is breaking free of that.

The best thing about it is the bridge anyway in my view. 'Welcome to the new slave trade... Etc'