Songs y'like by bands y'don't

[alan nagsworth]

I like this thread title. It rolls off the tongue nicely.

Anyway, let's talk about songs you're scared to admit enjoying for fear of being labelled a fan of the band.

Simpy Red - Holding Back The Years.
I love this song, it's wrought with some reet good emotional stuff wot makes a good pop song, and Cunt Hucknall's voice is exceptional. All other Simply Red makes me feel unclean. If they played this song when Del fell through the bar (instead of the miscarriage or whatever sad scene it's used in) I would weep instantly.

R Kelly - I Believe I Can Fly
Awesome gospel backing vocals and simple but effective aspirational lyrics. R'n'B tries to be way too sassy and sexy these days, it's unneccessaarryyy (sic) and is one of the many reasons why I abhor the genre more than any other. But this tune keeps it simple: He believes in something, and aspires to reach his goals. Whaddachoon.

Snoop Dogg - Ups And Downs
From the Rhythm N' Gangsta album, this tune is mixed with the Bee Gees and it's fantastic. I like Snoop's attitude but his music hits a hell of a lot of bum notes for me, even his terrific voice can't redeem some of the twaddle he comes out with... but honestly, it's the Bee Gees sample and the super-cool chorus that really make this song for me.

[Neville Chamberlain]

The only one I can think of right now is Sunday Bloody Sunday, which is undeniably a brilliant song, but I'm not sure that counts as it's from the period when they were a quite good band anyway.

Rock the Casbah by The Clash is another one I guess. They only did a handful of decent songs anyway, the rest was plodding boring nonsense.

And I'm sorry, Mr. Nagsworth, but I Believe I Can Fly is surely one of the foulest pieces of music ever written...isn't it?!?

[Marvin]

Yeah everyone knows R Kelly's good song was Ignition (Remix).

[The Masked Unit]

^Trufax.

[wherearethespoons]

Snoop Dogg - Ups And Downs
From the Rhythm N' Gangsta album, this tune is mixed with the Bee Gees and it's fantastic. I like Snoop's attitude but his music hits a hell of a lot of bum notes for me, even his terrific voice can't redeem some of the twaddle he comes out with... but honestly, it's the Bee Gees sample and the super-cool chorus that really make this song for me.

I like Snoop Doog's voice.  Most people I speak to seem to dislike it.  His best track is Imagine with Dre and D'Angelo.

Those Simply Red and R Kelly tracks are pants.

I can't think of any right now, apart from another U2 one.  I like the track Wild Honey.

P.S. Snoop Dogg (and R Kelly even) ain't a band mate.  That's his name Snoop.

[The Boston Crab]

I'll back you up, nagston. That Simply Red song is one of my drunken standards but it always makes me feel incredibly sad and reminds me of childhood. I try not to listen to it much because it's too nostalgic. I don't know what my brain is associating it with but I don't really enjoy the feeling. Karma Chameleon, on the other hand! I'm four years old and dancing like an ecstatic loon.

[poloniusmonk]

Despite my general loathing for her, I very much enjoy the song 'Clumsy' by Fergie.

[PaulTMA]

Yeah everyone knows R Kelly's good song was Ignition (Remix).

If only for the lyrics declaring it's remix status in the chorus.

[buttgammon]

I am putting my entire person into disrepute here for mentioning this, but 'The Girls' by Calvin Harris. His voice is very irritating, but everything but it on that song is great.

I do quite like 'Dance Wiv Me' as well (it's him and Dizzee Rascal), so I suppose that counts as two. Fuck! Two Calvin Harris songs. I think I might be best sending myself into exile on St. Helena.

[Beagle 2]

That's so weird, Holding Back the Years is exactly what popped into my head when I saw the title, it's an incredible song.

Tiny Dancer by Elton is up there with my favourites, hated the bloke for years though... although I am starting to soften, there must be some good stuff there buried away.

Hundred Mile High City by the utterly pish Ocean Colour Scene. Like it.

[Neville Chamberlain]

What in christs balls is all this talk of Holding Back The Years being such a great song?!?!?!???

It's like I've entered some kind of bizarre, dangerous parallel universe or something!!!!!

[The Mumbler]

I feel sure I've done this before on here in the dim and distant past. Anyway.

All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey
Oye Mi Canto by Gloria Estefan
The Killing of Georgie by Rod Stewart
Stuck In A Moment That You Can't Get Out Of and Lemon by U2
Upside Down and Love Hangover by Diana Ross

[Backstage With Slowdive]

There's a bag full of Manic Street Preachers songs I'd say varied between alright and actually a good pop/rock song, but I'd never say they're a great band. Not just singles, things like You're Tender And You're Tired, Comfort Comes, and Solitude Sometimes Is deserve to be known outside the little fanworld.

The Perfecto remix of Even Better Than The Real Thing is far and away the best thing ever associated with U2. On a good day I might feel generous enough to say I like some of their other singles (Mysterious Ways, Stuck In A Moment, Pride isn't actually a bad 80s anthem, however One will never do anything for me in any version by anyone).

The thing about Pride is that, like the Duran or FGTH singles, because of when I was born, it's one of those things that define "pop music" and its limits, and you can't argue with it, same as The Beatles.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

Simpy Red - Holding Back The Years.

I'm the complete opposite, this is one of those ultra-bland 80s things I can just never abide (Alexander O'Neal another example), but I don't feel so violently about other SR things, and I quite liked their early success and Money's Too Tight To Mention, which is hated by absolutely everyone else apparently. I've sort-of got the idea that Hucknall is like Coogan, a bit of a cock now and then but not really all that bad, in contrast to people like Tony Wilson, who really were cunts but manage to build an aura of being important and 'alternative'.

[The Mumbler]

I quite liked their early success and Money's Too Tight To Mention, which is hated by absolutely everyone else apparently.

I actually thought Money's Too Tight was alright as well. And then I discovered it was a cover version...

Hucknall, though, damn him: He really really can sing.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

In the very early days (1985) he did an interview on Radio 1, from which I remember him saying that his ambition for the band was for them not to embarrass themselves by doing things that just weren't appropriate, like being an old band desperately pretending to be young, that sort of thing. You could say he'd completely succeeded on that ambition. He's always known what his audience is, never got fidgety and tried to do some awful 'experimental' direction.

[Neville Chamberlain]

Yes, but this man is responsible for the single most sickeningly annoying track ever written: Fairground.

[Jemble Fred]

Yes, but this man is responsible for the single most sickeningly annoying track ever written: Fairground.

That's the only good song they've done IMO. It's been overplayed over the years, but musically it can't be sanely faulted.

[The Mumbler]

Hucknall was also a bit mouthy from the off, which alienated a lot of people. His first Smash Hits interview, to promote Money's Too Tight, found him slagging off virtually everything in the charts, and promising to still be around in 20 years. I was chuckling, "Yeah, yeah. Sure thing, Mick..." And he was right.

[The Mumbler]

That's the only good song they've done IMO. It's been overplayed over the years, but musically it can't be sanely faulted.

Is the backing actually based on Give It Up by The Goodmen, a big dance crossover from two years before? I remember thinking at the time the similarity between them verged on actionable.

[Morrisfan82]

Yeh, it uses a loop of it.

[Neville Chamberlain]

That's the only good song they've done IMO. It's been overplayed over the years, but musically it can't be sanely faulted.

Come on, it's a truly, utterly, irredeemably ghastly track at all levels. Every note, every key change, the ultra-ultra-ultra-polished production values, that bit where everything stops except the drums, which do that "boom boom boom" thing that's produced in such a way as to have a sort of Rio carnivaly vibe to it - every single thing about that track is designed to induce projectile vomiting. No sane person can argue that Fairground is anything other than utterly execrable at more levels than anyone can possibly imagine.

[The Mumbler]

Possibly an obvious one, but aside from the wonderful (if madly overplayed) Crazy in Love, I've yet to hear anything by either Destiny's Child or Beyonce that has inspired any of my interest whatsoever.

[The Mumbler]

Yeh, it uses a loop of it.

Ah! That would explain a lot. Ta.

[Jemble Fred]

musically it can't be sanely faulted.

No sane person can argue that Fairground is anything other than utterly execrable at more levels than anyone can possibly imagine.

Sigh. Your Dad, etc.

Still, I don't really want to be seen to stick up for SR really in any guise. It's just one good song out of an entire career. They are still Simply Red after all.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

Yes, but this man is responsible for the single most sickeningly annoying track ever written: Fairground.

Which was directly responsible for the victory of New Labour in 1997, lest we forget.

[Neville Chamberlain]

I don't like Pearl Jam but Do The Evolution's bloody good.

[Jemble Fred]

Which was directly responsible for the victory of New Labour in 1997, lest we forget.

No, that was Brian Cox's fault.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

Take That - Back For Good

I usually dislike boybands on principle, and this has a few of those irritating Barlow-isms, but I have to admit this is pretty damn good.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

I thought Stars was a wonderfully light, joyful little nursery rhyme pop song that it's impossible to hate. I'd pick that as the later SR song that I like best.

Simply Red (and the name reflects that they were supposed to be a left-wing band originally, fact fans) are the acceptable face of the sort of music that entire Essex familiies turn up in their 4x4 to watch a gig from, and the Dad blathers on endlessly to show he listens to the music as avidly as everyone else, and you encounter these people on trains when the fucking Landrover breaks down. Jamiroquai, on the other hand, will never be permissible.