I Have No Taste

My wife likes cheesy '80s movies, the cheesier the better. We're not talking the box office smashes like Ghostbusters and Footloose (though she likes those, too); we're talking about things like My Chauffeur. If you haven't seen it...keep it that way.
Me? I like bad music, or what's often described as bad music. While floating around Wikipedia today I discovered that Blender magazine (an offshoot of Maxim) compiled a list of "the 50 worst songs ever".
I can't say my favourite songs of all time are on that list, but I like most of them and really like a few. And let's just say I disagree with Blender's take on almost every one of them. In some cases ("My Heart Will Go On", "Follow Me", and "Your Body Is A Wonderland spring to mind), the song is bad through no fault of its own (or at least not much) but because it's been played several gajillion times on the radio. Actually, most of the songs listed here have been overplayed...none as outrageously as "Ebony and Ivory", mind you. I swear to God that one was played every third song for about a month in 1982. The only music I ever heard more often--and to this day I want to hurl a brick every time I hear it--was Berlin's "Take My Breath Away". God, I cringe just writing the title.
But some of these tunes don't belong on this list. #12, "We Didn't Start The Fire"...that was Billy Joel's third and last #1 single; it won him praise from educators for its 4'49" history lesson; and I happen to think it's a marvel of songwriting.
Actually, several of these songs hit #1...probably for a reason. You get the feeling, paging through here, that there are whole genres of music Blender would like to forget exist. Take #18, for instance, Chicago's "You're The Inspiration". Cheesy? Yeah. Schmaltzy? Of course. But lovelorn teenagers in their millions lapped that song up in 1984. I was one of 'em.
Or #34, Dan Fogelberg's "Longer", going back five years further. It's a sweet, sweet love song. That's all it is; that's all it tries to be. As far as I'm concerned, it succeeds.
Some of these songs are on this list because they're earworms. #33, "Barbie Girl"by Aqua, once in your head, never gets out. Same with "Kokomo" by the Beach Boys, clocking in at #10. Hanson's "MMMBop", a particularly potent earworm, inexplicably escaped notice. I hate that song. But I have to respect it, and other earworms like it: the goal of every singer/songwriter is to craft something that sticks in every listener's head.

The top (bottom) three songs deserve particular attention.

3 WANG CHUNG“Everybody Have Fun Tonight” 1986
If this song was a party, you’d lock yourself in the bathroom and cry. Initially called Huang Chung, but in no way Chinese, London-based funk tools Wang Chung changed their name to make it easier for whitey to pronounce, thus patronizing Asia and Europe in one stroke. Musically one of history’s least convivial party songs, “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” was both lyrically preposterous (“On the edge of oblivion/All the world is Babylon”) and sung by Jack Hues as though he would turn to sulphur at the very thought of “fun.”
Worst Moment: That chorus: “Everybody have fun tonight/Everybody Wang Chung tonight.”

...which explains why this song is on practically every '80s compilation ever made. Okay, the lyrics are a tad bizarre. Like that's the only song with odd lyrics. Ever listened to earlier Roxette? (They were another group that frequently inserted their own name into their songs--clever marketing gimmick, that. Or how about that marvel of incomprehensibility, "Rock the Casbah"? Reaching back into my parents' generation, what about "Louie, Louie"? And I won't even mention the entire catalogue of latter-day hip-hop.

2 BILLY RAY CYRUS “Achy Breaky Heart” 1992
At least the haircut never caught on. Oh, wait…Country, but not as we know it. Written by Vietnam vet Don “Pickle Puss” Von Tress in the style of a brain-dead “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Achy Breaky Heart” represented every prejudice non-believers have about country: It was trite, it was inane, it was big in trailer parks and it was thoroughly enjoyed by the obese. Strangely, it was covered by Bruce Springsteen, with slightly less irony than you might imagine; still, this does not make it good.
Worst Moment: An instrumental break that single-handedly rejuvenated the line-dancing fad.

You won't get an argument from me on this one. The chorus might sound better if it was 'sung' by howling dogs. I think the best thing that ever came out of this melody was Weird Al's parody:

Don't play that song
That "Achy Breaky" song
I think it's driving me insane
Oh, please don't play that song
That irritating song
I'd rather have a pitchfork in my brain...

And finally, the #1 worst song ever, according to Blender:

#1 STARSHIP "We Built This City" 1985

Say what?! I can think of songs a whole lot worse than this one. The Blender writeup goes on and on about selling out: "sexless and corporate, it sounds like something that was built in a lab by a team of record company executives." Ah, yes, kind of like the way the Monkees came about. Or NKOTB. Or the Spice Girls. I'm not saying any of those three represent the zenith of popular music--but they've sold a hell of a lot of records. Which, last I looked, was kind of the point.
"We Built This City" is a neat song in many ways, from the subtle syncopation, the sampled D.J.'s voice (first time I ever heard that done), the layered "re-member-member-member"... Maybe not the greatest song ever written, but a long ways from the worst.

...There are other songs I enjoy that make many peoples' worst lists. One example: "Escape", by Rupert Holmes, perhaps better known by the first line of its chorus: "If You Like Pina Coladas..." The ending is predictable, but kind of satisfying anyway. Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time" is about the only thing she's done that I can stomach. The Captain and Tennille's "Muskrat Love"--okay, even I know this one's horrible. So why do I like it so much?