We’ve all got them – albums we love that have a single song we can’t stand.
And even the most beloved artists of all time – The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin – aren’t immune from the 'dud in a goldmine' phenomenon. So here are the songs that spoil the mood, make us cringe, or are just plain bad... on otherwise great albums.
Bad songs on great albums
15. David Bowie, 'It Ain’t Easy' (Ziggy Stardust, 1972)
In lesser company, perhaps ‘It Ain’t Easy’ might not seem like such a misstep, but this is Ziggy Stardust we’re talking about – a thrilling, sassy, sexed-up landmark of ’70s rock crammed with Bowie classics including ‘Five Years’, Starman’, ‘Rock’n’Roll Suicide’ and the rest.
Compared to such glam greatness, the ponderous ‘It Ain’t Easy’, by obscure US songwriter Ron Davies, never had a chance. Some have claimed that the song was in the repertoire of guitarist Mick Ronson’s previous band The Rats, but when there were Bowie originals such as ‘Velvet Goldmine’ and ‘Sweet Head’ kicking around it’s still a surprising decision.
14. REM, 'Radio Song' (Out Of Time, 1991)
At least this one starts the album, so it’s easy enough to skip. It starts promisingly enough, all twinkling guitars and Michael Stipe’s gorgeous sigh-singing. But before long, things take a turn for the worse – a baggy groove, dated samples, awkward ad-libs from rapper KRS-One (“Baby, baby, baby, baby” etc). Stipe would later claim he was ‘kinda taking the piss out of everyone’, but that doesn’t make it any less skippable. The following track was the all-time classic ‘Losing My Religion’ – talk about clawing it back.
13. The Zombies, 'Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)', (Odessey & Oracle, 1968)
The Zombies' 1968 sophomore album Odessey & Oracle is one of the great psych-pop albums of its time, a smorgasbord of intricate harmonies, glorious melodies and experimental song structures with classics including ‘Care Of Cell 44’, ‘A Rose For Emily’, ‘This Will Be Our Year’ and ‘Time Of The Season’. But amid the pop majesty lurks ‘Butcher’s Tale (Western Front 1914)’, a jarring, strung-out-sounding evocation of the horrors of World War I sung by bassist Chris White. A kind reading would call it the album’s dark heart, but in reality, it’s a skipper.
12. Michael Jackson, 'The Lady In My Life' (Thriller, 1983)
Yes, we’re well aware that Thriller’s duet with Paul McCartney ‘The Girl Is Mine’ gets a lot of grief, but listen again – it’s blissed-out yacht-rock with a gorgeous, none-more-Macca melody and deliciously goofy ad libs. The real low point on Thriller is ‘The Lady In My Life’, a bland ballad with valentines-card lyrics which ends the biggest-selling album of all time on a curiously forgettable note.
11. Fleetwood Mac, 'Oh Daddy' (Rumours, 1977)
There were many times throughout Fleetwood Mac’s tumultuous history where Christine McVie wrote album highlights – Penguin’s weightless ‘Remember Me’, the sparkling ‘Everywhere’ on Tango In The Night, pretty much everything she wrote for Tusk.
She also wrote a couple of belters – ‘Don’t Stop’ and ‘You Make Loving Fun’ – for 1977’s phenomenally successful Rumours. But despite McVie’s undoubted songwriting chops, ‘Oh Daddy’ feels like a slog compared to the riches of the rest of the album. ‘I can’t walk away from you, even if I try,’ she sings – funny that, as the song itself is much easier to skip.
10. Pink Floyd, 'Seamus' (Meddle, 1971)
1971's Meddle catches Pink Floyd at the sweet spot between their experimental beginnings and the sky-scraping ambition of their mid-’70s work. But among the warm hues and hazy soundscapes, you’ll find ‘Seamus’, a novelty blues song dedicated to – and featuring, on whimpers and barks – Steve Marriott’s dog Seamus. It’s loose to the point of nearly falling apart and, despite some nice ivory tinkling from Rick Wright, pulls off the considerable feat of being two minutes long and feeling far too long.
9. The Smiths, 'Girlfriend In A Coma' (Strangeways, Here We Come, 1987)
The Smiths attempt reggae? I know, I know – it’s really serious. ‘We bonded over a lot of records, but we both loved [Bob & Marcia’s] ‘Young Gifted And Black’ in the same way at the same time,’ guitarist Johnny Marr told The Observer in 2013. ‘And that’s very likely to be the thing that inspired the music for “Girlfriend In A Coma”.’
Marr’s precocious genius was undeniable, but – at this point at least – reggae was not in his wheelhouse, a problem heightened by the chintzy ’80s production. Typically, frontman Morrissey chose to juxtapose the oddly jaunty music with an anti-drugs message disguised as a lyric from the perspective of a not-too-bothered partner of somebody on life support.
‘It isn’t designed to provoke anybody,’ Morrissey said in 1987. ‘I think with the escalation of the use of drugs that there are quite a lot of people who end up in a coma really, so I don’t think it’s such an extreme notion… I think it’s quite nice to ruffle people’s feathers occasionally’. Consider us ruffled.
8. The Stooges, 'We Will Fall' (The Stooges, 1969)
We’ll assume that whoever sequenced The Stooges’ first album has a perverse sense of humour. Otherwise, it’s hard to explain why ‘We Will Fall’ – a funereal-paced 10-minute drone – would follow the blistering one-two of ‘1969’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ that kicked off their debut.
Based around an absurd appropriation of a monk’s chant by bassist Dave Simpson (pre-empting Monty Python & The Holy Grail by a good six years) and producer John Cale’s snaking viola, ‘We Will Fall’ trundles on endlessly, sapping the energy from the album with each passing second – not even Iggy Pop drawling promises of transcendent congress can save it. The next track is the incendiary ‘No Fun’ and the album gets back to the business of inventing punk. Phew.
7. Stevie Wonder, 'Isn't She Lovely' (Songs In The Key Of Life, 1976)
Of course, Stevie Wonder’s past achievements mean he is forgiven for whatever musical crimes he commits (yes, even guesting on Blue’s gormless, Nandos-playlist version of ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’). But the cloying ‘Isn’t She Lovely’, written to celebrate the birth of his daughter Aisha, stinks up the otherwise glorious Songs In The Key Of Life (one of 1976's greatest albums... hell, one of the best albums of the 1970s or of all time, really) like a nappy bin in a heatwave. By the four-minute mark, when Aisha starts gurgling over the backing track, somebody really should’ve had a word.
6. The Beach Boys, 'Student Demonstration Time' (Surf’s Up, 1971)
As the ’70s got underway, the music of The Beach Boys moved with the times. Wilson brothers Carl and Dennis came to the fore with soulful and sophisticated compositions and their elder sibling Brian contributed flashes of greatness, despite taking a step back due to mental health problems.
Surf’s Up (1971) was one of their best post-Pet Sounds albums, featuring Carl’s exquisite double-whammy of ‘Long Promised Road’ and ‘Feel Flows’, along with Brian’s melancholy gem ‘’Til I Die’ and the SMiLE-era masterpiece of the title track. Which makes ‘Student Demonstration Time’ a genuine aberration.
Frontman Mike Love took Leiber & Stoller’s rock’n’roll classic ‘Riot In Cell Block #9’ and wrote new lyrics which he claimed were in favour of peaceful protest, but which came across an awful lot like a criticism of student demonstrations and a defence of police brutality. What’s more, it was a stodgy, plodding rocker with Love’s deeply unlikeable, squarer-than-square vocals dragging it further down.
5. Led Zeppelin, 'The Crunge' (Houses Of The Holy, 1973)
The great bands have an indefinable quality that it difficult to pin down or quantify, a chemistry that makes them greater than the sum of their parts. For the most part, Led Zeppelin had it in spades, but on the baffling funk-rock folly of ‘The Crunge’ it seems to have deserted them entirely.
Drum colossus John Bonham’s attempt at a Bernard Purdie shuffle sounds heavy-handed; Jimmy Page’s guitar is weirdly uninspired; Robert Plant appears to be singing a different song at times and who knows what that electronic trumpet thing is doing? Live versions are better, presumably as the band had time to jam it out a bit – but the version on 1973's otherwise superb Houses Of The Holy bears precious little resemblance to anything resembling funk.
4. Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder, 'Ebony & Ivory' (Tug Of War, 1982)
There’s no denying the anti-racist message at the heart of ‘Ebony & Ivory’, but c’mon Paul, talk about labouring a metaphor. Then there’s the production, a chintzy, saccharine drag which plods on interminably (as a contrast, McCartney’s home demo – included on the 2015 Archive Collection reissue – is a low-key delight).
For an infinitely better example of what happens when two of the most restlessly creative, instinctive musicians in pop history get together, see the irresistibly funky ‘What’s That You’re Doing?’, also on the otherwise brilliant Tug Of War.
3. Blur, 'Crazy Beat' (Think Tank, 2003)
Most Blur albums have a clunker or two, but ‘Crazy Beat’ is in a class of its own. It’s a transparent attempt to replicate the success of their surprise 1997 US hit ‘Song 2’, but where that felt like a cathartic and anarchic release, ‘Crazy Beat’ feels like forced fun.
It was produced by a grown man who calls himself Fatboy Slim, so we’re laying a lot of the blame on him – especially the decision to get the Crazy Frog in to sing the song title between verses. And while we’re here, nobody had ever used the word ‘crazy’ to describe a beat before it, nor have they since.
2. The Beatles, 'Run For Your Life' (Rubber Soul, 1965)
Yes, even the mighty Beatles were capable of glaring missteps on otherwise excellent albums. Back in 1965, Rubber Soul was another major step forward for the band, and for pop music itself, particularly three flashes of brilliance written primarily by John Lennon: ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’, ‘Nowhere Man’ and ‘In My Life’. These were typical of Lennon’s brilliance – pop songs that combined a mischievous wit with deep reflection and existential thinking.
But Rubber Soul also contained his lyrical nadir – the spiteful misogyny of ‘Run For Your Life’, in which the insecure narrator attempts to control their partner through fear. Lennon would later call it his least favourite Beatles song. That’s something, at least.
1. Elton John, 'Jamaica Jerk Off', Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)
Denmark is a great nation that has given us great things. Hans Christian Anderson, LEGO, liquorice… we could go on.
But something was clearly in the water in 1974 because, when Elton John released the single ‘Candle In The Wind’ with the B-side ‘Jamaica Jerk-Off’, Denmark was the only nation where the order was flipped. Imagine it, somebody at a Danish label heard both songs and, with a clear head presumably, made the decision that ‘Jamaica Jerk-Off’ should be the single. Really, the mind boggles.
The track finds John singing questionable lyrics in a Pinner-by-way-of-Kingston-Town accent over a bafflingly busy cod-ska backing (easy on those congas, Nige!). And the less said about producer Gus Dudgeon’s cloth-eared interjections during the organ solo, the better. What makes it even more baffling is that it’s on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John’s biggest and boldest album, a 17-track double released at his peak that included ‘Bennie & The Jets’ and ‘Funeral For A Friend’.
Alongside company like this, ‘Jamaica Jerk-Off’ is the musical equivalent of wearing a rasta wig to Wimbledon. Apparently in 2014 Bernie Taupin stated he didn’t remember writing it. Nice try, but that’s never gonna stand up in court.
Pics Getty Images
Top pic Pink Floyd at a press conference, Tokyo, August 1971. Left to right, Rick Wright, David Gilmour
