(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IT'S A SMALL WORLD")
RICHARD M SHERMAN AND ROBERT B SHERMAN: (Singing) It's a small world after all...
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Do you have a song you absolutely hate...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FRIDAY")
REBECCA BLACK: It's Friday, Friday. Got to get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend...
RASCOE: ...That drives you crazy...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BABY SHARK")
PINKFONG: (Singing) Baby shark, do do do do do do...
RASCOE: ...Makes you want to throw away your ear buds, your headphones, and everything else?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MACARTHUR PARK")
RICHARD HARRIS: (Singing) Someone left the cake out in the rain. I don't think that I can take it 'cause it took so long to bake it. And I'll never have that recipe again.
RASCOE: I have one song like that. Walden Green has one. In fact, he thinks most people have one.
WALDEN GREEN: I had always found that asking people to try to come to a decision on what is the worst song of all time was a great conversation starter and that everybody kind of had their own, very personal vendettas against the songs that they chose.
RASCOE: Green asked more than 50 music critics that very question, and he spilled the dirt on Dirt, capital D, a pop culture newsletter. The title - worst song ever, and it comes with a warning. Listen at your own risk.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'")
JOURNEY: (Singing) Just a small-town girl, living in a lonely world...
RASCOE: This classic by Journey made the list three times, the original once and twice more specifically for the TV show "Glee's" version.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GLEE")
CORY MONTEITH: (As Finn, singing) A singer in a smoky room...
LEA MICHELE: (As Rachel, singing) The smell of wine and cheap perfume.
RASCOE: Billboard chart queen Taylor Swift also made the list three times. Pitchfork contributor Colin Joyce chose this.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIM CARLETON'S "OPUS NO 1")
RASCOE: It's the hold music for his health insurance company. And look, I absolutely get that. And yet...
GREEN: I actually saw some vocal defenders of that song in the replies, but I just thought, I'm pretty sure it's just meant to make you hang up.
RASCOE: Esquire writer Adam Morgan chose a track by the Beach Boys. He had his reasons.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOOD VIBRATIONS")
THE BEACH BOYS: (Singing) Oh...
RASCOE: Again, this is a totally subjective, often illogical exercise, but readers were outraged.
GREEN: And he also had the misfortune of being alphabetically first in the list. So people immediately got to the contributor portion of the roundup. And the first thing that they saw was this guy saying "Good Vibrations" was the worst song of all time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOOD VIBRATIONS")
THE BEACH BOYS: (Singing) I'm picking up good vibrations. She's giving me expectations.
RASCOE: What makes a song unhinge even a professional critic? Some associated a tune with loss or heartbreak. Some recalled being a kid stuck in the backseat listening. Some objected to a song's over-commercialization or how it was exploited politically. Many did cite artistry, and some wrestled with their own inconsistencies, like Switched On Pop podcast producer Reanna Cruz. Thumbs down - "Genius Of Love" by Tom Tom Club. Thumbs up - "Genius Of Love" by Tom Tom Club, when it's sampled. And Walden Green sees the point.
GREEN: I love "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey. Love "Return Of The Mac." But "Genius Of Love" itself for me is one of those songs where I'm happy to hear it for maybe the first minute and a half, but it definitely drags on for too long and overstays its welcome.
RASCOE: Green says compiling the list changed his mind on at least one song - DJ Casper's "Cha-Cha Slide."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHA-CHA SLIDE")
DJ CASPER: (Rapping) To the left. Take it back now, y'all. One hop this time.
GREEN: Listen, I love a group dance moment at a party, but I had never stopped to consider that, as the writer who wrote that blurb said, we will never be free until we stop getting up to dance "The Cha-Cha Slide." And I was forced to introspect and realized that maybe I was a victim of "Cha-Cha Slide" conditioning.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHA-CHA SLIDE")
DJ CASPER: (Singing) Cha-cha, real smooth. Turn it out.
RASCOE: I don't mind a good slide. But I personally do not like "Love Calls" by Kem. And please don't beat me up, and I'm sure Kem is very nice. But just something about that song - it don't work for me. And we're not going to sneak a little bit of it under me speaking right now because this is my show, and I said uh-uh. As for Dirt Media's Walden Green, well, he loves Nina Simone's version of "Feeling Good." He says it's, quote, "joyful, sensual, and provocative, solely by nature of her being the one to perform it." So when she's not the one to perform it, and Michael Buble is, Green says, the worst.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FEELING GOOD")
MICHAEL BUBLE: (Singing) And I'm feeling good.
RASCOE: If you've got a song you think is the worst ever, tell us why. Send an email or voice message to weekend@npr.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FEELING GOOD")
BUBLE: (Singing) Fish in the sea, you know how I feel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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