Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 1986

Ah, the 1980s! What can you say about the ‘80s?

            …What can I say about the ‘80s? I mean, the ‘80s were kind of a big deal for a while, but now people seem to have lost interest in favor of the ‘90s and the ‘70s, as per the 20 and 40-year rules of nostalgia. Sure, there are plenty of great artists that saw their biggest periods of success in the ‘80s; Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, David Bowie, George Michael. These would be the artists that would go on to represent all that this decade got right, all the places in which this decade would be remembered with fondness!

            Sadly, we’re not going to be seeing a lot of that for this list. See for this list we’re delving into the mid to late ‘80s, which did have some bits of positivity to them, but for the most part had basically exhausted their enthusiasm and devolved into a curdled mixture of bad soft rock and bad synth pop. I’ll be honest folks, this was a hard year for me to sit though, not even because of whether or not it was a bad year, but because it was just a difficult year to review. The ‘80s are already foreign territory to me, seeing as I was born in the ’90s and was raised by parents that completely despised the music from this decade. However, while I did get snippets of the good ’80s music that most people inevitably got exposed to a few years ago, I don’t really have a feel for some of what the late ‘80s had to offer. Probably for the first time putting these lists together, I actually had more trouble putting the worst list together just because most of the music from this year was too bland and lacking any distinguishingly bad enough features to be worth hating. I found plenty of songs I liked, few I genuinely hated and just a metric ton of others that I just couldn’t really care for one way or the other.

            However, this was the year I was asked to review, so this is what I have to work with. Besides, I figured this would be a good test of my skills as a critic, so goddamn if I’m going to back down from a challenge like this. Just a warning though folks, most of the worst songs from this year aren’t interestingly bad like they’ve been on my previous lists. No, the crap we have to sift through this time around is mostly just blandly awful, with only a couple songs actually having something worthy of actual contempt. What I guess this means is that, for most of my picks on this list, my attempts to list qualities that make these songs suck will pretty much just be grasping at straws trying to get a feel for why a song doesn’t work for me. However, make no mistake; all of the songs I’m going to be listing here are awful.

            Speaking of which, I’d say it’s about time to delve into our dishonorable mentions:

I’ll Be Over You (Toto) [99; 11; 12 weeks]

            Firing long time lead vocalist Bobby Kimball was a big mistake for Toto. They apparently tried to maintain some level of buoyancy on the pop charts by hitching onto the soft rock bandwagon. The problem with that was that the majority of music from this particular bandwagon wasn’t very good. And coming from the band that gave us ‘Hold the Line,’ ‘Rosanna’ and ‘Africa,’ this is a serious disappointment.

Earth Angel (New Edition) [--; 21; 6 weeks]

            Not much to say about this one besides the fact that it’s a shoddy cover and the lead singer’s vocals sound incredibly uncomfortable. It sounds like it’s being sung by a little kid, not even just a teenager; a child. And what’s especially disappointing is that I know New Edition are capable of making decent music. This though, this is just a nauseating bore.

Two of Hearts (Stacey Q) [51; 3; 13 weeks]

Can someone please tell me what part of the ‘80s thought that annoyingly stuttered lyrics were a good idea, so that I may find it, dig it up and burn it? Also, who’s idea was it to give this Stacy Q girl a singing career? Her voice is way too weak to be pulling off this kind of music. So, I guess it only makes sense why they would need to tone down everything else in the mix just so she doesn’t get overpowered.

The Sweetest Taboo (Sade) [55; 5; 13 weeks]

And here’s yet another song by a singer with a singing voice way too weak to actually pull it off. Also, this is a minor nitpick, but how is this guy she’s singing about a ‘taboo’? That would suggest that she’s forbidden from loving him, but nothing in the song seems to suggest that such is the case outside of that one line.

The Next Time I Fall (Peter Cetera & Amy Grant) [--; 1; 13 weeks]

Boring.

Friends and Lovers (Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson) [13; 2; 14 weeks]

Boring.

Love is Forever (Billy Ocean) [--; 16; 8 weeks]

Really boring.

Shake You Down (Gregory Abbott) [--; 4; 9 weeks]

Beginning to notice a pattern yet?

Oh People (Patti LaBelle) [--; 29; 3 weeks]

Here’s just another dull anthem preaching for world peace. The only way this one stands out is how annoyingly condescending the whole thing is. Basically the message is, “If everyone would just stop hating and love one another, all the problems in the world would go away and we’d all live happily! Oh, and also buy the song and spread the word around so it’ll happen faster.” If this had been an actual hit, trust me, it definitely would’ve made the cut.

            On the topic of what actually did make the cut though, it’s time for me to give you what you need, folks. This is…

…THE TOP 10 WORST HIT SONGS OF 1986!

            #10.

            One major trend that was popular around this period of the ‘80s was the soft, romantic ballad song. I’ve said my bit about this type of song more than a few times, and by now have made it quite clear that I don’t care much for the genre. Soft, slow songs don’t really work when being used for love songs because the emotions expressed or the methods in which they’re delivered are too lightweight. They can easily come across more dour and joyless than anything, failing to convey any kind of discernable emotion of note. This is part of the reason Lionel Richie’s music is so easy to dislike; not only does it lack any kind of passion or energy to it, but he doesn’t convey enough emotional investment in the song to set any kind of tone for the audience to connect with. But if there’s anything worse than a dopey love ballad by Lionel Richie, it’s a dopey love ballad by a Lionel Richie wannabe.

#10. There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry) (Billy Ocean) [16; 1; 14 weeks]

Billy Ocean was a former disco performer that cropped up right around the point when disco was beginning its decline in the mainstream, and apparently didn’t really do a great job transitioning out of it once the genre died at the end of the ‘70s. However, much like what Keith Sweat would go on to do after him, he realized he could delay his career’s death by just jotting out dull songs about love and romance and manage major success that way. I wouldn’t say that Billy Ocean was a terrible artist; he had a decent singing voice and some level of personality. Hell, I actually didn’t mind his other really big hit from 1986, ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’. However, he was plagued by a very serious problem: all of his music sounds the same. Your mileage may vary naturally, but for me all his music sounded incredibly interchangeable, and that only became even truer once he switched over to performing slow tempo, romantic ballads.

And that brings us to his other big hit from 1986, ‘There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry).’ I guess he really felt a strong need to give his songs needlessly lengthy titles this year. Anyway, this song is basically the polar opposite of ‘When the Going Gets Rough;’ where that song was jubilant and upbeat, ‘There’ll Be Sad Songs’ is just an unfocused mess of random sad song elements trying desperately to warrant an emotional reaction from its audience. It has a soft, fuzzy sounding, electronic keyboard opening, said keyboard serving to drive the song forward. It has lyrics about heartache and sadness, talking about love songs and fires burning and two hearts beating in perfect harmony and various other love song clichés. And then the drums kick in as it gets to the chorus, with strings coming in during the final chorus to really drive the emotionally manipulative point home.

Honestly, if the song’s trying to prove a point, I’m not sure what that point’s supposed to be. Sad songs always make you cry? Love songs often make you cry? Neither of those are necessarily true. Plenty of love songs are written to be happy and jubilant. This, however, is trying to pass itself off as both a sad song and a love song, but it fails at both because it fails to capture any kind of emotional response. To put it bluntly, just because a song tells you that it’s sad and that you’re supposed to feel sad about what the performer is singing about, that by itself isn’t going to get the listener to find sympathy in the song. If a song wants to create an emotional reaction, it needs the right elements in place, set the right atmosphere to make that happen, and this song clearly does not.

#9.

As you might have guessed by now, most of the songs on this list are here because I found them boring. I honestly didn’t even realize until I started working on this year that I could find a song boring enough to be worth hating. However, that doesn’t mean that a few noteworthy flavors of stupid didn’t crop up now and then.

#9. The Rain (Oran “Juice” Jones) [--; 9; 9 weeks]

Dear God, where do I begin with this one?

…Well, I guess I could start with the name. I realize that there have been much stupider, much more ridiculous stage names that pop stars have used, even in the ‘80s, but seriously? ‘Juice’? Who does he think he is, the bully from ‘Garbage Pail Kids: the Movie’? Yeah, a film universally reviled and in the running for one of the worst films ever created! That’s what you want people to think of when they see your stage name!

I guess with a name like that I shouldn’t be surprised that the song he produced is something this juvenile. The music’s already dull and forgettable, doing nothing to set any kind of tone or mood. However, with Mr. Jones’s bland, monotonous performance, it only becomes even less interesting to listen to. The guy sounds like he’s reading things off of a grocery list. And the lyrics seriously do not help matters. For the chorus, you’ve got this: “I saw you (and him) walking in the rain / You were holding hands and I’ll never be the same.” You know, he won’t ever be the same, as opposed to seeing you hold hands with someone and not changing in the slightest. Considering the song’s entirely about the singer having caught the subject of the song cheating on him, there’s actually very little to implicate the person in question. Oh, she was holding hands with someone! And? Not to mention the fact that the narrator later reveals that he was following the woman in question to discover this doesn’t exactly paint him in the best light either.
            The verses don’t really fair much better. The first verse is basically about how he couldn’t sleep and felt insecure about his relationship with the woman in question, and decided to drive out and happened to witness her holding hands with someone. He doesn’t say the where, when or why regarding his drive; just that it wasn’t far. The second verse has the whole ‘you’re begging me not to leave you, to give you another chance’ scenario that many breakup songs present, particularly when it’s the lady in the relationship that was cheating, then has him concluding, “Girl I love you and I always will / But darling right now I’ve got to say goodbye”. Really? That’s the best you could come up with? “Oh, baby, I want to give our love another chance, but not right now. I need to say ‘goodbye’ right now; I’ve got errands to run.” Way to fail at adding any kind of emotional heft or weight to your putting this girl down, dude. Also, if you ‘love her and always will,’ you’re clearly not showing much emotional turmoil over this decision.

Of course, these are ultimately minor nitpicks and aren’t the real reasons why this song made the list. No, if you want to know how to truly fail at writing a convincing breakup song, we need to fast-forward all the way to the end of the song, which is taken up by, I kid you not, a two-minute spoken word bridge that is probably one of the lamest things ever put to radio. For starters, during this section he tries so hard to pass himself off as a tough guy and the bigger man by revealing that he stalked her and saying ‘you cold busted’. He even says that he was tempted to murder the both of them without any grounds that she was actually cheating on him, with the only reason he didn’t being that he didn’t want to get blood on his flashy coat. For starters, what kind of person just out and admits to his girlfriend that he was considering killing her? For that matter, why would he say to her face that he was stalking her? And what reason would his girlfriend have to actually listen to him when he tells her to shut her mouth? I feel like the natural reaction would be to call him out on the fact that he followed her. Then he reveals that he took out all her money from her bank accounts, cancelled all of her credit cards and took all the jewelry he ever bought her, then took everything of hers out of the apartment, packed it up and left it in the guest room. Again, who just flat out says all this to the face of their girlfriend, even if she did cheat on them? And then he goes on about how he bought her numerous expensive, fancy things and feels like she is obligated to be faithful to him because of it, and that he’s this high class person and she’s worth less than the dirt on his shoes and what have you. Oh, and also random ‘Silly rabbit, tricks are made for kids’ reference, because reasons. It is the most ridiculously phony-sounding put down I have ever heard. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that that’s not actually what happened. What I think happened is that he wanted to call her out on cheating on him but got cold feet before promptly getting dumped by her, and then he started writing up this entire monologue later as a pathetic fantasy about how he wished it had gone down.

Yeah, I know it’s only the last half of the song, but tell me that it doesn’t make the entire rest of the song just sound pathetic in hindsight. In fact, this song even spawned three other songs written in response to it, all three of which serve to expose just how phony and pathetic this song is. Also, I guess it’s only fitting that ‘Juice’ never saw any further success after this song, and ultimately quit his music career after his second and third albums went nowhere; I guess the ‘Juice’ went sour pretty quickly. Doesn’t stop ‘The Rain’ from sucking though. Next!

#8.

            I admit, I don’t really pay much attention to song remixes. I tend to feel like a song should be able to stand on its own two feet without having to be remixed to salvage it. From my experience, when a song gets remixed, it’s generally for the worse. Of course, when the song’s already pretty crappy to begin with it’s not like there’s anything to salvage by remixing it. Case in point…

#8. I Can’t Wait (Remix) (Nu Shooz) [26; 3; 15 weeks]

Part of the reason I can’t really get into remixes is that they tend to add unnecessary effects to the song like fuzzy electronic portions that only serve to make the song sound atonal. The thing is, even before it was remixed, ‘I Can’t Wait’ already had rather unpleasant production work. The remix doesn’t have any kind of improvements or anything done, save for some brass parts here and there. The problem, however, comes from the fact that half the time I can’t make out the lyrics to the song. Of course, part of that’s just because of the poor production, but the other comes from the fact that the singer’s vocals sound like they were recorded with a cheap recording program of some sort. This is a problem both on the original version of the song and on the remix.

Of course, surely the song can be salvaged if its lyrics are good enough to make up for the crappy production, right? Well, see that’s the thing; even when you can make out the lyrics, they don’t make any sense. The main lyric that comes up in the song is the line ‘I Can’t Wait,’ but then that just brings up questions. What is she waiting for exactly? Is her lover making her wait for something from him? If so what? Why does she have to wait for it? Of course, even when you actually look up the lyrics, they don’t seem to be about anything in particular. The singer goes on about how she wants to know what’s on her lover’s mind, how she’ll always love him, even when he doesn’t put forth any effort, that she wants him to give something that she can’t live without, and that she can’t wait for various little interactions between the two of them, either over the telephone, through her love walking through the door, or when they’re alone. There just doesn’t seem to be any sense of cohesion in this song; it feels unfocused. None of the lines connect with each other, and none of the individual parts make enough sense or have enough strength to carry the song by themselves.

Of course, after this song fell from the charts, Nu Shooz wouldn’t really be able to achieve the same level of success, so they disappeared and were never heard from again. Moving on!

#7.

#7. Point of No Return (Nu Shooz) [--; 28; 8 weeks]

…Nevermind.

Okay, say what you want about ‘I Can’t Wait;’ at least that song kept the obnoxiousness of its production confined to a few areas and had some moments that almost redeemed its shoddiness. The same can most definitely not be said of ‘Point of No Return,’ where the crappy production is front and center, slathered all over the song like if someone used feces-filled toilet water to set the background for what might’ve otherwise been a respectable painting. The percussive sections that kick in, particularly for the final verse and at the end of the song, sound and feel like I’m getting stabbed repeatedly with a sword. And also, while the vocals for ‘I Can’t Wait’ weren’t exactly stellar, they were at least able to carry a melody and didn’t grate on my nerves. The vocals for ‘Point of No Return’ are like nails on a chalkboard. Even the harmonized sections don’t feel like they’re adding anything to the song, save to spare me from the unpleasant glissed notes that happen at the end of each line in each of the verses.

The tone of the song’s not very good either. The song’s apparently about how the singer has fallen for someone and how awesome she feels about having fallen for the person, but at no point does this feel like a love song, or even just a giddy, happy song about being in love. More than anything, this sounds like a children’s song; a really, really crappy children’s song that I wouldn’t wish to submit any child to except maybe as punishment. I mean, listen to it; nothing about it warrants being taken seriously, the tone’s too light and thin to actually warrant a tangible emotional reaction; it just doesn’t sound like a song written for adults. Hell, even the melody of the song sounds cheap, uncreative and sing-song-y.

It’s not even like the rest of Nu Shooz’s discography was much better either. That said, of the songs of theirs I’ve actually heard, ‘Point of No Return’ is by far their worst. Compared to their other songs, it’s just the most juvenile, the cheapest sounding, and the one with the most grating vocals. The only good thing I can think of to say about this song is that there are still six songs on this list that are worse than it. With that said…

#6.

Now, I’m not one to rag on message songs. If a bad song is written with a positive message in mind, it’s not a knock against the message being presented when I say that the song sucks; it’s just an indication that the best quality was not brought to the table when trying to showcase its message. If a song speaks to you because it has a positive message, far be it from me to criticize you for your moral standing regarding that message. However, as I’ve said before, I am an honest person, and as such I only think it right for me to be honest about my opinion as well. So when a song with a positive message in it turns out to be crap, I feel like it’s only fair to acknowledge it as such.

#6. We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off (Jermaine Stewart) [60; 5; 13 weeks]

Now, in hindsight, this song is kind of tragic, since the performer, Jermaine Stewart, would go on to die from AIDS-related liver cancer eleven years later. And it’s not like the song’s message is even a bad one. It’s okay to take your time in a relationship and not go straight to sex. Sometimes it’s better to get to know the person first and take your time. It gives you the chance to learn about the person you’re committing yourself to. And besides, it can be fun to take your time with a relationship. The person you’re hooking up with can turn out to have similar interests as you, and even if it doesn’t work out between the two of you, you could still become good friends anyway.

So, if I have all these positive things to say about the message of the song, why did I still place it on the list? Well, there’re a few minor issues I have with the song. For starters, the music’s not particularly interesting, just bland, generic ‘80s party song music, and oh God that electronic piano… The lyrics aren’t much to write home about either. They just don’t do a good job painting the idea of taking it slow as all that appealing. However, the biggest problem comes from Jermaine Stewart himself. Simply put, his voice on this song sounds terrible. I can’t exactly put my finger on what my main issue is; I don’t have a natural aversion to male performers with higher pitched vocals. And I don’t even have this specific problem on any of Stewart’s other songs either; on all of those songs, he sounds fine. So then what’s my issue with Stewart’s voice on this song specifically? Well I guess it might be this: something about it is just whiny and annoying to me. He doesn’t sound like someone you’d want to get it on with; he sounds like a teenager trying to whine his way into your heart. And it’s not just in the pitch; it’s the way he annunciates his words, or rather how he doesn’t. His words just sound like they slur into one another clumsily and haphazardly.

Jermaine Stewart actually did manage another top 40 hit song in 1987, but after that he wouldn’t really see any major success. And then he’d pass away ten years after that. It really is a shame that this song isn’t better than it is, because I do support its message on paper. In execution, however, I just can’t get behind this.

#5.

           

            Now, back on my best of 1976 list, I talked about how George Clinton never really saw any further success beyond Parliament’s very successful, and ridiculously good ‘Give Up the Funk.’ And while that’s true, that didn’t mean that the other artists that were part of Parliament-Funkadelic weren’t still able to find success in their own right. Of course, in some cases, maybe it would’ve been better if they hadn’t.

#5. Let’s Go All the Way (Sly Fox) [45; 7; 14 weeks]

Sly Fox were an ‘80s dance pop duo consisting of Puerto Rican vocalist Michael Camacho and American funk session musician and former Parliament-Funkadelic vocalist Gary ‘Mudbone’ Cooper. Not that you’d know that he’d have such a background listening to this song, which is like having wrecking balls banging inside your skull. I’ll be honest, that obnoxiously aggressive beat more than anything else is what put this song on the list, not that the rest of the song makes up for it.

Of course, there’s also the lyrics, which seem to be completely nonsensical. I mean, there seems to be an overarching theme of the issues in the world today. This is suggested by lyrics such as, “Presidential party / No one wants to dance,” “Workin’ in a factory / Eight days a week,” “Rich man poor man / Livin’ in fantasy,” “Livin’ in New York / Looks like an apple core” and “California dreamers / Sinkin’ in the sand.” On the surface, these sound like they’re talking about real problems in the world and trying to draw attention to our flawed society. However, it doesn’t actually elaborate on any of those statements in any way. It just kind of checks them off like items on a grocery list. And then it lets loose on the chorus with a bizarrely sexual sounding lyric repeated over and over again, that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the song. As I said before, I have nothing against message songs, so long as the message is something I can get behind. I don’t have any idea what this song’s trying to convey with its message though. It just sounds like something that someone would use to try and brainwash children into joining the army or something. I can’t be the only one that thinks that, can I?

The rest of their singles didn’t really seem much better, so I’m not all that heartbroken about the fact that these guys disbanded by the end of the decade. Still, this is just a mess of a song, and I feel like I’ve been hammered into the ground every single time I hear it!

#4.

Now here’s a tired, overused subject matter that we really didn’t need to see more of in pop music: break up songs! Because we still need to know just how much it sucks to have a relationship go sour, don’t we? It’s not like those listening have already experienced a bad break up at this point and know exactly how much it sucks, right? Don’t we desperately need to see more break up songs in pop music?

The answer, of course, is “no.”

#4. All Cried Out (Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam) [61; 8; 13 weeks]

As if it isn’t bad enough that we’re seeing an overused troupe cropping up. We also get it delivered courtesy of Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam. Those of you keeping up with my lists may recall that I listed a song of theirs as a dishonorable mention on my ‘worst of ‘91’ list. Well, my dear readers, you can take comfort now in knowing that they always sucked. This was their first of only three songs of theirs that would chart in the top ten, with 1987 having them see much greater success with their follow ups “Head to Toe” and “Lost in Emotion,” which honestly are about as good as this piece of crap.

How much does this song suck? Well, let’s start with the lyrics. For starters, I should note that this song seems overly obsessed with fire imagery. Seriously, between lines like “My tears will burn the pillow” and “Romance up in flames, why should I take the blame,” you’d think that the song was trying to set itself on fire so that it didn’t have to exist. Also, how would tears burn things, I mean unless you cry bleach or kerosene or something? Oh, and I just love the ‘Apology not accepted’ line. Tell me you didn’t write this song in kindergarten. Hell, even kindergarteners could come up with something better than this! Furthermore, the song’s use of a second vocalist is kind of wasted in that, rather than using the opportunity to show two different sides of the break up, it basically just has both of them saying the exact same thing: that the guy was in the wrong. That’s just lazy songwriting; you might as well have just told the entire song from the one vocalist’s perspective!

Then there’s trying to discern the exact tone this song is trying to convey. The song starts with the narrator talking about being upset, how she’ll hide her emotions behind the raindrops. But then she starts whining about how she’s tired of the narrator lying, though it gives us no details regarding what he was lying about, save for the line, “All I needed was a simple ‘hello.’” Then it seems to imply that she’s being passive aggressive and insisting that he should’ve noticed that she was crying despite being covered up by traffic. Then it talks about her giving him sex or something? Then it shifts to the guy’s perspective, with him saying that he was in the wrong for never seeing things her way. But then he drops the line, “Now I see that the grass is greener,” which has nothing to do with the rest of the verse. Then the first narrator says she wants him to leave her alone, despite the fact that she’s complaining about him neglecting her, refusing to accept an apology, then basically talking down to him for ‘weakening so easily’ after she gave him all her love?

The only thing I can say about this song is that it sounds calculated. It’s a string of break up song clichés piled one on top of another to try and wring an emotional reaction out of the audience. And even if I were to believe that this was coming from somewhere real, the person going through all this needs some kind of help to get their head straight and get to the root of the problem before going off and complaining about five different things she wasn’t satisfied with from the relationship. If Lisa Lisa wants to whine about how she’s so neglected despite the fact that she’s insisting on being left alone and get all passive aggressive over her ex caving in after one bout of sex, fine. But she shouldn’t expect me to care about it.

#3.

You know what doesn’t serve to make a song’s message better? Redundancy!

#3. Live is Life (Opus) [--; 32; 5 weeks]

Okay yes, this song only barely qualified for this list; if it had dropped off the charts just one week sooner it would’ve just been a dishonorable mention at best. However, it did qualify, so it gets placement on this list. And rightly so, if you ask me, because when you get down to it this song is completely hollow, meaningless fluff. It doesn’t even pretend to be about anything; the chorus primarily consists of a background of people chanting ‘na na na na na,’ for God’s sake. And the rest of the lyrics that aren’t just nonsense are just statements of redundancy and half formed sentiments and phrases that don’t actually add up to anything when you give them even the tiniest bit of attention. Now, considering they’re Austrian, it would be easy to dismiss the nonsensical lyrics as being the result of them not having a great grasp of the English language and maybe feel like giving them some leniency. However, when there were non English acts like A-Ha and Falco that were able to make decent songs that also had nonsensically used English lyrics, I don’t understand why you would be making such excuses to be listening to these guys over those acts.

And even if you just disregard the lyrics and try to enjoy the song as a goofy little sing-a-long, it doesn’t even manage that all that well. The song’s so dull, lackluster and uninteresting that there really isn’t a lot for me to say about it. The song’s primary driving forces are monotonous hand clapping and a terribly stiff guitar lick. The main reason for the hand clapping seems to be because they would always play the song live. I would comment on how they play the song in the studio, except I can’t find a version of the song in the studio. I can only imagine this being because the song would sound a lot more awkward without a drunken audience letting themselves be humored by these guys’ half-assed performance. It does not say good things about your song when it actually loses momentum every time it gets to the chorus!

And it’s not even like Opus was that great of a band by themselves anyway, even discounting this song from their discography. Their material was staggeringly mediocre at best and…well, the likes of ‘Live is Life’ at worst. In fact, they actually rereleased this song in 1994, which should serve as an indicator of just how lackluster they were as a band in that they couldn’t even come up with enough songs to forge an identity for themselves without just recycling their one noteworthy success. Well, look on the bright side, Opus: at least your home country of Austria still loves you. That’s got to mean something, right? Right?

#2.

Like I said earlier, I don’t inherently hate all message songs. I can get behind the sentiment of ‘We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off,’ even if the song itself isn’t worth my time. Hell, I don’t even have anything against most religious music on that same logic, since the genre isn’t inherently terrible, so long as the message is actually something I can get behind. No, if a message song wants to really get under my skin, there is no faster way for it to do this than with an inherently flawed or just plain awful message.

#2. Human (The Human League) [25; 1; 15 weeks]

So, let’s all just pause for now and use our imaginations for a brief moment. Picture, if you will, a scenario where you have cheated on your lover. Your lover has become aware of the fact that you cheated on them and they’re now very upset about this. You feel really terrible about what you did and know that you need to be very careful about what you say next. What do you do in this scenario? Would you apologize for what you did? Would you be the bigger person in this scenario and own up to your mistakes and accept full responsibility for what you did? Would you put forth every last bit of effort you could muster to make sure that you never hurt the one you cared about in this manner ever again?

Well, too bad, because that’s not the solution that the Human League have to offer up for this scenario! Nope, if you’re going off of their logic, then the only reasonable solution for this hypothetical situation is to make excuses and try to justify the awful, irresponsible act you have committed and put forth no effort to indicate that you won’t do it again, or even that you’re sorry for what you did. After all, it’s not your fault for cheating on your lover! You’re only human; it’s in your nature to make mistakes! That’s right folks, cheating on your lover isn’t all that terrible of an act to do; it’s just a ‘mistake,’ a minor misstep, an insignificant miscalculation!

I’m not making that up folks; that is actually what ‘Human’ by the Human League is about. I’m already not a fan of songs about cheating, but I especially hate songs that try to justify it like this one does. I know I said previously that I try not to let my morals have that much sway over my opinion of a song when ranking it for these lists, but when the entire point of the song is about trying to justify something like this, then the song is already inherently a failure because it’s trying to make excuses for something that you really shouldn’t be trying to make excuses for. The song’s goal is inherently flawed, so there’s no way that it can succeed at accomplishing it. And you know what’s especially stupid about this song? During the bridge near the end of the song, there’s a section where the girlfriend not only actually forgives the guy, but admits that she was cheating on him too.

And you know what, even ignoring the awful, awful, terrible message the song’s trying to convey, the song can’t even stand on its own well enough to actually justify the song’s existence by itself. There is no emotional investment in the performances on this song whatsoever. The music sounds about as bland and cookie cutter as a bad ‘80s slow tempo ballad can sound. There’s no build up or payoff to be had from this music; it remains just as flat and monotonous from beginning to end. This only serves to accentuate just how much the singer doesn’t sound like he actually feels bad about what he did.

The sad thing is that I can’t even really find this song terrible enough to even be worth feeling offended by just because it’s so bland in all other respects outside of the subject matter. It’s just a dull, grey puddle of fecal matter that symbolizes just how bad the ‘80s could get when no effort was being put forth. And yet, believe it or not, as far as bad ‘80s ballads go, there was actually one worse that came out this year. Prepare yourselves, folks; it’s going to get ugly…

#1.

Generally when the biggest star in a group of performers, usually the lead singer of a band, decides to start a solo career, it can be a bit of a mixed bag. Some artists that went solo went on to have very good solo careers, such as George Michael, Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake. However, there are also artists whose careers likely would have been better off sticking with their band or group. Artists like Gwen Stefani and will.i.am, who once were capable of creating quality music, suddenly started pumping out complete crap once they started going solo. Part of it comes from the fact that these acts were already kind of selling out in one sense or another so more of their work is influenced by studio hacks than by the artists themselves. More importantly though, the reason that acts like these lose some of their quality when they go solo is that they had the help from the rest of the band they were with behind them before. Going solo takes that away from them and forces them to utilize their own talents. Granted, they can just hire other people to cover bases they can’t, but then they’re working with people they have no familiarity working with, and in that case they might as well have just stuck with the rest of their band mates.

So, why do I bring all this up? Well, because there occasionally comes an example when a band has already sold out and given up whatever quality they might have had previously, meaning that whatever possible promise that said band would have had is already gone, and yet not only does the band persist, but then its lead singer decides to start a solo career on top of that. And when you want the perfect example of an artist starting a solo career despite having zero grounds for anyone to expect anything of quality to come of it, look no further than Peter Cetera.

#1. Glory of Love (Peter Cetera) [14; 1; 14 weeks]

I’ve never really had anything against Chicago, or Peter Cetera for that matter. Granted, that could just be because I’ve never really exposed myself to most of the work of either act. I mean, I listened to ‘If You Leave Me Now’ back when I was working on my worst list for 1976, but that was just one song and didn’t properly reflect the full scope of their discography, at the time anyway. However, going back through their discography showed me that, early on at least, they did at least have some talent as a band. Yes, even Peter Cetera had good music in him at one point. And yet, by 1986 it’s clear listening to ‘Glory of Love’ that the man just wasn’t trying anymore.

This is obvious just looking at the lyrics alone. These are some of the most unmemorable, uninspired lyrics I’ve heard in a love song. All of them are just love song clichés about how they’ll fight for each other’s love and how they’ll always love each other and being the other’s hero and knight in shining armor and blah blah blah…These lyrics are like stale crackers: brittle, flavorless and completely unable to offer any kind of satisfaction no matter how many times you take them in. Forget glory of love; these lyrics don’t even manage to capture the essence or concept of love, let alone any semblance of glory.

Of course, that’s the least of the song’s worries when you also have the lackluster production and Peter Cetera’s terrible vocals to throw in on top of that. The guy’s auto tune is so bad it sounds like a computer is generating his voice; it sounds inhuman! And, you know, if it was just the issue of the auto tune, I could find a way to deal with that. But the way his voice resonates through the auto tune makes it migraine inducingly unpleasant to listen to. In fact, you know how in some shows with a sound manipulating character the guy tends to have the ability to generate high frequency sound waves that can shatter glass or throw off people’s equilibrium? That’s what it’s like listening to Peter Cetera’s vocals on ‘Glory of Love.’ I don’t understand why it’s only this song of his that I have this issue with; I don’t have this reaction to any other songs of his, even from post-sell out Chicago.

Oh, and apparently this was also meant as the theme song to the second ‘Karate Kid’ film. What does it have to do with the film? How does it tie into karate or the characters of the story? It doesn’t. It’s just a cheap, uninspired ballad that Cetera coughed out just for a hit in his solo career. This song is an embodiment of everything wrong with music back in the mid ‘80s: transparently commercial, lacking any semblance of original thought, dull, slow and boring. So I think it only fitting that I award this song the only ‘glory’ it warrants or deserves: the worst hit song of 1986! Good riddance!