Saturday Music Club: 13 annoying songs

Some songs that have inflicted some acute unpleasantness over the years...sometimes in part because they were, however blessedly briefly, ubiquitous. The first here might be might be the least bad musically, but the annoyingly preachy yet cutesy lyrics, delivered in large part by long-term abusive parent Der Bingle, brings it to this list (runners-up here...possibly Frank Sinatra's pathetic recordings of "Sunny Side of the Street" [which he concludes with "All those chicks at my feet/On..."] or "Mrs. Robinson" ["How's your bird, Mrs. Robinson?..." "bird" being a Rat Pack euphemism for penis]):


Well, I guess it was meant to be funny. Instrumentally, really not too bad...real pity about the vocals and everything else (extra demerits for use in commercials that actually work as aversion therapy to cheesecake):


Simply the most annoying song from a very annoying band's career; I've hated this song longer than any other ("I Started a Joke", not the other bad song which follows):


This track is impressive enough instrumentally, and the arrangement acceptably hokey, but the lyrics...well, I guess sufficient amounts of LSD or something similar leaves them as somehow tolerable, as they outclass even the best/worst efforts of Moody Blues (just barely), Led Zeppelin, or Pink Floyd:


You know, I rather liked "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)"--but whining and cloying cuteness don't cut it for me, and never have:


Speaking of whining, and inanity of the highest caliber:


Speaking of inanity, the closest I'll come, I think, to a consensus choice--and the genius that is Rupert Holmes would go on to inane sitcommery eventually, too, with Remember WENN, thus making him a forerunner of what Alan Thicke would be...I refuse to go check if Holmes was ever the host of a bland chat show, as well:


The mid-'70s featured entirely too many trivial throwaways (Jim Stafford's unpunctuated "My Girl Bill" almost took this slot), but one of the most half-assed would have to be this one, between the thin vocal, hectoring lyrics, and charmless bar-band organ and guitar riffs  (I gather this was recently dusted off for some reason for a Marvel Comics film soundtrack):


Did I mention my aversion to whiny and inane? And, in this case, morosely cutesy...manages to just outdo "Stairway to Heaven" in all of these and to rival it in its ineluctable miasma, particularly when it was newish, and for entirely too many years after:


Synthesizer haircut bands have faced all sorts of derision, but none deserved it more...manages to out-inane the likes of Lionel Richie's "Hello" as well, not the easiest thing to do:


Robot music. Though some robots have more spirit and soul:


Isn't casual misogyny adorable? Particularly when so smugly self-congratulatory?


Really adorable? Of course, this could be replaced by any number of Mashall Mathers or other pathetic expressions, including so many that didn't get constant airplay.


If you play them all simultaneously, they sound a little better, but Melanie's vocal still gets through distinctly, alas.