Worst Song of the 1980s

Here’s another - I Just Called To Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder.

Another.... Kokomo by The Beach Boys

Worst piece of shit I heard in that decade. Made me despise Neil Diamond. The way that background singer drones on always made me wanted to put a bullet through my head:

This is one of the worst songs of the 20th century.

I have no doubt it is currently on the PA system in hell

Lady In Red

Worst. Song. Ever. Mic drop! :)

I Just Called is such a lazy chintzy song. It just sounds cheap. Still, it was a UK number one for six weeks in the fall of 84 and ended up the number 2 selling single of the year (Do They Know it’s Christmas being number one, but that was a charity record). No idea why it would have been that popular. Steve Womder must have laughed all the way to the bank that he got away with it.

This.

So many shitty songs among the good ones.

I like Oran "Juice" Jones' song.

R7 plus won Wonder an Oscar. Christ it is a horrible song. So uninspired and repetitive. It won over the far superior other number ones Lets Hear It For The Boy, Footloose, Ghostbusters and Against All Odds. I still think they gave it Wonder because he’s blind and for his career.

I Just Called belongs in the toilet

I’d Rather Jack by the Reynolds Girls, the beginning of the end of Stock Aitken Waterman

Look at the chubby bodies they thought were hot back then!

* oops sorry - not the 80s. I went down a rabbit hole after clicking on the Kokomo link

OP should be torture lol. we should have NEVER been reminded of any of these putrid tracks!

The Worst: Huey Lewis and the News "Hip to be Square" and David Lee Roth's "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody."

"We Built This City"

I fucking LOVE this song. It reminds me so much of someone so delightful, someone much more wonderful than you cunts are horrible. His name was Sean, and he was the most beautiful boy in Washington, DC.

I LOVE it. LOVE it. LOVE it.

Worst song: open a Madonna catalog. Point at anything.

This one bugs me.

Any of those air-raid siren travesties from Whitney Houston. I would literally hold my ears when they came on and I couldn't get away.

This drivel

YOU MAY NOW CLOSE TH3 THREAD

La Shitccone. That horrid voice.

I like the song r23

Manic Monday

R4 is the idiot Lindsey Buckingham troll. "Holiday Road" was a humorous song created for a comedy movie. I guess the idiot didn't understand that.

I can’t stand Rick Astley‘s voice.

When he sings it always sounds like he needs to clear his throat.

Boring as fuck Bon Jovi

Fuck you, R21.

Eye of the Tiger

Even though I like the Bangles, this horrid ballad is like nails on a chalkboard.

Falco - 'Rock Me Amadeus'

Duran Duran...dureadful

At the time, I might have nominated this annoying-as-hell piece of junk:

This dreck.

R36 - R24

Keep smilin, keep shinin

r36 r24 New Orleans sends a big fuck you to Katrina & The Waves Walkin' on Sunshine.

truly THE worst song of the '80s:

If I had to hear this one more time...

Equally awful...

Mall music

Or is it this one, Phil?

R44 I was just about to post that!

So much worstness from which to choose.

The worst is Phil Collins and the worst Phil Collins is Sussudio.

JL's (Just Like) Starting Over - ugh - horrid

Damn R48 you beat me to that one too!

I like a lot of Duran Duran songs but this one grates.

I agree r50. I loved Duran Duran but not that one.

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

In the Air Tonight is a great song. Really atmospheric. The other Collins songs are pretty crappy.

This one was shit

Thread closed:

more from l'orribila...greatest musical con job in history

Love on the Rocks

This one always made me want to stab my ears with sharp knives:

Kim Carnes should've been shot for that horrid Bette Davis Eyes song.

"She's precocious, and she knows just what it Takes to make a pro blush"

Heartbeat by Don Johnson

Just a big chunk o' cheese

Mr Jones' advice at R6:

You's with the Juice

'n' I gave you silk suits, Gucci handbags, blue diamonds

I gave you things you couldn't even pronounce

Now I can't give you nothin' but advice

Cause you're still young

That's right, you're still young

I hope you learn a valuable lesson from all this

You know?

Gonna find someone like me one of these days

Until then, know what you gotta do?

You gotta get on outta here with that

Alley-cat-coat wearin'

Hush-puppy-shoe-wearing'

Crumb cake I saw you with

Cause you dismissed

That's right, silly rabbit

Tricks are made for kids, don't you know that?

You without me: like cornflake without the milk

It's my world--you just a squirrel, tryin' to get a nut

Now get on outta here

Ah!

Don't touch that coat!

[quote]"She's precocious, and she knows just what it Takes to make a pro blush"

That's the lyric? I always thought it was, "and she knows just what it takes to make a crow blush."

r63, look at the thread title again.

Then,. look at what you just posted.

See the problem?

"Is there a bar in this scumbucket town?"

Kenny G.'s musical body of work.

Well damn. I like most of these songs, but I did come of age in the 80s and many of them were the soundtrack of my life, incidentally or otherwise.

Haven’t looked thru all of these yet but....any song by Rick Astley.

I used to work in a department store in the 80s near the music department. This was on heavy rotation and it was the worst music I have ever heard.

Rockwell

Ebony and Ivory. Jesus, what a crap song that was.

This piece of shit

Such complex lyrics:

This sounds even WORSE now

Most of these are bad, some are unfairly maligned. "We Built this City" especially. Interesting when I think about it, how unoriginal, and what a plagiarist, Bon Jovi always was.

Falco, “Rock Me, Amadeus”.

I HATE this one.

Like A Virgin. There I said it. It is a terrible song.

Janet's When I Think Of You is the pits. Control is also terrible.

Pretty much anything from 1988 is awful. What a shitty year for music.

This mess...

Warning! The video lasts less than seven minutes, but, seems to go on for hours.

Has anyone mentioned this abortion yet?

Not only one of the worst songs of the 1980s, but probably one of the worst songs of the 20th Century.

R81 here, "After The Rain" was a 1990's song, my apologies.

R49 of all the shitty 80s songs and one hit wonders you're going to choose John Lennon? Are you the ghost of John Lennon? He probably felt the same way ten minutes after recording that song.

From Germany, Europe.

Oh, R41. You deserve a curb stomp for your entry. That's one of the BEST songs of the 1980s.

Come on R6, that one gets points for being unintentionally funny

"You without me is like a rabbit without the Trix"

I still can't listen to this one all the way through, even decades later:

R32 wins. Eye of the Tiger is the worst song ever!! It rendered radio unlistenable in 1982 because it was on ALL THE FUCKING TIME!!

The 80s Phil Collins oeuvre is also pretty horrific. Special mention to Genesis' Land of Confusion - if I ever see puppet Reagan's head emerge from that damned water I'll be very happy.

Since this is DL, the I can't believe we made it this far without this gem being mentioned:

R89 Fuck you!

This one makes my ears bleed, especially the part where she screeches "Boiling to the maximum!"

I had NO IDEA that Hot Hot Hot was sung by a white guy. He and the song would be canceled today for cultural appropriation.

Get out of my dreams, get into my car (beep beep-yeah!)

Most of the songs y'all listed are still 100 times better than the crap that's being produced today!

Geez, who thinks 'I just called to say I love you' is a bad song???

Have you all lost your minds???

Physical from ONJ

Let's get animal, animal. I wanna get animal. Let's get into animal.

What r94 said. As bad as a lot of music was in the 1980s, WE HAD NO IDEA how bad it would get one generation later.

This song NEVER managed to become listenable to me, in the 80s or through the decades. Yeck.

As tired as I got of hearing "That's What Friends Are For," I could never say I didn't like it. It would seem wrong, it being the musical accompaniment to the deaths of so many of my friends those years. I just can't not like it. I don't want to listen to it again, but it is difficult to imagine someone's putting it on a list of worst songs, and a couple of people WWing it.

Plus Gladys fucking shines.

What a bunch of crap!

I was a young kid in the 80s, R18, and the popularity of "We Built this City" was my first inkling that adults were not all-knowing authorities. I literally remember thinking what crap that song was and wondering why the adults in my life were blasting that song. That song and anything by Richard Marx was an instant channel. Marx doesn't seem to be mentioned on these types of threads, but he was inescapable for a few years in that decade.

On the flip side, Wham! seems underappreciated. They were very successful at the time but are now treated as uncool. It's a shame because their songs were solid and still enjoyable.

Not only is this song awful and trite (“equal pay! Hear what we say!”), Stewart’s leering face obnoxious, but I especially loathe videos that use “old timey” black and white footage. So lazy. It’s not even just an 80s thing - a new Dixie Chicks video has it. Just dreadful.

I love most of the 80s, but this song always made me cringe.

Broken Wings and Kyrie from Mr. Mister. Total dreck.

R102 Agree. Awful vocals.

Mister Mister was complete crap but I’ll admit I thought the lead guy (Richard Page) was hot.

So many bad songs but R101 sorry I still love that song. Annie and Aretha!

I completely disagree with r89.

My selection is Addicted to Love. Hate it!

Looks like "We Built This City" at R18 is running away with this thread.

Do you all hate the song because it's awful (it is) or because Jefferson Airplane had once been a really good band?

R107 The song really isn't that awful, but I do think people hate it more because it's a pretty bland pop song from one of the counter culture's most famous bands.

Still, if I'm gonna pile on Starship for a shitty song, I'll always choose this one over "We Built This City:"

Anyone remember the local cut ins for the helicopter traffic report section in the middle of We Built This City? Instead of SF they'd mention local roads and bridges in that city. I guess it got them more local radio play. I heard the versions for Philly and Tampa at the time.

And "Old Time Rock and Roll" will make me turn the radio dial as soon as I hear the beginning. (Technically the song was originally released in 1979, but Risky Business in 1983 caused it to torture our ears all over again).

Life in a Northern Town. Hated the song then, still don't like it years later.

R109 I hate that one too.

Tarzan Boy

Bad English-When I See you Smile. John Waite was considered a one hit wonder with Missing You, but he sang this too. He was also in The Babys in the '70s.

I liked this one until it became a line dancing song at every midwestern wedding reception in 1989.

John Waite was cute in the Babys/Missing You era. Didn't know he'd gone full hair metal by the end of the decade. Yuck.

This list is incomplete without something from Lionel Richie.

(Also, Baby Baby was 1991, R73)

R116 No. This Lionel Richie song was much worse.

And the video, my God, the video! Why does she have the bedside lamp on while she's reading a book in braille? Why does he say "hello," then drop the phone? Why did they make Lionel Richie a community college teacher?

Haha, good call, R117!

The whiny horrid shit that is "Africa" from Toto.

"It's gonna take a lot to drag me awaaaaaaay from you" Ugh.

This utter turd. The singer is so affected and pretentious.

I hated the entire Thriller album.

While I had never heard the song before today, that riff right there takes it out of contention R61

It's hilarious

R117 Yeah, but that bust of Lionel kind of redeems it!

R123 Oh, God, that was the worst part!

I kind of like the I Wanna be a Cowboy singer, he’s hot. At least it’s clearly done in fun, unlike a lot of the SERIOUS songs mentioned on here.

Anyone remember this one from the early 80s? At one point, it was on Z100 all the time!

I don't know what year "Muskrat Love' came out, but its 'songwriter' should be shot. The worst most fucking irritating schlock I have ever heard.

That horrendous “Come On Eileen.”

R126 That was the 1970s. And yes, it has to be in the Top 5 Worst Songs of All Time.

I don't know about anyone else, R107, but We Built this City produces so much second-hand embarrassment - for the cringeworthy lyrics, the overly-enthusiastic earnest delivery, and the adulation it received at the time. On top of that, it was overplayed beyond reason. It's not even fun to make fun of. It has no redeeming qualities.

R129 and his haircut.

I wonder how many car wrecks are attributable to drivers averting their attention to desperately change the station when one of these wretched songs is aired? The number of casualties from 'Lady in Red' alone must be staggering.

When I hear songs like that R131 I sort of understand how Trump got elected.

You know, as in, "there are literally tens of millions of people out there who actually like this song and want to listen to it."

Cringgggge....

Pretty much the only ones I disagree with above are the clearly novelty song ones like Buckingham's "Holiday Road" which was excellent as the opening titles to "Vacation" and David Lee Roth's camp-fest "Just a Gigolo" which was always more famous for the video anyway.

I also disagree about the wholesale dismissal of Madonna and Thriller, although both Madonna songs cited are not her best by a long mark and Thriller is somewhat overrated.

My least favorite '80s song is probably "Red, Red Wine" followed by "Don't Worry, Be Happy," although I believe the latter song wound up despised by the singer.

It was an odd decade.

R134 It sucks for Bobby McFerrin that he’s forever associated with that song. I have an album of his called Vocabularies that is great. Love this song.

Should've stuck with comedy:

r136 wins

The replies on this thread confirm what I've long said: a lot of great artists from the 60s & 70s made a lot of bad music & videos in the 80s.

[quote]This Lionel Richie song was much worse.

In th e lyrics I never understood why Lionel was pining for a girl who was often seen passed out beside his door. Sounds like she had serious substance abuse problems.

Thread closed

How did we get to 140 responses and no one posted this turd yet?

Or anything from dreckmaster Peter Cetera?

Every decade has its fair share of super shitty chart hits that were played on radio 24/7.

I mean, at first I liked Bangles' Eternal Flame, but then it was played on the radio non-stop and I was, like, turn the fucking radio off!

I loved "I Know What Boys Like." That Waitresses album was my favorite of 1982 (or whenever it came out).

Hated Don't Worry Be Happy. Yuck.

I never paid much attention to "We Built This City" until some critic named it Worst Song. I don't like it. I would never buy it. But it's not obnoxious enough to hate, like the combined oeuvre of Madonna Collins.

FWIW, I love "Bette Davis Eyes." I first heard it at Uncle Charlie's on Greenwich Avenue in the spring of '81, just before we knew about AIDS. I moved back from the west coast in April, and my boyfriend was going to join me in June. In spite of all the dongportunities NY offered, I decided not to avail myself of any penis until he came to NY. Maybe it saved my life, IDK. But "Bette Davis Eyes" reminds me of it.

Not sure why everyone is including links to these hugely overplayed songs, but I'll play along

If you can get past the lyrics, Muskrat Love is a good song. Rock god Todd Rundgren loves it enough to include it in his shows. I'll trust his opinion more than that of you bitches

I loved Like A Virgin and Material Girl. 80’s Madonna is my favorite .

R147 Thanks for weighing in, Ms. Tenille.

R141 who’s the singer with the hat in the Dinosaur song? The song is dumb but he’s hot.

That's Sweet Pea Atkinson, r150 a legendary soul singer who didn't nearly the credit he deserved before he left us a few months ago.

Here he is singing on a much better song.

For the poster who picked Baby Baby, it was 1991. And Muskrat Love was 1976.

Thanks R151. I’m sorry he hear he passed.

Passed what?

A kidney stone, Rose.

Winner of this thread and first prize of an all-inclusive weeklong stay at Butlins Skegness is Walking on Sunshine, with the runner up We Built This City winning a two week stay in Chester's premier static caravan site with free entry to the nightly disco!

That being said, 90% of these beat 90% of the dreck currently infesting the charts. Now get off my lawn.

So many choices I'm going to go for the first hideous earworm that came to mind Starship "We Built This City"

R140. Please prepare for yourself. YOU are next in line for a curb stomp.

GODDAMNIT--remove the "for"^^

Are we EVER gonna get an edit function like every other message board in existence?

Even on this Rolling Stone poll Starship's "We Built This City" is no. 1.

[quote]Even on this Rolling Stone poll Starship's "We Built This City" is no. 1.

And that's when everyone in creation started adding it to lists like ours. I had barely noticed the song before this 2011 "Worst" list. Mind you, I don't like the song. It's just too bland, not really horrible enough to be the very worst song of any decade, let alone the excruciating Eighties. But now, because of this list, you can barely go out of the house without hearing it somewhere.

It was the worst list of 2011.

We Built This City has the especially awful line, “Knee-deep in the hoopla!” sung with particular emphasis becasue it was also the name of the album.

That song really was one of the worst.

I'd never paid 'We Built This City' much notice until I read that far-right talk show host and all-around annoyance Glenn Beck named it the worst song of all time, which made me laugh. It has that going for it, anyway. ;)

Hey R162, I was one of the posters who added it to this thread and I didn't look at any lists. It was just immediately sprang to mind. Be glad you're immune to its odiousness. I agree that, objectively, it is no worse than many other 80s songs. Beyond what has already been mentioned as to why so many people hate the song, maybe it is due to the vocals of the lead, Mickey Thomas. He also sang lead on 'Sara' and 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now' and those two are almost just as bad. Maybe these songs would have been more palatable sung by someone other than a tenor? I don't know, but believe that for some of us these songs are nails on a chalkboard.

"We Built This City" is just cheesy, like a parody of a bouncy pop song.

"The Lady In Red" is actively annoying.

Even more so because, as I've recently learned, it was often used at 80s weddings where the singer changed it to "The Lady In White"

"We Built This City" is just cheesy, like a parody of a bouncy pop song.

"The Lady In Red" is actively annoying.

Even more so because, as I've recently learned, it was often used at 80s weddings where the singer changed it to "The Lady In White"

It's a good general rule that the truth is the opposite of whatever Glenn Beck believes, so that would make We Built This City one of the greatest songs of all time

This fucking one.

You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon and Chevy Chase (I loathe that video) or this:

R170 Fuck you! I just died!

^ I meant R169. See what dying does to you?

That’s OK, Marie, I just died too.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinions and personal tastes but I have to wonder about some of the songs posted. How many did people actually dislike when they originally came out versus disliking them now after decades of listening to other music, etc. Some I feel are also disliked because critics, readers lists, etc tell everyone they're bad songs. It reminds me of REM's Shiny Happy People - I know, its from 1991 and not applicable to be included here - very popular when it came out but after Michael Stipe complained about it being so anti-REM, it suddenly appeared on fan's lists of worst of the band's songs.

This may have helped cement that impression R174

I loathe REM

A lot of these entries are just kind of cheesy ear-worms or sound dated now; some are missteps by otherwise decent artists.

"God Bless the U.S.A". by Lee Greenwood, however, is a fucking awful song musically and the faux patriotic, proto deplorable, populist appeal has kept it in rotation to be used whenever the GOP needs to rile up the mouth breathers.

Speaking of just dying and bad songs.

R178 I always hated that song because the lead singer sounded like he was saying, "It MOOSTAH been something you said..."

r177, great choice. Lee Greenwood is an anti-gay deplorable