A Slave Galley Upon the River Styx: What is the Worst Pop Song Ever to Chart?

AD 1350 cropped 200 ph.jpg

Manuscript, circa AD 1350.

"Best" and "Worst" are often creatures of Pure Subjectivity—especially when it comes to literature, art, and music. Golf and baseball, in contrast, have objective metrics. I know that I have a list of "The Songs I Love to Hate."

Here is a link to my "10 Baddest, Worstest-Ever Pop Songs" (in reverse order).

john
 
Did 'Come On Eileen' ever chart? Seems the bartenders were always using it to sweep us out at closing time...
It did VERY well in the US:

US Billboard Adult Contemporary
31​
US Billboard Hot 100
1​
US Billboard Top Tracks
6​
US Cash Box
1​

Until I researched it, I had not known that parts of it derive from the Thomas Moore (the folk song collector; not the Catholic saint) song set to an old Irish air. Moore's version is called "Believe me, if all these endearing young charms." I recall the music video as being very Irish slice-of-life, but, darn, it was shot in London! (I grew up in an Irish New England neighborhood, and my mother's aunts spoke Gaelic when they did not want the kids to understand what they were talking about.) I thought it was a bit of a cash-in, an appeal to a certain ethnic demographic, but I didn't think it existentially awful. all my best, john
 
Kevin Rowland whose band it was is from Wolverhampton where his parents had settled after immigrating from Ireland.
Technically he is more Irish than Rod Stewart is Scottish (haven't met any Scots who think Rod is one of them to be fair).
The band was named after Dexedrine a brand name of some sort of amphetamine.
 
I once paid a $50 bill to the man from the entertainment vendor to remove (and let me destroy) ‘Sweet Caroline’ from my local bar jukebox. That would have been 1980’s, dang near $200 in todays money……..the price of sanity! 😎

Backstory; there was a feller that came in every evening after work and would play that song…….to this day every time I hear the name Caroline I go straight to bom,bom,baaa…. ! 😆
 
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Been watching some "Midnight Special" yearly compilations on YT. Some Gems in there at both ends of the stick. "cover of the rolling stone" performance is just so awful, it's great! Brownsville Stations' performance equally horrific, but I can see where a lot of people got their "we can do this too" ideas from. Heart, Journey, Ted Nigent, Fleetwood Mac were really good - gosh everyone was so young and beautiful AND performing like that.