Sadly Not The Final Countdown

No word as to why this thing is making its blog rounds now, considering it's inspired by a TV show we could've swore we saw in the summerof 2004, but our no. 23 link today is VH1's 50 most-worstest songs ever — of all time. (Though this isn't the first time annotated lists have had business before this honorable court.) Predictably, blogerati are reacting to the list, but before we get to them, click on the VH1 link and then come back here. We'll wait. Did you take a quick look? Ok. Now explain why Bob Seger's " Kathmandu" isn't on there. Relatedly, why isn't " I'm Real" by J-lo and Ja Rule on there? Those are unquestionably the two worst songs ever recorded, though, admittedly, "Achy-breaky heart" is awfully awful. Dustbury also is griping at the list's incompleteness, complaining that it doesn't reach back far enough. (The reason, of course, is VH1 only wants songs it can pair with video). Sir William has his own list of the 20 worst artists, which naturally includes some overlap with the VH1 list — "To qualify the artist had to have written music that was not only annoying, but technically well executed, catchy, and popular" — and his list does contain some surprises. Most incisive, perhaps, is this dissection by Churn of what VH1 has become: A sort of postmodern media hyper-oroborus, creating "cool" and then destroying it, as the mythical snake perpetually grows and simultaneously consumes its own tail. (Churn calls it "a bizzare mish-mash of reality shows and what I call MST3K-vision.") There you have it. Sometime when we finish our current master's degree, we're totally doing one about VH1.

Posted by Philip Ewing at September 19, 2005 11:00 AM

Category: The Soundscape