OT - Worst Living Artist or Band

Submitted by InterM on

Greetings fellow music fans,

In honor of Prince and the other great musicians claimed before their time so far in 2016, I'm wondering whether we should propose a trade with the Grim Reaper?  Not that I would be so crass as to wish something bad upon someone, just because they might suck at music or make noises that hurt my ears -- but, just for the sake of argument, if something just happened to befall a living artist or band, who would you choose?

To get the ball rolling, I'll suggest Rod Stewart.  And not because he is and always has been bad at music.  No, his greatest offense is that he proved himself capable of putting out very good songs early in his career, only to continually assault our ears for many, many years thereafter.

And now I open the floor to my fellow MGoBloggers.

rob f

April 22nd, 2016 at 7:55 PM ^

Why?   That stuff is about as awful as vodka gets.  Like Rod Stewart-awful.

BTW, though I was tempted to downvote the OP, I instead upvoted  it ONLY because of the his nomination of Stewart as worst.  If it were possible to agree more than 100%, then I would do so.

And that is despite the fact that Rod Stewart's early-career stuff was pretty damn good.  I loved a lot of the pop music that came from Rod Stewart and Faces.  I'll still crank up the radio and sing along on those rare occasions that the song "Maggie May" is played.  Even the disco-era and early-80's Stewart wasn't completely a waste.

But now?  I've hated with a passion every Stewart song for at least the last 3 decades.  I have an urge to shoot  holes in any speaker that blares his garbage .  THE ABSOLUTE WORST.

rob f

April 23rd, 2016 at 10:47 AM ^

about The Faces.  But i'll briefly take this discussion even back further in time to their mid-to-late-60's predecessors, The Small Faces, a really underrated group that included lead guitar/lead vocalist Steve Marriott.  Marriott would eventually leave Small Faces to  become co-founder (with Peter Frampton) of Humble Pie, at which point it took both Rod Stewart AND Ronnie Wood to replace him.  At that point they were renamed The Faces.

These clips show how really great Small Faces were:  

 

 

Have to include my favorite Small Faces song, even though it appears some lip-syncing was involved in this clip from a 60's TV show:

 

Marriott, Ronnie Lane, drummer Kenny Jones (he later replaced Keith Moon in The Who), and keyboardist Ian McLagen. What's not to like here?

4EverBlueGirl

April 22nd, 2016 at 4:41 PM ^

I have no opinion on worst band nor anything to add to this conversation ..I must say that there is a lot of shit on daytime tv. Being home due to a sick day has shown me that there is not many valuable people that are guests on the numerous reality/paternity test/divorce court "talk" shows. I wouldn't shed a tear if they all disappeared.

/end of unrelated to topic rant

Steves_Wolverines

April 22nd, 2016 at 2:16 PM ^

Don't direct your hate towards Nickelback. They were knowingly and voluntarily a band that produced radio hit after radio hit until everyone's ears started to bleed.

Blame their record label (Roadrunner Records) for signing them, and basically creating and shoving Nickelback music through every radio station for a decade. They simply saw a chance to make a ton of $$$$ off a band capable of producing music that sounded great, and knew their hits would last for the foreseeable future. Yeah, Nickelback is to blame too for simply selling out to make $$$$, instead of trying to make better music.

Blame every radio station ever for playing Nickelback on repeat for 10+ years until everyone was forced to hate them.

Blame Chad Kroeger for being a total jackoff and possessing one of the most punchable faces of all time.

They made very catchy music. Made a ton of money off that music. For people (like myself) that grew up when Nickelback blew up, I enjoy listening to their music. It's catchy, upbeat, and sounds really good.

From a popular thread on Reddit:

It's not just that they're a mediocre band that has experienced precisely zero musical growth and exist purely as a vehicle to print money for record labels.

It's that they knew they were a mediocre band, didn't care about musical growth, signed on knowing what the plan was, and had no problem with any of it.

People hate the idea that a record label can make any mediocre band popular, and people hate the bands that embody that idea without even a trace of shame.

It doesn't even make sense to hate Nickelback for their music - it's not distinctive enough to be worthy of notice. It's carefully designed to be pointless and catchy, it's a product built to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It doesn't do anything wrong because it doesn't dare to take any risks.

On the other hand, it makes perfect sense to hate Nickelback for embodying everything wrong with the record industry and their total lack of shame for being the soulless corporate creatures they are.

Steves_Wolverines

April 22nd, 2016 at 2:40 PM ^

Another interesting band signed to that label is Alter Bridge. 

They are Creed, but replaced the lead singer with Myles Kennedy, who used to work with Slash. 

Creed gets a ton of hate too for trying to be heavy, or actually being classified as heavy or grunge, but were really just a band producing "hard" hits that flooded the radio in the 90's. 

They are named after Alter Rd. in Detroit. The road separating Detroit from Grosse Pointe.

The label also had Megadeth, Rob Zombie, and Black Stone Cherry.

They currently have one of my favorite bands: Shinedown. (and also Theory of a Deadman)

 

In reply to by ijohnb

ken725

April 22nd, 2016 at 3:46 PM ^

I've just come to accept it that he might actually make good music. Never really listened in the past, but I was pleasantly surprised by his latest album.