Worst song of the 80s

Kokomo by the Beach Boys is the worst song of the 80s

Hands Across America is objectively worse.

We Are The World is not just the worst song of the 80s but might just be the worst song of all time.

Wake Me Up is pretty fucking awful.

Don't be hatin' on Hall and Oates!

@ztiesman:

I swear there was a period of time in 2011 or 2012 where Vinny periodically referenced Kokomo out of nowhere on the podcast. It still haunts me.

Just heard Jessie's Girl on the radio and I must nominate that one.

Walk like an Egyptian.

@frytup: Are you trying to start fires on here?

Kokomo is great. Maybe if you were introduced to it via Cocktail your perception suffers.

Bruce Springsteen wrote songs in the 80s, right? I nominate all Springsteen.

All the songs and artists previously mentioned are great or average - certainly not the worst. I present the case for anything released by Chris de Burgh.

@frytup: yo what the FUCK

Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill.

Damn, so many good contenders present here.

I feel Milli Vanilli should be somewhere on this list...

Joan Jett - I Love Rock and Roll

Fucking boring ass song.

@the_greg: i wouldn't say that's the worst, but I was surprised it existed and was as bad as it is after digging Meg Myers' recent cover. It was released a few years before I started watching MTV, but I don't recall it ever being included in the countless retrospectives of the decade I've watched over the years. They recently featured it in G.L.O.W., but that's probably just because Myers' version has taken off.

Calling any Kate Bush song ”the worst song of the 80s” is a crime. Running Up That Hill is a classic and you should all bow down to the goddess you filthy heathens!!

@xanadu: I can not stand the NBC Sunday Night Football intro themes her "I Hate Myself For Loving You" spawned, so retroactively I'd have that as contender out of annoyance by association.

Anyone born after 1976 can have very little useful opinion. Oh, you can have an opinion; but it is of so little worth unless you were there as a listening to these songs while you were over eight years old.

So with that said, are there like maybe 12 active duders (male,female, other) on these forums over 45? So, think that leave it to us few to teach you millennials that "Sussudio" by Phil Collins (1985) is garbage.

All other terrible song like Starship's "We built this city" or the Beach Boys "Kokomo" are at least funny, weird, or cleverly stupid. I will even give it to Phil that he didn't kill Genesis...just made it worse...but Su-ssudio is just pointless 'word salad' from his solo work.

Cutting Crew "I Just Died in your Arms"

I am too lazy to even look up if any of their songs were from the 80s, but anything by Steely Dan is, to me, god awful. It is like nails across a chalkboard.

@billmcneal: Lot of Vice City fans shaking their heads right now!

The actual worst song is probably not one we still come across decades later. One we FLUSHED from the minds. For the sake of the thread, my personal pick would probably be Yello - Oh Yeah. It's quirky, but comes across as more of a goof than an actual song you'd want to listen to. Once i hear the first Ohhh yeaaahh, i'm DONE.

I love Private Eyes, I Just Died in your Arms & Temporary Secretary :(. Y'all are cruel.

@onemanarmyy: "Oh Yeah!" is still making the rounds given its attachment to Ferris Beuller's Day Off. I think it was even featured in the recent Dominos Pizza spoof ads (with Steve from Stranger Things) here in the states.

@shiftygism: Yeah i'm aware it's still out there. I just don't know a better option :P

Ferris Bueller at least had a pretty cool Please Please Please Let me get what i want instrumental cover

The worst song of the eighties is better than any song of the last 20 years

Oh Yeah is one of the greatest songs for comedy ever written. Was it supposed to be funny? No, is it hilarious nonetheless? Absolutely!

Now Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime, there's a load of crap. Cynical cash-in with a dumb synth played overtop of lame bells. Frankly, that song makes me dread Christmas every year, because it means I'll have to listen to it again. The song ruins Christmas!

@ghost_cat: I like to think of it as a cleansing fire.

@rejizzle: I was going to nominate some other stuff, but none of my choices top McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime. I mean, it’s hard to write new Christmas songs because the whole genre is so nostalgia driven, but Wonderful Christmastime gets FAR more radio play than the composition really deserves, pretty much entirely coasting on McCartney’s Beatles popularity (arguably true of much of his solo career).

Kids today with their Nsync and O-Town, why in my day all we had were The New Kids on the Block and Hangin' Tough was awful!

I'm surprised no ones brought up "I got my mind set on you" yet.

I agree that this is a terrible song, but it is in the "so bad it's good" category for me, along with "Do They Know it's Christmastime". The latter is actually not only a bad song, but is more than a bit offensive. Still catchy, though!

The problem with this is that we aren't looking for the worst song of the 80s, but the worst popular song of the 80s. For that, I'd like to offer "All She Wants To Do is Dance" by Don Henley or maybe "Lady in Red" by Chris de Burgh as noted earlier.

ETA: Just remembered "Oh, Sherrie" by Steve Perry. That one's real bad too.

BECAUSE IT'S AMAZING.

@thegame983: That’s some horse shit, and I think you know it.

I could list scores of reasons, but I’ll leave it at David Bowie’s Blackstar album and Nick Cave’s Abattoir Blues and Skeleton Tree albums.

Plenty of good shit these days. Lots of great young bands. They just don’t spoon-feed you great stuff on the radio, these days. You need to seek it out.

I just saw two young bands put on a killer show to a packed house of maybe a couple hundred people.

Music is subjective, but there’s always great stuff out there, whether there’s marketing money behind it or not.

People that say all music is shit nowadays have just given up on listening to anything new and assume that the most popular things they absorb through osmosis is indicative of the music landscape at large. While the songs that you hear around your 14-18 yo tend to stick with you forever and the core of your musictaste (especially for men), if you keep seeking out new stuff, there's plenty out there that builds upon the sounds you already love. Or you learn to appreciate something new!

@onemanarmyy: I listen to nearly nothing I did at 14 - 18 on a regular basis, though I’m with you, it’s a trend and probably a problem. You don’t have to abandon what you came up on, but there’s PLENTY out there to embrace, and there will always be. You just don’t have MTV and radio exposing you cool, new, interesting stuff like they used to, in my opinion.

I think the top of the charts is way too safe and same-y, and has been for...well, this will paint me as part of your example, but for 25 years. MTV and radio pretty much died for me in 1995 or 1996, when pop music started making a comeback. Again, I’m saying I buck the trend, but how typical of me...

In any event, finding things you like, or even love, in modern music is something I find key to staying young and positive. It just take some work to find stuff, in my experience.

I’ll have nostalgia kicks where I’ll listen to some Guns n’ Roses, Nine Inch Nails, Butthole Surfers, Pig, or whatever I was into as a kid, and I still respect that stuff for what it is.

But these days I’m listening to a lot of Bronx & Mariachi El Bronx, Too Many Zooz, Man Man/Honus Honus, Gogol Bordello, Diego’s Umbrella, Xylouris White, William Elliott Whitmore, Grinderman...It’s not the biggest list of new stuff, but they’re all current acts that are out there making music that I love.

Plus, there are still plenty of older acts making great new stuff. Bowie’s Blackstar album was the best thing he had done in 20 years. Tom Wait’s Bad as Me is an amazing album. Nick Cave continues to reinvent his sound every couple of albums to great success. Dirty Three have continued to put out great, intense, instrumental rock into the 21st century.

Has anybody mentioned Jagger and Bowie's absolutely awful cover of Dancing In the Street?

Because that wins. Two men shouting their way through something they wish they never agreed to.

This song is god awful but it also kinda rips:

Those lyrics are something to behold.

Most of the worst songs of the 80s were collaborations between artists. This Gary Moore/Phil Lynott number comes to mind.

I emphatically disagree about that Hall and Oates song. It's a great song.

The Return of Bruno is a 1987 album sung by Bruce Willis. Have to imagine the worst song of the 80s is on there somewhere.

Paradise City

@shindig: I LOVE Bowie!!!

...but yeah, that was some shit.

@damodar: Even the back half of that song? Slash’s guitar work is pretty stellar. I’m an old GnR fan, but I totally get the anthem-y nature of the song not working for folks.

@ztiesman: Holy shit you have no idea how much I agree with you on this.

Worst song to get stuck in your head.

UB40's Red Red Wine makes me feel so...

...Angry

Make me want to hurt someone.

Taco - Puttin' on the ritz is awful

But at least it has a hummable melody you say! well don't worry, they get rid of that for the final minute so you have nothing to hold on to!

Milli Vanilli - Girl I'm Gonna Miss You is a contender too. Not only is the instrumental boring as fuck, the vocals are extremely weak to boot. Nothing compelling about this one.

@christicles: Good song!

@dudeglove: Oh my god, i wasn't sure there was a good answer to this but you're right.
1. I can't stand Queen anyway and...
2. Radio Ga Ga is f***ing atrocious.