What’s the worst song ever made?

What’s the worst record ever made? It’s a daft, absolutely not-serious question I asked on Twitter. It’s lighthearted loathing, where everyone gets to yell about something for a bit, but obviously, there’s also technically no right or wrong answers, because music is subjective and blah blah blah.

Anyway.

I started the bidding with Chumbawamba’s ‘Tubthumping’. My case against it is something to do with the fact that it feels like 4 songs badly welded together, and each one of those separate components could have been the worst song ever made in their own right.

Add to this, the vague posturing and sloganeering of a band that had members called ‘Boff’ and ‘Danbert Nobacon’, and it’s undeniable success (I huge contributing factor to a ‘worst song’), and you’re getting all the ingredients for a song that makes my teeth itch.

And if the “he drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink…” doesn’t get you riled up, then remember it is followed by “dooon’t cry for me, next doooor neighbour” for maximum urgh.

So, in my mind, it objectively sucks. However, when you ask people ‘what’s the worst song ever made’, you’ll get two different types of answer — one is “I’ve weighed it up, and this track objectively sucks”, the other being “here’s a song I hate, and I’ve weighed nothing up, because fuck it.”

When making the Spotify playlist for this, I’ve ignored people who are… well… not wrong, but maybe not thinking about it objectively. One person said ‘anything by Michael Jackson’, who clearly made some great records whether you liked them or not. I would have liked nothing more than to make the entire playlist Morrissey-related tunes, but even as a hater, I can see that they’re not objectively bad tunes, even if he’s an objectively bad person.

I also decided to ignore novelty records — sure, Mr Blobby and the Cheeky Girls made annoying tunes, but up against something like ‘Ho Hey’ by The Lumineers, I find sincerity to be much worse than daftness. Let’s call it ‘The Imagine Rule’.

I’ll also add that, if you like any of the songs on the list, you’re not wrong for liking them. There’s tunes I’ve included that I quite like, either for masochistic reasons, or because sometimes I feel bad for the artist in question and I’m soft and have almost started rooting for them, or y’know, I’ve just got questionable tastes sometimes.

It’s good to have questionable tastes. Don’t trust people who only like critic-approve music.

Any road, enough chin-stroking — ABSOLUTE TOILET — the worst songs ever, a Spotify playlist link below.

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST HERE