Musical Crapbasket

I learned this week that Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock-n-Roll" turns our friend Mike into Lou Ferigno with a throbbing head vein. The song "I Will Survive" fills LP with the desire to mortally wound those who point, shout and carry on whenever the song is played. We all have songs we dislike but then there are those songs that actually make us angry. The University of Waikato in New Zealand invites us to vent our anger for these crap tunes by nominating them for the "Worst Song in the World." The school is conducting a scientific research project into musical dislikes. However, instead of simply surveying people on what songs they hate, they take it step further and ask why.

In 2004, Blender Magazine named "We Built this City" by Starship as the worst song ever. While it's certainly an ass of a tune, it is no worse than Billy Ocean's "Get out of my Dreams, Get into my Car" -- a song that opens with a lyrical carjacking. "Hey you!...Get into my car!" With lyrics like "Hey Cinderella/Step in your Shoe" and "Smooth operator/Touch my bumper," this song is definitely a worst-in-the-world contender.

However, I'm going to nominate "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton and here's why: I won't even discuss the first two icky verses as they're merely foreplay for what Clapton is really after: A designated driver and a mommy who can take care of him when he gets really busted up at parties. The final verse: "It's time to go home now/and I've got an aching head/so I give her the car keys/and she helps me to bed/and then I tell her/as I turn out the light (ie, pass out cold)/my darling, you were wonderful tonight." The song ends there but I've always imagined the next verse would go something like: "I've got the bed spins/from 10 gin & tonics/So she rolls me over/so I won't choke on my vomit." Now that's romance.

To register your Worst Song, and why you hate it, take the survey.