We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off to Enjoy Bad Music

I admit it; I have the worst taste in music. This is no great secret among my friends and family. My girlfriend listens to the smooth jazz radio from time to time and still has better taste in music than I do. (By the way, why does every smooth jazz radio station in the US have a late night show called “The Quiet Storm?” How about something original; “The Soft Explosion” maybe?)

In my formative pre-school years, I listened to three albums: Everybody Loves a Nut by Johnny Cash, Steve Martin Live, and My Home’s in Alabama, by Alabama. My mom listened to Q101, Chicago’s rock station. I couldn’t stand it. Pop music generally sucked in the mid-to-late eighties. Now I like a lot of that music, which means that early grade school was the zenith of my music-listening sophistication.

By junior high I was obsessed with Weird Al Yankovic. From there, my musical taste never really matured. At the very least, I became musically stunted. I would go through musical phases five years later than most people. You’re supposed to obsessively listen to Led Zeppelin when you’re in high school. I waited until college. College kids discover Pink Floyd. I was in graduate school. I’m still waiting to hit my Beatles phase. Maybe I’ll pick up the White Album this weekend and see what all the hubbub is about.

Now I listen to a mish-mash of music, buying whatever catches my fancy. I consider myself a jack of all trades, uncommitted to any one style. As a result my taste tends to run middle-of-the-road which I realize is not the best place to find innovative music. With the exception of Tom Petty, I don’t know any particular artist’s repertoire extensively. But at the very least, I’m not pretentious. I know what I like when I hear it. That’s good news for bands like Hootie and the Blowfish.

Blender.com has a list of the worst 50 songs of all time. Surprisingly, I would only say that I like five or six records on the list. The worst song of all time is “We Built This City,” by Starship, which is a song I would spontaneously belt out at least once a night during a two-week period of binge drinking in May of ’03.

I have three of these worst songs on my Ipod: number 42, “The Sounds of Silence,” by Simon and Garfunkel; number 29, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” by Deep Blue Something; and number 16, “What’s Up?” by Four Non Blondes, which I didn’t even realize was a bad song until just now.

My poor musical taste may be attributed to the fact that I truly enjoy songs that are notoriously bad, songs that most people listen too ironically. My favorite bad song of all time is “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off” by Jermaine Stewart. You have to love any song that opens with the lyric, “You just took for granted that I wanted to skinny dip.” Jermaine Stewart’s good-time alternative? Dancing and drinking cherry wine. Is he dating a homeless person?

When it comes to musical taste, I’m more of a victim than anything else. The music I listen to chooses me-- a song from a great movie, something I overhear at a bar, music that makes me reminisce about a particular time in my life. And that’s what music is all about, right? How can I help it if “I Want a New Duck” makes me think of my first girlfriend?