The 49 Worst Artists in Music History

Burning Down · 03-08-2010, 05:13 PM

Why is Kenny G only at #4? Well, at least he's in the top 5. Maybe if he played a tenor sax instead of that fucking whiny soprano sax his music might be a little more enjoyable.

Vancouver · 03-08-2010, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burning Down

Why is Kenny G only at #4? Well, at least he's in the top 5. Maybe if he played a tenor sax instead of that fucking whiny soprano sax his music might be a little more enjoyable.

Kenny G and enjoyable should never be used in the same sentence.

Alfred · 03-08-2010, 05:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vancouver

Kenny G and enjoyable should never be used in the same sentence.

If you reread it, they weren't.

Vancouver · 03-08-2010, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfred

If you reread it, they weren't.

Don't I feel like a dork. Ugh. Mondays.

03-08-2010, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burning Down

Why is Kenny G only at #4? Well, at least he's in the top 5. Maybe if he played a tenor sax instead of that fucking whiny soprano sax his music might be a little more enjoyable.

Or if he wasn't such a arrogant douche I would at the very least take him off my hit list. I mean seriously, as if it's not enough you nerfed it out with your signature middle-aged white guy style, but adding your own crappy licks to a Louis Armstrong cover proves to me your a prick.

Neapolitan · 03-08-2010, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burning Down

Why is Kenny G only at #4? Well, at least he's in the top 5. Maybe if he played his armpits instead of that ****ing whiny soprano sax his music might be a little more enjoyable.

^ fixed.

I wouldn't trust Kenny G. on any musical instrument.

Vancouver · 03-09-2010, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

^ fixed.

I wouldn't trust Kenny G. on any musical instrument.

ahh today is a better day.

boo boo · 03-09-2010, 05:10 AM

These bits from the article are especually awful.

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42 RICK WAKEMAN
Can play two synthesizers at once — but nothing that people want to hear
Keyboard “wizard” and professional cape wearer Wakeman’s diabolical taste revealed itself early, when he elected to join prog-rockers Yes instead of David Bowie’s backing band, the Spiders From Mars. Not content with contributing to Yes’s inexcusably pompous albums, he also spent the mid-’70s releasing a series of baroquely awful solo theme records, including The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. For reasons that are still unclear, he opted to perform that one on ice.
Appalling fact While playing Yes songs live, Wakeman would wolf down curry during sections in which he had little to do.
Worst CD Lisztomania (A&M, 1975)

Suck my balls.

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37 THE DOORS
He was the Lizard King. No, really…
While in college, many young men still choose to immerse themselves in such ill-advised subjects as Nietzsche, black magic and Native American folklore. Most get over it; Jim Morrison, unfortunately, inflicted his terminally adolescent views on the wider world. The consequences included overblown screeds of nonsense such as “The End” and “The Crystal Ship,” plus, effectively, the invention of goth. Then he got fat and died.
Appalling fact Morrison is widely believed to have suffered his fatal heart attack while masturbating in the bathtub.
Worst CD The Soft Parade (Elektra, 1969)

First off, completely writing off Nietzsche and Native American folklore is pretty damn ignorant. Second, how in the **** did The Doors lead to the invention of goth? They had influence on it obviously but I wouldn't say they are primarly responsable. But why is that even a bad thing even if they were? No goth, no Cure.

And they cite two of the best Doors songs as their worst, nice.

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34 LIVE
These U2 sound-alikes never did find what they were looking for
Blessed with the same spiritual longing as U2 — but, sadly, none of the musical cunning — this Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, quartet made a brief but insignificant splash in the early ’90s as purveyors of grandiose, vaguely uplifting alt-rock. Although their hold on the mainstream had evaporated by the end of the decade, their blend of loud guitars and portentous lyrics helped pave the way for crypto-Christian rockers Creed. Nice one, Live.
Appalling fact The album title Secret Samadhi derives from a form of Hindu meditation.
Worst CD Secret Samadhi (MCA, 1997)

Errr. Just read the first bit. First off Live are nothing like U2 and second they mispelled pretentious and third Nirvana influenced Creed too so should you guys stop sucking Cobain's rotting **** now?

And fourth what's f*cking wrong with the hindu quote? Are you guys bigoted assh*les or do you seriously think having interest in other cultures makes you automatically pretentious?

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22 PRIMUS
“Care for some prog-rock with cartoon-character vocals on the side?” “No, thanks!”
Perhaps the most tune-free act ever to chart an album in the Top 10 (Pork Soda hit number 7 in 1993), Oakland, California’s Primus were led by Les Claypool, a bass virtuoso and startlingly nasal vocalist. Musicians and the terminally nerdy gaped in wide wonder at the trio’s prodigious instrumental “chops”; everyone else was repulsed by the band’s combination of the worst aspects of Frank Zappa and Rush.
Appalling fact The rallying cry for Primus’s misguided fans was “Primus sucks!” — intended as sarcasm yet all too true.
Worst CD Pork Soda (Interscope, 1993)

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21 THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT
The sound inside the head of Pink Floyd’s engineer. Zzzzzz…
Having conquered the Dark Side of the Moon, EMI Records’ beardy staff engineer Alan Parsons decided that what the universe really needed was a prog-rock concept album based on the work of nineteenth-century horror novelist Edgar Allan Poe, narrated by Orson Welles. It didn’t, of course, but an undeterred Parsons soldiered on, swapping prog-rock for vapid AOR in the ’80s. Finally bundled off to play guitar in Ringo Starr’s backing band, he was never seen again.
Appalling fact In the ’90s, the world-champion Chicago Bulls took the court to the pretentious swells of Parsons’s “Sirius.”
Worst CD Pyramid (Arista, 1978)

So, my favorite genre of music is being constantly shat on by people who think the most interesting musicians to do interviews with are people like Fall Out Boy and Fergie. I don't know weither to be humored or disgusted.

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7 ASIA
Ridiculous album sleeves, virtuoso playing, soulless rock. It can be only one band
Asia’s music turned out to be exactly the sum of its parts: former technicians from King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes who got together with an erstwhile Buggle at the start of the ’80s. It promised the most self-important prog-rock melded with the limp-wristed worst of AOR, and it delivered. The band’s self-titled debut sold more than 4 million copies, which only encouraged them.
Appalling fact To this day, keyboardist Geoff Downes is happy to offer Asia’s mission statement: “To play music that is panoramic, symphonic and rock at the same time.”
Worst CD Astra (Geffen, 1985)

Oh here we go again with the prog, did a prog fan rape you as a child or something?

Oh, and dissing Roger Dean. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

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6 KANSAS
Beware all bands named after states or continents!
Their folksy 1977 hit “Dust in the Wind,” a tractor-size fiddle player and a guitarist in bib overalls suggested pioneer-spirited rural rockers. The truth was far more sinister. Bereft of sex and emotion, Kansas’s music was a noxious fusion of Jethro Tull and Yes, appealing only to male sci-fi bores and guaranteed to drive any self-respecting frontiersman headlong into the nearest bear trap.
Appalling fact A feature of their live shows was roadie T. Rat, who would come onstage in a trench coat, top hat and clown mask. Then he would disrobe and dance butt-naked.
Worst CD Point of Know Return (Columbia, 1977)

The more I read this the more I get this mental image.

And you gotta f*cking love how their primary criticism of the music is that it lacks... sex. And how does the music lack emotion exactly? These writers don't really bother to explain their opinions, at all.

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2 EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER
Welcome back, my friends, to the second-worst band in history!
“Boasting” former members of the Nice, King Crimson and — yes! — Atomic Rooster, the less-than-super ’70s supergroup ELP shunned blues-based rock in favor of bombastically reinterpreted classical works — with bewilderingly successful results. A nightmarish enough proposition on record, the Brit trio’s live shows were peppered by interminable solo spots, including a 20-minute drum workout by Carl Palmer that ended with him ringing a cowbell held between his teeth.
Appalling fact Singer-bassist Greg Lake performed on a $10,000 Persian rug that roadies vacuumed before every show.
Worst CD Love Beach (Rhino, 1978)

Yeah, how DARE a band break from convention and do something different.

Blender Magazine: If it's not dumbed down three chord rock and pop with lyrics about f*cking and is too complex for our 5 year old mentality to handle, it's baaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

Again, THIS is the magazine in question.

So I guess there's really no need to go on.

Burning Down · 03-09-2010, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boo boo

Again, THIS is the magazine in question.

So I guess there's really no need to go on.

I've never picked up an issue of Blender in my life, but any magazine that puts a crappy emo band on their cover is probably not very credible.

Seltzer · 03-14-2010, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boo boo

Oh here we go again with the prog, did a prog fan rape you as a child or something?

With ELP, the Doors, Rick Wakeman, the Alan Parsons Project, and Yanni up there, it seems almost as if Blender has an axe to grind with keyboardists/pianists.

Rather than critically analysing the whole list or picking out the bands/artists I think shouldn't be up there, I'll say that most of the list is decent. But I will say this:

I like Primus but I can understand why their polarising nature might land them a place in a list like this (even if I disagree). And that's why I can't understand why bands like Jamiroquai would be up there. Personally, I think they're overrated as their albums strike me as being rather homogeneous and inconsistent (that and I prefer Incognito). But one of the worst artists in music history... really? They're good at what they do and their basslines alone disqualify them from this list.

03-08-2010, 05:13 PM	#1 (permalink)
Burning Down The Music Guru. Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Beyond the Wall Posts: 4,858	Why is Kenny G only at #4? Well, at least he's in the top 5. Maybe if he played a tenor sax instead of that fucking whiny soprano sax his music might be a little more enjoyable.