..in case the person next to you hears and it shatters your illusion of cool. you know what i’m talking about.
past a certain age, these things are retro, but if ipods had been invented when i was 20, i wouldn’t have even dared to have these mp3s on mine. once you hit 25, crap music from your childhood is acceptable, and of course the girl/boybands you cried over are wheeled out again once they run out of cash and need to make a comeback.
those 100 worst songs ever shows they have on vh1 are always required viewing. one man’s trash another man’s treasure and all that. i’ll take these cheesy masterpieces over a radiohead gloomfest anyday.
don’t play these out loud – download here
kid creole and the coconuts – i’m a wonderful thing baby
kid creole and his coconuts were a tropical, clashing inclassifiable group who made comedy records with some credibility. i did say some, they were funky novelty records at the end of the day. post benny hill political incorrectness, but positively chaste compared to today’s r&b bootyvideos.
mark morrison – crazy
he needn’t have made this list but for the fact that he’s an absolute tosser, and for that reason alone you feel slightly dirty listening to his music. when he’s not banged up for the usual drugs/gbh/theft, mark likes to parade around london nightclubs with two ‘bitches’ on his arm. classy.
mc hammer – u can’t touch this
in 1990, everyone loved mc hammer despite the fact that each and every one of his songs was a blatant ripoff. once we caught on, after our indignant parents played us the originals to demonstrate how crap he was, his career sunk faster than his dancing. everyone ignored his attempt to drop the ‘mc’, and soon his trousers were out of fashion and so was he.
michael bolton – how am i supposed to live without you
michael bolton looked like an ageing chippendale and sang power ballads that were oddly compelling. for a 14 year old girl, the curly mulleted one shouldn’t have resonated, but did, because it sounded like he had loved and lost a few paperboys in his time as well. i was over it in a week.
vanilla ice – ice ice baby
where to start. well forget the proto eminem, pretty-fly-for-a-white guy persona, and the fact that he looked like he’d been brought up on crisps. and gloss over the fact that every other song he ever put out was shit. this tune still rocks a yates wine bar on a friday night, for those of a certain age, and you know it.
milli vanilli – girl you know its true
that miming incident and the ensuing revelation that milli vanilli didn’t sing their own songs was puzzling to me. from the outset, there was clearly a woman singing in the background and rob’n’fab were german not american. the idea that the braided ones couldn’t sing was slightly less shocking to me than their shoulder pads and odd wooden puppet style dancing.
mn8 – i’ve got a little something for you
a boyband song i liked when i was just about too old to like boybands, ie of legal drinking age. i think one of my university flatmates pulled the lead singer one night. she didn’t sell the story – we had grants in those days. plus we were only just realising the phenomenom of being able to carve a whole career from a one night stand or by being a celebrity girlfriend who wears a dress fashioned from safety pins.
spice girls – say you’ll be there
i hated the spice girls. every boy i knew was obsessed with them, and baby spice was my age and had millions in the bank, while i was a student. an anti-student who shopped in harvey nicks, nonetheless. i liked this song and hated myself for it. now i really couldn’t give a shit. i promise many of you will feel the same way about girls aloud in a decade’s time.
vanessa paradis – joe le taxi
again, vanessa was dislikable for the very fact that boys liked her so much. still, you could sing along to joe le taxi without being expected to know the correct lyrics, which was a bonus. ‘ampoule day ash’ anyone? apparently she was singing ’embouteillage’. she needs some elocution lessons. perhaps johnny can buy her some *hisssssssssssssssssss*
nkotb – i wanna be loved by you
this track, from their debut album, way before they were famous, sounds like an old creme egg advert. but instead of listing what they liked to do with creme eggs, they boys introduced themselves, their starsigns and somewhat unnecessarily pitched themselves as possible boyfriends to millions of teenage girls. red flag, bull. has to be heard to be believed.
wham – young guns
george michael encouraging people to be unemployed and play the field? imagine such a thing from such an upstanding citizen. more criminal was possibly the worst (best) rapping ever. if you haven’t seen the george michael episode of star stories, you need to. now. ‘we’re wham boys, and we’re on the dole. ooh yeah!’ classic.
will smith – getting jiggy with it
we’ve since established that jazzy jeff was the talented musician, but will had the charm and the character. this tune was a favourite for women in white stretch lace in branches of time and envy up and down the UK. i defy you not to sing, dance, or both.
dirty martini 
