By Ralph Greco, Jr.
All bands have ‘em. They are those super-duper popular tunes that either broke a group to a mainstream audience, have been co-opted for commercials or are just too catchy for words. These can be great songs — toe-tappers, songs that define your youth or a great past romance — and you might be able to pick up every nuance from the first one hundred listens (and it gives you some sort of pleasure to do so), but there are some — I have listed 10 below — that you don’t ever really have to hear again.
1) “Money”– Pink Floyd’s “Money” is a song I liked on the first five times I heard it. I came to appreciate the time signature changes on the next five listens. Now, I am quite bored with it. It might be how much it is overplayed on the radio or the fact that every time I saw the David Gilmour-led Pink Floyd, the band jammed to this song. But either way, if I never hear “Money” again, I won’t be any worse for the loss.
2) “Another One Bites The Dust” – I am a moderate Queen fan and an even bigger John Deacon, bassist and songwriter of “Another One Bites The Dust,” the band’s biggest hit, fan. But Deacon’s bass and the catchiness of the song aside, I never have to hear this tune again — I assure you.
3) “Benny And The Jets” – I recently caught this Elton John stomper on my car radio and for the first time truly appreciated the perfectly placed bass playing of the dearly departed Dee Murray. But still, this tune, from the double album of amazing songs Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, is a song I need not ever have to clap to again.
4) “Dancing In The Dark” – This was indeed one of those break-out moments for an artist, as Bruce Springsteen got lots of video rotation for picking a planted Courtney Cox out of a ‘live’ concert and bringing her up on stage to dance with. But for me, even with an audience singing along — as they always do to this one — I can’t get past the “hey baby” goofiness of this tune…even though I do kind of like how boppy it is. This is certainly a case of a tune that is just too commercial for its own good, in my humble opinion.
5) “Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2” – I feel like I am truly betraying my own heart on this one, but the Emerson, Lake and Palmer “Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends…” FM staple is a snippet of the longer “1st Impression” I just don’t need to hear again (in fact, in very few instances do I not skip over this part when playing all three “Impressions” on my home stereo). It might be that this song has been played to death over the radio, or that I ache to hear the “1st Impression” in its entirety (or God forbid, listen to some radio station that has the guts to play the 2nd or 3rd “Impressions”), but even being the huge ELP freak that I am, I balk at another play of “Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2.”
6) “Rock & Roll, Pt. 2” – I like cheering, doing “the wave,” coming out and cheering on for my favorite sport’s teams as much as the next guy, but as I can listen to “We Will Rock You” in this context anytime. I generally do like catchy rock instrumentals (Hot Butter’s “Popcorn” comes to mind), ”Rock & Roll, Pt. 2” from Gary Glitter, a former guest of the Vietnamese penal system, I don’t need to hear again…certainly not out of a stadium.
7) “Hotel California” – I just think how happy I was when we got the acoustic version of this one a few years back — the great Don Felder’s classic guitar noodlings alone were worth the Eagles giving this one a face-lift. But back in the day, I heard this tune so much, I attempted to find out just what the hell the “warm smell of colitis” was and was so Eagle-fied by the late 70s, I really had had my fill of what I think is pretty much a classic rock tune.
8) “Walk This Way” – Less because of repeated plays on FM radio…though there have really been too many; not so much because that the album it is from sports better songs…some much, much better; and not because I really have anything against rap…OK, I do, actually, and when the amalgamation of Aerosmith’s 70s hit was mixed with the 80s rap of Run-D.M.C., this commercial tune was never the same for me. Yes, I know the mix breathed much-needed life into the already over abused veins of the Boston rockers, but man, “Walk This Way” was dead to me from the day I caught that MTV video…and I really did like the song before.
9 & 10) “Stairway To Heaven” & “Freebird – Sacrilege I know, but come on, if I said you would never have to hear these two amazing rock songs again, wouldn’t you be just a little bit tickled happy?
