I usually quibble with these lists, but this one, save a few minor tweaks, is difficult to dispute. My main man, Terry Jacks, got his just due by skinning both our hearts and our knees.
Get this:
In 2025, Terry Jacks released a new album titled “Gone Fishin’ for Soul” on March 14th
Possible proof there is no god:
Marvin Gaye died at 44.
Terry Jacks is still recording.
Hey, where is “Watchin’ Scotty Grow” on that list? I would have put that one on the list in place of Minnie Riperton. “Loving You” was not really a bad song, just an annoying one. In fact, Bobby Goldsboro has a decent case for the worst song in two consecutive decades: Honey in the 60s and Scotty in the 70s.
(And he’s a multi-tasker. In addition to the worst song, he might also have had the worst hairstyle of both decades.)
1960s
1970s
The list misses by complaining about novelty songs (The Streak and Disco Duck). Novelty songs aren’t supposed to be good, they are supposed to be catchy, funny, and to capture the zeitgeist of the moment. Ray Stevens had established himself as a novelty song icon well before this song, though he had a number of good songs that got lots of airplay (such as Everything is Beautiful). Rick Dees was a radio morning DJ who had a lightning-struck single; he was never a serious musician. However if they want to rate novelty songs, Basketball Jones is way worse than either of the ones they picked.
I disagree. The list only complains about BAD novelty songs, which is what it is supposed to do. It should list songs that make you turn the radio off. Convoy, Disco Duck and The Streak were in that category, in my opinion, while Junk Food Junkie, King Tut, Short People and Kung Fu Fighting were not.
Maybe it’s just my computer, but the List of Ten only shows five. I’d call ‘Let ’em In’ more grating and overplayed than bad. The other four – yeah, suckiest bunch of sucks ever to suck.
One medium-large quibble, though: NO MANILOW ?!?
I will not allow any slander of Barry Manilow! The man is a poet!
We may be in violent agreement here. Yes, the man is a poet. (Whether he’s a *good* poet is a question for another day.)
But when I turn on my radio, I want a thomping bass and drums that will make my spleen rattle around in my chest. I want a shredding guitar solo to melt my face. I want loud screaming vocals about fucking, fighting, drinking, and fucking some more. I don’t want goddam Swinburne.
Hey, I love Slayer as much as anyone but I also like to chill out. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with Barry Manilow. At least he’s not that no-talent ass-clown Michael Bolton.
I’m OK with Manilow, too, but I don’t think “at least he’s not Michael Bolton” is that high a bar.
OK, he’s not my kind of performer, but Manilow delivered some catchy pop tunes and sold about a zillion records. He has had 50 songs in the top 40 and about a dozen at #1.
And my grandchildren know Copacabana, which means he’s kinda stood the test of time.
So, I give the man his props.
OK, started out as Barbra Streisand’s piano player, found out he could write a little, had the nerve to step out on his own. So: some respect.
But NOTHING WRONG ?!?
Whenever I think of Manilow now, I remember this (you have to wait a minute or so):
I only got five at first as well, but when I opened the link in incognito mode I got all 10. There must be an extension (probably an ad blocker) that interferes with loading the full page.
Thanks Ken, I will use this tip until they pry the ad-blocker from my cold dead hands.
Minnie Riperton was whistling? I thought those were birds.
One song missing, although it became a big hit in the early 1980s and not when first released is Charlene’s ‘Never Been to Me.’ I generally don’t like songs where the singer talks in the middle (even at the beginning isn’t great, Ride My See-Saw is pretty good but Atlantis is ridiculous.) and ‘Never Been to Me’ is melodramatically awful. Still, I believe it was adding the talking section that from the original album version that made the single a hit.
Also, the song is very popular in Karaoke, so, what do I know?
I agree on that one. Hate that song.
“Let Me In” and “The Morning After” are no worse than average. On the other hand, consider “The Candy Man,” “My Melody of Love,” “Run, Joey, Run,” “Ring My Bell,” “You Light Up My Life” (a bad song made worse following the revelations of its songwriter), that disco version of the Star Wars theme, and most especially Red Sovine’s “Teddy Bear,” which makes “Convoy” sound sublime by comparison. (It’s a spoken word record, but still.) I could go on (and on) but I shan’t.
You are spot on about “The Candy Man”. After more than 50 years, it still has the power to make me wince.
So, what were the bottom five songs that got cut off?
At least “Muskrat Love” made the list of the worst songs of the 1970s. I hate that fucking song and I wasn’t even born in the 70s. I was born in December of 1980. I also hate “You Light Up My Life”. Where’s “My Ding-A-Ling” by Chuck Berry? That shit is awful and I love what Chuck Berry has done music but that is an awful song. Especially in knowing how much of a pervert Chuck is.
I have no issues with novelty songs though “Convoy” sucked as it led to the creation of Sam Peckinpah’s all-time worst film of the same name. “The Morning After” is a bad song although South Park made it hilarious.
Anka’s smarmy single, Having My Baby, yes, that’s clearly in the worst of the decade. However, there are many others just as bad, that are missing. To wit, Clint Holmes’ Playground In My Mind, and a multiple decade winner, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, this time from 1971 by Robert John.
Richard
You could make a top ten list just with crappy remakes: Donny Osmond’s “Go Away Little Girl” (the original was no prize), the Carpenters’ “Please Mr. Postman,” Shaun Cassidy’s “Da Do Ron Ron,” and several bushel baskets of disco retoolings (e.g. “A Fifth of Beethoven”). And did you know that “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero” was also a remake? The original was by the group Paper Lace, who also inflicted “The Night Chicago Died” upon the world.
Here’s the scariest fact of all:
“The following songs were featured in top of the chart for the highest total number of weeks during the 1970s”
#1, at 10 weeks: “You Light Up My Life” Debby Boone
At the time, that was the longest that any song had ever stayed at #1. (That record has been broken several times. There are now 46 songs that have been #1 for ten weeks or longer, and the record is 19 weeks.)
There’s really no point comparing the music charts of then and now, especially since 1991, when they started using SoundScan to accurately tabulate music sales, as opposed to sales lists submitted by stores (back when people actually went to stores, and singles were still a physical entity). It’s why, for example, it’s now commonplace for albums to debut at number one, whereas in the 70’s it only happened with a couple of Elton John LP’s.
Anyone who thinks that “The Morning After” and “Sing” are among the 10 worst songs of the ’70s wasn’t alive in the 70s. I spent the last three years of that decade as a radio DJ, so I can testify to that. “Sing” would be great without the children’s chorus, which was also one of the most grating elements of “Playground In My Mind.” That’s as bad as anything on the list and far worse than most.
BTW, agree completely with the disgust for “I’ve Never Been to Me.” Almost as bad was Charlene’s follow-up duet with Stevie Wonder, “Used to Be,” by the same songwriters. In that one, they gave us this immortal lyric: “Have another Chivas Regal/You’re 12-years old and sex is legal.”
I want to add Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You” to the list, but it was released 4 years after the 1970s ended. Certainly though it channels a bad 1970s vibe. And I say that while being a big Stevie Wonder fan.
As for the songs actually on the list, I mostly agree with their placement there, other than maybe for “Let ‘Em In” and “There’s Got to Be a Morning After”, which are just so-so – i.e., not great, but not so terrible as to be on the list.
Overall, though, I think that the 80s were worse than 70s – far worse. “State of Shock” by The Jacksons (with Mick Jagger) and “Let’s Hear if for the Boy” by Deniece Williams are two that immediately come to mind, but I could name so many more. Pretty much anything by Madonna, Duran Duran, or Wham, for example, just to name a few on the very long list of offenders.
Just to say, as a representative of the community of people with bad taste in music, I really like most of the songs on the list, and many of the songs brought up in comments here.
That said, even I cannot stomach Paul Anka’s “You’re having My Baby”.
I thought a Havin’ My Baby hater might enjoy this. Turns out it has is a pretty good comp of shit 70s songs, including one more from the list. To preserve the suspense, I won’t say which one…
Looks like an algorithm zapped it. Here’s the link.
I’m lost. Why did you link to that?
This is 80s punk band the Circle Jerks, doing like five shitty 70s songs (Along Comes Mary, Close to You, Afternoon Delight, Having My Baby, Love Will Keep Us Together, D-I-V-O-R-C-E) (ok, that’s 6) including, like I said Having My Baby. So, since those songs suck, I thought anyone who hates them would enjoy seeing them demolished.
Now I get it.
Thanks.
To be honest, I liked Afternoon delight, but I agree that the rest were awful…
There are some songs that I disliked at the time that I now enjoy hearing. Afternoon Delight is one. Dancin’ in the Moonlight is another. And I can’t believe I was moving to the beat at the end of There’s Something About Mary when the cast sang Build Me Up Buttercup. I guess those songs remind me of simpler, happier times.
I said I wasn’t going to mention any more, but then I remembered “Daddy, Don’t You Walk So Fast.”
Worst song(s) of the ’70s lol tome(s) could be written …
At least we all agree “Timothy” was one of the best songs of that decade