There are two types of schlock that usually come up when people discuss worst/least favorite songs. Bopper/novelty/reaction/bubble-gum shlock--which I personally kinda like. (No problems with "Long Tall Glasses" or Foxy/"Get Off" here.) Then there's ballad schlock, and I'm right there with those of you who cite "Mandy," or the like. I'm a big believer in the evil of banality.
There are a lot of candidates for my least favorite record. The worst is probably Charlene/"I've Never Been To Me." (Corny and sappy and sexist and came out twice and became a hit at the end of a tailspin for CHR.
But I never had to play that one.
I did, however, have to play the attempted follow-up, "Used To Be," by Charlene & Stevie Wonder at the Urban station where I did P/T on Saturday nights in 1983. Even sappier. Even more dreadful. But Stevie was on it, so some R&B stations played it.
If you've never heard it, think of Tom Clay's equally sappy "What The World Needs Now" a decade later -- a litany of the world's troubles that opens with "Superman was killed in Dallas/there's no love left in the palace/someone stole the Beatles' lead guitar." Goes on with Stevie and Charlene swapping lines: "Let's cut a class"/"I've got some grass." Big poignant finish is "I believe that love can set us free/Someone tried to say that/and we nailed him to a cross/so I guess it's how it used to be."
And my station didn't daypart, so I was playing this on Saturday night in between "1999" and "Atomic Dog."
There are a lot of candidates for my least favorite record. The worst is probably Charlene/"I've Never Been To Me." (Corny and sappy and sexist and came out twice and became a hit at the end of a tailspin for CHR.
But I never had to play that one.
I did, however, have to play the attempted follow-up, "Used To Be," by Charlene & Stevie Wonder at the Urban station where I did P/T on Saturday nights in 1983. Even sappier. Even more dreadful. But Stevie was on it, so some R&B stations played it.
If you've never heard it, think of Tom Clay's equally sappy "What The World Needs Now" a decade later -- a litany of the world's troubles that opens with "Superman was killed in Dallas/there's no love left in the palace/someone stole the Beatles' lead guitar." Goes on with Stevie and Charlene swapping lines: "Let's cut a class"/"I've got some grass." Big poignant finish is "I believe that love can set us free/Someone tried to say that/and we nailed him to a cross/so I guess it's how it used to be."
And my station didn't daypart, so I was playing this on Saturday night in between "1999" and "Atomic Dog."