Crappy artists who have a few good songs

[Prowler]

They say that even a broken clock is right twice a day. A musician or a band might be lousy for the most part, but still have a song or two or maybe three that are actually good or fun.

Limp Bizkit are the biggest example of this, imo. They're a very mediocre band in general, but My Way, Nookie and Take a Look Around are all classics from the turn of the millennium. Rollin is also a fun party song.

I'm sure there's others, but they're the only one I can think of for now.

[Leo656]

Dude I mostly agree but how can you cite Limp Bizkit and not mention N2gether Now? That's by far their best song... even though most of the credit for that has to go to Method Man. "Break Stuff" is also much better than most of those other ones.

I can't f*cking stand Marilyn Manson (aka "Baby's First Industrial Metal" ) but I think most people still bang their head a little to "The Beautiful People". That song is all about the guitar riff, though, and actually it might be better as an instrumental than anything.

I'll try and think of more later. It's hard because if I don't like a band or singer I don't listen to enough of their stuff to find the hidden gems, usually. Also, just because I personally don't like someone doesn't automatically make them "bad", like I was tempted to mention how I don't really care for Eminem outside of a handful, but I'm well aware most people love him, and objectively he is a pretty good rapper and he works super hard, I just have personal mixed feelings about him. But I can't in good conscience cite him as a "crappy artist" because I don't really agree with it.

[Prowler]

Haven't heard much of Marilyn Manson to give an opinion of his work.

I don't care for Eminem. Just not my thing. I'm very peculiar about rap music since it's not a genre I'm a big fan of. And none of the rap songs I like are by Eminem.

[Leo656]

"Bad Influence" is a great one from Eminem (see "What Are You Listening To" thread). I like the uncensored version of "Guilty Conscience" as well. Other than that one I was never a huge fan of most of the stuff of his from the radio, but from time to time someone would pass me one of his somewhat lesser-known tracks and I'd be like, "Oh, damn, a'ight." I don't really consider "Stan" to be a rap song as much as more like "artistic spoken-word poetry" - although maybe that's splitting hairs - but it's a very effective piece of storytelling and a very socially relevant - and responsible - piece of work. I had to give him a ton of credit when I first heard that one because it showed just how much he had matured as an artist.

Like, "Stan" hits totally different after I got into wrestling and became a "local legend"; I'm not "actually" famous, maybe like "People I don't know will recognize me at the grocery store or a restaurant once or twice a year" level "famous". But I HAVE had obsessed fans, and I HAVE had people I hardly know except I took a photo with them at a show one time, randomly PM me at 5 in the morning to vent about their husband beating or cheating on them or threatening to kill themselves, and it's like... what do you do, y'know? Like, you feel for them, you WANT to help in SOME way, but you recognize that you don't even know the person but they think they know you... and you're terrified that something you say will set them off. I've had them do the thing where they'll PM me with "You don't think I'll do it... I'm sorry, goodbye..." and then they don't message or reply for a few days... and then they'll pop up like none of it ever happened.

You don't ask for this. They bring it to you. Because you shook their hand, took a picture, and sold them an 8x10. They now want you to be best friend, therapist, and lifeline. You met them ONCE. It can be very, very, VERY weird and unsettling.

And I'm a guy with 200 Subscribers on YouTube. I cannot imagine what it's like to be a guy who sold 40 million records, dealing with this stuff at an exponentially higher rate. Like he says in one of his other songs, "The F*ck you THINK I need more Vicodin, for?!"

So yeah, I don't love the guy's stuff and a lot of it I really don't like much at all. But even if you threw out his entire catalog, "Stan" is probably the singular most important piece of business he ever did and I can forgive the rest of it and I'm glad he exists because of that one specific thing. It's great that he was brave enough to shine a light on that, most people don't talk about or ignore it.

Some of the stuff he did with D12 was alright, if you like really dark humor, which I sometimes but not always do. Sometimes with rap I'll fall in love with a song just because of how twisted and violent and absurd the lyrics are, like horrorcore and stuff like that. I admittedly love my rap to be full of over-the-top absurdly violent stuff like rape and murder and skull-stomping children and beating up old people and running over the handicapped and getting people's grandparents hooked on crack . I don't advocate for anything like that in real life, obviously. But it's great to listen to when you wanna blow off steam, or just wanna laugh at it like "Dude OMG WTF ".

Most of the rap that's on the radio is just dumb, I'm much more into underground or lesser-known stuff, like Swollen Members and Styles of Beyond and stuff like that. Most of that stuff is REALLY f*cking good. There's a ton of great sound cross-over with rap and metal on the underground level, too, which creates some really great sound like putting metal guitars on a really aggressive rap track over a really heavy beat, it's just really incredible when done right. Like "Swollen Members" don't really claim the "Heavy" album much anymore but there's some great metal-tinged rap on that record, and the song "Warrior" they did later on was really rock-heavy, as well, like they hit you with the guitar before they even drop in the beat, it's a great song. I really love experimental stuff, people playing with sounds. Most people think of "rap mixed with rock" and think of like, Korn or Limp Bizkit but there's way, way better mashup stuff out there than that stuff, I think most of that stuff is crap, frankly. But I mean, a ton of "mainstream" anything is gonna be crap.

...Except country, for some reason. It's hip to knock country but I actually like a lot of it, but unlike every other genre I tend to like more "mainstream" country... probably because it's less "old school" country and more mixed with hard rock and even rap elements, giving it a more modern sound. It's probably the genre besides disco I listen to the least - I NEVER listen to disco - but like I'll never turn off Garth Brooks, Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash for example. I might not put it on - although sometimes I will - but if it comes on, I won't change it. Like, if someone doesn't like "Beer For My Horses", I legit don't know what the f*ck is going on inside their head. I love everything Mike Nesmith ever did, from his Monkees stuff to the First National Band and the rest of it, he basically created "Southern Rock" years before the Eagles made it mainstream but of course he never got the credit. I love Charlie Daniels as far as the stuff that leans more into bluegrass, but I'd argue that bluegrass is still country-adjacent at the very least.

I still definitely listen to more rap than country, though, by a lot. Like I'll sometimes get into a groove and only listen to rap for like two or three days and then switch to something else. My musical tastes are very, very eclectic, as anyone who's seen my posts in the Listening To thread and actually clicked the links can tell.

My nickname in high school was "Metal" and that's definitely what I listened to most back then, but in a lifetime I've probably listened to more punk, than anything. But if someone asked me what I liked most I couldn't say. I know my favorite band is Guns N Roses but after that everything is very, very flexible.
----------------

Thanks to my wife I've had to listen to more Marilyn Manson than I ever wanted to. ALL she listens to by choice is Manson, Alice Cooper, and King Diamond/Mercyful Fate. She used to be more into Megadeth but she hardly listens to them anymore. And it's like, like what you like but it's ALL she listens to and she talks about them A LOT. You can see why this would irritate, as my own musical palate is a lot more varied, and hearing just the same three or four bands over and over can get very tiresome very quickly. SHE could never get tired of listening to the same 5 or 6 albums over and over again forever, but I could, can, and have, and I am sure that's why my tastes have branched out so broadly over the last 15 years or so.

It's not that she doesn't like the stuff I put on, she does like a lot of it, but like she will always switch the CD in the car to Alice Cooper or Manson or King Diamond if I had something else in there and she goes on a short drive by herself. Even if she's going 5 minutes down the road and back, she'll still switch the CD back to the King Diamond CD rather than leave Offspring on for 10 minutes. AFI, sometimes she'll leave in, but almost nothing else though. This gets annoying sometimes because once in a while she lost one of my CDs this way, taking it out of the car stereo and putting it in one of her own cases rather than in the proper one, only to then lose both case and CD. Only happened a couple of times but it was always annoying. I'd be like "Would it REALLY have been so bad to just leave Nirvana on, since you were only gone for 6 entire minutes?! You HAD to swap the discs so you could listen to all of ONE song?! It was THAT important?!" But to her it is. ((shrug))

[Prowler]

Stan is an interesting case. I don't particularly like the song, but the story it tells and the message it sends is pretty spot on and the song's videoclip is well done.

I do dislike how the word "Stan" has been replacing the word "fanboy" on the Internet lately though. It's odd how it's mostly people aged 18-21 using it as slang. That song is from before their time. That'd be like people around my age talking like Michelangelo from the 1987 TMNT cartoon, or something.

[IMJ]

Coldplay. OMG.

Great radio hits, but my God if you listen to one of their albums it's like this repetitive, sophomoric, grating music that all blends-in to form a slowly-spoken depressing soup of sappiness.

Listening to a Coldplay album and expecting anything amazing is like listening to Paul Bettany speak the word "Wanda" softly over and over and over again while he plays the Vision - it's maddening.

[Mad Dog McMutt]

Some people might get upset at me, but I think that the band CKY falls into this category. They have 2 extremely good songs (96 Quite Bitter Beings and Flesh Into Gear), but when you listen to a complete cd the rest of their songs are just unimpressive. I can see why they never got that huge.

[ZariusTwo]

CKY were commonly associated with Bam Margera when he was hot, but then were eclipsed entirely by HIM becoming the soundtrack of everything he ever did.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Coldplay. OMG.

Great radio hits, but my God if you listen to one of their albums it's like this repetitive, sophomoric, grating music that all blends-in to form a slowly-spoken depressing soup of sappiness.

Listening to a Coldplay album and expecting anything amazing is like listening to Paul Bettany speak the word "Wanda" softly over and over and over again while he plays the Vision - it's maddening.

Growing up, I used to like their song “Clocks”. Now when I listen to it as an adult, I’m like, “This is like being on acid. Too weird for me.”

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Cowabung-Gal

Growing up, I used to like their song “Clocks”. Now when I listen to it as an adult, I’m like, “This is like being on acid. Too weird for me.”

I mean - their radio singles are good songs. But then one day we were cooking at home and I started playing their catalog to check it out and my God we got sick of the sappy mess of awfulness so quickly. I think I did anything to turn it off once we hit our tipping point - for God's sake I think I turned Grimes on just to get Coldplay off.

And now I never want to hear another Coldplay song again after realizing that "Clocks" is just a listenable example of every droning, lithium-laced song that is every other track they've made.

[Mad Dog McMutt]

The band Orgy actually fall into this category for me. Their cover of Blue Monday was great and Stitches was good as well. However, all of their other songs are god awful and really hard for me to listen to.