Crap Songs Which Turn Out To Be Great To Play

[stewblack]

Never could listen to GnR without strong pain killers to hand but I learned Sweet Child Of Mine for a function dep slot and man I love playing it.

Similarly you'd be unlikely ever to walk in on me listening to Wham but I am loving the bass part to Wake Me Up Before You GoGo.

Any tunes or bands you hate but end up enjoying playing?

[stewblack]

40 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

That’s half the fun of being in an 80’s band. Utter cheese fest, but most of the songs are great to play.

Wake Me Up is a great example. I also have Footloose, True, Video Killed The Radio Star, Rio, The Final Countdown and many more.

Footloose is a perfect example. A great challenge to get every note right - especially at speeds some bands play it.

[Al Krow]

I'm a Believer by the Monkees. Carol Kaye's bassline just drives the entire song. 

[stewblack]

2 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

I'm a Believer by the Monkees. Carol Kaye's bassline just drives the entire song. 

Sorry I'm not allowing it - it's a great tune!!

[Al Krow]

1 minute ago, stewblack said:

Sorry I'm not allowing it - it's a great tune!!

Hah! In that case so are pretty much ALL of George Michael's! 😎 

[stewblack]

Just now, Al Krow said:

Hah! In that case so are pretty much ALL of George Michael's! 😎 

Wake Me Up cannot surely be considered remotely 'great' can it? My God it's awful. But amazingly fun to play.

[Reggaebass]

I had to learn, I’m in the mood for dancing by the Nolan’s for a garden party last summer , the really sad thing is I enjoyed it 😔

[kusee pee]

For some reason I always loved playing Addicted To Love. The bassline is such a groove to play. Unfortunately, it never went down as well as it felt so we haven't gigged it for ages.

[Hobbayne]

I hated Enter Sandman with a vengeance, until I was out voted by the other members of the band to cover it. Now, I dont mind playing it.

The devils interval. 😊

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, stewblack said:

Wake Me Up cannot surely be considered remotely 'great' can it? My God it's awful. But amazingly fun to play.

But that's the difficulty here. Who's call is it that a song is "crap"? 

If I could write any of the tunes that George Michael wrote as part of Wham, I'd be a very happy man.  

If it's so awful why is to so fun to play? 

On reflection, I think it's a little arrogant for any of us to call songs that many people love, "crap". At most we can say that we personally don't like them. Which is fair enough. 

Some classical music lovers might regard all rock music as noise. Does that make them right? 

Personally I'd say "Sweet Child" is a much loved anthem, which we love playing and audiences love listening to. It's definitely not "crap". 

Just saying. 

Edited November 4, 2018 by Al Krow

[stewblack]

8 hours ago, Al Krow said:

But that's the difficulty here. Who's call is it that a song is "crap"? 

If I could write any of the tunes that George Michael wrote as part of Wham, I'd be a very happy man.  

If it's so awful why is to so fun to play? 

On reflection, I think it's a little arrogant for any of us to call songs that many people love, "crap". At most we can say that we personally don't like them. Which is fair enough. 

Some classical music lovers might regard all rock music as noise. Does that make them right? 

Personally I'd say "Sweet Child" is a much loved anthem, which we love playing and audiences love listening to. It's definitely not "crap". 

Just saying. 

Of course you're right, my tongue is somewhat in my cheek with this thread. However I am declaring myself judge and jury and no matter what you say the Monkees were great 😉

[Al Krow]

9 minutes ago, stewblack said:

Of course you're right, my tongue is somewhat in my cheek with this thread. However I am declaring myself judge and jury and no matter what you say the Monkees were great 😉

If you changed the thread title to "Cheesy" rather than "Crap" I suspect there would be much less scope for folk like me getting on our sanctimonious high-horses and defending (recently departed and much loved / admired) creative genius songwriters! 😂 

[casapete]

5 minutes ago, stewblack said:

Of course you're right, my tongue is somewhat in my cheek with this thread. However I am declaring myself judge and jury and no matter what you say the Monkees were great 😉

Absolutely! As a massive Carole King fan, ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ is up there as one of my all time favourite songs. Lots more of their stuff is great too, including ‘Last train to Clarksville’ and ‘A little bit me..’ 

[stewblack]

4 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

If you changed the thread title to "Cheesy" rather than "Crap" I suspect there would be much less scope for folk like me getting on our sanctimonious high-horses and defending (recently departed and much loved / admired) creative genius songwriters! 😂 

George Michael was a wonderful singer. If I say he could have filled Freddie Mercury's shoes I think that says enough. Wrote some crap songs though 😝

[Paul S]

27 minutes ago, casapete said:

Absolutely! As a massive Carole King fan, ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ is up there as one of my all time favourite songs. Lots more of their stuff is great too, including ‘Last train to Clarksville’ and ‘A little bit me..’ 

My little band did Pleasant Valley Sunday for a couple of years - not sure why we dropped it, tbh ... but what a fun bassline to play!  Really drives it along.  Love groove when you drop to E.  And we tagged Last Train to Clarksville onto the end.

[Al Krow]

3 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I may be way off the mark here as I’m no Wham expert, but I can’t imagine Michael & Ridgeley wrote the bass part note for note, so I’m gonna say it’s so much fun to play because of Deon Estus and what he did with it, otherwise it could have been a dull song that we wouldn’t be discussing here.

I don't thing Ridgeley wrote anything! Just there for ornamentation 😂

[steve-bbb]

 

[Paul S]

Edge of Heaven is a sublime song in all respects, imo.

[casapete]

7 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Who knows. He’s credited as a co-writer for Club Tropicana, but I guess we’ll never know what he contributed.

Another tour de force by Mr.Estus.

Apparently Andrew did co-write a few of the Wham things (Wham Rap, Club Tropicana etc) George also credited him as co-writer on his massive solo hit 'Careless Whisper. See Wiki below -

Since 1982, he has reportedly amassed £10 million from sales and royalties of records.^[12] Although the single "Careless Whisper" was issued as a Michael solo piece, it was credited as being co-written by Ridgeley.^[13] It has sold six million copies worldwide^[14] and, as of 2012, was the 34th best-selling single of all time in the United Kingdom, having sold over 1.3 million copies.^[15] Ridgeley still receives thousands of pounds a year from his share of "Careless Whisper" royalties alone.^[16]

[Maude]

Apparently George Michael was hugely shy and without Andrew Ridgeley being by his side Wham! would never have happened. GM acknowledged this by giving AR equal songwriting credits on songs that he maybe wasn't a big part of, or even had nothing to do with. 

[Mickeyboro]

21 hours ago, kusee pee said:

For some reason I always loved playing Addicted To Love. The bassline is such a groove to play. Unfortunately, it never went down as well as it felt so we haven't gigged it for ages.

Hate it, hate it, HATE IT!

Palmers first two albums are all time faves of mine with Lowell George and the Meters. Then he discovered cocaine...

[Delberthot]

I think that if we mean songs that we hate listening to rather than crap then Uptown Funk and Beyonce's Crazy in Love and would the on my list.

In fact there's nothing on my band's set list that I listen to outside the band but I enjoy playing the vast majority of it

[BreadBin]

It's all very subjective - less contentious maybe would be 'Great songs that are crap to play' 

[andytoad]

Tom petty - running down a dream. I hate the song, but great to play for some reason.

[dave_bass5]

On 03/11/2018 at 22:34, stewblack said:

Footloose is a perfect example. A great challenge to get every note right - especially at speeds some bands play it.

Yeah, I’m with you on that one. Cant stand it but....oh wait, cant stand playing it either, but i do enjoy the workout and its very satisfying when it all goes to plan. 

I once depp’ed With a covers band that was doing all alternative indie stuff. I had never heard most of it, and when I listened to it i couldn't understand why anyone would ever want to listen to any of it. I was right on that point, didn't go down too well at the gig, but i really enjoyed learning all the songs and have since tried to get my band to play some of them (luckily they said no).

Edited November 5, 2018 by dave_bass5