How does a truly terrible song end up an otherwise flawless album? Blame ego-appeasing band-politics concessions, drug-fueled studio experiments, songwriters working through a few too many personal demons, and artists who just ran out of songwriting steam a little too soon. Or maybe it all comes down to bad judgment.
In any case, Rolling Stone‘s Andy Greene recently found 50 examples of classic albums with at least one bad song, and he goes through his entire list with host Brian Hiatt on the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now. (Along the way, he concedes he may have included the wrong track from Thriller.) To hear the whole episode, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above.
The songs discussed in the podcast also fall into some other repeated categories, including spoken-word experiments (The Doors‘ “Horse Latitudes”), orchestral missteps (Neil Young‘s “There’s A World”), and unfortunate accents (Genesis‘ “Illegal Alien,” Elton John‘s “Jamaica Jerk-Off”). Then there’s the rare song that brings together two typical mistakes: The Police‘s “Mother,” from Synchronicity, combines the band-politics move of throwing (otherwise brilliant) guitarist Andy Summers an album track with his way-too-personal confessions: “Every girl that I go out with/ Becomes my mother in the end.”
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone‘s weekly podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now, hosted by Brian Hiatt, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). Check out eight years’ worth of episodes in the archive, including in-depth interviews with Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Questlove, Halsey, Neil Young, Snoop Dogg, Brandi Carlile, Phoebe Bridgers, Rick Ross, Alicia Keys, the National, Ice Cube, Taylor Hawkins, Willow, Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Dua Lipa, Killer Mike, Julian Casablancas, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Marr, Scott Weiland, Liam Gallagher, Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, John Legend, Donald Fagen, Charlie Puth, Phil Collins, Justin Townes Earle, Stephen Malkmus, Sebastian Bach, Tom Petty, Eddie Van Halen, Kelly Clarkson, Pete Townshend, Bob Seger, the Zombies, and Gary Clark Jr. And look for dozens of episodes featuring genre-spanning discussions, debates, and explainers with Rolling Stone‘s critics and reporters.
