Author Topic: The Jukebox from Hell (Read 69268 times)

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #75 on:** September 25, 2012, 12:03:14 am »

As most people know, the band from The Patrtidge Family was not real, other than lead singer David Cassidy and backup singer Shirley Jones. All of the others were actors and most didn't know how to play the instruments they were illustrated with on camera.

That includes Danny Bonaduce, the son of a prominent TV producer from the 1960s who landed an acting gig as the "bassist" of the Partridge Family. Bonaduce, however, had no clue how music really worked. He couldn't play bass (although he has since learned the rudiments of the instrument) and he couldn't really sing.

That didn't stop the record companies from putting out the Danny Bonaduce album. To do that, they hired a backup singer named Bruce Roberts to sing alongside Danny on all of the songs. On top of that, they chose perhaps one of the most inappropriate songs you could imagine for the lead-off single: a song entitled "I'll Be Your Magician." The song talks about how the singer will "touch (a woman) gently with his 'magic wand'," break down her resistance, and eventually make love with the woman. In a nutshell, it's a rape song. Keep in mind, Danny was 13 years old when this was recorded.

Here's Danny Bonaduce with "I'll Be Your Magician."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyitCLVARds

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #76 on:** September 27, 2012, 01:20:53 am »

Alvin Dahn, janitor by day, has only one recorded song known to man. Backed by some of Buffalo's best session singers, Dahn bought studio time to record this tune after a particularly bitter breakup. He thought he struck gold. Unfortunately, he lacked the voice to sing it.

I was going to save this one for Halloween, but I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to run a little thinner on these tunes than I was expecting. Oh, there's still plenty of bad songs out there, but I'm also trying to save some for the Christmas season, too. Those will come in due time.

Here's "You're Driving Me Mad."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d9j3-OzYUw

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #77 on:** September 29, 2012, 12:32:44 am »

Get ready for some nightmares... ladies and gentlemen, perhaps one of the most ill-advised covers in history: David Bowie and an uncomfortably affectionate Mick Jagger with their cover of Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancin' in the Street."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G4jnaznUoQ

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #78 on:** September 30, 2012, 10:15:34 pm »

Here's an obscure husband-and-wife duo that also ended up in the hands of WFMU. Wayne and Liz Lasowski of Whitewater, Wisconsin specialize in Christian, er, "music." Well, it's kind of hard to call it that-- half of the songs from their repertoire aren't really songs, they're just Wayne awkwardly reading some strange mixture of scripture and sermon. The other half are equally awkward, tone-deaf renderings of original songs.

Interestingly, their SoundClick profile asks them the question of whether or not they'd ever sign with a major record label, to which they respond "Not at this time." I don't think we'll have to worry about that any time soon.

Here's "The Life."

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KG/wayne_liz/Wayne_and_Liz_-_The_Life.mp3

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #79 on:** October 01, 2012, 11:36:16 pm »

From the bowels of the Internet... here's the infamous Nyan Cat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #80 on:** October 05, 2012, 12:47:16 am »

Any song where the principal lyrics are "ooh, you touch my tra-la-la, my ding-ding-dong..." well, it pretty much speaks for itself. WARNING: This might not be totally safe for work or family environments.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Briefing Room, I submit to the Jukebox from Hell Günther and the Sunshine Girls with the "Ding Dong Song."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbYtqAWDF2U

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #81 on:** October 06, 2012, 12:50:38 am »

Some of the members of the U.S. Senate, over the years, have had strong musical backgrounds. Everett Dirksen once charted on the top-40 with "Gallant Men." Robert Byrd could play a red-hot fiddle. The Singing Senators included among its members John Ashcroft, Trent Lott, Larry Craig and Jim Jeffords.

And then there is Ted Kennedy. Kennedy had a habit for breaking into a particular song on the campaign trail. It was in Spanish. Pandering much? In the words of a former Alaska governor, you betcha.

Here's one of Kennedy's renditions of "Guadalajara."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfL5zECvBJQ&feature=related

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #82 on:** October 06, 2012, 03:13:51 pm »

Lou Reed, the mastermind of the Velvet Underground, is alleged to have produced the next entry in the Jukebox from Hell solely to fulfill a contractual obligation. He nonetheless considered it a serious experiment, but it wasn't exactly intended to be pleasing to the ears. The record ranks #2 in the book The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time.

Here's over an hour of guitar feedback loops. It's called "Metal Machine Music: The Amine Beta Ring."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyF7g-dHO7g

Luis Gonzalez · « **Reply #83 on:** October 08, 2012, 12:19:06 pm »

WTF?

WTF!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-h2lJ6b7BE

andy58-in-nh · « **Reply #84 on:** October 08, 2012, 12:30:47 pm »

Quote from: jmyrlefuller on September 29, 2012, 12:32:44 am

Get ready for some nightmares... ladies and gentlemen, perhaps one of the most ill-advised covers in history: David Bowie and an uncomfortably affectionate Mick Jagger with their cover of Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancin' in the Street."

Great song, but I greatly prefer the original version. That video is gayer than the cast of Glee singing show tunes on a lavender parade float in the Castro District.

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #85 on:** October 09, 2012, 02:22:16 am »

Joe Meek was one of Britain's biggest and most successful record producers of the early 1960s. Meek engineered some of the early hits by Lonnie Donegan, a highly influential and successful "skiffle" singer. With his in-house band, The Tornados, Meek produced the international #1 hit "Telstar" in 1962. For a time, the Tornados were legitimate rivals to the then-biggest band in Britain, Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

Things started to unravel for Mr. Meek right about the same time he rejected The Beatles as a "knockoff" band. He encouraged the Tornados' bassist to quit the band and pursue a solo career. The Beatles took off, while the Tornados (and Meek's career) fell apart.

Finally, in 1967, Meek decided to release his last record. A closeted homosexual, Meek decided to insert some risqué gay banter into the end of a piece of elevator music the Tornados had just recorded (by this time, the Tornados were on their third completely different lineup). Shortly after the record was released, Meek killed himself.

Here's The Tornados with "Do You Come Here Often?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6K6gxSKld8

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #86 on:** October 10, 2012, 01:56:04 am »

Bill Mumy was a fairly famous child actor. He appeared as the menacing Godlike character at the center of the classic The Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life." He also had a starring role in the TV series Lost in Space.

However, in the late 1970s, Mumy decided to shift to music. Along with childhood friend Robert Haimer, he formed the novelty band "Barnes & Barnes" shortly after Lost in Space ended its run. Their taste in writing was nothing short of bizarre. Their best known tune was a little ditty known as "Fish Heads;" another one was known as "Party in My Pants."

From The Rhino Brothers Present the World's Worst Records, Volume 1, here's Bill Mumy and Robert Haimer, also known as "Barnes & Barnes," with "Boogie Woogie Amputee."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2oxSE6zeWg

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #87 on:** October 12, 2012, 12:40:44 am »

Perhaps no song is more infamous than the next entry in the Jukebox from Hell.

Jefferson Airplane began its career as a psychedelic-tinged rock band in the 1960s. It evolved over the course of the 1970s into Jefferson Starship, eventually progressing toward a more pop sound in the early 1980s, when one of the founders left the group and took the rights to the Jefferson name with him. It was during this era that the temporarily rechristened Starship produced some of their most infamous music, squarely in the realm of what radio types call "adult contemporary."

This song, co-written by Elton John's lyricist Bernie Taupin, was heavily criticized for spouting an anti-corporate message while at the same time producing a sound so ridiculously corporate that it couldn't be taken seriously. It has ranked among the worst pop songs ever recorded in polls conduced by the now-defunct Blender magazine, Rolling Stone, and TV channel VH1.

I'm a little surprised it took me this long without mentioning it, but here's Starship with "We Built This City."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxGGckAc1rs

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #88 on:** October 12, 2012, 09:24:08 pm »

The next song in the Jukebox from Hell was so annoying that when it hit #1 on the pop charts in 1952, it is credited with provoking such a negative response that people were scrambling to listen to something different. That something ended up being rock and roll, and pop music hasn't been the same since.

Interestingly, because the American and British music industries still hadn't developed much of an international presence at the time, it was a #1 hit on each side of the pond with two different artists: Patti Page in the US, and Lita Roza in the UK. Roza was basically forced to sing the song at the insistence of her record company and always hated the song, vowing never to perform it live.

Anyway, here's the original version by Patti Page of "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AkLE4X-bbU

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #89 on:** October 15, 2012, 07:59:21 pm »

The Singing Dogs were an innovative project created by Don Charles by splicing the sounds of various dogs barking at different pitches together in certain order to create the sound of them performing a song. He then took pictures of four (later five) dogs and made a fictional band.

I'm going to revisit these guys come Christmastime, when I'll play their most infamous hit, their rendition of "Jingle Bells." That one was part of a medley that was a surprise hit on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 1955, reaching #22. This is the follow-up single to that tune, released 1956.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Don Charles's Singing Dogs with "Hot Dog Rock 'n' Roll."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_sC0VkTiu4

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #90 on:** October 17, 2012, 11:55:26 pm »

Here's an early song from perhaps the most famous drag queen in America, RuPaul Charles. It is kind of amusing looking back at his/her ((s)he doesn't really care which one you use; I tend to use "her" for the female persona and "him" or "his" for the person himself) character's evolution over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s, and how ridiculously camp her early 1990s work was.

From 1993, here's RuPaul with her debut song, "Supermodel (You Better Work)."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2wrU2tkl38

PzLdr · « **Reply #91 on:** October 20, 2012, 01:15:47 pm »

Quote from: jmyrlefuller on October 09, 2012, 02:22:16 am

Joe Meek was one of Britain's biggest and most successful record producers of the early 1960s. Meek engineered some of the early hits by Lonnie Donegan, a highly influential and successful "skiffle" singer. With his in-house band, The Tornados, Meek produced the international #1 hit "Telstar" in 1962. For a time, the Tornados were legitimate rivals to the then-biggest band in Britain, Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

Things started to unravel for Mr. Meek right about the same time he rejected The Beatles as a "knockoff" band. He encouraged the Tornados' bassist to quit the band and pursue a solo career. The Beatles took off, while the Tornados (and Meek's career) fell apart.

Finally, in 1967, Meek decided to release his last record. A closeted homosexual, Meek decided to insert some risqué gay banter into the end of a piece of elevator music the Tornados had just recorded (by this time, the Tornados were on their third completely different lineup). Shortly after the record was released, Meek killed himself.

Here's The Tornados with "Do You Come Here Often?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6K6gxSKld8

Meek thought he was the reincarnation of Buddy Holly, and held regular seances to channel the real King of rock n' roll. He became more and more bizarre as tiome went on, culminating in his suicide. As they say at UPS, h ewasn't wrapped too tight.

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #92 on:** October 21, 2012, 01:33:25 am »

Quote from: PzLdr on October 20, 2012, 01:15:47 pm

Meek thought he was the reincarnation of Buddy Holly, and held regular seances to channel the real King of rock n' roll. He became more and more bizarre as tiome went on, culminating in his suicide. As they say at UPS, h ewasn't wrapped too tight.

It's amazing to read the guy's story. He was a production genius, yet (especially in his later years) absolutely batty. But alas, a lot of the geniuses of the industry are, and that's perhaps why they have so many personal problems.

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #93 on:** October 21, 2012, 01:46:30 am »

The next entry in the Jukebox from Hell has been described by Wikipedia as "best known as a target of parody and ridicule for embodying what are perceived by many as the most insipid lyrical and musical qualities of 1970s "soft rock" music. It appears frequently on lists of "the worst songs ever" and was included on the 1998 Rhino Records compilation album '70s Party Killers. Actress and performer Julie Andrews once explained that she found this song too difficult to sing during a lecture at Chautauqua Institution, simply because it had no meaning behind it."

The song's "author," Morris Albert Kaisermann, was a Brazilian singer, most likely a son of one of the many Jewish refugees who ended up in South America during the Holocaust. When he wrote the song, he apparently "nicked" the melody of a French tune, "Pour toi" by Louis Gasté. As a result of the song's massive "success," Gasté sued Kaisermann for the royalties and, in 1988, won.

M.C. Hammer did a rather humorous take on it for a Pepsi commercial, which is on Youtube.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Briefing Room, I present Morris Albert with "Feelings."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-oHYYaw9jA

PzLdr · « **Reply #94 on:** October 22, 2012, 12:46:41 am »

Quote from: jmyrlefuller on October 21, 2012, 01:33:25 am

It's amazing to read the guy's story. He was a production genius, yet (especially in his later years) absolutely batty. But alas, a lot of the geniuses of the industry are, and that's perhaps why they have so many personal problems.

See: Phil Spector.

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #95 on:** October 22, 2012, 03:45:43 pm »

Let me take you back to the summer of 2000. Even though the dot-com bubble was on its way to bursting, it was a pretty good time. 9/11 hadn't happened yet, the economy was pretty good (especially compared to today), and we were all having a decent time.

Then this tune came out. The song actually dates to the 1990s, where it was written as a radio jingle and then fleshed out by Trinidadian Anslem Douglas. It came to the attention of Steve Greenberg (who, unlike the band he was promoting and producing, decidedly NOT Caribbean), who re-recorded it with the Baha Men and pushed this song as many places as he could. Buoyed in large part by Greenberg's aggressive marketing toward the children's market, it became the anthem of the summer of 2000-- and the bane of many a music critic's existence. It ranked #3 on a Rolling Stone list of most annoying songs, #2 on a list of the worst songs published by AOL, and #1 on a Spinner.com list of the worst songs. So if you're wondering "Who Let the Dogs Out?," Mr. Greenberg is to blame.

Here's the Baha Men with "Who Let the Dogs Out?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He82NBjJqf8

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #96 on:** October 23, 2012, 10:12:27 pm »

Today's entry in the Jukebox from Hell is technically a twofer. Not because I intended it this way, but because the only recording I could find of this song on YouTube was from a radio show, and there were two songs in the video. It's the first one I'm going to feature.

We don't know much about Dusty Roads Rowe. He seems to be a jazz singer and clarinetist from somewhere around Louisiana, judging by the sound of his best known song. Well, here's the problem: jazz is an art form known for its frequent and complex chord changes, and that's evident throughout this piece. His clarinet skill, however, is sorely lacking: he seems to only know how to play a pentatonic scale in B-flat (given that clarinets are generally tuned by default to B-flat, that means he has only an elementary school level knowledge of how to play the instrument). As a result, the solo in the middle of this next song makes Squidward Tentacles look like the prodigious virtuoso he really thinks he is.

From Irwin Chusid's Songs in the Key of Z, here's Dusty Roads Rowe with "Baby, Your Love's in Town."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2kHhlC1uw8

BONUS: The second song on this recording is a mispronounced rendition of "Aquarius" (the song from Hair that was made famous by The Fifth Dimension) by Tony Martin.

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #97 on:** October 24, 2012, 11:27:13 pm »

Our next entry in the Jukebox from Hell is from a truly strange man by the name of Dan Scott Ashwander. Quite frankly, he's a kook and is featured in Donna Kossy's book Kooks. A self-published book, Am I Insane?, purportedly "explains the purpose of his 'cosmic mind,' and tells of his adventures battling the likes of the Evil Eternals, Hitler, Mussolini and Albert Einstein."

The song listed here fits that description quite well. In the song's lyrics, the Nazis defeat Jesus. The label on the cassette tape on which this was found has the sides labeled "Scientific Proof that I'm Jesus Christ and God" b/w "I'm Jesus Christ and I Will Heal You."

Here's Dan Ashwander with "The Word of God."

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/DP/2003/07/365-Days-Project-07-13-ashwander-dan-the-will-of-god.mp3

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #98 on:** October 25, 2012, 10:26:49 pm »

The next entry in the Jukebox from Hell comes, once again, from Japan. (Of all the foreign countries out there, I seem to pick on Japan a lot. Perhaps it's just because they're weird. Who knows?)

This song was a very highly elaborate ruse put together by a half-dozen of Japan's best-known comedians, performing under the name Happatai (Green Leaves). The act had them performing a bizarre disco-pop tune (this was the late 1990s, well after disco was dead) wearing nothing but underwear and an Adam-and-Evesque green leaf over their loins. Apparently the point of this piece, which originally appeared on the TV sketch comedy show Adventures of a Laughing Dog, was to dupe unsuspecting Americans, Britons and/or other nationalities that this was a legitimate Japanese pop act.

While it's certainly debatable how successful they were in their task, it did inspire one of the earliest efforts at a Flash animutation, "Irrational Exuberance," ca. 2001.

Here's Happatai with "Yatta!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW6M8D41ZWU

jmyrlefuller · « **Reply #99 on:** October 26, 2012, 09:32:33 pm »

The next entry in the Jukebox from Hell was the first song to be censored from the radio series American Top 40 when it peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at #37 in 1971.

First, a little background: William Calley was an inept lieutenant in the U.S. Army who, according to later testimony, was absolutely reviled and hated by his troops. He was eventually found guilty of instigating the My Lai Massacre of 1968, in which hundreds of Vietnamese women and children were slaughtered.

The subsequent investigation, which did not begin for over a year, was highly divisive. All of Calley's subordinates turned on him, and viciously. Meanwhile, on the other side, three whistleblowers were condemned by several U.S. Congressmen. In the end, Calley took the fall for the massacre and served a mere three years under house arrest. None of his fellow perpetrators were punished-- they were either acquitted or had the charges dropped.

This leads us to our next song. It's performed to a wholly inappropriate, bouncy bluegrass beat, for one. Two, it describes Calley's childhood as one of wanting to serve in the military (while he was a Navy brat, it appears he only signed up after he flunked out of junior college and the Selective Service threatened to put him in the draft pool). Third, it portrays Calley as an innocent player, just doing his duty under the assumption that you can't trust anyone in Vietnam.

Here's Terry Nelson with "The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXNsXIxBkqs