Rant-Man's Notebook

By Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie

Hell's Jukebox

I feel a bit weird writing about music again, since I'm no expert. I'm as musical as a train wreck. But for some oddball reason, music keeps popping up as the topic at hand. Bear with me.

A while back, I was with my bride at the supermarket, and I noticed some odd sounds coming from the ceiling. A conversation, actually. Eventually I figured out that it was dialogue from a movie, and then when Celine Dion started in with her caterwauling, I knew it was that version of "My Heart Will Go On (and on and on and on until you want to scream)" that features clips from the movie, as if the song wasn't annoying enough. (Aside: I saw an awards show once where Celine sang that song while wearing the necklace from the movie, and when she beat on her chest with her fist to show emotion (since she can't manage any in her singing), she practically drove the locket into her sternum. The look of shock on her face was priceless, and she studiously refrained from any more chest-pounding after that. End aside.)

Immediately after Celine was done, another lousy song came on. I think it was Barbra Streisand. Then another one, this time a show tune or something. I turned to my bried and asked, "what is this, hell's jukebox?"

Immediately an idea was born. I started asking people what songs they think would be playing on Hell's jukebox. That list was supplemented with a few searches for lousy songs on the web, a lot of listening to the "Those Awful '70s" program from Funkyville, and some brainstorming with my bride. The result is Monkey Spit's newest feature, Hell's Jukebox! I hope you enjoy the 28 ghastly selections I chose for you. It was a difficult process; I had to carefully monitor the country-western and disco categories, since either genre could easily fill out a list five times longer with no problem. I'm sure one of your choices is missing, and probably a song you like is included. Too bad. These are my picks, made according to my criteria.

Songs where somebody dies are almost always stinkers. So are songs where the singer stops singing and talks for a bit. At least one of the songs here was chosen because it's the musical equivalent of those icky e-mails that people keep sending that are supposed to make you feel all warm, but are really just crass, manipulative heaps of poor taste. We have songs from the '50s through the '90s, but we're heavily weighted with songs from the '70s because, well, it was the '70s.

Go. Torture your office-mates with painfully bad songs. "Push the Little Daisies" is worse than the Hamster Dance; it'll clear a room faster than a skunk. Enjoy.

Hell's Jukebox

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