What "well-loved" songs can't you stand?

[Mochudubh]

For a bit of light relief. We're watching Christmas TOTP from 1995 and Robson & Jerome were on singing Unchained Melody. I bloody hate that song, I hate the Righteous Brothers version too, it's so wail-y (I get that's why it's unchained but I think it should be re-chained and chucked in the sea).

What classic songs make you want to chew your own ears off?

The way Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ rhymes ‘tree museum’ with ‘see ‘em’.

Dancing in the moonlight
Young at heart
You get what you give

Top 3 worst songs ever

Can't remember who sang it 'Beneath your beautiful' Beautiful what? Surely it's 'you're?' Or am I being thick?

Is "Imagine" a well-loved song?
I've never come across anyone who likes it and it always crops up in discussions like these.
I hate it too.

The other one I loathe is "Hallelujah" by Alexandra Burke. I read somewhere that she wasn't sure what to do with the song so thought she should "Whitney it up".*
Which seemed to mean making her voice go a bit wobbly on occasion and giving words more syllables than they were ever meant to have.

It doesn't help that I love the original.

*Reminding me of the riposte: "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy".

Ooh! And seeing Glynis Johns singing "Send in the Clowns" on a chat show.
It was awful: all anguished eyebrows and trembling lips... She emoted that song to death.
I was a pre-teen when I saw and still remember how I loathed it and how embarrassed I felt for her.
And while most people don't overact as much as she did, it still gets sung as though a banner is being held saying: "Do you get the underlying meaning here? Do you?".
Could never go and see that musical and I normally love Sondheim.

There.
That was quite cathartic

Anything by Robbie Williams or George Ezra - who is essentially a poor pub singer.

You never bloody walk alone

@LaMarschallin

Ooh! And seeing Glynis Johns singing "Send in the Clowns" on a chat show. It was awful: all anguished eyebrows and trembling lips... She emoted that song to death. I was a pre-teen when I saw and still remember how I loathed it and how embarrassed I felt for her. And while most people don't overact as much as she did, it still gets sung as though a banner is being held saying: "Do you get the underlying meaning here? Do you?". Could never go and see that musical and I normally love Sondheim.

There.
That was quite cathartic

I think it sits better in the musical (which is really very good!) — but I hate when it’s turned into some kind of standalone emo torch song with all of the notes sounded out looong. (Like ‘Being Alive’, which is incredibly schmaltzy outside the context of Company.)

Angels - Robbie Williams
Anything by Take That
Wonderwall - Oasis
Cant stand most christmas tunes - give me the rage

• Oh Superman by Laurie Anderson (the constant "uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh"

• Gypsy Woman by Crystal Waters. Both worse than nails down a blackboard.

I hate when it’s turned into some kind of standalone emo torch song with all of the notes sounded out looong.

That's exactly it!

Perhaps I should bite the bullet and see the musical - it might cure me.

(As a by-the-by, lot of cover versions of songs seem to be a lot slower than the originals, with artists making every word more meaningful.
Gives me the same cringing feeling as GJ with SITC.)

Also the cheesy wedding music thats been played at every single wedding ive ever been to - e.g.build me up buttercup, YMCA, dancing queen etc.

Perfect
Galway Girl - Ed Sheeran

Dancing in the moonlight
Another vote for Whitney Houston
Plenty of Adele
everything Heart Radio plays.

I hate when it’s turned into some kind of standalone emo torch song with all of the notes sounded out looong.

There's two ways to sing SITC: the dramatic way (as in the musical, with all the emotions) and the lyrical way. The lyrical way is when people tend to elongate the notes. I read somewhere that it was even written for Glynis Johns herself because she couldn't sustain long notes, although I might be wrong. Most of the covers (e.g. Barbara Streisand) are sung in the lyrical way, with all the elongated notes. So I guess it depends on who sings it for me

Songs that I can't stand include:
Anything by the Beatles (I don't know why)
On and On and On by ABBA (because it does exactly that)
Love Me Like You Do by Ellie Goulding (although it depends on how I'm feeling)

I read somewhere that it was even written for Glynis Johns herself because she couldn't sustain long notes, although I might be wrong.

I think you're right.
Pretty sure she was premiering it on the chat show (probably "Parkinson") because of that.

Another vote for Angels - awful song
You're Beautiful
Love is all Around by Wet, Wet, Wet - but love the Troggs' version
Any classic song re-done by a breathy female
Happy Xmas - War is Over - goes on and on and on
Any Oasis song
Joe Cocker version of 'With a little help from my friends'

Anything by all those naff pop bands in the 90s:
Steps
Spice Girls
S club 7
Bewitched
Atomic kitten etc.

That whiny song where the bloke is singing to his gfs dad about wanting to marry her "why do you have to be so RUDE?" He pouts.
These two blokes squabbling over whether he should marry a woman. Does she not get a say?

Yes by McAlmont and Butler. Everyone raved about it at the time and it was shit. I assumed everyone would grow up and realise it's shit. But people are still saying how good it is and it's still shit.

Oh and anything Paul Heaton does - Housemartins, Beautiful South. Cannot stand his voice or his songs.

Ditto Manic Street Preachers.

Baker Street
Young at Heart
Come In Eileen

Thanks @torquewench for reminding me about the brilliant O Superman. It's the only good record my stepmother bought me, probably because I left the kitchen if it came on the radio.

@LaMarschallin

I read somewhere that it was even written for Glynis Johns herself because she couldn't sustain long notes, although I might be wrong.

I think you're right.
Pretty sure she was premiering it on the chat show (probably "Parkinson") because of that.

That's right about SS writing it for Glynis Johns because she had a small voice and couldn't hold notes, so the 'correct' way to sing it could be argued to be GJ's way. (But I seem to remember hearing an audio recording of her, and it was quite 'clipped' and slightly flat, but it was effective enough as coming from a brittle, self-dramatising, ageing actress who's just glimpsed life getting away from her.)

Judi Dench sang it at the Sondheim prom a few years back, and she sang it much more obviously angrily and distinctly flat at times! But I have a slight weakness for 'ugly' singing when it's in the service of acting, and I was just grateful they didn't have someone doing Bravura Whitney Stuff on it.

(Have you seen those clips of Sondheim coaching students at the Guildhall in SitC?

. The second woman has an incredibly beautiful voice, but a classically-trained technique doesn't work well in it, I think...)

Bailegangaire

Thank you so much for the information and the link: that was fascinating and I agree with you.

Perhaps I need to see ALNM and see SITC in context.
I wonder if part of the problem was that Glynis Johns was doing it like she would on stage and playing to the gallery which can be rather overblown on camera.

[A total aside, but the close ups of Emma Stone in "La La Land" had the same stagey quality to me, with far too many exaggerated eye and mouth movements. One the (many) things I didn't like about that film]

Imagine by John Lennon and hey Jude by the Beatles oh and candle in the wind.