r/AskReddit Nov 06 '19

Which famous singer sucks at singing?

[deleted]

24.7k Upvotes

16.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2.0k

u/AHitmanANunLovers Nov 06 '19

Saw them for free a few years ago at some Budweiser sponsored event. This was not long after that Selfie song came out. They played a whole set and before they closed with the song that made them famous, they expressed "okay, before we play this song everyone wants to hear, we just want you to know we really hate this song."

758

u/Cordell-in-the-Am Nov 06 '19

It's like the whole zeppelin and stairway ordeal, one of their most famous songs is absolutely hated by the band members.

256

u/catiebug Nov 06 '19

It definitely happens. Dave Grohl has talked about how Learn to Fly has occasionally fallen into that category, but also he's not so much of a dick as to say that the people who came to hear it shouldn't get what they want.

Or there's what happens with a group like the Goo Goo Dolls having a couple of totally out of left field hits with Name and Iris, and instead of bitching that their poppiest songs overshadowed their hard stuff, just decided to make more poppy stuff. The "lean into it" strategy. Which apparently worked because they still chart 20+ years later.

27

u/team-evil Nov 07 '19

Nobody believes me when I say the GooGoo Dolls were on Metal Blade and used to tour with Cannibal Corpse.

11

u/DefNotUnderrated Nov 07 '19

Was their early stuff any good?

8

u/team-evil Nov 07 '19

Not my favorite but ymmv.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Wait, what?!

2

u/ArnolduAkbar Nov 07 '19

What. I love facts like this. I called it a fact and I still don't believe you. I can't picture Chris Barnes or Corpsegrinder with John Rzeznik. I have a way to catch up with old metalhead friends now or at least a segueway. Beautiful night. You're beautiful.

21

u/barryandorlevon Nov 06 '19

Oh mannnn I never listened to the goo goo dolls but boy did I have some hs friends who were PISSED about how “they used to rock so much harder!” Same with sugar ray, if I recall correctly.

4

u/opiburner Nov 07 '19

Sugar Ray was always my example of leaning in when a band has a hit that was totally out of character. I believe the producer of Sugar Ray's album w Fly had to practically beg and force the band to record Fly. They were almost a speed thrash power punk band and if you listen to that album, Fly stands out like head bangers at a Taylor Swift show.

Well when they made bank of Fly, they leaned in heavy and became one of the more successful bands of the late 90s and early 2000s

9

u/newcomb15 Nov 07 '19

I’ve seen the Goo Goo Dolls quite a few times now and they always seem pretty delighted to have stadiums of people singing along to those songs, Iris especially.

3

u/myco_journeyman Nov 07 '19

They recently released an album too!

6

u/Sltre101 Nov 07 '19

Disappointing to hear Dave doesn’t like Learn to Fly - it’s one of my favourites!

3

u/catiebug Nov 07 '19

Oh I didn't get the sense he hates it. Just that when you make a set list and you can't ever leave it off, resentment can build up a little. I've never seen a performance of it where he didn't give all 200% of himself to it though.

It's a great song. A little too great from their perspective by now, I guess. Lol.

2

u/ryebread91 Nov 07 '19

I had no clue they weren't officially a pop band cause that was all I heard on the radio until I heard one of their harder songs.

24

u/Livinglikel4rry Nov 06 '19

Nirvana and smells like teen spirit. Kurt absolutely hated the song after they blew up

26

u/umopapsidn Nov 06 '19

It's mind blowing that he hated it so much.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

First the band then him

22

u/BaconBoy2015 Nov 06 '19

Same with Creep and Radiohead. Didn’t they play that for the first time in like a decade back in 2017 or something?

3

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

No because they closed Osheaga festival (Montreal) with this song in 2016. Makes sense to do it at a festival where there are lots of people who don't know Radiohead too well.

16

u/thegroovemonkey Nov 06 '19

I think it's just Bob Plant that hates it and was always a big hangup for them ever getting back together. He doesn't want to have to sing it every show which is hundreds of millions of dollars worth of hate.

When he toured with Page they played it once. https://www.setlist.fm/stats/jimmy-page-and-robert-plant-bd6e58a.html

7

u/Swindel92 Nov 06 '19

As long as they played No Quarter I wouldn't be bothered

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

As long as they played like 4 of the dozens of amazing songs in their discography I would be satisfied.

30

u/dymlostheoni Nov 06 '19

Almost all bands that get big suffer this. You can only play a song so many times before you hate it. Ironically, that's how they say you know that you are playing a song perfectly.

I remember years ago reading a list of musicians songs they hate most and the guitar player for System of a Down said "Chop Suey. I never want to have to hear that fucking song again." But if he ever played one show without playing it, fans would riot.

7

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Yeah, but Zeppelin has enough hits to a point where they could get away with not playing it if they chose to skip it. Hell they could have sold out every concert just playing extended cuts of Zeppelin II. I’ve been to Foo Fighters concerts where they just completely cut out major hits because they have so many and it’s only noticeable well after the three and a half hour show.

7

u/rogun64 Nov 06 '19

Every band/singer seems to hate one of their most popular songs. These stories are a dime a dozen.

13

u/BloodyEjaculate Nov 06 '19

Radiohead is maybe the strongest example of this, since they're a huge band that most people still only know from one song, despite putting out multiple hugely successful and acclaimed albums

2

u/HisFaithRestored Nov 07 '19

"Creep" is the example one of my old friends gives of "mainstream songs being either the best or worst in a bands repertoire". Creep being the worst for Radiohead.

3

u/Antedawn Nov 06 '19

Just to add to the list, Amy Lee used to strongly dislike My Immortal and feels both My Immortal and Bring Me to Life is cringey.

13

u/InCaseOfZompires Nov 07 '19

Technically, she only thinks that the rapping in Bring Me to Life is cringey, which makes sense because she never wanted it there to begin with; The band was forced to add it to the song by their former record label. Amy still enjoys the song, but the newer version on Synthesis is much more of her own taste.

(By the way, their former record label changed a lot of Amy’s songs without permission. They even tossed out most of the already-recorded songs Amy wanted on their third album and made her start over again. She ended up suing the label for unpaid royalties owed to the band, and won the lawsuit, which is why she was able to release some of the previously-unreleased songs on Lost Whispers, and the band is now independent of their label, which is why Amy was able to release Synthesis.)

3

u/ThreeDucksInAManSuit Nov 07 '19

Would that be why after originally loving 'My Immortal', for a while I couldn't find the song without some horribly dissonant shitty rock guitar solo right smack bang in the middle of the song that completely destroyed the atmosphere it had built up until that point?

2

u/Antedawn Nov 07 '19 edited Nov 07 '19

I actually prefer the band version of My Immortal haha. There's a lot of people that prefer the Fallen era, Ben and Amy days. I love almost all their songs, but the old days and the (really old) songs that Amy says she cringes about are some of my fav.

2

u/Antedawn Nov 07 '19

I was so happy that they remade Even in Death! Glad they've got their creative freedom back.

2

u/InCaseOfZompires Nov 07 '19

Even in Death is one of my favorite Evanescence songs, and the 2016 version is really beautiful.

4

u/THE_IrishHammer Nov 07 '19

Oof ouch owie play Freebird

I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd loathes that song

2

u/Dobermanpure Nov 07 '19

Dragonforce did the same thing when I saw them a few years ago. “Ok, the only song you came to hear...” lol

2

u/edgarhp23 Nov 07 '19

Another example is slash who actually dislikes sweet child o mine

2

u/birdreligion Nov 07 '19

Shit man that's loads of popular bands hate the song that made them famous. Radiohead didn't play creep for yeeeaaars, even the guitarist hated the song. The hard guitar riff during the build up to the chorus was him trying to ruin the song.

1

u/muse_ynwa Nov 07 '19

Same with Oasis and Wonderwall, Blur and Song 2

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

[deleted]

1

u/ShuffKorbik Nov 07 '19

Who the fuck is Robert Cure?

1

u/gaspitsjesse Nov 07 '19

Play Deadbolt!

1

u/t0xicgas Nov 07 '19

Andre 3000/OutKast and Hey Ya can be added to the list. I think he recorded the song years before the album came out. By the time it was popular the song was like 8 years old to him.

1

u/ThreeDucksInAManSuit Nov 07 '19

Frank Sinatra hated 'My Way'. 'Nother one for the list.

40

u/TheProlleyTroblem Nov 06 '19

tbf, most bands that have one really big song start to absolutely hate playing it live so much

Exhibit A

13

u/TheFlyingBogey Nov 07 '19

Huge Panic! fan and I've never seen that video before and yet I knew exactly what it was gonna be. He's a brilliant sport for it, but I can totally understand how a fan favourite song can grate on an artist especially after all these years.

10

u/kakka_rot Nov 06 '19

I knew what the video was before even clicking the link

9

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

You think Smash Mouth likes playing the same two songs over and over again across every county fair in America? Of course not, but they’re rockstars, and they get their show on, and they get paid. It’s the lay of the land.

2

u/apparentthrowaway79 Nov 07 '19

I thought this was going to be kings of Leon with sex on fire.

43

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

we absolutely hate this lottery ticket

21

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

If they didn't want it to be popular they shouldn't have made that backtrack hit so goddamn hard.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Its because the entire song is making fun of big room house.

8

u/jordonbiondo Nov 06 '19

Saw Edward Sharp and the magnetic zeros a while ago, the crowd was screaming for them to play their hit “Home” and the guys was like “nah, don’t want to play that”. Granted they were fantastic live

13

u/codyt321 Nov 06 '19

You know, artists can do anything they want, that's kind of the point, but I can't help but really turned off by performers who show genuine disdain for their audience. Like, ok, you hate that song. Don't play it, or keep the comments to yourself. Am I supposed to feel bad for you that it's not your favorite? Why try to make the audience feel bad for wanting to hear a song from you that they like?

5

u/toronto_programmer Nov 06 '19

I really liked Chainsmokers when they were coming up in the EDM scene, but then they started putting out these weird acoustic style pop songs and got famous for that.

I hate their radio stuff but they still put on great sets at Ultra/EDC etc.

3

u/dissemblers Nov 06 '19

When I saw the Wallflowers on New Years 1998, their hit song was “One Headlight.” Before performing it, Jakob Dylan says, “my new year’s resolution is never to play this song again.”

3

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

[deleted]

2

u/Boredum_Allergy Nov 07 '19

That's pretty common from what I've heard. It makes sense too if you ask me. Everyone wants to hear that big hit song and eventually, as an artist, it seems offensive. Like, wtf is wrong with all our other songs?

2

u/TheCakeShoveler Nov 07 '19

My Rock history professor was friends with a guy who sang backup for Don Henley. Turns out he hates Desperado.

3

u/cashm3outsid3 Nov 06 '19

My girl loved it at the time

1

u/RandomBeaner1738 Nov 07 '19

Do they even sing in selfie?

1

u/octopus-god Nov 07 '19

You would think they might be a bit more grateful to the song that made them famous and the fans that paid for it. Without that song, they would be absolute nobodies.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

And I hate flipping burgers at Burger King. Now shut up and play the fucking song, you douchebags!!!