Awful Songs That Are Actually Terrific

Although it remains a contentious issue, you would think identifying bad songs would be simple. You just look for a tasteless music video, incessant repetition of annoying or meaningless phrases, and lyrics that are, at least on the surface, really, really stupid.

But what of songs that meet some or all of these qualifications of awfulness but still succeed, in spite of—or perhaps because of—their hideousness? These are the kinds of songs that provoke the most interesting debates around blogs and lunch tables. In the interest of better understanding this paradoxical phenomenon, we’ve mined the last few decades of pop music for examples of really exceptional, terrific badness:

Gwen Stefani — Hollaback Girl

Written by Stefani as a response to being dissed as a “cheerleader,” the insane success of “Hollaback Girl” stands as a monument to the saying, “Don’t get mad. Get even.” Depending on whom you talk to, this is either one of the best pop songs of the past several years or the most annoying song ever written. However, the immortally silly bridge (“B-A-N-A-N-A-S”) begs the question, “Why can’t it be both?”

Adam Ant – Goody Two Shoes

In addition to popularizing the “Colonial-Officer’s-Coat-and-War-Paint” look, Adam Ant spent his musical career making ridiculously campy pop songs and lavish videos that helped launch the trend of big-budget MTV productions. “Goody Two Shoes” isn’t his campiest video (see “Prince Charming”), but its celebration of clean living and politeness is just about the squarest idea for a pop song this side of “Pocket Calculator.”

E-40 – Tell Me When To Go

Bay area rapper E-40 kicks off this enormously successful single with the puzzling announcement, “Jesus Christ had dreads, so shake ‘em/I ain’t got none but I plan on growing some,” and things just get sillier from there. Eventually he’s rattling off imperatives like a Hyphy version of the “Hokey Pokey.” Irresistibly catchy and intentionally stupid, "Tell Me When to Go" is the perfect party song.

Shaggy - Boombastic

Best known as a dispenser of sage advice to a romantically troubled RikRok, Shaggy’s “Boombastic” sounds like a cruel joke played on people who can’t understand rappers even when they use real words. Of course you could just look up the lyrics, but you’d be missing the point: What Shaggy has to say simply transcends real, coherent language.

Over to you, Sparklers. Ever love or hate a song when everyone around you has gone crazy and thinks the total opposite?