World’s Worst Songs

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World’s Worst Songs: “Let There Be Cowgirls” by Chris Cagle

J.A. Bartlett February 19, 2013 1

Chris Cagle is a modestly successful country singer who’s managed to chart a few singles since 2000. “I Breathe In, I Breathe Out” was a #1 hit in 2001. There’s absolutely nothing distinctive about

World’s Worst Songs: “Playground in My Mind” by Clint Holmes

J.A. Bartlett February 12, 2013 7

Is there anything more lovely than the voices of little children in song? Most things, actually. At World’s Worst World Headquarters, we did not bother looking up from our Super Sunday chili-making to listen

World’s Worst Songs: Cee Lo Green’s “Forget You”

J.A. Bartlett February 5, 2013 2

(Stay with me on this one. I think I can make the case.) Even though some people believe that profanity is a linguistic copout or the sign of a failed imagination, sometimes a profane

World’s Worst Songs: Harry Chapin’s “Sequel”

J.A. Bartlett January 29, 2013 6

Hell yes, I read your comments. And you asked for it: this week’s installment of World’s Worst Songs stars “Sequel” by Harry Chapin. But first a bit of historical perspective. When “Sequel” came out

World’s Worst Songs: “Taxi” by Harry Chapin

J.A. Bartlett January 22, 2013 11

Good storytelling involves not only what you leave in, but what you leave out. What’s left out is what makes Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe” so compulsively listenable over 45 years after it

World’s Worst Songs: “25 or 6 to 4″ by Chicago

J.A. Bartlett January 15, 2013 8

Wait, what? Chicago’s third single, “25 or 6 to 4,” was released in the summer of 1970, and it is flat awesome. It proves just how hard a horn band can rock, and it

World’s Worst Songs: “Coward of the County” by Kenny Rogers

J.A. Bartlett January 8, 2013 9

Kenny Rogers scored solo hits beginning in 1977, but many of his early singles seemed to exist out of time. They sure didn’t sound like anything else on the radio at the same time.

World’s Worst Songs: Animals Run Amok

J.A. Bartlett December 18, 2012 1

This is the final edition of World’s Worst Songs before Christmas, so here are a few short takes on three reviled holiday records, all involving animals, all of which you are surely sick of

World’s Worst Songs: “Christmas Carol” by Skip Ewing

J.A. Bartlett December 11, 2012 6

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Laura Miller wrote a brilliant essay called “The Kitschification of September 11,” which appeared in Salon in January 2002. Miller discussed the blizzard of sentimental songs, memorabilia, and other

World’s Worst Songs: Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne”

J.A. Bartlett December 4, 2012 19

Dan Fogelberg’s wuss-rock holiday epic “Same Old Lang Syne” is the foundation stone upon which World’s Worst Songs is built. In the Olympics of Suck, it’s Michael Phelps. I have written about it several

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