I’ve done it. I’ve discovered the worst music ever recorded. I don’t mean the worst music ever made. That honor probably goes to some bar band in Phoenix. I don’t mean the worst single album ever recorded, because every year about 70% of released music is complete crap.

I’m talking about the worst genre of music ever recorded.

And I was pretty surprised by the outcome of my search.

First off, I’m a music fiend. I can see the art, the joy, the power in so many different kinds of music. The bassist in my band likens jazz to listening to a fax machine. I have 15 Miles Davis records. My mother says that modern classical music sounds like cats fighting. I love Cage, Stravinsky, and Ligetti. Most of my Americana cohorts hate electronica, and with its endless repletion it is a tough child to love – but it has a certain cold-hearted charm – and I own quite a bit of that stuff. I love Motorhead. Black Flag. The Florida Boys and the Happy Goodmans.

On and on…blues, gospel, prog rock, metal, country – all of it has something to latch on to and admire. When I go to a club and a band is playing I can usually find some element to love. “That drummer has a great foot.”

However, throughout my life I have had a kind of music that I labeled as “the only style of music I hate”. It was doo-wop. The falsetto sung by a guy that’s supposed to be a tough “street” kid from, say, Philly. The silly dance moves of the 4 backing singers. You’ve got to be kidding me. “Weee-ooo the lion sleeps tonight”. Tough guys like this music?

But as a musician that loves harmony…and that has recorded quite a bit of harmony, it’s hard for me to hate doo-wop. Sure, its fake, and girlie, but that stuff isn’t easy to sing. Hell some of those bands were prepubescent, and once the voice changed the career was over. It takes focus and talent, and with the primitive studio arrangements of the day these acts had to have the goods.

And there is one overriding reason why none of these styles of music can win the “worst music ever recorded” award. Because to this day they all have fans who love and consume the music. You can get in a bar fight in a 50’s café by talking smack on Doo-Wop. Some 65 year old with a Corvette and a silk windbreaker will punch your lights out for talking trash about Frankie Lymon.

No friends, the worst music ever recorded doesn’t have a strict genre name but here is my best description. It was American Adult-Pop recorded from 1973 to 1981. 70’s pop-shlock. Examples?

• Barbra Streisand              Streisand Superman
• Crosby Stills and Nash    CSN
• Kenny Rogers                  Kenny
  

What’s a matter with this stuff, you ask?

1. No one loves it, or misses it.
Most important styles of music have fans or adherents. A guy in Toronto will cut you for bagging on Rush. A fellow in Austin will knock your block off for slamming Willie Nelson. Hell, people even love Dave Matthews. But this 70’s pop-schlock was so inane and soulless that no one ever bonded with it. No one fell in love to it, or sat in their room smoking a joint and fell in love with it.

Almost every kind of music has a champion. Not this stuff. Seriously…when is the last time you heard someone talking about Kenny Rogers? Or playing his stuff on the radio. Not the older country stuff…the pop stuff. The answer is never. Because no one cares if Kenny Rogers’ music is ever played again.

It was celebrated at the time. These are big stars, of course.  But even still when someone reaches for a Babs record…they aren’t pulling Streisand Superman. Because it doesn’t represent anything but slick semi-hip 70’s pop.

It’s cocktail background music, at best. Music people talk over, and never ever really listen to.

2. The style is completely contrived.
You may be wondering. If I were to play this music, Grant, what would I hear? Could it really be that bad? If you could, you would hear a music that is totally based on triangulation. “Hey, the disco records have this kind of guitar. Let’s put that on our songs, it will make them sound hip.” “Hey, the disco kids like this strings, let’s put them on.” Like maybe Bill Clinton is producing. It is just one long lesson in stealing what you think it cool and jamming it all together to create a smelly soup that is neither fish nor fowl.

You can hear some of it. Right Here.

This is never more apparent than in the “crossover” records of Kenny Rogers. You might think that just recording a great song…and muting the pedal steel and fiddles might qualify a track to cross over to the pop charts. But apparently that’s not what the record business wise-men of the day thought. Yes, you must mute the country instruments and then add congos, wah-wah- guitar, black chick back-up singers, and a disco beat. It sounds like a producer who is cutting a record with a gun to his head, “Make this thing sound like Donna Summer or I’ll blow yer brains out!”

3. It is soulless and lazy.
Perhaps this is the most infuriating point. The people involved in these projects are VERY TALENTED. Some of the most talented people alive. Barbra Streisand is talented. Crosby, Stills, Nash? Even Kenny Rogers. And because of their stature in the business they worked with the BEST.

Moderately talented people making marginal music is no crime. But this stuff is intentionally silly and vapid. Bab’s does a version of New York State of Mind . I was thrilled to hear it, and in the liner notes she damns Billy Joel with faint praise, “he is not only a fine writer, but has a wonderful voice.” Barbra IS the quintessential New York singer and she should slay this tune. Instead it lays there like a possum. Holding out notes as if she’s doing a crossword puzzle. I’ve always be put off by the term “too white”, but good lord she has no soul. If she cut a James Brown song it would sound like a toothpaste jingle. (and she would probably write that he has a “wonderful voice”.)