The Middle Finger Album: The 10 Most Diabolical Songs From The Deepest, Darkest Depths of Hell

Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman? – Bryan Adams
18 Til I Die (1996)

A close call between this and the similarly soporific ‘Please Forgive Me’. But this gets the nod for trying to be sensual, with its pseudo-flamenco guitar, and ending up sounding like a man trying to serenade an elevator.

Father and Son – Boyzone
Said And Done (1995)

Er, boys… there is meant to be a father and a son. If your voices can’t convey that simple distinction, you probably shouldn’t be covering this song.

Axel F – Crazy Frog
Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits (2005)

To whoever bought or downloaded this song: it would be poetic justice if all of you were made to sit through a 3-hour concert of Kermit’s demented cousin. Does that sound like too long to be listening to what is essentially a ringtone? Now you know how the rest of us feel.



Breakfast At Tiffany’s – Deep Blue Something
Home (1995)

The name of the band says it all really, like they were trying to find a word with impact, but instead could only trail off in a mutter. The song itself is about trying to save a relationship by finding common ground, but it doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence that they’ll make it. The chorus, particularly the line ‘And I said, well, that’s the one thing we’ve got’, is so anti-climatic that it’s like the musical equivalent of brewer’s drip. Completely awful in its averageness.

Shout! – The Isley Brothers
Shout! (1959)

Whenever I hear the opening ‘Waaaaaaaiiiiii-lllll’ it sends shivers down my spine, for I know I’m about to be subjected to three minutes of mindless, repetitive chanting (eight minutes if it’s the finale to a variety show). This song passed its use-by date in 1965. Let us rest in peace.



Don’t Speak – No Doubt
Tragic Kingdom (1995)

After releasing the fine punk-pop singles ‘Just A Girl’ and ‘Spiderwebs’, No Doubt followed up with this clichéd, sentimental dirge. For years, I wondered if it was their idea of a joke. Then Gwen Stefani went solo and I realized it wasn’t.

Where Did Our Love Go? – The Supremes
Where Did Our Love Go? (1964)

Surely the song that made more people think their record player was busted than any other. Where does this song go? Nowhere. It’s just ‘baby baby… ooh-err… baby baby…’, bugging me like an itch that I can’t scratch. (Though I’ll admit that, like the Weather Girls, there’s probably a gender divide on the merits of this song.)

You Shit Me To Tears – The Tennants
Some record that disappeared without a trace (1998)

Anybody could have written a song whinging about the person who annoys them the most. However, most people have better things to do with their time.



I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair) – Sandi Thom
Smile... It Confuses People (2006)

With this song, Sandi Thom completed the rare double of sounding both amateurish and inauthentic. The tune sounds like a teenager banging out their first guitar chords. The lyrics are loaded with nostalgia for an era that she seemingly only knows through stereotypes. One suspects that, if she really were born 30 years earlier, she’d be singing about how wonderful the time of ‘Rock Around The Clock’ was.

It’s Raining Men – The Weather Girls
Success (1983)

As a heterosexual male, I can not sing, dance, listen to, or even think of this song without feeling more than a little awkward. I appreciate the fact that the songs that treat women as objects outnumber the songs that treat men as objects by five squillion to one. But surely there’s a more appealing image than being pelted on by heavy, hairy, smelly carbon-filled organisms?