Bands, Singers Who Hated Their Biggest Hit

Another example: Melissa Manchester, as she later described it, had to be dragged into the studio "kicking and screaming" to record "You Should Hear How She Talks About You," pure bubble-gum pop that made the top 5 on the Hot 100 and won her a Grammy.

Here's a few.

David Bowie hated the Let's Dance album, but let's face it. These are the songs everyone knows. I love David in all his forms but I still love this one the most as it's what introduced me to him as a teen.

I always heard that the Bangles hated Walk Like An Egyptian.

Metallica, Enter Sandman. They refused to play it (I think they've recently relented)

Rumor has it, Helen Lawson's first reaction to I'll Plant My Own Tree was "What the fuck does that even mean?". However, wiser heads prevailed, and we're all the luckier.

In the Tina Turner documentary it was said that she hated What's Love Got to do with it.

[quote] Metallica, Enter Sandman. They refused to play it (I think they've recently relented)

What? That's such a good song, by all metrics.

Also, Slash hated GnRs Sweet Child o Mine

It wasn't her biggest hit, but while we're on the subject: Cher has never liked "Just Like Jesse James", and has spoken on it. But because audiences love the song and helped to make it a hit, she performs it anyway. She mentions all of this in the linked clip below. I really wish she'd made a video for it.

R10 I don't blame her - that song is atrocious

It was kind of funny when Radiohead got all miffed over Prince covering Creep. He had the video taken down from Youtube and they were all like "but it's our song". Even funnier was that Radiohead got sued for Creep for being a ripoff of The Hollies "Air that I breathe".

The songs at the OP and R3, R4, R5, R9 and most of R2 are songs that made the artists mentioned go mainstream, most of those songs deviated from the artist's normal sound and attracted a different audience which makes it look like this thread is about bands disliking their most overplayed, overrated song, it would be interesting to see a list of artists who hated their most popular song for different reasons.

Cyndi Lauper hates her Goonies pop tie-in, Goonies R' Good Enough. To this day, she refuses to perform it live.

Barbra has never liked Woman In Love

Any artist forced to play the same song over and over to be able to draw crowds (who only want to hear the hits) is going to start hating that song.

Millie Jackson hated her first RnB hit

Michael Bolton left out ‘Love is a wonderful thing’ from his greatest hits compilation

[quote]Metallica, Enter Sandman.

And here's a good explanation of why:

[quote]Lyrically and musically, it’s a shocker, and you can see why Metallica purists hate The Black Album – it is so cheesy that it made the crossover into the mainstream. It’s an entry-level track for anyone wanting to get into rock or metal, but apart from that, the song is so poor that it is screaming to be slapped with the ‘forbidden riff’ sticker until the end of time. Even for 1991, it’s hard to imagine what anybody really saw in the song. If ‘Make America Great Again’ was a song, it would be ‘Enter Sandman’. This was obviously not the band’s intention, but that’s the sort of person it resonates with.

[quote]A meathead anthem, with an earworm of a riff that quickly becomes annoying, the song also played a significant part in bass player Jason Newstead quitting the band. He explained to the Metal Hammer podcast: “I liked playing the songs and I can raise myself up to perform the songs for the people and give it all I’ve got, but ‘Enter Sandman’ for the three thousandth time in a certain amount of days – it fucking wears on you”.

As mentioned at R13, it would be nice if people named songs that bands hate for reasons other than them being overrated, overplayed mainstream hits.

Guns n Roses were accused of plagiarising Sweet Child of Mine

Looks like Cyndi has had a change of heart about performing it, but she probably still hates it.

Miss Warwick hated that Barry Gibbs penned hit

Helen Reddy quit performing Leave Me Alone because of the repetitiveness of the phrase in the song.

John Lennon hated that McCartney song, Obladi Oblada

I don’t know that Judy Garland *hated* performing “Over the Rainbow” but she definitely got tired of singing it.

One hit wonders must get tired of singing their one hit in that case

Heart, "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You" -- another song foisted on a band to have a hit, recorded reluctantly; peaked at #2 in the spring of 1990 (technically, they had two bigger hits; both "These Dreams" and "Alone" went all the way to #1).

Ann Wilson: I didn’t believe in the way the lyrics were devaluing the man in the story. Just going, ‘Yeah, I can pick you up. We can have a night of love. We can never even know each other’s names. You can be so miraculous, and then I can just get up and leave you a note and walk out on you. Have a baby and sort of gloat about your surprise when you see the kid.’ To me, that was kind of an empty, weird, sort of hateful story.”

They performed it during the Brigade tour in 1990, then not again until 2017.

Lulu hated the following song. It was a major hit in Europe, but not her biggest, to be fair. She won the Eurovision contest with it.

[quote]To this day, she refuses to perform it live.

Sure, Jan.

Diana Ross, for her "Someday We'll Be Together" officially released with The Supremes but actually her singing with different background singers. She really never has sung it in her live shows through the decades. Maybe because she worried some fans might take it as a promise for more Supremes reunions to come, each time she would've performed it. But then I doubt that would bother her, she's never struck me as somebody who really gives a sh@t what others might think, including her fans. I think it was either vocally unpleasant for her to try singing live, or it recalls a difficult time when there was lots of tension in the group as she prepared to leave it, or maybe she resented this song meant originally to be her solo debut ended up being tagged to be her "farewell" single with The Supremes.

Cyndi Lauper is vocal about if not hating then at least not liking performing her early pop hits. I saw her in concert for the 30th anniversary of She’s So Unusual and she made it clear between songs she was only doing the tour for the money and because that’s all fans would pay to hear. She’s annoyed they’re not as interested in her newer stuff.

I think she did refuse to perform Goonies for a long time but has relented in recent years. She even appeared and sang with the Goonies cast for the Reunited Apart online series Josh Gad put together during the Covid lockdown in 2020.

R14 That's actually one of my favorites of hers.

R10 Dang, that is one of my favorite Cher songs. I will say I sorta understand them. I grew up singing in church and there was one song that the congregation kept requesting that I sing over and over, and I got really tired of it. I haven't sung it in twenty years but I'm sure if I heard the music I could sing it without any rehearsal or lyric sheet. But, like them I did get paid so I sang whatever the ones paying wanted to hear.

Why does Barbra hate "Woman in Love"? It's one of my favorite songs from her catalog.

You have to wonder about someone who won't type the word "shit" on an anonymous message board. Mental illness?

Bolton leaves out “love is a wonderful thing” because he was sued by the Isley brothers for ripping off their song and got his ass handed to him in court.

[quote] Cyndi Lauper is vocal about if not hating then at least not liking performing her early pop hits. I saw her in concert for the 30th anniversary of She’s So Unusual and she made it clear between songs she was only doing the tour for the money and because that’s all fans would pay to hear. She’s annoyed they’re not as interested in her newer stuff.

What a cunt.

Madonna hates Material Girl (one of her signature hits)

Tina Turner hated What's Love Got to Do With It.

Rosemary Clooney’s record of "Come On-a My House" in 1951, produced by Mitch Miller, became her first big chart hit. Clooney recounted in her memoir that she despised the song, but pop singers in that era seldom had a choice in the material they recorded and she risked being dropped from Columbia if she refused to record it.

Has a country artist ever covered "Just Like Jesse James"? Seems a perfect song for that genre.

She also wasn’t thrilled with her follow up hits such as "Botch-a-Me" and “Mambo Italiano.”

I thought Tina hated the demo of the song that was played for her which sounded more like a dance pop song.

Here’s the original version.

Maybe it wasn't her biggest hit, but it was definitely her first hit - Donna Summer refused to perform Love To Love You Baby for many years after she found Jesus. She finally relented and began performing it again in concert not too long before she died.

In the recent HBO documentary on Tina Turner, she talks about how much she disliked What's Love Got To Do With It. She only relented because her manager knew it could be a big hit song.

Patti Smith hated the teeny bopper audience “Because the Night” suddenly brought her.

She was happy being a grungy punk rocker, pulling her tampon out onstage and flinging it into the crowd… then suddenly 16-year-old girls were rushing the stage, shrieking, “Sing ‘Because the Night’!”

[quote]Barbra has never liked Woman In Love

That's a fucking great song, and I'm not even a big Barbra fan.

Don Ho hated Tiny Bubbles. It was supposed to be the B side if the single if Born Free.

R40 According to this chart the only one, with any name recognition, was Lynn Anderson, but it was in 2005 so well past her hit making years.

Celine Dion fucking hates "My Heart Will Go On" and thought it would be a huge bomb.

r1, at least Melissa Manchester has made peace with it.

R40 I've always thought it would be a good one for Reba or Tanya Tucker. Miley Cyrus would also probably do it very well.

Foreigner regretted “I Want to Know What Love Is”. They thought it gave them a soft, not rock and roll reputation.

OP Strangely enough, one of Cheap Trick's best songs, Surrender, didn't even reach the Top 40 chart when it was released in 1978. And yet sometimes a simple throw-away song or cover of a song they don't really care for becomes their biggest hit.

Alison Moyet didn't care for a lot of her first two albums, and she won't play Invisible, which was her biggest hit in the US and several other places (other than England).

I don't blame her....it wasn't my favorite either.

[quote] And yet sometimes a simple throw-away song or cover of a song they don't really care for becomes their biggest hit.

Two (among many) of my favorite artists are Karla Bonoff and the late Kirsty MacColl, and both were/are phenomenal songwriters, but the biggest hit for both was a cover - "Personally" for Karla and I think "Days" (Kinks) and "New England" (Billy Bragg) for Kirsty. Really odd how that happened.

John (Cougar) Mellencamp hated Jack and Diane

I liked "Heartbreaker" (Dionne Warwick / Barry Gibb).

R55 so did the rest of us, to be fair.

[quote]Any artist forced to play the same song over and over to be able to draw crowds (who only want to hear the hits) is going to start hating that song.

Some of them sabotage the song by "forgetting" the lyrics or haranguing the audience during it, aka One Headlight Syndrome.

(Good Enough is my favorite Lauper song. It brings me back to being a little kid who was just obsessed with the Goonies.)

The Goonies is a major childhood touchstone for Gen X.

Doris Day hated Que Sera Sera. She felt it was all wrong for her, and refused to do more than one take in the studio. “This is a child’s song,” she said, declaring that this would be the first and final time she’d ever sing the song. She didn’t like anything about the song, and was especially unhappy with the title, which she felt nobody would understand

Left Eye hated “Creep”. She hated the songs message of cheating and she recorded a rap verse to the song and it was left out and called a remix but in the remix she describes how creeping will lead to STDs, which contradicts the fun in the song lol.

And in the video, she’s making goofy faces and acting out because she didn’t want to be apart of it.

And here’s Left Eye’s rejected verse from the song

R44 Wrong. In the doco, Tina didn’t think the original version of “What’s love got to do with it” would suit her style so they changed it up.

Probably not their biggest hit, but R.E.M. didn't want "Shiny Happy People" to the song that defines them.

[quote] The band was ambivalent about being known for a pop song that lacked gravitas. Singer Michael Stipe said in 2016: "It's a fruity pop song written for children ... If there was one song that was sent into outer space to represent R.E.M. for the rest of time, I would not want it to be 'Shiny Happy People'"

Sorry, to BE the song that defines them.

Lou Reed was known for never playing a song the same way live.

So you paid big dollars to hear him play a mangled version of his hits, but at least miss didn't get bored.

If you're making bank from concerts, I think you have a duty to play the hits as expected, whether you're bored or hate the songs.

r64 Tina hated the song and didn't want to record it. She had to be persuaded to do it after the song was totally reworked.

[quote]If you're making bank from concerts, I think you have a duty to play the hits as expected, whether you're bored or hate the songs.

Grace Slick has said that she felt ridiculous singing all the 60s songs about sex and drugs as a middle-aged person, and decided to retire around the time she was 50. She said if she'd continued to make new music the audiences at her concerts would want to hear all the old hits, which she felt she was too old to sing, and if she didn't do them it would be a cheat for the audience so she thought it would be best to leave the music business.

I don’t know if she necessarily hated it, but Madonna was going to release Vogue as a B-side song.

And, at first, Cher didn’t even want to record Believe.

And Lesley Gore was stuck with all those Judy and Johnny songs for her entire life. She used to breeze through them in her shows.

Some members of Berlin didn't care for "Take My Breath Away," their biggest hit. The band did not write it. That credit belonged to Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock, who created it for Top Gun. Soon after the song became #1 in several countries, Berlin broke up.

R68 Tina didn’t like the original version, not her own version

[quote]Madonna hates Material Girl (one of her signature hits)

Perhaps the lyrics described the real Madonna? She later claimed that she wasn't materialistic, but her behavior suggests the opposite.

Dionne Warwick didn't like one of her most iconic hits, "Do You Know The Way To San Jose." (She also didn't like "Heartbreaker.")

[Quote]Warwick did not like "Do You Know the Way to San Jose", and she had to be convinced to record it. In a May 1983 interview with Ebony, she said: "It's a dumb song and I didn't want to sing it. But it was a hit, just like [her recent Top Ten hit] 'Heartbreaker' is. I'm happy these songs were successful, but that still doesn't change my opinion about them."

R19 Why would they be embarrassed by Black Album, when every other album they made after it was even more cheesy and commercial sounding? They are playing with Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga these days, talk about embarrassing.

Olivia Newton-John isn't very fond of Physical. She didn't want to record the song because it was too sexual, and then she created that whole exercise aesthetic to disguise this. During the 2000s, she also only sang a bossa nova version of it.

Well done to Grace Slick. Very sensible approach. Grace must have saved her pennies.

It breaks my heart, because I think it’s one of the most perfect songs, but Chrissie Hyndes despises Brass In Pocket and has all but disowned it and refuses to play it.

I read that Shinedown hated Second Chance, which was probably their biggest hit. I think it's a great song with a stellar vocal performance. A lot of people, including me, probably never would have heard of the band if not for that song.

Not one of their biggest hits, but apparently Michael Stipe hated R.E.M.'s cover of Superman and refused to sing it, which is why Mike Mills did the vocal.

And, of course, Sweet hated their early Chapman-Chinn bubblegum hits because they wanted to rock out and resented being cast as a teenybopper band.

[quote] Cyndi Lauper hates her Goonies pop tie-in, Goonies R' Good Enough. To this day, she refuses to perform it live.

She didn't hate the song. It was originally called Good Enough. She hated that she had to put The Goonies R in the title. She had a horrible experience with Richard Donner making the music video, which is why she didn't perform it for a very long time. I've seen her twice in the last ten years and she performed it both times.

I don't get why all these bands/singers that haven't had a hit in a decade or three refuse to perform their old songs. Do they really think people want to hear their new music? I saw Alison Moyet a few years back and it was painful. She had open disdain for all her hits and played new material. By contrast, Bananarama came out and sang all their old hits and mimicked some of the dance moves as their video clips played in the background. They did sing new material and the audience was receptive to it because everyone was in such a mood from hearing the hits.

Stevie Nicks “Talk To Me”. From Wikipedia;

[quote] The song was brought to Nicks' attention by producer Jimmy Iovine, "who was always on the hunt for a hit song."[citation needed] Nicks says she didn't like the song at first because she had trouble with the vocals, but Iovine persisted and she eventually recorded it. Jim Keltner was in the studio next door doing some drum overdubs during the recording process. After Nicks explained her dilemma, Keltner gave her some words of encouragement and offered to stay with her and be her audience. Nicks sang the song twice during the session and then it was finished.

r27, Ann Wilson was right. That song blows. I hated the summer it was a big hit and got played every 30 minutes on the radio

R76 pfffffft

Olivia loves physical. In the past 6 months she’s swooned over it for the 49th anniversary deluxe edition of the album.

I remember reading an interview with Jim Kerr, lead singer of Simple Minds. He really disliked "Don't You Forget About Me" from The Breakfast Club because it wasn't really the genre of music his band played. He eventually changed his mind, I guess because it naturally became the signature song in all of their concerts. It's one of my favorite 80s songs.

[bold]Beastie Boys came to not like " (you gotta) Fight For Your Right (to party)" pretty quickly[/bold]

The song was them mocking the Party-Rock songs of the day like ones in the vein of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" - but most of the world just thought it was an actual Party-Rock song.

They didn't like how the satire of the song, their VERY first hit, was missed by most of the audience, so they didn't ever play it live after 1987 - their 2nd album "Paul's Boutique" came out in 1989. Here's some text from the linked article:

[quote]‘Fight For Your Right’ was a parody of the frat culture of the day. Rather than being treated with the desired effect they intended, the track instead became an anthem celebrating the very thing it was poking fun at.... Mike D has fond memories of creating the track — how people interpreted the song was an entirely different story, “The only thing that upsets me is that we might have reinforced certain values of some people in our audience when our own values were actually totally different,” he lamented. “There were tons of guys singing along to [Fight for Your Right] who were oblivious to the fact it was a total goof on them. Irony is often missed.”

OP- Gorget about their hit - I hat their name CHEAP TRICK.

[quote]Grace must have saved her pennies.

She started life with plenty of pennies. In fact, she was born in Highland Park, IL, and you know how it is there.

Typo 40th

Sheena Easton wasn’t crazy over Morning Train (9 to 5).

Sheena's right. It's such a meek song -- woman stays home while the man works. Her subsequent hits were so much better.

[quote]Well done to Grace Slick. Very sensible approach. Grace must have saved her pennies.

Grace has had a very comfortable retirement in the Malibu Hills. Unlike so many entertainers, she knew when it was time to get off the stage instead of continuing on and embarrassing herself, trying to pretend she was still young and rebellious when she was much too old for that shit.

Thank you, R76. I love that version!

The Bangles didnt want to record Eternal Flame. One if them said the song was fine but it wasn't right for the band.

Cher doesn't like to sing Just Like Jesse James because it has do many verses. Someone mentioned they wish she'd made a video and there actually is one but difficult to find.

Interesting about foreigner and I want to know what love is since their biggest hit before that was another monster hit ballad waiting for a girl like you.

The original version of what’s love got to do with it sounds like something Laura branigan or Irene Cara would’ve recorded.

The motels recorded a demo of the song for Giorgio Moroder linked below.

Don Ho hated "Tiny Bubbles" and refused to sing it--he would play it and have his audiences sing it. but why else would anyone go to see don Ho except to hear him sing "Tiny Bubbles"?

R82 Stevie Nicks didn't want to record Sometimes It's a Bitch. She said it wasn't the type of song that her audience would like. Her label said Bon Jovi wrote it for her and if she didn't do it she could take a hike.

R96, are you also R47?

R97 that song sucks and all I can hear is Jon Bon Jovi with his simple lyrics and melodies.

[quote] Olivia loves physical. In the past 6 months she’s swooned over it for the 49th anniversary deluxe edition of the album.

She probably loves the new income stream.

I don't remember where, but I read that Warren Zevan, while he didn't hate "Werewolves in London" did not like that it became a novelty song

"You can talk to me" (Stevie Nicks) is kind of a simple, embarrassing song.

R60, I'm technically a Millennial (b. 1980), but your case is well made.

I still love The Goonies.

Chaka Khan has always HATED the rap segment of "I Feel For You", far and away her biggest solo hit. She sings the song live begrudgingly and only because she feels her audiences would be disappointed if she didn't.

Madonna has said that if she knew she would be called "The Material Girl" for the rest of her life she never would've done the song.

Fun fact: "Material Girl" was written by Peter Brown, who had a couple of big hits in the Disco Era with "Dance With Me" and "Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me."

Depeche mode hasn't performed people are people since 1988. Martin Gore didn't like the lyrics and thought they were too ham fisted. He's not wrong.

It was last performed at the rose bowl concert in 1988. Was there. Credit to dm, they have had enough of a career where they can ignore one of their few songs to ever hit the top 20 in the US for nearly 35 years.

ONJ likes the song “Physical”. It’s the video she can’t stand.

And she’s right. It’s terrible.

The Go-Go's hated all of their songs from their last 80s album "Talk Show" which led to their breakup

& only Belinda would perform their 2 biggest hits off of it = "Head Over Heels" & "Turn To You" on her solo tours.

I didn't know about Chrissie H/Pretenders and Brass in Pocket.

I like that song, but it's not a dealkiller for me - as long as they play the other great tracks from their first album I'm good. And they did songs that were not theirs and a bit of a "sellout" later on - like Human - that I'd think CH would object to more.

[quote] The Go-Go's hated all of their songs from their last 80s album "Talk Show" which led to their breakup

This really isn't quite an accurate description of the situation. It wasn't that they hated the music - in fact, for the most part, as it was happening they were excited about the directions the album was going in.

It because a very soured emotional experience because Jane wanted to sing on one of the songs that she wrote - Forget That Day, I think - and the rest of the band said no. And it really broke the band. It's really **Jane** that still feels sensitive and sour about it, so they don't do any songs in concert other then Head Over Heels and sometimes Turn to You. They have also played Good for Gone, which is the B side to Head Over Heels, in concert.

You aren't entirely wrong, but this isn't a case of what OP said - they aren't hating their biggest hit, and it hasn't come from them disliking the song itself, or getting sick of it. I wish the Go-Go's had just rerecorded Talk Show unplugged a few years back or something so Jane could sing, but they never did.

[quote] Interesting about foreigner and I want to know what love is since their biggest hit before that was another monster hit ballad waiting for a girl like you.

Not only that, but on their next album after "I Want To Know What Love Is," they had another soft rock ballad, "I Don't Want To Live Without You," which went top 5 on the Hot 100 and became their only #1 on the AC chart.

R109 idk whether Chrissie Hynde likes Brass in Pocket but she certainly hasn't refused to play it. I saw them perform the song live in 2017 when they opened for Stevie Nicks.

From Kathy Valentine's book:

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one fantasizing about loosening up the format of the band. Except Jane didn’t keep it to herself. She asked to sing “Forget That Day,” a track that had turned out to be an epic favorite of all of ours. It was personal to her: her song, about her life. The four of us gathered to discuss Jane’s request and shot it down immediately. How the hell would that work? What if it became a single—wouldn’t it be confusing? What if everyone wanted to sing a song? And what would Belinda do while Jane sang her song? It was decided. Everyone had their role, and Belinda sang. Jane didn’t take the rejection well. The rigidity of the band angered her. Without telling any of us, she left—just got on a plane and left the record, left the country. Aghast at this affront to our uniform goal, I thought her ego had gotten out of control. In my view, letting one person have the power to decide something as major as singing a song didn’t seem democratic. I couldn’t see that right under my feet, in front of my nose, the band I wanted so badly to keep together had splintered to a degree beyond repair.

Only the wisdom of maturity would allow me to reflect and wonder what the big fucking deal was—why not give Jane what she needed to feel fulfilled in the Go-Go’s? I’ve wondered many times how it would have been if part of the whole deal had been to keep everyone happy. If we had written songs together in rehearsals and made sure everyone contributed. Treated Belinda more like the diva she had rightfully become instead of making her feel guilty for being the breakout star. Recognized the sadness and pain engulfing Charlotte and carried her through it. Let me play the damned guitar I loved so much on a cover song. We could have supported each other and granted space for each of us to grow instead of confining ourselves to a formula with a limited shelf life.

R109 fear not. She likes it :)

But now I like that song because it’s one of those songs that served me well. I didn’t like my voice on it. I was kind of a new singer, and listening to my voice made me kind of cringe. I shouldn’t be saying all this negative stuff because if people hear me saying all this negative stuff, they’ll start to believe it too.

R113 what an amazing perspective she has about it all.

R115 Her book is really great. It was a good read and even if I hadn't been a fan of the Go-Go's I would think it's a good book.

R75, agreed. It's popular to hate on The Black Album but I would rather listen to that album any day over Nevermind ( I don't ever want to hear Smells Like Teen Spirit ever again).

Not something she recorded, but Doris Day was presented with “Straighten Up and Fly Right” and was utterly aghast for some reason. She said it was the dirtiest song she’d ever heard. The songwriters just stared at her.

NEXT!

Besides "All I Want to Do is Make Love to You", Ann Wilson also despised Heart's hit cover version of Aaron Neville's "Tell it Like it Is".

Neville's original is sweet, subtle and heartbreaking. Ann's vocal performance on the Heart version is histrionic and over the top, and she came to publicly acknowledge it as such.

"All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You" really is pretty bad. Esp. compared with so much of Heart's other material, which is brilliant. I'm a big Heart fan and I've never liked the song.

Man OP. This thread jumped out at me when I was scrolling. I got married 33 years ago today. I burned us down a few years later and have pretty much regretted it every day since. I can’t admit that to anyone other than myself. The Flame was and is my song for him. Thanks for providing me with this little gift today.

R120 agreed.

I even like Alone and These Dreams, and they aren't my forever faves, but These Dreams in particular has a little loveliness and nostalgia for me.

For a good laugh, watch this video. A breakdown of what happened when Ann Wilson and Mike Reno (Loverboy) recorded "Almost Paradise."

Ann's career was in the doldrums at the time. Somebody was pulling her leg and said they wanted her to record a duet (Almost Paradise) and she could pick whatever male singer she wanted. Robert Plant: not available. Lou Gramm: not available. On and on.

Ann never wanted Mike Reno but too bad.

Ann was being a diva and showed up late to the recording session. By then, Reno was plastered (drunk). Recorded in one take because they were lucky to even get one take.

Ann makes a point of asserting that she never ... ever performed / sang while high on drugs. Right, Ann.

Blue Oyster Cult will be playing one of the festivals in my town this summer. I wonder if they will open with Don't Fear The Reaper, or if they will make them wait for it. I assume they hate the song.

I think BOC likes or loves "Reaper." I saw a recent interview with Buck Dharma and he even discussed SNL's "More Cowbell" skit. I love that song and "Burnin' for You" as well.

Hope you enjoy the concert. I am pretty sure they will play "Reaper."

In spite of Ann's dislike of Mike Reno, she sang the fuck out of Almost Paradise. She did a great job on it.

Just a reminder this is Mike Reno’s ass.

Love the skintight red leather pants. Only in the 80s! 😊

"Almost Paradise" was just before Ann and Nancy had their huge comeback with Heart's self-titled "Heart" album, which went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and had five hit singles.

Probably been said, but Grace Slick hates everything Starship - including all the big hits like We Built This City and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now. Gave her some nice financial cushion though.

Yes, Grace made a nice pile of money off of those 80s hits and it funded a comfortable retirement.

My bad. I read the thread after posting. And, as expected, someone had already mentioned Grace. I remember her being interviewed about Starship and she viscerally hated the project. But again, that's easy to say after she'd lined her pockets and never needs to perform those songs again.

[quote] Yes, Grace made a nice pile of money off of those 80s hits and it funded a comfortable retirement.

She probably hates "Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now." Although I'm sure it padded her bank accounts.

Kurt hated playing Smells Like Teen Spirit live. A lot of the time he messed up the lyrics and just half assed it. Also, SLTS sounds similar to More Than a Feeling, by Boston. I fucking love that song.

"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" is a great song!

You gotta hand it to Grace: she's a pro, she sounds great on those Starship songs.

Mike Reno was cute n the 80s in a Tad Martin-ish kind of way.

Holy shit r137, I almost spit out my coffee!! TAD MARTIN! Haven’t heard that name in about four decades lololol.

Elvis Costello never plays his most popular song.

R92 - I'm a massive Grace Slick fan, but she should never have gone along with the Jefferson-less Starship. Christ was a pile of crap to go from White Rabbit and Somebody To Love to We Built This City and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now.

r140 Grace wanted to get out of the music business because she felt ridiculous on a rock and roll stage as a middle-aged woman. She knew the Starship songs weren't great but they would make her a pile of $$$ and she could retire. She was done around age 50 and has spent the last 30-plus years living a very nice life in Malibu. She's now 82. Her bandmates Marty Balin and Paul Kantner kept dragging their old asses onstage at state fairs and such and sang all the 60s songs, looking ridiculous at their ages, until they both dropped dead because they needed the $$$.

Which life would you rather have? I can't blame Grace one bit. She made a smart decision, imho.

Her decision was smart in the end, but she couldn't have known how successful Starship would be. No one would have guessed that given Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship's pedigree and their "advanced," if not old, age at the time, that Starship would be THAT huge.

I don't doubt that she didn't want to be on stage looking ridiculous after 50, but her "I'm so above it all" attitude is a direct result of her not needing to do it any longer because it was so successful. She did it in the first place. I'm sure if she needed the money thereafter, she'd probably force herself onstage even if she didn't really want to. Good for her she didn't need to. Plus, I'm not sure that a former rocker who was almost 50 looks less ridiculous than someone a few years older singing those pop songs.

r142 it was either that or the oldies circuit. Many people in show business don't have complete control over their careers. Grace saw an opportunity to make a bucket of money and then get out of the game.

[quote]Cher doesn't like to sing Just Like Jesse James because it has too many verses.

Same reason Dionne doesn't like Heartbreaker - the song is just words, words, words with hardly a chance to get a breath until the bridge. It's exhausting (but a nice melody).

Dionne hated Walk On By While I’m Shitting because it was written from a cow’s perspective.

I saw Sheryl Crowe at a festival once and in the intro to ‘All I Wanna Do (Is Have Some Fun)’ she said it made her cringe to sing it these days but she was happy for what it had done for her. she was rolling her eyes and doing sarcastic movements during the performance, it honestly made it kind of fun because it IS a cheesy song but we all love it.

SWV didn’t like ‘Right Here’ and almost didn’t want to record it. They thought it would mess up their career for being too soft and that people in the hood would laugh at them. Even though it still had a bit of a beat, at the time if you came out with a love song/ballad first you would be stuck singing them like Karyn White and Michel’le. The song went to #2 on the Hot 100 and was their breakout hit. They also didn’t think ‘Weak’ would be a hit, it was a reject from another artist (Charlie Wilson I think). It became their biggest hit and only Billboard #1 on the main chart.

Siobhan Fahey (Shakespeare's Sister) and "Stay."

Even though Barry Manilow had tons of success recording songs written by others, he always preferred to do his own compositions.

By late 1983, though, his career was slipping badly, he desperately needed a big hit, and he agreed to record Jim Steinman's "Read 'Em and Weep", complete with a ridiculously cheesy video. Although it gave him his first top 20 single in 2 years, it wasn't the hoped-for huge smash, and it proved to be the last time he would grace the top 40. As a song, it was completely wrong for him, and as a singer, he was completely wrong for the song. It's impossible to listen to it and not think what Meat Loaf or Bonnie Tyler would have done with it.

The experience soured him on the idea of constantly chasing the next hit to such an extent, that he made sure his next album was a "passion project"..."2:00 AM Paradise Cafe", which proved to be something of an artistic revival, if not a commercial one.

Starship had one hit song I liked: “Sara”. The rest was awful.

[quote] David Bowie hated the Let's Dance album, but let's face it. These are the songs everyone knows.

I don’t think this is the case. But he hated the two albums that followed it, Tonight and Never Let Me Down, and after that he made the conscious choice not to chase pop stardom anymore (and Tin Machine accomplished that goal, maybe too successfully).

[quote] I saw Sheryl Crowe at a festival once and in the intro to ‘All I Wanna Do (Is Have Some Fun)’ she said it made her cringe to sing it these days but she was happy for what it had done for her. she was rolling her eyes and doing sarcastic movements during the performance, it honestly made it kind of fun because it IS a cheesy song but we all love it.

Sheryl Crowe should hate way more songs than that. How about that awful "Picture" song she did with that Nazi Kid Rock? Or "Soak Up the Sun"?

Ugh, if I were Sheryl Crow I would happily sing anything but Soak Up the Sun. That song is musical water boarding.

[quote] Elvis Costello never plays his most popular song.

Not sure why you linked to "She" because that song is barely recognizable as a part of his catalog, let alone his "most popular."

Sheryl Crow is lucky if she can pull 100 fans to a free state fair concert these days. She should sing Old McDonald if they ask her and STFU

Sheryl Crow has some bad taste in men--Eric Clapton, Kid Rock, Lance Armstrong?!

Someone here really, really hates Soak Up The Sun. Every time Sheryl C is mentioned they hiss about it

Soak up the Sun is a shitty song. And I actually played the hell out of the "Globe Sessions."

[quote] Same reason Dionne doesn't like Heartbreaker - the song is just words, words, words with hardly a chance to get a breath until the bridge. It's exhausting (but a nice melody).

This doesn't seem like an unusually hard song to sing (Heartbreakers).

Re: Grace Slick.

Yes, she was dignified to step away from concert tours with Jefferson Starship.

Yes, she was financially smart to take part in '80s dreck (Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now / We Built This City on Rock and Roll).

People are saying, I think, that it wasn't really dignified to take part in that '80s dreck in the first place. Whether or not she knew how popular those songs would become.

I think it's OK to do stuff for the money; we all have to pay our bills, but you can't rewrite history and say that she always made decisions based 100% on musical artistry.

Not his biggest hit, but more like a 'signature song': Maxwell has said he finds it very vocally demanding to sing his version of Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" and has to centre his whole setlist around it so he can pull it off. He wanted to remove it from the set list but the fans complained too much and he added it back in.

Over 150 replies and no mention of ME?😤

I enjoy Soak Up the Sun. It's a dumb fun song.

As a fan, I wish artists would remember the advice Roy Acuff, The King of Country, would give performers at the Opry, "sing the ones that brought you." He didn't mean don't sing something new but to reward the fans with the old. Because without the old they wouldn't get to make the new.

R161 he later recanted and said he was having a bad day when he said that.

R164 thanks, I know, I just think it’s a funny rant and it fit the topic.

Poor Jani struggled a lot with depression in life, and I’m not making light of that. Knowing how talented a vocalist & frontman he was, and how good Warrant actually could be as a band (better than the awful genre into which they were pigeonholed), I can see how having ‘Cherry Pie’ as a flagship song would be an annoying legacy in his eyes.

I have seen Elvis Costello 3X throughout the decades.

1st Concert: Refused to sing his popular songs. Huge indoor venue, loud boos and heckling.

2nd & 3rd Concerts: Smaller venues. One outdoors, one indoors. Costello's attitude greatly improved. Sang all of his old hits with an in-shape voice. I went nuts when he started out one concert with "Oh, I just don't know where to begin ..." (Accidents Will Happen). So corny, but I was so pleased to hear that song, considering his old, sour attitude.

I worked with Plain White T's for a few years. They HATED playing Hey There Delilah.

I remember in the late 90s Grace Slick came out with her autobiography and was doing a book tour. I was living in San Francisco at the time and happened to be a Borders at Union Square where she happened to be doing an in store appearance promoting the book. I didn't go to that part of the store, but as I was leaving I saw a guy coming from the event and I asked him how was it. He replied that he had started singing the chorus of We Built This City and Grace heard it and shot him a dirty look. He was laughing as he told the story.

R7 she absolutely didn't like What's Love.. and has admitted so many times on camera. Tina wanted to do rock and roll. She wanted to be in the same league as Mick Jagger, David Bowie, et al — and let's face it, she was much more a rock singer than pop.

Tina and Roger Davies, her manager who was pushing hard for What's Love.. then started negotiating: For every poppy song on Private Dancer, Tina was allowed to choose a rock song. That's why that album is such a mixed bag, but funny enough it all works really well together. Ah, what a talent she was — and what great song writers and management she had at her disposal, including the great Bowie ("1984", "Girls", "Tonight")

To add to the list: Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor were "uncomfortable" with Freddie's Don't Stop Me Now, as the song was basically a homage to Freddie's ever-increasing hedonist lifestyle. They were worried about what the song truly meant to Mercury, but of course they did recognise a hit song when they heard one.

In contrast, Freddie said he never grew tired of playing Bohemian Rhapsody, mostly because the public "never figured out what it was all about" (he said this in the mid 80's) — and we STILL don't know what that mini-opera is about!

I hated Sheryl Crow and her shit music, which was played incessantly. You couldn't get away from her awful songs back then.

I've always read "Don't Stop Me Now" as a paean to coke. I can see where it would make the rest of the band uncomfortable.

Brian has said in the last few years that he suspected "Bohemian Rhapsody" was Freddie's song about coming out, alluded to very obscurely in the lyrics.

One thing you have to say for Freddie and Queen: They went/still go all out to please their audiences, and that means playing their hits with good grace and energy. I like that old-school attitude: Being a musician is a job, and when you have a job, you work to make your customer happy, not please yourself.

Totally agree, R172 — they are the real deal.

Her second biggest hit-after "Downtown"-Petula Clark hated "My Love". But it was a million selling, #1 hit on Billboard. She often sings it as a slowed down ballad.

^^ Stinky Linky^^

Sheryl Crow. I listened to her nearly 30 yrs ago now. I hate her now and made poor choices

Re: R134, about Kurt Cobain hating to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and talking about Queen's workmanlike attitude -- it's interesting that in Kurt's suicide note he laments that he couldn't be more like Freddie Mercury and just enjoy basking in the love of his audience. Freddie would probably have advised him, "People have gone to a lot of trouble to come see you, and most of them love that song. Just play it, darling."

I often wonder, when a singer has a huge catalog, say Billy Joel, how do they decide what hits to sing? I know some groups whiz through their hits in a five minute medley and then move on to other music.

"Don't Stop Me Now" is so obviously a coke trip set to music that I can't believe anyone, least of all the other members of Queen, could ever have entertained any doubts about that. It IS a lot of fun, though. As for "Bohemian Rhapsody", it's such a great track -- who cares what it was originally meant to be about?

Sheryl Crow is friends with Stevie Nicks.

Stevie kicked a girl in the cunt bone, you know.

[quote] Besides "All I Want to Do is Make Love to You", Ann Wilson also despised Heart's hit cover version of Aaron Neville's "Tell it Like it Is". Neville's original is sweet, subtle and heartbreaking. Ann's vocal performance on the Heart version is histrionic and over the top, and she came to publicly acknowledge it as such.

You act as though this is the only time Ann was ever histrionic and over the top. That's pretty much her signature style (and it's served her well). Shit, she even has histrionic moments on Dog & Butterfly.

I, for one, love Heart's version of Tell it Like it Is. They turned it into a real rocker/blues number. Then again, I've always loathed Aaron Neville's voice.

Anyway, Ann needs to pack it the fuck in. She lost her voice years ago and sounds like shit. I've seen Heart more than once in concert recently (once by choice, the other times because they opened for bands I was there to see) and she simply cannot sing anymore. Nancy, OTOH, still sounds great.

Sheryl Crow: My Favorite Mistake, A Change Will Do You Good, and Leaving Las Vegas are the songs I like.

I never bought an album, but definitely know the hits as they were all around for years.

I actually like Heart's "Tell it Like it is" cover.

What do Anne and Nancy think of their MTV phase - Sweet Dreams, Never, Alone, Nothing at All, etc.?

I like those songs, and like their earlier, less poppy stuff.

I only like 70s Heart, especially Crazy On You.

I find 85-90 Heart nearly impossible to listen to today. It's one notch above the Starship incarnation's output.

The only thing that maybe saves it are a few deep cuts on Bad Animals, but goddamn, it's bad. Even Ann's soundtrack cut for The Golden Child, "Best Man in the World" is better, as is her duet with Robin Zander on the Tequila Sunrise soundtrack, "Surrender to Me." And neither of those are great shakes.

R185, you don't like "Alone"?

'80s Heart was, indeed, about as awful as '80s Jefferson Starship. For people who grew up hearing Barracuda, Crazy on You, etc., the '80s stuff was horrible.

Here's the Dan Rather interview (not great quality) with Ann and Nancy Wilson. They admit the '80s stuff helped them financially but wasn't their proudest output.

What About Love and Alone are great songs.

But, do Anne and Nancy like them?

Sounds like they don't hate 80s Heart like Grace Slick hates Starship, but they don't think highly of that material.

[quote] You act as though this is the only time Ann was ever histrionic and over the top. That's pretty much her signature style (and it's served her well). Shit, she even has histrionic moments on Dog & Butterfly.

It's not me, I'm just paraphrasing what I read in an interview with Ann Wilson, probably in "Rolling Stone", many years ago. It actually wasn't that long after "Tell it Like it Is" was a hit. It was before the mid-80's Heart corporate rock comeback. I remember being surprised that she held it in such disdain. If I recall correctly, she even considered it her greatest artistic failure, or something like that. She just wasn't happy at all with the way she approached the song as a vocalist.

Some members of Berlin didn't care for "Take My Breath Away," their biggest hit. The band did not write it. That credit belonged to Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock, who created it for Top Gun...

Fun fact, R71: Moroder's first instinct was to offer the song to Martha Davis, who recorded the demo. Personally, I prefer it, but that's probably because I believe Martha Davis is the most overlooked artist of the new wave era and I worship her, as everyone should.

I enjoyed reading this thread.

R4, The Bangles discussed "Egyptian" in their Behind the Music episode on VH1. If I remember correctly, they thought the song was stupid (it is) and recording it was tumultuous. The guy who wrote/ produced it was kind of a dick and made them audition for the verses. He didn't like the Blonde sister's rendition so she didn't get a verse and was relegated to playing a tambourine in the video.

R49, EVERYONE involved in Titanic is sick of "My Heart Will Go On" except for maybe James Horner (may he rest in peace).

R146, How ironic SWV wasn't a fan of "Right Here". After "Weak", the Human Nature remix of that song is ny favorite song by them and one of the best remixes ever.

Frank Sinatra hated "Strangers in the Night."

[quote]Frank Sinatra hated "Strangers in the Night."

So did I. Almost as much as his version of "New York, New York." "A-number one," my ass.

R25, Judy Garland had a deep reverence for “Over the Rainbow.” Once, someone suggested she could do a parody of the song for her TV show. Judy refused and insisted that the song was sacred.

As bad as the 85-90 output of Heart was, it's what turned them into a A-list band. Their 70s output, while fantastic, was nowhere near as successful, and their biggest hit, prior to their 85 comeback was the aforementioned cover of Tell it Like it Is, a song almost no one remembers. They only had about 3-4 years of success before starting to falter. By the time of Bebe Le Strange in 1980, they were unable to score a chart hit, and that album was their worst selling up until that point. The live album gave them the cover hit, but their next two albums failed to sell at all and they had been all but forgotten until the massive comeback. Yes, their first four albums went platinum, but the multi-platinum certifications came 15 or so years after, likely due to their 1980s success.

That's not to at all write off the quality of that 70s music- it was fantastic. But I honestly believe that had it not been for the 80s dreck, Heart would be thought of more like Molly Hatchet or Kansas.

It must be recent that Ann lost her voice. She still sounded good a few years ago. Definitely when Heart slayed the fuck out of that Led Zep tribute.

70s and early 80s Heart (before the corporate pop/rock phase), did have a lot of great material, but they also had some bad stuff, and as someone else noted, histrionic vocal performances. The jump/transition from their earlier work to the MTV era stuff never struck me as being as big of a gap as Jefferson Airplane to Starship.

I was a teenager in the 80s, so that's the Heart I cherish. Like Grace with Starship, they were pros: they delivered the goods magnificently.

I like both "versions" of Heart. The big 80s hits are fine by me. Starship I never liked.

I doubt he hates it, but I bet Don McLean is tired of singing American Pie.

I've always hated American Pie. HATE that fucking song.

OK, it's far from her biggest hit, but Bette Midler several times expressed extreme disdain for her 1980 "Thighs and Whispers" album, including "Married Men", which (barely) made the top 40.

In an interview on the "Today" show last year, she singled it out as one of the "stinkers" of her career, and added "Please God, shoot me now!"

It's a shame, because that's a song I really like of hers...it's a fun little disco number, it totally fits her persona, and she does a good job with it.

R86, that's interesting about the Beastie's framing of Fight for your Right to Party. I was into Run DMC and Public Enemy and wrote off the Beastie Boys because of that frat-boy song. Later I picked up Paul's Boutique and still love all of it.

The Cars were scrupulous about recreating their sound and playing their hits (if you like them, their live stuff is great). I guess with their large catalogue they couldn't get bored, and they had a different artistic profile--no need for freestyle noodling or reinvention. (They also had 2 singers, but since they both played instruments, they didn't have the same problem as the Go-Go's in terms of what Belinda would do while Jane sang.)

[quote] they didn't have the same problem as the Go-Go's in terms of what Belinda would do while Jane sang.)

Go backstage and rail some lines until Jane is finished singing, of course!

[quote] It must be recent that Ann lost her voice. She still sounded good a few years ago. Definitely when Heart slayed the fuck out of that Led Zep tribute.

It's been at least a decade. The 2nd time I saw them, they opened for Def Leppard and it was at the Universal Amphitheater, which closed in 2013. I had recently worked on something with one of the band members from Def Leppard and whenever they came to town I'd be invited to their show and backstage. I also remember it was before Nancy and Cameron Crowe had split up because I was skulking around hoping he might be there so I could geek out on him. I want to say 2011 or 2012.

The Kennedy Center Honors for Led Zep was in 2012. Ann Wilson’s voice did sound good at that time.

Then they sweetened it because she sounded like a wet fart live when I saw her.

You be the judge of how Ann Wilson sounds and whether she is lip synching here at the Kennedy Center Honors. I believe you that her voice was shot at a concert you saw circa 2012. But IMO, she sounds good here and doesn’t seem to be majorly lip synching. Rewatching, tho, she does have an entire choir helping her with “and as we wind on down the road …”

[quote] You be the judge of how Ann Wilson sounds and whether she is lip synching here at the Kennedy Center Honors. I believe you that her voice was shot at a concert you saw circa 2012. But IMO, she sounds good here and doesn’t seem to be majorly lip synching. Rewatching, tho, she does have an entire choir helping her with “and as we wind on down the road …”

Thanks for posting that. I've not seen it before. And it helped remind me what the major problem with Ann's voice was, so I can better articulate it. I remember that the keys had been lowered for every one of her songs. But I also recall that as the show went on, Ann's voice was giving out. I would have chalked it up to illness or temp vocal problems, but the same thing happened both times I saw her.

Now Ann was always someone who could get up in her higher register and screech (and I don't mean that negatively) out a song where it would make the hairs on your arm stand up. It was very clear the times I saw her that those days were long over. And hearing Heart's songs sung in a lower key, vocal problems or not, are just painful.

It's possible that it doesn't have the impact here that it did in concert for two reasons-

1- She's singing a song that's not hers, so we don't have anything to compare it to. I'll give you that she does not sound awful here and she makes it through the song relatively unscathed, but she's definitely taken it down from what Plant sang it in.

2- When I said she may have been sweetened, I didn't mean that she was lipsyncing. I meant that she could have been modulated or tuned in post. And yes, she's got the choir (who are a wonderful addition to the performance) helping her out mightily towards the end when singing the song in a lower key solo would stand out in a bad way more than what came before. I can't swear that she has or has not been sweetened because I don't do that sort of work, but she did not embarrass herself here, thank goodness.

Sandie Shaw had been considered the epitome of 60s cool, and had a string of hits behind her. She felt pressured into taking part in Eurovision. She didn’t like the song that was chosen, and felt that it went against her taste and image. It won the contest and was an enormous hit throughout Europe. She had some bad luck with her personal life and business choices. Her career went downhill and she disappeared from view. She is now a psychotherapist working with people coping with sudden celebrity.

The Ann Wilson people need to get a thread of their own.

I saw Ann in concert last August at City Winery in NYC. A solo show. She sang some 70s Heart songs, some covers and some new solo material for a forthcoming album. She can't hit the high notes like she did years ago, but she still has power in the voice. There was about a 20-30 minute intermission. NO doubt giving her a chance to rest her voice. Her voice isn't shot, but it's eroded. But then again she's 72 years old now and she's been singing her whole life. I enjoyed the show.

Here's a recent interview she gave. She's mellowed on her attitude toward the 80s songs. Some she likes, others not so much.

R191, similar to simple minds and don't you forget about me. It's their most famous song and they didn't write it. It was written for the breakfast club and they had to be convinced to record it. They turned it down initially. They had indie cred up 1985. This song brought them the commercial success they wanted but it overshadows their own songs.

[quote] He didn't like the Blonde sister's rendition so she didn't get a verse and was relegated to playing a tambourine in the video.

LOL! I always wondered why she didn't get a verse on Walk Like An Egyptian. But she was the weakest voice and the least pretty of the four girls.

While it may not have been her biggest hit I've read that Dusty Springfield never liked the song "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me".

Toni Braxton has repeatedly said that she hated (and still hates) her biggest hit "Unbreak My Heart". Her reason is that the song is "too pop, too Disney" for her tastes.

[quote]I don't get why all these bands/singers that haven't had a hit in a decade or three refuse to perform their old songs.

Some songwriters have said that they were no longer the same person who wrote Overplayed Hit Song and couldn't relate to it any more. Others never liked the song to begin with but were pressured into recording it.

I personally would hate it because I would get tired of hearing the same shit night after night, and would want to be known for more than just 1 song.

[quote]While it may not have been her biggest hit I've read that Dusty Springfield never liked the song "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me".

That's interesting. She was the one who requested that English lyrics be written for her after she heard Pino Donaggio sing the original "Io che non vivo (senza te)" at San Remo.

[quote]I worked with Plain White T's for a few years. They HATED playing Hey There Delilah.

Not as much as some of us hated hearing it.

I don't blame Toni for hating Unbreak My Heart. That song is so maudlin. It sounds like a Funeral dirge.

pre R217 there's a lot going on here. Being only known for one song or feeling forced to play it for all time or having grown out of a style/mood/sound. I like the stories where the band or artist has a hit they feel doesn't represent them. Like Cheap Trick & 'The Flame'....it's not even what I think of them as being about.

[quote]I worked with Plain White T's for a few years. They HATED playing Hey There Delilah.

I always thought that song was by the "Hey, Soul Sister" guys, Train.

I saw an ad for "Nancy Wilson's Heart" on a billboard for a Reno casino the other day.

I saw Pat Benatar in concert about 10 years ago. She said, just before singing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" that it made her cringe, and she wasn't going to sing all the lyrics. When it came to "Before I put another notch in my lipstick case, You better make sure you put me in my place" - she just held the mic out to the crowd while she rolled her eyes, then went on with the rest of the song. She was fun about it, but I can see how that song did not age well.

R218 thank you for saying what I came to say. Dusty loved that song and held on to the Italian version for almost a year before recording it (with English lyrics written in a cab on the way to the recording session!)

I'm sure she got sick of it, yes, but "never liked" is absolutely not true.

HIT ME WITH YOUR WET SNOT!

C'MON, HIT ME WITH YOUR WET SNOT!

[quote] had it not been for the 80s dreck, Heart would be thought of more like Molly Hatchet

Molly Hatchet are more revelant than ever.

Blur hated their entire album LEISURE, and especially the modest indie-press hit ‘Bang’. The band felt pushed to record it opportunistically in a way that was behind the trend, and that really shows. There’s something crunchy and disjointed and unsure about the record, which is odd from a band who would go on to become posterboys for their frequently confident easygoing flashes of pop-perfection.

[quote] I saw an ad for "Nancy Wilson's Heart" on a billboard for a Reno casino the other day.

Wow, Nancy is going to tour without Ann.

There was a rift because Ann's husband hit or punched one of Nancy's sons. (Son had left open the door to the tour bus and I think a dog got out.) Ann's husband seems like an asshole.

Before we have yet another 50 additional comments about Ann and Nancy Wilson, I've made a thread just so all this precious, amazing discussion can continue THERE!

(and not monopolize the fuck out of the discussion HERE!)

[quote] Toni Braxton has repeatedly said that she hated (and still hates) her biggest hit "Unbreak My Heart". Her reason is that the song is "too pop, too Disney" for her tastes.

This is crazy. The woman literally made her career on that kind of music BEFORE Unbreak My Heart came to her.

[quote] Before we have yet another 50 additional comments about Ann and Nancy Wilson, I've made a thread just so all this precious, amazing discussion can continue THERE! (and not monopolize the fuck out of the discussion HERE!)

Fuck you, Nazi. We'll talk about whatever the fuck we want to, where we want to.

Yeah, I find it hard to believe that Toni Braxton dislikes Unbreak My Heart. It's a great song. Here's Donna Summer and Seal singing it (with David Foster on piano).

[quote] I saw Pat Benatar in concert about 10 years ago. She said, just before singing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" that it made her cringe, and she wasn't going to sing all the lyrics. When it came to "Before I put another notch in my lipstick case, You better make sure you put me in my place" - she just held the mic out to the crowd while she rolled her eyes, then went on with the rest of the song. She was fun about it, but I can see how that song did not age well.

That's a strange attitude to have. I always thought (because it's pretty obvious) that the song was very pro-feminist in that Benatar was saying these things to the guy sarcastically. Like he was some asshole who'd tried this shit with a bunch of women (and succeeded) but now he'd more than met his match in her and she was gonna show him just what a pathetic loser he was.

Donna Summer disliked "It's Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve."

I meant to add that I've heard Benatar is a cunt to the extreme, so I guess her attitude isn't too surprising. Does her meagerly talented daughter still open for her?

[quote] We'll talk about whatever the fuck we want to, where we want to.

That almost sounds butch, gurl!

I'm not the one you called "Nazi," r232, but I can testify that your ongoing anschluss re: Heart is putting us to sleep like it's Zyklon B.

I'm having a civil conversation with someone about it. If you don't like it, fuck off.

Yeah, "civil." That's [italic]exactly[/italic] how you sound.

Then block me if you so fucking offended at a handful of posts. Just shut the fuck up about it. You've complained more than we've talked about Heart.

"handful of posts"

Natalie Maines has stated in interviews that she never liked country music and rock was more her thing. Kind of funny considering she's one of the best country singers to emerge in the last 30 years and her music with The (Dixie) Chicks is so sublime

I am actually a pretty big fan of Sheryl Crow, I guess.

While I've never bought an album of hers, this thread has reminded me of a ton of her songs that I like.

If It Makes You Happy being my favorite.

I’ve always assumed Juice Newton must want to cut her wrists rather then have to perform Playing with The Queen of Hearts one more time, but that might just be me projecting.

I suppose it gets tiring singing the same songs for people, but damn, suck it up. Not everyone gets to have a career that constantly is able to reinvent itself and have continued successes. And even the Rolling Stones' fans still want to hear Satisfaction. Be grateful you get to do something you love, get to make a living at it, and especially if you're a one-hit-wonder, that anyone still wants to hear from your ass 40 years after the fact.

What else would Juice Newton play? She had one hit.

She had two- "Angel of the Morning" is another that she's probably tired of.

R248 Also, "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known)," "Break it to me Gently," and a few others that were big on the country charts including a few more number ones.

I haven't heard those probably because I didn't listen to country stations. Thanks for adding them, r249.

It’s not her biggest hit but Camila probably loathes Senorita, it is Shawn’s biggest hit and he probably hates it as well.

Real McCoy hated Another Night (1994 megahit).

Juice Newton's had 5 big pop hits:

Angel of the Morning (#4 pop, #1 AC, #22 country)

Queen of Hearts (#2 pop, #2 AC, #14 country)

The Sweetest Thing (#7 pop, #1 AC, #1 country)

Love's Been a Little Bit Hard on Me (#7 pop, #4 AC, #30 country)

Break it to Me Gently (#11, #1 AC, #2 country)

After a couple more top 30 pop singles, she fell off the pop charts, and focused solely on the country market, where she had another 7 top ten country hits, including 3 number ones.

By the end of the 80's, she was done as a current, major-label artist.

I love how I’ve inspired a wave of nostalgia for Juice Newton.

I find it strange that Angel of the Morning only went to 22 on the country charts. On the classic Country format radio stations they play the shit out of that recording.

R255 Yeah, you'd think it would have charted higher, but she took a pop hit and didn't really "countrify" it. The instrumentation is pure pop. The most "country" thing about it is the slight twang in her singing.

Its current popularity in the classic country format is probably due to its recent inclusion in movies. It actually re-charted in 2016 after it was used for the opening credits in "Deadpool", and it was also featured in the Oscar-winning "Promising Young Woman".

The Morning Show used the song too.

I read that Sting can't stand "Roxanne", but mostly because it is difficult to sing.

I love that DL revisited Juice Newton. Totally forgot about her.

You should check out the Tina Yothers thread.

R252 what a blast from the past, I loved that song and it’s just as good and cheesy and their other 2 hits Runaway and Love and Devotion. I wonder why they disliked that one in particular.

Eternal hated Save our Love and didn’t sing it past their second tour, on their greatest hits tour they had their backing singers do it to save them singing it. It’s a bit frustrating as it was a fan favourite and you’d think they’d suck it up and just sing it. .

How do Nickelback feel about their songs, I know many of us would be happy if they’d never sing them again.

Like Linda Ronstadt's oeuvre, aren't all of Juice Newton's hits covers of songs by previous artists?

R264 out of her songs that went to number one on any chart, "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known),"and "You Make Me Want to Make You Mine" were not covers. I didn't take time to go through all her top forty hits on either the country, pop, or AC charts.

[quote] Eternal hated Save our Love

Who? Hated what now?

R233, thank you for posting that video I enjoyed it so much. Donna Summer was such a talent. A true singer who did not have to rely on sounding like a cat on a hot tin roof with the caterwauling and all that.

R267, you're so welcome & glad you enjoyed it. Seal was no slouch, either.

I enjoyed it too R267 & R268. It's really nice to her true vocal stylists interpret other people's work so beautifully.

Donna Summer and Richard Carpenter do "Superstar."

Donna Summer hated This Time I Know It's For Real, her last hit.

More like her last hurrah as she hadn't had a hit prior to that for six years.

Donna Summer pissed off the gays (whether she actually said homophobic shit is a matter of debate) and her career never recovered.

Other artists learned a valuable lesson: Don't piss off the gays! It was a real wake up call in the Industry.

r270 I wish she actually recorded that song. Thanks for sharing. Still love Karen's version but that was pretty awesome.

Donna Summer was offered the opportunity to sing "It's Raining Men," which Paul Schaefer (David Letterman) and Paul Jabara wrote. The song upset Donna's sensibilities and the Weather Girls ended up recording the song. It's still one of my favorite songs.

The song was written for gay men & was performed on Gay Pride day.

Paul Shaffer is listed as a comedian. All he did was repeat back whatever funny thing David Letterman said.

Is he a closet case?

R266 exactly, luv!

[quote] Eternal hated Save our Love and didn’t sing it past their second tour, on their greatest hits tour they had their backing singers do it to save them singing it.

I guess Eternal were more popular overseas? Otherwise, there's so many things wrong with that sentence.

Yes, Eternal were big in Britain and some of Europe. I forget this is mostly an American website. Yet when I come across something I haven’t heard of, like juice newton!, I just swipe on to the next comment.

r203, I only found out Bette Midler recorded that song a few years ago. I grew up knowing the Bonnie Tyler version and prefer her icy Eurodisco interpretation.

Whitney hated “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” since she thought it doesn’t make any sense (it doesn’t)

George hated “I Want Your Sex” since he thought it sounds like a cheap Prince rip-off (it does but it still kicks ass)—that’s why he left it off his first official Best Of record

Prince hated “Kiss” since he never wanted it to sound the way it does on record in a live setting - he never performed it the way we hear it on the radio

Styx hated “Mr Roboto” but as Dennis DeYoung (songwriter) commented, “they don’t hate cashing the checks”

[quote] Whitney hated “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” since she thought it doesn’t make any sense (it doesn’t)

The claim at the link is that Whitney didn't think there's any "special message" to the song; it's a basic "I'm still pining for you" song: person A is telling person B that she's still not over him, hopes he feels the same, maybe they can get back together.

Was there some special message about I Wanna Dance With Somebody?

The Bangles, except for Hoffs, hated Eternal Flame. They thought it sounded like a Whitney Houston song.

"Prince hated “Kiss” since he never wanted it to sound the way it does on record in a live setting - he never performed it the way we hear it on the radio."

He wrote it, but he first have it to R&B group Mazarati, who's version I think is a LOT better. I don't mind Prince's version, but I don't go gaga over it like a lot of people.

"gave" not "have."

Mariah Carey, like Madonna, hates her older music. She dismisses it as MOR crap. They both should learn to appreciate their older hits and understand that those hits are what the fans want to listen to--not their new crap.

That's weird about Mariah Carey, R287. I don't remember her really trying to "mature" her sound as much as Madonna. Plus, the Emotions album was a good R&B album and that was early in her catalog. I'm not seeing the huge difference between early and late Mariah, only that late Mariah wasn't as good. Lol.

For those caught up in the Juice Newton nostalgia, in episode 4 of Outer Range Noah Reid, who frequently breaks out in song, belts a few bars of Angel of the Morning and then they play more of it.

Radiohead were the Karens of the 1990s. They are constantly offended about everything.

No one - NO ONE - whines more than they do.

Blur give them a run for their money.

[quote] Patti Smith hated the teeny bopper audience “Because the Night” suddenly brought her. She was happy being a grungy punk rocker, pulling her tampon out onstage and flinging it into the crowd… then suddenly 16-year-old girls were rushing the stage, shrieking, “Sing ‘Because the Night’!”

When I saw her support Bob Dylan in the 1990s she gushed about Springsteen writing it for her. I had only known it from the Natalie Merchant cover at that point. Patti seemed to be in a great mood onstage. I requested my dad buy me a Patti Smith T-shirt but she had very little merch.

I like the Buck’s Fizz version of What’s Love!

[quote] That's a fucking great song, and I'm not even a big Barbra fan

Agreed, r46. Woman In Love is a piece of pop perfection.

A few years ago while walking around the Forum in Rome there was a Peruvian pan pipe group playing a catchy tune whose melody I had to hum until I recognized what it was, Woman in Love!

Count me in as one who prefers the "Adult Contemporary" sound that Mariah started her career with as opposed to the more "urban" shift her music took after she divorced Tommy Mottola R297 & R288.

If it's true she hates her older music, it could be because she associates it with Mottola whom she accuses of extremely controlling behavior throughout their marriage. She said her image and music during those early days was not who she truly was but an image Mottola molded her into. Whitney Houston had a similar image when she first started - very pastor's wife instead of young and urban I suppose.

The Emancipation of Mimi is the only latter day Mariah album I like. We Belong Together is a great song and video (I see you Wentworth Miller).

Poison hates its hit song Unskinny Bop.

France Gall hated her international hit Sacre Charlemagne, and refused to perform it in public later in her career.

R1 I completely forgot about that song, which was ubiquitous at the time. One of those songs where it was the backup singers that put it over the top.

Don't care what Donna did or didn't say, she had the voice of an angel.