MUSKRAT HATE

Phillip Coons is wondering why everybody hates the song “Muskrat Love,” since he rather likes it.

I can’t speak for everybody, Phillip, only myself, and I’ll say that I really don’t hate it; I just know lots of people that do. Musically, it’s a good song, well constructed, with a good, hummable melody. It’s just that . . . well, it’s just that . . .

. . . it’s just that people don’t find muskrats terribly romantic.

I kinda resent that, personally. I sorta look like a muskrat myself–facial hair, a big, bluff nose, pudgy, I waddle . . . but I do understand why most people don’t find muskrats very sexy. Although, in the interest of fairness, it must be said that some people in Detroit feel differently.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I did a list, so here’s ten songs I find much, much more annoying than “Muskrat Love.”

10. “Black Dog,” Led Zeppelin. You can accuse me of hating heavy metal, and you’d be right. I cannot stand Robert Plant’s over-the-top singing on this song, and that guitar riff is so clunky and uneven, it could have been recorded by The Shaggs. “Black Dog” isn’t a great classic rock tune; it’s a musical hate crime.

9. “Break My Stride,” Matthew Wilder. What in blue blazes was this song about? And why, twenty years after this bit of candyfloss came and went, do I still have the same reaction every time somebody (usually my wife) tells me, “Last night I had the strangest dream”?

8. “Wild Boys,” Duran Duran. I don’t get the people who worship 80s music. Consider Duran Duran. Their keyboard player could only play with two fingers, their rhythm section was competent but unimaginative, and Simon Le Bon was largely inept as a singer. But they did look good in the videos. Ironically, Le Bon nearly drowned during the filming of the video for “Wild Boys,” which almost certainly stands as the worst vocal performance on a #1 single ever. He is so flat and so far out of range on the chorus, modern studio technology couldn’t even save him.

7. “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Bonnie Tyler. I consider the phrase “Produced by Jim Steinman” to be a warning label. I can usually tolerate Meat Loaf, because he’s a fantastic singer. Bonnie Tyler is not, continually being upstaged by the guy singing “Turn around, bright eyes,” until the chorus, when she strangles the song in her throat. An artist named Nikki French inexplicably brought this song back to life a few years back in a dance remix, singing the song unemotionally to a Casiotone drumbeat. Somewhere, Santayana is smirking.

6. “Hot Blooded,” Foreigner. Actually, anything by Foreigner would qualify; they’re the original arena-rock sellouts. But I especially can’t stand this song, with its chorus that is memorable, though certainly not enjoyable.

5. “Sweet Home Alabama,” Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ooh, what a biting comeback to Neil Young’s Southern Man:

Young: “I am tired of the religious hypocrisy of Southern bigots; I think things have changed less than people realize.”

Van Zant: “Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.”

Young: “Hey, fine by me.”

4. “Friends In Low Places,” Garth Brooks. I’m gonna get in trouble for this one, but Garth Brooks is the fakest cowboy since Martin Short in “Three Amigos.” He’s a good singer, but he always feels compelled to catalog every vocal idiosyncracy that’s ever been heard in country music. Listen to his version of KISS’s “Hard Luck Woman,” and you know he’s got a voice. But his country stuff is so full of glottal stops and goofy little warbles, I’m almost forced to conclude he’s actually making fun of country singers.

3. “In The Air Tonight,” Phil Collins. Do I have to hear this song in every action movie with a night-time sequence?

2. “Someone Else’s Star,” Bryan White. I’ll grant that Bryan White is the Eric Carmen of country music–just far, far too sensitive to be believed–but this song–well, if you’ve ever wondered what the word “bathetic” means, just go read the lyrics. Don’t you just feel awful for him?

But, without a doubt, there can only be one . . .

1. “Summer Lovin’,” Grease soundtrack. This is an open message to every American between the ages of 28 and 40: There was no good music in the movie Grease. And least of all, not this collection of every cliche operant in pop music circa 1963. If you want to listen to dicey singing in a Jersey accent, Patti Smith is a much better place to start. But please, please, for the love of all that’s decent, put this lump of putrefied Broadway hooey aside permanently, before I have to start telling you what a good writer Andrew Lloyd-Webber isn’t.