Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Worst Lyricists?

Thanks to Jeff Meyerson for the tip.

Update: The entire list can be found here. Thanks to anonymous in the comments.

Sting tops list of worst lyricists | Entertainment | Reuters: "LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Maybe Sting should start writing more instrumentals. The school teacher-turned-rock star topped Blender's list of the worst lyricists, thanks to lines that betray 'mountainous pomposity (and) cloying spirituality,' the music magazine said.

The survey, contained in the November issue that hits newsstands next week, placed Rush drummer Neil Peart at No. 2, Creed frontman Scott Stapp at No. 3, Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher at No. 4, and soft-rocker Dan Fogelberg at No. 5.

Blender assailed Sting for such alleged sins as name-dropping Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov in the Police tune 'Don't Stand So Close to Me,' quoting a Volvo bumper sticker ('If You Love Someone Set Them Free'), and co-opting the works of Chaucer, St. Augustine and Shakespeare."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Again, Rod McKuen. Leonard Nimoy, as well?

Unknown said...

What we need is a YouTube video of William Shatner singing a Leonard Nimoy poem set to music.

Anonymous said...

Actually, one of the minor crimes of the film of CHILDREN OF MEN, liberally adapting PD James's remarkably stupid sf novel, is the playing on the soundtrack of "In the Court of the Crimson King" with apparenly no ironic intent whatsoever (at least the art collector we see later in the film, who numbers among his treasures the Pink Floyd pig balloon, is clearly meant to be a bit of fun)(I hope). Those lyrics, particularly when one considers how pleasant to wonderful is the music they obstruct, cast a long shadow over most competition. Shatner murmuring and shouting Nimoy musings over the 101 Strings would have some distance to go.

Anonymous said...

To wit:

The gardener plants an evergreen
Whilst trampling on a flower.
I chase the wind of a prism ship
To taste the sweet and sour.
The pattern juggler lifts his hand;
The orchestra begin.
As slowly turns the grinding wheel
In the court of the Crimson King.

I rest my case. "I chase the wind of a prism ship [if that really isn't prison ship]/To taste the sweet and sour" has stuck with me for decades as The archetypal bad rock lyric.

Unknown said...

I concede.

Anonymous said...

Blender magazine has a combined staff IQ of 2. Their idea of intelligent lyrics is something on the order of "Yo booty is muh duty, an' my Glock is sideway shooty, cuz yo' Mom likes muh Cherooty, it goes fum hee to Cinncinooty, word."

Anonymous said...

I found the Blender list online! Check it out...All 40!

http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?ID=2886&src=tst127:MKd

Sting rules!!!