'75-'79 is not recent. I graduated in '71 ... 40 years ago. ;

I'd rather forget the crappy songs. Caught a rebroadcast on PBS's American Masters recently of a documentary on The Troubadour Club in LA ... a club that launched many careers in the early 70s ... Elton John, James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, The Eagles, Tom Waits, etc. A time when music and lyrics really said something.

Here is a link that might be useful: Troubadours: Carole King / James Taylor & The Rise of the Singer-Songwriter

hmm, I'd have to think about this, but for sure it's something disco. Could not stand it.
Class of '77

Hmm...for bad I'd say any '70's sitcom theme song. Or Kenny Rogers songs. For good....AC/DC Back in Black would be hard to beat.

Verdugo Hills High School, Class of '79. Tujunga, California.

Biggies at that time: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Loverboy, Def Leppard, Hall & Oates.

There was the runoff of the 70s superbands: Journey, Styx, Asia, Van Halen, Triumph, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest

There was the quirky, trendy stuff: Adam Ant, Spandau Ballet, Roxy Music/Brian Ferry, Kraftwerk

There was the new stuff that would eventually be huge: REM, U2

The best for me? The Police. The only band I ever had all all their albums.

The worst? Any of those hair bands: Poison, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Whitesnake, etc. I'll hear one of their songs on the radio and still have no idea which one it is.

Love,

Jakabedy
Choctawhatchee High School, Class of '83 (Florida panhandle).

Well yeah...I'm class of 1979!

(Natal- I just was just humorously slammin' myself on my "recent" HS years!)

Worst stuff: I gotta do some Billboard research here!

Best: Boston, Van-Halen, Rush, KISS, AC/DC, and a lot of 1-hit-wonders!

Faron

I'm a "little" older than most of you, but hands down, the worst song during my high school years was "MacArthur Park" sung by (and I use the word "sung" loosely) Richard Harris.

1974-1977. Worst song? Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band.
I clearly remember it on the radio every 5 minutes during a 6 hour drive to Northern Wisconsin. The thought of it still makes me cringe!

Best? Oh the fun we had! Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Hall and Oates, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Frampton....

1980-graduating Texan here. OMG, "Afternoon Delight" was truly horrid. I also have memories of cringing to "Muskrat Love." Hideous stuff indeed.

I also hated the Kenny Rogers songs - "You Picked A Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille?" -- Yuck.

Being a Texan, you might that I'm a country music fan but I can't stand most of it. I do like Willie Nelson, but that's about it.

We had a jukebox in our high school cafeteria, and that makes me think of two perfectly awful songs that were in constant play: "Black Betty" by Ram Jam and "Stranglehold" by Ted Nugent. ::shudder::

Here is a link that might be useful: Enjoy ... :-/

DH is trying to think of his worst song of HS but as he is thinking he is now singing Muskrat Love. Thanks a lot Jen.

Hated "Horse With No Name" by America, especially the line, "In the desert, you can't remember your name cuz there ain't no one for to give you no pain." Maybe that's what prompted me to become an editor. :-)

Others beat me to "Afternoon Delight" and "Muskrat Love" so I have to say, "Having My Baby". I think that song led me to be a preferential adopter!

Different genre here, HS in early 90s for me.

Worst song:

Sex you up by Color me Bad. It's really, really bad.

Close runner up: Ice Ice Baby, Vanilla Ice.

I can't even beleive someone actually wrote these songs.

OMG, my hs band played Afternoon Delight! I always thought it was disgusting. Muskrat Love is awful, too.

Another one that I think came out when I was in jr. high that I couldn't stand was Midnight at the Oasis. There was some song by Peaches N Herb that my best friend loved, but I couldn't stand. Now how can I remember the name of the group but not the song?

I graduated in 1981 in a small town in New Mexico.

I graduated in '75, and there were some pretty horrific songs in the early '70s. The aforementioned" Muskrat Love", anything by The Captain and Tenille, most Cher songs, even Elton John had some stinkers in that era, like" Philadelphia Freedom". Then there was "Billy Don't be a Hero", and the gag worthy "Behind Closed Doors".

OOOooooh....yes....there's some painful ones listed now!!

Definitely Painful:
Starland Vocal Band, Captain & Tenille's "Muskrat Love".

Jeeezz...now I'm shuddering....Our HS Prom theme song one year was "You light up my life" by Debby Boone(?).

This may be controversial...
I like about 50% of Fleetwood-Mac's stuff. The other 50%? Ugggghhh. Example: "Rhiannon" made me want to HURL. CANNOT STAND that song....yuck. You've never seen a guy reach so fast for the radio-station button!!

Faron

'75-'79. Saskatchewan. We certainly listened to American music, too, but we really rocked to Canadian bands on our 8-tracks ;) April Wine,Trooper,Rush, and Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Here is a link that might be useful: Randy Bachman is still going strong!

What is it about "Afternoon Delight" that gets it so often singled out as being one of the all-time horrifically bad pop tunes? Maybe the unbearably chirpy female vocals? I don't like the song either, except for the last ten seconds. That 4-part vocal swirl near the end is pretty neat. So is the pedal-steel guitar throughout the song.

Two interesting factoids about the Starland Vocal Band:

1) They evidently started out as a serious folk-rock band with mostly topical lyrics. AD was a lightweight anomoly in their set, but of course it became their chart-topping hit, and nobody could ever take them seriously after that, assuring one-hit-wonderdom. Their first album in its entirety still gets good reviews from critics who dare to listen to it.

2) There was such a high expectation amongst some that the SVB would become perennial hitmakers that some TV exec started up a Starland Vocal Band Show in 1977 that of course was soon cancelled after a brief run. But it was on that show that a young comedian named David Letterman made his first appearance on TV as a comic.

There are so many contenders for worst song of the '70s I don't know where to begin. Certainly "Afternoon Delight" is trounced by "You Light Up My Life" by Debbie Boone, or the wretched "My Ding-a-Ling" by Chuck Berry (made even worse given how crucial a figure he once was in shaping rock and roll). Both were #1 hits. So was "Seasons in the Sun".

There was also plenty of great music from this era though. I'll get to it in another post....

class of '79 here....

i've gotta second the "you're having my baby" vote--- terrible song!
i also really disliked "feelings"!!! ugh!
i was sooo NOT a barry manilow fan, so "cococabana" (sp??) was pretty close to the top of my dislike list!
didn't like disco!

tearjerkers like 'billy don't be a hero' and 'seasons in the sun' were ok...

loved bruce springsteen, supertramp, genesis, rolling stones, skynyrd, etc...and, graduating in 79- it was hard not to like the cars and meatloaf!

Class of '80 here!

The Peaches and Herb song was "Reunited"... pretty bad, but I have to go for "Havin' my Baby" as the most cringe-worthy.

Too many contenders for the best... some that haven't been mentioned that I really liked are Elvis Costello, Pretenders, Blondie...

Faron, we're siblings from different parents when it comes to musical taste. I second your thoughts on Fleetwood Mac...I DETEST Rhiannon. Pretty much the only FM song I like is Tusk.

Always kinda liked Afternoon Delight, but I think it was because my Aunt used to sing it and she reminded me of the people in the band, so early 70's folk/hippy.

UGGGGH!! Havin' my baby...gad, thanks for bringing THAT one up. I hated Reunited because my first love and I had broken up for the final time and that song hit the charts. Couldn't listen to it for years without crying.

Our senior prom theme was Saturday Night Fever, so we pretty much were assured a disco theme.

liked the pretenders and blondie, but they were definitely college groups for me!

'reunite and it feels so good' is what we sometimes sang---refering to the cheap wine!

How about the Bay City Rollers?
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, NIGHT!
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, NIGHT!
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, NIGHT!

Awful. And yet my BF and I had their posters plastered all over our rooms in 8th grade.

How about bad concerts we went to in high school? I went to see Air Supply. My teenage sons love to make fun of me for that.