10 ‘Best Song’ winners which should have been awarded the worst
The ‘Best Song’ award at both the Oscars and the Grammys is a coveted recognition that artists everywhere pine for.
For the most part, the bodies responsible for dishing out such a high-profile award don’t do that bad a job. Sure, we might not agree with the winner when we compare them to the rest of the nominees, but it’s very rare that they choose a bad song to take home the trophy. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t occasionally happen.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Razzies, an awards show set up to celebrate the worst offerings in entertainment the year gone by. They have a ‘Worst Song’ category, and many famous artists have taken home the infamous award at some point in their careers.
There have been some years when it appears there has been a mix-up, that the ‘Best Song’ winner should have actually gone home with the worst. I’m always happy to provide a public service, so it only seems right that I clear up this confusion once and for all.
The 10 worst ‘Best Song’ winners:
Ed Sheeran – ‘Thinking Out Loud’
Look, I’m not going to sit here and say that it’s a straight-up bad song, but the idea that in a whole year of music, this is the best the artistic world could come up with is incredibly upsetting. While a lot of love songs provide insight into a complicated emotion which we often struggle to put into words, Ed Sheeran’s offering feels dull and predictable.
The sheer amount that this song has been used in romantic montages and for first dances at weddings borders on sinful. It should have won the ‘Worst Song’ award simply because of the amount that we listeners were about to be exposed to it. Ed Sheeran has done much better than this in the past, and ‘Thinking Out Loud’ is a track which would have been best kept inside his head.
Fun – ‘We Are Young’
It was a banger, but quite literally for when we were young. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and when you examine this track with a bit more of a critical eye, it’s pretty clear how poor it is. I don’t know what was in the water when this song won us over, but it can’t have been anything good, as that annoying high-pitched chorus spilt through the walls of every bar and club within reach for months on end.
Listening now, it invokes flashbacks, ones of crowded dancefloors, bad lyrics and awful singing voices. Fun by name but not by nature, as this track, which managed to take home the Grammy for ‘Best Song’, would have been better suited in the worst category.
Coldplay – ‘Viva la Vida’
If there was ever a chance to put Coldplay on this list, I was always going to take it. As if the dulcet tones of this band aren’t bad enough, pairing it alongside opera and slapping the label of ‘classic’ over it feels borderline insulting.
I always respect it when a band tries something new, but you should have at least perfected the music you were originally trying to make first, and Coldplay hadn’t even done that. Devoid of anything stellar in their discography, they made the bold move to write something even bigger than their previous material. The scale of the song was so overwhelming that it seems to have blinded critics, as when you actually listen to ‘Viva la Vida’, there is no escaping that it lacks a great deal in quality.
The Muppets – ‘Man or Muppet’
It’s not just the Grammys that have given out their fair share of misguided best song awards, but the Oscars as well. Granted, when you write for a film, you are trying to do something more than just create a hit, as you need a song to be good, but it should also tell a story. It’s a hard balance to strike, but ‘Man or Muppet’ doesn’t really do either.
When this track won the award for best song at the Oscars, it was only up against one other contender, ‘Real In Rio’ by Sérgio Mendes. This seems like a grave oversight on behalf of the Academy, as the blend of musical styles on ‘Real In Rio’ makes for a truly wonderful piece of music.
USA for Africa – ‘We Are the World’
Far be it from me to criticise a song which helped to raise a lot of money for charity. This medley of celebrities managed to raise $80million for charities in Africa, and that’s obviously a great thing; however, just because the song won over the hearts of millions, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any good.
When you look past the awards attached to this song and just listen to this track in isolation, there’s no escaping that it’s a pretty poor offering from all involved. The tune is as dull as they come, and the lyrics are so self-congratulatory that it’s borderline skin-crawling. The idea that this could ever be considered the best song from a year filled with good music is laughable.
The Police – ‘Every Breath You Take’
Why are we dressing up creepy songs as declarations of love? Sting himself admitted that the theme of this song is unsettling, and yet it’s hardly acknowledged for as much. It was used in movies as a love song, and people adopted it as a modern ode to romance. It should have won the accolade of worst song purely because of how badly so many of the listeners helped it win, misinterpreted it.
“I think it’s a nasty little song, really rather evil. It’s about jealousy and surveillance and ownership,” said Sting when discussing how the track is often misinterpreted, “I think the ambiguity is intrinsic in the song; however, you treat it because the words are so sadistic. On one level, it’s a nice long song with the classic relative minor chords, and underneath there’s this distasteful character talking about watching every move.”
Doctor Dolittle – ‘Talk to the Animals’
We all love a bit of whimsy here and there, but it needs to be executed well, and that’s just not the case with the song ‘Talk to the Animals’, which featured on Doctor Dolittle. The song has managed to cement itself as a classic, which means it’s relentlessly referenced in the world of cinema and features in all Doctor Dolittle remakes. Its reputation covers up one gleaming oversight: it’s just not that good.
The song also faced criticism behind the scenes, as the majority of the cast weren’t fans of it. Their wishes should have been respected; if anything, I feel envious of animals, as they don’t need to listen to this number.
Randy Newman – ‘We Belong Together’
Randy Newman is a great songwriter and excellent performer, but there is nothing worse than when an award is dished out based on pity as opposed to actual merit. That’s exactly what happened with his song ‘We Belong Together’, which was written for Toy Story 3. While not an awful tune, it certainly shouldn’t have taken home the Oscar for ‘Best Song’ the year it was nominated.
Simply put, there’s no beating ‘You Got a Friend In Me’, and the year that classic was released for the original Toy Story, it should have had the best song accolade in the bag, but it didn’t. Newman being awarded the Oscar for his offering with the third film feels less like a deserved acknowledgement and more like an award given in retrospect for the one he missed out on prior.
Phil Collins – ‘You’ll Be in My Heart’
Phil Collins is one of the best songwriters in the modern world, he knows how to arrange different tracks so that they run smoothly and don’t have one key aspect overshadow everything else in it. It’s a skill you can hear throughout his solo career and his time with Genesis, but you can’t hear it here.
There’s not a lot to say about ‘You’ll Be in My Heart’, and that’s kind of the point. It’s a manifestation of one of the worst things that a song can be: completely forgettable. Considering some of the other songs nominated for the Oscar in 2000, this Collins track shouldn’t have had a look in.
Alice Wrubel and Ray Gilbert – ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’
I was half tempted not to include this song at all. It’s of its time, and I suppose that would be a polite way to describe it, which better translates to it not being of this time. We can debate how we should treat art as it ages and what is considered acceptable changes, but the fact remains, the way this song, and the entire movie Song of the South, plays into racist stereotypes, meaning this track needs to take the number one spot on the list.
Disney has made a conscious effort to remove any affiliation from this song, and rightly so. It has been taken out of all park parades and attractions relating to it, such as Splash Mountain, which are steadily phased out of their parks. It was the ‘Best Song’ winner, but if it were released today, it would have certainly been considered one of the worst.
