10 classic rock songs that should be deleted from history
Rock and roll is never short of a few misfires. All great genres tend to have those songs that no one wants to talk about anymore, and even while artists can claim to have poetic license, it doesn’t make any of their experiments easier to listen to. While all of them might have come from a genuine place during the writing stages, songs by the likes of Kiss should have never made it past the demo process.
That’s not to say that all of the songs on this list are outright terrible. There are many pieces that are pretty good, except for a few that turn them from being interesting to downright despicable parts of an artist’s catalogue. As opposed to someone who tried to wear their hearts on their sleeve, some are practically done with disdain for the audience.
It’s one thing to have an intent to piss off an audience, but it’s even worse when artists have a genuine interest in their songs and end up falling flat on their faces. As much as people might laugh off a song as a joke, knowing that these songs were deadly serious on the part of the musicians starts to make you question how great they were in the first place.
Still, that hasn’t stopped them from being minor black marks across a group’s discography, even if they have classics under their belt. Every song should help tell the story of a band, but if these were removed from their catalogue altogether, nothing would really be damaged in the process.
10 rock songs that should be deleted from history:
10. ‘Sell Me a Coat’ – David Bowie
For most rock fans, it seemed like David Bowie could make virtually any genre work in some capacity. Considering how well he manoeuvred his way through everything from pop to glam to soul, it seems like he could have broken out the accordion and done some avant-garde jazz with it, and it would still sound fantastic. As it turns out, though, one of the genres that he never truly mastered is vaudeville music.
While David Bowie’s first album is a strange fascination for anyone interested in more fanciful productions, ‘Sell Me A Coat’ is a good indicator of everything wrong with the album. Instead of having anything worthwhile to say, the whole thing plods along at a snail’s pace while Bowie sounds like a stiff Englishman walking about town trying to find the right kind of coat for the coming winter.
Whereas someone like Bowie could make a topic this boring work half the time, everything clocks about before getting thirty seconds into the song, and all the listener is left with is him singing like he’s at his first-ever public performance. Bowie had the potential to take popular music further, but considering his mark on rock history, this feels like the furthest thing from traditional rock and roll as anyone could get.
9. ‘Summer of Love’ – The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys have had more than a few lacklustre pieces throughout their history. It was clear that Brian Wilson was not doing well towards the mid-1970s, and while he could still put together a half-decent tune on some of their albums, the less said about tracks like ‘Hey Little Tomboy’, the better off most of us will be. However, when Wilson left the fold altogether, Mike Love thought it best to steer the band’s legacy directly off a cliff when getting around to Summer in Paradise.
While the entirety of this list could be filled with songs from this album, Love is at his most reprehensible on the tune ‘Summer of Love’. Even though the title itself might be a play on his own name, hearing Love starting to sound like a smooth R&B singer in the 1990s feels like a grandfather having a few too many at a wedding and deciding that he’s going to show all the kids out there what real music sounds like.
What’s even worse is the music video, where Wilson is propped up like a background character throughout the song while Love starts singing about the wonders of the ocean next to women half his age in bikinis. Many rock stars tend to have a few cringy moments in their back catalogue, but if anyone is in the market for secondhand embarrassment, this will do the job in no time.
8. ‘Hot Dog’ – Led Zeppelin
Most artists are at least trying to go for a decent performance every time they play. Regardless of whether or not it works with their style, it’s always important for bands to experiment and test the waters for what they can do outside of the same old riff. While Led Zeppelin could claim to have written the rulebook on what a fantastic rock and roll riff sounds like, they ended up dipping into the past a bit too much halfway through In Through the Out Door.
Despite every single Zeppelin song going back to the blues, hearing him try their hand at a rockabilly number on ‘Hot Dog’ is the moment when people realised they could sound corny. Give it to Robert Plant; he is at least trying, but when there is so little to work with on the music side of things, there’s hardly any reason to keep everything going when it sounds this empty.
Although it’s a noble effort to pay tribute to someone like ‘The King of Rock and Roll’, this is why Zeppelin was seen as the antidote to that era of rock and roll. They were the more dangerous counterpart to what Presley could do, so seeing them going back to the same rulebook didn’t only feel like a massive misfire; it was like watching the world’s greatest rock band take a colossal step backwards.
7. ‘My World’ – Guns N’ Roses
There never seemed to be a single moment throughout the 1990s when Guns N’ Roses weren’t drunk off their own ego. While Slash, to his credit, had always elected to keep his head down and keep the ship sailing for as it would go, good never seemed to be good enough for Axl Rose throughout the making of Use Your Illusion. So, after going through what was already a massively overblown album, ‘My World’ feels like one last spit in the face before the group gets out of there for good.
If you listen to these albums in a loop, the second version of ‘Don’t Cry’ is when they seem to jump the shark the third or fourth time. The majority of the songs on the back half feature some of the most elongated sequences of their career, but once the final bow is put on everything, Rose decides to delve into the world of industrial music and ends up sounding like an absolute idiot trying to sound like the tough guy.
Outside of the dialogue that sounds like it’s pulled straight out of a cheesy action movie, this feels like all of that momentum was for nothing, with everything building to a climax and then dropping right as everything seemed to be wrapping up. But maybe we should be grateful here. I mean, if Rose had been rushed, this is probably closer to what Chinese Democracy would have sounded like if it had come out in the 1990s.
6. ‘Illegal Alien’ – Genesis
Some of the biggest names in music could easily have passed as comedians had they taken up a stand-up career. Every member of The Beatles was known to be funny during their time in the spotlight, and despite the dopey humour of genres like pop-punk, each of those bands had the star power of lovable goofballs back in the 2000s. While Genesis could be considered more lighthearted than funny, them trying to make something humorous is something no one needs to hear again.
Although the pop era of Genesis is already polarising to many people, hearing Phil Collins adopt what sounds like a Mexican accent and talk about being an illegal alien is one of the single most awkward things anyone has ever done in the 1980s. Whereas a song like ‘Turning Japanese’ gives this tune a run for its money with its cultural appropriation, not many could claim to have dressed up as a walking stereotype in the music video for their song to hammer their point home.
Then again, maybe this was the cost of having Collins omnipresent in people’s lives. Occasionally, there would still be great material, but this should have been the sign that everyone woke up and wondered why the hell we let this guy be the face of the decade on the pop charts.
5. ‘Money for Nothing (unedited)’ – Dire Straits
Dire Straits often feels like one of the last people to stir up any kind of controversy. They already looked like a bunch of dads when they got famous, so it’s not like they were going to get into serious hot water or have some massive scandal get in their way. When making Brothers in Arms, though, ‘Money for Nothing’ really didn’t need to have any of the filler lyrics that wound up on the finished album.
Combing through the group’s back catalogue, this tune is one of the high points of their career and one of the fixtures of MTV for a damn good reason. When first coming up with the lyrics, though, Mark Knopfler’s verbatim recounting of someone working in a department store and mocking the new music channel resulted in saying some pretty vulgar vernacular and getting more than a little bit homophobic.
Although most people could chalk it up to people being more desensitised to this kind of behaviour back in the day, that doesn’t justify the finished lyrics staying in the song. There might be a time in place for different pieces of rock history, but if anyone is still playing the unedited version of this song now, it’s clear that they might have a certain agenda and aren’t all that comfortable at the sight of a rainbow flag.
4. ‘Girls of Summer’ – Aerosmith
By the 2000s, Aerosmith had earned their stripes as one of the most reliable rock and roll bands in the US. Although they started out as one of the pariahs of the post-Rolling Stones rush, the swing they brought to their classics and their firm grip on the power ballad turned them into one of the biggest names in music. But what if they went beyond rock altogether? Answer: they would sound like disgruntled dads.
Whereas most of Just Push Play revolved around the band getting into more pop-flavoured material, ‘Girls of Summer’ was the moment that even the rest of the group couldn’t handle. As opposed to other songs in their catalogue, this felt like it was put together in a lab trying to find out what the perfect version of a pop song is supposed to be, complete with a few guitar parts that definitely aren’t Joe Perry at his finest.
And while 95% of all Aerosmith lyrics have to do with sex in some way, hearing Tyler sing about this kind of thing on the back of a Justin Timberlake-style production ends up sounding like he’s trying to reimagine himself as a heartthrob. No rock band is too old to keep with the times, but here’s hoping that some of them aren’t as heavy-handed about it as Tyler could be at the worst of times.
3. ‘How Many Say I’ – Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen is a man of many talents. Outside of being one of the greatest guitarists to fall to Earth, his talents behind a keyboard and coming up with brilliant musical passages is the reason why both the David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar eras of the group ended up sounding fantastic in completely different ways. When there’s no guide for Eddie, though, letting him in front of the microphone was one of the most ill-advised decisions on Van Halen III.
And for as much of a mess as the group’s third self-titled outing is, I don’t make that claim lightly. Every piece of Van Halen III is a hot mess from Gary Cherone’s vocals to some songs that sound blatantly out of tune, but ‘How Many Say I’ is the kind of calming ballad that feels like it’s ripped out of a nightmare, as Eddie tries on his best Tom Waits impression and ends up sounding like Roger Waters with a sore throat.
Although I can commend Van Halen III for being the album Eddie always wanted to make, ‘How Many Say I’ was a good enough reason to get the band back together to make A Different Kind of Truth. Because looking at it objectively, having this as the final original song on the last album they ever made would have been an unbelievably sad note for Eddie to end things on.
2. ‘Christine Sixteen’ – Kiss
Many songs that deserve to be deleted normally come from lyrics that would not fly today. While it’s easy for us to point and laugh at dated song subjects or tunes that haven’t stood the test of time, there comes a moment where the PC police get to have too much dominance over everything in some fans’ minds. Yes, a lot of people want to be able to sing about what they feel, but if anyone genuinely relates to ‘Christine Sixteen’, make sure they aren’t on some kind of sexual predator watchlist.
As much as Kiss claimed to be lighthearted with all of their gimmicks, Gene Simmons’s Ode to underage love is still one of the most deplorable sets of lyrics anyone has ever written. Although some could argue that he’s playing up his dangerous persona, no one writes lyrics about a girl being young and clean, and Simmons has sounded more gross delivering them than Simmons.
And given that the rest of Kiss’s catalogue doesn’t see him straying from that type of wordplay, it’s probably a good thing to avoid a tune like this on principle. Kiss never had the biggest wealth of great material as their contemporaries, but it’s not out of the question to ask them not to sound like they are about to kidnap someone’s daughter at the local school and do unspeakable things to her.
1. ‘Wild Honey Pie’ – The Beatles
Most would prefer musical history to stay exactly how it is. Yes, there are going to be some peaks and valleys throughout every era, but it’s important to take the good with the bad so people can appreciate when something spectacular comes along. While The Beatles finally got to let their freak flags fly, someone should have been there to keep them in line so ‘Wild Honey Pie’ didn’t need to be heard.
Although the majority of The White Album features tunes that are completely overdone, this demo of a tune feels like it’s ripped straight out of a bizarro world version of the band. While ‘Honey Pie’ is a fun, bouncy example of Paul McCartney’s ‘granny music’, this is when he goes too far the other way, as he tries to be experimental and ends up sounding like a dying cat crying out for his lover.
Whereas most people would single out John Lennon’s ‘Revolution 9’ to omit from The White Album, ‘Wild Honey Pie’ makes more sense to delete because nothing would have been lost in the process. The album is already long enough as it is, but hearing them creating the musical equivalent of nails on a chalkboard is not going to make the experience any more enjoyable.
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