The hardest thing about picking a “least favorite” song, in my view, is that the pick needs to be something that you actually hear on a semi-regular basis. There are entire genres of music that I don’t like and don’t voluntarily listen to–experimental jazz, death metal, most jam-bandy stuff, any of that godforsaken Celtic noise that Fiona Ritchie punishes us with every week on The Thistle and Shamrock, just to name a few– so it’s hard for any song in those genres to earn enough of my time and attention to rise to the level of a “least favorite.” The category “least favorite” is a weird one, since it presumes there is something at least minimally favorable about the pick. Not so awful that you would actively avoid hearing it, but awful enough to note to yourself that you probably should next time.
My pick for today, The Rembrandts‘ “I’ll Be There For You” was practically impossible to avoid hearing throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s, because it was the vacuous, sugary, inane theme song to the (equally vacuous, sugary and inane) television sitcom Friends. Thanks to the wonder that is syndication, it remains legitimately hard to avoid hearing. Here is the official video for the song, replete with Friends castmembers doing their damndest to be ironically geeky:
Where do I start with all the things wrongwrongWRONG about “I’ll Be There For You”? First, it is toooooo looooonnnggg. Even the 40-second clip that was played on Friends sounded maddeningly repetitive, but when you stretch that out to a full 3.5 minutes, it’s nigh close to unbearable. Second, “I’ll Be There For You” is paper-thin lyrically. Now, I don’t expect every pop song to tell a story like Anna Karenina, and I’ll admit that I may be associating the lyrics of this song too closely with the insufferably self-regarding world of Friends, but still. There is a very fine line between good pop and bad pop, and this qualifies as bad pop in my book. It’s catchy, yes, but in the “earworm” way, not the “hook-y” way. It sounds like something created by a pop-algorithm, all the way down to that manipulative clap-clapclapclapclap bit. And did I mention that it goes on FOREVER?
There is perhaps no other song that induces an exasperated eye-roll from me quicker than “I’ll Be There For You,” Puh-lease.
One last thing: my friend and fellow philosopher, Robin James, is also participating in the 30 Day Song Challenge this month with me on her blog It’s Her Factory. Yesterday, she included a few “runners-up” with her pick, and I’m stealing that idea from her for the rest of the Challenge.
Runners-up: Dione Warwick’s “Do You Know The Way To San Jose”; Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”; Taylor Swift’s “22”; Lee Greenwood’s “I’m Proud To Be An American”
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