Welcome to Week 4! :cheer:

 

Results of the Week 3 poll:

 

With 10 votes the winner is God Only Knows - Beach Boys, very narrowly beating the Beatles after somebody kindly broke the tie.

 

With 9 votes the least favourite is Wind Me Up (Let Me Go) - Cliff Richard.

 

As usual we have a selection of 10 for the best contest. We have 8 choices for the worst as there was quite a lot that seemed to be on a similar level, not that we're expecting it to be a close contest.

Suspicious Minds, Oh Well, Let It Be and American Pie.

 

Bridget The Midget and Till.

For the first time (maybe only time?) my absolute fave was a song I'd not heard before, and that's 'Oh Well' :wub: voted for that and my 3 faves of the classics again (Don McLean, The Beatles and The Kinks).

 

If anyone doesn't vote for Ray Stevens for the worst I question them heavily x (2nd least fave was Mary Hopkin which was just jarringly twee, but I'm sticking to just the one vote here).

I voted for Oh Well, All Right Now and American Pie.

 

For the worst, Bridget The Midget and Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum.

Voted for half the field: Suspicious Minds, I Want You Back, Let It Be, Brown Sugar and American Pie.

 

The Ray Stevens one was easily this week's worst.

Went with Suspicious Minds (arguably his best two songs so hard to separate, but this just edges it), Oh Well, Let It Be, All Right Now, and American Pie. A lot of big classics today though no really great discoveries (Oh Well is a fairly recent one compared to the others though and it was great to be reminded of it).

 

Worst is absolutely no contest for that Ray Stevens thing - I could maybe overlook the ableism as a product of its time but the song is offensively unfunny, much like The Streak. It sounds fantastic in comparison but Hurricane Smith can have a vote as well as those vocals were seriously offputting.

For the first time (maybe only time?) my absolute fave was a song I'd not heard before, and that's 'Oh Well' :wub: voted for that and my 3 faves of the classics again (Don McLean, The Beatles and The Kinks).

 

If anyone doesn't vote for Ray Stevens for the worst I question them heavily x (2nd least fave was Mary Hopkin which was just jarringly twee, but I'm sticking to just the one vote here).

Good to see someone so young use the word twee :lol:

Having now caught up on the Ray Stevens song I can agree with the consensus that it was the worst. For about the first minute I was thinking "it doesn't really seem THAT bad" and then 'Bridget' came in... oh my.

 

For best I went with In The Ghetto, Lola & Ride A White Swan. A very good selection all round though in that half.

Mother Of Mine is the only song I hate and have always hated. Modern morals for old records again? It's not an anti-Little People song, she's quite clearly a fabulous performer (and challenging attitudes towards short people was very much in vogue in the 70's, in sitcoms like Phyllis for example) - and Ray as always did all the voices on his comedy records, that's his schtick - but yeah the title alone hasnt aged well. If you want a misguided record on the topic I suggest the great Randy Newman's Short People, which is about as uncomfortable as you can get, as it is quoting bigoted attitudes and then briefly preaching tolerance in the middle. But as it's not clear immediately the point can get missed....

 

None of the other songs should be on the Hate list, they need to be on the Classic List :teresa: Most of them topped my 13-year-old-me charts of the time. Brown Sugar however, should be, I'm calling out the King's New Clothes, a great riff and not much else - has anyone actually listened to the lyrics? I've never liked it anyway, it marked the time when the Stones ceased to be classic, but it's dodgy because it doesn't clearly target slavery and rape of black women as being a bad thing, it's more of a lascivious-sounding gritty sex track. At least Short People makes it clearer the lyrics are a bad thing being piss-taken.

 

Let It Be for the win if it cant be In The Ghetto!

I'm less bothered about the morals and more bothered about it just being offensively unfunny.

Don’t Let It Die has no place being in the worst list haha

"Knock Knock Who's There" and "Never Ending Song Of Love" are better than all songs from Poll # 1.

Mother Of Mine is the only song I hate and have always hated. Modern morals for old records again? It's not an anti-Little People song, she's quite clearly a fabulous performer (and challenging attitudes towards short people was very much in vogue in the 70's, in sitcoms like Phyllis for example) - and Ray as always did all the voices on his comedy records, that's his schtick - but yeah the title alone hasnt aged well. If you want a misguided record on the topic I suggest the great Randy Newman's Short People, which is about as uncomfortable as you can get, as it is quoting bigoted attitudes and then briefly preaching tolerance in the middle. But as it's not clear immediately the point can get missed....

 

None of the other songs should be on the Hate list, they need to be on the Classic List :teresa: Most of them topped my 13-year-old-me charts of the time. Brown Sugar however, should be, I'm calling out the King's New Clothes, a great riff and not much else - has anyone actually listened to the lyrics? I've never liked it anyway, it marked the time when the Stones ceased to be classic, but it's dodgy because it doesn't clearly target slavery and rape of black women as being a bad thing, it's more of a lascivious-sounding gritty sex track. At least Short People makes it clearer the lyrics are a bad thing being piss-taken.

 

Let It Be for the win if it cant be In The Ghetto!

Bridget The Midget is atrocious. It has nothing to do with changing attitudes; it is simply a truly terrible song. The others were really only added to ensure we had an actual poll :lol: They are mostly poor rather than terrible.

Bridget The Midget is atrocious. It has nothing to do with changing attitudes; it is simply a truly terrible song. The others were really only added to ensure we had an actual poll :lol: They are mostly poor rather than terrible.

 

Poor old Ray, always the hate figure :lol: I actively have a fondness for his comedy records in the same way I have a fondness for American sitcoms of the era. I've been considering doing a rundown of US sitcoms of the 60's cos it will 100% prove that the era of the WTF! "how on Earth did that get made" random bizarre ideas if nothing else shows that every single one of 'em was clearly stoned and taking the piss! :lol:

 

ITEM 1: A taster

 

MY MOTHER THE CAR: (1965/66)

 

I remember watching this as a young kid in the mid-60's and it seemed like I must have been on acid mis-remembering it. But no, Dick Van Dyke's brother Jerry starred in this sitcom of a man who's mother dies and is reincarnated as a vintage automobile circa 1910's. Actress Ann Sothern was the nagging unseen voice of the mother who caused hijinks when out for a spin. Famous name behind it? James L. Brooks was one of 'em - he later went on to critical success for some of the greatest and groundbreaking comedy shows of all-time, not least hiring an unknown called Matt Groening for a some shorts of a cartoon family called The Simpsons....

 

 

And this is not even the most bizarre concept.....we had 10 years-worth of endless sitcoms before US networks decided there was more advertising cash in middle-class-aimed TV and low-brow was out in 1971...