…at least according to faroutmagazine.com:
The 10 Worst Songs By Great Artists
As with many such lists, one has to take it with a grain of salt… after all, opinions about artistic works, whether they be music, movies, TV shows, books, etc. are just that: Opinions.
I have to admit, I’m strongly familiar with only two of the songs listed while I have heard, but haven’t felt much one way or the other, about a few of the others.
As a HUGE The Beatles and David Bowie fan, of course I’m quite aware of The Beatles’ Revolution 9 and Bowie’s The Laughing Gnome.
The former was presented on The Beatles’ White Album, another of the spectacular later day albums The Beatles released before ultimately breaking up, and truthfully I can’t argue with this as being perhaps the worst song The Beatles released.
Revolution 9 is artistic noise, a collage of sound that for me, anyway, means little. Having said that, I’ve listened to it a few times and while it isn’t my cup of tea, I can’t say its completely without merit. It just doesn’t work for me and, if push comes to shove, as I said above, I’d agree this is probably the worst “official” The Beatles release.
As for David Bowie’s The Laughing Gnome…
The fact of the matter is that David Bowie’s career followed a slow trajectory up. He produced quite a bit of stuff before finally getting his act together. The Laughing Gnome IMHO is an inoffensive, silly little song that means nothing one way or the other and was a product of a young artist who still didn’t have his course set.
How can one view that as his “worst” work?
Indeed, I’d be far harsher with any “bad” songs released post Space Oddity, when David Bowie was clearly a lot more confident of his musical skills and might have released here and there a song which doesn’t measure up to his usual levels of brilliance.
For example, and while I don’t necessarily view it as his worst, the song Too Dizzy released on what David Bowie himself considered his worst album, 1987’s Never Let Me Down, was stricken from future re-releases of the album on Bowie’s insistence. He apparently hated the song that much!
So, perhaps, we can look upon this instead of The Laughing Gnome as Bowie’s worst… at least when it comes to the artist’s own opinion!