Another day, another Rolling Stone list guaranteed to get fans up in arms. This time around, the publication is pointing out what it calls 50 Terrible Songs on Great Albums, noting, “There’s always one. It’s that single track on a great record that sucks to such a profound degree that it almost feels like a sick joke.” Among the artists whose albums allegedly contain such songs: Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, Madonna and Britney Spears.
Number 39 on the list is “Treat People With Kindness,” which appears on Harry’s 2019 album, Fine Line. Rolling Stone dismisses it as a “sugary, gospel-tinged, Broadway-ready anthem where [he] delivers this simplistic mantra over and over and over.”
Taylor appears on the list twice. Number 37 is “The Last Time,” her duet with Snow Patrol‘s Gary Lightbody on Red. Rolling Stone says, “Their voices don’t mesh well and the song just feels like a bad Snow Patrol song featuring Taylor Swift.”
More controversially, the publication puts “Bad Blood,” from 1989, at #17. Sure, it was a #1 hit and was nominated for a Grammy, but Rolling Stone insists, “The song is limp and repetitive. And when Swift and [Katy] Perry” — the subject of the song — “made peace, the whole thing just seemed silly.”
As for Madonna, her song “Dear Jessie,” from what’s generally considered her best album, Like a Prayer, is #26. Rolling Stone writes, “It’s just a terrible song on every level.”
A song on Britney’s …Baby One More Time album called “E-Mail My Heart” is #24 on the list. Rolling Stone calls it a “sappy ballad” and a “painfully mawkish song.”
But they shouldn’t feel bad: Even such legendary acts as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson are on the list, too.
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