Cheesiest song of all time?

  • External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.


    Is it, this one?

  • Another Song!? :/

    External Content youtu.be
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Katrina & The Waves- Love Shine A Light.

  • First though, while I kind of get what's meant by a "cheesey song" and I'm not feigning ignorance, I'm interested to hear people's definitions of what it means.

    Hmm. I guess a song that's really naff but possibly with some element of knowing or self-awareness by the artist. Not that I know how that would come across in the song necessarily! In truth, I suppose I have a little cheese radar in my ear and it pings whenever I hear something I consider cheesy, and that's the key attribute of a cheesy song (which is an unhelpful, circular description...). I don't know if it's the same for everyone.

  • External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.


    How about this one!......

  • External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.


    How about this one!......

    Welsh Rarebit? :P

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • Hmm. I guess a song that's really naff but possibly with some element of knowing or self-awareness by the artist. Not that I know how that would come across in the song necessarily! In truth, I suppose I have a little cheese radar in my ear and it pings whenever I hear something I consider cheesy, and that's the key attribute of a cheesy song (which is an unhelpful, circular description...). I don't know if it's the same for everyone.

    Interesting, I can see the naff element but I'd imagine cheesiness to come more from a naff song that's done more or less seriously, not in a self-aware way - I'm interpreting your use of that to mean the artist thinks "Yeah I know this is naff, that's the idea". So eg I'd think of stuff like No Charge or I've Never Been To Me - but hey, maybe the writers/performers of those fully intended them to be a bit cringey in the way you suggest!

    A simple song with lyrics like "peace & love". :saint:<3

    I'd never have thought of it in terms of this ^


    As for something like Toast, for me that falls into a whole other completely different category of the Novelty Song, such as Shaddup Ya Face. Then again, some may consider There's No-One Quite Like Grandma as a novelty song, but whatever it is it's fucking cringeworthy, that's for sure (I generally dislike choirs of children on songs with their horrible fluting piping voices).


    I know some have a very specific idea of cheesiness as personified by overly sincere crooners doing what was often called 'cocktail lounge' music, such as those parodied by Mike Flowers. We then got this 90s-era thing of stuff being in implied quotation marks and becoming on-trend, resulting in youngsters listening to and championing cocktail lounge music and the like as 'cool' - I think a term used at the time was "post-ironic".


    This would often, god help us, morph into the tedious world of 'guilty pleasures'. But I've bellyached about that elsewhere on the board, so I won't now!

    Abandon all reason

  • External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

  • First though, while I kind of get what's meant by a "cheesey song" and I'm not feigning ignorance, I'm interested to hear people's definitions of what it means.

    For me, a cheesy song is, when the lyrics say nothing new or when the music sounds so overtly happy that it's hard to take it seriously.

  • Backdrifter mentioned I've Never Been To Me, which was the first song that came into my head.


    But then I remembered Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band. Case closed. I would also add Save Your Kisses For Me by Brotherhood Of Man.

  • Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band. Case closed. I would also add Save Your Kisses For Me by Brotherhood Of Man.

    Yes quite a few Eurovision entries would qualify.


    Afternoon Delight wouldn't quite get there for me but each to their own and I can see why you nominate it.


    Japanese Boy is another one that comes to mind.


    Again, regarding I'm Too Sexy, to me that's a novelty song. There are other phrases I can think of for the two twats from Right Said Fred who are chief among celebrity arseholes talking shite about covid.

    Abandon all reason

  • Backdrifter mentioned I've Never Been To Me, which was the first song that came into my head.


    But then I remembered Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band. Case closed. I would also add Save Your Kisses For Me by Brotherhood Of Man.

    Oh yes, Afternoon Delight, absolutely bang on the money, IMO. I f that record had any redeeming quality at all, it was that you could make a flower pot out of it! ^^


    Also, that dreadful "She's Homeless" by Crystal Waters. How to take a serious subject and turn it into complete trite drivel.

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • "Cheesy" doesn't really translate into my native language so it's hard to grasp the concept of an attribute everybody seems to have a different idea of. I have seen people bashing 80's music in general as "cheesy", I can't get behind how someone could brush off an entire decade with tons of music this way, regarded this someone took some efforts of actually listening to the kind of music they disapprove of.


    Anyways, provided we are talking of syrupy, over-produced, pretentious commercial pop music dealing with a serious topic... Mike and The Mechanics' "The Living Years" has to be my choice. I do understand the serious real-life context behind this song, I do too understand the message of comfort and "you're not alone" for all people who love this song. I still can't get over what a shallow kitschy song it is.

  • I interpret cheesy to imply that something is very overtly of bad quality and in bad taste. There is usually something bordering on cringe-y about a cheesy song, most often in the lyrics or in the overall premise. However the music can also be cheesy, usually by being overly dramatic and hackneyed.


    One example for me is much of Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell album, particularly Paradise By the Dashboard Light.

  • Also, that dreadful "She's Homeless" by Crystal Waters. How to take a serious subject and turn it into complete trite drivel.

    Oh you mean Gypsy Woman. It never struck me as cheesey by (probably) most people's definitions but it certainly is utterly dreadful, without exaggeration one of the worst songs ever, badly written, crappily sung and annoying in every possible way. By the time it gets to the interminable "la da dee la da daa" I want to smash the radio to the floor and stamp on the pieces.

    Abandon all reason

  • I interpret cheesy to imply that something is very overtly of bad quality and in bad taste. There is usually something bordering on cringe-y about a cheesy song, most often in the lyrics or in the overall premise. However the music can also be cheesy, usually by being overly dramatic and hackneyed.


    One example for me is much of Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell album, particularly Paradise By the Dashboard Light.

    But Paradise By The Dashboard Light isn't meant to be taken seriously. It's funny. It's meant to be over the top.


    Other songs which I find cheesy are American Christmas songs like WInter Wonderland, Sleigh Ride, etc. For a start I can't relate to them because I have Christmas in summer. I'd rather hear the grand old Christmas carols than this sort of kitsch (and I suppose you can throw in any Christmas song by Cliff RIchard).


    I would also include the vast majority of disco songs, for example anything by Boney M (except perhaps Daddy Cool which is sort of catchy).