Own songs sources: Ranker -NME- Rolling Stone Cheatsheet.com
Frank Sinatra Though “Strangers in the Night” helped Sinatra return to the No. 1 spot on the pop album charts in the mid-1960s, it turns out that Ol’ Blue Eyes himself wasn’t a fan of the song. Case in point? Sinatra’s widow, Barbara, once recalled that Sinatra called the single “a piece of s - - t” and “the worst f - - king song I’ve ever heard.”
David Bowie – ‘Never Let Me Down’ (1987). According to Bowie, he was in a “mire” while working on ‘Never Let Me Down’ and that his indifference to the album’s production had had a negative impact. “‘Never Let Me Down’ had good songs that I mistreated. I didn’t really apply myself,” he later said. “I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to be doing.”
Chrissie Hynde thought the 1979 hit—a song she “hated with a vengeance”—was anything but special, so special. Her bandmates, manager, producer, and record label smelled a smash hit with “Brass in Pocket,” and so did Hynde; that’s precisely why she hated it. She dismissed the tune as “so obvious.”
The Who – ‘It’s Hard’ (1982). Record label meddling and too many cooks in the kitchen: that’s what made The Who’s ‘It’s Hard’ a disappointment, according to Roger Daltrey. “‘It’s Hard’ should never have been released. I had huge rows with Pete. I said, ‘Pete, this is just a complete piece of shit and it should never come out!'”
MADONNA would take a lot of cash to get to play her hit song “Like a Virgin.” In a 2008 the singer said, “I’m not sure I can sing ‘Holiday’ or ‘Like a Virgin’ ever again. I just can’t, unless somebody paid me, like, $30 million or something.” She reiterated her dislike of the track in 2009, telling reporters, “For some reason people think that when you go to a restaurant or you are going shopping that you want to hear one of your own songs. It’s usually ‘Like a Virgin’ and that is the one I don’t want to hear.
The Faces – ‘Ooh La La’ (1973). ‘Ooh La La’ was far from the Faces’ finest moment, and Rod Stewart doesn’t remember it fondly at all. He’d later claim he was misquoted, but Melody Maker reported him describing the LP as a “a disgrace” and “a bloody mess”.
The Rolling Stones –’Their Satanic Majesties Request’ (1967). One of the messiest Stones albums, and the band themselves agree. “There’s a lot of rubbish on ‘… Satanic Majesties’,” said Mick Jagger. “Just too much time on our hands, too many drugs, no producer to tell us, ‘Enough already, thank you very much, now can we get just get on with this song?'”
LED ZEPPELIN Stairway to Heaven” might be a favorite song for many, but not to singer Robert Plant. “I’d break out in hives if I had to sing that song in every show,” he told the New York Times in 1988, also adding, “I wrote those lyrics and found that song to be of some importance and consequence in 1971, but 17 years later, I don’t know. It’s just not for me.”
LORDE Royals” turned the young New Zealand artist into a mainstream star, but it seems like the singer has since begun rethinking the track. “I listen to people covering the song and putting their own spin on it—and I listen to it in every single form except the original one I put out—and I realize that actually it sounds horrible,” she said, per Fuse. “It sounds like a ringtone from a 2006 Nokia. None of the melodies are cool or good. It’s disastrous. Awful… but for the same reason, in the context of the way I released it, it just worked out.”
