BANDS love to make jokey songs that no one will take seriously, right? However these tracks made the fatal mistake of being beloved by the masses.
Aphex Twin – Come to Daddy
Thanks to his reputation, anything Richard D. James cranks out is regarded as the height of artistic achievement. Come to Daddy was written as a joke while he was smashed out of his mind, and thanks to a haunting video it climbed the charts far better than he expected. He might have promptly pulled it from circulation, but his fanbase of pilled-up twats ensures he’s chained to it forever.
Beck – Loser
Beck’s gibberish lyrics can be forgiven considering they are an improvised rap, but the slide guitars are too deliberately annoying to be overlooked. And after building a very decent song around a joke, he undercuts the humour even further by demonstrating his proficiency on the sitar. The fact that he’s been laughing all the way to the bank with this song for decades must be some consolation though.
Blur – Song 2
Post-grunge was crap. Blur knew that, and decided to take the piss with a punchy track aimed at mouth breathers who lapped that shit up. Unfortunately for them, Song 2 would come to be Blur’s defining anthem and Damon Albarn would be locked into whooping like a moron over distorted guitars at every gig. Still, it’s mercifully short and better than Country House.
Kings of Leon – Sex On Fire
Originally titled Set Us on Fire until a sound mixer came up with a better name, this anthem for horny youth was inescapable during the summer of 2008. Other joke titles included Socks on Fire, Snatch on Fire, and Cocks on Fire, until the band presumably decided to stop kidding around, settle on the most commercially viable idea, then make a shitload of money by recording a song they have grown to hate.
R.E.M. – Stand
Making a statement via catchy bubblegum pop is a gamble because people might prefer it to your usual, more heart-wrenching songs. That’s the lesson R.E.M. almost learned when they put out this cheery hit in the style of The Banana Splits. Except they followed it up with Shiny Happy People shortly afterwards, and were apparently so proud of it that they only performed it live once. Thank God.
Stealers Wheel – Stuck In the Middle With You
Mimicking the dulcet, nasal tones of Bob Dylan is a risk, but it paid off all too well for the jammy Scottish duo. Gerry Rafferty’s biblical allusions didn’t exactly ring true as this was a parody song about the music industry they had obviously recently left. If they’d been around today, who knows who they might have aped. Axl Rose? Adele? The mind boggles.
