The worst of folk

Subject: The worst of folk
From: Fiddlin' Sid
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 04:13 AM

What is the worst English folk record ever made?

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Bedubya
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 01:10 PM

Don't know, but didn't want this thread to get buried.

Too much of an opportunity for opinionated balderdash here to let that happen.

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: zander (inactive)
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 01:51 PM

' Drink up Thi Cider George ' by Tommy Makem is surely the worst mismatch of all time. Dave

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 02:33 PM

Matt R is right... too many "Worst Of" and "I hate THIS" threads here...

the folk music I like, I listen to... the worst I have to say about the folk music I don't like, is that I don't listen to it... But maybe you should... you might like it where I didn't...

music... It's a good noise...

;-)

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Matt_R
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 05:55 PM

Me and Clinton agree! Will wonders never cease? lol!

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: GUEST,SeanM, cookieless in awe
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 06:12 PM

I'd imagine that the real "WORST" ever is some recording that got buried shortly after the artist's relatives all left rather than be given comp copies.

Anything else is going to be personal, and I'll wager money that any given person's selection for worst will be someone else's sainted 'best', and fur would fly accordingly.

M

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: mousethief
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 06:35 PM

"Ah, music, a magic beyond all we do here." --Albert Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Sorcery.

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Bernard
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 06:36 PM

"Whiskey in the Jar" by Thin Lizzie

How it ever made the charts I'll never understand...

Can't believe it was a serious recording. Sounds like a p*** take that someone then decided to release 'just to see what happens'!!

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: RichM
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 06:39 PM

Jay-sus, I agree with both Matt and Clinton!

Music is in the ear of the beholder... or is that 'behearer'?

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Amergin
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 06:47 PM

Hey, Bernard....I think it was a pisstake....

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 06:55 PM

Well, I happen to like the TL version! Ready for the fur flying Sean? ;-)

Jon

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Matt_R
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 07:00 PM

I was gonna say the same thing Jon! Except I've never heard the original, only Metallica's cover of it. It still rocked!!!

--Matt (playing "Curly Where's Your Girlie?"

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 07:13 PM

What I don't like is recordings that appear traditional and are something completely different. 'Course that's just me. If I were to by a recording from a group called "The Morris Men," entitled "Best Loved English Folk Songs," with a version of All Around My Hat done in elaborate, vibrato-laden choreographed 4-part harmony accompanied by the East Twitchingham Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Symphony Orchestra, I'd probably complain. I don't mind these recordings unless I manage to buy them, mind you.

If the Watersons put out "Slade's Greatest Hits," I might complain about that too.

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Bernard
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 07:21 PM

Each to their own!!

;o)

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: vindelis
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 07:27 PM

Considering how it was being slagged off last year I'm surprised no-body has mentioned Madonna's version of American Pie, (Which I quite liked). But then there's no accounting for taste.

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Bernard
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 07:30 PM

We just didn't want to upset you!!

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Tyke
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 07:35 PM

Well at least with vinly you could make a decent plant pot! Only to discover that the worst record ever made suddenly became collectable and is now worth lot's of money! Bur not as a plant pot!

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 10:43 PM

well, I have the 2 volume set of John Jacob Niles....I wont make it into pots, but I wont PLAY it again either. Could be worth $$$$ someday

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: mousethief
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 11:16 PM

There's a Mormon tabernacle in East Twitchingham?

You learn something new every day.

Alex

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Troll
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:27 AM

A friend of mine bought an album called "Songs of the Sea" by operatic tenor whose name escapes me. He was very disapointed that I wasn't interested since he knew that I like sea songs. There was no way I could make him understand.

troll

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: SeanM
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:39 AM

*sigh*

OK, I'll jump on it, but gingerly...

My personal "worst folk albums" are usually some of the cheaper compilations you'll find in the discount bins at the music stores.

For me, it's not so much the song selection, but the nearly deceptive marketing. I picked up what looked to be a GREAT compilation entitled "All the Best from the London Pub". Having had decent luck with the series before (some of their Irish discs are really good. OK, ONE of them...), I bought it after lightly perusing the title list.

Unfortunately, I missed the very very small "as performed by the 101 strings orchestra" on the back...

Same thing with a 3-CD "American Folk" collection, but that one there was no warning. Out of the three, two are decent - one is a solo piano musical rendition, the other is also instrumental but with banjo, base and acoustic guitar added to the piano.

The third though... Nice thought, but it's one guy with a moderately skilled voice, playing over some REALLY overly peppy arrangements on what I think is an old Casio electronic keyboard.

However, it's all part of what I call "folk roulette" - you spin the disc, and occasionally it comes out good and you find something worth a lot more than you paid. But, as with the real roulette, most of the times the odds are on the bad side of ugly against you... At least they were cheap.

M

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 01:08 AM

Troll, Does it have Sea Fever on it. If so, any chance of an Mp3/ rm?

vendilis, that one was so bad that I'd hoped never to be reminded of it!

Jon

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: KitKat
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 05:41 AM

No doubt I'll get pounded for this, but the worst line in ANY song has to be from 'Flow Sweet River Flow', which was: "kissed her once again at Wapping, after that there was no stopping...". I cringe every time I hear it - and almost as bad "these words were composed by Spencer the Rover, who had travelled Great Britain and most parts of Wales"!!!

And they said all the poets were dead.

Kit Kat

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Bernard
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 06:23 AM

Okay, thread creep here...

Don't you just hate it when you buy 'greatest hits' compilations of your favourite '60's bands, only to find in the small print it says 'New recording made with as many members of the original band as possible' - or words to that effect.

The Herman's Hermits one sounds like they could only find the tea boy...

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Grab
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 06:31 AM

English as in the language, or English as in coming from England?

If the former, no competition - William Shatner right down the line. His versions of Mr Tambourine Man and Lucy in the Sky are songs you should hear exactly once - find out how bad they are, and then avoid!

Graham.

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: English Jon
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 06:32 AM

I'd love to hear the watersons doing slade.

If only...

I did once play in a band that did Byker Hill with Nirvana samples...And the guitar solo was played on English Bagpipes...

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Troll
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 08:32 AM

Jon, that was 30 years ago and I never had the album. BTW the tenor was Lauritz Melchior. I think I've spelled it right.

troll

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 08:33 AM

I bought a CD of celtic tunes on dulcimer. Tbere are 23 beautiful songs on it, but about 5 of them have a recitation over the music. I'm so repulsed by it I can hardly get past those songs. AND the cover did not warn me! Can you imagine someone reading a poem over dulcimer music of "The Skye Boat Song" or "Loch Lomond"?

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Maryrrf
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 09:29 AM

Some of those "compilation CD's" are pretty bad, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who occasionally buys them. Often they are on sale for a couple of dollars and many times I have found one or two songs that I really liked - the rest are usually awful. I just upload the songs I like to the computer and when I get enough of them I burn them onto a blank CD - so I kind of "harvest" the good ones. The worst one I've ever gotten (and it cost a whopping $5.00) was called "Irish Rebel Songs" and it featured a guy with one of the worst voices (totally off key during entire songs) I've ever heard singing to keyboard accompaniement with a drum track. I did harvest "The Valley of Knockanure" which I hadn't heard before and is a pretty good song. The rendition is terrible, though. How do these people manage to make CD's that get distributed in chains like Tower Records?

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 09:46 AM

Several of my own early attempts at songwriting would rate, without a doubt. Thankfully, I did not become famous, and they were never recorded. Otherwise they would presently be hanging around my neck like the proverbial albatros!

Be glad that did not happen. Be very glad. :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: GUEST,Sam Pirt
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 01:04 PM

For something to be bad, don't you need somethng to be good?...........thought so, good job really otherwise it would all be bad and then what would that make it?.............thought so, all bad but, For something to be bad, don't you need somethng to be good?...........thought so, good job really otherwise it would all be bad and then what would that make it?.............thought so, all bad but, For something to be bad, don't you need somethng to be good?...........thought so, good job really otherwise it would all be bad and then what would that make it?.............thought so, all bad but, oh I'm confused!!

Cheers (a frustrated and confused), Sam

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: mousethief
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 01:11 PM

Sam, you seem to have the same cut-and-paste disease that Kendall has!

Or was that your point?

Alex

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: LR Mole
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 04:24 PM

Lou Reed, "Metal Machine Music". Terrible folk music.

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: longarm
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 02:01 AM

If you want to include country with this"Drop Kick me Jesus Through The Goalposts of Life' has got to be up there with the best of them(or worst!)

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: GUEST,SeanM, tired and not resetting cookie
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 04:00 AM

How 'bout just weird concepts within folksongs? (driftdrift).

I think my favorite is one the renfaire group I'm with does... We call it "Devon Sailor", about a young man who goes to sea and is waylaid by a girl in Dublin, and then spends the next twenty years trying to get home - TO DEVON. That's what... 40 miles? Even if it's 400 miles, we're all of the opinion that the guy's just not trying very hard.

M

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 05:27 AM

I always feel bad if I insult a folk musician. I insult rock musicians all the time, and don't feel a thing, though. And since someone mentioned Metallica, I'll say "they blow," even though they aren't English folk musicians. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Gervase
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 05:33 AM

Hey, come on - Gazza's version of Fog on the Tyne has got to be up there among the all-time, stinking, horrible crummiest recordings of all time.
Still, anything that wife-beating, grizzling little shit does has got to be scorned.
As for the loss of vinyl taking away the opportunities for creative vandalism, ever try putting a CD in a microwave? Public Health Notice - don't try this at home, kids, or mummy may well use your soft young pelt as a doormat!

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 06:56 AM

Go on Gervase - tell us what happens to the CD. Or is it to the microwave?

And don't beat about the bush with your views on Gazza. Give it us straight...

I agree about the bloke BTW - not sure about the song though. Awful as it is I'm not sure is we can count it as folk. Or even music if it comes to that....

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Gervase
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 08:07 AM

You get some amazing pyrotechnics as the microwaves fry the metallic core - a sort of circular lightning bolt whizzing round and round inside the microwave.
I can't really recommend it - and don't sue me if you try it at home. It's fun, though!

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: GUEST,Willie-O
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 08:21 AM

Anything ever recorded or performed by Staff Sgt Barry McGuire. (Eve of Destruction and all that.) Who I understand is still active on the Christian Music circuit.

Thank God for the Christian Music Circuit. Hope he stays there till the Master calls him home.

A friend of mine learned Whiskey in the Jar from Metallica who learned it from Thin Lizzie...God I wish she'd learned it from a really bad cheap Irish Rebel Songs album.

W-O

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: GUEST,John Hill
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 08:27 AM

The worst thing I've ever heard was Bob Dylan's tradition album. Dreadful just doesn't go far enough.. and that version of Canade-io ... gasp! Did he really think that he was improving on the Nic Jones version. What on earth did he do to his voice on it.. was he pinching his nose together? ...

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: LR Mole
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 11:26 AM

Willie-o are you blending Barry McGuire and S/Sgt. Barry Sadler of "Green Berets" fame? Admittedly "Eve of Destruction" was no bargain (enough, enough, some of us said) but "Ballad of the Green Berets" realy was an abomination("put silver wings on my son's chest...").McGuire was a pretty harmless Los Angeleno and an honorary (Mamaandthe) Papa, and "Eve" was penned by P.F. Sloane. It's Barry McGuire's voice on the New Christy Minstrels' "Green Green (It's Green They Say").

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 04:17 PM

Bob Dylan did 2 traditional albums in the late 80's or early 90's. I'd rate "Good As I Bin To You" about a 7, I'd rate "World Gone Wrong" a 10.

But it all depends on your taste, of course...

His voice was pretty terrible on GAIBTY, all right.

- LH

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: MARINER
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 06:53 PM

I don't know about the worst,but Christy Moore's debut album "Paddy on the Road" was hardly in the top 20000!. Which only goes to prove if you keep at it you may get better(as the actress said to the Bishop). Mariner

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 07:29 PM

KitKat, what's wrong with Wapping? Nice little place on the South bank of the Thames: the song's "Sweet Thames flow softly" by the way. They could have gone up a little backwater to look at her acne at Hackney, or it could have been - "By Westminster no longer a spinster" (now we're back to "after that there was no stopping") They actually went quite a long way on this river trip (geographically speaking of course) Tattie B

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: GUEST,John Hill
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 06:49 AM

Little Hawk... Which direction are your ratings going in. We are taking worst folk here. I assume you mean 10/10 full marks for total crap.

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Louisa
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 07:08 AM

Two words (and sorry if I'm offending anyone here) PAN and PIPES.

Can't stand them. '20 favourite tv theme tunes played on pan pipes' makes me cringe. Neither can I stand these striped poncho-clad bands pretending to be South American in Coventry in February. It just doesn't seem likely somehow.

As for bad lyrics 'The Queen of Hearts still making tarts' from Raglan Road and 'with a hammer in his hand he looked so clever' from The Blacksmith must be some of the worst!

Louisa

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Orac
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 07:21 AM

Raglan Road....The line "The Queen of hearts, still making tarts" was refering to the fact that the object of Patrick Kavanagh's affection worked in a bakery. Out of context it would sound silly, but not so if you know this. His family lived on a farm... hence the line "and I'm not making hay"

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 08:18 AM

Those pan pipe guys get about a bit don't they? I'm always seeing them in Windsor and Bracknell shopping areas. They seem to have the right facial features and I think I spotted a tiple in there as well, but how authentic they are I know not, I couldn't bear to stop and listen.
Perhaps there's a S.American version of Popstars turning them out by the dozen and shipping them over here on the same planes as the Colombian pickpockets who are alleged to come over for the tourist season.
And don't get me started on the amplified autoharpist who plays muzak in Bracknell....
RtS (but I enjoyed the lefthanded Dylanesque busker in an alley near Hereford Cathedral last week,he must have been there for at least four hours.)

Subject: RE: The worst of folk
From: Louisa
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 08:35 AM

I think I knew that about Raglan Road. I still think it sounds silly.

Pan pipe bands are everywhere and they drive me crazy. I don't know whether they're genuine or not either! Have never tried busking in Bracknell (used to live in Reading) but thanks 4 the warning. Pretty much don't like amplified buskers full stop because s'not fair on the non-amplified ones (like me).