Do you like songs where two separate groups of men sing over each other in disparate tones nearly devoid of melody?
Wanna feel my body baby? Wanna touch my body baby? “Macho Man”
Then you’ll love the opening to The Village People’s, “Macho Man”.
I’m kidding. No one loves the opening of “Macho Man”.
Except those who know it’s going to lead to the chorus.
And sure, Huey Lewis’ “Power of Love” starts with the chorus chords, but it then, sadly, reverts to the verse chords.
The verses of both of these songs are nothing but filler needed to take up time until the chorus hits.
But when the chorus hits, you suddenly realize why you vaguely recognized the song and why you continued to listen despite your growing uneasiness that this song was, indeed, very, very bad.
Perfect songs work perfectly throughout.
Every note, every chord change, every single syllable has meaning, and all those meanings intertwine in supportive, or beautifully clashing, ways.
And that’s great.
“I made nine songs before I got to [‘Happy’],” Williams said. “It’s like an entire album of ‘this ain’t it.'”
Williams shared (on) a New York City stage with Fast Company editor-in-chief Stephanie Mehta and Chris Meledandri, CEO of production company Illumination, at the Fast Company Innovation Festival.
But I find it painfully fascinating when a song only kind of works.
What’s even more rare, is when a song works really well in only one spot, and very poorly throughout the rest.
Smokey Robinson, like Pharrell above, speaks to Micky Burns of “Profiles” on how not to make a song that would make this list (around 3:12 in the video below),
Micky: “What makes a good singwriter?”
Smokey: “Never giving up until you have a song”
So what happens when a songwriter gives up on a song?
You get songs on this list.
Songs where, at one time or another, I was driving and tuned into a station half way through a song, not realizing what I was hearing, wondering how something so poorly contrived would make it on a classic hits radio station, and then hearing the chorus and realizing what I had found, or often, re-discovered: a diamond in the middle of a vast roughness, as far as the ear can hear.
#1. “Rock Me, Amadeus” Falco
The opening synth riff of “Rock Me, Amadeus” has ominous, almost Scarface undertones, but that quickly ends when the vocals start.
Whatever they were trying to do with these verses is beyond me. If it’s telling the story of Saliari and Mozart, we already have the movie you should definitely watch during this quarantine if you haven’t, Amadeus (1984) directed by Milos Forman.
And yet, days after I hear 12 seconds of this song I’m singing it’s chorus.
#2. “Danny’s Song” Loggins and Messina
Better known as “Even Though We Ain’t Got Money, I’m So In Love With You Honey”, “Danny’s Song” carries one of the eras most enduring choruses.
So it’s surprising to hear the basically-nothing else this song has to offer this many years later.
You’re kind of just waiting for the “Ain’t Got Money” part the way Homer can’t wait for BTO to get to the “working over time” part of “Taking Care of Business”.
#3. “Why Can’t This Be Love” Van Halen
This may be the epitome of the genre.
Every time I hear it on the radio I sing it for days and everyone hates me.
There’s so much here.
Sammy Hagar sings along with his guitar solo. Not in words, just sounds that you would make if you were imitating a solo on an air guitar.
One of the lyrics is, “only time will tell if we stand the test of time”.
Yea. Time is, often, the only thing that will determine whether something stands the test of time, or not.
And yet I love it. All because of a sticky chorus.
#4. “Power of Love” Huey Lewis & The News
Patrick Bateman and I disagree on many things: whether he was actually killing people, the value of name brands, and that Huey Lewis’ music was too “black-sounding”.
Full disclosure, I am a kid raised on Back to the Future, but the chorus of “Power of Love” gets me every time.
It’s a perfect pop chorus if your definition of pop includes fuzzy-but-polished guitars playing power cords under Huey Lewis vocals, which thankfully for us, was a definition of pop that existed in the 1980s.
#5. “Somebody’s Watching Me” Rockwell feat. Michael Jackson and Jermaine Jackson
The verses of “Somebody’s Watching Me” are a weird mix of awkward rap and awkward spoken word about the mundanities of Rockwell’s 9-to-5 life (which, for younger readers, is an old, old idea that people should be at work from 9am to 5pm, totaling only 40 hours a week including their lunch).
Rockwell spends almost the entire second verse talking about showers.
“I’m afraid to wash my hair…maybe showers remind me of Psycho too much”.
Which is kind of a clever way to slip your shower murder fetish into a Top 40 song.
The only good part of this “Thriller” wannabe is Michael and Jermaine Jackson in the chorus, and I have feeling we wouldn’t be talking about it if it was just Jermaine.
#6. “Macho Man” The Village People
I’m open minded. Too much for some of my friends who think I just “like everything”.
But even I’m surprised at how catchy I still find the chorus of “Macho Man”.
We’ve heard it on a million infomercials, but if you can get it on some good speakers, the chorus pops in all the ways that the verses absolutely do not.
And it takes over a minute to get to that first chorus, something no one would wait for in 2020.
None Of This Means Anything
I don’t know why this is a phenomenon highly concentrated around the late 1970s/all of the 1980s.
Maybe it was a time with a weird mixture of open mindedness and close mindedness.
Maybe only allowing white people to be famous limits the hits your culture can produce.
Maybe cocaine was super cheap.
Maybe songwriters have gotten better over time, or too polished, and can at least pull a half decent verse out of an otherwise chorus-only creation.
All I know is I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for reminding you these songs existed and that you will now be singing them to all the people in your life that love you and do not deserve what you will be putting them through the next couple days.