is it love, hate, what's it gunna be?

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

When my dad was driving me back to Aberystwyth this Saturday, Mark LaMarr played 'Time Of The Season' by The Zombies on Radio 2 or whatever my dad had on.

Youtube, if wanted

This is a song I very much like, although I don't hear it particularly often. I love the verse, the breathy noise, the sudden swing of the bridge... and I absolutely despise the actual it's the ti-i-ime of the se-e-eason fo-or lo-o-oving bit. Which got me thinking about a question I've been meaning to put to poptimists for some time and hopefully hasn't been done before.

Does anyone else experience this love/hate with songs? Do the hated bits make the rest of the song better or do they override your ability to enjoy it? Equally, can one incredibly good bit of a song make up for the rest of it being rubbish? [eg: the awesome bit in 'Striptease' by Danity Kane where Anonymous Danity sings and I just can't keep my clothes from falling down and we've only got tonight so make it count, thus propelling the song into 'amazing' when it was previously 'a bit crap.'] Do songs with these polarised bits make you frustrated or delight you with their obtuse nature?

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Bad bit in good song: the "wham bam thank you ma'am" in the middle of Suffragette City. URRRRRGH I can't bloody stand it but the rest of the song (esp the chorus) is pretty good, and I won't skip the whole track because of it.

I'm having trouble thinking of a good bit in a bad song, but there must be grillions.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

My favourite example, nicked off Chris Roberts in a long-ago issue of Melody Maker, is that American Pie has the terrific high-school-angst lyric "Well I know that you're in love with him / Cos I saw you dancing in the gym" in the middle of the most utter pish.

But I can't make myself like American Pie because of it really.

I think bad bits have the capability to infect whole otherwise good or OK songs - it takes very little to put me off a record. Bowie is a good shout tho as he has an endless capability for doing something a bit annoying in his songs without completely collapsing them.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah if there's a bit in a song I find genuinely awful I tend to hate the song despite any other redeeming factors. Most of the exceptions are from acts with a really really strong personality, like Kanye West or Fiona Apple - both of whom have lyrics which make me cringe in horror (eg Kanye making up the word "apologin" just so he has a rhyme for "collagen" in the otherwise great 'Can't Tell Me Nothing' AAGH) but they somehow give the impression that their amazing moments are really inextricably linked to their awful moments, that it all comes from exactly the same place, that the latter are in some way dependent on the former.

Also Madge's rap in 'American Life' to thread. "I'm not a Christian and I'm not a Jew" = maybe the nadir of her career to date, but everything else is so batshit that it makes up for it.

I'm sure lots of mostly-bad songs have good moments but if one bad moment is usually enough to put me off, there isn't much hope for these to make it through the filter. Oh hang on, I have an example - I absolutely love the descending piano riff which opens 'Everything In Its Right Place' by Radiohead - obv then T Yorke opens his mouth and it all goes to shit though.

There are plenty of songs with less-good bits, or boring bits, which I love because of moments of amazingness though.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

the QUA DIDDLY QUA QUA bits at the end of stand and deliver used to rly annoy me when i was a kid...

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

I like that bit! But then I am a sucker for people shouting bits in pauses that you can punch the air to, cf. the "HEY!" in 'Pump It Up'.

My Bowie example is the "They sayed we were too young ma friend" bit from Let's Spend The Night Together, urrgh.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I really like Curtains Drawn by Buck 65 until they get to the line "I come and go between your kidneys". Ick.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about Time of the Season - that bit you quote is sung slightly off-key which doesn't help. But that's never made me dislike the song. No, instead it has been ruined for me by Magners Oirish Zoider :(

As to your question... erm, I'll have a think and get back to you.