Music So Cheesy It’s Good

I enjoy Journey's music, but I think most AOR bands of their ilk tend to be cheesy a fair bit, particularly late period Styx ('Mr Roboto') and all of REO Speedwagon's stuff.

The whole 'hair metal' genre is cheese in excelsis- the lyrics, singing, solos and even the song/ album titles and band names themselves are just unintentionally hilarious. I have my doubts whether any of those bands can even play or sing- the solos seem to be a flurry of notes glued together. I can tolerate Twisted Sister's early stuff, because that's heavier than most bands of that genre, and Motley Crue's first two albums- after that, there were too many lumpen power ballads ('Home Sweet Home').

I never put Van Halen in that category, as they were superb musicians that had the 70s hard rock sound of bands like Montrose and Ted Nugent but with more polished execution, and the songwriting was usually top notch. Sure, you can blame them for Poison and Warrant and all that stuff, but VH were in a different league to the bands they influenced.

Guns 'N' Roses are perhaps the metal band that everyone except me thinks are brilliant- I find Axl Rose extremely irritating, and to me the 'Use Your Illusion' albums are the most pointlessly excessive albums I've ever heard in rock, but at least 'Appetite For Destruction' showed they could play and write decent songs, even if I rarely play it...

'Drama' was a decent album imo, but had a high cheese quotient- 'I Am A Camera' for example...'Machine Messiah' was a great track, but that was the highpoint of the album. Still, it's far better than most Yes stuff since that album.

Shack Man wrote: video killed the radio star!

Whoever thought these guys would sound good in Yes deserves to be put on the list of worst ideas ever.

kingofbizzare wrote: I pulled out Love Beach for the second time ever last night (the only other time I listened to it was this past winter when I bought it, before I'd heard anything else by ELP except Works v.1) and I really enjoyed it. It's a decent album if you don't look at the title or cover and don't compare it to any other ELP album. Also, I find The Gray Album (a mixture of Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles White Album) to be very funny, even though it horrible disgraces The Beatles' original album.

I pulled out Love Beach for the second time ever last night (the only other time I listened to it was this past winter when I bought it, before I'd heard anything else by ELP except Works v.1) and I really enjoyed it. It's a decent album if you don't look at the title or cover and don't compare it to any other ELP album.

Also, I find The Gray Album (a mixture of Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles White Album) to be very funny, even though it horrible disgraces The Beatles' original album.

Damen wrote: Europe - The Final Countdown

Europe started as a progresive rock band, that influence is still audible in that album.

great stuff

Can anyone else think of music that they find so hilariously cheesy that they actually occasionally enjoy listening to it, bad as it is?  For me it's Journey.  Awful as they are, I can't listen to "Any Way You Want It" without bursting out laughing.  Did anyone ever take these guys seriously?  Alice Cooper works too, as well as any number of 80's hair metal bands (except Van Halen and Guns N' Roses; I don't like either band but neither is bad enough to descend into self-parody).