TOP TEN WORST MUSIC IDEAS EVER

This was stolen wholesale from Spinner

Top Ten Worst Music Ideas Ever

10. U2's Blue Light Special - Q: What's funnier than mocking your American fans for their mindless consumerism?
A: Their refusal to buy your stinkin' products.

U2 announced the crass spectacle known as the PopMart tour -- with a stage boasting a massive McDonald's-like golden arch -- at a Kmart. Said Bono, smug in a black leather jacket and tinted sunglasses, "It costs a fortune to look this trashy." The CD was the band's worst-selling in 14 years, and, despite U2's plan to sell out, many tour stops did not.

9. The Bens - "Hey, check it out: My name is Ben, your name is Ben, and see that
dude over there behind the piano?
B-E-freakin'-N!" And just like that, the talented Mr. Lee, Mr. Kweller and Mr. Folds became indie-rock supergroup the Bens. Unfortunately, as evident by their tepid 2003 EP (mystifyingly not titled 'All About the Benjamins'), the sum wasn't exactly greater than the parts and the Bens disbanded after one tour of Lee's native Australia.

8. That New Car Smell - The checklist for the 2006 Cars reunion tour: two Cars sidemen desperate for a payday? Check. A gaggle of folks who have nothing to do with the hit-making '80s New Wave band, including, for some reason, Todd Rundgren? Check. The two guys who actually wrote and sang everything? Well, considering Ric Ocasek's nonpresence due to his successful career as a producer, and Benjamin Orr gracefully bowing out because he's dead... Balderdash! Who needs 'em? Behold the New Cars -- a smash hit, like New Coke.

7. Frampton Comes Together - While 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' is often cited as rock's finest album, the movie musical it inspired was even more powerful -- it killed the careers of all the musicians it touched. Peter Frampton, fresh off the best-selling live album in history, teamed with the Bee Gees, fresh off the best-selling movie soundtrack in history, to play the band. Throughout the wretched spectacle (see trailer, left), all four committed crimes against manliness, and they paid afterward by not being able to get arrested.

6. NetAid - Whether or not Bono can save the world, the U2 frontman's charity single with Wyclef Jean, 'New Day' -- which, after its 'TRL' debut, never charted again -- wasn't enough to save the train wreck that was NetAid. In 1999, the U.N. and Cisco Systems cashed in on the multi-city festival moneymaker, tapping "hip" artists like the Eurythmics, the Corrs and Bryan Adams to perform as part of a live Internet webcast. The Web site racked in only 2.4 million hits, humiliatingly short of the anticipated 1 billion.

5. Singled Out - If one hit song can make you a rock 'n' roll star, imagine what five can do. So went the thinking of marketing geniuses at Columbia Records in 1967. However, when the label released five singles from San Francisco rockers Moby Grape's self-titled debut on the same day, two things happened: 1. Hippies smelled The Man behind the promotion plan, triggering a backlash, 2. Radio stations didn't know which single to play, and all five tanked. Drug and legal problems followed, and by 1971 Moby Grape were beached.

4. Metallica Cut Their Hair - When Metallica got haircuts in 1996, fans of the ferocious metal gods wondered if they had accidentally clipped off another of their body parts. Lockless for the release of 'Load,' the once rough-edged rockers went all kinds of soft, protesting fan-friendly services like Napster, trying their hand at sobriety and enrolling in therapy to talk about their "feelings." Dudes, that's not rock 'n' roll. That's emo. Next thing you know, they'll be braiding each other's... oh, wait.

3. Beach Boys & Fat Boys - By 1987 the Beach Boys were a bit hit-starved. So in desperation, the former '60s surf-music kings teamed up with one-joke hip-hop novelty trio the Fat Boys for a sung-and-rapped version of the instrumental 'Wipeout.' Be forewarned: The song's video (left) is not a pretty sight, unless you groove on morbid obesity and bald guys in Hawaiian shirts. But the record gods clearly have a warped sense of humor, as a year later the Beach Boys' equally wretched but mercifully rap-free 'Kokomo' made it to No. 1.

2. Whitney Tries Crack - Allegedly. Remember, Whitney Houston told Diane Sawyer in 2002 that the drug is "wack," and that she makes too much money to mess with it. Whatever she's been ingesting, it hasn't helped her career, as the seven-time Grammy-winning singer hasn't released an album in half a decade. She's supposedly working on new material, and we imagine she'll have a new single done as soon as she can think of another word that ends in "ack."

And the number one worst music idea ever...

1. Garth Brooks Is Chris Gaines - It's lonely at the top. And lonely people often concoct imaginary friends. That may explain why, in 1999, country übermegastar Garth Brooks ditched his Stetson and western-cut shirt for a wig from the Reznor Collection and a pasted-on soul patch to transform himself into moody rock god Chris Gaines. A fake 'Behind the Music,' 'SNL' and a "greatest hits" album by "Gaines" followed, yet no one but a few eager psychiatrists gave a whit.

-Jason Rohrblogger
(02/26/07)

And the alternates...

Milli Vanilli: The Movie - First there was 'Ray,' then there was 'Walk the Line' and soon . . . 'Blame It on the Rain'? That's right, Universal Pictures is working on bringing the inspiring epic story of Milli Vanilli to the big screen. We can hear the trailer voice over now: "Two men, five monster hit singles - and it all came crashing down with one skipped tape. Girl, you know it's true." There is no word yet on whether the actors will do their own singing.

Willie Goes Reggae - Is the mere concept of Willie Nelson recording a reggae album, to quote his classic song, crazy? Well, like the Rastafarians, the country music legend has beef with the government, sports a curious hairstyle and worships a particular sacramental herb. So what went wrong? Perhaps the fact that it was Willie Nelson recording a reggae album! And the record was begun in 1995 but didn't appear till 2005, which meant Willie had four, maybe five lucid moments in which to change his mind.

Worst of Both Worlds - Two superstars, one facing child porn charges, plus hot ladies and a whole lotta pyro, for a tour hyped as the 'Best of Both Worlds'... what could go wrong? Well, it started when R. Kelly stopped mid-song at Madison Square Garden, claiming he saw two audience members with guns. Jay-Z's posse responded by spraying Kelly with pepper spray. Jigga then booted Kelly from the tour. After a little name-calling and lawsuit-tossing, you get why nobody ever asked these guys to play Lilith Fair.

The Great Pumpkin Ad - OK, so it's one thing to bare your soul on your MySpace blog. But a full-page ad in Chicago's two biggest newspapers? That's tacky. In 2005 Billy Corgan paid no mind when, on the release day of his solo album 'The Future Embrace,' the bald-headed tunesmith bled his heart dry with plans to "renew and revive" his former band the Smashing Pumpkins. The reunion still hasn't happened, but Corgan did manage to torpedo his solo career - 'Embrace' has yet to sell 75,000 copies.

Mariah Goes Glitter - "In music, she found her dream, her love, herself." Ironic tag line for this flick, considering two things: 1. Mariah Carey checked herself into a hospital during the movie's promotion, amid terrible reviews, citing "emotional and physical exhaustion," and 2. The Grammy-winning pop diva's label paid her $28 million to go away when the 'Glitter' soundtrack tanked. If Carey's incoherent babbling and half-naked TV appearances weren't ominous signs enough, the soundtrack had a release date of September 11, 2001.