4 Intentionally “Awful” Songs From the 1980s, According to Their Creators

Four 1980s songs were made deliberately badly or as jokes, often in response to pressure from record labels or expectations about the artists’ identities. Their creators’ accounts show how attempted self-sabotage could also become part of a song’s appeal and career.

Quiet Riot’s members tried to ruin their cover of Slade’s “Cum On Feel the Noize”, but it reached No. 5 in the US and helped their album *Metal Health* top the charts. Neil Young wrote “Kinda Fonda Wanda” as a joke and later said he used the album *Everybody’s Rockin’* to dismantle expectations of his sound. Johnny Cash called “The Chicken in Black” “godawful” and described it as a response to Columbia Records, while Robert Smith made The Cure’s “Let’s Go to Bed” deliberately unlike the band’s brooding image.