Musicians Who Can't Stand Their Own Songs

When an artist gets a hit on the pop charts, the track often becomes ubiquitous for years. These hit songs enjoy heavy rotation on the radio, at wedding celebrations, parties, and clubs, and are unashamedly sung at karaoke bars. But why do some tunes become bigger than others? Is it the lyrics, the beat, or the hypnotic combination of both? Whatever the case may be (and there actually have been scientific studies about what makes a song a hit), hot tracks can enjoy a lifespan far longer than anyone would have initially expected (never forget "Macarena"). The artists behind these major hits, however, are sometimes not the biggest fans.  

In fact, many singer/songwriters have confessed to hating their own hit songs, for reasons that range from the highfalutin to utterly relatable. Apparently, the lesson here is: just because something earns you a boatload of cash, that doesn't mean you want to revisit it over and over again for the rest of your life. Let's drop the needle and explore why these musicians can't stand their own songs. 

Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas made up the hugely successful 90's R&B group TLC. They released hit after hit, including, "Waterfalls," "Creep," "Unpretty," and "No Scrubs," reaching No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, tragedy struck in 2002 when Lopes lost control of her SVU while vacationing in Honduras and died from severe head trauma. In the 2007 documentary, "The Last Days of Left Eye," the rapper confessed that while the song "Creep" brought the women instant fame, she did not agree with its lyrics, and "almost wore black tape over [her] mouth" for its music video. 

The lyrics of "Creep" portray the three women as cheaters getting revenge against their significant others, who has have also been unfaithful. Lopes shared in the film that while appreciative of the song's success, the song's meaning was "totally against" everything she believed in. "I wasn't down with the cheating on your man, you know, for me, it's be faithful," she said, adding, "If a girl is going to catch her man cheating ... instead of telling her to cheat back, why don't we tell her to just leave?"

According to People, in a remix to the song and a "reminder of the group's commitment to addressing social issues" in their music, Lopes added a rap verse which warned women about the consequences of unsafe sex, with the lyric, "prenatal HIV is often sleeping in a creeping cradle." 

Katy Perry's 2008 hit "I Kissed a Girl" peaked at the No.1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 when it was released, but 10 years later, Perry told Glamour that she would rework the lyrics of the song about experimentation if it came out in this day and age. At the time of its release, Perry shared with the Toronto Star, "It's a song about curiosity ... It's just really sweet and innocent, and if Scarlett Johansson wanted to kiss me, I'm not sure I would say no."

While the song was and still is extremely catchy, its lyrics faced a fair share of criticism, too. "Perry's lyrics reflect the trivialization of queer female sexuality and the cultural norms which state that female sexuality exists for the pleasure of men," Feministing wrote while breaking down the song.

Reflecting on the lyrics to her hit, she seemed to agree, telling Glamour in 2018, " We've really changed, conversationally, in the past 10 years. We've come a long way. Bisexuality wasn't as talked about back then, or any type of fluidity. If I had to write that song again, I probably would make an edit on it. Lyrically, it has a couple of stereotypes in it. Your mind changes so much in 10 years, and you grow so much. What's true for you can evolve."

James Blunt's 2004 hit song "You're Beautiful" was somehow simultaneously regarded as both incredibly romantic and irritating, with Rolling Stone including it at their No. 7 spot of the "Most Annoying Songs," beating out "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls and "The Thong Song" by Sisqo. While the song sold over three million copies and found its way to the peak position on Billboard's Hot 100, Blunt admitted to Hello!, that just like Rolling Stone, he was no longer a fan of his own song. 

"There was one song that was force-fed down people's throats — "You're Beautiful" — and it became annoying. And then people start to associate the artist with the same word," Blunt confessed, adding, "I think, at the end of the day, I was marketed by a record company to appeal to women during 'Desperate Housewives' commercials and you lose 50 percent of the population in doing so." 

Years after the song was released, Blunt lamented to HuffPost how badly fans of his hit song had misinterpreted its meaning. He said, "Everyone goes, 'Ah, he's so romantic. I want 'You're Beautiful' as my wedding song.' These people are f***** up.'" He added, "It's about a guy who's high as a f****** kite on drugs in the subway stalking someone else's girlfriend when that guy is right in front of him, and he should be locked up or put in prison for being some kind of perv." 

Ella Yelich-O'Connor, better known as Lorde, released her debut album "Pure Heroine" which featured the song "Royals" in 2013. The track was subsequently played on just about every radio station and it was one of those songs that you couldn't get out of your head. A massive success, "Royals" spending nine weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned the artist two Grammys, for "song of the year" and "best pop solo performance." However, in a confession to the Daily Record (via Express) Lorde said she now hates the song — well, her version of it, at least.  

"I listen to people covering the song and putting their own spin on it, and I listen to it in every single form except the original one I put out and I realize that actually, it sounds horrible," Lorde shared, adding, "It sounds like a ringtone from a 2006 Nokia. None of the melodies are cool or good. It's disastrous. Awful ... but for some reason, in the context of the way I released it, it just worked out."

Lorde felt the same way when talking about "Royals" to The Music in 2014, sharing, "I understand why it worked and why it was kind of a hit, I can see those qualities in it, but at the same time there's part of me that's like ... these melodies are just not as good as something I could have written now."

Former Oasis co-frontman Liam Gallagher has a love/hate relationship with the song that made the British rock band a worldwide success. The 1995 hit song "Wonderwall," off of the band's album "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?," found itself at No. 8 on the Billboard Top 100, and since its release, has racked up "one billion streams on Spotify," according to Headliner. Despite the song's ubiquity, Gallagher hates it. While promoting his solo album, "Dig Out Your Soul," he told WENN (via RadioX). "At least there's no "Wonderwall" on there. I can't f***ing stand that f***ing song! Every time I have to sing it I want to gag." He continued, "Problem is, it was a big, big tune for us. You go to America and they're like, 'Are you Mr. Wonderwall?' You want to chin someone."

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Gallagher expressed a somewhat cynical change of heart about performing the song, since he realizes how much people love it. "I love playing ['Wonderwall'] now. The minute you don't, everyone clicks off. People pay f***ing good money, and you should give 'em what you got. The song is bigger than us.'" 

Interestingly enough, Gallagher's co-frontman and notoriously estranged brother, Noel Gallagher, offered his own cynical agreement with Liam's hatred of the track, telling SPIN, "Well, I hate him singing it, too. Liam doesn't sound like he did ten years ago." Yikes. 

Lady Gaga's 2010 song "Telephone" which featured Beyonce, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and when its colorful, nine-minute long music video dropped, it took less than a week to rack up 15 million views, per ABC News. At the time, Lady Gaga told E! (via ABC News) about the meaning behind the music video, which featured the songstress in prison, and later teaming up with Beyonce to poison the food of diner patrons. "What I really wanted to do with this video is take a decidedly pop song, which on the surface has a quite shallow meaning, and turn it into something deeper." 

However, in 2011 chat with Pop Justice, Lady Gaga threw ultimate the shade at the track. "I hate 'Telephone,' the singer revealed, adding, "Is that terrible to say? It's the song I have the most difficult time listening to." She clarified her answer by stating that "getting the production finished was very stressful," adding, "So when I say it's my worst song it has nothing to do with the song, just my emotional connection to it.

That same year, Gaga told Time Out (via The New York Times) that she couldn't even face watching her music video anymore, stating, "All I see in that video is my brain throbbing with ideas and I wish I had edited myself a little bit more." 

The massive success of Nirvana's song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" made the alternative rock band and the late Kurt Cobain a household name. The 1991 hit exploded on the radio and MTV's "120 Minutes" host Dave Kendall recalled that the song "was gutsy and heavy and authentic, and that's what changed the landscape. Nirvana opened people's eyes." However the song's immense popularity became draining for Cobain, so much so that he admitted to Rolling Stone in 1994 that he was even "embarrassed" to play it.

"Everyone has focused on that song so much. The reason it gets a big reaction is people have seen it on MTV a million times. It's been pounded into their brains. But I think there are so many other songs that I've written that are as good, if not better, than that song, like 'Drain You.' That's definitely as good as 'Teen Spirit.' I love the lyrics, and I never get tired of playing it. Maybe if it was as big as 'Teen Spirit,' I wouldn't like it as much," Cobain shared, adding, "I literally want to throw my guitar down and walk away. I can't pretend to have a good time playing it."

Cobain also shared to Rolling Stone that he was "beyond" being "embarrassed" by the track, adding that once it went "mainstream, it was over."