Creator Backlash/Music

""I can't fucking stand that fucking song! Every time I have to sing it I want to gag. Problem is, it was a big, big tune for us.""
 * Commonly happens to One-Hit Wonder bands that never came near the success of that one hit with anything else. For example, the band A Flock of Seagulls came to dislike "I Ran" because for their entire three decade existence, nobody cared about any other song they released.
 * This general concept is parodied amusingly in the Barenaked Ladies song "Box Set": "I never thought I'd be regretful/Of all my past success/But some stupid No.1 hit single/Has got me in this mess..."
 * Which is ironic, in hindsight, as that's what "One Week" turned out to be: their stupid No.1 hit single. Not a bad song, but definitely atypical. BNL's reaction? Call their greatest hits collection "Disc One" after another line in "Box Set" ("Disc One, it's where I've begun/It's all my greatest hits"), try to name one of the new songs on that collection "One Weaker" (it didn't stick), mock it on their next album, Everything to Everyone ("Kinda like the last time/With a bunch of really fast rhymes/If we're living in the past, I'm/Soon gone."), and move on. They still play "One Week" at concerts, but they often swap it out for an acoustic version.
 * Devo basically dumped the albums, "Shout", "Total Devo", and "Smooth Noodle Maps" in the crapper, and haven't performed a thing from any of them since reuniting in 1995.
 * Devo's also lambasted their brief foray into CD-ROM gaming, "The Adventures of the Smart Patrol".
 * Comments on the ill-fated Devo 2.0 project with Disney have been more about how absurd it was, and that being the reason why they did it.
 * Not sure if it's backlash against the song itself or just the circumstances, but Madonna has said that if she knew she'd be called the "Material Girl" for almost thirty years, she would have never recorded the song.
 * Radiohead grew to hate their first hit song "Creep" because people would show up to their concerts exclusively to hear it, acting indignant until they play it and leaving immediately afterwards. They continued to play it reluctantly, usually stating how they have no respect for the people that want to hear it right before. They eventually cut the song from their playlist altogether for a long period of time, and wrote "My Iron Lung" about it (sample lyrics: "This/This is our new song/Just like the last one/A total waste of time/My iron lung")
 * Ed O'Brien has said the distinctive guitar crunch in "Creep" resulted from guitarist Jonny Greenwood intentionally trying to ruin the even-then despised song during recording. The band felt it improved the song so they kept it in.
 * Thom Yorke also dislikes another early hit, "High and Dry", described as "It's not bad...it's very bad." Radiohead hasn't played it for a decade.
 * While they weren't particularly hits, the band also quickly disowned the single "Pop Is Dead" and the Pablo Honey album track "Prove Yourself" - they consider the former a poorly written song, and just quickly stopped playing the latter live because they were unsettled by the audience singing along to the repeated line "I'm better off dead".
 * One of the reasons that a Led Zeppelin reunion took so long to fully materialise is because Robert Plant came to utterly abhor "Stairway to Heaven", calling it "that bloody wedding song."
 * Jimmy Page, though, has shown that he loves it.
 * Conversely, Jimmy Page has derided "Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)" as filler. The song reportedly offended his girlfriend.
 * The Jimi Hendrix Experience eventually grew to hate their cover of "Hey Joe". Famously, during a televised performance on British talk show It's Lulu, Hendrix cut the song short, announced "We'd like to stop playing this rubbish," and launched into an impromptu cover of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love".
 * Alain Jourgenson, leader of the pioneer industrial rock band Ministry, repeatedly voices his complete disgust for their early synth-pop years, especially their debut album With Sympathy. Jourgenson claimed that they recorded "an abortion" due to their record label demanding that they record a synth-pop album. Jourgenson allegedly destroys any copy of the album that he can find.
 * He also hated the song "Stigmata", which was one of the band's first popular songs. He got over his dislike for the song after a while, but it was very rarely played live during the band's career.
 * Neil Young is unwilling to rerelease his Time Fades Away live album due to bad memories of the preceding tour and Young's decision to have the album processed on the unreliable "Compumix," an early computerized mixer (which a worker referred to as "the Compufuck"), hindering any hopes of remastering the album. Time Fades Away is currently the only Neil Young album of completely original material that is not reissued on CD.
 * Kurt Cobain often mentioned in interviews that he thought "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was one of the worst songs he wrote and wondered why even one of what he considered his better songs (like "Drain You" which was played at every Nirvana concert from its writing until the day he died) wasn't a hit like "Teen Spirit".
 * Cobain also hated the polished sound of Nevermind.
 * Bobby McFerrin has completely disowned "Don't Worry, Be Happy" because of Misaimed Fandom: he intended it as satire, but most fans of the song took it at face value. When he signed up with a new record contract, he went through great trouble in negotiation to insure that he never, ever, ever, ever has to play that song ever again.
 * Sting started to hate how "Every Breath You Take" was being interpreted as a romantic song. He refused to play it after a certain point except at one concert, where he changed half the lyrics.
 * The Beastie Boys started refusing to play "Fight For Your Right" at concerts because the very crowd that they were criticizing with the song adopted it as their anthem.
 * They have also apologized for that entire album (Licensed to Ill) due its misogynistic, homophobic, and generally irresponsible lyrics. Their work has become a bit more classy since then. This has led to other protests about Completely Missing the Point that their early lyrics were satirical and exaggerated, and they're not fun anymore.
 * Cage recorded a violent, drug-oriented album called Movies for the Blind. Though considered a underground Hip Hop Cult Classic by fans and critics, he dismissed it as being too random and fragmented, and said that it glorified drugs.
 * Billy Joel got sick of "Piano Man" for a time and refused to sing it in concert. He got over it, though the audience tends to save him the trouble of singing it when he plays it nowadays. And reportedly, he's not any too fond of "Just the Way You Are," either, because it's a love song to someone he ended up divorcing. Joel also retired "Uptown Girl" (another love song to an ex-wife) from his stage show for a long time, but he eventually reintroduced it.
 * Five Iron Frenzy came to hate "Combat Chuck" and completely stopped playing it at shows. Eventually, on their farewell tour they reinstated it as part of the "Medley of Power Ballads and Bad Taste".
 * And they even expressed their hatred here, replacing the last part of the lyrics in the medley with "This song sucks/Put it back, Put it back."
 * Stephen Sondheim has often expressed disdain for his West Side Story lyrics, especially "I Feel Pretty". In Time magazine, he commented to the effect that the song in question sounded more like Cole Porter than anything an urban Latina would be likely to sing.
 * Holst had this kind of feeling towards The Planets because it overshadowed his other compositions.
 * He even refused to write a piece for Pluto after it was discovered. He ended up being vindicated in that choice since Pluto is no longer considered a planet.
 * Similarly, according to The Other Wiki, Grieg referred to his famous In the Hall of the Mountain King as an "infernal thing reek[ing] of cow-pies and provincialism." He also had an Old Shame in the form of a symphony in C minor.
 * Brazilian band Los Hermanos made success with a catchy pop-rock song named "Anna Julia", and the band eventually grew a hatred for this song. Amazingly, the closest circle of fandom also hates it, probably because it's "too commercial". Apparently, music is Serious Business, too.
 * Also from Brazil, Herbert Vianna of Os Paralamas do Sucesso doesn't like very much their first album, Cinema Mudo, which he considers full of Executive Meddling.
 * One of the reasons Tom Lehrer had such a short "active" musical career was that he quickly learned he was bored stiff by the idea of performing the same set of songs over and over and over. Some of his performances only happened because he wanted to visit the place were they were located. (Australia being a major example.)
 * Noel Gallagher of Oasis describes their third album, Be Here Now, as "the sound of a bunch of guys on coke in the studio not giving a fuck." He also started to dislike "Roll With It", calling it "appalling".
 * This is why "Roll With It" doesn't appear on the band's best of album despite being (nearly) their first No.1 single. There are also no songs from Be Here Now although there were a few that could reasonably have been included (most notably "Don't Go Away", which remains one of the band's biggest hits in the US and is reasonably popular back home; Noel considered another, "D'You Know What I Mean?", but gave up since "its length upset the flow of the record"). Liam, incidentally, does like Be Here Now, in a rare case of Broken Base extending to the actual creators.
 * Noel and Liam Gallagher not agreeing on something? Shocking.
 * Liam Gallagher's opinion on "Wonderwall":

"I'created a monster cuz no body wants to see Marshall no more They want Shady I'm chopped liver"
 * Several Beatles have tried to disown The Beatles or their work at some point in their solo careers.
 * John Lennon says "I don't believe in Beatles" at the climax of "God." This sentiment is also expressed in some of his writings: "they picked on Yoko, so..."
 * Early on, Paul McCartney was so desperate to distance himself from The Beatles that his 1973 college tour included no Beatles material—at a time when he didn't have much solo material. Possible subversion later—in the '80s, Paul was presumed to be trying to distance himself from the Beatles when he was also heavily covering his part of their work.
 * George Harrison said that his biggest break was getting into the Beatles, and his second biggest break was getting out of the Beatles.
 * John, George and Ringo have all gone on record as utterly detesting "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," partially because Paul insisted on recording it and re-recording it so many times, and partially because John and George considered it "granny music" to start with. Ringo, on the other hand, is on record as stating that he loathes the song because of the excessive-to-the-point-of-creepy dissonance between the song and its lyrics—what seems like a cute pop ditty is actually a celebration of a serial killer of the Ted Bundy type.
 * Also worth noting is John's Parody of Paul's biggest hit "Yesterday": "Yesterday / I'm not half the man I used to be / That's because I'm an amputee..." Supposedly John never cared for the song and didn't particularly like having his name on it.
 * Paul and their producer George Martin did originally want to release it as a solo song, but Executive Meddling proved otherwise.
 * Jane Asher never wants to talk about her relationship with McCartney anymore. So don't ask her.
 * Elton John's 2002 hit "This Train Don't Stop Here Anymore" is basically one long Take That at his entire career, with special emphasis on the syrupy ballads. "Reality's just black and white/Those sentimental things I'd write/Never meant that much to me..."
 * More of an acknowledgement of his weariness of love, perhaps fictionally portrayed. Anyway, Bernie Taupin wrote those lyrics.
 * True, but the preceding line makes the point much more explicit: "All those things I've said in songs/all that purple prose you bought from me..."
 * The singer seems (in the song) to be more "dried up and sick to death of love" than love songs.
 * Elton has expressed displeasure of his 1986 album, Leather Jackets, claiming it was "one bag of coke after another" and that he was "not a well budgie" when he recorded it. Taupin has voiced displeasure of 1997's The Big Picture due to its slick production values. Elton has also described 1973's Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player as a disposable "bubblegum album" he recorded under pressure while sick with glandular fever and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
 * A much older example: Frederic Chopin never wanted Fantaisie-Impromptu to be published because of its similarities to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and asked his friend Julian Fontana to burn it (the Impromptu, not the Sonata). However, after Chopin's death Julian published it anyway and since then it's become one of Chopin's most well-known melodies. One can only wonder what Chopin would be thinking from beyond the grave...
 * Well, he might be thinking, "What the hell is wrong with Japan!?"
 * Beethoven himself is said to have been exasperated with the success of Moonlight Sonata, saying "Surely I've written better things".
 * Novelty songs, when they are recorded by artists who primarily do serious work, almost invariably become a major thorn in the side of that artist. Nobody likes seeing the serious compositions they worked so hard to bring to life ignored in favor of some silly thing they did as a joke.
 * Chris Rice has expressed great disdain for his frequently requested "Cartoon Song".
 * Scooby-Dooby-Doojah.
 * Ask David Bowie what he thinks of "The Laughing Gnome"... if you're tired of life.
 * Steve Taylor, another Christian artist, didn't dislike his song "Lifeboat" until his audience kept screaming for it every night of that album's tour. And of course, since the video featured Steve wearing drag to play the teacher, that was expected of him to do on stage as well, which Steve of course greatly enjoyed.
 * King Crimson refuse to play anything from their first few albums live for fear of "...becoming old dinosaurs." Aside from official pronouncements, the period between Islands (4th album) and Lark’s Tongues in Aspic (5th album) marked the permanent departure of lyricist Peter Sinfield, along with every other band member (and writer) save Robert Fripp himself, and the adoption of a completely new musical style, with an entirely different instrumental line-up. It would be reasonable to infer that royalty considerations, difficulty in adapting the music for the new lineup and desire not to revisit an era that was so carefully abandoned have all played a part.
 * This has not stopped Fripp in recent years from overseeing extensive remasters of the early albums. He'd probably deny that money was the prime consideration...
 * Frank Loesser was rather annoyed about "Thumbelina" being one of the most popular songs he'd written.
 * In similar fashion, Eric Boswell (1921-2009) was rather annoyed about nativity hit "Little Donkey" - he’d composed many other songs, many of them witty, satirical, irreverent and rooted in his native Northern England. Plus, people kept assuming that he must have been old when he wrote it in 1959, and hence must have died in the mean time. He did admit liking the way that the royalties covered all his bills, though.
 * Bloodrock turned away from hard rock on their last two albums (partially due to their original lead singer being replaced by a born-again Christian). During live performances, the band often refused to play their earlier songs with morbid or cynical themes such as "Whiskey Vengeance" and "D.O.A." (their only actual hit).
 * "American Pie" made Don McLean a success and then just as quickly killed his career. McLean got so annoyed that the one song was all anyone ever wanted to hear from him that he began refusing to play it in concert; naturally, attendance dwindled to almost non-existent levels. McLean was also rather irritated at constantly being asked to interpret the song's admittedly obscure lyrics.
 * "It means I never have to work again" is apparently his favourite response to that question.
 * REM is trying their best to pretend that "Shiny Happy People" does not exist. The song was not included on the group's best-of despite being one of their highest charting hits, and the band never plays the song in concert. Michael Stipe has openly admitted that he hates the song and refuses to discuss it in interviews.
 * "Shiny Happy People" has since finally appeared on an official R.E.M. compilation, albiet their farewell release before retiring, "Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011", though the song could be the 'part garbage' part.
 * This one and "The One I Love" are prime examples of fans not quite realizing that they're supposed to be satire.
 * Anton Bruckner composed a symphony that he was so disillusioned with that he didn't see fit to assign it a number, and simply fled "gilt nicht" ("doesn't count") on the score. It was later known as the Symphony No. 0.
 * Paul McCartney seems to have disowned "Spies Like Us", his Top Ten recording from the film of the same name. The song has not appeared on any of the numerous best-ofs Paul has released. To date, the song's only appearance on a McCartney album of any sort is the CD reissue of Press to Play, one of his rarest and least sought-for albums.
 * This could simply be bad timing. McCartney has yet to release a compilation that includes material past 1984, and "Spies Like Us" came out in 1985.
 * The song also does not appear on the film's soundtrack album (though to be fair, Varese Sarabande could hardly have been expected to be able to license one of the most famous artists on the planet back in 1985 - or indeed today, Sting and Bryan Adams' presence on the Racing Stripes album notwithstanding).
 * Vanessa Carlton was sick of only being known for the traveling piano in her music video for "A Thousand Miles", so she had the video for "Nolita Fairytale" start with the piano getting destroyed by a passing taxi.
 * While it wasn't commercially successful at first, Weezer's Pinkerton gradually developed a large cult following and is still the favorite album of many of their fans. However, after the band returned from a lengthy hiatus in 2001, Rivers Cuomo took to disowning it due to its Creator Breakdown fueled lyrical content and initial commercial failure, refusing to perform any of the material live, and comparing it to "getting really drunk at a party and spilling your guts in front of everyone and feeling incredibly great and cathartic about it, and then waking up the next morning and realizing what a complete fool you made of yourself". In more recent interviews he seems to have more positive things to say about it though, and a song or two from it will still make setlists.
 * Besides the movie example already mentioned, KISS tries to forget the existence of the Concept Album Music from "The Elder". One of the songs was included in the MTV Unplugged by request of the fans. The band tried playing some of the others in recent years... only to discover they had long forgotten the lyrics.
 * Leslie Fish's Star Trek filk "Banned From Argo", about a rowdy Enterprise shore leave, proved very popular over the years both with its original lyrics and with the many, many rewrites others have done to the same tune. At this point, Leslie absolutely will not play it, nor will she abide others playing it or any of the rewrites. On her website, she states that this is her song that she's the least proud of.
 * Petula Clark was not the biggest fan of one of her big American hits, "My Love." She does perform it from time to time at concerts, though, usually as part of a medley of '60s hits or in a different style.
 * And be careful in mentioning "Boom Bang-A-Bang" or "I'm A Tiger" to Lulu.
 * Camille Saint-Saëns thought that his Carnival of the Animals would be so popular that it would make him a one hit wonder and thus ruin his standing as a serious classical musician. he only allowed one movement (The Swan) to be published in his lifetime. He consented for it to be published after his death, and not only did it prove extremely popular, but also gained widespread critical praise for its genius. Today, Saint-Saëns is a classical one hit wonder, known for virtually nothing else (unless you are a classical music aficionado). You probably know at least some of it, even if you think you don't: Many parts of it, particularly The Aquarium movement are now Standard Snippets.
 * Not quite true; in 1977 he had a #3 hit in Britain with the organ theme from the final movement of his 3rd Symphony. It was disguised as If I Had Words by Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley. The song appears, somewhat acoustically modified, over the credits of the film Babe giving it a huge international audience.
 * Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother got to number 1 in the UK album charts and was taken on tour with a full brass section. But, as the 1970s progressed, the band went off the title piece entirely. Their public statements on it (see the Other Wiki) indicate that they consider it badly done, meaningless and pretentious. They have also stated that during that period (between the departure of Syd Barrett and the completion of Meddle) they had no idea of what they were doing or where they were going. Roger Waters has stated that he wouldn't perform it again even for a million pounds. However, it is still quite popular with the fans. David Gilmour's attitude towards the suite has since warmed, and in 2008 he guested on a performance of the suite by a Pink Floyd tribute band, the suite's co-songwriter Ron Geesin and an orchestra.
 * Pink Floyd have also suffered varying levels of this with "Money", the hit single from The Dark Side of the Moon, Roger Waters being most affected. It wasn't for any of the usual reasons, more that it was symptomatic of a major change in the relationship with the fans. Prior to Dark Side of the Moon, the audience would keep quiet during the quiet pieces and applaud at the end. After the huge success of the album, their vastly increased audiences were a lot louder and rowdier, and spent a lot of time shouting requests to play "Money". (This ultimately led to the incident on the Animals tour when Roger Waters spat on a particularly loud and rowdy fan. And the fan liked it.)
 * David Gilmour hated nearly all of 1983's The Final Cut, partly because some of the tracks on that album were rejected songs from The Wall and party because Roger had all but taken over at that point. He liked several of them though, and included 'Fletcher Memorial Home' on their self-picked greatest hits double-album.
 * Air have expressed displeasure with "Pocket Symphony", blaming their work on Charlotte Gainsbourg's debut for taking up all of their creative effort.
 * A-ha dislikes what is possibly their most well-known song, "Take On Me." Magne Furuholmen stated, "We've done better songs. It's great to be recognized, shame it's 'Take On Me.'"
 * Simple Minds never liked "Don't You Forget About Me." They dislike it even more now. In fact in the original recording Jim Kerr intentionally slurred his vocal in parts because he hated some of the lyrics ("I'll be around, dancin' you know it baby" for instance).
 * In recent years Jim has come to appreciate the song, mainly because he loves the crowd reaction it gets and because he has since rerecorded the song to his liking (For instance the Special Mix by Hu-Mate which appears on Live And Rare).
 * While 853-5937 was one of Squeeze's biggest U.S. hits, both Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook (the band's only constant members and songwriters) hated the song and prevented it from being on any compilations.
 * Jeff Lynne, leader of Electric Light Orchestra, came to detest the music he wrote for the movie Xanadu, due to how the music was used. He seems to have lightened up about it, though, as he covered Xanadu's theme for the compilation album Flashback.
 * Sir Mix a Lot, who wrote Baby Got Back, has admitted to being incredibly annoyed by the song, as he has re-written it at least 3 times for different shows and has virtually eclipsed the rest of his career.
 * Iron Maiden hasn't played any song from No Prayer for the Dying since Bruce Dickinson's departure in 1993, other than "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter" (and this one hasn't appeared since 2003!). Likewise, the only track from Fear of the Dark that survived in setlists was the title track (Bruce's not-very-popular replacement sung another from that album during his tenure).
 * On the subject of the 'not-very popular replacement' (Blaze Bayley), you're unlikely to hear many songs from his albums The X Factor or Virtual XI.
 * Steve Harris also despises the first two albums that the band released. They still play songs from them, but that's not to say they won't call it the "Jurassic period" or something else along those lines.
 * Meat Loaf, for over 20 years, refused to perform the song "For Crying Out Loud", even when taking audience requests. In 2003 he sang it on his Live from Melbourne album, introducing it by saying he hadn't wanted to perform it for years, his current band hadn't practiced it, and he was out of practice with it. His reasoning has never been mentioned in any interviews. Also, he refuses to sing "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" if it's requested, but does sing it when he feels like it.
 * Singer-songwriter Mandy Moore regrets her teenage Idol Singer years, and has said that she will provide refunds to anyone who bought her first two albums. Her music nowadays is indie folk-pop.
 * Apparently she actually did refund someone's money for the album So Real when they called her bluff on a radio show.
 * Kelly Clarkson has been complaining about the studio including the song "Already Gone" on her album All I Ever Wanted, because the final cut ended up sounding like "Halo" by Beyonce. Both songs were written by the same songwriter (Ryan Tedder) and 'have the same backing track.
 * David Johansen, lead singer for seminal proto-punk band New York Dolls, recorded the highly popular pop tune "Hot Hot Hot", under the pseudonym "Buster Poindexter". He refers to the song as "the bane of my life"; because of the way that it has so totally overshadowed all the work he has done before and since, eclipsing an otherwise substantial musical career.
 * Latin singer Ricky Martin hates "Livin' La Vida Loca." Whenever he performs it now, he does it in a different style.
 * Gareth Campesinos!, singer and songwriter for Los Campesinos! has stated that he despises "We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives" and "You! Me! Dancing!" even though they are respectively the band's biggest (and so far only) hits.
 * He still enjoys performing "You! Me! Dancing!", and especially since he's begun singing the opening verse of Pavement's "Box Elder" during the build up, but the band hasn't played "We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives" in years.
 * God help you if you happen to say the word "Misfits" within earshot of Glenn Danzig. There is a very real possibility of being physically assaulted.
 * Until 2004 that is; these days he sometimes plays mini-Misfits sets with Doyle, unsuccessfully tried to reform the band with Jerry Only, and even let the 90s version of the band with Michale Graves open for his own band.
 * "Dance with the Devil" by Cozy Powell. "I only cut "Dance with the Devil" for a laugh, but then it escalated until I felt I was losing credibility..." It led to him quitting music and going into motor racing full time for a few months.
 * Hawkwind (and particularly its writer, vocalist Bob Calvert) never had a problem with their hit single Silver Machine, but a fair bit of ongoing tension arose over Ian "Lemmy" Kilminster (bass, backing vocal) taking over the lead vocal on account of him having the best voice for that particular song.
 * Former Hot Hot Heat member Dustin Hawthorne once said of the band's biggest hit, Middle of Nowhere, "I hate ('Middle of Nowhere') and I wish it was never written. I can't deny that it definitely did something good for our career, for sure. But, to me, it's adult contemporary. And it's kind of funny to me, because I grew up playing punk and here I am playing this jackass-sounding song."
 * The Lemonheads' cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs Robinson": It was a single due to Executive Meddling and became one of their biggest hits, but even at the time it came out they refused to play it live. They've since done live performances of the entire It's A Shame About Ray album and left it off (though it was technically tacked onto that album as a bonus track to begin with).
 * Ska band Madness really don't like their 6th album "Mad Not Mad", with advertisements for their upcoming twentieth anniversary editions of their old albums implying that they're not going to re-release it, instead deciding to re-release the album "The Madness" which only four out of the seven original members actually contributed too.
 * Though in the end, "Mad Not Mad" was indeed included in the reissue program.
 * They also have a dislike for their single "Sorry" and consider it a mistake.
 * Even though it's one of their biggest hits and the song that got them rolling in the US, Depeche Mode hasn't played "People Are People" live since 1988 because lead songwriter Martin Gore thinks the lyrics are too straightforward.
 * Also, they've pretty much renounced "It's Called a Heart" and "What's Your Name?" as the worst songs they ever recorded.
 * Not to mention their Narm-tacular videos from 1982 ("The Meaning of Love", "See You", "Leave in Silence"), which they refuse to include on video releases. Interestingly, they are available on the band's website.
 * Matthew Good regrets ever writing "Rico". It's often requested at shows, and his animosity towards it is well known, to the point where one of the Matthew Good fan sites sells a shirt with 'RICO' inside the red 'no' symbol. Matt posted a picture of himself wearing the shirt on his Flickr account.
 * One of Oingo Boingo's best-known songs, "Weird Science", (the theme song of the film and TV series of the same name) was actually despised by the band, who rarely (if ever) performed the song live. Supposedly, the song as it appears on the album was an unfinished version; the band was still working on a final composition when record executives misinterpreted their latest take as the official recording.
 * Boy George has shown irritation at the Culture Club song "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?". With a few exceptions aside, he refuses to perform the song live on his solo shows.
 * Was this before or after his legal problems made this song a Hilarious in Hindsight moment for him?
 * Eminem became so sick of "My Name Is" that after a while, he would only play snippets of it at his concerts - often stopping the song to declare that he was sick of it.
 * That probably explains the following lyrics

""That record was just put together from bits and pieces; I really don't like that record. It wasn't how it's meant to be done with us.""
 * In "Not Afraid", the first single from his Recovery album has the lyrics "Let's be honest, that last Relapse CD was "ehhhh" / Perhaps I ran them accents into the ground".
 * Also on Recovery, in "Talkin' 2 Myself", he states that "Those last two albums didn't count / Encore I was on drugs, Relapse I was flushing them out".
 * British band Killing Joke started with a hard-edged sound in the late 70s, but incorporated synthpop and dance music elements through the 80s. This culminated with synthesizer-driven albums "Brighter than 1000 Suns" in 1986, and 1988's Outside the Gate (a highly controversial release, often regarded by fans as a solo project by singer/keyboardist Jaz Coleman). After some down time, the band reformed with a harder than ever before industrial sound. Still performing today, they don't speak of their 1986 or 1988 releases and have reportedly never since performed any of the material from those two albums.
 * Is there a Creator Backlash sub-trope for rock bands who were mesmerized in a field of synthesizer poppies, only to later distance themselves somehow from it? Bands such as Killing Joke, Rush, Ministry or Neil Young?
 * Jo O'Meara, formerly of the pop group S Club 7, went through a stage of wanting to be disassociated with the band and its squeaky-clean image, referring to their music as "total crap." Since then, however, she's reunited with former bandmates Bradley and Paul to perform the group's music on tour.
 * Helloween refuse to play any songs from the albums Pink Bubbles Go Ape and Chameleon, both of which were released after Kai Hansen left the band, but before Michael Weikath got fed up with Michael Kiske and kicked him out of the band. Fortunately, the fans don't want them to play any songs from these albums.
 * Speaking of Kiske, he openly hates metal (despite being one of the most iconic voices of Power Metal) and only produces light acoustic music these days. He will, however, appear as a guest on some power metal albums, particularly for Gamma Ray and Avantasia.
 * Alice Cooper never performs any of the songs off his 1982 album Zipper Catches Skin or 1983 album Dada live. Both albums were recorded during a period of particularly heavy alcohol abuse on his part and he allegedly has no memory of making them. It's a shame as there are a couple of gems buried in there.
 * Gerard Way, the frontman of My Chemical Romance has expressed disdain for their first album, and as such, songs from it are rarely played live. He has also stated that he doesn't want to write songs like that anymore because he doesn't want his daughter to perceive him as a "whiny victim."
 * Weird Al Yankovic doesn't like his debut album, mainly because it was rushed and recorded in a very short time. He once said he wishes he could go back and re-record it.
 * He also doesn't have strong feelings for "Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch", which was pushed onto him by execs who demanded he do a Cyndi Lauper parody.
 * Sergei Rachmaninoff reportedly hated his Prelude in C sharp minor. Harpo Marx has a story in his autobiography about moving into the apartment next door to Rachmaninoff, being driven crazy by his constant piano practice, and having the management be too much in awe of Rachmaninoff to do anything about it. His solution? Constantly repeat the first four notes of the Prelude in C sharp minor on his harp at maximum volume, and wait for Rachmaninoff to ask for a different apartment because he can't stand to live next to "that mad harpist".
 * In an interview, Rachmaninoff once said that his favorite performance of the C-sharp minor prelude was Duke Ellington's. Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you realize.... Duke Ellington never played the C-sharp minor prelude.
 * Tchaikovsky reportedly hated The Nutcracker, which is quite possibly his best known composition.
 * After Lifehouse had a hit with "Hanging by a Moment", it was common at that time for the members of the band to express their anger in interviews about how everyone would leave right after they played that song. Since then, they've had a number of other hits so it didn't happen much longer, but the song is now always near the end of their sets.
 * Charlie Simpson, leader of the British post-hardcore band Fightstar, would like to pretend he was never a member of the boy band Busted. He did make an exception in 2010 to vigorously deny that he would be joining his ex-bandmates for a forthcoming reunion.
 * Outside of some Beethoven covers, Vanilla Fudge isn't too fond of their experimental second album, The Beat Goes On, a project force fed by producer George "Shadow" Morton. Bassist Tim Bogert has even gone so far as calling it "the album that killed the band".
 * Tool almost never performs the song "Ticks & Leeches" live. There's a good reason for this, however: It's probably the only song by the band that is almost all screaming, and singer Maynard James Keenan blew his voice out while recording the song.
 * Anthony Kiedis, lead vocalist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers doesn't like "The Greeting Song" very much - it only exists because Rick Rubin told him to write a song about girls and cars.
 * Elvis Presley had a well-documented dislike for many of the songs he was required to record during his movie contract (and for most of the films, too). The book "Elvis: The Illustrated Record" quotes him as once saying during a recording session "What can you do with s*it like this?" and refusing an audience request to perform "Viva Las Vegas" during one of his Vegas concerts. Indeed, except for a few exceptions, most notably songs from Blue Hawaii such as "Can't Help Falling in Love" and several songs from his 1950s-era films, Presley generally refused to perform movie songs during his live concerts. He also tended to shuffle off most of his 1950s hits either in medley form or in very truncated, almost joking fashion ("Hound Dog" being the prime example), though this is less likely due to distaste for them as it was a desire to focus on more current music.
 * The members of Autopsy had mixed success with the band, so they reformed into Hardcore Punk band Abcess, just as their early material was being Vindicated by History. They were less than pleased when all people wanted to talk to them about was the band they just left, causing them to take shots at their old material.
 * Timo Tolkki expressed in an interview his dislike towards the self-titled album for Stratovarius.

"If I had taken this career thing seriously, I would have thought of something else, as it’s the worst fucking band name in the world."
 * David Bowie doesn't think well of 1984's Tonight and especially 1987's Never Let Me Down, which followed in the stylistic footsteps of Let's Dance, his biggest-selling album. Never Let Me Down's supporting Glass Spider Tour turned out to be the only time he performed songs from it live. "Loving the Alien" (Tonight) and "Time Will Crawl" (Never Let Me Down) are apparent exceptions, since the former and a rerecording of the latter made his compilation iSelect; the former also appeared in a stripped-down arrangement on the Reality Tour.
 * Although it was released on an EP, the lead track of which was 'Bad Days', Space's record company sent CDs of their cover of 'We Gotta Get Out Of This Place' to radio stations, and it ended up being the song that featured in a car advert, got played on the radio and on TV, and had a video made for it. The band were not pleased and felt that the record company had manipulated them. 'Dark Clouds' also incurred Creator Backlash, probably because it came out around the time Jamie Murphy was having a nervous breakdown and Tommy Scott had lost his voice, plus Tommy sees it as being 'too wacky'. Before they split up, they played a garage rock version of 'Dark Clouds' at a couple of their gigs.
 * Blur, particularly Graham Coxon, are not particularly keen on The Great Escape, the album which served as a rival piece to Oasis' (What's The Story) Morning Glory. Damon Albarn said it was 'messy' and one of what he considered to be the only bad albums Blur had done, and 'Country House' became an embarrassment. It probably doesn't help that the album is associated with the Oasis rivalry and the burgeoning 'lad' culture of the time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they decided to go in a more lo-fi direction for the follow-up, Blur. (That being said, they did play some songs from it at their more recent comeback gigs, including "Country House".)
 * Lauryn Hill doesn't particularly like her songs anymore, especially the ones from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. During performances she often perfoms unrecognizable remixes that are either sped up too much, too loud, or both.
 * Given his taste for the weird, it's not surprising that Captain Beefheart disowned his 1974 albums Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans And Moonbeams, his two least experimental albums. While he was no stranger to conventional compositions, he felt that the resulting albums were too conventional.
 * Jason Martin of Starflyer 59 can't stand to listen to his first album, Silver, anymore.
 * Christina Aguilera has all but forgotten her Bionic album (2010). No tour, two singles....
 * Despite being a fan favorite, "Runaway" has been called by the band Linkin Park as "their worst song" and the band has even gone so far as to retire the song from their concert sets. Frontman and co-lead singer Chester Bennington has shown disdain for the song "One Step Closer" as well.
 * The Rolling Stones with 1967's Between The Buttons (UK version). One interview has Mick Jagger refer to the album as "rubbish", with the exception of "Backstreet Girl".
 * Bob Seger refuses to re-release a lot of his early work, which is a pity because the studio version of "Turn the Page" off of Back in '72 is really good.
 * Fountains of Wayne, the band behind the hit single "Stacy's Mom", have expressed dislike for the song due to the fact that out of all their songs in all of their albums, the one tongue in cheek song they ever did makes it big. In order to deter attention away from the song, they've stopped, or rarely ever play it live. The fandom tends to agree with them on this notion, arguing that if it weren't for Stacy's Mom, the band would have made it huge by this point.
 * The Foo Fighters have resented their fourth album, One by One, which due to its Troubled Production they consider rushed and mostly subpar. Also, Dave Grohl on the band name:


 * Lita Roza had a UK number one hit in 1953 with "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window", but her Creator Backlash began before she'd even recorded it - she hated the song so much that she would only, and very reluctantly, agree to do one take, and then refused to sing it ever again.
 * Lou Reed was somewhat hesitant to play "Heroin" with the Velvet Underground after some fans told him they'd shot up to the song.
 * The members of Christian Rock band Audio Adrenaline, only two or three albums into their career, were rather quick to distance themselves from their first album, going so far as to say they wished they could burn all existing copies of it. They would also collectively groan whenever someone brought up their song "Jesus & the California Kid".