As many great artists will tell you, just because something is great doesn't
mean you want it to follow you around forever. In fact, some people want just
the opposite. These are the musicians who can't stand some of their most iconic songs.
Madonna's hit song "Like a Virgin" was released off of her 1984 album of the same
name. The song would be the singer's first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100,
and was certified gold a year later. Indeed, along with her second single,
"Material Girl," "Like a Virgin" was one of the songs that made her a genuine pop icon.
These '80s hits may have brought Madonna outrageous success,
but in a 2008 interview with New York's Z100-FM radio, the singer admitted that
"Like a Virgin" is actually one of her least favorite songs. She explained:
"I'm not sure I can sing 'Holiday' or 'Like a Virgin'
ever again. I just can't — unless somebody paid me like $30 million or something."
When Madonna participated in Us Weekly's 25 Things You Don't Know About Me in 2015,
she took aim at the other classic song that made
her a star. When asked which of her songs she never wants to hear again, she said:
"Material Girl. Ugh, no, no, no."
Katy Perry's 2008 hit song "I Kissed a Girl" peaked at the No.1 spot on
the Billboard Hot 100 when it was released. 10 years later, however,
Perry admitted that she wished she could rework the lyrics of the song to better fit modern
attitudes towards sexuality. At the time of its release, she had told 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 is extremely catchy, its lyrics have faced a fair share of criticism.
In one review, the website Feministing wrote:
"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."
Reflecting on the song's lyrics in 2018, Perry told Glamour:
"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. [...] Your mind
changes so much in 10 years, and you grow so much. What's true for you can evolve."
Led Zeppelin's 1971 song "Stairway to Heaven," which appeared on their album Led Zeppelin IV,
has often been dubbed as one of the greatest rock songs ever made. It was voted No. 3 in
VH1's 100 Greatest Rock Songs in 2000, for example, while Rolling Stone gave it the
No. 31 spot on its chart of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The rock band's guitarist,
Jimmy Page, even told Rolling Stone that the song "crystallized the essence of the band." He added:
"It had everything there and showed us at our best. It was a milestone.
Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality,
something which will hold up for a long time. We did it with 'Stairway.'"
At the time of the track's release, frontman Robert Plant had nothing
but admiration for his hit record, but the iconic singer told the Los Angeles
Times in 1988 that he no longer wanted to perform it while on tour. He said:
"I'd break out in hives if I had to sing that song in every show. I wrote
those lyrics and found that song to be of some importance and consequence in 1971,
but 17 years later, I don't know. It's just not for me."
With much reluctance, Plant ended up performing the song during an
Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary reunion show with his band in 1988 — but wouldn't
sing it again after that until a Led Zep reunion show took place in 2007.
James Blunt's 2004 hit song "You're Beautiful" was somehow simultaneously regarded as both incredibly
romantic and hugely irritating, with Rolling Stone including it at No. 7 in their list 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 later admitted to Hello! Magazine that he was no fan of the song either. He said:
"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."
Years after the song was released,
Blunt lamented how badly fans of his hit song had misinterpreted its meaning.
"The song is about a guy who's as high as a kite on something
in a subway, stalking someone else's girlfriend. A little bit creepy."
Ella Yelich-O'Connor, better known as Lorde,
released her debut album Pure Heroine in 2013. Notably, the album featured the song
"Royals," which was subsequently played on just about every radio station on the planet.
"Royals" spent 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,
Lorde said she now hates the song — or her version of it, at least. She explained:
"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."
The singer added:
"It sounds like a ringtone from a 2006 Nokia. None of
the melodies are cool or good. It's disastrous."
Lorde apparently 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 an incredible one billion streams on Spotify.
Despite the song's ubiquity, however, Gallagher hates it. Years later,
while promoting another album, Gallagher told WENN:
"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. 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 later expressed a somewhat cynical change of heart
about performing the song, apparently since he realizes how much people love it. He explained:
"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 estranged brother, Noel Gallagher,
absolutely agrees with Liam's hatred of "Wonderwall". In 2008, he told SPIN magazine:
"Well, I hate him singing it, too."
There is no doubt that Miley Cyrus' 2009 song "Party in the U.S.A." is one of her biggest
hits. It peaked at No.2 on Billboard's Hot 100 on release and remained in the charts for a
whopping 28 weeks. The song even made RIAA Diamond certification, meaning it went ten times platinum
— a certification that has only been given out to a handful of artists in the history of the RIAA.
Despite the accolades she received for her dance tune, Cyrus has since expressed her
extreme distaste for "Party in the U.S.A." In a 2019 Twitter video, she declared:
"I hate it, but for some reason, the people love it."
"YEAH YEAH Y-"
However, when speaking to V magazine years before, Cyrus had insisted that she didn't
regret the song; it simply wasn't who she was as an artist. Cyrus said:
"I can never say that I don't love 'Party in the U.S.A.' and that I'm not appreciative
of it. [...] It's what gives you everything that you have. I would never take it back."
She continued:
"That's not who I am, that's not where I want to sing, that's not what I want to sing,
and that's not what I want my voice to sound like, because you can't hear me through there."
Lady Gaga's 2010 song "Telephone" peaked at No. 3
on the Billboard Hot 100 on its release — and when its colorful,
nine-minute long music video dropped, it took less than a week to rack up 15 million views.
At the time, Lady Gaga told E! about the meaning behind the music video, explaining:
"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 a 2011 chat with Pop Justice,
Lady Gaga decided to throw some shade at her old track. The singer said:
"I hate 'Telephone.' Is that terrible to say?
It's the song I have the most difficult time listening to."
She clarified her answer by pointing out that producing
the song was an incredibly stressful experience, 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 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."
Selena Gomez showed her fans a much more personal side when she released her 2020 album Rare,
which featured the ballad, "Lose You to Love Me" — a song that many believed was
about the end of her high-profile relationship with Justin Bieber.
"Lose You to Love Me" became the first ever to go No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100,
Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, and Rolling Stone charts simultaneously.
But there was a time when Gomez wasn't given anywhere near as much control
over the meaning behind her music. In particular, she has explained how her
2013 pop hit "Come & Get It" wasn't her personality at all, telling WSJ magazine:
"There was a lot of putting my music together for me, and I didn't have much control [...] The
lyrics are, 'When you're ready, come and get it.' I would never say that!"
While breaking down the songs from her album Revival,
Gomez told Entertainment Weekly that "Come & Get It" sounded more like a
"Rihanna reject" than one of her own songs. She did, however, add one caveat, saying:
"I was so young. I was wanting a hit:
'I don't know if I need a hit, but maybe I do so people can respect me?'
I'm grateful what ['Come & Get It'] did for me, so it'd be stupid not to acknowledge it."
The massive success of Nirvana's song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" made the group — and their frontman,
Kurt Cobain — a household name. The 1991 hit exploded on the radio,
with MTV's 120 Minutes host Dave Kendall recalling 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. Cobain said:
"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. [...] I literally
want to throw my guitar down and walk away. I can't pretend to have a good time playing it."
Cobain also admitted to Rolling Stone that he was
"beyond" being "embarrassed" by the track, adding that:
"Once it got into the mainstream, it was over."
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