Once in a while in the music world, exceptional artists who we expect genre-defining music from seem to lose their way. At times it’s brilliant artists beyond their prime years attempting to cash in on mainstream popular music trends, or there are acts in creative droughts forcing originality and inevitably resulting in a sound no better (and perhaps more misguided and confusing) than the one they started with.

‘Fuh You’ – Paul McCartney

We’ll start by taking a look at dear old Macca, whose storied career needs no introduction. From the master behind ‘Yesterday’ and countless others comes an outlandish 2018 pop track by the questionable name of ‘Fuh You’. The heavy-handed, plasticky production style here (courtesy of OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder) really doesn’t complement the aged McCartney well. The instrumental is bland enough to fit right in a workplace training video, so it’s the vocals which really do the heavy lifting to elevate this to the coveted status of ‘absolute howler’ – above all in the chorus when 76-year-old McCartney yelps ‘I just want it fuh you’. Perhaps with the suggestive lyrics and title (supposedly meaning ‘for you’), McCartney was trying to tap into the transgressiveness of some of the Beatles’ defining works in the 60s. ‘Fuh You’ may well have some shock factor from the sheer absurdity of McCartney singing it, but in trying to do anything other than be a particularly hilarious misfire of a single, it’s well wide of the mark.

‘Be My Girl – Sally’ – The Police

‘Be My Girl – Sally’ is an obscure and all-round bizarre number from Outlandos D’Amour. The opening ‘Be My Girl’ section is fairly catchy, if slightly unremarkable, though Sting (as he does in almost every Police song) repeats the title so many times that it gets a little repetitive. 50 seconds in, it suddenly devolves into ‘Sally’, a disturbing avant-garde disturbing monologue featuring guitarist Andy Summers devoting his heart to a “loving, warm, inflatable” blow-up doll from a “special magazine”. Accompanied by an unsettling, discordant piano part, it could’ve been lifted straight from a Kubrick film. Juxtaposed on the album with polished classics like ‘Roxanne’, it doesn’t do much more than leave the listener a little confused.

“In trying to do anything other than be a particularly hilarious misfire of a single, it’s well wide of the mark”

‘Wiggle Wiggle’ - Bob Dylan

Wiggle Wiggle has none of the raucous appeal of Like a Rolling Stone, or the melodic intricacies of Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right. In truth, it doesn’t have a whole lot of anything. As many critics have pointed out, the entirely meaningless lyrics bear more resemblance to a nursery rhyme than the usual pointed intentionality that Dylan is so well known for. I can’t claim to be the biggest fan of the polished 1980s rock sound in any song, but I think in this instance almost all listeners will find it a little irksome. The finished product sounds as though someone has used an AI of Dylan’s voice to sing a children’s nursery rhyme over a forgotten Tom Petty b-side. Hardly the recipe for a beloved folk classic.

“Artists experimenting and breaking from genre norms is unquestionably vital”

‘B*tch I’m In The Club’ - Kendrick Lamar

The man now known for his Pulitzer-prize-winning lyricism and profound reflections on American society has not always infused his songs with such social consciousness. Earlier releases under the name K-Dot had more of an eye to landing club hits (a completely reasonable thing for an emerging artist to do, of course). Certain numbers like this one, regardless, are good for retrospective comic relief. Kendrick himself has since called it his “wackest song” – a personal highlight of mine was the “and this is my single!” tag that closes each hook. This one isn’t even bad, per se. If anything, it’s just telling of his maturing as an artist that this song is so comical in comparison to all that’s come since. After all, only 3 years later came good kid, m.A.A.d city, a singular and era-defining album which jokingly winks to the K-Dot days on tracks like ‘Backseat Freestyle’. This song reflects the goofy beginnings of an icon as opposed to a misfire from an industry veteran.

It’s practically unheard of for a prominent recording artist not to have at least one dud in their discography, especially when experimenting with the boundaries of their own sound. I don’t want my poking fun here to be misinterpreted as bad faith, however. Artists experimenting and breaking from genre norms is unquestionably vital for the development of popular music as a whole. The Beatles would never have got beyond covers of 1950s rock ‘n’ roll in dingy Hamburg clubs if they hadn’t ventured into new territory. It’s just inevitable that there are missteps along the way. And, fortunately for us, they’re often good for a laugh.