u/ScallionSmooth9491

In other words, a guilty pleasure. A song that you'd get flack for publicly saying you like it on Reddit because general consensus is that the song is shit.

There are tons of songs I can name on here, but my pick for "everyone hates it, but I love it" is "Shape Of You" by Ed Sheeran. Is it his best song? No. But it certainly doesn't deserve vitriolic reactions thrown at it. I actually kind of like it.

What I mean is an album that was seen as one among the band/artist's best, if not their best, but has suddenly been retconned as a terrible album despite critical reception upon release saying otherwise. Or an album that just had its reception gradually change in general.

Let me do the inverse of this; Pinkerton by Weezer. Basically, Rivers Cuomo's attempt to write deeper, more personal music was critically mixed upon arrival, causing Rivers to take the band in a more sillier, accessible direction, but as time went on, it got perfect ratings from music critic circles and it influenced a bunch of bands that would go on to do bigger things like Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional. Just like the Velvet Underground, Weezer's sophomore album saw mixed reception at the time, but everyone who loved it formed a band.

The digitized audio is nowhere on YouTube, so this is the best video I could find of this song ("Wings To Fly") existing.

I wouldn't call this an attempt at staying relevant more than I can call it a throwaway soundtrack cut that was never released as a single. But the mix of Giorgio Moroder synthwork (yes, Moroder worked on this track) with the vocals of someone who started off in a British Invasion band and eventually had a legacy in a folk rock supergroup doesn't work well. The song isn't abysmal, but I just wanted to share this song in all its glory.

Before you say anything, his highest-charting single that wasn't "What You Won't Do For Love" peaked at #42.

But what I find interesting is the mythos built around his race. Multiple blue-eyed soul singers like Michael McDonald and Rick Astley have recognizable faces off of multiple factors, but Bobby Caldwell is so faceless that it leads people to believe he's black. People recognize who's singing "What You Won't Do For Love", but not what he looks like. Even if someone didn't think that, they'd see posts about it and believe it. And then when people search him up on the internet, they'd be shocked to find out he's white. In fact, people being shocked that Bobby Caldwell is white might be a whole industry of its own, alongside true crime and Watergate documentaries.

That's not to mention the amount of royalties that he got from sampling despite having only one crossover hit, just like Brenda Russell. Acts like Common, Biggie, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Nas X, A$AP Rocky, and Aaliyah have sampled so much of his music that he didn't need to stave off of nostalgia circuit tours up until he died.

And how can I forget to mention that he wrote "The Next Time I Fall" for Peter Cetera and Amy Grant, a song that Todd loathes dearly?

Obviously not 24kGoldn. "Mood" may have been a lightning-in-a-bottle hit with the way it combined trap instrumentation with guitar driven instrumentals, but he's done that shit way before "Mood" became big.

It's obviously not Momoland either. While they're possibly the only pop group I know to incorporate electro-swing into commercial K-pop, "Baam" was at least a decent hit in South Korea.

So my pick goes to Rednex. "Old Pop In An Oak" essentially sounds like their big hit, "Cotton Eye Joe", but with different lyrics. (Yes, I watched the Todd In The Shadows video on them.)