The Worst Music of All Time

Bad music is often more instructive than good music; understanding why a piece fails can give surprising insight into the elements that make music brilliant. In this course, we examine the strange, subjective, and sometimes torturous relationship between the terrible and the terrific across various musical genres. We explore rock, folk, jazz, classical, Broadway, and movie soundtracks, analyzing examples from both well-known and unexpected artists like William Shatner, Billy Joel, and the Bee Gees. By studying elements like a hilariously bad sax solo that uses the same structure as a jazz classic, we discover how the ingredients that make one song "stink" can make another a masterpiece. Most importantly, we discover that since quality is subjective, even the "worst" music can contain the seeds of something wonderful.