Torture Play List: The Top 10 Most Painful Songs

[Benevolent One]

Torture Play List: The Top 10 Most Painful Songs
Posted Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:27am PDT by Shawn Amos in GetBack

Barry Manilow has now joined the ranks of Metallica and Barney the Dinosaur. They are all part of that exclusive group of musicians whose songs are used as torture. The controversial practice involves blasting music at ear-splitting volumes for hours on end. A truly annoying song helps. U.S. soldiers have used it on everyone from Manual Noriega to the prisoners locked up at Gitmo. Predictably, most songwriters don't dig this kind of use. It's not the kind of audience they had in mind when hoping for a hit.

Manilow hasn't made it onto the U.S. Armed Forces torture play list — yet. But his songs have been picked up by city officials in Christchurch, New Zealand, who plan on blasting "Mandy" in the town mall to keep unruly kids away. Still, torture is torture whether in an Iraqi prison cell or Kiwi mall.

So now that Barry Manilow has joined the "Music as Torture" club, we thought we'd present the Top 10 List of Torture Tunes. Play them loud the next time you want those kids off your lawn.


10. Metallica
"Enter Sandman"

9. Barney the Dinosaur
"I Love You"

8. David Gray
"Babylon"

7. Britney Spears
"...Baby One More Time"

6. Barry Manilow
"Mandy"

5. Captain & Tennille
"Muskrat Love"

4. Twisted Sister
"We're Not Gonna Take It"

3. "Sesame Street" Theme

2. Neil Diamond
"America"

1. Meat Loaf
"Paradise by the Dashboard Light"

 

[Benevolent One]

I'd have to say I agree with a lot of this list. I actually like the song they have as #1, but overall this is a pretty strong list.

Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City" would be a natural choice here in my opinion. "Achy Breaky Heart" would be a good addition to this list also. Anything by Neil Diamond gets my vote for this list also. I realize he got #2, but I think he got short changed here. "America" may be his most annoying song, but it is certainly not alone.

You guys have any thoughts on this list?

 

[buckaroo]

Of course that list shows only what the list makers doesn't like. I like both Manilow and Diamond, but that doesn't mean that they can't be torture songsters.

When I lived in Iowa, one of my stops was a Seven Eleven store and it had become a place where kids of a bad sort began to hang around. It wasn't Manilow that the manager put on the loud speakers that ran those kids away, it was any classical music. Now that music to those kids was torture, but I ask you, and this will say a lot, do you consider classical music torture?

BTW, you could torture me with just about any Hip Hop stuff, and I refuse to call it music.

 

[Benevolent One]

Of course that list shows only what the list makers doesn't like. I like both Manilow and Diamond, but that doesn't mean that they can't be torture songsters.

When I lived in Iowa, one of my stops was a Seven Eleven store and it had become a place where kids of a bad sort began to hang around. It wasn't Manilow that the manager put on the loud speakers that ran those kids away, it was any classical music. Now that music to those kids was torture, but I ask you, and this will say a lot, do you consider classical music torture?

BTW, you could torture me with just about any Hip Hop stuff, and I refuse to call it music.

Actually, I really like a lot of classical music. It's hardly ever my first choice, but sometimes it is.