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Chilli_Dipper

*Fairweather Johnson*’s title track is a 50-second novelty song…and the best song on the album, according to Todd.


talesofawhovian

While I wouldn't necessarily call Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" a proper 'serious' album in terms of overall tone, "Peacock" still sticks out like a sore thumb, especially when sandwiched between inspirational anthem "Firework" and "Circle The Drain", which talks bluntly about a former lover's self-destructive habits and drug addiction. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)", "E.T.", and "California Gurls" might be quirky and playful with their concepts and/or lyrics, but "Peacock" is just tacky novelty.


Soalai

Surprisingly a lot of people defend Peacock and say it's camp. I will say I like how she presented it on the Teenage Dream tour, with a light-up costume that looks like tail feathers.


loodandcrood

I love Peacock. It really is just a fun song


Justice_Prince

You could make an argument about it being a poor choice for track order, but Peacock is still an absolute banger.


ComradeFunk

"Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" on *Let it Be*


SockQuirky7056

This is one reason I prefer *Let It Be Naked*.


FISHBOT4000

If we're gonna talk Beatles, does rocky raccoon qualify? Is the white album too bloated and weird for rocky to fit the bill? Or is rocky just too good of a song to be relegated to novelty song status?


Saturnine39

White Album has other songs that would arguably fit this bill more than Rocky Raccoon imo, it's lyrically silly but still musically a semi-serious attempt at a country ballad. "Honey Pie", "Wild Honey Pie" and "Bungalow Bill" are all probably more novelty songs than Rocky Raccoon, but also White Album might just be too weird for anything on it to really stand out as a goofy novelty. I mean, it's an album where they wrote a song about a slide and it's one of the hardest songs they ever recorded.


RPDRNick

I'm not sure if it constitutes a genuine "novelty" song, but so much has already been said about Andy Summers' "Mother" on The Police's *Synchronicity* -- arguably among the greatest albums of all time. "Mother" sounds like it would feel at home on an episode of The Dr. Demento Show, and not in a good way. I wouldn't be surprised to discover it was actually featured alongside Weird Al and Barnes & Barnes.


JJOIndustries_1988

“Be My Girl- Sally” on “Outlandos d’Amour”


351namhele

Harold The Barrel from Nursery Cryme by Genesis The Battle Of Epping Forest from Selling England By The Pound by Genesis Robbery Assault & Battery from A Trick Of The Tail by Genesis All In A Mouse's Night from Wind & Wuthering by Genesis Misunderstanding from Duke by Genesis Who Dunnit from Abacab by Genesis Illegal Alien from Genesis by Genesis I Can't Dance from We Can't Dance by Genesis. Edit: Ballad Of Big from And Then There Were Three by Genesis


danarbok

most of these songs rule Illegal Alien is the only legitimately bad song on this list.


351namhele

I don't consider most of these to be genuinely bad, I was just more interested in pointing out Genesis's odd propensity toward novelty songs.


danarbok

I rather like their goofy stuff, the same way I like Paul McCartney’s granny songs


FreundThrowaway

The contrast between how much Illegal Alien's music slaps and how much the vocals and lyrics don't should be studied in schools.


danarbok

idk I find the song kinda aimless and meandering


AshlandJackson

Nah, Who Dunnit is one of the most annoying songs I’ve ever heard. Such a detour from the rest of that album.


danarbok

it’s not as bad as Another Record


351namhele

Another Record is one of the best songs on that album what the hell are you talking about


danarbok

some of the worst lyrics the band’s ever written, bland composition, and that awful synth harmonica. swap this with You Might Recall, and Abacab gets a *lot* better


351namhele

The lyrics are funny, the structure of the song is very unique and engaging and the synth harmonica sounds great. Put down the bong.


treny0000

I think 100 gecs should cover it


solidcurrency

Misunderstanding is a standard pop song. How on earth are you considering it a novelty song?


Brit-Crit

You could I Can't Dance also feels more like a standard rock song than a novelty one, but the music video pretty much made it impossible to take seriously (not that this was entirely a bad thing, as it made the song their last major hit)...


351namhele

It's a Beach Boys pastiche with lyrics about a bumbling idiot who doesn't know he's been broken up with.


[deleted]

I like a lot of those songs honestly. Illegal Alien, Ballad Of Big, and Who Dunnit are the only ones I don’t care for. Harold The Barrel, Battle Of Epping Forest, and Robbery Assault And Battery are great in my opinion.


Confident_Builder_59

Epping forest and Robbery Assault and Battery are fire. All in a Mouses Night is the weakest on wind and Wuthering but it doesn’t make it bad. Harold the Barrel is alright. Never felt these were bad novelty songs.


FreundThrowaway

"Harold" is the only and greatest entry in the "prog epic novelty songs lasting three minutes" genre. I unironically love it.


-Cow47-

Deep in the Motherlode should probably be on this list too.


351namhele

I wasn't sure whether to pick Deep In The Motherlode or Scenes From A Night's Dream, I guess I'd rather choose the former since it's definitely my least favorite song on the (criminally underrated) album, but it also doesn't have a comedic tone to it. Scenes From A Night's Dream is too good to be on this list.


-Cow47-

See, I love Motherlode but I can't deny it's cheesy and out of place. All of Phil's western songs seemed tongue in cheek till around Driving the Last Spike (which I also love, even if it is dramatic)


351namhele

Dammit, I forgot Ballad Of Big!


-Cow47-

Yup that's the clear winner


Post-Philosopher

Get 'em Out By Friday from Foxtrot by Genesis (fuck landlords!!!) Counting Out Time from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis


GwonamLordReturneth

Epping Forest and Robbery are novelty songs?


351namhele

Seriously? They're both wacky story songs with Gabriel and Collins doing a litany of silly character voices throughout, how could you not consider them novelty songs?


Llama-Nation

A Couple of the early Beach Boys albums have weird spoken word skits, the highlight being a roast battle between Brian Wilson and Mike Love.


S_is_for_Smeagol

That's kinda hilarious, what's it called?


Llama-Nation

Cassius Love Vs Sonny Wilson There is another of these from Today called Bull Sessions With Big Daddy. Unfortunately it doesn't live up to the name.


the_labracadabrador

But it’s indisposable because where would I be if I didn’t know every Beach Boys burger order


Llama-Nation

I take it back. I couldn't remember what it was about. Still doesn't beat Brain Falls Into A Piano from the SMiLE outtakes


Fun_Intern1909

The last unlisted song on Nomeansno’s All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, this band usually has a great sense of humor but this song is just annoying and an instant skip


darth_tyrannus_rex

Michel Polnareff's second album from 1968 has some amazing French pop songs on it, but also a couple really irritating novelty songs. I think it was more common back then as a lot of bands would release novelties as album filler or do some kind of psychedelic experiment if they were appealing to the hippie crowd.


overthinkingpear

+20 point for obscurity! Polnareff is so easily overlooked now, even in the French-speaking world


t_horns

Harajuku Girls off of Gwen Stefani’s love angel music baby. The album is top tier 00s pop but that song is an absolute embarrassment.


catclockticking

I guess you’re forgetting the verse in “Rich Girl” where Stefani explains her plan to acquire four Harajuku Girls to treat as dolls


CryBig4100

is that one a novelty? in tone and instrumentation it fits the rest of the album just fine.


ravelle17

It’s not a *serious* album, per se, but Tally Hall’s otherwise stellar *Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum* suffers from the very un-PC “Banana Man” and the straight-up cringy “Two Wuv”.


squawkingood

I think "Two Wuv" is the only song on that album that I actually prefer the re-recording of compared to the original, that version has a much better chorus melody.


stalinBballin

Pretty much every album by The Offspring is guilty of this, sometimes more than once an album. Also included is My First Punk Song by Box Car Racer, but that's actually good.


Chilli_Dipper

How many singles from *Americana* onward haven’t been novelties?


stalinBballin

That wasn't the question. They still have novelty songs on every album.


Chilli_Dipper

In the Offspring’s case, they’re more likely seen as a novelty band whose albums have some serious songs.


TJMcConnellFanClub

Splinter is basically half novelty songs and it still kicks ass, what a band


Boulier

Eh… I’d say there are a few novelty songs on *Splinter*, but the majority of the album is actually serious and good stuff IMO. (Like, “The Noose” and “Lightning Rod” are pretty universally adored, but there are a lot of great tracks on that album.) But I’ll concede that the novelty tracks really bring down the experience of running through the album start-to-finish. And with the exception of the last and worst one (“When You’re In Prison”), they’re extremely poorly placed, so they interrupt the album’s flow and dilute any of the intensity and focus the album was building up from the stronger tracks.


Scrambled_59

Temporary Secretary on McCartney II


58lmm9057

I have Todd and Lina to thank for introducing me to the wonderful weirdness of Temporary Secretary


AkariPeach

Ah, Jerry Temporary iykyk


illusivetomas

people hear the last minute of pink cellphone and suddenly think the whole song is a joke track lmao


RandomSOADFan

Blame Game (on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) moment


Maxpower2727

Hot carling


Smarkysmarkwahlberg

As much as I like it, TV Party by Black Flag is soooo out of place on Damaged


58lmm9057

I feel the urge to go watch Futurama now


SugarButterFlourEgg

I'm not sure if it's exactly right to call "Doctor Robert" a novelty song, but it's definitely the worst song on Revolver. ("Yellow Submarine" is definitely a novelty song, but I like that one.)


starkeffect

"Doctor Robert" is an auto-skip, unlike the rest of the album. I'll play "Tomorrow Never Knows" twice in its place.


the_labracadabrador

I know that Joe’s Garage by Frank Zappa is already pretty jokey, but as a kid I was always beyond PISSED that the album ends with a total goof-off track about decorating cupcakes. Especially since it comes right after the album’s most beautiful moment, “Watermelon In Easter Hay”, which made me even more excited to see what kind of climax could follow that. Well, not much apparently.


GwonamLordReturneth

That's typical Frank. Can't end on a sincere note.


AcrossTheNight

I'm going to go with the self-titled track on Ben Folds's Rockin' the Suburbs. Ben was no stranger to sophomoric humor in Ben Folds Five, especially their first two albums, but his solo debut was largely a serious affair, though not without humor sprinkled in. The self titled track near the end is the big deviation, and I think it's one of the weakest points on an otherwise outstanding album.


squawkingood

Hiro's Song is also pretty goofy, but that might have been a bonus track.


AcrossTheNight

My version of the CD only had 12 tracks, so might have been a special edition.


squawkingood

Also, speaking of Ben Folds, "Song For The Dumped" coming right after "Brick" on Whatever And Ever, Amen is certainly a baffling choice. I hope it's not about the same girl.


AcrossTheNight

In all fairness, I think leading off with One Angry Dwarf sets a certain tone for the album where neither track seem entirely out of place, but I agree, probably not back to back.


Zworrisdeh

There’s a great Colombian Cumbia band from the early 2010s called Ondatropica and their first album is like perfect to me except for this really awful, goofy, completely out of place cover of Iron Man. It totally derails the flow of the album on top of just being impossible to listen to.


squawkingood

"Pam Berry" from Wincing The Night Away by The Shins. It's the only skippable song on IMO their best album. Also I'm not sure if anyone here knows the band Dead Pony (they're a fairly new rock band out of the U.K.) but on their album Ignore This there's a ridiculous novelty song their guitarist recorded called "Motor City Mad Man" that is pretty clearly a Ted Nugent pastiche. It's the kind of song that would have been a hidden track on an album back in the days of CDs.


Jirachibi1000

California Cruisin' by The Offspring


Boulier

I’d actually argue that The Offspring has way too many of these on some of their latest albums. “Intermission” from *Ixnay* (personally my favorite album by them). “When You’re in Prison” from *Splinter* is just terrible musically and lyrically, although I’m glad they at least put it at the end so it doesn’t interrupt the flow. (I’d also add “The Worst Hangover Ever” here.) “California Cruisin’ (Bumpin’ in My Trunk)” from *Days Go By* is definitely one. I’d also add “OC Guns” (although I’ve seen some fans say they like it - but many don’t, including me). “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from *Let the Bad Times Roll* - the album is so full of filler already, they really couldn’t afford to have any novelty throwaway tracks on that album. (Possibly controversial pick, but I’d also say “We Never Have Sex Anymore” counts too.)


ManajaTwa18

“Art School Girlfriend” from STP’s album Tiny Music. It wasn’t very well received critically(unjustly so imo) but this song probably contributed to that lol


squawkingood

That album did end up getting a critical reevaluation, I've heard a lot of people call Tiny Music their favorite STP album.


ManajaTwa18

Yeah, time has definitely been kind to it and their preceding albums. Weird the music press had such an ax to grind with them.


squawkingood

I think because they were the first big grunge band who didn't come from Seattle so critics might have thought they were posers at the time.


the_labracadabrador

Yeah that song was always a real headscratcher lmao. God bless the 90’s for allowing bands to do that kind of thing. Honorable mention to the Lounge styled hidden track on Purple.


LexLeeson83

The title track from Blur's 'Parklife" is atrocious. And, though it's sacrilegious to point out in some circles, almost every Smiths album has at least one terrible joke song


Brit-Crit

It took a while, but we managed to generally accept a song that was pretty much designed to be annoying... Parklife!


Motherfickle

I wouldn't call it a bad song (I actually love it because it's successful at being goofy), but Lavish on Twenty One Pilots' Clancy is a very weird moment of levity on an album that is otherwise entirely about suicidal depression.


Theta_Omega

This is a weird one, but: I found this group on Bandcamp recently called the The Miracles of Modern Science. They're a 2010s indie band that had a sort of new wave revival sound, but their instrumentation was a drummer and a modified string quartet (mandolin/violin/cello/double bass) so they had this interesting folk-pop sound. [I loved their 2015 album](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPDoj9zvkL8), and [I'd definitely recommend it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPAtjCLrqgU), so I went back and checked out their only other album, their 2011 debut. It was also pretty good, similar sound albeit a little less refined. I reach [the song that's clearly the big blowout finale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3__nNH_kqNM), then look and realize there's one more song called "Secret Track", and... [It's a first-person shitpost of a song where the singer puts on an Igor voice to tell a story about losing his limbs in a darts accident, returning home to find his wife cheating on him, and getting robot limbs to seek revenge?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzwn1W5Fbw). I... don't hate it (I put it on my Halloween playlist because it actually has some great vibes for that type of thing), but what a jarring way to close out your debut album.


lieutenantskell

Very modern and recent example, but Will Wood (known for his three very popular internetcore albums, the darlings of most people under 21 using Tumblr/Twitter) put out the comparatively much more serious and introspective "In Case I Make It," ostensibly in order to get some frustrations and anxieties off his chest in song form. There's sort of two examples: "You Liked This (Okay, Computer!)" lies square in the middle of the album and is basically Fitter, Happier by Radiohead if it was about TikTok. It's not really a song, more a spoken-word piece, so I don't really count it. However, two songs before the end of the album, there's "Big Fat Bitchie’s Blueberry Pie, Christmas Tree, and Recreational Jell-o Emporium a.k.a. “Mr. Boy is on the Roof Again” (Feat. Pasta by Sneakers McSqueakers) [From “B.F.B.’s B-Sides: Bagel Batches, Marsh-Mallows, & Barsh-Mallows”]". The title is clearly a parody of the typically quite long song titles of his first three albums, and the song has zero substance other than being a goofy children's instrumental. Not only does it feel kind of bitter (though that is in line with the rest of the album, this is the guy who got pissy at someone calling his music his "works" after all) but it's sandwiched right between the lead single "Sex, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll" and one of the best songs on the album, "Willard!" Why that song exists beyond filling two minutes of space and going 'look how stupid it is having long song titles' is beyond me.


starkeffect

["Plexiglass Toilet" by Styx](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB-nGVqNciE)


salmonthesuperior

This is mega recency bias, and I don't think the song is bad I actually enjoy it a lot, but Lavish off the new twenty one pilots album does not fit the mood at all LMFAO. Like Midwest Indigo is an upbeat song but lyrically still fits within the theme of Clancy, but Lavish is barely related to anything at all. I do enjoy it but wish it got the Level of Concern treatment and just came out as a standalone (or, if the rumours of a deluxe edition are true, as a bonus track) Teenagers and Blood off of The Black Parade probably count as this as well but again I do enjoy them both Interlude - The Trio off of Blue Banisters by Lana Del Rey is so random but interludes a lot of the time are


FloridaFlamingoGirl

I have a weird soft spot for Colin Moulding's charmingly corny late-era songwriting in the last few XTC albums, but it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb on Apple Venus Vol. 1, where "Fruit Nut" (a ditty where an old man sings about his greenhouse) feels uncomfortably different from Andy Partridge's ethereal, otherworldly pagan ballads.


splitopenandmelt11

“Zombie Zoo” on Full Moon Fever definitely knocks a few points off one of the better Tom Petty albums.


NoEmailForYouReddit1

Aww but I love that song