Fall Out Boy and Roger Waters have the dishonor of making Variety‘s list of the Worst Songs of 2023.
The “Dance, Dance” outfit is included on the ranking for their cover of Billy Joel‘s song “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” which updates the lyrics to the 1989 #1 hit with references to pop culture and current events since the original was released.
Variety takes Fall Out Boy to task for not only taking on the Joel song that’s “universally considered most annoying — not only in his catalog, but maybe of the 20th century,” but also for making the events mentioned in the lyrics “as jarring as possible” as opposed to putting them in chronological order, as the original does.
Whatever Variety may think of Fall Out Boy’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” the band did get Joel’s blessing for the cover. Of course, Billy isn’t even a fan of his own version, and has called it “terrible.”
Waters, meanwhile, made the list for his updated version of Pink Floyd‘s “Money,” which he recorded for his reimagined Redux edition of The Dark Side of the Moon.
“There’s something deeply perverse about doing a remake of one of the most-loved songs in the 1970s rock canon, cutting out the instrumental solos, and replacing David Gilmour’s contribution in the middle of the tune with a four-minute poem about … boxing,” Variety says.
Other tracks on Variety’s Worst Songs of 2022 list include a pair of controversial country #1 hits — Jason Aldean‘s “Try That in a Small Town” and Oliver Anthony Music‘s “Rich Men North of Richmond” — as well as tunes by Drake, Meghan Trainor and Sam Smith and Madonna.
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