80s Hits With The Worst Vocals

The '80s were a very forgiving decade when it came to singing. This was the pre-Auto-Tune era, where everyone was singing live — or at least trying to — if not causing a lip-syncing scandal like Milli Vanilli. If a singer couldn't hack it behind the microphone, everyone would find out sooner or later. Maybe they'd take lessons to strengthen your voice (we see you, Madonna) or maybe they'd just let it ride.

Sometimes, an act could get away with bad vocals and make it all the way to the top of the charts. Groups like Bananarama and the Human League clocked high-ranking tunes with some of the poorest singing of the entire decade. In our opinion, the worst vocals include everything from clunky, robotic delivery a la Gary Numan or tone-deaf singing that never quite latches onto the melody. Screeching like Axl Rose and bumbling along humorously like Biz Markie also qualify as some of the worst vocals to grace the hits of the '80s.

None of this vocal-bashing means the songs weren't total bangers. In fact, they're among the best-known tunes of the time, some of which we all still sing along with today. We probably do a much better job, too.

Some of us who were around when "Welcome to the Jungle" first dropped in the late '80s thought it might be a spoof of how a metal singer should sound. After all, there were plenty of mediocre metal vocalists aiming for the high notes in that era, all of them surely did irreparable damage to their vocal cords. It's hard to tell if Axl Rose is trying to sound screechy when he sings this hard rock standard or if he accidentally wrote it in a key beyond his register. He couldn't be singing this badly on purpose ... could he?

Maybe this is giving him too much credit, though. Something about Rose's tone feels unintentional, as if he's emulating what he thinks is a terrific example of a hard rock voice and can't tell but it comes across as a caterwaul instead. There's always a chance that he was going for caterwaul all along — bad decision on his part.

Rock music has always been an art form where rawness is favored over polish; even Guns N' Roses' most underrated songs ever include less-than-perfect vocal performances. And regardless of the creaking singing and off-putting growls and grunts, "Welcome to the Jungle" gave Guns N' Roses its first top 10 hit, landing at No. 7 in 1988. It also started off an impressive run for the band, which suggests maybe screechy Axl knew what he was doing all along.

The robotic drone of Phil Oakey leading the Human League on "Don't You Want Me?" suits the electro-pop backing tracks from this 1981 smash. It certainly didn't hinder the success of the song, which was the No. 1 song in the U.K. that year around Christmas time, and became a No. 1 hit in the U.S. by the following July. Nonetheless, the vocals have the soulless quality of someone just learning how to control their breathing to make it through a verse without gasping for air.

But the bad vocals don't stop with just Oakey. When female singer Susan Ann Sulley chimes in with her response verse about having no need for the male ego singing about how he "picked you out, shook you out, and turned you around," it's with a voice that's as near-tone deaf and emotionally flattened as Oakey's.

The irony of a band called the Human League delivering vocals that are just a notch above robotic is peak '80s kitsch. This is the decade that gave us faux-AI avatar Max Headroom and the lovably mechanical yet thoroughly alive Johnny 5 from the movie "Short Circuit," after all; we were all-in on the robotry back then. And this tech-heavy band helped confirm the post-punk notion that singing is secondary in a hit tune, as long as you can deliver a vibe that people dig — an ethos other acts would emulate for decades to come.

Why does it sound like the members of Bananarama were still taking vocal lessons when they recorded the Top 10 80s classic, "Cruel Summer"? Lethargy has never been so well-rewarded. If any of them hit the notes they're intending, it's purely by accident. There's no attempt at harmonizing either; all three sing the same melody, and yet they're all just off-key enough to create auditory mayhem.

The drone of Siobhan Fahey, Keren Woodward, and Sara Dallin doesn't even feel like a warm-up for a stronger performance. If the trio was clever enough, you might think they were portraying the overheated drag of the weather as they sang, as if the heat had made them sluggish and sloppy. That's giving the group too much credit, though; they sound like this on songs where weather isn't even mentioned. Bananarama only did slightly better with their vocals on their biggest hit, a remake of the '60s bop "Venus," where the tempo was quicker, and the backing tracks were sharper. They took that one all the way to the top of the charts.

Truth be told, the vocals on "Cruel Summer" capture a laziness that you can't help but cheer for. You just know one of these voices is going to hit the right note sooner or later. Spoiler alert: they never do. The good news here is that you can't make it any worse by singing along, no matter how you sound.

Maybe Biz Markie deserves a little forgiveness for the laughably bad vocals on "Just a Friend." He was a rapper adding a melodic touch to the chorus of this sing-along favorite, after all. But that doesn't make the hilariously off-key singing any less horrible. Using a sample of Freddie Scott's "(You) Got What I Need" gave him notes to aim for, even though he missed pretty much every one. The relatable howl delivered with humor and heart helped the bouncy tune ascend to No. 5 on the Billboard Rap chart and No. 9 on the Hot 100 charts.

The difference between Biz Markie's awful vocals and those of more experienced singers is that he seems to be gleefully letting us all in on the joke, singing at the top of his wobbly lungs and giving it all he's got. His disarming performance channels the spirit of singing in the shower or the car, letting out his shameless inner entertainer who sings for the love of it. You can't help but sing along with his joyful, off-key warble.

Say what you want about how bad the vocals are; Biz Markie took a chance with a goofy performance and made it pay off big-time. His influence on future R&B and rap songs shows just how purposeful terrible vocals can be when done properly — or, rather, improperly, but with spirit.

Gary Numan took his synth-pop zapper "Cars" all the way to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1980, when mainstream techno was just getting started. It was a new-wave revelation, showing the world what was possible with instruments that relied on programming but could expand the concept of tone and texture in the sphere of commercial music. Numan's singing, though? It sounds like it might have been run through a synthesizer, too.

Numan's nasal tone is singing in the loosest sense of the word. The up-and-down pattern of the so-called melody could easily be mistaken for a conversational cadence if the backing tracks were stripped out. It was an exciting sound back at the cusp of the Electronic Age, before bands like Depeche Mode and Yazoo (known as Yaz in the U.S.) sank their teeth into the digital possibilities. But it seems like Numan knew his limitations and chose to work with what he had instead of pretending he could croon. Who knows what that would have sounded like?

None of that kept "Cars" from becoming a major mover, one that helped usher a new genre into the expansive catalog of inventive '80s music. It's downright charming now, poor vocals and all, and Numan is a one-hit wonder who deserved more than just 15 minutes of fame for his innovative musical imagination. But this is one of those instances where Auto-Tune would have been a huge bonus.