One person’s view: “There is no word or phrase – no matter how derogatory or boldly offensive – that can describe how much I despise this song with every fiber of my being. … It feels like the fucker is mocking you.” – Ambishi @ Rate Your Music
The public’s view: 1.85 / 5.00, tied for the third-worst #1 hit of 2006
Daniel Powter was once an aspiring violin virtuoso. That dream ended when an angry mob attacked him outside of a talent show and his violin was pulverized in the ensuing affray. This brutal incident established Powter as British Columbia’s definitive expert on bad days. It also motivated him to start playing the piano, because pianos are one of the hardest musical instruments for an angry mob to hurl across a parking lot. (Pipe organs are even more mob-resistant, but Powter couldn’t afford to buy a cathedral.) From this moment, he was destined to write a piano ballad called “Bad Day”.
“Bad Day”’s greatest strength is also its Achilles’ heel: a catchy, sing-song chorus that needles the listener for being at a low point in his or her life. It’s the sort of taunt that is designed to be played at a sporting event when the visiting team is getting its ass handed to it in a metal bucket. Indeed, the song became famous by being used as a parting jibe against losing contestants on American Idol. When you are having a bad day, the last thing you want to hear on the radio is “Bad Day”. Unfortunately, this is exactly what many millions of people heard on the 365 bad days that comprised 2006.
“Bad Day” was not the first chart-topper to take a poke at the unfortunate. Remember Bobby McFerrin, the guy who made all the body noises back in the 1980s? (No, not the kid who sat next to you in algebra – the other guy who made all the body noises.) His hit “Don’t Worry Be Happy” described a bleak scenario, but it also conveyed a hopeful message: your financial, legal, and medical problems will all disappear if you simply pretend that they don’t exist. McFerrin’s unsound advice ruined countless lives, but there is something to be said for optimism even when it is misplaced. “Bad Day” doesn’t offer any such optimism, beyond the vague implication that a “blue sky holiday” might occur at some point in the distant future. It’s a depressing song from start to finish.
That doesn’t mean it’s a bad song, per se. Daniel Powter’s singing and musicianship remind me of Supertramp, a band that was popular in the 1970s and early 1980s and continues to be well regarded. Like Powter, Supertramp had a hit song about someone going through a rough time: “It’s Raining Again”. However, that tune was not nearly as overplayed as “Bad Day”. If “It’s Raining Again” had become Billboard’s biggest single of its year, as “Bad Day” later did, the public would have been calling for Supertramp to be forcibly exiled to the South Pole. (“You guys want to bitch about the rain? Well, rain won’t be a problem for you at Amundsen-Scott Station.”)
Sudden deportation to Antarctica was certainly a possibility for Powter, so he wore his warm knit hat 24/7 for the next three years just in case. Ultimately, though, he was permitted to fade away without punishment and become the most obscure person ever to top the year-end singles chart. (The previous holder of the obscurity title was fellow hat-wearer Acker Bilk, whose “Stranger on the Shore” was Billboard’s #1 song of 1962.) It was quite the decline in fame for someone who was praised in 2006 as “arguably one of the hottest singers in the world at the moment.” Then again, that accolade came from MTV News, and MTV was about as culturally relevant in 2006 as Daniel Powter is in 2024.
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