Every stadium has its collection of songs that gets fans off their feet as their team is making a huge defensive stand or are trying to drive in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Those same stadiums also likely have a bunch of songs they hope fans forget because they are so comically bad or they ended up being associated with some of the worst moments in team history,
Here is a look at the most cringeworthy rock and metal songs ever created about sports.
Megadeth, “Crush ‘Em”
Cringeworthy Lyrics: “Looking for trouble, now you’ve found it / You’re a drum and we’re gonna pound it.”
Megadeth released their eighth studio album, Risk, in August 1999. Fans got their first taste of the band’s latest music when the single “Crush ‘Em” appeared on the soundtrack for the movie Universal Soldier: The Return the prior month.
The sci-fi film starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and professional wrestler Bill Goldberg at the height of his popularity. Megadeth’s single would even be heavily promoted by World Championship Wrestling who in turn had Goldberg star in the song’s music video.
What could possibly go wrong with this recipe for success?
“Probably the dumbest song Megadeth ever did was ‘Crush ‘Em.’ Not that I hate it, because we’ve never released something that I didn’t like musically, but I’m not fond of it,” Dave Mustaine said in a 2013 interview with Noisecreep.
The song was intended to be a hockey anthem but it instead ended up as a disco/metal mashup that got associated with wrestling. Mustaine just wanted to write a replacement for Gary Glitter’s “Rock ‘n Roll (Part 2)” after getting tired of hearing at hockey games.
“I didn’t want that guy’s song anymore. I wanted to write something better,” Mustaine said in the interview. “So I wrote the riff and when I see Bud’s (late band manager Bud Prager) lyrics and I think to myself, ‘This isn’t what I was thinking.’ So yeah, it didn’t work.”
Scott Stapp, “Marlins Will Soar”
Cringeworthy Lyrics: “One strike, two strikes, swing away / A diving catch, a stolen base / A perfect game, a triple play / Another playoff race, yes! / World Series champs we’ll be.“
Following Creed’s 2004 breakup, Scott Stapp attempted a solo career that kicked off with his first full-length release, The Great Divide. While the album received fairly lackluster reviews from music critics, it still sold enough to earn platinum certification.
The original version of “You Will Soar” wasn’t officially released as single from The Great Divide. Instead, the song gained prominence nearly five years later after Stapp retooled the lyrics to make it a fight song for MLB’s Florida Marlins.
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One could make an argument that Stapp did the bare minimum to turn “You Will Soar” into “Marlins Will Soar” as he mostly inserted familiar baseball terms into the original verses. And Stapp believes it was all worth it in the end.
He told Spin in a 2013 interview the Marlins promised him “lifetime free baseball tickets” and the opportunity for his sons to be batboys during a game.
“If you look at it like ‘Oh my God, what was he thinking as a credible artist?’ and if you don’t know what the deal is, I get that analysis,” Stapp said.
The Marlins finished the 2010 season in third place in the National League East with an 80-82 record.
U.D.O., “Touchdown”
Cringeworthy Lyrics: “Gettin’ ready for the match day. The most important game of life. We have the chance to become legends. We have the win in sight.”
As the NFL continues to widen the reach of its league with games in European countries, it will likely skip playing U.D.O. heading into commercial breaks.
The German metal singer released the an album titled Touchdown in 2023. The cover art features a metallic silver football adorned with sharp spikes.
As a metal album, Touchdown proves to be a heavy hitter that doesn’t stray too far from your typical metal fare. That’s, of course, until you get to the title track.
Here, U.D.O. attempts to really lean into the American football theme but have a misstep out of the gate.
“Gettin’ ready for the match day. The most important day of my life,” 72-year-old frontman Udo Dirkschneider opens the song as the notion of American football having “games” gets lost in translation.
U.D.O. continues to pepper in the football references, but never really recovers. You do have to admire their attempt as a German band to tackle (pun intended) something so ingrained in American culture as football.
Prince, “Purple and Gold”
Cringeworthy Lyrics: “The eyes say ready 4 battle. No need 4 sword in hand. We r all amped up like a rock n’ roll band.”
Prince was allegedly so inspired after witnessing the Minnesota Vikings’ 34-4 over the Dallas Cowboys in the 2010 NFC divisional playoffs that he went right to Paisley Park Studios to write his version of “We Are The Champions.”
The result was “Purple and Gold,” a rather mellow version of what was promised to be a “fight” song.
“The song, which opened with the fife-and-drum sound of a military band, was perfectly unusual for Prince, in ways it flouted the testosterone-charged norms of the music that throbbed at headache-inducing levels in (the Vikings’ former home stadium) the Metrodome,” ESPN.com wrote while trying its best to describe the song.
Prince completed the song and had it out by the time the Vikings took on eventual Super Bowl champs the New Orleans Saints the following week.
The Vikings never fully embraced “Purple and Gold” as part of their game day traditions. The 2010 win vs. Dallas would be Minnesota’s final playoff victory before Prince’s death in 2016.
Ten Yard Fight, “First and Ten”
Cringeworthy Lyrics: “You… Broke the edge! You… Lost my trust! / You turned in your helmet you fumbled the ball / You lost the edge man, you’re gonna fall.”
In the mid-1990s, a group of musicians in Boston’s hardcore scene decided to form Ten Yard Fight, a band whose music would be specifically inspired by the straight edge mentality mixed with American football.
Even if lead singer Anthony “Wrench” Moresschi had never sung in a band as AllMusic.com wrote, Ten Yard Fight was still able to pull off a vibe similar to hardcore acts that came before them such as Minor Threat and SSD.
That’s until you actually dive into the lyrics.
“Back in ’82 when the Cowboys were strong, I’d play flag football all day long / Until ’83 when dad said it was time, we played tackle together and crossed the goal line,” Moresschi yells into the mic to open “First and Ten.”
While the lyrics tell a touching coming-of-age hardcore tale, the band fails to mention the Cowboys played all of nine games in 1982 finishing 6-3 during a strike-shortened season. They ended up losing in the NFC Championship to Washington who went on to win the Super Bowl.
It was the third straight season the Cowboys would fail to make it to the Super Bowl after making it to the NFC Championship. They wouldn’t accomplish that feat for another 10 years when they finally won Super Bowl XXVII against the Buffalo Bills.
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Gallery Credit: Rob Carroll
