World’s Worst Songs: “Christine Sixteen”

(Getty Images/Fred Tanneau/AFP)

Everybody who loves music also hates music — certain specific examples of it, anyhow. This feature is about those songs: the World’s Worst Songs.

Since they burst into the consciousness of American teenagers over 35 years ago, KISS has been all about getting in your face. Their stage shows are over-the-top spectacle, and their music is straight-up sonic assault. For this reason, criticizing them for poor taste is pointless — and yet here I go, adding one of their Top-40 hits to the pantheon of the World’s Worst Songs.

“Christine Sixteen” is about a sexual predator latching onto an underage girl outside of her school. We’re a bit more attuned to such things now than we used to be, although in 1977, a few radio stations limited the song’s airplay to nighttime only, so we weren’t completely oblivious. Gene Simmons‘ leering recitation in the middle has a pretty skeevy feel: “I don’t usually say things like this to girls your age, but when I saw you coming out of the school that day, I knew I’ve got to have you.” And the lyric line “She’s been around but she’s young and clean” makes me feel like I need a shower.

What’s really obscene about “Christine Sixteen,” however, is the barely competent whorehouse piano banging throughout. KISS was never subtle, but with that performance, pianist Eddie Kramer, the band’s co-producer, set a new standard for crassness, although in a perfectly understandable way, it fits.

If you think we blew it — if there’s a case to be made for why this song is better than we think it is — click “Add a Comment” and tell why, then listen to and debate more of the World’s Worst Songs.