Festival season is upon us, so it’s time for bands to dust down their greatest hit sets. Now isn’t the time for an artist to play an obscure b-side: this show is to satisfy the needs of the guy by the burger van on his 16th cider shouting for the one song he knows.



The resentment of a big hit is a very common story for many 'serious artists'. At the One Big Weekend in Glasgow recently Kings of Leon drummer Nathan Followill told the Sun that he “would be pretty damn happy if my sex was never ever on fire again … [but the] Fans want it and you have to do it.” Meanwhile, James Hetfield of soon-to-be Glastonbury headliners Metallica has said that playing Escape live is one of his worst nightmares; Slash has admitted that he hated Sweet Child O’ Mine “because it was so stupid at first” and Madonna has said it would take $30m for her to play Like a Virgin again. Vanilla Ice even went as far as to go to the MTV headquarters to smash the master copy of the Ice Ice Baby's video, to make sure that it would never be played again.

From the teen angst of Creep to the Beastie Boys' party anthem prank gone awry, here are some of the most famous acts who hate their biggest hit.

Radiohead – Creep

It’s no secret that the Oxford miserablists hate their 1992 hit Creep – Jonny Greenwood even tried to sabotage the song during recording with his savage stabs of guitar. Thom Yorke apparently took to calling the song Crap and stated that the band had "sucked Satan's cock" following its release. And woe betide anyone who requested the song: at one concert in Montreal, he answered a fan’s request by telling the crowd to “fuck off, we’re tired of it”. Yorke has also accused other admirers of the track of being "anally retarded", whatever that may mean.

Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven

To many, Stairway to Heaven is the greatest song ever written. Some learnt to play guitar because of it. But Robert Plant? The man behind the music? He hates it. He really hates it. "I'd break out in hives if I had to sing that song in every show," he admitted. And he put his money where his mouth is too: when an Oregon radio station announced that they would never play Stairway to Heaven, Plant actually donated. He did, however, agree to play the song at the band’s one-off concert at the O2 Arena but only after insisting it not be played as a finale, and for Jimmy Page to “restrain himself from turning the song into an even more epic solo-filled noodle”. Get you.

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit

The unexpected success of Smells Like Teen Spirit propelled Nevermind to the top of the charts – which is probably why Cobain once told Rolling Stone that it was "almost an embarrassment to play it ... Everyone has focused on that song so much." Cobain saw the song as not much more than an homage to the Pixies and refused to play it at many of Nirvana’s later shows. "I can barely, especially on a bad night like tonight, get through it," he once said. And when he actually did play it, he would sometimes lead into it with More Than a Feeling.

Oasis – Wonderwall

Wonderwall is perhaps Oasis’ most enduring hit but that doesn’t stop Liam Gallagher hating it anyway. When being interviewed around the release of Dig Out Your Soul, Liam replied: "At least there's no Wonderwall on there. I can't fucking stand that fucking song. Every time I have to sing it I want to gag. Problem is, it was a big, big tune for us. You go to America and they're like: 'Are you Mr Wonderwall?' You want to chin someone." Big words, though he can’t have hated it too much as he still performed it with Beady Eye at the Olympic closing ceremony – and had to endure the ignominy of having to ask Noel’s permission to do so.

Beastie Boys – Fight For Your Right (To Party)

It may have been the song that put them on MTV, but the Beastie Boys publicly denounced Fight for Your Right and didn’t perform it live post-1987. Meant as a sarcastic take on party anthems like Smoking in the Boys Room, the joke went a little awry when the very people it mocked didn’t seem to be in on the gag. "There were tons of guys singing along to Fight for Your Right who were oblivious to the fact it was a total goof on them," Mike D admitted. The matter became a little clearer when, in the liner notes to The Sounds of Science, they wrote that the song "sucks".

Any more to add to the hate list? Let us know in the comments below.