Brad Paisley's "Then". Could there be a more cliché chorus line than "And now you're my whole life / Now you're my whole world / And I just can't believe the way I feel about you, girl"?
Carrie Underwood's "See You Again" is four minutes of "you're dead, but I'm not sad" clichés that have been done a million times. It also sounds like all the "sad" songs you always hear on movie soundtracks (it was written for one of the Chronicles of Narnia films). It's telling that, out of all the "story behind the song" entries in the now-defunct Country Weekly magazine, this song had by far the shortest—it barely took up half a page!
Also from Underwood is "Something in the Water", which is full of religious redemption clichés about how the narrator is "changed" and "stronger". It even resorts to the ultimate religious cliché—ending with an interpolation of Amazing Freaking Grace.
Dschinghis Khan: Their music is pretty cliché, but "Moskau" really takes the cake.
Céline Dion's albums are a veritable clichefest. Her first seven albums (not counting her Christmas Album) feature no fewer than 27 songs with the word love in the title. That's about 1/5th of the songs she recorded. She outdid herself on "The Colour of My Love" where half of the songs (and the title of the album) feature the word love.
Toto are pretty similar; about half their songs follow the formula of 'I love you very much <insert female name as title of song>.' It got so bad, they named one song (admittedly a good one) 99. On their second album.
Nearly anything written by Diane Warren, including Céline Dion's "Because You Loved Me" ("You were my strength when I was weak / You were my voice when I couldn't speak...") or LeAnn Rimes (or Trisha Yearwood's) "How Do I Live" ("How do I live without you? I want to know / How do I breathe without you if you ever go? / How do I ever, ever survive?). Also, count how many times she used the phrase "in this moment" in Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing".
The charity single "Just Stand Up!" Justified in that the song was written so that sales could go to the cause (Just Stand Up For Cancer) and for inspirational purposes, and therefore wasn't intended to be original.
Practically every line of "Roar" by Katy Perry is a well-worn cliché. Special mention goes to the fact that the chorus ("I've got the eye of the tiger/The fighter, dancing through the fire/'Cause I am a champion/And you're gonna hear me roar") uses lyrical concepts from threeotherfamoussongs.
Todd: Let me try and explain. So in case the title didn't give it away, apparently Kelly has been dumped again, but she's okay, because you know what always makes me feel better after a breakup? Cliches. Lots of them.
Kelly: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger / Stand a little taller / Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone / Just me, myself and I
Todd: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Nice guys finish last. Knowledge is power. Winners don't use drugs. My God, the pain of being dumped is already fading.
Symphonic metal band Edenbridge's "Place of Higher Power," replete with such turns of phrase as "it's a jungle out there," "beauty's only skin deep," "what a tangled web we weave," and "working like a charm."
The reaction many had to Linkin Park's Meteora, mainly because the lyrics are all about the narrator and how everyone else is wrong.
His last large-scale video, "You Rock My World", is a rehash of elements from his Bad/Dangerous-era videos: 1930s/'40s gangster motif ("Smooth Criminal"), Jackson having to prove he's tough ("Bad"—the phrase "You ain't nothin'" appears in both), celebrity appearances ("Liberian Girl", "Remember the Time", etc.), and Jackson pursuing a sexy girl ("The Way You Make Me Feel").
It has a tearjerker reputation, but "Gone Too Soon" is really just a list of tired similes ("Like a perfect flower/That is just beyond your reach/Gone too soon").
Almost eveything ever released by Ronnie James Dio... although, to be honest, rocking like this when you're around 70 is still pretty damned awesome.
Thompson Square's "If I Didn't Have You" is stuffed with clichés: "Sometimes, sunshine gets lost in the rain", "I couldn't live without you, baby, I wouldn't want to", "You are my heart, every breath I breathe…" etc. Even worse, they already used "every breath I breathe" only two singles prior on "I Got You".
Van Halen's song "Why Can't This Be Love", also overlapping with redundancy:
Only time will tell/ if we stand the test of time
The careers of many pop-punk bands—most notably Screeching Weasel, The Riverdales, that sort of thing—could be called this, due to their fanboyish emulation of The Ramones. This doesn't mean it's not still awesome. In some cases, pop punk bands do get really generic and cliched in a bad way.
The story of the Mannheim Steamroller album and TV special The Christmas Angel: A Family Story seems built from a list of Christmas and/or winter fantasy cliches: living toys (a cat, a teddy bear, a snowman, and a toy soldier); a monster who hates the holiday, wrecks the town square and steals the eponymous angel (which represents the spirit of the season) from the top of its Christmas tree to ruin everything; a trip by the heroine and toys to the icy north to confront him; and a happy ending wherein the villain is reformed by the power of goodness.
The lyrics Cosmos' (and Chaos') themes in Dissidia Final Fantasy might as well have been a long list of cliched fantasy phrases run through a computer algorithm and edited by a non-native English Speaker. The songs are still catchy, though they owe far more to the kickass score and excellent performance than the written content.
In the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Iolanthe, the song "If You Go In You're Sure To Win" is made up of clichés. The first verse and chorus go
Lord Mountarat: If you go in You're sure to win—
Yours will be the charming maidie:
Be your law The ancient saw, "Faint heart never won fair lady!"
All: Never, never, never, Faint heart never won fair lady!
Every journey has an end—
When at the worst affairs will mend—
Dark the dawn when day is nigh—
Hustle your horse and don't say die!
The songs of Rhapsody of Fire are mostly grandiose fantasy stories with every cliché played with emotion and seemingly totally seriously. "Go, mighty warrior! The kings of enchanted lands are awaiting your victory. Ride on the wings of wisdom. Ride beyond the Middle Valleys to defeat the master of Chaos in the name of cosmic justice!"
Most of the output of Electric Light Orchestra is a cliché festival, but "Tightrope" (from A New World Record) compounds it on the opening line with Shaped Like Itself:
They say some days you're gonna win, They say some days you're gonna lose, I tell you I've got news for you, You're losin' all the time you never win, no.
Tom Waits's "Step Right Up" is mostly a collection of advertising catchphrases and cliches.
Invoked and parodied by Bruce Springsteen with "My Best Was Never Good Enough," where the lyrics, except for the title and "Come'on pretty baby, call my bluff" are nothing but clichés, including a Take That! to Forrest Gump.
"Now life's like a box of chocolates You never know what you're gonna get Stupid is as stupid does and all the rest of that shit."
Most of Taylor Swift's country-pop output seemed to be nothing but "fairy tale" (with lyrics like "you a prince and me a princess"), breaking up/men are losers and "being in a movie" clichés with a bit of outsider-vs.-popular cheerleader thrown in. And how many songs have there been that incorporated Superman in its lyrics?
Shania Twain's recorded library is full of estrogen-soaked cowgirl-on-the-prowl cliches with lyrics like "You're a fine piece of real estate and I'm gonna get me some land" (I'm Gonna Getcha Good!) and "I'm gonna put some 'up' in your 'giddy'" (Giddy Up).
Irene Cara's "starring me" platitudes from the themes from Fame and Flashdance are what young showbiz wannabes considered to be their anthems. "I'm gonna live forever/I'm gonna learn how to fly" were just 80s versions of standards like "You Ought to Be in Pictures" only changing second person liberally to first person.
Bad Company's "Shooting Star" is an oft-told story (not necessarily musically) about a kid who cuts his musical teeth on the Beatles, gets a guitar, leaves home to seek fame and fortune, becomes a superstar, and at the pinnacle of his stardom is found dead from sleeping pills and alcohol. With "Don't you know" thrown in the refrain many times.
Take Jay & the Americans' "Come a Little Bit Closer," add Jim Croce's "Bad Bad Leroy Brown," mix with a generous helping of redneck, and you have Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Gimme Three Steps." All three tell of a guy at a bar trying to score with a jealous man's girl/wife. Kip Adotta's "Wet Dream" plays this for laughs.
". Could there be a more cliché chorus line than "And now you're my whole life / Now you're my whole world / And I just can't believe the way I feel about you, girl"?