A power ballad can have enough kitschy fun to it to be enjoyable. I feel these songs fall into a subtly different category
This is worse than Imagine, because at least when Imagine starts you know it'll be over again in three minutes or so, whereas with American Pie you're in for upwards of EIGHT AND A HALF FUCKING MINUTES of self-important circumlocution and tedious genuflection before the authorized rock n roll canon. Apparently Don McLean has said that the lyrics are "beyond analysis. They're poetry." No they aren't, they're a load of clunking riddle-me-this shite you absolute fucking weapon.
I can imagine 15 year old Barty making a tune like the one mvuent just posted