Taste in the disco era
Well, I ruffled a few feathers when I apologized for being a Carpenters fan as a child. Keep in mind that I have older siblings who were in their teens and 20s in this era. I distinctly recall their attitude toward 70s pop is that is was decidedly uncool. Cool people listened to stuff like ELO and Led Zeppelin. Not folksy songs with happy lyrics. Folk was cool only if it was anti-establishment.

So I guess it would be more accurate for me to describe my childhood taste as "uncool" rather than simply "bad." As Sarah pointed out, Karen Carpenter's vocal quality is superior to a majority of pop stars.

If we really want to talk about bad taste in music, well, there's my parents. They were teens during the Swing era and got to jump, jive and wail to all this awesome 40s dance music, only to turn into Muzak afficianados in later adulthood. If you think "The Girl from Ipanema" is bad, you should hear "Thriller" played by a 101 string orchestra. Yikes. (I wish I was kidding. The local "easy listening" station truly did play such a rendition when I was in high school.)