Bioshock Infinite doesn't have a connection to Bioshock 1 and 2 but you should at least play the first one for the sake of playing a decently fun game; other than that, well, it depends what games you have in your backlog!

it depends what games you have in your backlog!

The original Bioshock, for starters

Give that a run-through then!

Yeah, Bioshock is amazing and deserves the first playthrough

guys I really want to play this but never played the original Bioshock and also have a huge backlog of other games

is it worth forgetting about all of that and playing this instead?

There's some not so subtle wink-and-nods to the original Bioshock in Infinite.  Infinite also uses a lot of the same storytelling techniques.  All in all it's worth playing Bioshock first, then skipping 2 and going straight for Infinite.