Hello, and welcome to my Worst Singles and Albums lists! For this blog, I will be talking about my ten least favorite singles and albums I listened to this year. There were a lot of contenders for each, so these were some tough lists to make. But hey, I had fun making them, and I hope you have fun reading them.
A few things to keep in mind before we begin: One, I haven't listened to everything. If you're expecting a specific song or album to be on here, there is a definite possibility that I haven't listened to it. For the most part, it's because I haven't heard of it before, but I have specifically avoided some projects because I just simply don't want to experience them. So if you're wondering where the new albums from Kid Rock or Tom MacDonald are, as well as songs like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Bitch," they will not be on here because I chose not to listen to them. Two, these are all my opinions. If you like the music on here, that's awesome. I'm glad you like them, and I'm not trying to judge you for enjoying any of the music here. I'm merely stating my opinions.
With that said, let's begin with the songs. Here are my Top 10 Worst Singles of 2022.
10. Central Cee: "Doja"
Release Date: July 21
Genre: UK Hip Hop
Album: n/a
I completely understand that he is being intentionally tongue in cheek here. There is definitely a sense of humor here that you aren't supposed to take entirely seriously. With that said, these lyrics are reeeeeally bad. They are so corny, and they paint this guy an unflattering picture. He sounds like a tool with lines like "How can I be homophobic? My bitch is gay / Hit man in the top, try see a man topless, even the stick is gay / Huggin' my bruddas and say that I love them, but I don't swing that way..." And that's just the chorus. The verse is not that much better. It's such a nothing song. There's no substance, it's painfully underwritten and the beat lacks bite. It's songs like this that make me understand why UK Hip Hop isn't as appreciated here in the States.
9. Muse: "Will of the People"
Release Date: June 1
Genre: Glam Rock / Hard Rock
Album: Will of the People
On the title track of their latest album, Muse go full on butt rock with their worst single since 2015's "Psycho." The riff and the group chant of the title reminds me of Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People," but without the edge. It's trying to be anthemic and powerful, but it just comes across as so ham-fisted. And sure, Muse is no stranger to goofy songwriting, but this is so silly that it becomes stupid very quickly. The lyrics are generic, the singing is certainly not Matt Bellamy's best and the production is a mess. The distortion sounds flaccid and the drums are so basic and boring. This is yet another Muse song about "rising up against the system," which is a topic the band is no stranger towards, but here, it's done in such an uninteresting way. The band became a parody of themselves with this track, and as a fan of their early work, it's difficult to hear.
8. David Guetta & Bebe Rexha: "I'm Good (Blue)"
Release Date: August 26
Genre: Electro House / Dance Pop
Album: n/a
When it comes to popular music, A trend that I've noticed as of late is taking a really famous pop song from the past and remixing it. Sure, sampling has been around for a long time, but I've mostly heard it in hip hop, and usually the artists sampling the past work would spin it in a way that makes it their own. As of late, the current artists are taking the same basic melody of the original song and reworking it slightly, but for the most part, keeping the original melody in tact. Some good examples are Nicki Minaj's "Super Freaky Girl" and Yung Gravy's "Betty (Get Money)." On the other side of the spectrum... you get this. David Guetta and Bebe Rexha take Eiffel 65's "I'm Blue" and turn it into the most generic and poorly produced club track you can possibly imagine. The incorporation of the sample is lazy, the singing and the lyrics lack any kind of passion and the production is just trash. The synths are so grating and the bass sounds like static farts. Sometimes, it's better to just leave the past in the past and not touch it, because these two took an already pretty lame song and made it even worse.
7. Machine Gun Kelly: "Emo Girl (feat. WILLOW)"
Release Date: February 4
Genre: Pop Punk / Emo Pop
Album: mainstream sellout
I don't think I will ever get the appeal of Machine Gun Kelly. I mean, he is obnoxious both with his music and his public persona, and I cannot take him seriously at all. And this song right here is a prime example as to why I think of him as a clown. This man is in his 30s, and he writes music like he's a middle schooler embracing his emo phase for the first time. The riffs are basic, the production has no bite or personality to it whatsoever and MGK's singing is horrendous. And then there's the chorus. Sure, the chorus is catchy, but it's catchy in the same way that chlamydia is catchy. It's underwritten and the lyrics are stupid. This entire song is 100% behind the times and trying way too hard to be edgy and cool. The only decent about this track is WILLOW, because she at least has some charisma in her vocals. She's the only thing keeping this song from being any higher.
6. 6ix9ine: "GINÉ"
Release Date: April 15
Genre: Trap / East Coast Hip Hop
Album: n/a
Hey, speaking of clowns. The Skittles man is back because he refuses to go away even though we all want him to. This song is so obnoxious. The piano loop is annoying, the trap production is bland, the lyrics are dumb and Tekashi's voice is so grating. I've never found his music appealing. He screams every word and uses the same exact flow every single time. Not only that, but he consistently falls off the beat. I know some rappers rap offbeat, but they do that intentionally. With 6ix9ine, it doesn't sound that way. It just comes across sloppy. This song is repetitive, boring and just bad all around.
5. ZAQQ: "Da Goat No Cap"
Release Date: February 14
Genre: Trap
Album: n/a
Have you ever seen or listened to something that makes you ask yourself "is this a bit?" That's what I keep asking about this song. I think it's supposed to be a joke. In fact, I'm positive it is a joke. I mean, just by listening to the adlibs and seeing his Instagram comments constantly referencing the song's title, I believe this song was created to be a meme. With that said, this is one of the most borderline unlistenable pieces of music I've heard this year. This beat is soooooo awful. The combination of the high end synths with the overpowering bass and drums make this beat incredibly annoying. ZAQQ's flow and singing is so messy it comes close to atonal. Also, this track is barely over a minute and a half. Half of it's length is an intro and an outro, and 90% of the song is the hook. The other 10% is the verse and the instrumental ending. What is this pacing? I have to think this entire song was made bad on purpose because why else would it be made? And sure, some might think that some points should be taken off for this being intentionally bad, but it doesn't make the listening experience any more pleasant. At least it's short.
4. Your Favorite Martian: "Orphan Tears, Pt. 2 (feat. Cartoon Wax and Stevi the Demon)"
Release Date: June 1
Genre: Comedy Rap
Album: n/a
Your Favorite Martian: the animated comedy band spearheaded by Ray William Johnson has returned. Yaaaayyy... Okay, full disclosure. I did not grow up with YFM. I think that plays a big part into my thoughts on this song, as well as the band in general, because listening to their material, I do not think it's all that funny. This song included. The joke is the band drank orphan tears, which causes them to trip balls. It's a decent idea, but the song just tries to throw some random=funny BS at us, and it just doesn't work. On top of that, the beat sounds like stock music, the rapping is bad and the story of the song has unnecessary stakes to them that is so not needed. If you grew up with YFM, you'll probably dig this more than me, but for me, I just found this dumb. I don't hate Ray William Johnson and his current content is actually a guilty pleasure of mine. Not this, though. This is bad.
3. Black Eyed Peas: "DON'T YOU WORRY (with Shakira & David Guetta)"
Release Date: June 17
Genre: Dance Pop
Album: ELEVATION
The Black Eyed Peas are still here, I guess. With this song, they team up with Shakira and David Guetta, making his second appearance on this list, to give us this really hideous, soulless club "anthem" interpolating the classic "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley. The trio do not sound like they are trying at all, as their lyrics, singing and rapping is all so half assed. Sure, you can say what you want about the material they released in the early 2010s, but at least they had charisma in their performances. Shakira is a pointless feature. She's only on here to get name recognition so as to appeal to the Latin crowd. It's really shameless, as they are so clearly pandering. And that beat is trash. There is no flavor to it whatsoever, and it gets old within the first few seconds. The group is trying so desperately hard to harken back to their uprising, all the while forgetting what made it guilty pleasure fun in the first place. This one just hurts, and I'm done talking about it.
2. Kieran Hebden: "Looking at Your Pager"
Release Date: May 19
Genre: Breakstep
Album: n/a
Well... this is certainly something. For those that don't know, and I honestly didn't know this until recently, "Looking at Your Pager" is a remix of 3LW's "No More (Baby I'ma Do Right)." 3LW was an R&B girl group from the early 2000s that never really took off. And honestly, based off of that one song, I'm not too surprised. It's a completely subpar ballad, and none of the girls really had a whole lot of power in their vocals, resulting in the song feeling kind of underwhelming. It's not a terrible song, but it's certainly not one of the better songs I've heard in the genre. Anyways, Kieran Hebdan, also known as KH, but more commonly known as Four Tet, completely flipped the song on its head, turning it into a pseudo-dubstep remix. And good Lord, this is one of the most annoying things I've heard all year. The vocals are chipmunked in an unpleasant way, the synth leads are way too tinny, the percussion is obnoxious and the bass comes through like a deep synthetic burp. It all collides into a hideous hodge-podge of electronics. None of it sounds good, and it goes on with very little variety. "Looking at Your Pager" takes an already not very good song and makes it so much worse.
1. Lil Pump: "Mona Lisa (ft. Soulja Boy)"
Release Date: January 21
Genre: Trap Pop Rap / Southern Hip Hop
Album: n/a
Yeah, there was no contest. This is easily the worst thing I heard all year. I mean, this thing physically upsets me. I feel like a deflating balloon with each listen. The beat sucks. The piano loop is so clearly out of tune, and the bass and percussion have so little body to them that each hit lacks any impact. The rapping sucks. Lil Pump sounds the most bored he's ever sounded in his life. His flow is lazy, and the tone of his voice is grating. Soulja Boy's rapping isn't much better, as he is constantly off the beat and jumbling words together like he barely speaks English. Plus, the way his lines are layered on top of each other makes it so clear that his entire verse was made in separate takes. They didn't even try to hide it, and there was no rhyme or reason to switching between takes. Is Soulja Boy that bad of a rapper that he can't rap more than a sentence without messing up? The lyrics suck. They are meaningless dribble. Lil Pump talks about what a terrible person he is, and Soulja Boy... I honestly don't know. Reading the lyrics, it looks like gibberish. "Straight drop walk, can't stop, won't stop / Mona Lisa, take a I pint and I dump?" Uh... what? I cannot stand this song. It makes me depressed listening to it. It makes depressed thinking about it and talking about it. So I'm going to stop. Worst song of the year for me, 100%. Boo.
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Was that exciting? I bet it was. Anyways, let's move on. Before I move onto my worst albums list, here are some dishonorable mentions. These albums I did not care for, but they were not bad enough to make it onto the worst list.
Dishonorable Mentions:
Gunna: DS4EVER
Post Malone: Twelve Carat Toothache
Charlie Puth: Charlie
With that said, here is my Top 10 Worst Albums of 2022.
10. Muse: Will of the People
Release Date: August 26
Genre: Alternative Rock / Pop Rock / Alternative Metal
Worst Song: "Will of the People"
Man, this one hurts. I used to be a huge Muse fan. Their material in the 2000s was so good. They are responsible for some of my favorite rock music from that time, as they created some killer melodies and riffs, as well as some excellent anthems. To this day, I will jam out to songs like "Knights of Cydonia," "Hysteria," "New Born," "Map of the Problematique" and even "Uprising." Sure, their lyrics could be very conspiracy theory influenced, but their songwriting was so killer, and seeing their downward spiral throughout the 2010s has been sad. With poor songwriting, messy production and experimental misfires, this band has turned into a shell of their former selves, and Will of the People is the lowest the band has been up to this point. This project has some of the band's stupidest and most tedious songs to date. Each song here is so over the top that it results in some of the band's most unintentionally hilarious moments ever. On top of that, the performances are not great, the production is a mess, and Matt Bellamy is straining more than he's ever strained before. Also, these are some of the band's worst lyrics to date. The album has very similar themes to their earlier works, but here, they feel so generic and surface level. Like, oh sure, we should rise up against the powers that oppress us. Okay. You're saying things that have been said a million times over. We get it. And when it is off of that topic, you get really dumb and corny love songs that add nothing to the overall project. This album is just a misfire on all fronts, and it's really sad to see Muse sink this low. Hopefully, their next project will be better, but based on their current trajectory, I doubt it.
9. Drake: Honestly, Nevermind
Release Date: June 17
Genre: House / Alternative R&B / Dance Pop / Hip-House / Baltimore Club
Worst Song: "Currents"
Leave it to Drake to make a dance album that doesn't make you want to dance at all. In fact, it just makes you want to fall asleep. I've never been a Drake fan. His rapping has never appealed to me, and his massive ego gets really obnoxious. Honestly, Nevermind is, in concept, a pretty cool switch up. Sure, Drake has played around with dance music, but an entire album full of dancehall could be fun. Instead, we get 52 minutes of some of the most boring music of the entire year. The production is lifeless, Drake sounds like he's not even trying and the lyrics do very little to get me to care about anything that's happening on the album nor anything that's happening to him. It might not be as consistently cringy as Certified Lover Boy (except for the bed squeaking sample on "Currents," I mean why even include that in the first place?), but it is certainly more pointless. The fact that "Massive" and "Jimmy Cooks" are both genuinely good songs is what is keeping this album from being any higher.
8. Nickelback: Get Rollin'
Release Date: November 18
Genre: Hard Rock / Country Rock
Worst Song: "Those Days"
This new Nickelback album is interesting. The first half of the album is a guilty pleasure of mine. The first five songs are all so bad they're hilarious. The lyrics, the over the top singing and the mixture of generic butt rock, out of touch classic rock flairs and out of place country fusion make for some laugh out loud moments. It's certainly not good at all, but I found myself jamming out to them ironically. From track six onward, you get the most generic, soulless, dull, uninspired and boring dad rock you could possibly imagine. All of the passion, comedy and energy gets sucked out. In it's place is Nickelback at their most vapid and tedious. If you want a good laugh, listen to "San Quentin" through "Vegas Bomb." After that, just move on.
7. Oliver Tree: Cowboy Tears
Release Date: February 18
Genre: Indie Pop / Country Pop / Folk Pop / Pop Rock / Emo Pop
Worst Song: "California"
Oliver Tree's last album, Ugly is Beautiful, is an imperfect yet perfectly enjoyable pop rock album. It was full of catchy tunes with some sharp songwriting and a strong personality. It showed Oliver Tree was as much of a meme as he was an artist, as his ridiculous online persona added to the emo yet goofy performances. The downside was that the label clearly had no idea how to deal with him, as the rollout for that album was atrocious as the project primarily features songs that were released years prior. Then he released "Life Goes On," which showed the world just how annoying he could be, acting as an omen for his career. Following that was Cowboy Tears, which features his signature whiny vocals, but this time over country and folk instrumentation. It's clear that the label didn't know what to do with it, as the marketing was almost nonexistent. In fact, the next viral hit for Oliver Tree was "Miss You," which is a remix of "Jerk" from the last album. It also didn't help that Cowboy Tears is just not a good album. The instrumentals are all so basic and flavorless, as it poorly mixes acoustic guitars with pop and hip hop production. Oliver Tree's vocals are even more grating here than ever before, as his forced country drawl gets old really fast. On top of that, the songs themselves are just bad. Sure, you have a couple of catchy ones here, but for the most part, they are poorly written and obnoxious. I really wanted to like this album as I have been in his corner for a while, but this was just not it.
6. Yung Lean: Stardust
Release Date: April 8
Genre: Cloud Rap
Worst Song: "Starz2theRainbow"
This might be an unpopular opinion as I know that Yung Lean is pretty big among the Drain Gang community, but hey, it is what it is. Anyways, I will admit that this project has probably more positives than pretty much anything else here. The production is pretty good all across the board. It's dynamic, it's full of color and there's a fair amount of creativity. However, this is one of those instances when the vocals ruin EVERYTHING. Yung Lean's singing and rapping is so bad, so jumbled and so consistently off-key that it becomes hysterical. Seriously, the moans that are incorporated through most of the song would embarrass Kid Cudi: the king of musical moans. I feel bad because there's a clear amount of ambition put in here, and honestly, with a different rapper, this could have been good. And sure, there are other flaws here like dumb lyrics and some moments of filler, but it's the vocals that completely kill any semblance of me taking this thing seriously.
5. Panic! at the Disco: Viva Las Vengeance
Release Date: August 19
Genre: Power Pop / Pop Rock / Glam Rock
Worst Song: "Star Spangled Banger"
Do you like Queen? Does it bother you when other bands and artists try to imitate them but do so poorly? If you answer yes to both questions, you're going to hate this one. Panic! at the Disco, aka the Brendan Urie show, gives us an over the top, bombastic piece of glam rock that is so high octane that it gets unbearable within the first few seconds. The instrumentation is sloppy, the production is all over the place and the songwriting is so uninteresting even with everything cranked up to ten. And you can tell Brendan Urie is straining with every single note. Yes, he has a good voice, but when you have to go full power literally every time you open your mouth to sing, that's a problem. He sounds like his throat is hurting, and he is constantly pushing to sing out of range, which comes across so unflattering. This album is just a mess from front to back. Listening to this thing gave me a headache, and it turns out talking about it does as well, so it's time to move on. How do we have four albums worse than this?
4. Jack Harlow: Come Home the Kids Miss You
Release Date: May 6
Genre: Pop Rap / Trap / Southern Hip Hop
Worst Song: "Movie Star"
I mean this is the nicest way possible: what happened? Jack Harlow, as a rapper, seemed charming and had a lot of potential. "WHAT'S POPPIN?" was fun. His verse on Lil Nas X's "INDUSTRY BABY" is great. What happened? Somehow, between "INDUSTRY BABY" and Come Home the Kids Miss You, Jack recorded some of the most dull and lifeless rap songs of the year. The production is so uninteresting throughout, and it lacks any kind of personality or bounce. Jack rocks one flow and he uses it on every single track here. Half the time he sounds like he's asleep at the wheel. On top of that, the writing is just bad. This project is full of terrible metaphors and similes, showcasing just how poor of a songwriter Jack Harlow is. I'm sorry, but I do not want to hear about your, and I quote, "Sweet, sweet, sweet semen." Sure, rapping about sex is cool and whatnot, but in this vain, it's just gross. This entire project sounds like Jack riding coattails and completely selling out. There is no passion or love on any of these songs. It's the most watered down you can get with your hip hop, and it is not worth going back to at all.
3. Machine Gun Kelly: mainstream sellout
Release Date: March 25
Genre: Pop Punk / Rap Rock
Worst Song: "born with horns"
Again, I have to ask: what happened? Okay, let me rephrase. What happened to society that made THIS MAN the face of modern pop punk? I mean, seriously? MGK? I don't get it. Outside of the various problems I have with him as a celebrity and as a person, I don't think he's a good artist at all. His music is pop punk at its most generic and dull, and mainstream sellout is a huge notch in that belt. Every single one of these songs has such uninteresting chord progressions and such flaccid production. Nothing here hits hard at all, and it all kind of washes over you without much in the way of gripping songwriting. The lyrics are terrible as well. They range from the embarrassing "I'm a thirty year old man talking about things a 16 year old would find edgy and cool" to the embarrassing "look at me and how depressed I am." And MGK's singing... ugh. Truthfully one of the worst singers of the mainstream, in my opinion. He is always off key, and his deep and gravelly tone is so unflattering. He sounds like he smokes an entire cigarette before each vocal take. Also, his inflections get on my nerves. The way he sings the "o," "i" and "a" sounds, in particular, is so annoying. I hate this album. I never want to listen to anything on here again. It's so bad.
2. DaBaby: Baby on Baby 2
Release Date: September 23
Genre: Southern Hip Hop / Trap / Pop Rap
Worst Song: "NO CONDOM"
It's interesting how artists fall off after their reputation is ruined. I mean, think of the famous people who have been cancelled for one reason or another. After coming back, if they do come back, they are never the same. DaBaby, for those that don't know, faced a lot of scrutiny for some heavily homophobic comments he said in 2021. As a result, he got pulled from many slated festivals, he got cut from his long running partnership with fashion brand BoohooMAN, his credit on his collaboration with Dua Lipa for the "Levitating" remix got removed from the Billboard Airplay Charts and thousands of fans were left upset by the comments. That, along with some legal troubles from the past few years, caused him to fall off, but he came back with Baby on Baby 2. And it is awful. The beats are all forgettable and rushed. The production is a mess. It all sounds so cheap and lifeless. Honestly, some of these beats sound like royalty free beats. Plus, DaBaby's flow is soooo repetitive. He uses the same delivery on every song with no switch ups whatsoever. Plus, the bars suck and the adlibs are so dumb and awful. This really was painful to listen to, as every single song here is so poorly thought out and so poorly executed. I'm just glad that it was short. I can't imagine having to sit through over an hour of this garbage. I hope that we forget about DaBaby's existence in the not too distant future, because this was unbearable. There is only one word to describe this album: trash.
1. Black Eyed Peas: ELEVATION
Release Date: November 11
Genre: Dance Pop / House / Latin Pop / Reggaeton
Worst Song: "IN THE AIR"
The Black Eyed Peas still existing is one of the biggest crimes music had to offer this year. To think that they would become even worse than what they were in the early 2010s is so ludicrous, it's kind of impressive. And for some reason, they have incorporated reggaeton into their music because reggaeton is hip and trendy. The Black Eyed Peas are so desperate to chase trends that it's almost funny. On top of that, the music is here is just so damn bad. The production is terrible. It uses some of the most generic and boring club beats possibly imaginable. The performances are awful. The group use the same flows they have been using for forever, but it lacks any modicum of charm or charisma. The features are poorly utilized. They are tacked on without any rhyme or reason, and most of them sound like they are simply there to cash a paycheck. The lyrics are some of the worst I've heard all year. They use the most generic "let's pump it up" lines imaginable, while also using some random non-sequiturs and purely nonsensical rhymes. The sampling is also terrible. The album uses a bunch of random interpolations for no reason, and they are all used so lazily. This entire album is such a lazy, messy and horrendous listening experience. There is not a single moment that I liked. This thing made me physically nauseous as I listened to it. That's how bad it is. I really hope that after this, we do not hear from the Black Eyed Peas for a long time, maybe even ever.
Well, that's my worst list. That was painful. The next two lists should be a lot more fun. My Top 50 Singles and Top 20 albums lists will be coming soon, so stay tuned! Thanks for reading.
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