the top ten worst hit songs of 2013

It's that time again.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of year where I take a look at the biggest hit songs of the year and pick out the top ten best and worst to the complete indifference of artists, producers, and fans alike! Sounds like fun, eh? Okay, let's get started, and I think the prime place to begin is at the absolute bottom: the top ten worst hit songs of the year.

First, some ground rules. For one, a song will only ever make the list if it debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End chart this year. Of course there are holdovers I dislike from last year, but they had their chance to pop up on my 2012 list (which is available here). And I'm only choosing songs from this list - of course there were worse tracks that I covered in my album reviews, but I want to make the point that not only are these songs terrible, they're also impossible to escape throughout the year.

And here's another thing to keep in mind: for a song to reach my list, it has to actively annoy or irritate me, and simply being boring is often not enough to propel a song into my line of fire. The year-end charts are less aggressively bad than they are boring, and this year had that problem more than previous years, mostly because the indie boom lost momentum and mainstream radio had no idea what to replace it with. That means large tracts of this year were dominated by easy listening slow jams, interchangeable EDM, increasingly listless hip-hop, and a disco revival that came out of nowhere. 

But that's not saying there weren't songs that pissed me off, so let's begin by tackling some Dishonourable Mentions, shall we?

When I reviewed Rihanna's terrible 2012 album Unapologetic, I was more focused on the highly questionable practice of featuring songs that were obviously trying to cash in on the 'drama' of Rihanna and Chris Brown. Fortunately for my sanity, none of those songs were released as singles and Chris Brown had a really bad year on the charts. But instead, we got this lazy waste of time. At this point, I've lost the ability to be shocked by Rihanna shoving her naughty bits in my face, and I'm more exasperated by the song than actively repulsed. The writing is terrible, the production is even worse, but at least Rihanna's trying and the song has a pulse. And really, having listened to my fair share of dumb, obnoxious brag rap, Rihanna's effort here is far from the worst of it this year.

Yes, I know it's a song with different cultural roots, and I get that the humour might not click with me as well as it did with its Norwegian audience. But it comes across as juvenile to me, and that's no excuse for a song to have such grating instrumentation over the choruses or a selection of migraine-inducing vocal calls. Besides, I thought the furries already told us what the fox says: the fox yiffs. There, I solved your song!

It's a sad thing when Justin Bieber is the saving grace of a song, but after listening to will.i.am's abortion of titanic proportions earlier this year, I can't say that I hate '#thatpower' with the same force with which I reserve for the rest of that album. Now make no mistake, this song still blows, but it's got a decent hook and while will.i.am's verses are utterly brainless, they don't actively offend me and can be fairly easily to ignore. Although any critic that compares '#thatpower' with the excellent track 'Power' by Kanye West needs to have their head examined - preferably with a 2x4.

I've already said my piece about Miley's eventful year, but the reason 'We Can't Stop' is a dishonourable mention lies more in the lifeless production, Miley's grating vocals, and the fact that the song completely fails to be the good-time party song it's trying to be. It's a song about doing cocaine and molly, and it feels like I'm watching Requiem For A Dream. For as much as Miley tries to make partying sound awesome, this song doesn't have the energy of 'Tik Tok' and ends up trying to shock in the crudest way possible - and thus it doesn't affect me at all. Also, this album brought twerking into the cultural lexicon - I don't think we, as a society, needed that.

Taylor Swift, you're not Ke$ha. And 'dressing like hipsters' and trying to pretend the cool kids don't listen to your music and then hooking up with a guy who 'looks like bad news' (and will give you gonorrhea - a great message to give to your teenage girl fanbase!) will not make this song any better or less instantly dated. 

I'm more amused by how incredibly stupid this song is rather than angry. I remember when I reviewed Believe way back in the summer of 2012 that I thought this song was close to 'So Bad It's Good' territory with the asinine lyrics (party in 3012, eh?), an instrumental mishmash that Bieber's personality couldn't redeem, and a completely ridiculous verse from Nicki Minaj that sounds both unfinished and completely irrelevant a year later. But really, it's just a mess that will be forgotten now that Justin Timberlake has returned and swept Bieber back into irrelevance. Good riddance.

This shouldn't have even charted. The only reason it hit the Hot 100 at all is because Billboard finally decided to factor in YouTube data this year - and then implemented this change right in the middle of a ridiculous internet meme exploding (because Billboard has no personnel who decided to check streaming figures before changing their policy - which is asinine). This song spent five weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, almost entirely thanks to YouTube. But putting aside the stupid reasons why this song is on the list, it still is absolutely insufferable thanks to trap production that would become heavily overused this year, a synth line that does nothing interesting but change tempo, and a sound somewhere between a demonic belch and a clogged drain. There is some memes that I can find tolerable - this wasn't one of them.

Okay, that takes care of the riff-raff, so let's get onto the real 'stars' of the show, shall we? 

10. For some bizarre reason, I've still the only country music critic on YouTube, so I feel uniquely qualified to speak on the turbulent year country music has had. The Billboard year began mostly saturated with lightweight pop-country courtesy of acts like Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood and The Band Perry. Even the male country acts weren't exactly blowing down the doors down, instead sticking with softer, mid-tempo material that wasn't about to offend anyone or anything.

Then this happened:

10. 'Boys Round Here' by Blake Shelton ft. The Pistol Annies & Friends (Billboard Chart Position #60)

And to think I actually used to be a fan of Blake Shelton. And you know, I think deep down I still am, but this song still infuriates me. I'll give him credit for making a 'country rap' song that doesn't sound terribly produced and actually has some guitar presence, but the lyrics are sleazy and leering (when not just being stupid - seriously, which rappers have ever talked about chewing tobacco), Blake Shelton spends his raps sounding bored and smug, and the song completely wastes the talents of the Pistol Annies. Blake, I know Miranda Lambert is your wife, so why didn't you give her something to do other than just fill the 'hot girl in video roles'? What, were you afraid she'd show you up, like she did on every single she released this year?

'Boys Round Here' might not have been the first 'country-rap' song to be released, but it was the one that got popular by catering to the lowest common denominator of both genres, and along with 'Cruise' (a song so blissfully stupid that's its impossible to really hate it) was responsible for cementing bro-country dominance of this year. Blake, you're better than this, and if it wasn't for the fact that you actually have charisma, this song would be a lot higher.

9. Okay, I've mentioned a number of times throughout this year that I'm not a big fan of white guys with acoustic guitars. It's a musical affection that turns me off, and after the response of the John Mayer review, I decided it would probably be in my best interest to avoid most of the genre - I didn't review Jack Johnson's new album for precisely that reason.

Yet, I have to admit some surprise that not more acoustic ballads charted on the Hot 100 this year. This was primarily the year of the easy-listening piano ballad, and most of those were better than I expected, or were at least inoffensive. And hell, while I can't exactly forgive Ed Sheeran for giving 'Little Things' to One Direction, he's at least trying to go in a modestly interesting direction.

A shame the newest arrival to this genre isn't nearly as strong:

9. 'Let Her Go' by Passenger (Billboard Chart Position #97)

I'll admit this song doesn't fill me with the same coursing rage I had at 'I Won't Give Up' from Jason Mraz, but that's more because I'm stunned by the incompetence on display in the lyrical department in this song. It's a song that runs on the done-to-death theme of 'You don't know what you have until it's gone'... and then proceeds to frame the entire song as talking to a friend who Passenger proceeds to mercilessly berate with lines like 'Everything you touch surely dies'. Because clearly whoever Passenger is talking to is such a toxic presence to this girl that he must let her go to save her from himself and oh I can hear the Simple Plan wailing in the background already!

The problem here is framing: if Passenger was talking about himself, it'd be emo and whiny but at least it could potentially sound tortured. But Passenger frames the song in the second person - it's you he's talking to, so you have to wonder why he's trying to convince this guy to dump this girl. And given the typical mission statement of white douches with acoustic guitars, my mind immediately drops into thinking Passenger is trying to get the girl for himself. But that's just conjecture, I'll admit - conjecture I made mid-song because the bland, half-written song and Passenger's refusal to stray outside of less than octave bored me to tears! If Ed Sheeran's 'The A-Team' is doing acoustic material right, Passenger's 'Let Her Go' does it all wrong. NEXT!

8. I only have one question for you, Taylor Swift - if you knew he was trouble when he walked in, why did you hook up with him?

8. 'I Knew You Were Trouble' by Taylor Swift (Billboard Chart Position #16)

If there was a song that cemented Taylor Swift selling out to a pop audience, it was this one, and as someone who actually liked Speak Now, Red represented a fundamental betrayal of the ideals that Taylor once stood for. And this wretched mess of a song was the finishing blow, a dubstep-inspired trainwreck that showcased Taylor Swift at her absolute worst. I'll give her credit for selling her heartbreak and adequately framing the song that she was the one who screwed this up by approaching the asshole in question, but her entire rationale for the song is predicated on sheer stupidity. She knew he was trouble when he walked in - her first impression immediately told her this was a really bad idea, and she does it anyway. 

But then again, I have a hard time buying into Taylor's version of the events on why this guy is such a terrible person. Apparently Taylor came on too strong, he took a cautious step back, decided to leave her and move on (a sane decision in any relationship with a singer who writes smash hit songs about her breakups), and Taylor needs all of the sloppy and weightless pop-dubstep in the world to deal with her pain. But the real clinching moment comes in the bridge where she screams that 'he never loved me, or her, or anyone, or anything!' As much as you'd like to paint this asshole as a cartoon character, this lyric is so overwrought that I can't help but groan with exasperation. Taylor, you chose to hook up with him even though you knew he was trouble from the start - I have so very little sympathy for you here! If you chase after guys like that and throw yourself at them, you're going to get heartbroken - you should know this by now. And none of the poor man's Skrillex instrumentation is going to make you any more tolerable or sympathetic here. NEXT!

7. 2013 was the year EDM music rose to prominence in the mainstream, for better or for worse. The dance music had left the clubs and exploded into the festival circult, swapping the liquor for molly and attempting to find meaning and love in broader, more existential concepts than just on the dance floor. And while club DJs like Calvin Harris and David Guetta easily managed the transition, some of the former club boom stars weren’t nearly so lucky.

7.’Feel This Moment’ by Pitbull ft. Christina Aguilera (Billboard Chart Position #36)

I said last year that I can’t muster any real hatred for Pitbull anymore – at least when he’s bragging and sounding like a lecherous twit with limited rapping skills, at least he’s enthused about it. Yet his Men In Black III theme song made my list last year and ‘Feel This Moment’ gets on the list this year for the same reason: the song is a stunning incompetent mess. None of the pieces fit together, mostly because Pitbull’s lightweight, interchangeable, poorly-written brag rap does not match the soulful chorus that Christina is trying to sell. And at this point, Christina’s vocal delivery is in line with a poor woman’s Beyonce – forceful and strident, but devoid of emotional presence.

It doesn’t help matters that the production and mix are a total wash – the backbeat is thin and choppy, the payoff to the crescendo is severely lacking, and the synth line… Well, that’s sampled wholesale from the 80s synthpop classic ‘Take On Me’ by a-ha – seemingly only just because it’s a synth riff that everyone knows! The song does nothing with the sample, there’s no recontextualization, and in the transition to the fuzzier keyboards, the riff loses all of the tightness that made the original so defiantly memorable. This was the same problem that Pitbull ran into when he sampled ‘Love Is Strange’ for ‘Back In Time’, and it appears he’s learned absolutely nothing from it! I might not be the biggest fan of Flo Rida, but when he sampled Brenda Russell’s ‘Piano In The Dark’ for ‘I Cry’, he at least showed more effort and went outside of his box further than this mess. This song smacks of a total lack of effort, Pitbull hastily jumping onto a craze in order to ride it out as long as he can, and with ‘Timber’, his folktronica collaboration with Ke$ha, I’m guessing that trend isn’t likely to change. Ugh.

And speaking of a lack of effort…

6. By this point, I’ve said more than enough about this particular fellow. The reason I’m not posting my old review of his toxic, faux-Warholian advertisements masquerading as dance music is because he doesn’t deserve any more attention anywhere, and putting more effort into discussing his abysmal 'music' would be a waste of everyone's time, including mine.

Doesn't mean he's not making my list, though.

6. 'Scream & Shout' by will.i.am ft. Britney Spears (Billboard Chart Position #23)

So, in the spirit of not trying, I'm going to copy what I said eight months ago about this song when I suffered through #willpower - because it all still applies:

"...ah, the big hit with Britney Spears that has one of the most annoying electronica hooks in radio right now. For me, the instrumentation and Britney's awful singing does more to sink this song than the lyrics, but that still didn't stop me from finding this gem, which Britney repeats ad nauseum: "When you hear this in the club / You're gonna turn the shit up / You're gonna turn the shit up / You're gonna turn the shit up". Uh, quick question here, Britney, how the hell can I turn up the music in the club if I'm not the DJ? And if I was the DJ, I can tell you I'd be playing much better tracks than this dreck..."

All still true, but for me, the issue is effort. Neither will.i.am or Britney sound like they're trying or that they care the song is even playing, and the lyrics are beyond asinine, vaguely partyish words crammed into a homogeneous mass of arrogance and non-effort all set against a sterile beat without a hint of texture. Even by the standards of dance music, this songs fails do anything to inspire me to dance or move at all, so it's a failure on every level. And believe it or not, this song still wasn't the worst on the album. 

Yeah, process that for a second. NEXT!

5. Zac Brown (of the Zac Brown Band) called this the 'worst song he had ever heard'. For me, it's #5 of the hits - and it definitely earned that slot.

5. 'That's My Kind Of Night' by Luke Bryan (Billboard Chart Position #78)

If Blake Shelton represented one of the first instigators of bro-country this year, Luke Bryan came at its apex, with a song that I mostly ignored when I reviewed his album Crash My Party under the belief that no record executive would be moronic enough to release that song as a single. Turns out my faith in the country music industry was misguided, because 'That's My Kind Of Night' turned out to be a huge hit. 

It also shouldn't be a surprise that it sucks as much as it does, a turgid slurry of the worst and stupidest of both hip-hop and country. Luke Bryan's a passable singer, but his dour smugness screams of obnoxious machismo focused solely on the gratification of Luke Bryan and no one else. And that's before we get into the lyrics, which are overloaded with pandering to both the shallowest of luxury rap (who the hell has diamond-plated tailgates of all things?) and country music, solely to pander to the demographic who thinks that drunken, sloppy outdoor sex in a river that's running dry (turns out the Flint River is running dry due to poor management - I can't say I'm surprised). And even with that, you can't tell me that even that demographic would listen to a mixtape of T-Pain and Conway Twitty!

But really, this song fails most in the instrumentation and production, and really, where to start? The sterile drum machines, the clunky melody line that has no flow, the guitars that lack all flavour, the backing vocals that sound terribly out of place with Luke Bryan's baritone, the Autotune, the production that squelches all of it into an ugly mess that has no presence, texture, or raw power, it's a song pandering to those who only want the most gutless, featureless country from the songwriting pen of the man who wrote 'Honkytonk Badonkadonk'. 

I can only hope that the bro-country trend dies a painful death in the upcoming months - because at this point, I think its net worth has been exhausted. NEXT!

4. Earlier this year, I spent an entire review trying to understand why this particular artist was popular. In the end, I don't think I came to much of a conclusion - and considering this guy has been everywhere on the charts this year, there really isn't much of an excuse for me not to come to an answer.

But then again, there's no excuse for this song to exist.

4. 'I'm Different' by 2 Chainz (Billboard Chart Position #99)

What's kind of baffling to me is how much this song fails on principle alone. It's a song with 2 Chainz bragging that he's 'different' - and then he spends the entire song talking about money, brand names, and having sex. So the song is a lie right out of the gate, reiterating cliches that 2 Chainz's sloppy flow and bad songwriting screw up right out of the gate. And while none of the punchlines are egregiously offensive (we'll get to those in a few minutes), the laziness on display is borderline unbelievable. Punchlines go nowhere, the hashtag rap at the end of the first verse kills the flow and still comes across as unbelievably stupid. What's even worse is that you can tell 2 Chainz is drawing inspiration from other bad rappers - the bed springs squeaking are a reference to Trillville's worthless luxury rap hit from 2005 'Some Cut', leading into lines where references to sex are described by 'beating it up'. Nice work conflating sex with violence, asshole.

And yet again, the worst part is the instrumentation - that is, if you can call it that. A creepy off-kilter piano line that certainly doesn't inspire images of money and success, a percussion line that has no presence whatsoever, a synth line that sounds extraordinarily cheap and processed, and the omnipresent gang vocals that don't have the slightest element of force. I get that it's minimalist, but it's focusing on a rapper who is spending his entire song lying, and doing it badly. And furthermore, is there anyone else who thinks that nobody's having any fun here? If 2 Chainz was rapping about being gangster, I'd understand it, but this is luxury rap, it should aim to sound opulent and powerful or at least try to inspire those emotions. This sounds like it was recorded in two hours with equipment you'd find in a dumpster. And worst of all, none of it has energy or presence or even a good dance beat - I'd say it's an example of rappers taking themselves way too seriously, but at this point for 2 Chainz, I think his only escape is humour, and the fact that he's at least having some fun saves it from a slot lower on my list.

Speaking of which...

3. I said last year in my list of the Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2012 that the one thing you could do to throw yourself high on my list is be an act I like and then disappoint me. And those of you who have watched earlier reviews probably have guessed it was going to end up here. 

Drake, you are capable of so much better.

3. 'Started From The Bottom' by Drake (Billboard Chart Position #32)

You know, I'm not sure I'll be able to entirely forgive Drake for encouraging the trend of energy-less, empty luxury rap on the charts, but at least on his album he occasionally peppered his material with insight or impassioned hooks that made you believe he gave a damn. And yeah, Canadian hip-hop production can be bleak, but there's a difference between atmospheric and minimalist and the artlessly pretentious. If this song was supposed to make me feel any sort of passion for Drake's struggle to the top, it utterly fails because the instrumentation is so dreary and lifeless. Producer Mike Zombie seems to trying to throw in hi-hats and gang vocals to lend the song some energy, but nothing elevates it because the melody hook is submerged under the rest of the mix and it's the same loop that doesn't evolve or change over the entire goddamn song!

But then again, it's minimalist, it's all supposed to be focused on Drake - and yet, he's got nothing new to say! We've been hearing Drake's rapping about coming up from nothing (I guess being a Canadian TV star was 'nothing') since 2009, and this song adds nothing new to the story except Drake's precious ego where he tries to assert himself with raps that barely rise above average. And as much as Drake likes to pretend he's above it all, his own song betrays him in this regard. Does a man secure in his fame and success wear all of his chains when he's in his own house, where nobody is there to see his fame other than him? Do you really need such shallow reinforcement when you're supposed so great and so successful? If you don't care about the haters and those who didn't buy into your story of really starting from the bottom, then why do you bother to, time and time again, draw more attention to it? And why do the songs keep getting worse?

If this song has a purpose besides bravado, it must only be for Drake himself - and even with that, why would you make something that has so little presence or energy and only charted because low-tempo ballads and hollow-sounding brag rap were popular this year for some reason. And yet, this wasn't the worst track Drake was associated with this year...

2. You know, Drake and Lil Wayne have one major thing in common: they're both capable of some startlingly smart and insightful music with clever wordplay and intellect. This, on the other hand...

2. 'Love Me' by Lil Wayne ft. Drake & Future (Billboard Chart Position #39)

Nothing about this song works for me. Nothing. The synth is sludgy, eerie-sounding trap courtesy of terrible producer Mike WiLL Made It that somehow manages to sound aggressively creepy and yet boring as hell, the percussion has no presence, and none of it has a coherent or memorable melody line. On top of that, what was the point of hiring both Drake and Future when the former wasn't going to try (or rap) and the latter was just going to keep failing as one of the worst providers of hooks in 2013? This was the song that apparently deluded record executives into thinking Future deserved more airplay, and unlike fellow Autotune abuser T-Pain, you'd be lucky to find any personality that wasn't bland or absolutely loathsome.

But really, if we wanted the latter, we'd just stick around for Lil Wayne's verses. I'll clarify this out of the gate and say that I've never been a fan of the guy - he's made good albums, he's made bad albums, but for the most part he's not my thing. One thing he's been known to do is not write his lyrics down and well, you'll want to go back to my Deerhunter review to see how I feel about that sort of delivery method. But just like I said about Bradford Cox, Lil Wayne's choice not to write lyrics is backfiring on him, because 'Love Me' is just sloppy on a technical level, with a simplistic grasp of meter and punchlines, plus rhyming words with themselves, and he's capable of a lot better. And that's before we get to the lyrical content and...

Goddamnit, I don't like talking about misogyny in rap music, but these lyrics really can't be explained by anything else or at least by a warped obsession with women he'd brand as whores. Lines like 'Baby just make me cum / then don't make a sound' after the woman tries to say she just wants to make him proud, saying that 'these hoes love me like Satan' (it's clear someone has a virgin/whore complex) or 'can't treat these hoes like ladies, man!' or 'all my bitches love me, and I love all my bitches / but it's like as soon as I cum, I come to my senses'. None of this suggests a healthy relationship with women, or even with one night stands, and certainly nothing close to any sane definition of love - this lis lust, pure and simple. But since he's using the word love and framing the song like he's presenting affection, we're expected to buy into Lil Wayne presenting this as attractive or 'romantic', at least by his standards. And the sad fact is that there will be female fans of Lil Wayne who will buy into these regressive gender politics - or even worse, male fans who'll perpetuate this sort of behaviour because, hey, it's working for Lil Wayne!

Except it isn't. Lil Wayne really did not have a good 2013, and this song is one of the reasons why. It's sleazy, gross, and the sex Lil Wayne tries to describe in this song (along with comparing women's vagina's to 'craters', which is... ew) makes me slightly revolted. And yet, it wasn't the song to reach the top of my list. So with that...

1. If you've been following controversies in the music world throughout this year, you should already know what this song is. If you haven't, oh boy, we've got ourselves a doozy...

1. 'U.O.E.N.O' by Rocko ft. Rick Ross & Future (Billboard Chart Position #87)

Before we get to the controversy, let's start with the obvious problems with the song, which is yet another lifeless luxury rap where nobody remotely sounds like they're enjoying themselves. The synth line is somehow even worse than the previous three songs, completely lacking any sort of presence, and what's worse is that there isn't even heavy percussion or gang vocals or at least something interesting to emphasize how much this song is a sterile, energy-less waste of time! The lack of effort extends to the title too - the acronym really means nothing, it's simply the sound you get when you slur or autotune the words 'You don't even know' together, like Future does on the hook. That's right, the song's title is derived from a bad pronunciation and is effectively meaningless - that's a nice start, isn't it?

What's worse is that the meaningless title is also a lie - the line follows the majority of the bragging, implying that this guy's got money, cars, and brand names and you can't fathom it. So great, another group of artists who think it's classy to talk down to their artists - but wait, let's make this simpler: if you brag about something and immediately follow it with the line, 'you don't even know it'... well, the lyric is wrong, because we do know it now, because you just told us! And really, that's what you're using to say you're better than me, a collection of expensive brand names that make your song a walking commercial? I gave Jay Z crap for 'Tom Ford', but that's nothing compared to this, where Rocko drops so many brands that it'd be criminal if he's not getting paid for the endorsements.

Of course, he's not getting paid much now, thanks to this line from Rick Ross: 'Put Molly all of her champagne, she ain't even know it / I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain't even know it.'

In case you don't know, folks, that's called date rape. Rick Ross might not have intended it to sound like that, he might have thought he was showing his lady a good time by putting Molly in her glass and then 'enjoying it' with her so that 'she ain't even know it'... but anyway you look at that lyric, it screams date rape. The implication of putting something in a woman's drink and then having sex with her and she's not aware of any of it is damn near despicable, and worse still is the fact that Rick Ross is framing it all in a verse where he's trying to emphasize how much better he is than you - which is yet another lie to add to the cavalcade of non-truth surrounding this song. Now Rick Ross thankfully apologized (still didn't save him from being dropped by Reebok, which was the least they could do) and say he never intended the rhyme to be read that way, but that implies a bigger problem: that Rick Ross isn't thinking or trying when he's writing his material. He was so high on his cloud of undeserved ego and success that he didn't even think of the implications behind his music, and when it's this obvious, it smacks of myopia, ignorance, laziness, and non-effort. And thus it's kind of cruelly ironic that when c-list artist Rocko dropped Rick Ross' verse in order to get more radio play and replaced him with other rappers, the song sank like the lifeless turd that it is. 

So I'm going to give this song the greatest honour it deserves, the worst hit song of 2013 - and the hilarious thing is that the three artists in question probably don't even know it. Good riddance, and let's hope for a better 2014.