the top ten worst hit songs of 2014 (VIDEO)

First of our year-end lists, and sadly the one that will probably get the most traffic. Go figure.

Next up is the list of the best hit songs - stay tuned!

the top ten worst hit songs of 2014

So, another year, another Billboard Year-End list, another assorted collection of hits and misses, and another year end list from me where I take a long hard look at the biggest charting songs of the year and pick out the best and worst.

Now for those of you who aren't familiar, let's go over the rules. A song can only make this list if it first landed on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End chart for 2014. There may be songs from last year that qualify - I can think of a few - but it needs to hit the list this year. And of course there were worse songs that I heard this year on albums that could easily outstrip huge chunks of this list - I'm not going to mention them, they don't deserve more attention - but I want to make the point that we're looking at the hits that got under my skin and annoyed or angered me. Songs that are just excruciatingly boring don't really make the cut here - 'boring' can be a factor, but there needs to be something aggressively wrong with the song to join this august company.

The other important thing to mention is that 2014 has, on average, been a stronger year than 2013, or at least more consistent. Up until the frantic reshuffling at the end of the year, this has been a pretty stodgy year with a few absolutely massive hits that wouldn't go away and prevented a lot of turnover. What this has meant is that many of the songs that have landed on this list don't inspire the same amount of real anger from me - of the majority I wouldn't say they are as deserving of vitriol as some of the really terrible tracks from last year.

That said, I think it's time for our dishonourable mentions!

video review: 'don't kill the magic' by MAGIC!

Man, this review was an absolute chore to get through. Granted, some of the chore was trying - and failing - to write a review for Sam Smith, but eh, that happens.

Next up is Trey Songz, and then... hmm, not sure yet. Stay tuned!

album review: 'don't kill the magic' by MAGIC!

So if you took a look at the charts right now, you'd find that they look wildly different than they did a good four months ago. And really, that's a good thing because the beginning of 2014 became played out for the pop charts in record time, to the point where I'm honestly dreading making my year-end hit song lists and underrating songs simply because of overexposure.

But putting that aside, at long last summer has arrived with a collection of new songs - most of which are by artists I've never heard of before. Which for me is exceptionally unnerving, because I criticize pop music and I thought I had a pretty good handle on what was becoming popular. And for acts like Nico & Vinz, Rixton, MKTO, and KONGOS to effectively come out of nowhere is more than a little unnerving. It's a troubling sign when I felt relieved I knew who Sam Smith was thanks to his success in the UK - a little less of a relief after I listened through his underwritten bore of an album and couldn't come up with anything noteworthy to say about it, but knowing was half of the battle here.

So when I looked at the charts this week and saw that 'Rude' by Canadian reggae fusion band MAGIC! was at #2, I was a little annoyed, because not only did I barely know who these guys are - and as a Canadian music critic living in Toronto, that's a problem - but that of the Canadian pop rock acts who have come up in the past couple of years, it's these guys who get popular? Not Marianas Trench or Tokyo Police Club or The Brilliancy, but MAGIC!? But when I racked my memory, I did recognize the frontman and songwriter of the band Nasri Atweh - for all of the wrong reasons. Primarily known as a songwriter for Chris Brown, Pitbull, and most for Justin Bieber, my first exposure to him in front of the microphone was on Shakira's self-titled album earlier this year on the song 'Cut Me Deep', where he was promptly blown off the stage, which did not give me a good feeling going into this record. But I figured, 'Hey, it's been a long time since reggae has charted on the Hot 100, so this album could be interesting, right?' So I checked out Don't Kill The MAGIC! - how did it go?