Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2018

Another year, another shitty opening to a worst list.


I'm pretty much a complete nerd, most specifically when it comes to stats, numbers, & ranking things. Love me some ordering. Which is why the Billboard Hot 100 has always been something really intriguing to me. I love to see what songs other people are listening to averaged out into a list determined by a bunch of (admittedly) outdated metrics. Ever since 2013 I've been watching keenly on what the general public has been listening to, and how the overall taste of music has developed. In those past 5 years, things have been fairly crazy! 2013 was where all the indie shit from the year before died, and the charts kind of hit a reset button of sorts while trying to adjust to the new streaming rule. With a blank slate, logically 2014 turned to have a liking for pop music (nearly the whole YE top 10 was pop), but still allowed a ton of rock (and like, somewhat legitimate rock, not Maroon 5 vomiting on themselves) & more weird shit to slip through the cracks. 2015 was a golden year for pop music, retro pandering or not. EVERYTHING shined (minus Meghan Trainor but we don't talk about her).

Then 2016 happened, and we all collectively sighed.

Not a lot liked this year, where it seemed everything was tropical influenced & in a year so negative that everyone on the planet wanted to kill themselves (metaphorically and unfortunately, VERY literally), that wasn't really what we wanted to hear. Which is why most of 2017 hits were fucking depressing, with trap at it's peak, despite at the end of the year the genre as a whole, like the majority of trap songs, finished before it really amounted to anything of substance.

So here we are in 2018, and I just don't give a fuck anymore. Music twitter? Quit it. Pulse music boards? Haven't checked it out in months. Billboard? I don't even know what's No.1 right now, but it's PROBABLY terrible. Because everything this year was terrible. Everything. I usually enjoy quite a chunk of popular music & albums, I just don't write best lists because I don't know how to write one without making it sound like a cringey Youtube video from 2014 (speaking of 2014, remember that 2014 best list I did? Fuckin YIKES man. What were you doing). This year, I couldn't even make one, there wasn't enough that I liked. For anyone who cares, My No.1 was probably, idk, Nice For What probably. Drake taking an overused sample and singing with energy? Is this Take Care era Drake? Doesn't matter. What DOES matter is the worst list! Which I really don't even want to write, I just feel obliged to. But fuck it, I endured this garbage ass year, it would be smart to let out some steam. In cliche fashion, here is the Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2018!



ok *this* one is actually pretty funny

No.10: Lucid Dreams - JUICE WRLD (YE: 12)
                                  
See, I'm not AS heartless as I seem! I can admit when a terrible song doesn't make my blood boil, but rather makes me laugh, and here we are! Jussy here writing in his 4th grade journal about how the girl who sits next to him stole his animal crackers is truly pathetic but I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh every time I hear this trash start up. And the fact that there's people out there who legitimately likes this, ironically or not, only makes the song WAY funnier to me! It's great! I mean, songs like this becoming the 12th biggest song of the year is TOTALLY not damaging at all, and saying this is what makes people give pop music a bad name are clearly just overreacting, as giving shit like this credence is completely fine. I mean, it's just music, right? Right?


But I guess I should talk about the song a bit huh. I mean, sorry to disappoint, but I got nothing to say about it, and I'm not sure how ANYBODY does. The most interesting thing I've heard is a couple people calling this an example of "anti-songwriting" (with lines like "you make my heart break", and such), but that's giving it WAY too much credit. There's nothing "anti" about it, it's just a shitty written song. It's following all the norms it can, with the demonizing of women, horrible acoustic mixes, a 19 year old vomiting his lungs out with a vain layer of auto tune caked onto it, it's the standard Sadboi Trap Hit of 2018. Which, by the way, is pretty much the only one of it's kind on this list, so STRAP IN!


Man this one almost completely slid past me, I gotta admit

No.9: X - El Generico & Kevin Steen (YE: 90)
                                   
I actually really dig Nicky Jam's voice. I hate every word that's ever left his mouth, but that dude has something to him, and I kinda dig it. Same with J Balvin when he's given the right beat. And goddamn is this definitely not it. This song is entirely on here because of how it sounds. That. Fucking. Horn. Or Synth. Or Whatever The Fuck It Is. Dear God, shit sounds like total ass, I feel like a slug is just crawling up my asshole, it's an instantly unsettling and revolting feeling. It also completely murders the shitty groove that these douchebags are riding too, it's like they made the song specifically to piss people off or something. Then there's that percussion that's slapping you on the head constantly, asking repeatedly "why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot why are you listening to this you fucking idiot"



This was locked for my worst list before I even listened to it, let's be honest

No. 8: Him & I - G-Eazy & Halsey (YE: 45)
                                  
After making about 400 billion dollars from No Limit, that still wasn't enough for his batshit insane girlfriend, G-Eazy decided to sell his soul to pop radio yet again by digging through the Eminem Public Dumpster and pulling out the tried and true blueprint, covered with fingerprints of Alex Da Kidd as well as a bunch of various white dudes with bad dental plans. Introducing, everyone's favourite structure: The Skylar Grey Formula! And despite it being used about 400 times, it of course has worked yet a fucking gain, except G-Eazy put it little twist on it, the sneaky devil. Yes, the girl he chose for his hook is actually his girlfriend, so it's a song about each other! How cute! Unfortunately, nothing in the song works, which does tend to make the whole situation a bit less cute. And THEN you realize that as soon as this song was rotated off every chart, G-Eazy & Halsey broke up, which makes this VERY less cute!

"Silk on her body, pull it down and watch it slip off
Ever catch me cheating, she would try to cut my [dick off] (ha-ha-ha)"

Oh G-Eazy, I ALMOST feel bad for you.

But I don't, because Halsey's a crazy bitch. Too bad she doesn't convey any of it. Considering when it comes to her relationships in real life, she seems pretty fucking ratchet (her words, not mine), yet in the song that's just about her & her boyfriend, the 2 renegades against the world, Bonnie and Clyde, the whole shabang, she gives the most lifeless, dull, draining, and bored performance of her life. Her moaning on the post chorus sounds like a cry for help, as if she's trying to say "Please get me away from this deranged man. He's a total loser, I don't know what I was thinking. The dick wasn't worth it." G-Eazy, like always, delivers garbage bar after garbage bar, he says "mink" and sounds like a total idiot, pretty run of the mill Gebby verse. The dude really needs beats to challenge him to even get him to remotely care about what the fuck he's doing, so him following a formula that heavily encourages the opposite of that makes this possibly the worst song G-Eazy has ever made.

But I'm sure he'll top it next year.



It actually became a hit. Unbelievable.

No. 7: I Fall Apart - Post Malone (YE: 39)
                               
I already reviewed this. I'm not gonna talk about it more. It Dumb. It Bad. Post Malone Dumb. Post Malone Bad.



Apparently the hot trend of 2018 was Being Fucking Terrible To Women, although I'm not quite sure this one will be going away anytime soon. Every big chart topper nowadays seems to be a piece of human garbage in one way or another, and that only makes people like their music more. One of the people leading this charge is the ever rainbow piss streaks of 6ix9ine. Now his music is total dogshit, who would've guessed, but none of it really screamed worst list to me because as horrible as they all were, I get it. This one, goddamn, what the fuck happened here.


No.6: FEFE - 6ix9ine ft Nicki Minaj (YE: 31)
                                 
A lot of people saw this and were gobsmacked that Nicki Minaj of all people would collab with some rapscallion such as 6ix9ine. But in reality, these 2 share the same appeal, despite not remotely sharing the same fanbase. Both Nicki Manicki and 69 are seen for the presence behind the microphone, how they're very loud and over the top, abrasive attitudes. Six literally YELLS EVERY WORD HE SAYS, while Nicki Minaj has a hostile, elitist attitude, calling herself the "queen" and all that shit. Nicki had actually been in a slump lately, so despite the carwreck of a rapper 6ix9ine is, he'd be one of the first people you'd think would be able to light that fire under Nicki to get her to make a solid banger. Yet somehow, with the 2 most obnoxious people in mainstream hip hop collabing together, we got the most boring, calm, tepid song possible. You got 6ix9ine singing with his horrible grainy voice like that creepy uncle that's banned from family gatherings, and Nicki delivers one of her worst verses I think she's ever spat. The Nicki Minaj Guest Verse used to be a symbol of quality, but over the years it's been diminished to nothing but a "fuck, if only we got Cardi B instead...", but man, even with very lowered expectations, Nicki is SLEEPWALKING through this fucking verse. "Pretty like Tinashe" is not a line that panders to me and my shaft hard enough for me to forgive how horrible Nicki Minaj is on this track. Her constant lack of effort is almost as bad as her elitism of hip hop. She hasn't given a fuck about making a decent verse for 4 years, and now she's getting offended that people are finely fed up with her? Fuck out of here. One of Nicki's worst verses, easily 6ix9ine's worst song, and Murda Beatz's worst beat. Still not top 5 though. Yippee.



Women, amiright?

No.5: Te Bote - A Bunch Of Latin Dudes (YE: 81)
                                     
"Hating women is not coping. It's an optimal strategy for saving energy.

Society conditions men to be nice to women and to go out of their way to do things for them. But this consumes energy, and the only reason men keep doing it is because of the probabilistic reward (social approval, relationships, sex, etc.). Behavioral studies actually show that probabilistic rewards are incredibly cost-effective ways of incentivizing desired behaviors - cost-effective because you don't have to hand out the reward every time. They work so well because human brains are not very good at dealing with probabilities. That's why lotteries are so fucking addictive.

But what if you could estimate the probabilities? What if you knew the lottery was a scam that no one ever won? Would you still keep buying tickets? It's the same here. If every statistic and candid source convinces me that my probability of winning is way lower than what I anticipated, it only makes sense to stop spending my energy on being nice to women and helping them. And hating the people who tried to scam you is only natural." - everyone who took part in making this song, probably



I had a bunch of jokes about this song when it first hit the top 10, but by now I've completely forgotten all of them, so forgive me as I try to stumble my way through this trainwreck.


No.4: Freaky Friday - Lil Dicky & Chris Brown (YE: 55)
                                       
This is going on EVERYONE's worst list. But really, why shouldn't it? Lil Dicky making cringe worthy jokes about his tiny penis & Chris Brown talking about how great it is to be with, all over a horribly dated beat that still has Kid Ink's jizz stains on it. The only reason I could think of for it not being No.1 is that, despite failing in spectacular fashion in literally every single aspect possible, Freaky Friday at the very least tried to do something? Lil Dicky & Chris Brown was going to be a disaster no matter what song they made together, but with nearly negative execution skills, they at very least had ambition, which is the only think Lil Dicky has. Not content wise of course, every single line in this dumpster sludge is so bankrupt of anything likable, and I'm still not sure which lines are jokes and which aren't (Chris Brown belting "I can sing so well" while having auto tune slathered all over his revolting voice *might* be a joke, but they breeze by it so quickly I'm still not quite sure), but the concept itself I guess is...SOMETHING. I don't know, I'm not quite in the mood to tear a Chris Brown song apart in fucking 2018, just go click on literally any worst list & I'm sure you'll find someone funnier than me who is more than willing to tear this garbage a new one.



Now I'm sure there are a lot of people who hate this song, I'm sure it'll even show up on a worst list here and there. But I doubt you'll see it higher than where I placed it. Maybe I'm biased, maybe people overlooked it, whatever the case, I think it's very evident that I fucking hate Halsey.


No.3: Bad At Love - Halsey (YE: 27)
                                       
Now I'm not going to act like I'm someone who hated Halsey before it was cool to hate Halsey or something, because I discovered her through spammed youtube ads of New Americana just like you did. And just like everyone else, I HATED that song. Her and Alessia Cara debuted at around the same time, and they both exemplified both sides of the pop music scene that Lorde created after all the early 2010 juggernauts died and we moved into the "pop music can be sad :(((" era. Fast forward 3 years now, and I seem to be one of the few people that still despises Halsey, and I'm not quite sure where the point was that everyone jumped ship at, but I apparently missed it, because she and her music is as terrible as ever. Now, Halsey herself is a horrible piece of human scum, but no matter the ridiculous things you say, nothing you do gets me more riled up than making beyond shitty pop music, and Halsey sat on the thrown of that this year, and a lot of this has to do with the writing. For her ENTIRE career, Halsey has written absolute garbage, maybe 4 good songs over the course of 3 projects. The simplest way to put it is she crafts underwritten songs with overwritten lines. You know the famous "the curtains are blue for a reason" quote about attention to detail in art? A lot of people disagree with this, but I'm usually not one of them. In this case? Halsey's blue curtains are just blue for the sake to be fucking blue (and considering she's a total nutcase, I'm sure her carpet is too). New Americana was filled with a bunch of bullshit lines that didn't build up to anything, with her being overtly extra by trying to rhyme "liquor bottles" with "Balenciaga" with "Empire" with "Roc-a-fella", because finger blasting herself to a shitty Alex Da Kidd knock-off track was more important to her than making a decent pop song. Bad At Love is the same goddamn bullshit. "Michigan" and "Bitch again" Halsey moans over a completely uninspired, garbage juice of a beat where she showcases situations of her being bitchy to people she's in love with, but tries to make up for it by saying "but you can't blame me for trying". Bullshit. You told one dude his friends were shitty, abandoned another to go make music, and then left a girl that you were desperately in love with because you "both had better things to do". Granted there's 2 sides to every coin, but from both sides it looks like you didn't fucking try at all. Halsey acts like a bitch, proclaims herself to be one, and when she meets a new partner that despite being warned of said bitchiness, still wants to give you a shot because hmmm, I don't know, they might LOVE HER or something, rather than bettering herself, Halsey shrugs her shoulders and says "here we go again". Halsey. You aren't a single mom in her mid 40s going through a midlife crisis. You're fuckin 24. Grow the fuck up. Let's not even talk about Halsey's singing, where she moans every word in a dull tone with a clothespin on her nose as she tries to self deprecate over Ricky Reed's poisonous synthlines as Halsey's vocals chords flop around like a diseased seal.  The song is awful, your music is awful, and just because you're bi and you put you scissoring a lesbian with a coke addiction in your fancy ass lovey dovey single doesn't make it any better or worse. I don't hate you because I hate gay people. I hate you because you fucking suck.



We had countless hits this year made by pedophiles and sexual abusers, yet this is the only song on the year end that I think is fucking gross.


No.2: Lights Down Low - MAX ft gnash (YE: 66)
                                       
We've finally done it, we've found the song that when called "white people music" is genuinely insulting to white people.

This song was refused to be a hit like, 4 times. White AC mom radio gave it it's run, pop radio gave it another late run, it got some sales with a gnash version later on, but they all happened at different times and the song just sort of stalled at the bottom of the charts. Then halfway through the year the teenage girls found it, put it in their Instagram posts and we the public collectively said "fuck it" and let this adult alternative dumpster sludge that would make every Train member somberly sign a suicide pact slug it's way into the top 20. I don't get how it did either, because it fucks up on almost every aspect that songs like this use to get their way to being huge. MAX (who really isn't that bad of a singer from what I've heard) sounds like he's castrating himself live in the studio, just reaching for as much emotion and fire as he can while getting absolutely none of it. The production is what really lets him down though. The go to problem with these types of shitfests is how the sound can most often be described as "basic garbage", but this is the complete opposite. The producer really tried here, there's no doubt. And I have never heard a song sound more dynamically shit than this.


And somehow, THIS is supposed to be a sex song? THIS is supposed to turn people on? Get the chicks goin'? No girl is flicking herself off to this right? There's no way. The song starts up with that stupid ass ear scratching, plinky guitar that is metaphorically screaming "I'M A REAL GUITAR" over and over again, as it slowly builds with various claps and percussion, lots of weird drum hits here and there, some background cooing, a bit of self harmonization, finalizing with a super ethereal, airy and weirdly uplifting sounding bridge with a pitch shifted cooldown for the final chorus, a rather adventurous 3 and a half minutes, and almost perfectly encapsulates the complexity of love and relationships, and how a relationship between someone and their partner can build to something truly beautiful despite maybe scarce starting points. Quite touching, I must say.


Too bad it all sounds like fucking shit.

The entire, and I mean ENTIRE song feels SO fucking gross, every single element feels a lot less like MAX over here is proposing to the love of his life and a lot more like he's jerking himself off in front of a blow up doll he taped a picture of his favourite Starbuck's barista's face onto. And DESPITE the fact it's supposed to be a solo love song of how much MAX wants to fuck this girl, he's apparently tag teaming this shit with gnash of all artists, who drops the biggest fucking turd of a line I think I've seen in years

"Moonlight, mood light, moves like J-Lo"

Which is so fucking terrible for some many obvious reasons I don't even want to insult you by explaining it.

I cannot fucking *believe* I didn't put this shit at No.1, I'm genuinely impressed I found something that pisses me off more than this. But of course, I indeed did. But here's the honorable mentions first to give you a breather.



D.M 1: Meant To Be - Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line (YE: 3)
                                      
I actually still like this song quite a bit, but this song being the big hit Bebe Rexha finally deserved is what absolutely murdered her ability to make, or even care about making good music. The pop genius of I Got You, the batshit insane The Way I Are (Dance With Somebody), the fascinating car wreck of That's It, or even the absolute blockbuster masterpiece in Bad Bitch, all creative endeavors thrown to the wayside because the most standard song Bebe has ever penned is what got her to a-lister stardom, and after years of abuse in the political shitstorm that is the music industry, she seemingly IMMEDIATELY sold her soul to it. Fuck you Bebe Rexha, you useless sack of garbage.


D.M 2: Simple - Florida Georgia Line (YE: 82 )
                                    
Speaking of Meant To Be, I thought THAT song would've ended these 2 as a country duo, but apparently they were still able to name themselves a hit with this track...which apparently people like? Really? I'll give you it's less bro-like and more traditional than their auto tune trainwreck with Nelly, but that doesn't save it from being about 7 different country songs merged into the most generic hit they've ever had.


D.M 3: Eastside - Benny Blanco ft Halsey & Khalid (YE: 77)
                                  
Would've made the list but I killed Halsey so bad on this list I feel a bit bad about it


D.M 4: chaSmoonAlightD!nges - that one guy (YE: a few times)
                                          
Man those songs sure are bad, shame I forgot who they were by tho...


D.M 5: Gucci Gang - Lil Pump (YE: 44)
                                    
The fact this was nowhere close to the list is blowing January Tech Jet's MIND right now.


D.M 6: The Existence Of Maroon 5 - at least 1 member of Maroon 5 (YE: unfortunately)

Should probably be on this list somewhere, but the entries on this list are only made up of "bad music", and I'm not quite sure whether it's fair to call what Maroon 5 has been making for the past 3 years "bad" or "music".


D.M 7: I Like Me Better - Lauv (YE: 35)
                                         
No effort, no heart, no quality, hollow industry garbage, but I already have that topping this list so...


When it comes to a song topping a worst list, every single person I've seen always try to tie their number 1 pick with some over arching message, and why shouldn't they! It's an easy way to make your pick seem of greater value and importance, makes people *care* about your picks, in a way. Whether you preach objectivity and say that "Bad is the absence of good", saying a song is culturally damaging, or maybe how you feel it's genuinely insulting to you as a person, EVERY single list I have seen in the past years or so have tried to convey some sort of fancy message. While this dragged out preamble may unfortunately come across as me doing the same thing, I'm not going to do that. Look, I'm an idiot. I don't got the answer to the world, and I don't look for intellect, mixing masterpieces, or pitch perfected vocals in my music. I'm a pop music fan, and I choose to not judge music as "art" but as music. I listen and go "man this is good" or "man this is bad. I'm just someone who likes to be entertained. Sometimes the worst song of the year isn't the one with the least amount of qualities, or the most offensive, or the grossest, or whatever. Sometimes the worst song of the year is just a shitty pop song.

And this one is really fucking bad.


No.1: Never Be The Same - Camila Cabello (YE: 18)
                                        
There are going to be a slew of people that are going to assume that this is only my number 1 pick because of the artist behind it, and for the start of the year, it probably was. My hatred of this pop music parasite was blazing, intense, and not very reasonable. As I start to cool down on popular music and just ignore it as a whole, the anger and irritation some artists cause me simultaneously start to wither away. I was ready to slap this at the top of the list as an easy predictable number 1, describe how it sounds like shit, this girl is ruining the industry, yadda yadda yadda, easy 2,000 views for my dead blog, see ya next year. But I didn't know what half these hits were, so I just slapped on the whole year end playlist to make this list. I got to this song, and my mind nearly fucking exploded.

I can't properly explain how songs sound, I never could. However, what I lack in technical judgement, I like to think I'm a decent judge of effort. No one gave a FUCK making this song. The song itself is empty in a literal and metaphorical sense, it lacks everything a pop song should. There's not really much vocal effects going on, like 1 sound is played at a time, as if they're playing a video game or something and they haven't unlocked the ability yet to do multiple things at once. The song fucking REEKS of desperation and depression, while the lyrics are non existent fluff, which I imagine the creators of this song wanted those 2 effects swapped with each other. It's a type of track that heavily relies on the lead singer which, oh dear.

Pop music vocals are a somewhat complex issue for me to explain if I like or not. The usual big issue is that there is a very fine line between "consistency" and "complacency". Luckily, we don't have to go down that logistics rabbit hole because Camila is nowhere near either of them. She is singing all OVER the fucking place. She shoots for like 4 different styles, slogging through them all and couldn't sound more tired and ugly. Some guy once said that female pop music with weak and mediocre vocals were done on purpose so that basic bitch white girls could sing them in the car. Now I'm not THAT pessimistic (thank god I didn't write this list 6 months ago), but I imagine this is what this guy hears. Again, I'm not expecting you to be this phenomenal godly vocalist, but when your voice cracks half a dozen times in 1 chorus, just do another fucking take. It sounds absolutely TERRIBLE. It sounds SO fucking terrible. But sound isn't everything, of course. Music isn't all technical aspects, in fact nearly all of it isn't. A good friend of mine once said:

"don't tell me what the song sounds like, tell me what it's doing" - charlotte, a total babe from twitter dot com


Which is a fantastic statement. One I could use right now! ok, here we go...

This song is doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. It doesn't do any emotion or feeling, convey a story, showcase a skill, further an agenda. It is a song of nothing, but that's not the reason it's on this list. The reason it's No.1 is because it is the song that fails the most. You're never going to see me top one of my worst lists with a trap song, a rock song, EDM, or anything other than pop, because pop music is what's important to me. So when I hear a pop song and think "wow, there is 0 good to be had in this, no aspect in this is a pass", then you have absolutely fucking failed. Go against all my morals and ethics, do baffling experiments, insult me as the listener who decided to listen to your song, do blatant hate speech, glorify shitty actions, spread propaganda, everyone else can raise their pitchforks at you (for good reason), I'll happily ignore you. But DON'T give me shitty fucking pop music, when your ONE job as an industry factory made vacuum of talent piece of garbage that has all the tools at your disposal and the entire planet at your fingertips is to NOT give me shitty fucking pop music.