Welcome to one of my new music review projects,
Retrospective Revisits. In this
project, I will be revisiting years I’ve already done year-end rank downs for
on previous sites, but will still be fresh for first time viewers. Why am I doing this? Over time, opinions change. And boy have a lot of my opinions on 2013
changed over the course of time.
2013. The year I
started writing music reviews on an internet forum dedicated to a cartoon
show. Seven years later, I now have my
own blog for this. I was also a recent
college grad who had no idea what to do with my life. And now I have hopes that I can do this for a
living to make money.
But enough about me.
When I did my year end retrospectives for this initially, I was heavily
under the influence from one of my favorite critics Todd in the Shadows that
this was one of the worst music years ever.
Yeah…we were a year away from that being the case Todd. Honestly, Todd was a major influence in my
critiquing growing up in multiple ways.
To the point that I can look back and say that I was ripping off his
criticisms a tad. Now? I feel like I am my own person. I have my own writing style. I have my own format. And more importantly, I have my own voice.
I don’t think 2013 was a bad year. If anything, I think 2013 was arguably the
most important year of pop music in the 2010’s.
2013 was the start of a lot of the big identities of the 2010’s. EDM was huge.
Trap music was starting to become mainstream. Memes started to become more normal in the big
hits. And pop music started to become
more critical of itself. Two of the
biggest hits of the 2010’s were about breaking down the norms and basically saying
fuck modern pop music norms. If that isn’t
a paradigm shift for what was to come, then I can’t think of a more influential
year than 2013.
That being said, this worst list was tough to rewrite. Honestly, most of my previous frustrations
from this year are still the case once more.
Most of what I considered bad music from this year left me feeling
absolutely nothing. A lot of the big
hits from this year felt like they were on autopilot without any real ambition to
either be great or go all out and suck.
This has been a problem that would reappear especially in the back half
of the 2010’s and still going now, so consider 2013 starting that identity too.
Anyway, let’s re-evaluate the year that was once more. Just hold on, we’re going to reassess…
THE TOP TEN WORST HIT SONGS OF 2013
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So on my previous year end list, my original number ten
choice was “Stay” by Rihanna. An
absolute slog of a song that’s absolutely uinispired as hell. The only thing that it proved to anyone is
that Rihanna can sing. Which we already
knew that she had a great voice when she needed to amidst all the autotune pop
music she made back then. I still hate
it, but at the end of the day, I can’t place it on here. Despite how sick of Rihanna I was back then,
she sounds great on “Stay”. If I wanted
to find a singer sounding uninspired as all hell, I only had to look further
down the year end list for that.
10. “Girl on Fire” – Alicia Keys (featuring Nicki Minaj)
More like this girl is owned by Lionsgate Studios and
Scholastic Books. The moment I heard
this song, my mind instantly went to The Hunger Games. Alicia Keys sat through The Hunger Games, saw
Katniss Everdeen get called the Girl on Fire, and immediately thought to
herself, time to cash in. And she sure
did cash in to the point of near copyright infringement. Because Katniss deserves a better tie-in
song….oh wait. This song was never
associated with The Hunger Games franchise.
Because not even they wanted to listen to this lifeless drone of a
ballad.
This song conveys absolutely nothing. It feels like it has just twenty words. Alicia Keys may be a talented musician, but
she was never the strongest lyricist.
And this is easily the most useless set of lyrics she has ever
written. This girl is any woman you
could possibly imagine because Alicia Keys does a god awful job trying to
associate this girl with anything other than fire metaphors. Which have easily become my most tired
metaphor in popular music. It’s been
beaten to death by a bloody pulp and basically nobody tries to do anything
interesting with this metaphor anymore.
This boy is bored.
Next.
If you followed me from my previous writings, you all might
know that “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles is my favorite hit song of 2008. It’s the type of adult alternative pop that I
can get behind. It’s got sharp
writing. A catchy chorus. Clever wordplay. I just love it so much.
Turns out that Sara Bareilles is a one trick pony.
9. “Brave” – Sara
Bareilles
And it's not just this song. I revisited all of her songs since "Love Song" and they are the most bland shallow commercial made pop music. "King of Anything"? More like king of whatever product you're shilling.
I honestly didn’t realize until revisiting this year end
list that this song is just the absolute worst.
I mean who the hell actually wanted to listen to this false empowerment
anthem? Who wrote this? An eight year old? That would explain this line:
Show me how big your brave is
I can’t believe the woman who wrote one of the most mature
adult pop songs of the last ten years wrote the most childish adult pop song
I’ve ever seen. When you make Train,
fucking Train, of all bands sound avant-garde, you know your pop song fucking
sucks.
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The year was 2013 and bro-country was at the peak of its
popularity.
Now that the 2010’s are over, I can definitely say that I
agree with the consensus. Bro-country
was the absolute worst trend of this decade.
Say what you will about Vine songs and the club boom, at least they were
stupidly entertaining. Bro-country is a
fucking embarrassment to a genre that badly wanted to hang out with the cool
kids. And while bro-country has plenty
of humiliating songs that represented how bad this trend was, this is easily
the worst bro-country song to ever make a year-end list.
8. “That’s My Kind of Night” – Luke Bryan
This marks the fourth time Luke Bryan has ever made a
year-end list of mine. Safe to say that
I’m not a fan of the guy. And it’s not
that I don’t get Luke Bryan. I do. He’s a male model with enough of a country twang
to drive females crazy. When ABC casted
the judges for the American Idol reboot two years ago, they knew exactly what
they were doing hiring him. The same way
NBC did with The Voice and Adam Levine. And
despite being on my worst lists so many times, he does have some good songs in
his discography.
But if I’ll ever hold anything against the guy, he is
equally as responsible as Florida Georgia Line for modernizing bro-country and
all of its awful traits. The reason
bro-country got thrashed the way it did was because it was country music being
so embarrassed wishing it was anything else.
I mean listen to these awful lyrics:
Put in my country ride hip-hop mixtape
Little Conway, a little T-Pain, might just make it rain
Little Conway, a little T-Pain, might just make it rain
First off, awful rhyme scheme bro. Secondly, T-PAIN!?!?!?! T-Pain hasn’t been relevant in years at this
point. But that name drop just shows how
desperate country music’s crush on rap music was at this point. They can name drop the likes of Lil Wayne and
Drake as much as they wanted, but these guys clearly aren’t listening
back. If irrelevant by this point T-Pain
didn’t want to be a part of your god awful country song, then that’s
telling. T-Pain isn’t selling out what’s
left of his credibility the way Nelly was with the remix of “Cruise”.
And yeah I know, “Cruise” should probably be on the worst
list too, but despite being as bad as it was, at least the remix worked and
made sense. This sounds dated and cheesy
as hell then and it’s only rotted more the older it’s gotten.
This next one might as well be a tie.
7. “Scream and Shout” – will.i.am (featuring Britney Spears)
6. “#thatpower” – will.i.am (featuring Justin Bieber)
If there is one thing I’m glad we left behind in 2013 was
will.i.am…
Oh that’s right. We
made The Black Eyed Peas relevant again in 2020. I still don’t get why we need these guys
around. But in 2013, we were done with
anything Black Eyed Peas related.
Especially will.i.am. Whose
production was instantly starting to sound dated in the EDM era of pop music.
It took me awhile to hate “Scream and Shout”. I didn’t like it, but it was catchy at the
time. But after years and years, it
finally hit me. “Scream and Shout” is
one of the most unoriginal songs ever created.
Nobody is giving any effort whatsoever.
It sounds like basically every Black Eyed Peas song of the previous five
years. Multiple artists might as well
sue will.i.am for ripping off basically every lyric in the song. Britney Spears sounds like a poor woman’s
Lady Gaga. When did Britney Spears stop
giving a shit about her music? Even at
her absolute personal low point in 2007, she was trying so much harder than
this.
And then there is #thatpower. Which if I had to use a tiebreaker for which
song is worse, I would give it to #thatpower solely for that butt ugly
hashtag. I’m so glad we moved past this
trend a year after it started because it was insulting to the listening
public’s intelligence. And speaking of
insulting people’s intelligence, this is basically the same song as “Scream and
Shout”. Just replace one soulless blonde
pop diva for another soulless blonde pop diva.
That’s the other thing that’s more infuriating about the latter. Justin Bieber once again being an empty
vessel where music came from. I swear it
doesn’t matter how old Bieber is. He
simply doesn’t give two shits about putting forth any effort into his guest
verses. If you put Justin Bieber in your
song, you want an easy hit.
And now will.i.am is back again. Way to go America. How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?
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2013 was also the year that Ed Sheeran finally crossed over
to the United States. Who would have
thought that grown up Chuckie Finster over here would turn into the biggest
popstar on planet Earth at the back end of the 2010’s. And while my feelings for Ed’s music have
been a roller coaster over time, I still admire how interesting he is as a
performer. Even at his absolute
shittiest, I can say that I’d still rather have Ed around than the millions of
performers who would try to replicate his success.
5. “Let Her Go” – Passenger
Say what you want about the many singer/songwriters who have
tried to replicate Sheeran over the last couple years. None of them have sucked as hard as
Passenger. James Arthur? A little hacky, but yeah better than
Passenger. Dean Lewis? Very forgettable, but yeah better than
Passenger. Lewis Capal….
…uuhhh…oh fuck it.
I’d rather have Lewis Capaldi around than fucking Passenger. Capaldi at least put himself out there with
his awful musical talent. There is
literally nothing I can recommend about Passenger.
This guy just doesn’t have anything to him as a
performer. I use to think his willowy
singing was the worst thing. And it’s
still pretty bad, but honestly I think I hate his songwriting a lot more than
his singing. Because this is basically a
hair ballad. Except without the over the
top singing. For someone who is afraid
of letting his lover go, he sure sounds like he doesn’t fucking care. Todd’s right.
You only let her go if you are fucking idot. And Passenger sure sounds absolutely
nonchalant that his love is leaving him.
And just like that we let Passenger go. And for good reason. He’s awful.
Next.
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Yeah remember when Lil Wayne had to apologize for this awful
lyric he had in 2013? He should have apologized for the whole year he was about to have.
Little did we
know that this was the beginning of the end of Lil Wayne’s title as best rapper
alive. Mostly due to his label troubles
preventing him from releasing Tha Carter V for five whole years. Sure he still showed up on plenty of guest
verses over the years to still keep his name out there. But 2013 definitely felt like the last year
of Lil Wayne being the biggest name in rap.
I mean who else would have released this turd and made it one of the
biggest rap songs of the year?
4. “Love Me” – Lil Wayne (featuring Drake and Future)
Honestly, I really don’t have much to say about this
one. It’s just a repulsive unpleasant
song. Drake and Future are on the
chorus. Is it a good chorus? I don’t know.
You tell me how good it is. All I
know is that all of this songs problems fall down on Tunechi himself that Drake
and Future are basically an afterthought.
All you need to know about Lil Wayne’s verses is that he
loves sex. He loves gratuitous amounts
of sex. To the point that he gets very
explicit about it. And I’m not a
prude. I like plenty of music about sex
and some of my favorite songs about the topic are pretty freaking
explicit.
But it’s the mood that just makes this not even remotely
sexy. Mike Will Made It is the producer
behind this. He’s made some good songs
and some bad. But this is easily one of
his absolute worse. This production is
limp and lifeless. It makes Lil Wayne’s
sex talk all the more abhorrent. He just
sounds like the most heinous person to have as a lover.
Can someone get me some Lysol so I can spray it in my
ears? I just feel disgusted while
writing about this. Next.
“Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke will not be making this
list.
Trust me, it was tempting.
My thoughts on it keep getting worse and worse as each year passes. I do think the amount of hate it has gotten
is completely warranted because man does Robin Thicke come off as an unlikeable
shit. At the end of the day, I couldn’t
do it. It’s three 40 year old men
sounding lame more than actively infuriating.
What I’m saying is, fight the real enemy.
3. “U.O.E.N.O.” – Rocko (featuring Future and Rick Ross)
One lyric shouldn’t justify a single song’s placement on a
worst of the year list usually. But my
god. What a lyric this is:
Put Molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it
I took her home and enjoyed that, she ain’t even know it
I took her home and enjoyed that, she ain’t even know it
The rest of this song doesn’t even matter. Rick Ross can go fuck himself in the fiery
depths of hell where he belongs. Ever
since those repulsive words came out of his mouth, Rick Ross has actively
apologized and went into constant damage control over it. But he put it out there. He said those lines. His handlers let him say those lines. Nobody involved thought, “Hey Rick. Maybe you shouldn’t brag about date raping a
woman in your guest verse in this nothing of a song.” I don’t know who is to blame, but it proves
that we as a society are fucking broken if we can let a date rape anthem be one
of the 100 biggest songs of any year.
Who the fuck cares about the rest of this song. Nobody gives two shits about Rocko. This was probably the start of the 1000000000
Future guest verses. It’s trash. It’s abhorrent. It’s a song overshadowed by an atrocious
lyric of problematic behavior. Eat shit
Rick Ross. Next.
Come on now?
Really? The worst band ever? I wouldn’t go that far.
In the past year or two, Imagine Dragons has developed quite
the reputation as one of the worst bands ever.
And to that I say, really? I
couldn’t disagree more. Sure Imagine
Dragons basically sold their soul to commercialism, but they aren’t the first
band to do so and they surely won’t be the last.
2013 was the beginning of the commercial success for Imagine
Dragons with their commercially successful “Night Visions” album. And I….loved it. It’s a great album. Every song on that album would get at least a
7 out of 10. Except for one. And that one song defined this band’s career
path from this point forward more than any other. And I’ve always. ALWAYS.
Fucking hated it.
2. “Demons” – Imagine Dragons
The commercialization of indie rock in the 2010’s can all go
back to this one song. This one soulless
garbage of a track that was meant to commercialize any product. I’ve heard this song as a movie trailer, a
television trailer, a commercial jingle, a white bread retail playlist staple,
it is meaningless garbage.
For a song about fighting demons, there is zero punch. For all I know, this demon he is fighting
could be boredom because that’s what Dan Reynold’s voice conveys. Dan Reynolds isn’t a bad singer by any means,
but even on the worst Imagine Dragons song, at least Dan Reynolds believes what
he is singing. I don’t buy that Dan
Reynolds believes anything he is singing here.
This song is as basic as a pop song could get. It’s not very complex or creative. No risks were taken. Even amongst all the shit Imagine Dragons has
spewed out over the years, this will forever be their worst song to me.
I started off this revised countdown talking about my
previous #10. So it only makes sense to
talk about my previous #1 as the same objective point towards building up my
new number one.
This is Ylvis’s “The Fox”.
It was a god awful joke song that spawned memes for a couple weeks, fell
out of cultural relevance and somehow made the year end list. I hated it so much at the time. The joke about fox noises is dated now, but I
at least get the joke more on a whole other level. It was a parody of basically every EDM song
getting popular at the time. It wasn’t a
funny parody mind you, the joke is still bad.
But at least Ylvis had some sort of ambition behind it. It’s too bad I got the joke nearly a couple
days after posting my original worst list nearly days later. It didn’t deserve that title.
Here’s the thing about ambition. It means an artist wants to put forth
effort. To try and make something out of
nothing. Which a lot of this worst list
lacks. And in all my years of covering
pop music, my worst hit song of 2013 truly exemplifies what happens when you
don’t put forth any sort of effort to make good music.
1. “Come and Get It” – Selena Gomez
Let’s be honest. The only
assessment that I wish I could give this song is that this is one of the most
boring songs ever created. Not a single
second of this song remotely sparks any sort of creativity. Selena Gomez is an empty vessel where music
comes from. I will never get the appeal
of her as a performer. I don’t think she’s
untalented. The complete opposite. I think she is a good actress who has a good
singing voice. I don’t blame her for
trying to do both.
Is it possible to put less effort into a song than
this? This is the Kidz Bop version of
itself. Honestly I don’t think the Kidz
Bop kids would change any lyrics. And
this is a song about sex. The most
G-rated version of sex. She’s ready
guys. Come and get it. Get a cookie.
That’s what this sounds like. Not
hot love. A plate of cookies and maybe
some milk. Because Selena is not giving
off any emotion whatsoever.
This is just a low-rent Rihanna song right down the faux
accent, nonsensical chorus, and subject matter.
Say what you will about Rihanna.
I’ve said a lot over the years, but I’d rather have five more Rihannas than
one more Selena Gomez because Rihanna has personality. The fact that Selena has sustained a career
for over a decade without ever really evolving as an artist just pisses me off. You can’t even tell the difference between
her Disney songs and today’s bland same sounding pop. Your entry into adulthood shouldn’t sound
like something a five year old would make.
Absolutely worthless pop song. Come and get something, anything, else….na na
na na.
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