Hey, everyone! How was your 2024?
My god what a year. 2024 will go down as one of the more newsworthy years of our lifetime. For better and for worse and for much worse. I’m going to avoid talking about the state of the real world to the best of my abilities in these recaps. That is not a promise for these lists since a few entries are specifically about the cultural zeitgeist. But we could all use some serotonin and that’s why I still do these annual lists. To provide joy to the handful of people who still follow me after all these years of sparse activity.
One thing that I hope will not go unnoticed is that this is one of the best years for hit music of our lifetime. After an admittedly doldrum and dour past couple of years for music, it felt like 2024 came out in full swing from the very start and did not stop. Nearly every single major name dropped a project this year, we finally got some much needed new blood on the A…hell even B-list. And most importantly of all, the music was a vast improvement too. My god this year in music just fucking ruled. And for the first time in years, I feel like my best list is going to be my writing highlight just due to how ultra competitive it was. I could make a top twenty…hell top thirty and have to make some super painful cuts. But I learned my lesson with my Top 20 of 2020 and I’m never doing that extensive of a write up ever again. And yes, 2024 is a better year than 2020 for hit music.
That said, make no mistake. Just because this was such a fantastic music year doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its stinkers. And there was no excuse for the absolute crap that was this worst list. While there are many excellent and beyond perfect hits on this year end list; the bad stuff just stuck out like a sore thumb and were utter dogshit.
Also slight programming note. These are no longer going to be top ten and bottom ten lists. Since Billboard’s year end charts are eternally fucked up calendar wise and content wise for the forseeable future, I’m going to do a couple things different after holding out for years and years.
For every Christmas song that appears on the year end from here on out, I’m going to use some of these Twitter/X year end chart predictors next five or however many non holiday songs that nearly qualified for the list. Meaning the unofficial 101-105 on the year end Hot 100. And after viewing multiple of these online, here are the five entries: “My Love Mine All Mine” - Mitski, “Chihiro” - Billie Eilish, “One of Wun” - Gunna, “28” - Zach Bryan, and “”Kehlani” - Jordan Adetunji
Since there is also an increase of backwash from the previous year making it on to the following years chart, I’m going to make these best/worst lists expanded from ten to however many reappearances appear on here. For example, if there are three songs on the worst list for the second year in a row and four on the best list, then this will automatically be a Top Thirteen Worst/Top Fourteen Best of (Insert Year Here). Its a good way to challenge myself to find more songs to talk about while also being honest to what the best and worst are from the year end Hot 100. Also, honorable and dishonorable repeats do count for this ruling if they make the actual best/worst list. BUT they don’t count if they fall from the actual best/worst list to the honorable/dishonorable mentions. Just putting this rule into effect because my honest opinion is honest real thoughts and the best list for example has a lot of backwash because 2023’s good songs were that good.
Also no more ties from me moving forward. Those were admittedly cop outs the last few years and I've been called out for it by my real life friends who read these.
I think these are fair rule changes if you ask me. Got it? Good good. SO PLEASE!!!! STAY!!!!! We're counting down!
THE TOP THIRTEEN WORST HIT SONGS OF 2024
PLEASE!!! STAY!!!!
13. “Beautiful Things”….
eh I can’t get too mad, this song is fine.
I thought for sure when I first heard “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone that it was going to be a lock for this list. But as the year went on and the more I heard it, the more this song makes me laugh. I can only hate something so much when I miss when bad songs used to be so wickedly entertaining. Plus my cousin walked down the aisle to a slowed down acoustic version of this song and it resonated with me a little more that there is a good song hiding in there somewhere.
The same however can’t be said for his follow-up.
13. “Slow It Down” - Benson Boone
…and the problems with the song are very apparent right away. Boone’s offkey screeching voice works much better in a pop-rock environment where he can sell his wailing agony. This Harry Styles-esque piano ballad just doesn’t work with this man’s voice.
I have zero qualms with Benson trying to be the beta to Harry Styles alpha for the record. That is definitely a gap that needs to be filled. But man, he just does not have Harry’s charisma. He may have a voice that will definitely get you to notice him, but just not really the draw or aura for me to really care if he’s around.
But Benson Boone is certainly doing one thing with this song. He is proving that the piano is replacing the guitar as the white guy’s go to choice for douchebag music. And also only proves that anyone with the last name Boone is destined to make some of the most boringly prudish music.
“Beautiful Things” may have some unpleasant moments, but absolutely none of them infuriate me more than this song’s worst moments where Benson is telling this girl that the only love he’s ever known is Jesus. And then using that holier than thou energy to tell this girl to “slow it down” and save herself. But wait, I’m also in my head right now too because I’m conflicted on whether I should just let her bone Benson Boone. Go fuck yourself you arrogant little prick. I get saving yourself for marriage but it’s her choice if she wants to give in to temptation. If she has regrets, then that’s on her. It’s not on you to preach your bullshit. Don’t be THAT guy who wants to purposely be a buzzkill.
Also fuck this top comment.
You fucking wish Benson Boone stan. Get that absolutely garbage comparison off of YouTube and delete your account. Next.
Oh I’m going to make some of my readers very angry with my next pick. But I told myself this was always going to be a honest list, so here we go.
I’m going to get into this way more on the best list, but one of my favorite parts of this year in music was all the new and emerging A-list pop girls.. Not ashamed to admit that most of my music listening this year according to Amazon was mostly female. And rightfully so. Pop music just to me feels more important when we have a decade defining female superstar or two or three.
And man did we get some really killer tracks this year from new female superstars like the example you see listed above from former second worst hit song of 2021 pariah by me to someone who has really proved me wrong about her stock by making damn good pop music the following few years Tate McRae…not all her songs were damn good.
12. “Exes” - Tate McRae
Come at me Tate…what does she even call her stan army? Tate-r tots? I’m even googling this on the side while writing this entry and nothing is pulling up. Until I’m inevitably proven wrong, I’m calling them Tater Tots. Well Tater Tots, at least all her other hits this year were pretty good???
She went from being a D-list Billie Eilish knockoff to trying to emulate Olivia Rodrigo to much better results to most recently being a 2000s style Nelly Furtado/Britney Spears style pop music. Which is absolutely the right lane for her strengths. That decade of pop stars fits right into Tate’s wheelhouse of being a really good dancer and having incredibly good production to blend her not the strongest singing voice. I absolutely see her stock continuing to rise the coming years because 2000s nostalgia is absolutely on the forefront with all the rebooting of their shows and movie franchises as of recent. Might as well have a 2000s style pop star like Tate.
But I will be honest in saying that compared to her peers like Olivia, Sabrina, Chappell, and Billie; Tate’s stock I’m not as invested in, even though I don’t mean any harm in saying that. The others just have the personality and many more long staying and lasting tunes for me to care more.
Which leads me to this song and Tate McRae has been on the record saying she made this song in two hours and boy does it show. This is a song that badly shows it was first draft and first draft only. I will compliment it and say that the only thing I like about this is that evil laugh. I can never turn down a good evil laugh. But your entire song shouldn’t be built around a good evil laugh.
And because the song’s main hook is that laugh, it only highlights Tate’s singing which as you see above, her peanut butter mouth style of singing is one of her weaknesses. If she had the voice to tell this guy to kiss off, then it would make up for it but she doesn’t. What this really reminds me of right down to the voice is the disposable trap pop that Camila Cabello was making in 2018. Hell it makes me linger for a nico-teen/hero-ween because at least I will remember it….actually wait, this song does have something I’ll surely never forget.
Oh I’m sorry, sorry that you love me.
Switched my mind up like it’s origami.
I’m sorry, but my fingers just made a record scratch sound while typing this list. But if there weren’t more obvious worst moments in pop music 2024 still to come on this worst list and trust me, we will get to them; this would be the runaway winner in a weaker year for bad lyrics. What an incredibly disastrous metaphor. You can’t switch up origami…I shouldn’t be telling you how origami works. You can’t just turn the art into something else. Origami are not Transformers.
But yes, that disastrous lyric aside; this song is just badly in need of multiple rewrites and a stronger singer to really sell it. Two hours is wrong, I feel like Tate wrote this in much less. Also if you’re keeping the jewelry and the guys’ phone number, you’re definitely not convincing me that you’re over your exes. What should I expect from the “you broke me first” conneseuir.
Hey remember when I talked about the rule changes. Well let’s go ahead and put those new reoccurring rule changes into effect, shall we?
11. “Last Night” - Morgan Wallen
The sustained success to what is now officially the biggest “country song” of all time is a complete farce in every conceivable way imaginable. For being one of only four songs to have a reign of sixteen weeks total at number one; never has a song this big felt so completely devoid of anything interesting to talk about.
But here’s the thing. There are plenty of people still making this one of the most streamed songs of all time. Morgan Wallen has that big of a fanbase. So I’ll concede that there is something to this guy that his accolades for this song do earn some warrant. But why this song exactly, it completely beats me.
I will say that my hatred for this did regress some over this time last year. Which admittedly happens like 90% of the time with my worst list. You can only be so mad at the bad songs of one year that you show a little bit more compassion towards some of them the following. I mean look at that Jelly Roll song being on here again. You can’t stay too mad at a song forever…sometimes…
But let me repeat. The sustained success of this song does make me mad enough to give it a spot because Morgan Wallen already shows no signs of slowing down with these stream trolling behemoths of albums. I have a very bad feeling that more vapid nothing songs like “Last Night” are going to be the norm from this guy moving forward.
That is bad for music as a whole and justifies it for being a repeat worst list entry. Next.
And speaking of repeat entries…
10. “Need a Favor” - Jelly Roll
My thoughts on Jelly Roll have not improved in 2024. They have honestly gotten much worse. I’m just so sick of seeing this Wal-Mart brand Post Malone giving his feature credits to every single person who is trying to capitalize on country music being the genre of the moment. Hell Jelly Roll didn’t even start of as a country artist. He was a rapper and somehow fumbled his way into being one of the biggest country acts because he has an even bigger self depreciation fetish than Ed Sheeran ever had. What sort of country credibility does he really have?
But yeah, he really let that featuring credit fly this year. Willingly collaborate with anyone that wanted to break into country music. Making the person he is trying to emulate full on country in Posty. But wait…it gets more humiliating. I don’t need to hear MGK bastardizing the grave of John Denver. He humiliated himself out of hip-hop and ruined his goodwill with rock music. Country music won’t be too much longer. And speaking of humiliating himself out of hip hop, thanks for trying to make Eminem country; Jelly Roll. I certainly didn’t need to hear that. And then there was that countrified “Drift Away” parody…I mean countrified remake called “Chevrolet”. You see the joke is country music loves cars; and destroying iconic samples. That song would have been either at or near number one on the worst list if that qualified under my rules. Or Jelly Roll collaborating with Joyner Lucas…that’s also a joke. Oh and there was his song with Jessie Murph….why? And we damn sure don’t need to hear Ronnie Radke; one of the worst people in the music industry, getting the Jelly Roll seal of approval.
I guess he really is needing a favor since he is doing so many favors for so many people. Do us a favor and stop making music. Next.
Have you ever been so fascinated by something or someone that is so uninteresting? Because my god do I feel like I owe Bailey Zimmerman an apology.
9. “Wind Up Missin You” - Tucker Wetmore
I feel like this song just barely charted on the year end list to have me apologize for everything I said about Zimmerman last year. This guy for sure is now the most shameless Morgan Wallen ripoff I’ve heard. Right down to the song title and the nasal throat singing. But here’s the kicker…and this is where I became immediately fascinated by this Temu Morgan Wallen. Tucker Wetmore originally didn’t sound like Morgan.
Fascinating, right? This decision is 1000% a record label move. The label is going to hammer everything out of this guy until he fills their Morgan Wallen shaped void. And here is the even more fascinating part. His manager is married to Morgan’s manager. I mean doesn’t that give the game away right there as to how this guy broke out.
But all the backstage politicking and streaming playlist payola in the world are going to salvage this song from being remotely good. Because even if this song and this guy wasn’t clearly trying to be a Morgan Wallen reject; if that isn’t damning enough since he floods the charts with so many song. I would still hate it for being the most generic shlock imaginable. We have too many songs out there like this right now. Which is what the genre has become ever since the bro-country fad of the 2010’s. The bros are still out there making music, but now they’ve grown up and become preachy and faux romantic. And even in a subgenre so safe and sterile, this is one of the most corny bad sappiest love songs I’ve ever heard.
You look like wine in a truck bed
Be still my beating heart? Ladies. If your guy is offering to wine and dine you in the bed of his truck, dump his ass at the mere mention of it. This guy probably heard “Fancy Like” and took it as verbatim and not the lame joke it was meant to be.
Oh and then we have the end of the chorus:
You look like I’m gonna wind up missin you
….um I think you’re using the wrong pronoun? The line should be “I look like I’m gonna wind up missin you.” But for some reason, country music seems to love using the pronoun “you” incorrectly as of late. Still better than “You Look Like I Could Use a Drink”. But still “You look like I’m gonna wind up missin you” is an unflattering sentiment all the same. It’s a limp fart of a pickup line and gives off stalker vibes.
And then he talks about how her dad won’t approve of his lifestyle and how he’s a bad boy….dude your “cool stage name” is Tucker Wetmore. That name absolutely got you bullied growing up. This whole entire song just feels like a giant farce.
But you know what? Who cares. It gave this guy the hit that the studio wanted while Morgan Wallen prepares his next streaming troll of an album. But don’t be surprised if we never hear from this guy ever again by this time next year. And no one winds up missing him. Next.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/interactive/2024/taylor-swift-eras-tour-meaning/
Yep. We are still talking about Taylor Swift ruling the music world in 2024. In emphatic fashion might I add. Whether it is music, movies, art, culture…hell even sports. We are going to continue to let Taylor Swift dominate the landscape. It got even more apparent (if that is even possible) when Taylor dropped her double album The Tortured Poets Department this April and it just wrecked havoc on the charts. All 32 songs charting inside the Top 50. The album ruled the Billboard 200 was 15+ weeks…admittedly with lots of shady sales tactics half the time with hundreds of special edition vinyls.
But I also saw a lot of pushback, even from her fanbase. Which I’m surprised we didn’t expect it? I don’t want to say overexposure is kicking in because we are talking about a billionaire who is still making hundreds of millions from the most successful tour of all time and had a $300 million grossing concert film. But at the same time, this album’s reputation (har har) is becoming fascinatingly divisive. The same people who I saw gushing all over her last year are starting to turn into her biggest critics. Even I, myself, felt a little tired of Taylor too after this year. For everything I do like about Taylor as an artist that was highlighted in this album, her setbacks as an artist were equally as exposed.
This album will be fascinating to look back on in the years that come. I don’t think it damaged Taylor’s superstar power. I mean it is back at number one again while I'm writing this for a 17th week; who are we kidding here. The woman is too big to fail anymore. But it will be at least interesting to see what lessons if any were learned from it and whether Taylor pivots in a fresh new direction after doing all that she can do with synthpop. Or leans into working with more producers than Jack Antonoff and that guy from The National.
…and maybe next time pick a better lead single.
8. “Fortnight” - Taylor Swift (featuring Post Malone)
I really don’t like using the term “mid”. Because it often gets used as an insult when I often like to use it as a term for being perfectly average. Well allow me to rescind that starting now because my god this song is just mid as fuck. Mid in tempo. Mid in energy. Mid in atmosphere. Mid in pretentious lyrical nonsense and trying to pass it off as “too deep”. Mid in performance. This is quite possibly the most mid song to ever exist. From one of the most mid albums to ever exist.
It’s just a fucking slog to sit through, even more than the last couple songs I’ve covered. This is coming from an established act from nearly twenty fucking years. This song can be used as a pinpoint to my problems with that last album. Too much Jack Antonoff, too much synthpop, too many slow songs without any sort of tempo increase. Way too much word vomit. My god that first verse is one of the most fucking pretentious lines she has ever written.
Hell I was moderately curious at first when I saw there was a Post Malone feature. Taylor more often than not does not do well with features with male pop stars in particular. And I actually thought that his verse was relatively fine and that there was surprising chemistry between these two…if you can make out what they are saying admist all the Antonoff overproduction and drowning Post Malone out in so much reverb that you can’t tell he is even on this song. Funny to see Post working with the three biggest artists out there this year btw. I thought he was on his way out. I guess that new contract with Universal came with so much payola that saved his career with some of the most sellout shit of his life.
Thank god the other songs to have gotten big off the album were so much better than this because while Taylor has had much worse lead singles like “Look What You Made Me Do” and “ME!”; I never want to hear this one ever again more so than the others leads.
I hope you guys enjoyed the light hearted fun part of this list because we are starting to get to the part of the list where it’s just no fun anymore and just me typing angry at my keyboard….
…okay maybe not entirely true. Because who else is tired of trying to be outraged by 50 something year old Marshall Mathers.
7. “Houdini” - Eminem
I’ll give it this positive. I do miss when music videos used to feel like an event and in a year full of music videos that felt less relevant to a song's success; this is a damn good music video…even if it is very much a retread of one of the songs it samples “Without Me”. I don’t mind retreads. Also the album wasn’t completely bad. On a good day, you might find me saying it’s okay. Not a bad way to send off one of the most influential rappers of all time…and that’s all the positives I have to say about this.
Like I said, if this was truly the last Eminem album, I think he will be looked back at fondly for his peak era. He has done so much good for rap that I think it will truly overlook the equally impressive legacy of bad songs he has too. The same guy who gave us “Lose Yourself”, “Without Me”, “Berzerk”, and “The Real Slim Shady” also gave us “Just Lose It”, “Walk on Water”, whichever side of the coin you feel about “Not Afraid”….and of course this. What a remarkable legacy of shit lead singles this man has.
I think this might be the worst lead single of them all. Not for quality purposes, although sampling one of the worst songs of the 1980s absolutely does not help your cause. Not only is this a sample of “Without Me”, but this also samples and the chorus interpolates The Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra”. Yeah talk about an insanely embarrassing stain on a decent band’s legacy that somehow became the biggest song of theirs. And yet, this song is equally as humiliating as the song it samples. Truly what an accomplishment.
But it is the worst lead single to me because this topic has been done to death. He made two albums about why he dropped the Slim Shady shtick and this one makes three. He has spent half of his career complaining about this and at 52 years old, it’s absolutely fucking sad that he has to keep retreading this topic and trying to shock us with his thoughts about political correctness, LGBTQ+, and cancel culture. Hell, I have friends who tell me that they aren’t offended by anything Em says anymore because they’ve grown accustomed to the stuff that he says and/or questions about Gen Z culture.
Em nobody fucking cares if you’re controversial. This is just sad at this point. You’re shocking nobody anymore old man. If this is truly the death of Slim Shady, then what exactly have most of these last ten years been? Critical condition? Next.
https://variety.com/2024/music/news/megan-thee-stallion-nicki-minaj-doesnt-know-problem-is-rap-beef-1236130087/
So I don’t know if you’ve heard, but its a pretty bad time to be Nicki Minaj right now. What a massive L she took from Megan Thee Stallion this year. One that might be too damaging to come back from. And she may have retaliated and failed spectacularly, but the fact that it only took literally one line to completely cook her ass; yeah she’s done.
Or maybe I’m over exaggerating her L? Her stans are still as insanely loyal and dedicated as ever. But even if they are, they can’t deny this is not the same Nicki that made “Moment 4 Life”, or who used to put out some of the best guest verses of the 2010s, hell I would take an “Anaconda” at this rate. At least that was intentionally jaw dropping in terms of quality.
No, the Nicki we’ve been getting for the last couple years has been a shell of herself from supporting actual terrible people to rumored to being difficult to work with amongst her peers, and releasing some of the most half assed songs of her entire career. For example…
6. “FTCU” - Nicki Minaj
…well let’s get the most glaring thing about this song out of the way. Yes, that literal one note beat is through out this entire song. Every now and then you might get a few other sounds thrown in between there, but nope just that same one fucking note with that Waka Flocka Flame sample where he repeats “fuck this club up” adnauseum. I mean if this song makes you want to do that, by all means, but this line has been repeated to fucking death by rap for the last 10-15 years and this song is where I feel like it makes me want to party the least.
But this song has been described as a victory lap for Nicki, so go ahead Nicki. Tell me why you are the self proclaimed queen of rap.
Yeah, high heels on my tippies
Dolce and Gabbana, that's on my titties
Cop me Vetements when I ride the dickie
I still got the juice, bitch, buy a sippie
So when am I supposed to be impressed again? Honestly these are the same stupid flexes she has been making for forever now. Hell this sounds like a lazy retread of previous verses she’s done. To say she’s rapped about her titties before is an understatement.
But you know what is more recent? Constantly making herself out to be an absolute bitch to her peers:
I leave these bitches on read, so now they know that they blew it
And…
I give bitches the crown, they fuck around and lose it, nah (nah)
And…
When I'm around, bitch, you know you become invisible
….like we needed any more proof that Nicki is absolutely unwilling to be flexible to any up and coming female rappers. If you all want a list of female rappers that Nicki has beef with, just consult the Hot 100. Because she has beef with practically everyone. This even includes people she was just collaborating with as recently last year like Ice Spice who she did multiple songs with in 2023 in case you all forgot.
But for anyone wondering how that beef with Megan began? Well allow me to introduce you to the lyric that started it all…
Stay in your Tory Lane, bitch. I’m not Iggy
Yes I'm linking this article. Because apparently it needs to be described to all the dumbasses out there who keep bringing it up. It’s been over four years since “the incident” and the amount of people that continue to show unbiased support for this dumbfuck is just astounding to me…hell this is the second song on this worst list where we get a reference to it.
Eminem: If I was to ask for Megan Thee Stallion if she would collab with me
Would I really have a shot at a feat?
And honestly it really paints quite the toxic picture as to how many of the big names either don’t like Megan or are just awful people like the scumbag they are willing to back. Iggy has since backtracked her letter of support for Tory which is why “I’m not Iggy”, but the fact that many names like Nicki here aren’t doing so when the evidence is right fucking there…
…I…I can write a whole separate blog post about this topic and if this incident continues to get brought up going on the fifth year in a row, I just might. So I’m just going to wrap this up by saying Nicki locked this song up a year end spot by releasing a remix with Travis Scott (who I can’t look at the same anymore after so many people died at his concert and he took no responsiblity for it), Chris Brown (do I really need to explain how awful he is), and Sexyy Red (the token female to prove Nicki isn’t a bitch to other women; who has her own violent issues she got arrested for this year; and who I give a year until Nicki acts like a bitch her too). Out of all the 2010 legacy acts we are keeping alive in the 2020’s; Nicki is the one who I can’t understand why she is still around the most.
Thankfully that time is up. Hopefully for good. Next.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cje08q8qnzqo
So I don’t know if you’ve heard, but its a pretty bad time to be Drake right now. What a massive L he took from Kendrick Lamar this year. One that might be too damaging to come back from. He somehow managed to survive the Pusha T beef by leaning into his lameness and still standing as strong as ever. But this time? Nah. When you have the biggest bop of the summer having the entire world call you a pedophile; you’re cooked.
Is Drake a pedophile? …I really don’t want to get into the weeds of this because Detective Internet has been wrong before. Drake is an insecure, weird, and admittedly sus guy when it comes to his behavior with women, especially women in their late teens. There is plenty of smoke, but no fire. I want actual credible sources and actual proof that this happened and not just go off of internet rumors and what ifs before I say Drake is guilty of THE worst crime known to man. But the way I see it, the internet wants it to be true because everyone is so sick of Drake that Kendrick immediately won the rap beef the moment he pulled out that internet rumor and sold it so convincingly that it sounded true…if it is true because Drake absolutely did not sound convincing while addressing this…probably has a mountain high fortress of NDA’s. I really don’t want to talk about this aspect of the rap beef anymore because it was all fun until it got to serious illegal accusations.
…anyway where was I? God awful year to Drake’s legacy. Yes, he’s a legacy act now. Crody has had fifteen years of hits. I’m sick of him too, especially with all the more bad than good songs he’s had most of the last ten years especially. Still has too many iconic songs that saying he’s not one of the defining stars of this millennium is just one being in denial at this point. But you know what fact has always been true, even now? That Drake’s co-signing of newer acts only shows how much worse off it can be.
5. “act ii: date @ 8” - 4batz (featuring Drake)
…and never has the Drake co-sign meant less here. Really bad timing for one too as the Drake remix cracked the top ten the exact same week Future & Metro Boomin both turned on Drake with their album of issues they have with Drake. But let’s not kid ourselves. This song only became a hit because of Drake as this was hanging around the tail ends of the chart until Drake hopped on and immediately gave this nothing burger of a song some actual personality.
And boy what personality this song immediately got. Drake’s remix is basically an even worse version of his hit from last year “Slime You Out”. Which here is one of my worst takes ever, but “Slime You Out” is so bad, that I kind of like it….let me explain. I listen to this song from an outside perspective of how quickly Drake has lost the narrative of his career from what made him wildly popular to begin with to devolving into the toxic douchebag he is today that no one likes and is an asshole to women. And the fact that he doesn’t realize he became exactly what he feared he would be from the “Marvin’s Room” days…featuring SZA. SZA absolutely saves it from being an absolutely one sided toxic mess as she was more or less hate fucking who I assume is Drake for her own commiserating reasons. She still doesn’t directly tell Drake to shut the fuck up; but SZA at least lets me know “oh thank god that she isn’t putting up with Drake’s crap”.
None of that is here. This honestly feels like a separate song attached to the original. Which the original isn’t even worth discussing. It just makes me feel really fucking old with its stupid song title (where is act 1, is there an act 3?), this kid’s stupid stage name (4Batz!?), and the lack of content. He wants to take this girl, who is already in a committed relationship, on a date and buy expensive things. That’s it. 4Batz clearly wanted this to trend on TikTok since the original ran less than two minutes and the chorus gets repeated ad nauseum.
But I’ll give him this. 4Batz, by comparison, is a boy. Drake, you’re a grown ass man. No one wants to hear you be awful to women and treat them condescendingly. She’s in a committed relationship, get away from her, you toxic piece of shit. And you’re wondering why everyone hates you. Hey Drake, we’re not slow.
And speaking of being awful to women…y’all knew it was coming if you remember what I said last year…
4. “Thinkin’ Bout Me” - Morgan Wallen
…at least it took twelve years of Drake until we got to this sudden chauvinistic attitude towards women. Morgan Wallen did that in even less than half. I copped out last year with that gigantic Morgan Wallen tie calling all of his bad songs the fifth worst hit of 2023 because I really did not want to talk about him four separate times on my worst list. He’s barely worth discussing once, let alone twice. Four times is overkill. One thing I said last year still remains true though. If I broke that tie, this song would have been much lower.
This would have been the 2nd…maybe 3rd worst hit of 2023. Jason Aldean had 1st locked by a country (har har) mile. But this and Drake’s AI sounding concern troll with, you guessed it, more toxic behavior towards women; that is a pick your poison as to which is worse than the other. Either way, no copping out this time. This song is just that heinous.
Like most of this song is just a hideously unpleasant listening experience. I can literally share every infuriating guilt tripping lyric in this song and my internal reaction is the same every time which is fuck you you fucking prick. Like the premise of this song is just false on a factual level. I highly doubt this woman is thinking about him that much and that Morgan Wallen has that strong of a grasp on her.
For reference’s sake, I have the same visceral reaction to Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” but at the very least, that song is meant to be a revenge fantasy. Morgan just comes off as an unlikeable douche and prick. I bet she had good a reason to leave you to begin with if all these songs YOU have made about drinking and being a royal fuck up are factual.
For the record, his latest single “Lies Lies Lies” is a better version of him doing this type of song. Some might say it’s good even. Sure…it exists. Perfectly existing song. But even if I did like it, “Thinkin Bout Me” is so bad that I never want to hear Morgan Wallen do this type of song ever again.
There is an audience for this type of music, but it should only be made by boys. Morgan you’re a grown ass man. How is this guy bigger than Jesus again? His music blows. Next.
https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/its-official-new-music-is-shrinking-in-popularity-in-the-united-states/
As the years go by and singles are becoming less crucial to telling who the big names are in music right now, I’ve also been doing my own personal year end album rankings. Where I go through all the top albums that I missed throughout the year and then rank them like I do the singles.
Maybe someday I’ll share those too, but for the sake of this entry, let’s talk about my worst album of 2023 because it’s also one of the worst albums of this decade. HARDY is a fucking poser.
3. “Truck Bed” - HARDY
So a bit about why this album and this song are absolute trash. This is a double album where the first half is “country” and the second half is “rock”. I use those quotes with much extremity because they are absolute farces. There is no difference.
And before you ask how I felt about the other huge hit from this album, “Wait in the Truck” was fine. Perfectly fine song, I like that country songs are starting to tell actual stories again and not by the list check marks. But even then, I could tell that HARDY was not as cool as he thought he was. I mean murdering people, even abusive assholes like the antagonistl of the song, is still murder. Killing people should not be paraded as normal behavior. Especially in such a serious tone; you could tell that he took The Chicks classic “Goodbye Earl” 100% serious and not camp country comedy like it is.
But the other big hit though. Christ. The “rock” portion of this album were throwbacks to nu-metal and screamo of the 2000’s and practically every single song was crap. But to me, you could hardly tell that these didn’t want to 100% commit to the rock but. Because HARDY may have spent this album pointing every country cliche in the book with all the years he has spent writing hits; but deep down, he is still a sucker and a part of the system he wants to mock.
See the joke of this song is that he is a miserable drunk that keeps fucking up and is forced to sleep in his truck bed because his girlfriend is smart and knows better than to entertain his dumb ass. And like most trap country, HARDY flexes and champions this behavior with some of the most by the numbers country cliches. However, unlike Morgan Wallen (and I can’t believe I’m making a favorable comparison to him), Wallen has charisma and knows that he’s still miserable. He drinks to hide the pain. HARDY goes as far as to suggest he’s going to shoot his girlfriend in the bridge. That’s a threat.
And to double down on HARDY’s new career path of being the completely countryfied version of Kid Rock; he released a rock album EP that might as well have been a poor man’s Kid Rock with collaborations from…Fred Durst!?
Yeah I’ve had enough of this guy. Time to keep rolling rolling rolling rolling….
So this was going to be my (what a twist) number one for like 85% of the year.
2. “Wild Ones” - Jessie Murph (featuring Jelly Roll)
It doesn’t really spark too much rage in me in all honesty. It just fails in practically every conceivable way imaginable. Like straight zero out of tens all across the board. And every time I ever hear it or saw it squatting on the charts for fucking ever, I kept asking myself the same question?
Why?
This is the same generic trap-pop country schlock that Bebe Rexha ditched years ago. Who the fuck even is this latest clip art singer? I don’t give two fucks about who Jessie Murph is but she sure wants fame and wants it really bad. She might as well be an industry plant with how out of nowhere she came aboard and how much this push for her won’t stop. Not to mention with all the people she’s working with like Diplo and Dr Luke…regardless of their past history of abuse.
I’ve already touched upon my issues with Jelly Roll and how much I went from actively not caring about this guy to never wanting to see this living ogre’s name appear on a song ever again. He may have battled his own demons and taken full advantage of his second chance, but actively collaborating with toxic douchebags like Ronnie Radke really opened my eyes as to the kind of people he supports and willing to make a quick buck to give anyone “country cred”…he doesn’t even go here.
I might as well talk about the song. I mean this just fails in every remote aspect of being a song. The production is this generic country trap beat that is so limp and lifeless that it actively sucks you out of the listening experience. The lyrics are so non discreet and are absolutely played out. Oh gee, they like “wild ones”….boy I haven’t heard that song concept over a dozen times. Maybe if we are lucky, we’ll get a Sia “OOOOOOO” out of it? Kid, you turned 18 the time this song released. Maybe you shouldn’t be singing this kind of song to someone that’s more than twice your age….
…actually let’s take a look at these lyrics a little more closely:
I got a thing for the hard liquor on ice
Short days and long nights
Marlboros out the window
Middle finger to the sky
I think we all had that one friend or person you knew from back in high school that their lives were so dull and uninteresting that they fabricated so many stories to make it seem like they lived a much more exciting life than they actually did. I had that one friend. That one friend would tell me about how he would have threesomes every other weekend, go to college parties, have supermodel girlfriends, get high all the time, drove his parents car into the lake…yeah good times. We were fifteen years old btw during all these wild stories he shared.
That’s the kind of impression I get from Jessie Murph not just in general, but in this song especially. She is so full of shit that her hair is brown…or black, you get my point. Underaged drinking and smoking???? Kid, I know you’re a plant, and maybe this is the parent in me, but you should be fucking grounded…Jelly Roll be the responsible adult and tell this kid you’re too young for…
Yeah, I'm attracted to things that are really crazy
Asking me how I've been feeling lately
Coming for mine, then it's do or die
….is he singing about the freshly turned 18 year old girl????
A whole lotta problems, living in Gotham and Bunnie's my Harley Quinn (my Harley Quinn)
……okay he’s singing about his wife now; who I just learned who she is in context after Trump won. Still…what does she have to do in context with the rest of this song?
I have no shame, I'm in love with the heartless
The police will never take us alive
And cowgirls don't cry
What the actual fuck is this guest verse? Not only is he a terrible rapper, maybe he is in the right genre after all. But it is just so out of place with the rest of this song; especially with how it blends in and out of sounding like he is rapping about being attracted to a girl who was a minor at the time of recording this…I SHOULDN’T BE THINKING ABOUT ACTUAL POTENTIAL PEDOPHILES IN MY POP MUSIC.
For even remotely suggesting this; Jelly Roll, you’re on my shit list. Good luck getting yourself off. And the actual child on this pop song; your fifteen minutes better stick to solely this year.
So what did top my worst list….I think you all know by now If you’ve even paid the slightest bit of attention to what song hit number one this year. But first, I actually don’t feel like I have as many dishonorable mentions this year as in year’s past, but here we go…
Dishonorable Mentions:
“Cowgirls” - Morgan Wallen (featuring ERNEST)
How the fuck is this guy getting this much mileage out of that album??? This is like the twelfth single from it and I honestly think this might be worse in quality than “Last Night”. I hate what “Last Night” represents that much more that it makes the worst list over it, but let me reiterate that…..this also sucks eggs.
“Lose Control” - Teddy Swims
I went back and forth this entire year on if I truly hated this song enough to put on the actual worst list or if it was just the gratuitous amount of overplay/playlist payola making me never want to hear this song ever again. It feels like it is more the latter because I do admit that the guy is technically sound as a performer. But this song is just completely absent of anything to really sink my teeth into and to this day, I still have not sat through this song in one sitting. It is so insanely boring. Teddy Swims will go down as the Gregory Abbott of this decade. He’s a nothing of a performer. This is a nothing of a song. And of course, it is Billboard’s number one song of 2024. We are truly on such a three year cold streak for the biggest hit of the year by Billboard’s metrics.
“Save Me” - Jelly Roll (featuring Lainey Wilson)
Jelly Roll you better thank your lucky stars for Lainey Wilson saving your song. Otherwise, this would be on the actual list as well. Pretty high up there. Lainey’s feature definitely adds some much needed humanity into Jelly Roll once again wailing about being a lost cause and I am not okay and my god man, just shut the fuck up. Forget the self deprecation fetish I said earlier. Does Jelly Roll have a pity fetish?
“Bulletproof” - Nate Smith
…featuring Avril Lavigne. What the actual fuck is this? Why are you not going to give one of the biggest stars of the 2000s a featuring credit? She is the sole reason this song became a hit in the first place. Granted this Nate Smith guy sings over her to the point that you can barely tell she’s on the song, but she’s there. Should be on the list proper solely for wasting Avril Lavigne; what an insult.
“vampire” - Olivia Rodrigo
The fact that Olivia’s worst hit is able to make the year end two years in a row while the far better “bad idea right”, “obsessed”, and “get him back” all did not…that just does not sit well with me at all, man. I really hope that Olivia doesn’t take this being the most successful single off this album cycle as a sign moving forward.
“High Road” - Koe Wetzel & Jessie Murph
This song sounds like literal ass. Can we please stop country music from turning into numetal? To anyone who hates the "it's not me it’s you“ attitude of Posty and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help”, fight the real enemy here. Oh and so I can keep the recurring joke of this worst list alive; ahem, Jessie Murph. Why?
“Everybody” - Nicki Minaj (featuring Lil Uzi Vert)
Yeah I know, surprise. Another Nicki song. This was the “big” hit off that last album if you call it a hit, which I sure as hell forgot this was one. “Move Your Feet” is a great song to sample in theory to convert to the Jersey club sound, but it is overproduced that I feel bad that Junior Senior signed off on this sample. Hell I prefer the overuse of this song in practically every commercial earlier this year than I do listening to Nicki try and fail to make this trend on TikTok…which it never did to my knowledge. Really am starting to get tired of Uzi propping her up with these collabs too btw. They should know better than that by now, especially since Nicki keeps using the wrong pronouns around them.
“Kehlani” - Jordan Adetunji
This is my honorary number eleven…or fourteen; shut up. The only thing and I mean the only thing. saving this from the actual worst list is that the remix with actual Kehlani; which was what was credited by Billboard most of this year, adds some much needed personality to this song and makes me think it’s just a bad Kehlani song with some no name attached. But make no mistake, everything else about this song is bad. This guy has an awful voice. The production drowns his voice out so much you can barely make out what he’s saying. And when you are able to decipher what he’s saying, it’s just an incredibly piss poor Drake knockoff. But what would have made this song chart on the worst list is solely naming your song Kehlani. That’s just shameless clickbait if I’ve ever heard it. That’s like Peso Pluma (remember him? I sure don’t and it’s been less than a year since he had like six hits) calling his song Lady Gaga. You know exactly what the fuck you are doing and building your trash song around search engine trends. Fuck right off and the fact that this charted higher than any other song in Kehlani’s discography pisses me off even more.
“Miles On It” - Marshmello & Kane Brown
And that’s all you’re getting from me this year. Onto number 1- it’s Kanye.
1. “Carnival” - Kanye West & Ty Dolla Sign (featuring Playboi Carti & Rich the Kid)
I told myself I wasn’t going to let politics influence my decision for what my worst hit song of this year was going to be. Especially since I felt like such a weenie doing it last year with that Jason Aldean song. Yeah it pissed me off and that was the point of the song. Just because I disagree with you politically does not mean that I can’t separate the art from the artist….and then the Grammys revealed their nominees for Best Rap Song of the Year.
Burn the Grammys to the fucking ground. Worst nomination ever. That’s when I really stepped back and really thought about it. What does this say about us as a society that we let a neo-nazi obtain a Grammy nomination, a number one hit single, AND a number one hit album in 2024. Not to mention his best buddy Donald Trump became president again…by a decent margin. That we are truly in a deplorable timeline that we are allowing so much venomous hatred bleed through, while we are standing back and letting it happen.
Yeah that whole year of not having Kanye West around the music world certainly meant nothing; so much for cancel culture. I still don’t understand how forgiving the music industry was to this man to say what he said about Hitler and the Jews that we can reward him like this. But then again, we let a convicted felon return to the White House as president again, so society fucking sucks…okay last time I bring that up, I swear.
Look, I do agree that Kanye clearly needs to seek some sort of help. He has claimed so much wrong with him personally that I genuinely do not have a clue what is causing him to be the way that he is. I just know that he needs help. And yes, he has made some all-time classics and that he is one of the defining stars of the last twenty years. His catalog of classics absolutely remain untouched and should stay that way because I absolutely am all for separating the art from the artist. Always will be…
…but this song is the perfect representation of what happens when the artist bleeds into his own art. And for the state of matters, I have listened to this particular song only once and that was it ending up on a workout playlist I found streaming. I told myself I was not going to support this man and his current music by not streaming it and yet streaming playlists told me otherwise. Thanks.
So about the song…it is hideously unpleasant to listen to. And by that I mean from a production standpoint. The same man who made some of the best production styles and choices of the last twenty plus years is now making some of the most unlistenable dogshit I’ve ever heard. Literally every production choice is just bleeding to my ears and headache inducing. Like why the fuck did Kanye choose to make the most obnoxious noises as the focal points in this song. That Inter Milan Ultra chant is especially telling when you know about that specific fanbase and what they represent.
But yeah, if that isn’t one sign of the artist bleeding into his art, his one verse….yes only one verse…is just him being an unrepentant asshole. Comparing himself to other canceled black celebrities…completely missing the point as to why R Kelly, Bill Cosby, Diddy, and Chris Brown all got into the legal troubles they got in. And that’s when it hit me. Modern Kanye is just 6ix9ine. Acting as unlikeable as possible for the sake of it. Being an intentional douchebag in your music AND in real life gwith the well established classic discography is very dangerous for modern music fans. That is why we need to leave Kanye in the past. There is no turning around for him. No redemption arc.
…oh and I guess I should say something about the other three guys on this song; but why even bother. They are all just ableists for the even bigger problem. Especially Ty Dolla Sign for making a series of albums with Kanye. Playboi Carti is just a streaming cheat code; this year especially…although I really am not a fan of that lower register thing he’s doing with his voice lately. And literally who gives an actual fuck about Rich the Kid? Actually I do, only because “Head so good, she a honor roll/She ride the dick like a carnival" is one of the worst bars I've heard not just this year, but in my entire life…and he made it the chorus. The chorus!!!
It was very hard to remove myself from Kanye and the classics he made from my soul; just like everyone else that had to truly learn to separate art from the artist when it applied to him and what he did. But he’s not making My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy anymore; he’s making dogshit like this.
Best List will be posted in a week or two give or take. And let me tell ya now, I am having much more fun writing that than I did this. Until then, thank you all for reading, stay safe, and take care.
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