Cover your nose. It’s time to rake through this year’s
garbage.
I’ve decided to only focus on established artists. Picking
on someone with only 10 YouTube views is a bit mean – even if their music is atrocious.
At the same, I’ve tried to look beyond the overplayed pop hits. I think we all
got sick and tired of hearing ‘I’M GONNA TAKE MY HORSE TO THE OLD TOWN ROAD…’,
but I wouldn’t call it a bad song (I actually still think it’s a work of genius).
I’ve even spared Tones and I’s ‘Dance Monkey’.
So which songs made my list? Read on to find out. And why
not check out my previous lists from 2018, ’17, ’16, ’15 and ’14 too?
10. ‘CHopstix’ – Schoolboy Q ft. Travis Scott
Winner of The Dumbest Hook of 2019 Award, this track sees
guest Travis Scott fervently declaring his love for oriental tableware: ‘I LOVE
THEM CHOPSTIIIICKS! CHOPSTICKS! CHOPSTICKS… CHOP! CHOP! CHOP!’. According
to Genius, ‘Chopsticks’ is actually slang for ‘skinny legs’. Even so, it’s a
clunky, auto-tune-drenched sorry-excuse for a chorus.
9. ‘Why Are We So Broken’ – Steve Aoki ft. Blink-182
This new Chainsmokers song sure is terrible. Why is Travis
Barker even pretending to play in the video when you can hear that the drums
are programmed?
8. ‘Closed on Sunday’ – Kanye West
Kanye releasing a Christian rap album was always going to be
awkward. But none of the singles quite reach the levels of corniness as ‘Closed
on Sunday’ in which he solemnly compares God to a fast food chain: ‘You’re
my Chick-fil-A’.
7. ‘Cattitude’ – Miley Cyrus ft. Ru Paul
‘Turn up your gratitude, turn down your attitude/ I love
my pussy, that means I’ve got cattitude’. Oh Lord, sweet Jesus… I mean,
yeah, the beat is pretty badass and it’s funny to hear Ru Paul spitting bars…
but THOSE LYRICS! I can’t stomach them.
6. ‘Momma’ – Buu
‘SUCK ON MY DICK DICK DICK DICK
DICK DICK DICK…’
Me:
via GIPHY
5. ‘Why U Mad Sis?’ – The Cheeks
Look, I’m not hating on these
chicks because they’re dwarves. I’m not dwarvist. Some of my best friends are
dwarves (okay, I’m lying). An all-dwarf rap group is a cool USP. But honestly, THAT
AUTOTUNE! It’s like medieval torture.
4. ‘Medellin’ – Madonna ft.
Maluma
TO BE FAIR, this is not as obnoxious
as ‘Bitch, I’m Madonna’. And yet the 61-year-old singer’s struggle to stay
relevant is still painful to watch in this dull attempt to deliver her own
‘Despacito’.
3. ‘Spicy’ – Herve Pagez &
Diplo ft. Charli XCX
It’s pretty much blasphemy to
cover a pop classic like The Spice Girls’ ‘Wannabe’. But the random drop made
up of chopped-up vocals at 0:44 makes this physically unlistenable.
2. ‘Do Or Die’ - Machine Head
After getting lots of hate for
their last album, metal band Machine Head decided to respond by throwing a tantrum
on tape. ‘IGNORE THE HATE!’ singer Robb Flynn yells, while also proceeding
to get angry over ‘pussy little memes!’, and telling his fans to
literally ‘die!’. It’s like his mum just confiscated his Xbox. It’s
pitiful.
1. ‘Earth’ – Lil Dicky ft.
LITERALLY EVERYONE
The worst song of 2019 beats the
others by quite a large margin. It has good intentions – it’s a rally cry to save
the world against climate change. And yet it’s so bad, you’ll wonder whether
the world is even worth saving afterwards.
Comedic rapper Lil Dicky is its
orchestrator. He’s managed to rope together almost every pop star currently in
the charts from Justin Bieber to Ariana Grande to Miley Cyrus. And yet none of
them are able to salvage any good from this monstrosity of a song.
So what is it that makes this such
a disaster? It’s quite hard to pinpoint just one thing, so I’ll offer a few
examples. How about Justin Bieber portrayed as an animated baboon gyrating his
butt and singing ‘my anus is huge’? How about Shawn Mendez singing about
being a horny rhino? How about Lil Dicky inexplicably going on a tangent about
orgasms ‘I heard women’s orgasms are better than a dick’s’? Or worse deciding
to randomly bring up World War 2 with the line ‘we forgive you Germany’?
It’s these strange failed attempts
at humour than turn the song into a complete cringe-fest. And to make matters
worse, the song has an awful autotuned hook (as you can tell from some of these
choices, I’m not a fan of auto-tune), as well as a beat that sounds like
something from a nappy advert.
So there we have it. Did I miss
anything? What were your worst tracks of the year?