Top 10 Worst Hit Songs Of 2014

Well, guys, it's that time of year again. It's time to look back at the year of music as a whole according to the Billboard year-end hot 100 and pick out what I consider to be the best and worst of them all. First, new rule: a song's eligible for this list so long as it was on the Billboard year-end hot 100 and didn't make either of my lists from last year. With that out of the way, a retrospective of 2014 as a year in music.

Man, what a painfully average year. For the most part, the good songs weren't that good, and the bad songs weren't that bad. It was also a pretty sloppy year for music as we never knew when a truly great or horrifically awful song would be brought to us, and it always took us by surprise when we found out which it was if it wasn't in the same boat mentioned earlier that a lot of the other songs were. Still, that doesn't mean they weren't hard to find, so let's get this crapfest rolling, but first some dishonorable mentions.

DHM1) Song: This Is How We Roll
              Artist: Florida Georgia Line & Luke Bryan
              Year-End Position: 49

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbxuXq_981s

While I don't think this is the worst bro-country song of the year (trust me, we'll get to it), I still can't bring myself to like it. The instrumentation is clunky, FGL's performance is tolerable at best, Luke Bryan's cameo was way too short and a complete waste of time, the rapping in the second verse is unpleasant to listen to, and overall, this song is just a generic bro-country party song in the most bland and homogeneous way possible. There were quite a bit of bro country songs that I could tolerate (and some I actually like), but this obviously wasn't one of them.




DHM2) Song: Amnesia
      Artist: 5 Seconds Of Summer
      Year-End Position: 86

                                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCCJCILiX3o

I don't mind the "white guy with acoustic guitar" genre like others seem to, but some of them do get under my skin, and this would be one of them. A lot of criticism has been thrown of She Looks So perfect, and while I see why, I actually wound up liking that song because of how incredibly fun, bouncy, and quirky it was, and yes, that includes the American Apparel underwear line. The same can't be said, however, about Amnesia, a completely boring slog to listen to that has an ugly "I hope you're unhappy because we broke up" sentiment that is detestable in every sense (which it later contradicts with the line "when he says the words that hurt you, do you read the ones I wrote you?," which, to be fair, shows that the narrator cares at least a little underneath all the hate. Still not enough to save the song, though). Not to mention how extremely whiny it is. This one is so lucky that it's at least musically nice to listen to. Otherwise, it'd be a lot higher. 5SOS, you're better than this.

DHM3) Song: Adore You
              Artist: Miley Cyrus
              Year-End Position: 100

                                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1tzURKYFNs
Say what you will about We Can't Stop. At least the production sounded nice, and at least Miley tried to liven the mood with her vocals. The same cannot be said, however, about Adore You, easily Cyrus' most sleep-inducing song to date. Everything about this song is just so boring and monotone that you'd swear that it was a musical form of Lunesta. Neither the production nor the vocals stray from the one single key it's in all throughout the song, nothing gets upkeyed at all, and the hackneyed lovey dovey "I love you so much. We'll be together forever" lyrics don't add anything interesting to the song whatsoever. It's not infuriatingly bad, but it's still worthy of being a dishonorable mention. FU really should've been the 3rd single from Bangerz instead of this schlock.




DHM4) Song: Partition
              Artist: Beyoncé
              Year-End Position: 95

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ12_E5R3qc

Okay, who thought it was a good idea to hear Beyoncé rap again? Seriously, didn't we learn this lesson from Diva? Look, I have no problem with songs being explicitly sexual (as evidenced by Body Party being on my best list last year), but I do have a limit, and this goes over that limit. Not to mention that the production is so boring that you pretty much have no choice to focus on the disgusting lyrics such as "he popped all my buttons & he ripped my blouse, he Monica Lewinski'd all on my gown," to which my response is EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This one was the hardest to cut from the list, and it shouldn't be too hard to see why.




DHM5) Song: Cool Kids
              Artist: Echosmith
              Year-End Position: 59

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSCzDykng4g

If there is one word to describe this song, it would be pandering. It's basically saying "hey, are you down, alone, and just want to fit in? Me too," which I gotta ask, why would you want to make a song like that? I know it's supposed to be relatable, but it would ultimately only add to the depressed mood of the listener and wouldn't really do anything to solve the problem. It's a real shame that this is as bad as it is, too, because it had potential to be an anthem of cheering someone up in the vein of Carry On by fun. or Keep Your Head Up by Andy Grammer. Oh well, at least the instrumentation and the vocals sound pretty nice.

DHM6/7) Song(s): No Mediocre/Na Na
              Artist: T.I. feat. Iggy Azalea (and DJ Mustard)/Trey Songz (and DJ Mustard)
              Year-End Position(s): 87/53

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdsTUfDTEhQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Gu_Yh_ke

It's no surprise that DJ Mustard was ubiquitous all throughout 2014, nor is it really much of a surprise how bland and flavorless he was and that pretty much all of his singles sound exactly the same. This one in particular, though, is getting a dishonorable mention for having the most wasted potential. I really saw the reggae-style beat going somewhere, but nope, it's just the same four notes with the same percussion and the same gang vocals all throughout with T.I. offering a generic brag rap with a mumbled and hard to understand delivery. Thankfully, Iggy saves the song with a pretty good verse, but overall, this song could've been so much more than the ironically extremely mediocre mess that it was.
Na Na is just a boring and droning song about a guy trying to get with a girl by convincing her how awesome he is with a possible allusion to rape ("Girl I know you're ready, I ain't even gotta check." Yep. Rape). The song tries to go for a darker atmosphere with the strings and oddly unfitting gang vocals, but it just does not work with the subject matter given. Oh, and don't even get me started on just how lifeless Trey Songz's vocals on this song are.





DHM8) Song: Rude
    Artist: MAGIC!
    Year-End Position: 7

                                           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIh2xe4jnpk

I've already done a review of this song, so if you wanna see my thoughts, you can find that here, but I will reiterate my main points against this song: this a bland piece of cod reggae with a whiny crybaby of a lead singer and a disjointed narrative. The father just said he didn't want you marrying his daughter. He wasn't being too rude just by doing that. Also, it was incredibly pointless of you to ask the father in the first place if you were just gonna say "screw it, I'll marry her anyway." Ugh, ju...just screw this song.




DHM9) Song: Latch
                Artist: Disclosure feat. Sam Smith
               Year-End Position: 28

                                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93ASUImTedo

Oh boy, I'm gonna make a whole mess of people mad with this one, but yeah, I do not like Latch in the slightest. I don't like how underweight the synths are, that grinding bassline in the chorus, just how little energy the song has as a whole, the lyrics that, while about a simple hug, when they include lines talking about how the person in question is "shackled" in his embrace, come off more as creepy than anything else, and most of all, I really don't like Sam Smith's vocals. Well, during the chorus, anyway. He does a fine enough job in the verses. When the chorus rolls around, however, he just lets out this screechy mess where his falsetto, which is normally golden and amazing to listen to, is just covered in all sorts of vocals effects and autotune to make it sound as unpleasant as possible. I wanted to like this song, I really did, but in the end, I have to put it here. Sorry.



DHM10) Song: Lifestyle
                Artist: Rich Gang feat. Young Thug & Rich Homie Quan
               Year-End Position:72

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGt_JGHYEO4

Boy, talk about a drain on the brain to listen to. Okay, on some level, I see why some people like this song. It's a dumb luxury rap song where if you turn your brain off, you might be able to enjoy it, and I won't lie, the simple bass and softer synths actually create a pretty decent beat. That being said, while the beat is actually okay, it's not nearly strong enough to handle the heaping mounds of s**t it's dealing with from the performers. Or, should I say performer considering that most of this song belongs to Young freaking Thug. Okay, let me just say right now that I have found a hip hop artist who's worse than Future, something I never thought was possible. I would judge the lyrics...if I could understand them.  What is it with Young Thug and this mumbly, off key delivery he's so fond of that makes him sound like he swallowed a bee that later stung him in the vocal chords? Grating would be an understatement. It's puke inducing. I may get the appeal of this song, but that doesn't mean I don't dislike it, and believe me, I dislike this song heavily.




Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, on to the real trash.




10) Song: Maps
    Artist: Maroon 5
    Year-End Position: 29

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj6fHiF8Osg

For those of you that remember, Love Somebody was originally #10 on my worst list last year, but that one surprisingly grew on me. I can safely say, however, that the same cannot be said about Maps. Keep in mind that I am someone who not only likes M5's older stuff, but will openly defend their post-sellout material as well. Payphone, Daylight, Animals, hell even One More Night (which is an honorable mention for my best list for 2012), but not this one. First off, this production is a complete mess. The ascending guitar line is flimsy, the percussion is barely there, and the flaccid synths all refuse to come together to form a coherent sound. On top of that, it keeps feeling like it's building up to something, but no crescendo ever happens, and it's a big letdown. Lyrically, they're pretty useless. The guy in question is constantly put down and is treated negatively in terms of emotions from this girl, and yet he misses the time they spent together because.....I don't know, tater tots. Say what you want about Me & My Broken Heart, but at least that guy was having a real internal conflict, still loved her, and was having an internal conflict as to why. The guy in Maps doesn't even have that. He seems as though he's just pursuing her for sex. Not cool, dude. The sticking point for me, though, is Adam Levine's vocal delivery. I usually don't mind his falsetto (and actually like it in a few cases), but he's never sounded more shrill, grating, and even pretty bored than he does in this song, and the fact he uses that falsetto throughout the entire song is just cringefuriating. Overall, though, it's very bland and forgettable, which isn't a big enough crime to land it any higher on the list, especially considering what other monstrosities this year brought us, but it's still garbage nonetheless. Maroon 5, I love ya and all, but this one stinks.




9)  Song: My "Hitta"
     Artist: YG feat. Young Jeezy & Rich Homie Quan (AND DJ F***ING MUSTARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
     Year-End Position: 58

                                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSrTnWDTdwI

DJ Mustard, you are just the worst.
This is easily Mustard's worst beat to date. It's nothing but a discordant mess of trippy synths, odd reverb saturated bells, and the grating bass. Of course, it doesn't help how unlistenable every one of the performer's flow on this song is, how repetitive and lazy the song is just being nothing more than just a quick and stupid way to see how many times these guys can rhyme the N-word with itself, and the only thing saving it from the list is the fact that the concept of YG and his friends sticking together and having each others' backs is pretty admirable. Seriously, screw this song, and aside from 2 On, Show Me, and to some degree Don't Tell 'Em, screw DJ Mustard. NEXT!




8) Song: Drunk In Love
    Artist: Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z
    Year-End Position: 35

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1JPKLa-Ofc

Well, if there is one thing I can say about this song, it's that the title is appropriate, because this song sound's like if the other hit Beyoncé had with Jay-Z, Crazy In Love, was a sloppy, drunken mess. It's songs like this that show that over the years, Beyoncé has just lost her touch and isn't really able to make music as great as she used to. The beat is dark and sloppy, Beyoncé's vocals on this are slurred and grating, the lyrics are filled to the brim with double entendres that don't make sense in the slightest, Jay-Z's verse is incoherent, stilted, and disgusting, and overall this song is just an unlistenable mess. It's tracks like these that make me want songs like Pour It Up back, and that should never ever happen.

7) Song: Let Her Go
    Artist: Passenger
    Year-End Position: 19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBumgq5yVrA

Yes, I know this is a leftover from 2013, but I didn't start to actively hate it until early 2014, and now that I do, I LOATHE this song. Once again, I don't have the burning hatred for the "white guy with acoustic guitar" genre that most people seem to, but again, that doesn't mean there aren't some that are nothing more than complete dreck, and songs like Amnesia & Let Her Go prove that. I'm usually fine with a song having just the standard 4 chords of pop and nothing more, but something creative has to be done with them for a good song to result. Here, unlike in Amnesia, they're just bare bones with nothing creative or original done with them. Passenger's vocals, while tolerable, are sure to give me the yawns any day of the week. Finally, for the lyrics, it's supposed to be framed as this song where Passenger is helping a friend through the tough times of a breakup, but what it comes across as is him talking down to the friend and mercilessly berating him and putting him on blast, which comes across as downright offensive at points. Not to mention how inane that chorus is, which basically just boils down to "you only need one thing when the opposite happens." Also, if the only way to know that he truly loves her is to let her go, that's logically detrimental to him as he'll then want her back, the spark will be gone once he gets back with her, and it's just going to be this vicious emotional cycle that just won't be pretty. I know it's supposed to be saying "if you love something set it free, if it comes back to you it's meant to be, etc.," but it's just so awkwardly phrased that I can't look past it.
Look, again, there are some genuinely good acoustic ballads out there, but this one is just absolute garbage.




6) Song: Wiggle
    Artist: Jason DeRulo feat. Snoop Dogg
    Year-End Position: 40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiP14ED28CA

Yet another one that I've already done a review of, which you'll find here, so once again, I'll just recap what my main problems with this song were: the stiff, grating, boring instrumentation with the recorder being played during the hook can't back up the absolutely asinine and idiotic lyrics brought on by DeRulo himself, and Snoop's verse is not only his laziest work to date, but is also extremely disgusting and providing of imagery that's way too vivid. Really, the only thing keeping this from being any higher is that at least Jason sounds like he's enjoying himself. Good for you, DeRulo, but this song still blows. NEXT!




5) Song: Dark Horse
    Artist: Katy Perry feat. Juicy J
    Year-End Position: 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSOMA3QBU0

Oh, I bet you all saw this one coming, didn't you. Alright, let's get the obvious out of the way: Katy Perry is not a dark horse. She isn't in terms of her massive success and riches as a pop star, and given the fact that she knew the guy in question would come to her, she's not one in context of the song either. That's only a speck of what's wrong with this song, though. First off, this beat is atrocious. It's looping, drunken, choppy synth combined with the leaden, speaker-destroying bass is grating to no end, and it's even more cringefuriating as Adam Levine's falsetto in Maps. The buildup does sound pretty nice, which is why this isn't higher (but only just barely, and there was worse crap that we will get to), but like Maps, it has nothing to offer, only this time, it's even more disappointing because as nice as that buildup sounded (apart from those ill-fitting gang vocals), you would've expected SOME sort of drop to hold all of this together, but no, we just get the monotony that we get with the rest of the song. The rest of the lyrics aside from the obvious misuse of the dark horse metaphor is a hodgepodge of references to magic and ancient Egypt and all sorts of stuff that doesn't feel cohesive in the slightest. None of it connects at all, and it certainly doesn't mesh with Katy trying and failing to sound dark and mysterious instead of totally checked out and phoned in. And then there's Juicy J's verse. It's crap. Was that really that shocking? His flow is stilted, the gangsta vibe he tries for doesn't fit at all, none of his wordplay rises above mediocre at best, and dude, Princess Aurora was already in a coma that Prince Philip had to get her out of, not one he had to put her in. God, I used to like this song? The hell was I on?

4) Song: Loyal

    Artist: Chris Brown feat. Tyga & Lil Wayne

    Year-End Position: 30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXRN_LkCa_o

AAAAARGH!!!! Why did we let HIM back in to the music world? I'll be damned if this isn't Chris Brown's most obnoxious, hateful, misogynistic, disrespectful song to date. This song is just plain insulting. Between its overuse of swearing, lack of charisma on the part of Brown himself (who we have to wait through for the majority of the song), and completely ugly attitude towards the female gender, this song is nothing more than CB getting back at all of the women who wouldn't have sex with him. Not only is there a lot of grade A hypocrisy in this song, but there's also a lot of messy and contradictory lines in the song. Seriously, Chris, do you want this girl to show you something, or did you take her to the bay with you? Also, if these women were staying true to their partners, you knew they had boyfriends, and yet you still willingly had sex with them despite this, that makes you the unloyal one, Chris, not them. The beat is okay at first, but it just gets more and more boring with each listen. Lil Wayne's verse is okay, but not great, and Tyga just derails the song and turns it into a generic brag rap track. Seriously, though, the fault lies squarely with Chris Brown and his douchebaggery, and while I thought his other song on the year-end chart, New Flame, was okay, I think I can speak for all of us when I say this: Chris Brown, go the hell away.

3) Song: Anaconda
    Artist: Nicki Minaj
    Year-End Position: 36

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDZX4ooRsWs

Truly a song that epitomizes the sound of the bottom of the barrel being scraped, absolutely zilch about Anaconda works at all. I'd actually throw this in the same dumpster that most people throw Whatcha Say by Jason DeRulo and 5 O'Clock by T-Pain in that it takes a classic song that everyone knows and utterly butchers and misses the point of it. The entire point of Baby Got Back was that one should love how their body no matter the flaw (of course this doesn't mean just ignore what your doctor tells you and all that, but come on, that should be implied), but what this song pretty much says is "if you are a skinny b**ch, get up and get the f**k out of the club because only the women with big butts are allowed." It's shallow, hateful, and just downright harsh. Well, that all comes at the end of the song, anyway, through some incoherent babble and an insufferable cackle. The first two verses are nothing more than incoherent stories pretty much about how Nicki just has sex with guys because they sell drugs, and because of this, these guys now owe her material objects. The "sample" is lazy as all hell, the inflections on her voice is grating to no end, the lyrics are shallow and self-centered in the worst ways possible, and what they do to the sample during the hook is just plain inexcusable. I mean, did they really have to include chipmunk voices, easily the most unlistenable and obnoxious of all vocal effects? This is absolute torture to listen to, and I have no shame in giving it the swift kick in the ass goodbye it deserves. Alveterzane you unlistenable piece of crap. YET........It only winds up at #3. What could've possibly beaten Anaconda? What? What?..........Prepare yourselves..........

2) Song: 23

    Artist: Mike Will Made-It feat. Miley Cyrus, Wiz Khalifa, & Juicy J

    Year-End Position: 36

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbEoRnaOIbs

Remember last year when I said that Love Me was Mike Will Made It's production at its worst? Well, I was wrong. This is. It's nothing more than 2 slightly differing variants of the same droning beeping noise that runs throughout the entire song, and nothing is ever added to give the song any real heft or presence, and it's grating as hell. Seriously, this beat is skin-crawling, and you can almost entirely blame that for why this is up so damn high. Of course, it doesn't help that every performer on here is just flat out abysmal. Juicy J's verse is forced and does not flow well at any point whatsoever, Wiz's drug/alcohol/materialism brag rap is just weak, and Miley is by far the worst artist on this track. Future producers and singers everywhere: note, if you ever have her on one or more of your songs, do NOT have her rap, because she's horrible at it. Her high pitched, nasally, disjointed flow only adds to how much of a drag this song is to listen to. Wanna see what beat it?

1) Song: Burnin' It Down
    Artist: Jason Aldean
    Year-End Position: 63

                                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdImDqbgc2g


If we're looking for the definition of a song that just gets worse and worse with each subsequent listen, Burnin' It Down fits that bill perfectly. I cannot stand a single second of this song. Aldean sounds more bored than seductive, and the lyrics are filled to the brim with the cliches that are normally found in a country love song in this vein without anything new to offer whatsoever. The real culprit, here, though, is just how abysmal that production is. This overproduced mess that is a choppy staccato guitar line, obvious drum machines, and messy synths is not good to listen to at all. Not to mention the fact that, isn't this supposed to be a country song? Really, the only thing that could even be remotely called country about this song are Jason Aldean's vocals, and vocals alone do not make a song fit in a certain genre. Far from it, in fact. The one thing I can't stand about this song, though, is just how gross it feels. Seriously, the way every element of the song clashes and the way those almost demonic sounding vocal effects come on to Aldean's vocals in the chorus just makes this whole song feel rather creepy and leering. Who enjoys this? What is there to enjoy about this? Why would anyone choose to listen to this on a regular basis? Why? If we're looking for a song where bad is defined by the absence of good, then this is it. I have no shame in calling this the worst hit song of 2014. Well, that's all for this blog post. See you guys in the best list.