Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2014 Part 1

2014 is often considered to be a bad year for music by the billboard community, and after going through it I’ll say… yeah, this year sucked. Granted I did find more music I liked than I expected, so it’s an overall better year than 2016, but there was so much facepalm-ingly bad music that I can’t ignore it. Let’s just start the first batch of dishonorable mentions.

DM. My Hitta by YG ft Jeezy and Rich Homie Quan

Generic rap song that has its only noticeable attribute as how the hook revolves around the n word. It gets tiring faster than you’d think.

DM. Problem by Ariana Grande ft Iggy Azalea

Yeah, I’m part of the crowd that hates this song. It doesn’t do anything truly horrible, but the annoyances like the saxophone and whispery chorus just pile up.

DM. Shake It Off by Taylor Swift

Easily the most annoying Taylor Swift has been on a hit that isn’t Look What You Made Me Do. I’m not exactly happy that this made the decade end when Style didn’t.

DM. This Is How We Roll by Florida Georgia Line ft Luke Bryan

I mean, if you wanted a collaboration between Florida Georgia Line and Luke Bryan, you get a collaboration between Florida Georgia Line and Luke Bryan.

DM. Fancy by Iggy Azalea ft Charli XCX

I know more people than you’d think that would be angry at this pick, but yeah Iggy’s voice is terrible, and I hate the lyrics more with every listen.

DM. New Flame by Chris Brown ft Usher and Rick Ross

Bad for the same reasons as Loyal, but at least this one has a bit more of a groove, still very very very not good.

With all of that said, on with the list!

10a. Birthday by Katy Perry

10b. Dark Horse by Katy Perry ft Juicy J

Something to know about me is that I’ve never been a fan of Katy Perry. Even with her Teenage Dream hits I was never able to get on board with them the way everyone else did. So, you can imagine what I think of her hits that are considered bad. Starting off with Birthday, we have Katy Perry singing about how she’s going to cheer you up by giving you the best birthday party ever. Simple premise, but Katy pulls the whole thing off TERRIBLY. The song tries so hard to be happy and cheerful but all it does is creep me the hell out. What the lyrics do is that they equate birthday metaphors to sex, and it doesn’t exactly end up well.

“Boy when you’re with me”

“I’ll give you a taste”

“I know you like it sweet”

“So, you can have your cake”

“So let me get you in your birthday suit”

“It’s time to bring out the big balloons”

Isn’t that lovely. What makes is how Katy’s singing sounds awful. In the verses she has an off-putting whispery voice, and you can actively hear her voice straining on the chorus. The overly sunny and sweet attitude only makes things even creepier. None of this is fun or enticing it only makes it so that I never want to eat birthday cake again. Moving on to Dark Horse, here we have a song that fully embraces the creepiness to not so much better results. Now she’s portraying herself as this all-powerful witch who will destroy any man and it comes off as comically over the top more than anything. Katy is even less convincing here as I can’t buy her as a bad guy for a second. The worst part of the song though is the horrible beat. As it’s mostly annoying high-pitched squeaking sounds mixed with trap production, and it creates an irritating atmosphere that doesn’t have the dark appeal a song like this needs to work. Add in a subpar at best Juicy J verse and we have a painfully weak attempt at being anything interesting or compelling. I’ll take either of these songs over Chained To The Rhythm or Roar, but they’re still equally awful in their own ways.

9. 23 by Mike Will Made-It ft Miley Cyrus, Wiz Khalifa and Juicy J

I’ll keep this entry short and quick because pretty much every 2014 worst list has ripped this song a new one. Starting with the production done by our lead artist, we have sludgy ugly synths that can’t do any performers any favors. Mixed with the trap skitters the song feels like it’s never progressing with how repetitive and poorly combined everything sounds. It’s ESPECIALLY grating on Miley’s chorus. Speaking of which, Miley is a joke here. Her voice is horribly autotuned and she is beyond annoying on the chorus, and her faux rapping is easily one of the cringiest things in all of 2014 music, and that’s saying something. Speaking of rapping we have Wiz Khalifa and Juicy J here that feel completely indistinguishable from each other and both verses feel weak and generic on their own. Then there’s the fact that this song is about Michael Jordan and is barely related to sports, like, c’mon. Complete dreck that I can’t stand listening to, deserves all the hate it has received.

8. She Looks So Perfect by 5 Seconds of Summer

Now here we have a song I’m honestly shocked didn’t make more worst of 2014 lists. Like it’s been in dishonorable mentions, but it’s hardly ever made the main list. Maybe it’s because it was overshadowed by the other 2014 5SOS hit (and don’t worry we’ll get to that soon), but I still knew this would make the list upon first listen and it only got worse since. First off, can I just say this sounds like absolute garbage, because it is. The guitars are already horribly tuned but it gets even worse when they decide they want to be super loud and in your face. There are so many awkward moments in the guitar work that are hard to ignore. Not helped by how whiny the singing is, along with the constant “HEY-HEY HEY” which you’ll get sick of quickly. It sounds like a song that would come out of a Nickelodeon sitcom. Then we have lyrics which are meant to be a typical fluffy love song, but several details chosen in the lyrics make me really question the relationship. Such as:

“She looks so perfect standing there”

“In my American Apparel underwear”

“Your lipstick stain is a work of art”

“I’ve got your ripped skinny jeans laying on the floor”

The fact that this guy chose these lines as to why he loves this girl comes off as creepy and stalkerish (and my god this music video doesn’t help matters). It’s especially hard to ignore this as these lines are in the chorus of the song. 23 is probably an overall worse song than this, but this just annoys me a bit more.

7. Trumpets by Jason Derulo

If you want to talk about an artist that really made his presence known in 2014, it was Jason Derulo. Even if he has a handful of songs I like such as Ridin Solo and Want To Want Me, I’ve never really been a fan of this guy. The reason can be found in a song like Trumpets where every decision around it me leaves me utterly baffles me. It’s hard for me to even explain what the premise for this song is as I can’t tell for the life of me. So, Jason really loves looking at this woman and he compares it to instruments like trumpets and violins, not too bad of an idea. But then we get lines like these:

“Is it weird that your ass”

“Remind me of a Kanye West song”

“Is it weird that your bra”

“Remind me of a Katy Perry song”

“Is it weird that your eyes”

“Remind me of a Coldplay song”

Um… what? I don’t even get how I’m supposed to feel. It’s not sexy in any sense of the word. It’s not exactly funny. The only I even get is the Coldplay one as they have a song called Green Eyes. But even if I could understand all of them, they would still feel lame and corny at best. Though the thing that cemented the song for the list was how legitimately messed up this song sounds. As the song is titled after them, you’d think that the trumpets would be done well. But they sound so fake and lifeless that it’s comical. Then we have that chorus Jason would sing in such an ear-piercing falsetto that needs to be heard to be believed. And then we have that ending where every annoying sound in the song is thrown together at once and it’s genuinely insufferable. This song is genuinely interesting in the type of bad it is, which is more than can be said for…

6. Bottoms Up by Brantley Gilbert

Something infamous about 2014’s music was how it had lots of bro-country, it had officially become huge after it made itself well known in the previous year, and it wasn’t pretty. I already mentioned the overly frat bro-ey This Is How We Roll, but the title for the worst bro-country hit of this year has got to go to Bottoms Up by Brantley Gilbert. For the more times you listen, the more obvious it becomes of just how ugly and empty this song is. Starting with the lyrics, they are already peak generic country cliches like drinking beer and driving trucks, but it all has this creepy and overly sleazy overtone. Though that’s mainly because of the vocal delivery. Brantley sounds BAD, and I mean REALLY BAD. His vocal inflections sound like he’s a mongoose with a sore throat. It causes whatever charisma he attempts to be completely drowned out, and I feel like I’m stretching when I even say he’s attempting. The other thing that sinks whatever fun country party tone this song wanted to have is these guitars in the production. They sound so overbearingly loud and grungy that it legit sounds like something from Nickelback. And there’s a guitar solo that’s completely weak and devoid of any satisfying heft. It’s a miserable piece of sludge that showcases the worst of its already hated subgenre.

To be continued...