The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2010

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2010

In the following few paragraphs, I explore the club boom-filled year that kicked off the 2010s and look at the dregs of it.

What’s up guys, welcome back to Fire's Flaming Hot Takes with another list. Today, we’re taking a look at the top 10 worst hit songs of 2010!

I swear, I may just be becoming a happier person but every time I do these lists I find it more and more difficult to make a worst list. Anyway, 2010 is a year that has been roundly trashed by many critics I’ve seen. It’s commonly considered one of the worst years of its namesake decade. So, let me make a hot take, 2010 was a great year for music. Not one of the best of the 2010s, but it’s still really good.

That said, 2010 is not immune to bad songs at all, such an assumption would be quite ridiculous. Pretty much the entire music scene was dominated by the club boom, both in pop and hip hop, with electropop sounds that might’ve sounded cool at the time but sounds painfully dated 11 years later. And country and rock...actually didn’t have that bad of a year, outside of maybe a select few from one of those said genres. But yeah, 2010 was dominated by the club boom, just like basically the entire period from 2009 to 2011 - before showing its sudden collapse in 2012 and 2013. The weird thing is, 2010 is definitely a worse year than 2011, and most of 2010’s club boom hits have aged worse than 2011’s club boom hits. And that is rather odd. I’d say if anything, 2011 was more dominated by personality. The personality and color that really made the best hits of the club boom. I’d say 2010 was focused more on the electropop sounds rather than melodies, while 2011 utilized the elctropop sounds, the melodies, and the personalities and created some of my most nostalgic songs ever. Plus, the 2010 repeats were good. 2010 definitely had some nostalgic songs that I will get to in my best list, but there were definitely more songs that have aged a bit badly.

Overall, there were 23 songs on this year-end list - including 2009 repeats - that fell into my “mediocre tier” or lower. And with that, there really isn’t much left for me to say, so time to start with the list. As a rule, the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 list for 2010 to qualify. So let’s look at the messy hangover that happened after all that partying in the club, starting with our dishonorable mentions.

DM #1: Usher f/will.i.am - OMG (YE: #5, PEAK: #1)

This song is pretty much proof that peak position does not guarantee that a song is going to hold up well. This may be the most forgettable #1 hit of the 2010s. Would it also kill to mention that this made the Hot 100 decade-end? Yeah, this mediocre nothingness of a song. This sluggish, dated electropop nothingness that’s about Usher being in awe at a girl while somehow having so little expression, entirely thanks to Usher’s vocals being entirely too autotuned, was #60 on the Hot 100 decade-end. Those crowd cheers try to make this song anthemic, but it just makes this production even more of a mess! And I’m willing to blame this more on will.i.am, he produced this track really horribly. It’s laughable in hindsight that this song was one of the biggest hits of the club boom, because this has aged very badly.

DM #2: Michael Buble - Haven’t Met You Yet (YE: #39, PEAK: #24)

For the most part, if songs weren’t from the club boom, they were from adult contemporary music which had a huge splash on the year-end chart this year. This is in part because adult contemporary stations were not willing to embrace the club boom so they resorted to churning out the same generic ass material throughout 2010. And one of them is definitely “Haven’t Met You Yet”. While I can appreciate Michael Buble’s sincerity, this song is super generic, with a really weak key change, with the piano keys really not able to stand out nor support the build up with all the strings. I don’t know, maybe I’m being too harsh on this, but it sure as hell is quite aggressively mediocre.

DM #3: New Boyz f/Ray-J - Tie Me Down (YE: #65, PEAK: #22)

If I’m being honest, I actually like “Backseat”. I always thought the production on that song slapped even if it was quite dated. But “Tie Me Down” is...well, not good. While I actually like how the synths sound in the production, and I think if it were given to Wiz Khalifa it could’ve been so much better, the main problem is our vocalists. Ray-J sings consistently in his falsetto in the chorus which sounds awful, and neither of the New Boyz have enough charisma to make this song work. I think it might be for the best that the New Boyz disappeared after the club boom collapsed

DM #4: Mike Posner - Cooler Than Me (YE: #19, PEAK: #6)

In hindsight, putting “Please Don’t Go” on my worst of 2011 list might’ve been a bit harsh. It’s still not good at all, and in a list that strong it probably wouldn’t have escaped it anyway, but god, at least it was better than this. And it boils down to Mike Posner’s completely lifeless and limp vocals. They ruin an otherwise honestly quite solid electropop production and make me quite convinced that yes, I actually am cooler than you Mike Posner.

DM #5: OneRepublic - All The Right Moves (YE: #54, PEAK: #18)

A trend for most of my worst lists tends to be that songs that end up in adult contemporary recurrent rotation for most of the rest of the decade tend to finish higher. And “All The Right Moves” is definitely one of them. It’s incredibly generic, the synth production doesn’t stand out, the song feels super limp, and it’s the type of song that you get sick of incredibly fast. Shame because I kinda like the piano, it’s very hidden, but it’s there. But OneRepublic really made all the wrong moves with this song, this ain’t good.

DM #6: Carrie Underwood - Undo It (YE: #88, PEAK: #23)

“Before He Cheats” still gets ridiculous amounts of recurrent airplay to this day that has gotten me thoroughly sick of that song. So obviously what we needed was a cheaper version of that song. Carrie is delivering the same rage she had in “Before He Cheats”, except the production is less rage-filled and more gutless. The lyrics are impressively stupid, and overall it’s just a slog to sit through.

DM #7: Sugarland - Stuck Like Glue (YE: #81, PEAK: #17)

Yikes. Originally I thought I was too harsh on this song, but the more I listened to this song, the more I got annoyed by it. That odd effect in the intro that I can only assume is beatboxing is very unsettling and Jennifer Nettles does not have a good voice, I’m saying it. It’s the same annoying trash that really gets stuck in your head like glue - okay well at least the song is aptly named - and grates on you more and more with every nanosecond of thought you give it. This might’ve been sweet with any other singer, but good god this is such a cloying obnoxious, rancid, basic joke of a song.

Alright, now time for the top 10!

10...Again, there was a startling amount of adult contemporary on this year-end list. That adult contemporary that stuck to recurrent overplay for an entire decade. This one, however, didn’t really become a staple. I think it was for the better...

10. Uncle Kracker - Smile (YE: #97, PEAK: #31)

Okay look, “Smile” is still pretty bad, but at least it’s not “Drift Away”, the Uncle Kracker song that managed to stick around and that has become damn near intolerable for me. And there’s not much for me to talk about here. The piano is soulless, the percussion has no power, and what sounds like a guitar just adds so little to this mix. I’ll give Uncle Kracker a little bit of credit, he has decent enough charisma, but man, he needed a better production and better lyrics to make this work. Speaking of, okay look, I like my fair share of songs with lame lyrics - “One Call Away” by Charlie Puth immediately comes to mind - but god, “Smile”’s lyrics are just too much. So yeah, it’s not only generic, it’s boring, it’s soulless, it’s cheesy, it’s lame, and quite encapsulating the worst aspects of adult contemporary. It’s a good thing this song has wound up being mostly forgotten, or else this would’ve landed way higher.

9...For as mediocre as “OMG” is, it doesn’t outright offend me or annoy me so much as just make me forget it exists. Which is more than I can say about this song by Usher...

9. Usher - There Goes My Baby (YE: #83, PEAK: #25)

This song is honestly super messy. Same with “OMG”, but this one is considerably more messy. The downtempo R&B production which is incredibly boring and awkwardly muted, and Usher’s falsetto, which- oh god. His falsetto is used in the chorus, and he sounds utterly pathetic and sappy, especially the way he holds out that final note, it gets super grating. And that’s the only part that stands out about this song, because the rest of it is super boring and doesn’t stick out at all. Yeah, not a fan of this song in the slightest.

8...2010’s hits have mostly pretty much fallen out of recurrent rotation, especially if it were from the club boom, you don’t really hear them on the radio anymore. For some cases, it was for worse, because there are plenty of gems from the club boom, but in some cases it was for the better, like this one!

8. Trey Songz - Say Aah (YE: #31, PEAK: #9)

Okay, I’ll admit, I actually like “Bottoms Up” - Trey Songz, not that awful Brantley Gilbert song from 2014 - but “Say Aah” is another dated club boom song that’s super annoying. There are some pieces and fragments of a good song in here, the bassline is solid, and the beat is remarkably catchy. But the lyrics are stupendously ridiculous and it’s not funny - “try to get you home or would you be Marge Simpson”. The chorus is an earworm, and not in a good way. The way the “say aaah” is stretched out just sounds awful. And something really turns me off in the third chord, it just feels so awkwardly placed. Not very good at all, next!

7...There were three songs titled “Say Something” in the 2010s that became hits. We got the great one from A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera and the thoroughly overrated Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton song. But regardless of what you think of either of them, I feel it’s quite safe to say they’re both better than the third “Say Something” from this decade...

7. Timbaland f/Drake - Say Something (YE: #85, PEAK: #23)

Hey, remember when Drake actually had personality? Seriously, he actually sounds terrific in most of his tracks from the early 2010s. And you know what, he sounds pretty good on this too. So no, I’m not placing any of the blame on Drake, I’m placing that on the production from Timbaland, because man, it’s really bad. The beat is oddly glitchy and it really doesn’t build up or go anywhere from there. The synth gets super old quickly, it reminds me too much of “I’m On One” by DJ Khaled in 2011, which only barely missed the worst list proper. But what makes this worse than that song is the lyrics, which are supposed to be about a break-up song, which just doesn’t match this celebratory production at all. If anything, it just sounds very sloppily made, I don’t like this at all, and I think it’s for the better that this has been mostly forgotten.

6...Usher had a great showing on the Hot 100 this year. 4 of his songs landed on the Hot 100 year-end list. It’s a shame that outside of one of them - spoilers for my best list - they all sucked ass...

6. Usher f/Plies - Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home) (YE: #82, PEAK: #24)

My reasons for disliking this song are a bit tricky for me to pin down. But something about the way Usher sings that “daddy’s home” just rubs me the wrong way, same could be said about the “hey daddy”’s. It shouldn’t really bother me, but it does here for some reason. Maybe it’s the production which is too electropop-influenced to be a sexy, R&B jam, but the lyrics feel super creepy and it really makes this that much more of an uncomfortable listen. And look, the rest of this song doesn’t stand out at all, it’s forgettable, which is why it’s not higher, but when I give it a listen it really makes me cringe, yeah this isn’t good at all.

5...On the other hand, we got a song that is just plain annoying all the way through...

5. Ludacris f/Nicki Minaj - My Chick Bad (YE: #56, PEAK: #11)

This song only charted in the United States. And literally nowhere else. Glad to know that at least other countries have a music taste decent enough to not chart this song, because this is just awful. The dark tone was a pretty good template for this production, but the rest of this song is obnoxious and a complete mess. Those whistle tones are so oddly placed, Ludacris does not have enough charisma to carry this song, Nicki sounds really bad, and then the worst part of the song, the chorus. The sample sounds like ass, the deep voice drives me off the wall, and the entire central idea of your chick being bad just doesn’t work. I do know what is bad instead, in fact - this worthless song.

4...This song is an easy target for many worst lists for 2010, and I honestly can’t blame anyone. The cultural impact this song has had, and what could’ve happened if we didn’t make this a hit, yeah this was a shoe-in for this list from the start...

4. Chris Brown f/Tyga & Kevin McCall - Deuces (YE: #68, PEAK: #14)

Admittedly, I kinda like this production. The synths don’t sound that bad. I’m ending my praise there, though, because “Deuces” really is a stain on Chris Brown’s career and just R&B overall. Let’s start with our frontmen. Long story short, all three acts are complete assholes on this song. The lyrics are disgusting. Let’s go through a few of them quickly - “you ain’t nothing but a vulture”, “you’ll regret the day I find another girl”, “I’m chuckin’ my deuces up to her”, “but you know women lie”, “I’m a dick, so it shouldn’t be hard to swallow”. Do I even need to go into any more detail after these? Some of these would be solid lyrics to put in a break-up song, but then we got some of those other lyrics I just mentioned and that only further solidifies my point that everybody on this song is an asshole. But the context behind this song, it’s reported that this song is potentially about Rihanna, oh you know, the singer that Chris Brown put in the hospital after she caught Chris Brown cheating on her. And that just makes the song all the more unsettling and disgusting. And the reason this song landed so high, well think about what would’ve happened if this song never became a hit. We could’ve been spared an entire decade worth of Chris Brown, and before you think about the shit where Rihanna decided to forgive him, just think of the quality of his music, namely the quality of his music after 2015. Yeah this song is just really ugly all the way through, and only decent production saved this from topping the list proper.

3...Well that one was slightly heavy, thank god this one is just plain “terrible” instead.

3. 3OH!3 f/Kesha - My First Kiss (YE: #73, PEAK: #9)

Now, for this song to place above “Deuces”, it has to be really intolerable. Because at least “Deuces” has a decent production. But “My First Kiss” is terrible in pretty much every way possible, and to some extent makes me genuinely nauseous. 3OH!3 are incredibly irritating, shouting in the most obnoxious voices I can think of at the moment. The electropop production doesn’t have enough power to bring its positive moments into the spotlight. Kesha is utterly wasted on this song, she has the best part of this song easily and yet she does so little. But then the kissing noises. Why. Would. Someone. Add. Those. In. A. Song. They sound outright garbage and they make my skin crawl and my stomach churn. They literally make me want to throw up. And when your only positive aspect is done so little times, yeah “My First Kiss” is garbage, and thank god Kesha is the one who had a career out of these two.

2...I swear, I’m picking super easy targets, but I can’t help it, this is trash!

2. Cali Swag District - Teach Me How To Dougie (YE: #98, PEAK: #28)

Putting this song on a worst of 2010 list is pretty much as easy of a target as putting “Watch Me” by Silento on a worst of 2015 list. But I can’t help it, “Teach Me How To Dougie” is horrible. Apparently this was a huge thing during the early 2010s, and just like most dance crazes, they don’t really stick around at all beyond their year, unless you’re an anomaly like “Watch Me”. But still, this is a very annoying song about teaching you how to dougie. Nobody here sounds remotely interested in the song, and the instrumental is literally just percussion and lazy vocals, amazingly stark especially compared to the rest of the electropop that dominated this year. It’s also very badly put together, the copy and paste of the “teach me how to dougie” line is super sloppily done. Unfortunately, the Cali Swag District never had the opportunity to get another hit, since half the group is dead as of writing. Yeah, I think it’s best that this song is left back in 2010.

1...I spent more time trying to find a #1 pick for this list than normal. Because there wasn’t really any song that was offensive enough for me to seize it - sure you got “Deuces” but I never thought that was atrocious more than just merely terrible. And while I always thought that this song in fact was atrocious, even back in 2010, I’m a little surprised it became my #1 pick. But you know what, when I revisited this song, I realized that I was wrong in thinking that “Sexy And I Know It” by LMFAO was the worst hit of the club boom. Because to quote Todd In The Shadows, sometimes bad can be defined by an absence of good. And I think when it comes to club boom hits, no song captures that quality of “least good” any better than this one from Enrique Iglesias...

1. Enrique Iglesias f/Pitbull - I Like It (YE: #12, PEAK: #4)

You know, despite all the flaws that “Tonight (I’m Fuckin’ You)” has, I actually think that song legitimately bops  - despite those horrendous lyrics. But if you want the Enrique Iglesias song that really drives me off the wall, it’s “I Like It” - quite ironically, I hate it. A lot, as a matter of fact. The production is pretty much no different than pretty much any average song from the club boom, except somehow it encapsulates the most dated aspects of it you could think of. The synths with no power of punch and are instead just overcompressed, the very blatant levels of autotune that are absolutely impossible to ignore, and not to mention the song is supposed to explode with personality to work, and the amount of autotune really drowns out any charisma either Enrique Iglesias and Pibull bring to the table. Speaking of which, somehow the autotune really fails at its purpose, because despite all those levels of autotune, Enrique isn’t even singing in the right key! He has one of the worst singing voices I can think of in 2010, especially when he starts to sing higher notes. The autotune really distorts his voice and it sounds so horrible. Pitbull’s verse is super interchangeable with any of his other guest rap verses from 2010, which is saying a lot considering I’m usually one to defend Pitbull more often than not! Then the lyrics. While not the same level of horrendous as “Tonight (I’m Fuckin’ You)”, they are still quite gross. And all the evidence I need is in the first verse. “My girlfriend’s out of town and I’m all alone, your boyfriend’s on vacation and he doesn’t have to know”. Oh, so you’re enticing this girl to cheat on her boyfriend with you, while you are cheating on your girlfriend with her, THAT’S a very nice thing to think about. Look in the end, this is just unlistenable. It’s complete trash in pretty much every way I can think of. And given how I never liked this at all for an entire decade, and it’s only gotten worse over time, I’ll say it - “I Like It” by Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull is the worst hit song of 2010. It’s fitting that Enrique Iglesias’s career in English has been effectively decimated, no one’s missing it.

And that was the list, wow this year was worse than I remembered, but the best songs of 2010 are huge nostalgia bombs, it’ll be up soon hopefully! Don't expect me to put it up immediately, as that still needs some work, but I'll be working on it!