The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2011

 

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2011

In the following few paragraphs, I take a look at one of the best years of the 2010s for the Hot 100 and take off the rose-colored glasses and look at the worst of it.

(this list was originally created on July 6, 2021)

Hey guys, welcome back to Fire's Flaming Hot Takes. Today, we have another top 10 list, the top 10 worst hit songs of 2011.

We just looked at the worst year of the 2010s for the Hot 100 - 2014 - and now let’s go to the other extreme and look at one of the best - 2011! It’s a year that I personally am immensely nostalgic for, to the point that I consider this year on par with 2017 as the best year of the 2010s for the Hot 100.

2011 is very much in the same vein as 2010 and 2012 with songs purely about partying. The club boom had just hit its apex in 2011, with many of the biggest hits this year being flashy, nightclub ready bangers. This was definitely the point it started hitting oversaturation levels though, as the year following it saw its significant decline, later completely dying out in 2013. This ended up forcing some artists to change their style in music to adapt to the new sound of the time, and also resulted in ending many careers. That said, this year was flooded with club bangers - from pop to hip hop as well. And the nostalgia manages to overpower the fact that some of these songs are quite dated admittedly. Country also had its best showing on the Hot 100 this decade, and for the most part it was a better crop. That said, when you take off the rose-colored glasses, you do realize there are a few more holes than you had once thought. But that said, this year had nothing outright offensive and there was no real target for my pick for the worst hit of 2011. In fact, I’ll admit, in a weaker year like 2014, my #1 pick would probably not even be on the list proper, probably a dishonorable mention or a #10 placement at most - but my point is that there was nothing that was outright atrocious in 2011, so you could find a lot to like this year.

In total, there were 14 songs on this year-end that fell into my “mediocre tier” or lower - the 2010 repeats weren’t particularly close. Yes, only 14 songs. I couldn’t even create a full 7-song dishonorable mentions list. This year was that amazing. So I’m only listing 4 dishonorable mentions as opposed to my usual 7, as otherwise I would be covering tracks that I find completely fine in this list - and even then, some of these songs were very difficult for me to pinpoint why exactly I dislike them, most of this list wouldn’t have made it in other years. So as a rule, the song must have debuted on the 2011 Hot 100 year-end list to qualify - although no 2010 repeats were close to making this - so let’s go through the worst of a really great year, starting with our dishonorable mentions.

DM #1: Katy Perry f/Kanye West - E.T. (YE: #4, PEAK: #1)

This purely is in my dishonorable mentions because of the production in the chorus. There is decent build-up and a solid beat in the verses, but good god the production in the chorus becomes a cacophonous mess. Also we all know that one line “Pockets on shrek, rockets on deck, tell me what’s next, alien sex”. So yeah this song is kinda mediocre...which usually wouldn’t be that bad enough to land in my dishonorable mentions but as I have said this year-end is stacked.

DM #2: Rihanna - Cheers (Drink To That) (YE: #77, PEAK: #7)

This is here for much of the same reasons that “E.T.” is here, but instead of a cacophonous production it’s the god awful sample that destroys any enjoyment I get from the rest of the song, which even then doesn’t go anywhere. Comfortably the worst of Rihanna’s hits this year.

DM #3: Keri Hilson - Pretty Girl Rock (YE: #70, PEAK: #24)

This faces the same problems that I think “Me Too” by Meghan Trainor did. Both songs are trying to spread the message of loving yourself but both end up on a gigantic ego trip. Except that unlike in “Me Too”’s case, “Pretty Girl Rock” does not have a laughably awful production that makes it fall into “so bad it’s good” territory, the production is just boring, awkward, lethargic, and clumsy, as evidenced by how the piano and the percussion don’t fit together at all. So yeah, not precisely good.

DM #4: DJ Khaled f/Drake, Rick Ross, & Lil Wayne - I’m On One (YE: #47, PEAK: #10)

Yes this almost made the list proper because of the scratchy synth line that wears out its welcome in record time. And it would’ve been one thing if it was just for 3 minutes or so, but this scratchy synth plays for 5 minutes!! The rest of the song isn’t exactly anything special, but man that synth line is what really sent this down here.

Alright, those are our only 4 dishonorable mentions that are really more mediocre than outright bad, so let’s get to the list proper...

10...One thing that seems to be the common consensus is that the club boom style production has not aged well and sounds dated. I do see where they are coming from, however the nostalgia tends to overpower that dated aspect. But here’s a song that may not have aged badly because of the production, but because of the content...

10. Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks (YE: #13, PEAK: #3)

We’re sticking with “mediocre but not flat out bad” territory with this one. I’ll admit, the groove is there, the beat is pretty damn catchy. But really what kills this song are those vocals...who thought making Marc Foster’s vocals sound like he’s submerged underwater was a good idea? And then the elephant in the room, the jarring contrast between the jaunty, light-toned production and the dark lyrics. In some cases this works, such as in Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own”, but if you’re making a song from the perspective of a school shooter, yeah this jaunty production just can’t fit at all, I’m sorry.

9...Oh, I know this entry on my list is going to make a lot of people very angry...

9. Nicki Minaj - Super Bass (YE: #8, PEAK: #3)

This song doesn’t give me much to talk about, really. Nicki’s airy vocals are kind of annoying and the production feels so stagnant, it doesn’t really go anywhere. And that’s all it takes for this song to land on this list, because the rest of this song is very much “this exists”. It’s never clicked for me at all, and I’ve never had the best understanding of why I don’t like this, but still...next!

8...The country songs this year were mostly pretty good, definitely way better in quality compared to a year as bad as 2014. However, there are a few exceptions to this...

8. Jason Aldean f/Kelly Clarkson - Don’t You Wanna Stay (YE: #68, PEAK: #31)

When looking for a country song to put on a “worst of 2011” list, when given Jason Aldean, people usually go for “Dirt Road Anthem”. But really, for as truly awful Aldean’s rapping is on “Dirt Road Anthem”, it at least has a nice sound to it to save it enough. This song, on the other hand, just doesn’t have much going for it, it’s quite aggressively mediocre. Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson don’t sound good when they sing together on this. Separately, they sound fine, but they don’t have good chemistry together. And while I can appreciate the composition on this song - the guitar riff is pretty cool - I just can’t help but feel that this just doesn’t go anywhere at all or that it hits that hard. The melody is quite generic, and despite some admittedly decent belting from Kelly, this is very unremarkable. Painfully mediocre song, just doesn’t click with me at all...sorry.

7...Alright, we’ve now reached the songs that I’d call outright bad. But even then, this song wouldn’t be on my worst list in other years. It’s not a terrible song, by any means. That said, it’s still pretty bad, and given that he would eventually completely overshadow this song when he had his hit in 2016, yeah this just only even further pales in comparison...

7. Mike Posner - Please Don’t Go (YE: #91, PEAK: #16)

Like “Super Bass”, this song really doesn’t give me much to talk about. I do sort of like the synths on this song, and the song is chill enough, but at the same time it’s just super unremarkable, even more so than “Don’t You Wanna Stay”. I think what really turns me off is Mike Posner’s vocals which just don’t sound like they fit this song at all. So yeah, this song very much “exists” and doesn’t leave me a lot to look at, and a few bad qualities and not enough good ones knock this into bad tier.

6...So as I’ve said before, to get significant placements on my worst lists, overplay will be a factor. And this song was not just overplayed back in 2011 - I didn’t even listen to the radio that much back then and I still remember hearing this everywhere - it ended up becoming a rotating recurrent on adult contemporary radio for the rest of the decade. And this song was already pretty mediocre at the time...yeah I didn’t like this back then, and it’s only worn on me even more a decade later...

6. Pink - Fuckin’ Perfect (YE: #19, PEAK: #2)

I said in my worst of 2016 list that I’m not really a Pink fan. I’ve always thought her music blended together and these generic songs getting overplayed on adult contemporary stations to this day didn’t help matters. And one of those songs would be “Fuckin’ Perfect”, which is a motivational song reminding you that you are absolutely perfect. I don’t know why people always come for “Fight Song” for being bland and cliché motivation when this has all the same problems but worse. In “Fight Song”, Rachel Platten has the fantastic vocals able to ride off a production that yeah, could’ve had slightly more oomph, but still was really good. “Fuckin’ Perfect” on the other hand has an overcompressed chorus with the same melody and pitch as pretty much 90% of Pink’s other songs. Also, why did Pink need to add the “fuckin’” in the song? It feels super forced and awkward. So yeah this is pretty damn bad and has managed to last an entire decade...and I only see this getting even worse with time.

5...And we’re not done with Pink just yet!

5. Pink - Raise Your Glass (YE: #17, PEAK: #1)

Most of what I have to say for this song can be copy-pasted from “Fuckin’ Perfect”. This is also an insanely generic song with a heavily overcompressed chorus with the same melody and pitch as 90% of Pink’s other songs, and this has also become a recurrent staple on adult contemporary radio for an entire decade. So why does this place above “Fuckin’ Perfect”? Well, despite it’s obvious corniness and how forced the word “fuckin’” comes across in “Fuckin’ Perfect”, it at least has good intentions to be a motivational song to keep going, as opposed to “Raise Your Glass”, which is all about partying and contains some of the worst lyrics in Pink’s career - “if you’re too school for cool”, “don’t be fancy just get dancy”, “call me up if you a gangsta”, and the awful part near the beginning where Pink starts mouthing an air guitar. So yeah, this is a complete mess that just like “Fuckin’ Perfect” I can see getting worse over time.

4...And one overplayed song that has managed to stick around for an entire fucking decade to another, funny how that works...

4. Maroon 5 f/Christina Aguilera - Moves Like Jagger (YE: #9, PEAK: #1)

I tend to defend Maroon 5’s 2010s work a lot more than pretty much everyone does - I actually like “Girls Like You” despite all the hate that song got - but I can’t stand up for this. People tend to point to this as the point where Maroon 5 sold out and I can’t blame them. Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera don’t have good chemistry, the whistle is insufferable, and the song takes the most basic compositional levels of the club boom but somehow minimizes any of the song’s impact. This song is very much dated to the club boom - as with pretty much every song from this time period - but those songs had so much personality, so much charisma, so much energy, that helped them hold up better and thus get more nostalgic. This song does not have any of that, just one minimal beat with a vocalist who was on the start of his journey of losing all his personality. This isn’t their worst song by any means - “Don’t Wanna Know” sets that bar very low” - but it’s still terrible, next!

3...Eminem and Skylar Grey have one thing in common besides this song. They both scored two year-end hits in 2011, one from both of them that I really enjoy - seriously, both “Lighters” and “Coming Home” have a serious shot at making my best list for this year - but their other hit was the song they worked on together, and well...

3. Dr. Dre f/Eminem & Skylar Grey - I Need A Doctor (YE: #51, PEAK: #4)

I mean, I could literally say “Love The Way You Lie” but worse produced plus multiple f-slurs and just leave it at that. “I Need A Doctor” encapsulates the aspects of the Recovery era of Eminem that have aged the worst - and I’m usually one who will stand up for that era. Say what you want about “Lighters”, but that has a production and a Bruno Mars hook that is able to save it. In this we have Skylar Gray doing the hook this time, and I have to ask, why is she so buried in the mix? Her hook is probably the only redeeming quality of this song, yet it can’t even redeem it too much because of how badly she falls into the background. And the production - again, this is just a worse-produced “Love The Way You Lie”. Seriously, same chord progression, same beat, hell even the same song structure, except we got those god awful sound effects everywhere, the percussion is too heavy, and of course we got Dr. Dre rhyming the f slur with “maggots”. Eminem laid his lyrics out for Dr. Dre and thanked him for being such a huge influence on him...which doesn’t match the chorus at all and even outside of that I can’t even praise it more because this production is so fucking unlistenable. There’s a reason “Love The Way You Lie” is the one that has held up well, because this song is awful, next!

2...If we want to talk about the worst aspects of the club boom, we have to talk about this song...

2. LMFAO - Sexy And I Know It (YE: #57, PEAK: #1)

LMFAO had one of the biggest songs of the 2010s with “Party Rock Anthem”, a song that I still to this day really enjoy and genuinely believe has held up really well over the years. Of course, though, after that song, they had absolutely nothing except shrill synths, cheap production, and a stunning lack of groove. And somehow this song managed to also become a #1 hit. The bass is too thick, the buzzing sound is migraine inducing, and the beat is an utter obnoxious trainwreck. Let’s not forget that no one seemed to have a problem when LMFAO waved their dicks around in the music video, but when women twerked in their music videos, then they started to complain. But that’s besides the entire point - it was never good even back then and it has only gotten worse. LMFAO was one of the acts who did not survive the club boom’s complete collapse...yeah if you’re gonna keep making trash like this, no one’s gonna miss you.

1...So as I said, this year didn’t have any outright offensive or atrocious songs become hits, so I spent more time than usual finalizing my #1 pick. And while this song, by all means, is still horrible, it wouldn’t be my #1 pick in most years - hell as I said, in 2014 it would’ve only narrowly snuck onto the list proper. But, remember in my worst of 2014 list where I said that that year’s country was mainly dominated by bro-country - a subgenre of country that I highly likely am unable to find any gems in? Well, 2011 was where its earliest seeds were planted, and there is one certain song that I end up pointing to when I think of the birth of bro-country...

1. Luke Bryan - Country Girl (Shake It For Me) (YE: #81, PEAK: #22)

I mean, I could just say the obvious...it sounds like your average bro-country song which is awful anyway, and its complete goofiness isn’t funny in the slightest. The production is a mess, the rock elements do not blend well together at all. When making a ridiculous song, it can be either hilarious or annoying, and this ends up in the latter since it’s clearly trying to take itself seriously while also being goofy...it’s just an entire mess that I can’t wrap my head around. And this song is arguably what you can point to as where bro-country ended up stemming from. And as such “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)” by Luke Bryan is the worst hit song of 2011. It might not be downright atrocious but it’s still horrible, and given that bro-country is starting to fizzle out quickly, I don’t think this song will be missed at all.

So we just took off the rose colored glasses and examined the worst of this year, but really, again, they aren’t that bad compared to most other years. Next up we got the list that I inevitably look forward to more - the best hits of 2011! And oh boy, I have a lot of great things to say about the best of this year.