The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2019

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2019

In the following few paragraphs, I take a look at one of the weaker years of the 2010s for the Hot 100 and look at the songs that really make it one of the weaker years.

(this list was originally created on July 18, 2021)

Hey guys, welcome back to Fire's Flaming Hot Takes. It’s that time again, today we’re taking a look at the top 10 worst hit songs of 2019!

I knew before I started going through the Hot 100 year-end list for this year that I would not like it. But...why is that? 2019 has actually developed a pretty good reputation for music critics, it’s never said to be among the best years this decade but it still was decent. The trap was seemingly above average compared to other years, country was starting to make its comeback, and pop had notched great success, so why would this year be a weak year?

Well, let me say this - the country that notched success ranged from quite mediocre to outright terrible, the pop this year was significantly worse than previous years, and just because the trap this year was better than 2018’s doesn’t make it good. And this is about to get a bit personal, but as I said if a year was good for my personal life then the music from that year will more often than not spark good memories. In that regard, the opposite can be true - and let me tell you, 2019 was really not a good year for me personally. Remember how I said 2014 sucked because it was that awkward transitional year from the club boom to trap’s rise to dominance? Well, 2019 was a transitional period from middle school to high school for me, where I had to change schools and leave a big chunk of my friends behind. I don’t want to get into it too deep but I’ll just say 2019 was my mental state at its absolute lowest. And that said, the main emotion I have towards this year-end list is really just utter resentment. It might have just been me that year exerting more anger into the really bad songs that year - maybe I wouldn't hate some of these as much in another year - but this year-end list was not fun to listen to at all. It’s a year I look back at with just disgust and anger. It also just so happens to be a year where the songs had more dark tones - because that’s exactly what I needed that year. That said, it doesn’t have the egregious lows that I know 2018 definitely has, and there may be less bad songs here than there were in 2014, but I still really hate this year.

Overall, there were 36 songs on this year-end list - including 2018 repeats - that fell into my “mediocre tier” or lower. That’s more than other years generally, and there were a lot of songs I had to cut that I really didn’t want to. So it’s time to get started with this list, as a rule the song must have debuted on the Hot 100 year-end list for 2019 to qualify, so let’s get started with our dishonorable mentions - and fair warning, it’s gonna get ugly.

DM #1: Billie Eilish - bad guy (YE: #4, PEAK: #1)

Objectively, songs may be “worse” than this and probably deserved this placement more but god seeing this song get so much critical acclaim and become such a gigantic hit everywhere plus insane radio overplay really makes this song fill me with utter rage every time I hear it. Despite a pretty good bassline the song is so one note, and such a nothing of a song. I don’t like Billie’s vocals on this song, and the song is just a bunch of random noises all stitched together randomly. You can’t make a song out of just a fucking bassline. And the dubstep breakdown at the very end of the song doesn’t fit with anything at all and sounds so fucking awful. Seeing this song become so insanely overrated increased my hatred for this song, and this better sour on people badly in the next few years - FUCK THIS SONG.

DM #2: Cardi B - Money (YE: #38, PEAK: #13)

That staccato piano line is so jarring. And when the trap beat is the only other thing the production has, that horrible piano line is the only thing I can focus on. Cardi, you can’t ride off your personality forever, just saying.

DM #3: Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars, & Kodak Black - Wake Up In The Sky (YE: #51, PEAK: #11)

Man, 2019 was a bad year for Bruno Mars. Bruno tries to rap part of his hook and he does not sound good at all. Gucci Mane’s verse is incredibly unremarkable, just like the rest of this trap production. And Kodak Black utterly destroys this track, I never liked his flow and while this is not the worst song he has been on by any means, it still sucks. Next!

DM #4: J Cole - MIDDLE CHILD (YE: #25, PEAK: #4)

This production is so lazy. It’s just a horn loop combined with a basic trap percussion, plus a heavily autotuned chorus and J Cole sounding like he’d rather be anywhere else. Pass.

DM #5: Blueface - Thotiana (YE: #47, PEAK: #8)

The meme was stale from the very get go. The symbols are so out of place and those sour notes really do not contrast well with Blueface’s flow.

DM #6: Luke Combs - Beer Never Broke My Heart (YE: #63, PEAK: #21)

I absolutely hate that guitar. It sounds so fucking bad. Outside of that, this is just a song about how beer is the answer to everything and everything else sucks, what a great way to look at life Luke Combs!! Encourage the audience to turn to fucking alchohol abuse to solve your problems. Whoopee.

DM #7: Luke Bryan - Knockin’ Boots (YE: #79, PEAK: #31)

There’s literally no bassline here, so the percussion sounds so damn awkward. And what else, oh yeah, it’s a fucking bro-country song, like it was ever gonna be actually quality, with that forgettable guitar and the nonsense lyrics. At this point, is there any need for Luke Bryan to still be gaining hits anymore?

Now for the list proper...

10...If there’s one thing I can praise about 2019, it’s that the trap this year was considerably better than 2018 - we will get to that soon. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few exceptions...

10. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie f/6ix9ine - Swervin’ (YE: #82, PEAK: #38)

Did we really have to give fucking 6ix9ine another hit!? Seriously, “FEFE” and “GUMMO” proved that he is an absolutely worthless hack with absolutely zero talent or likeability - and there is much more to say about those when I get to 2018. 6ix9ine just starts to scream in his annoying as always voice that doesn’t fit this lower, more vibey atmosphere, that is really jarring. And A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie tries to sing in his upper register with autotune which does not sound good at all. It’s a shame because the rest of the song isn’t even that bad. It almost lands here on disappointment alone - this could’ve been good instead of just awful.

9...So I’ve mentioned a number of times that a genre that I really don’t like is bro-country, it’s a genre that is chalk full of generic and annoying instrumental choices. But another genre that I really don’t like is reggaeton. Unlike bro-country, however, I can find some gems in reggaeton. This one, well, definitely isn’t one of them...

9. Daddy Yankee & Katy Perry f/Snow - Con Calma (YE: #65, PEAK: #22)

This song is really only here due to that god awful production. And I assume Daddy Yankee was trying to recreate “Despacito” by getting the Katy Perry feature, but when your production is this bad and this generic, you really aren’t doing yourself any favors. The beat is annoying, it sounds like an out of tune guitar was plucked every time the percussion comes in. “Con Calma” is trying to be sexy, similar to what “Despacito” was trying to do and managed to accomplish, but man this is one of the most unsexy songs of 2019, and it again goes down to that god awful beat. Neither Daddy Yankee or Katy Perry have any chemistry, which doesn’t exactly help matters. Then Snow’s part, I’m honestly wondering what the fuck was even the point? He doesn’t add anything to this song. Yeah this is a mess, horrible song, and the fact that this was the Katy Perry song to make the Hot 100 year-end and not “Never Really Over”, yeah Katy deserved better than this likely being her last hit.

8...Many people point to “ME!” as a complete misfire of a lead single to the Lover era of Taylor Swift. But if I’m being honest, as dumb as “ME!” is, it’s bubbly, fun, and cute and I actually do like it. But if we want to talk about the real misfire from the Lover era that has aged really badly...

8. Taylor Swift - You Need To Calm Down (YE: #39, PEAK: #2)

If I’m being honest, I don’t see how “You Need To Calm Down” is baiting any controversy. Yes, I get that this is an aim at internet trolls, but Taylor said this is also pro-LGBT, which outside of that one lyric “shade never made anybody less gay”, I really don’t see it. If anything, it’s a mask to hide the true obnoxiousness that “You Need To Calm Down” is, with that pulsating beat and the percussion trying to make this more anthemic, but it’s just so lethargic. But I think my larger issue with this song is Taylor’s delivery. She sounds utterly disinterested and in the chorus when she sings “you’re being too loud” she sounds obnoxious, which might be the point since this is an aim at internet trolls but it really makes for an unpleasant listen. This isn’t baiting any controversy, it’s just utter obnoxiousness that has only gotten worse over time.

7...So one big thing that happened this year was the Jonas Brothers reuniting and garnering two hits this year. And neither of them are good!

7. Jonas Brothers - Only Human (YE: #78, PEAK: #18)

To this day, the Jonas Brothers comeback remains one of the most unnecessarily hyped up and disappointing things that I have witnessed while watching the charts. I don’t even like “Cool” that much - I think it’s aged quite badly honestly - but I’d rather have “Cool” on the year-end list than this. The horns are out of place and the small synths sound like farts. Apart from that, look this production sounds so fucking undercooked. The Jonas Brothers openly admitted they spent only 90 minutes on this song and it truly shows, this song is so damn unfinished! And yet it’s not the worst thing the Jonas Brothers have made since their comeback, we’ll get to that later!!

6...Guys, we don’t need to keep giving this asshole hits!!

6. Chris Brown f/Drake - No Guidance (YE: #21, PEAK: #5)

One thing that’ll always confuse me is why America decided to continue giving Chris Brown hits after the Rihanna incident. The R&B production is basically a faint atmospheric one, and I can’t be the only one who thinks that this should’ve just been handed to Drake. His subtlety matches this admittedly remarkably well, only for fucking Chris Brown to show up overselling everything in his delivery and making this already clunky production - with that awkwardly placed trap percussion - even worse!! And thus, this song just slogs on and on and on. Everyone seemingly just loses interest in the song like halfway through, both the artists and the listener! This song just grinds my gears, and massive overplay by my station that meant that this song would just not go the fuck away made me despise this song over time, fuck this shit.

5...2019 really was the year where utter piles of garbage got praised to high heavens and back and became huge hits for some ungodly reason, huh...

5. SHAED - Trampoline (YE: #70, PEAK: #13)

It simultaneously amazes me and confuses me how anyone could call this song “beautiful” because in reality this is a pile of trash. Just because it sounds like “Royals” by Lorde doesn’t make it fucking good because “Royals” is among the most overrated songs of the 2010s!! And that’s the only reason I can think of as to why people like “Trampoline” because it’s a complete slog to listen to. Chelsea Lee sounds terrible and has zero personality, the EDM production sounds so out of place, the piano keys sound so faceless and forgettable, and the fact that people praised this to heaven and back just fills me with utter fury. When I was watching the Hot AC charts towards the end of the year, I saw this song have a slow climb up, stalling out and going recurrent, and it somehow got a resurgence from the terrible ZAYN remix...yeah it could’ve stayed recurrent, it wouldn’t have been a loss.

4...These next four songs all landed in the top 40 on the year-end chart. These were all some of the defining songs of 2019, and I think that should be enough to tell you how complete shit 2019 was for music. And I thought this artist couldn’t do worse than “Sing” in 2014, and yet...

4. Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber - I Don’t Care (YE: #16, PEAK: #2)

Ed Sheeran’s No 6 Collab project is one of the most thoroughly embarrassing, underwhelming, and obvious cash grabs I’ve ever heard. But if you want to talk about the worst song on that album, it really is “I Don’t Care”, a lazy and faceless song that is designed specifically to be consumed by radio stations and to be played to ungodly levels of overplay that really get under your skin. This song boils down to one big flaw, it’s too fucking generic! It’s a faceless tropical house production thrown together with zero effort, and our two artists don’t do anything to elevate it! Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber have little chemistry between each other outside of some embarrassing attempts at harmonizing in the final chorus, and they both sound so checked out, it’s like they know that this utterly soulless song is worthless so they don’t even bother trying to make it interesting!! America let the banger that is “Cross Me” underperform in the US, and yet this garbage became a hit, what the fuck is wrong with you guys!?

3...I told you we weren't done with the Jonas Brothers yet!!

3. Jonas Brothers - Sucker (YE: #10, PEAK: #1)

Somehow the worst song of the Jonas Brothers’ comeback ended up becoming the biggest. I’ve always hated this song, even before the overplay came in, but the overplay was just the icing on the cake, the final kick in the can to all but confirm to me that this was a tall glass of garbage water. “Sucker” is basically just the poor man’s “Feel It Still”, a great song from 2017, except without any of the groove or energy that “Feel It Still” brought to the table. The opening notes that sound like horns sound fucking abysmal against the entirely too limp percussion and, like “Only Human”, the production sounds so undercooked, but you know what at least “Only Human” had the decency to have an alright groove, unlike this. The whistles are insufferable, the rest of the production doesn’t build up, and that groove I mentioned earlier is practically nonexistent. And to this day it still gets so much recurrent airplay it genuinely pisses me off. America, if you want to make up for this, at least have “Leave Before You Love Me” make the 2021 year-end list. This garbage can be lynched into a fucking fire and have its ashes buried 6 feet underground and it can never see the fucking light of day again, this song a fucking piece of shit and very much utter garbage. And yet it’s only #3. So what could be worse?

2...*sigh* You guys had “Finesse”, a song that undoubtedly remains a banger to this day, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?

2. Cardi B & Bruno Mars - Please Me (YE: #37, PEAK: #3)

Oh my god, this may be the worst that Bruno Mars’s vocals have ever been. He doesn’t sound sexy on this song and instead sounds whiny. He doesn’t sound like he’s flirting with Cardi, he sounds like he’s whining to his mother for a candy bar, hell I’ve heard 3 year olds that throw less of a tantrum than Bruno here! Cardi B’s aggressive flow doesn’t sound sexy either, in fact it sounds so damn awkward here. The four chord loop sounds like ass, the synth drags out for too long, and the entire song is a lethargic song that is thoroughly unsexy and more headache inducing, and it manages to be whiny, grating, boring, and annoying all at the same time. Yeah this is pure shit.

1...At the end of the day, it had to be this song. It had to go to the song that pissed me off the most and will leave a massive stain on this artist’s career. For the longest time, my #1 would’ve gone to “Please Me”. It was the song I thought irritated me the most based on pure boredom and whininess alone, until I realized that really, that song has already pretty much faded from everyone’s memory. This song, on the other hand, continues to linger, and was one of the biggest songs of the fucking decade, and a song that singlehandedly tainted my original view of this artist. I said before that this year seemed to be the year where complete piles of shit ended up getting praised and becoming huge hits...and I don’t think I’ve ever been this infuriated at a song due to how overrated it became even if it is awful than this song while simultaneously being a humongous disappointment from this artist. As much as I loathe “Sucker”, at the end of the day, it’s not trying to spread anything offensive. The worst hit song of 2019, right here, is spreading something that’s loathesome while simultaneously being a shitty song from the jump. Ariana Grande, you’ve disappointed me...

1. Ariana Grande - 7 rings (YE: #7, PEAK: #1)

Oh boy, where do I start?! I guess the production, which utterly butchers the “My Favorite Things” sample, the synth sounds like ass. And then Ariana Grande herself, she simply can’t work out a trap song like this, her rapping is fucking terrible, a half step below Pink’s rapping on “Just Like Fire” at the most. And it’s because of those whispery vocals, it sounds like she’s trying to sound laid back and it just fails. And this rapping continues throughout the rest of this song and it gets so fucking irritating every fucking time. And then when she sings for the bridge she doesn’t sound good there either!! She can thank those god awful notes for being so muted to the point where all the focus is on her, where she is trying to sing fast while also hitting those high notes, it sounds so fucking horrible. But the real despicable part of this song is the lyrics. Starting with the lyric “You like my hair? Gee thanks, just bought it” - it’s a line that many people have pointed out to highlight Ariana’s white privilege, because it brings up the double standard that white women like Ari are praised for their hair extensions but black women are mocked for theirs. And going past the racial undertones, Ari still flexes her privilege with lines like “happiness is the same price as red bottoms”. And then there’s the line that pisses me off the most - “whoever said money can’t solve your problems must not have had enough money to solve them”. It goes beyond a flex, this is outright fucking offensive!!! Do you really think, Ari, that this is a good thing to release to your impressionable young fanbase? This is morally insufferable, lyrically insufferable, musically insufferable, and easily one of the most reprehensible songs to ever be released in the 2010s, yes I’m going that far. This song becoming such a huge hit and getting so much overplay and so much praise by everyone around me sends rage down my spine. Not rage like for “Sucker” and “bad guy”, this is morally reprehensible and Ari got rewarded for it. This is absolutely worthless, atrocious, a fucking piece of shit that permanently tainted my view of Ariana Grande, SKIP THIS PIECE OF SHIT. In other words, FUCK 2019!

And that’s the list, Jesus Christ this year sucked. A lot of lows this year that absolutely infuriated me. That said, 2019 does have a few songs worth your time, so look at my best list for that!!