The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2012

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2012

In the following few paragraphs, I look at the most overrated year - but still a very good year - of the 2010s for the Hot 100 and look at why this year is indeed overrated.

Welcome back to Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes! It’s time for another list, guys! Today, we’re taking a look at the top 10 worst hit songs of 2012!

This year is one that has developed a reputation of being one of the best of the 2010s. And there’s no point in wasting time, this year is definitely not better than 2011, 2015, or 2017. But that said, I fully understand why many critics praise this year so much. Because digging through the 2012 year-end, there’s a lot to like about it.

Even though I said it’s not among the best years of the 2010s for the Hot 100, I’m not gonna talk smack about 2012’s music either, because this was honestly a great year for the Hot 100. But that said, we did get some bad songs, but really, not many songs I ended up having to cut overall.

I’ll focus on the main music scene of 2012 when I get to my best list, but my worst list is really just songs that haven’t aged well production-wise, outside of maybe a select few there wasn’t really anything offensive. I will say, though, that 2012 was when country was in its early years of the growth of bro-country. And if you know me, you know how much I really dislike that subgenre of music. But anyway, overall, there were 19 songs on the 2012 Hot 100 year-end list - including 2011 repeats - that fell into my “mediocre tier” or lower. Yes, only 19. That’s one of the fewest I’ve ever given to a year, which honestly really makes me understand why this year is so fondly remembered. But there were a solid chunk of bad songs, so let’s just get started with the list. As a rule, the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 in 2012 in order to qualify, so let’s get started with our dishonorable mentions!

DM #1: Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (YE: #33, PEAK: #1)

When a Minecraft parody of your song from DanTDM is better than your song itself, it’s a very bad sign. And this song is just incredibly obnoxious all the way through. The acoustic guitar doesn’t have any momentum, the percussion really supplies a beat that’s really awkward in tempo, and all around this song just doesn’t go anywhere. This is a slog, and an obnoxious one that really grates on you more every time you hear it.

DM #2: Train - 50 Ways To Say Goodbye (YE: #81, PEAK: #20)

Ugh. You know I think I give Train a lot more credit than everyone else does. Hell, “Hey Soul Sister” made my best list for 2010 and I don’t think “Play That Song” is even remotely close to being sub-1 star on RateYourMusic bad - I actually am one of the few people on Earth who actually enjoys that song. But alas, that isn’t the case for “50 Ways To Say Goodbye”, a forgettable song at best and an irritating one at worst. The mariachi effects are incredibly obnoxious, and Pat Monahan is a super unlikeable presence on this song. And the song is all about him making up different reasons for his ex-girlfriend dying rather than actually swallowing his pride and admitting he was dumped...yeah I can’t give this a pass at all.

DM #3: Jason Aldean - Fly Over States (YE: #98, PEAK: #32)

Another list, another thoroughly mediocre and forgettable Jason Aldean song that doesn’t go anywhere at all, and while this is probably his most “passable” song, it’s still very mediocre. Seriously, how can anyone in their right mind enjoy this guy?

DM #4: J Cole - Work Out (YE: #63, PEAK: #13)

Even J Cole supposedly doesn’t like this song at all. It’s definitely one of his better songs I’d say, but it’s just incredibly unpleasant and sour all the way through, and I honestly don’t know why. Regardless, this is bad, next!

DM #5: Little Big Town - Pontoon (YE: #67, PEAK: #22)

I have no idea what that instrument is that’s making those high pitched notes, I’d like to say it’s a guitar, but holy shit, it sounds horrible. And yes, so horrible that it’s the sole reason this song is all the way down here.

DM #6: Adele - Rumour Has It (YE: #64, PEAK: #16)

Well, this pick is gonna surprise people. And definitely anger some. But I’m sorry, I never liked this song at all. Something about the guitar just really turns me off, the chorus’s repetition of “rumour has it” gets old super quickly, and Adele’s vocals in the second verse just sound terrible. Admittedly, the bridge is pretty good, but not good enough to save this song. And when you tack on the ungodly recurrent airplay from adult contemporary stations, yeah, easy pass.

DM #7: Calvin Harris - Feel So Close (YE: #42, PEAK: #12)

This year was when the club boom was first starting to get replaced by the EDM sounds that would define the rest of the decade. And one of them was “Feel So Close”, which is just a complete waste of potential. The drop goes on longer than it needs to, and Calvin’s vocals just don’t sound good here at all. They’re enough to drop a decent song to being pretty damn bad, not a fan of this one at all.

So those were all pretty bad, but now it’s time for the actual garbage to be taken out...

10...Hip hop didn’t have a particularly good year in 2012, because this was the period where it was transitioning from the club boom of the early 2010s to the more dark sounds that would end up defining the rest of the 2010s. And I’d say that this is a very good song to point to when looking at the dregs of hip hop in 2012...

10. 2 Chainz f/Drake - No Lie (YE: #54, PEAK: #24)

As I just said, the darker sounds in hip hop started to appear as hip hop ended up in its transitional phase. But the actual trap sound wouldn’t start appearing until 2015 or 2016. So instead we’d get songs like “No Lie”, a super eerie and boring song that I’m not sure anybody wanted. Those whistle sound effects are really a distracting turn off, the beat is super slow and it makes the song boring as a result, the synths might be dark but they just don’t have any weight to them, hell, Drake is the only redeeming quality in this song. He’s a remarkably good fit for the beat, which could’ve been a good template for a better beat. But man, everything else about this song is a trainwreck.

9...I think arguably one of the biggest staples of the club boom was Pitbull. And for the most part, he genuinely is really good at capturing the charisma and fun and energy that the good club boom songs deliver. But then, we get this...

9. Pitbull - Back In Time (YE: #62, PEAK: #11)

“Back In Time” is the type of song that makes me fully understand why Pitbull was not usually well received by many critics at the time. The song is super stiff, and it has no energy at all. The main synth line sounds terrible and very awkward with nothing supporting it. And that’s when I found out that it was actually a sample from “Love Is Strange”, and then I got annoyed because very little was changed about the song at all. Pitbull isn’t even adding any charisma to the song, he sounds just as miserable on this. If anything, it reminds me of “Good Feeling” by Flo Rida, but not even good because at least the Avicii sample sounded good and Flo Rida actually sounded engaged. And this is all before we get to the dubstep breakdown at the very end which sounds incredibly ugly. This is incredibly lazy, and honestly I wish I went back in time to stop myself from listening to this song so much to write this portion.

8...I feel a bit bad putting this artist on so many of my worst lists. But I genuinely can’t help it, her songs have gotten annoying levels of recurrent airplay for years at this point and have seriously grated on me. Yep, another worst list for a 2010s year, another Pink song making it...

8. Pink - Blow Me (One Last Kiss) (YE: #37, PEAK: #5)

This sounds just like the rest of Pink’s 2010s material. How was she able to churn out so many hits during the decade? This is, to be fair, better than a decent chunk of her hits this decade, because at least in the verses there is a good groove and the guitar rollick is, if nothing else, passable. And then that headache of a chorus comes in, where everything sounds super overcompressed and Pink is trying to sing higher notes and just sounds obnoxious and shrilly. And overcompression doesn’t add power, it makes your song obnoxious. This had its potential, but it just comes off as a complete disappointment instead. Pretty tragic honestly.

7...God, these dubstep productions have really aged badly, huh...

7. Alex Clare - Too Close (YE: #30, PEAK: #7)

Songs with dubstep influences like “Sail” by AWOLNATION have really gotten worse over time. On the other hand, you could get songs like “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons, which despite showing signs of its age, has an odd nostalgia factor to it that I like. And “Too Close” falls into the former category, being shockingly dated all the way through. And most of its problems fall in the chorus. The bass is ramped up too much and it sounds super muddy, it drowns out Alex Clare’s voice, and it doesn’t add any intensity that the song needs, but instead just becomes an absolute earsore. Alex Clare’s soulful vocals don’t add the intensity that this song needs, they just instead feel super disjointed when compared to the production. So yeah it wasn’t that good in 2012, and it’s aged really badly since then.

6...This song is honestly kinda funny, if I’m being honest. But it’s also kinda wasted potential. It’s definitely pretty bad though, so that’s why it’s earned a spot on this list!

6. Flo Rida - Whistle (YE: #17, PEAK: #1)

The fact that this was a #1 hit at one point in time is genuinely hilarious to me. But to be real, I honestly really like how the production sounds, the guitar actually supplies a nice melody, the electropop influences, yes are a bit dated, but they don’t sound horrendous, and the whistling sound effects are actually tolerable instead of insufferable for once! But what puts this song down here is its lyrical content. This may be the most unsubtle way to describe sex I can think of, it’s legitimately laughable. The song is about Flo Rida wanting this girl to blow his whistle, and I’ll leave that to you to figure out what that means. I honestly feel a little bad putting this song on this list, because there are elements that I like and its lyrics actually make me laugh, but that said, it’s an embarrassing trainwreck all the way through.

5...Again, why would anyone legitimately listen to this guy!?

5. Jason Aldean - Take A Little Ride (YE: #88, PEAK: #12)

Jason Aldean is really not worth much attention at all, so I’ll keep this very brief. Jason Aldean is an underwhelming void of charisma, sounding utterly disinterested on an incredibly faceless, generic, bland, and soulless country production. And again, Jason Aldean isn’t worth our time, let’s just move on.

4...If you were mad I didn’t go into proper detail in the last entry, then here’s another bad country song right here I can properly give a good analysis of...

4. Kip Moore - Somethin’ ‘Bout A Truck (YE: #96, PEAK: #29)

What do you know, another bro-country song that’s awful like always that’s making my worst list. At this point is it even a surprise? Kip Moore sounds only barely better than Brantley Gilbert, which is not a compliment at all. The guitars are generic and the lyrics resort to the absolute most obvious cliches in country music to date. And what makes me genuinely angry at bro-country is that lyrically and musically it’s the most generic genre ever, on top of them already being crap from the very jump! And it’s songs like “Somethin’ ‘Bout A Truck” that really remind me of the dregs of that turd of a subgenre, fuck this song.

3...Yeah, I’m not surprised at all that this song has topped so many worst lists for 2012...

3. Rihanna f/Chris Brown - Birthday Cake (YE: #79, PEAK: #24)

Pretty much every critic has already torn this song to shreds, putting this song on my worst list is almost cliche at this point. The buzzy synths are less fire and more obnoxious, and they get especially bad towards the end. Rihanna sounds disinterested on this song, as she just repeats the word “cake” until it just sounds like mush in your head. And then Chris Brown comes in and immediately sings “girl I wanna fuck you right now” and- yeah I can’t give this a pass at all. And then the big reason why this is so thrashed by everyone, Rihanna chose to collaborate with the same person who had put her in the hospital 3 years prior. If that isn’t enough evidence to show how bad of an example Rihanna is setting for pretty much everybody on this song, I don’t know what is. There really isn’t anything left for me to say that hasn’t already been said by pretty much every music critic, so let’s just leave this catastrophe of a song behind.

2...And somehow the obnoxious buzzy production didn’t end with “Birthday Cake”, because now it’s coming back to haunt me in full force this time...joy.

2. Big Sean f/Nicki Minaj - Dance (@$$) (YE: #57, PEAK: #10)

For as truly terrible as “Birthday Cake” is, it at least had the fragments of a good song. But then we get “Dance (@$$)”. The bass is too heavy, the handclaps are repetitive, and then the chorus. The word “ass” can only be repeated so many times before it gets ridiculously tiring, and it somehow manages to get worse the longer it goes on! The rest of the lyrics, I think the lyric “how your waist anorexic, and then your ass is colossal” is all I need to say. And this song gets elbowed off of worst lists because “it’s hilarious”, well if it is ridiculously incompetent then that hilarious factor will do little to help it out. I don’t find this funny, I find this incredibly irritating. And I get who this is intended for, people who find joy in music where the lowest IQ possible is put into making it, but I doubt it’s even for them because I can’t find anything even ironically appealing about this song. And yet, there was one song that I found worse.

1...You know, for as atrocious as this song is, it seems to have a widely polarizing perception. Some people say it’s one of the best hit songs of 2012. Some say it’s among the worst. And I fall right into the latter, because this is one of the most incompetent songs of 2012...

1. Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup (YE: #82, PEAK: #15)

This song encapsulates everything wrong with bro-country, and yet somehow even worse. The spoken-word verses are insufferable, Toby Keith sounds completely terrible, the lyrics are beyond stupid, and the fact that this was a legitimate hit on the charts genuinely pisses me off. His falsettos in the outro are horrible, and they only last for a few seconds - yes they are that bad. The acoustic guitar is annoying, it supplies one of the worst key changes I’ve ever heard in a song, it sounds like the cheesiest and most annoying shit that you’d hear at a campfire. The lyrics are awful, the song is basically a love letter...to a red plastic cup. And that’s only the chorus, because the rest of these lyrics are absolute nonsense - “you sir do not have a pair of testicles”. This song is so bizarre in every way possible and it kinda bewilders me, honestly. But bizarre doesn’t always equal good, because this song is just garbage in every way possible. The hook is an annoying earworm and the spoken-word bridge starts off like it’s actually gonna be a redeeming quality of this song...until we get the goddamn background talking that sounds like something straight out of a kid’s show. And in the end, I really don’t see who this song is for. I can’t even imagine bro-country fans liking this song, it’s so incompetent all the way through. Say what you want about “Birthday Cake” or “Dance (@$$)”, at least they have a target audience in mind, “Red Solo Cup” by Toby Keith is the absolute scathing indictment of why bro-country is the worst subgenre of music, and easily the worst hit song of 2012. And I still don’t think this song gets enough hate, because it appears on a startling amount of best of 2012 lists, and it never should’ve become a hit in the first place. Let’s drain this red solo cup out, and move on.

So that was the list, sorry it took longer than expected, I’ve been really busy lately. I’ll be working on my best list for 2012, and with this year being flooded with a plethora of great songs there are many painful cuts from the list. Until then, take care!