The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2021

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2021

In the following few paragraphs, I take a look at a slightly underwhelming followup to the 2020 year-end and examine the songs that made it an underwhelming followup.

Okay, a break from these lists is exactly what I needed, because now I feel rejuvenated enough to continue doing these. Hey guys, welcome back to Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes. And I’m gonna try getting this list out as fast as possible. That’s right guys, today we’re looking at the top 10 worst hit songs of 2021!

You know, I was actually considering flat out cancelling the worst list for this year. Even in some of my most angry lists, I felt bad about the artists that I was really dragging. But then I decided that, nah, it'd feel wrong if I didn't highlight the crap from a year as well. But anyway, well...this certainly was a year. So much bad stuff came at me this year, and my mental state was low once again. So can I just say that this year was...actually good? Not even for music, but for my personal life. I don’t know what it was. Maybe the music was really there for me this year. Maybe my worst moments this year weren’t as bad as the years before? Actually, scratch that I do know what it was, I cherished the good times I had a lot more.

But god, do I wish that the year-end list actually reflected that. It’s not even a bad year by any means, I actually think it’s pretty decent, but in comparison to 2020’s year-end, it’s definitely a slight letdown. It feels a lot like 2013 to me, it was all over the place in terms of quality. The highs were amazing, and there was more stuff I needed to cut from my best list than I was expecting, but its lows were...yikes. And I can point to the country music this year, because my god it was bad. For that genre, it was a true dumpster fire of a year that so many people have already deemed as one of the worst years for country music in recent memory, potentially of all time. I wouldn’t call it a worse year for country music than either 2014 or 2013, but it was still horrible. Thankfully, the other genres pulled themselves up for the most part, with pop and hip hop having decent to good showings, rock coming back into the mainstream, and R&B managing to have a huge showing this year with mostly good quality.

That said, 2021 wasn’t in any way immune to terrible songs, because to be fully honest, my top 3 on this list would’ve been my #1 worst pick on my 2020 list. Oh yeah and on another note, I really jinxed myself when I said that the worst trends of 2020 were fading, because it looks like “Sunday Best” by Surfaces is starting to kick off a trend of half-assed songs about feeling happy - seriously “A-O-K” by Tai Verdes almost became a hit this year! Overall, there were 34 songs on the 2021 year-end list - including 2020 repeats - that fell into my “mediocre tier” or lower. That was honestly a lot more than I was expecting. So now it’s time to get started on this list. As a rule, the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 list for 2021 in order to qualify, so as horrible as “I Hope” by Gabby Barrett and Charlie Puth is, you’re not gonna see it on this list - and trust me, it would place really high, it’s grated on me majorly over the past few months. And “Go Crazy” by Chris Brown and Young Thug won’t be here either even if it ended up being a bigger hit in 2021 - that said even if I did allow it it wouldn’t have made the cut anyway, I’ve grown to hate it less and more just find it aggressively mediocre. And also, they can only have made the year-end list, so if you're expecting me to tear into shit like "Am I The Only One" by Aaron Lewis and whatever shit Tom MacDonald managed to chart, it's not gonna happen. So anyway, let’s get started with some dishonorable mentions.

DM #1: Ritt Momney - Put Your Records On (YE: #93, PEAK: #30)

First, who makes their stage name Ritt Momney? Now look, I get that he didn’t intend for this cover to actually blow up and he even credited Corinne Bailey Rae in the music video. And yeah, I guess I do appreciate the indie pop spin put on this, with those twinkling keys reminding me slightly of “Fireflies” by Owl City, but really, in addition to being inferior to the original, the real disgusting thing about this song is the fact that a white guy just covered a song by a black woman and outperformed it in various metrics. It’s like what happened for “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn and the Calum Scott cover, except this actually sits with me even worse. Add on top of that a terrible outro that throws me off in numerous ways...yeah this is bad.

DM #2: Justin Bieber f/Chance The Rapper - Holy (YE: #35, PEAK: #3)

You know, I was actually kinda digging this song for the first verse, but then this really went downhill. The bassline feels too heavy, the gospel influences don’t sound well here, and the writing is stunningly bland, not helped by Justin’s really lifeless voice on this track. And then comes Chance The Rapper’s verse, and - okay I wanna just stop the song here. He’s not staying on the beat at all, his voice sounds terrible, and he doesn’t fit on this track at all. I’ll stand up for “Lonely” because at least Justin actually had emotion in it, unlike this soulless trainwreck.

DM #3: Drake f/Future & Young Thug - Way 2 Sexy (YE: #48, PEAK: #1)

Look, let’s just all be grateful that “Girls Want Girls” with Lil Baby missed the year-end, because it includes Drake dropping one of the most embarrassing lines of his career - “you say you a lesbian, girl me too”. But that said, it doesn’t mean “Way 2 Sexy” or any of Drake’s mediocre garbage that is Certified Lover Boy is any good. Future’s chorus is pathetically cringey, the synth grates on you big time, and the entire song just feels like something that Lil Dicky would create if he collaborated with Drake. In other words, why are we allowing Drake to continue getting hits, because it’s clear that he has no quality left to bring to the table.

DM #4: Megan Thee Stallion f/DaBaby - Cry Baby (YE: #77, PEAK: #28)

Despite getting removed from “Levitating”, DaBaby still managed to sneak on two year-end hits - one being a 2020 repeat “For The Night”, and the other being this. Possibly one of the most annoying songs that Megan Thee Stallion has been on. I guess at the very least, they both have decent chemistry and good flows. But that production is absolutely migraine inducing, the excessive amount of reverb on that bass, the eerie piano notes, and the crying baby in the background make this a thoroughly unpleasant listen. Next!

DM #5: Coi Leray f/Lil Durk - No More Parties (YE: #79, PEAK: #26)

Lil Durk saves this from the list proper. Coi Leray is trying to do a Young Thug impression, except with absolutely no personality and her actively sounding bored throughout this track. And this is a really lifeless track overall, there’s very little to it, that R&B piano line and those trap beats just don’t sound good to me. And there’s nothing else exciting going on in this mix. Yeah, this is really boring, not a fan at all.

DM #6: Dua Lipa - We’re Good (YE: #90, PEAK: #31)

Ah, this track, from the Moonlight Edition of Future Nostalgia that garnered very mixed reception from even Dua Lipa fans. First off, this sound just doesn’t suit Future Nostalgia or Dua Lipa herself at all! It’s so midtempo and lethargic, stripping away any fun that Future Nosalgia had brought to the table. Sure, the guitars sound fine, but if you got that underweight percussion and that awful “sleeping and cocaine” lyric at the start of the hook, yeah this is pretty damn bad, and it’s an absolute crime that this was a hit and not “Love Again”.

DM #7: Maneskin - Beggin’ (YE: #66, PEAK: #13)

Yes, this almost made the list proper because of that absolutely horrendous vocal delivery. Shame, because this has a pretty nifty guitar line and the percussion sounds pretty good as well. But god, I absolutely HATE this frontman’s voice!! He sounds like a frog that’s getting tased every time he tries singing in his upper register. Look, if rock is gonna come back into the mainstream, can we not get...this? Please?

Alright, now time for the real trash!

10...As I said before, country had a tragic year this year. Yet somehow, there are less country songs making my worst list than I was expecting. That said though, I have to really take a look at the worst of the worst from country music this year, so here’s one of them...

10. Cole Swindell - Single Saturday Night (YE: #95, PEAK: #26)

This song redefines the word “vapid”. It might not have an actively annoying or offensive instrumental, but it’s so painfully generic that its lack of quality makes it terrible. It reminds me of why people hate “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten so much, but say what you want about that song, it might be a little too generic but at least Rachel Platten is a credible vocalist that can actually sell the track, unlike this. Cole Swindell doesn’t have a good voice in any sense you could slice it. He sounds so checked out and he has a weird raspy tone in his voice that absolutely ruins this song. The production is so boring. Just guitars and limp production. And that’s it. Nothing to switch up the basic song structure or anything to make this stand out in any sense possible. Again, it’s not actively offensive, but it’s so painfully generic that its lack of quality makes this a really bad song. Let’s just move on.

9...And the country is not stopping! Seriously, why is Nashville radio so persistent in reviving the dead corpse that is bro-country??

9. Niko Moon - Good Time (YE: #84, PEAK: #20)

Seriously, why are we still letting bro-country songs become hits!? There are like 3 good songs in total from that entire subgenre. And good lord, “Good Time” is quite possibly the epitome of why people hate country music. It’s literally a 2014 bro-country reject. Fine, I’ll give Niko Moon the tiniest bit of credit, he is able to actually sound chill and laid-back, but the big problem is its production. And oh god, it’s hideous. Why do people think combining country instrumentals with trap beats is a great recipe!? It’s not even like the rest of this instrumental is very good either! The guitars in the chorus sound absolutely awful. The song is just excessively self-satisfied and has an incredibly unlikeable atmosphere all around, this is fucking terrible. Now let me listen to Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen’s fantastic version of this song from 2012 to wash the bad taste of this out of my mouth.

8...I’m just gonna make this next entry quick, because it’s so unmemorable and unremarkable that it’s not worth much of our time...

8. BRS Kash - Throat Baby (Go Baby) (YE: #97, PEAK: #24)

It’s essentially the epitome of people taking the wrong lesson from “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. And while I did put that song on my worst of 2020 list as a dishonorable mention...yeah you know what, I take that back. I still don’t like it, but it’s nowhere near the bottom of the barrel of that year. This one, though, I can’t see myself changing my attitude towards this song any time soon. For one, BRS Kash has significantly less personality than either Cardi B or Megan Thee Stallion, the instrumentation is nothing but piano melodies that fade into the background way too quickly, generic trap percussion, and a kick that is excessively loud in this mix. And to end this off, “WAP” at least has creative punchlines, unlike this, where BRS Kash resorts to just moaning at the end of the second verse to fill time. I’m gonna apologize for putting “WAP” on my worst list for 2020, because if my alternative was this...yeah, I’ll listen to “WAP” 300 times before I give this another spin.

7...Fun fact, both this and “Throat Baby (Go Baby)” actually debuted on the Hot 100 the same week. But what made me put this higher is that despite the fact that “Throat Baby (Go Baby)” is a terrible song, if you manage to successfully avoid it, it kinda just falls out of everybody’s memory. This song, though, actively annoys me, and even if I don’t think it’ll be super culturally relevant in the future, this is just more inexcusable in general...

7. Yung Bleu f/Drake - You’re Mines Still (YE: #58, PEAK: #18)

This song is just super unpleasant to listen to all around. On a production level, this song is already a mess. The excessively heavy bass in the chorus, the trap percussion with absolutely no momentum making this track a lethargic slog, the “Shape Of My Heart” sample that was done so much better on both “Eastside” and “Lucid Dreams” from 2018, and the excessive autotune on Yung Bleu’s vocals, this is not a song I wanna listen to at all at any given moment! It’s a very bad sign when Drake is the best aspect of a song. And the lyrics are manipulative at worst and stupid as hell at best. Yung Bleu spends the entire song telling this girl that they broke up with to tell this new guy she moved on with that he is no match at all for Yung Bleu. And then we got that one lyric - “let me beat that pussy up one more time”. Yeah, this is an absolute disaster of a song, really terrible.

6...How was this one of the top 50 biggest songs of the year?

6. SPOTEMGOTTEM - Beat Box (YE: #44, PEAK: #12)

This is just “Shotta Flow” by NLE Choppa but with worse rapping. And even as someone who doesn’t like that song, I can certainly say it’s better than this. The bass is so poorly mixed and is somehow louder than the piano line and SPOTEMGOTTEM sounds awful. He’s constantly trying to rap in a higher register and he sounds so bad, just stick with your normal register. And really, that’s all I can even say about this song, because this song doesn’t even crack 2 minutes. It’s shorter than “Old Town Road”! Yeah, this isn’t worth any more of my time, next!

5...Again, why are we allowing Drake to continue getting hits?

5. Drake - What’s Next (YE: #68, PEAK: #1)

Drake pushing this as a leadoff single was a big mistake. “Wants And Needs” was the one that ended up getting streamed - and quite frankly, is a much better song than this. I’ll give Drake a bit of credit, he sounds legitimately exasperated on this song, so at least he’s showing SOME emotion from time to time. But god, the production is an absolute headache. The percussion is really clunky, with that kick having way too much reverb, and the buzzy synthesizers get old very quickly. And the content really undermines what Drake is truly exasperated about...which is apparently the fact that he’s flexing?? Is Drake even using the correct tone here? This is supposed to be a triumphant song and Drake is just exerting a bunch of anger here. Of course the first time in years where Drake actually puts some emotion in his vocals, he gets the wrong tone. Yeah, this is a mess, and I’m not really interested in seeing what’s next.

4...Again...oh my god, country music had a fucking horrible year this year. And while I’m not gonna come down too harshly on the slightly too generic boyfriend country trend because at least most of the time the artists are sincere, it’s clear that bro-country is really not gonna ever evolve beyond the mess it was in 2013 and 2014, and this song is probably a textbook example of that...

4. Chase Rice f/Florida Georgia Line - Drinkin’ Beer. Talkin’ God. Amen. (YE: #99, PEAK: #24)

Eh...I might as well put #3 in as well...

3. Walker Hayes - Fancy Like (YE: #27, PEAK: #3)

And while I’m at it, how about #2?

2. Nelly f/Florida Georgia Line - Lil Bit (YE: #70, PEAK: #23)

These songs really are the three horsemen of bad country music. Even more so than “Single Saturday Night” and “Good Time”.

Let’s start with “Drinkin’ Beer. Talkin’ God. Amen.” First off, this might be the dumbest title I have ever seen for a country song. Like seriously, this title itself makes me physically cringe. And the rest of this track is terrible as well. First off, I cannot tell when Chase Rice or John Florida Georgia Line are singing at certain spots and that deeply worries me. The backing vocals sound awful. And this is truly the wrong way to sing this song. This is basically a campfire song, and for these songs, you’re supposed to show restraint in your delivery, not lean into it! A dumb song and a dumb idea for a song, and it’s only not higher because of somewhat alright guitar work.

That’s something I really can’t say about “Fancy Like”, though. I’m pretty sure a huge chunk of the general public have already claimed this to be one of the worst country songs of all time - it’s already at sub-1 star at RateYourMusic. And if you want my two cents on this song...I’ll say that if you told me in 2017 that 4 years later we’d get another “Body Like A Back Road”, I wouldn’t have believed you. Only thing is that “Body Like A Back Road” is actually a guilty pleasure, whereas “Fancy Like” is absolute trash. Walker Hayes sounds like a poor man’s Sam Hunt - on a somewhat unrelated note, thank god “Breaking Up Was Easy In The 90s” missed the year-end - he has such a mugging tone in his delivery. His half-talk delivery sounds awful, the guitar tuning sounds horrendous, and the bass is so overdone I would’ve thought that this song was an earrape scene in a YouTube Poop in 2017. And this feels like a parody already, thinking of fucking Applebee’s of all places as “fancy” is truly a joke. Everybody has already declared this as one of the worst country songs of all time, and you know what, I can’t blame them.

But say what you want about “Fancy Like”, at least it’s laughably bad and the chorus is somewhat catchy, something I can’t say about “Lil Bit”. I didn’t think Nelly and Florida Georgia Line teaming up together again would score them each another hit after “Cruise”, I’ll admit. On another note, the fact that I put “Wagon Wheel” as a dishonorable mention on my worst of 2013 list over both “Cruise” and “Get Your Shine On” makes me cringe. But back to this song, and look, it’s all of the worst of bro-country, the production is awful. They’re trying to give the song a lil bit - pun intended - of groove, only to then break into a banjo and trap section that throws everything off. Both of our frontman don’t sound like they’re having fun here at all despite the fact that they’re saying that they’re gonna have some fun. They instead seem to be too focused on trying to make this a hip hop song, which is possibly my biggest gripe with bro-country. And then we got Nelly calling himself the black Tom Brady, okay yeah I’m done with this. At least “Cruise” could allow us to have a little bit of fun for as mediocre as it is. Country had a truly horrendous year this year, and these past three songs truly encapsulate that quite effectively, I’d say. Let’s hope these all fall out of everybody’s memory in the next few years.

1...Okay really, if you know me on Pulse Music Board or even well enough in real life...was this ever gonna be anything else?

1. AJR - BANG! (YE: #56, PEAK: #8)

Okay fine, I’ll admit, this song grew on me. In that it went from being a 0/10 to a 1/10, partially because Andy Grammer released “Damn It Feels Good To Be Me” in the fall of 2021, which was basically an AJR song that was so much worse than everything they’ve ever created, and it was so bad that I legitimately reconsidered if this was really a bad song or not. But in the end, yeah, “BANG!” is absolutely atrocious and a complete catastrophe of a song on every level. The production is legitimately one of the worst productions I have heard in a song from the 2020s. They probably had the seedlings of a good idea with that keyboard line. The “BANG! BANG! BANG!”’s that repeat throughout the song are absolutely annoying, then the offbeat percussion starting to come in, and then that absolute migraine of a chorus. It’s like AJR took every single instrument in the room and just crashed them all together at once! It’s completely unlistenable!! The horns are trying to go for a triumphant sound but they fail absolutely miserably! The kick drum is just slammed and it really makes this chorus feel so unsupported and awkward! There’s no momentum or groove in this song anywhere! It’s just an awkward, clunky midtempo song that’s trying to be a last hurrah before maturing into adulthood, but with all these production choices, I don’t think AJR are even ready!!!! Especially with AJR’s signifiers of being an adult being quinoa and forgetting your password. And if that’s not enough for you, then just wait until the metronome comes in. The metronome bit is easily one of the worst things I’ve heard in a song in my entire life. And it proves that AJR are too immature to be adults at all. And Jack Met’s vocal delivery is awful as well. He’s screaming incredibly off key in the chorus and I can tell this track is very much out of his range, and in that bridge he goes into his utterly ear-piercing falsetto. But what probably really infuriates me about this, is that I know AJR can actually be good. Hell, “Dear Winter”, “Sober Up”, and “Way Less Sad” are all good. And then we get this song to become their big breakthrough hit!? Look, in the end, this is damn near fucking insufferable. Lyrically it’s cringe, musically it’s an earsore, and it proves that AJR might as well be preschoolers because I know high school kids who make better productions than this. I already hated this song when I first heard it in early 2020, and when you add on top of it the fact this had such a scary rise into the Hot 100’s top 10 and this song coming on the radio so much that I felt it was haunting me, I’ll say it: “BANG!” by AJR is the worst hit song of 2021. And say what you want about Hot Chelle Rae and their awful lyrics in “Tonight Tonight”, at least they were having fun and not trying to make a statement! At least they knew how to bring everybody in for the fun. You know what, let’s bring back Hot Chelle Rae instead. Leave AJR and “BANG!” to fall into the cracks of time. Nobody’s gonna miss it.

So that’s my list! Wow, these lows truly were horrendous. But I never said that 2021 was a bad year for music, in fact, I actually argue it was a pretty good one, immensely helped by the abundance of good and great songs this year! Gonna work over the weekend to get my best list out, but until then, you’ve been reading Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes, and I’ll see you next time.