The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2000

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2000

In the following article, I venture back 20 years ago to a mostly middling way to kick off the new millennium and examine the bad songs that came from it.

Hey guys, welcome back to Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes! And yes, after nearly 6 months, I’m finally back with another list!! Today, we’re looking at the top 10 worst hit songs of 2000!

Okay, when I decided that I would start researching the 2000s as the next decade to examine the best and worst hit songs of each year, there was one thing that I was pretty concerned about when evaluating the quality of a year-end list or the songs on the year-end list as a whole: bias. Okay, that’s a bit of a vague term, but given that I grew up with music from the 2010s, those songs were what shaped up my music taste more than anything. My main concern was that since I don’t have the same emotional relationship to these songs as I do for songs in the 2010s, I would wind up liking these songs a lot less. So given that I actually have now listened to every year-end list for the 2000s, was that true?

Okay, I’ll be honest, yes and no. Yes, I don’t have an emotional relationship to these songs that’s quite as powerful as what I had towards the 2010s. But that worked in the opposite regard as well, some of my picks for the worst hit songs of these respective years aren’t nearly on the level of atrocious as some of my previous picks like “Blurred Lines” and “FEFE”. But enough talking about that, how was 2000 as a whole for music? It’s a brand new millennium, goodbye 1900s and hello 2000s, how was this fresh start for a new millennium for pop music?

Eh...it was alright. 2000’s pop music has widely been given a reputation for being just the 90s again. I have no clue if it’s an accurate comparison or not - these songs are older than I am...and you’re welcome, I just made you feel old - but I’ll tell you what I could get from this year: R&B. Like, tons and tons and tons of it. There was so much R&B...and I can’t lie, it felt like so much of it blended together, not many standouts I could find in either direction, well outside of a select few. And that may very well be the story of this year-end list, it felt very very very average. It’s not an awful year, but it isn’t necessarily a good one by any means. Otherwise, well post-grunge was the dominant genre in the alternative scene...and yeesh, that led to kinda mixed at best results. Teen pop and latin pop were strong this year as well, and I genuinely do think that despite its kinda limited presence, this was a really strong year for hip hop. So overall...2000 isn’t a bad year by any means, it’s just pretty uninteresting. Including the 1999 repeats, there were 27 songs that I found “mediocre” or worse, and there were very, very, very few songs that I’d call outright terrible. But I will say that more than any other worst list I’ve made, this was probably the hardest one to assemble because the bad songs were just boring and tedious and I struggled finding much worthwhile to talk about in these songs. But anyway, the rule is the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 list in 2000 in order to qualify, so let’s not waste any more time, let’s get our dishonorable mentions out of the way quick.

DM #1: LFO - Girl On TV (YE: #93, PEAK: #10)

“Shoobie-do-wop and scoobie snacks”. Yeah I think the song should end there. Now look, I get it, celebrity crushes do exist, they aren’t healthy, but they happen, but I think it’s safe to say it goes into outright creepy territory when you’re saying that our guy here watched TV and saw a female in a movie on TV, met her in person at a meet and greet, shook her hand, and now tries to get this star to fall in love with him and wants to call her. Add on the terribly corny rap section, and this isn’t good at all. Rest in peace to 2 of the 3 members of this group, but this ain’t good.

DM #2: Kevon Edmonds - 24/7 (YE: #92, PEAK: #10)

Good god, this is so boring. Kevon Edmonds doesn’t sound invested in this song at all, making this such a boring slog. It’s really disposable, which is just about the last thing you wanna do for a song that relies on trying to sweep a girl off her feet! Yeah, this is really forgettable R&B, next.

DM #3: Son By Four - Purest Of Pain (A Puro Dolor) (YE: #61, PEAK: #24)

The ballad version is very very very cheesy and boring. Now, there is also a salsa version of this song that makes it upbeat, and I’ll admit that it was a lot better. No, before you ask, not enough for it to make my best list, but it was at least catchy enough to elevate it into being decent. I don’t know which version Billboard credited on the year-end list, especially since Billboard for some reason doesn’t allow access to year-end charts older than 2006, so I just went with the one that I listened to first, which was the first result when I searched it up on Spotify, which was the ballad version, thus giving this a slot on this list. This just doesn’t do anything for me, sorry.

DM #4: Joe - I Wanna Know (YE: #4, PEAK: #4)

Wow, for a song that was one of the top 5 biggest hits of the year it sure has had like no staying power. And yeah, I can kinda see why, a boring and interchangeable slice of R&B that just goes in one ear and out the other. Not much else to say, let’s move on.

DM #5: Jessica Simpson - I Wanna Love You Forever (YE: #56, PEAK: #3)

Alright, we’ve arrived at the songs that I’d call outright bad. And wow, there’s so much that goes wrong in this song. The production is so melodramatic that it hurts, and for a love song it has an oddly devastated tone and atmosphere. And look, even if you ignore that, this production is just completely dull. But hey, if the singer can elevate it, it shouldn’t matter all that much, right? Well, that takes us to Jessica Simpson herself, and there’s no way around it, she sounds awful on this. Sure, her vocals are pretty impressive in the first chorus at least, but in an attempt to continue building up in the following choruses, she tries to sing higher and she’s straining her voice so much to get there that my vocal chords actively hurt for her. Give this song to someone like Mariah Carey, maybe it could work effectively, but as it is, this is awful.

DM #6: Marc Anthony - You Sang To Me (YE: #22, PEAK: #2)

Again, another boring ass song that gives me virtually nothing to talk about. Yes, Marc Anthony is very sincere, but I’m sorry, this is just so boring. Yes, the song does sound romantic, but it just doesn’t do that much for me, sorry.

DM #7: Jagged Edge - He Can’t Love U (YE: #62, PEAK: #15)

I mean...the title speaks for itself, doesn’t it? It’s a song where people try to win over a girl who’s already taken, saying “oh he can’t love you like I can” and “you can’t be with this man because he can’t be a real man”! How lovely. Not to mention there’s this high-pitched frequency throughout this song - I wanna say it’s a bell but I can’t be for certain. But that sound is so ear-piercing and it repeats throughout the entire song. The one consolidation I’m making is that it missed the list proper, but even then, I was being generous.

Okay, now for our top 10 proper…

10...Fun fact, I actually almost wrote about the wrong song for this segment. I almost wrote about “Amazed” by Lonestar, which I mean, yeah it’s pretty bad but it made the 1999 year-end list so it wouldn’t be eligible for this list anyway.

But you know what, at least “Amazed” was better than this...

10. Lonestar - What About Now (YE: #90, PEAK: #30)

Okay, I’ll give this song a little bit of credit: I like the idea of the song. The sentiment of not waiting to take chances and taking risks while you can, like right about now, sure it’s kinda cliche, but it always has potential to work. Hell, one of my favorite hit songs of the year so far - “Till You Can’t” by Cody Johnson - is a country song that has this exact same sentiment, and it takes that sentiment and Cody Johnson sings it like he means it! That’s...not the case for “What About Now”. Richie McDonald can’t sell that passion, and that really hurts this song. It just makes it feel so painfully generic. This sucks, next!

9…”Red Solo Cup” topping my worst of 2012 list will forever remain a questionable choice for me. I mean it’s still god awful, but a part of me does recognize, it’s just a joke song, it’s not worth getting all that angry over. I’m willing to give Toby Keith a pass.

Well, at least I was, and then I listened to this.

9. Toby Keith - How Do You Like Me Now?! (YE: #82, PEAK: #31)

Not very much! I guess part of me respects the sentiment of Toby Keith making a song about how he proved his haters wrong and got success, or at least I would, but then Toby Keith said that he wrote this song specifically about a beautiful girl who became valedictorian in high school who overlooked him at the time. Like dude, if she’s out of your league, it’s fine, it’s just high school. There’s no mention that this girl even outright bullied or mistreated him, so Toby Keith just made this bitter as fuck song for no reason basically, all he said was just “oh, she overlooked me”. Like dude, I’m a rising senior in high school and I don’t have a girlfriend nor will I likely ever get one in high school, but I’m surviving. Also it felt very unnecessary to rub in that this song will play on the radio to wake her up and then remind her that she’s with a cheating husband who doesn’t even help her take care of her kids. Maybe I’m alone in this but no, this is bad.

8...I’m just gonna say it, I never could bring myself to hate child stars. I mean, they’re just kids that are trying the best they can, and hot take: they can actually be good, like one song by a child star on this year-end list: “I Like It” by Sammie. Hell, I never even hated the young Justin Bieber. I mean “Baby”, “One Time”, “Eenie Meenie”, they felt innocent enough to where the songs kinda came across as pretty cute. That said, there does come a point where you can only cut a kid so much slack...

8. Lil Bow Wow f/Xscape - Bounce With Me (YE: #94, PEAK: #20)

Now granted, I still can’t really blame Bow Wow here. I mean, he surprisingly flows on this beat well despite sounding like he didn’t go through puberty yet, I’ll give him that. So I’m putting more blame on Jermaine Dupri, the sole credited songwriter on this. The production, well okay, the beat combined with the synths isn’t bad, not very memorable but it’s fine. But then the lyrics...and oh boy. It’s standard hip hop flexing mixed with many references to how he’s a kid...and am I the only one who thinks this just feels so awkward? Seriously, there’s lines here about him flexing his Mickey Mouse chain . This feels like something that middle schoolers in my area would make, and I wouldn’t give those a pass, and I certainly am not giving this one a pass either. Well, there is a line about him imagining what life would be like when he’s older, and he pictures himself rich and surrounded by chicks, and I mean, props to him because he had quite a few more hits throughout the 2000s and he did become famous and probably even was surrounded by chicks. And he does have hits that are quite good as well, yeah you’re good Bow Wow. Seriously, this still sucks though.

7...So from what I can see, 2000 was the year that was arguably when boy bands were able to see the most success. And on principle, I don’t hate boy bands. In fact, if I’m being honest, I usually like them more often than not. I mean I like One Direction and “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys is a classic and I will stand by that. There’s a certain charm to the cheesiness of those songs that I like. But I do have a line that I have to draw...and this song crosses it...

7. Westlife - Swear It Again (YE: #75, PEAK: #20)

The boring songs are the worst types of songs to put on these lists. That’s really because even though they’re not good, they’re just so unstimulating so you can barely even talk about them. Like, other awful songs here are able to stimulate me at least and give me something to say at least, but “Swear It Again” is just so mind-numbing, it’s a chore to listen to because there isn’t anything good or bad to it! Well, I guess points to Westlife for sounding sincere enough on this song, and I’m sure if this was used in context of some Disney movie or some shit I’d appreciate it more. But “Swear It Again”’s big problem is that it’s too cheesy! And with Westlife’s sincere delivery it makes the whole song aggressively sappy and lame. Look, this is what I assume people who hate boy bands on principle hear in every song by a boy band, this is a snooze.

6...Can I justify liking “Hey Soul Sister” and not liking this? Probably not, but whatever.

6. Train - Meet Virginia (YE: #70, PEAK: #20)

Look, I don’t hate “Hey Soul Sister” nearly as much as everyone else does. Is it worse than this song on an objective level? Yeah, but I don’t know, “Hey Soul Sister” was at least pretty cute in its stupidity, can’t say the same with this. The central idea of this song is about Pat Monahan describing a woman that he’s always wanted to meet. Not a bad premise on its own, and given that everything else about this song feels pretty generic the lyrics feel like the central focus in this song, but these lyrics really highlight how bizarre Pat Monahan’s songwriting can get. I mean it doesn’t get as bad as “I’m so gangsta, I’m so thug”, but still, we have lines like this one:

“she smokes a pack a day, wait that's me, but anyway”

...what? There’s also other lines about how this girl likes to exercise with her high-heels on and will steal and not confess to it...yeah no, I don’t think I wanna meet Virginia anymore.

5...But circling back to the feeling of boredom that I’ve brought up several times throughout these entries thus far…

5. Smash Mouth - Then The Morning Comes (YE: #48, PEAK: #11)

There’s a reason “All Star” was the Smash Mouth song that has stuck around instead of this. Frontman Steve Harwell sounds awful, his voice sounds like razor blades on a chalkboard on this. The synths and the guitars sound so poorly mixed and they make the song sound ugly. Seriously, this song is just mind-numbing and painful to sit through pretty much all because of those two elements. Yeah, this ain’t good.

4...Have you ever come across a song that tries to convey an emotion but then fails so hard that you are kinda just left in awe? Like, not even somehow accidentally conveying another emotion, I mean that it tries to convey an emotion but so many missteps are taken to the point where there literally isn’t any emotion in it. Ladies and gentlemen, exhibit A…

4. Kid Rock - Only God Knows Why (YE: #67, PEAK: #19)

Yeah, “Only God Knows Why” is the type of song where every single misstep taken just leaves you questioning “why did you do this?”. Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: that autotune is hideous. I’d say this is what would happen if 100 gecs tried to make a ballad, but honestly, that’d be an insult to 100 gecs because their music exploded with personality that this lacks. That autotune makes me feel like this is supposed to just be a parody of dull ass adult contemporary music. But that isn’t what this song is going for, it’s trying to be a heartfelt song about Kid Rock’s struggles with fame, hell Kid Rock apparently wrote the first four lines when he was in jail. So he’s trying to be completely serious in this song! But that autotune, not only does it sound hideous and gets even worse distorted at times, but it also makes any emotion that Kid Rock tries putting into this song just vanish! So instead, we have a lifeless turd that goes on for way too long. It’s an absolutely dreadful listen that is less a song and more of an endurance test to see who can go the longest without wanting to jump out the nearest window. And I sat through this lifeless sludge like 4 times just to write this review. End my suffering.

3...apparently this next artist actually said that he was initially reluctant to release this song because he didn’t think it showcased his full talents as an artist. But since it became arguably the biggest song of his career, he was grateful that he decided to release it.

Why didn’t you just listen to your reluctance and just spare us all...

3. Mystikal - Shake Ya Ass (YE: #68, PEAK: #13)

Let me deal with Pharrell Williams’ uncredited vocals quickly: I don’t like his voice here. Like, something about it feels so limp and weak on this song in particular and I don’t know why. But now onto the rest of the song, and can you guys tell that Mystikal only wrote one verse for this song and then half-assed the other ones? He consistently sounds lost and is actively struggling with trying to come up with words or something to say and his flow is absolutely terrible. And is it worth my time to even dig into the lyrics in this? The song is essentially about Mystikal telling this girl to shake her ass. Actually, not telling, more like yelling. Like, this is so aggressive and it kinda gets really uncomfortable to hear this dude screaming at this girl about how he wants to “get under that dress right there” or how he “been beatin that pussy up now it's smooth fuckin”. And am I supposed to believe that any of this is consensual when in real life he’s had numerous charges involving sexual battery, extortion, and rape!? Yeah, this would’ve made the list regardless of those charges, but they are just the icing on the cake here. The least I can say is that at least the production is good, and even then Mystikal’s loud as hell rapping ruins it anyway. It’s awful, moving on.

2...But moving away from uncomfortable to just plain embarrassing for every person involved…

2. Sisqo - Thong Song (YE: #14, PEAK: #3)

Sisqo said that the first time he actually saw a thong his hair actually turned white from awe and it really shows in this song. He literally sounds like he saw a piece of underwear at all for the first time. I’m fairly certain that he doesn’t actually want the girl but the underwear itself. Not to mention that he for some reason got an entire fucking orchestral arrangement and a key change for this song, as if this song is essentially a shrine to the underwear now. This is just embarrassing for everyone involved, I feel embarrassed actually listening to it write now or even talking about it, even on a worst list. Apparently Sisqo actually tried to get Lil Kim on this song but she declined, just as I’m saying: everyone who listens to this song actively feels embarrassed. And I was tempted to put this song at #1 based on that alone. But it is just a joke song in the end, and if it were released today it would’ve been absolutely memed to death and maybe I’d like it more on that merit alone. So what actually did take my top spot?

1...Going into this list, I had no clue what would end up being my #1. As I said in the intro, 2000 may have been pretty uninteresting as a whole, but very, very, very few songs actually dipped to being outright terrible. And by “very few”, I mean literally just this song. This was the only song that I found to be terrible on this year-end list, I’m not joking. “Thong Song” and “Shake Ya Ass” were close, but the former is just a joke song and the latter at least has good production which, well it doesn’t exactly knock them into quality because they’re still bad, but at least it keeps them from being worse. This song, though, doesn’t have that; instead, it’s a perfect encapsulation of the theme of “boredom” that ran rampant through this worst list. So what could it be?

Okay, let’s not waste time anymore, I gave this dishonor to Creed.

1. Creed - With Arms Wide Open (YE: #36, PEAK: #1)

So Creed is a band that was pretty much hated by half the country. I’ll admit I can’t really form a stance on Creed since I’ve barely listened to any of their songs outside of the stuff that made the year-end lists for the 2000s, but while I’ll admit to kinda liking their other hit this year “Higher”, “With Arms Wide Open” is a dreadful, absolutely mind-numbing song. Sure, I respect the sentiment behind this, Scott Stapp singing a song dedicated to his first child saying that he’ll show them everything, it’s a sweet enough sentiment and I’m sure this song means a lot to him. That said, I can respect a sentiment while also saying that the song is pretty awful. The production is so overblown and dramatic and an absolute sludge to sit through. It’s dramatic but with no intensity, which just makes it such a boring slog. Oh yeah and Scott Stapp’s voice sounds absolutely terrible on this song, he doesn’t enunciate and he sounds like he’s singing while choking on a gallon of milk. Even his then-wife reportedly started to get repulsed by this song after all the overplay - which should say a lot. Look, again, I’m sure this song means a lot to Scott Stapp and I don’t want my opinions to invalidate any personal connection one may have to a song, but to me, this perfectly sums up the bad parts of the worst songs of this year - boring, cheesy, and tedious mush where the more you listen to it, the worse it gets. “With Arms Wide Open” by Creed is the worst hit song of 2000, without question.

But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed reading through the first list I made in nearly half a year, especially since this was quite possibly the most tedious list I’ve ever had to write, but trying to critique bad music that isn’t even interestingly bad will do that to you. Gonna start writing my best list soon, so stay on the lookout for that, but until then, you’ve been reading Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes, and take care.