The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2001

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2001

In the following article, I take a look at the followup to an uninteresting year, which was also an uninteresting year, and look at the songs that stood out from it in a bad way.

Hey guys, welcome back to Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes for another year-end list. Today, we’re examining the top 10 worst hit songs of 2001!

I think I need a better intro. That intro just feels so, so, so generic and bland and uninteresting. I feel like anyone could use the intro “hey guys, welcome to [blog/channel], today we’re [topic of post/video]!”. But hey, speaking of uninteresting...

Yeah, 2001 is another boring year, just like its predecessor, 2000. Honestly, though, 2001 is actually worse than 2000. I mean, say what you will about 2000, at least the songs that stuck out from it were excellent and there were a lot of them. Not only does 2001 not have as many excellent or even good songs as 2000, the worst stuff was so much worse. Despite that, again, it’s still not bad enough to be all that interesting of a year, it was just extremely mid. The most interesting thing about 2001 is that its Pulse Music Board Hot 100 rankdown remains to this day one of the most iconic rankdowns to ever happen on that site. So what even happened on the Hot 100 in 2001?

Well, R&B was big again, teen pop was on its way out, post grunge was still growing in popularity, and country...okay country was actually really strong this year, I can’t lie. 2001 is definitely a very boring year, so now, let’s look at the songs that stood out in a bad way for this year. There were 28 songs here that were mediocre or worse, including the 2000 repeats. As a rule, the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 in 2001 in order to qualify, so no, “With Arms Wide Open” by Creed won’t make this list again, so let’s get things started with our dishonorable mentions!

DM #1: Ja Rule f/Lil Mo & Vita - Put It On Me (YE: #30, PEAK: #8)

Why was Ja Rule such a big star in the early 2000s? He’s not a good rapper and his voice sounds terrible. Lil Mo and Vita save this from being outright bad, but this is still mid at best. Oh yeah, and that beat sounds like 5-year-old me trying to play the piano.

DM #2: R Kelly f/Jay-Z - Fiesta (YE: #45, PEAK: #6)

For a song about having a fiesta, it truly is lifeless as hell. Also, fuck R Kelly.

DM #3: Mariah Carey f/Cameo - Loverboy (YE: #80, PEAK: #2)

Jesus Christ, this song sounds like a mess. And it seemed that everyone seemed to agree, since it couldn’t even spend 14 weeks on and received poor airplay. The only reason it was the best-selling single of 2001 was because apparently Mariah Carey discounted the sales price to 50 cents so more people would buy it. Basically, this song is the equivalent to “Yummy” by Justin Bieber. While this is nowhere on the level of atrocious as “Yummy” is, they both were embarrassments for both acts that peaked at #2 thanks to trying to game the system and failing. Take a lesson from BTS next time Mariah...or don’t actually, we don’t need another repeat of “Butter” anytime soon.

DM #4: Mystikal f/Nivea - Danger (Been So Long) (YE: #58, PEAK: #14)

Why is Mystikal yelling? Now, while this song isn’t as bad as “Shake Ya Ass” from the previous year, this is still annoying. Nivea’s hook is okay enough I guess, and the guitar tune is actually kinda nice. But Mystikal is the weakest part of his own song, his voice is so annoying that it drags this song down badly.

DM #5: K-Ci & JoJo - Crazy (YE: #36, PEAK: #11)

That autotune...just why? It doesn’t fit with anything here, the production is dramatic and is trying to be all elegant - which I mean, it isn’t for the record, it’s just an absolute slog - so that autotune just sounds horrible. Oh and the lyrics are terrible too, and I think the line “If you really love me then why are you leavin' me” says it all. Yeah, this is a manipulative as hell song that isn’t even able to be interesting.

DM #6: Crazy Town - Butterfly (YE: #29, PEAK: #1)

The bassline is really sweet, shame it’s wasted with so many dumb lyrics, such as “Fierce nipple pierce, you got me sprung with your tongue ring”, or rhyming real with sex appeal. God, in any other song I’d overlook bad rhymes but this feels so forced that it hurts.

DM #7: Shaggy f/Rayvon - Angel (YE: #17, PEAK: #1)

I sleep. This is super boring and neither Rayvon nor especially Shaggy sound like they’re remotely interested in putting anything into this. Yawn.

And on that note, let’s get to the list proper...

10...So teenagers have long been a major driving force in the music industry and have helped majorly in propelling songs to success. I mean, I can’t imagine many soccer moms rocking to “abcdefu” by GAYLE. But here’s the thing, until 2005, digital downloads didn’t count towards the Hot 100, and many of the teens in 2001 were using digital downloads but since Billboard is slow to change any of their rules, the songs that dominated the year-end lists just felt so...waiting room core. In that they were just pleasant and inoffensive enough to slip by, one such example of that being hip hop that was just tame enough to where no one would raise their eyebrows and object to them. Case in point...

10. Trick Daddy - I’m A Thug (YE: #89, PEAK: #17)

This song doesn’t even have a Wikipedia article, it’s that forgotten. And judging by where it landed on this list, I’d say it’s pretty justified. First off, this song literally has a children’s choir singing the chorus of this song. And I just have to ask: why? If I had to assume, it was an attempt to be the most “badass” one could possibly be while simultaneously being the safest and lamest thing ever, as evidenced by the “uh huh oh yeah” at the end of the chorus which sounds like it’s trying to be cool and absolutely failing. No one here is able to remotely sell the idea that being a “thug” is a cool lifestyle. Oh yeah and then Trick Daddy goes the other direction and says “fuck the family of the victim”.  It’s just a bad mess of a song that’s rightfully been forgotten, next!

9...I got my peaches out in Georgia (oh, yeah, shit)

I get my weed from California (that's that shit)

I took my chick up to the North, yeah (badass bitch)

I get my light right from the source, yeah (yeah, that's it)

Justin Bieber’s song about peaches is better than the one on the 2001 year-end list...

9. 112 - Peaches & Cream (YE: #20, PEAK: #4)

There’s not much to say about this one. The production sounds bad, with that distorted as hell bass and the beeps that sound annoying as hell. The song is trying to be sexy and absolutely failing. The lyrics alternate between the uncomfortable “girl you taste so good to me” to “girl you are tasty”, and none of the guys in 112 can back up the stupidness of any of the rest of the lyrics. It’s just really annoying and pathetically unsexy.

8...I’m pretty sure you guys know about “separating the art from the artist”, just judging the art without any context of what horrible things the artist has done. In music, this admittedly gets a bit complicated. I’d like to think that I’m able to separate the art from the artist pretty damn well most of the time, but there are moments where it feels impossible, because knowing about the context of why a certain piece of art was created can completely alter the way you feel about a song. For example, “Deuces” by Chris Brown may sound decent but it’s impossible for me to listen to this without knowing the context behind it. So, if you want an artist where I feel like it’s genuinely impossible for me to actually separate the art from the artist, even for the songs from him that I actually like...

8. R Kelly - I Wish (YE: #87, PEAK: #14)

Well, one of them would be 6ix9ine, but let’s be real, he’s a troll and hasn’t ever made something even remotely of quality anyway. R Kelly’s allegations just completely tainted my opinion on his music, even the songs I like from him I just feel really guilty when I listen to them. Honestly, I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not, it may be, but I’m just saying, R Kelly’s recent allegations make a children’s choir all the more uncomfortable. This is just boring at best other than that, but this just doesn’t sit well with me. Ugh.

7...So back at #10, I was talking about a rap song that had a children’s choir. Now here, let’s get a rap song that’s literally by a child...

7. Lil Romeo - My Baby (YE: #74, PEAK: #3)

Poor kid. Lil Romeo isn’t a very good rapper, but you can only get so mad at him because he was literally 11 when he released this. Basically, thanks to his dad owning No Limit Records at the time, this kid got signed and he managed to get a year-end hit before he even became a teenager - he was literally in 5th or 6th grade when this was a hit. Basically, this was a hit on nepotism. Now, my problem isn’t really the production, I really like “I Want You Back” by The Jackson 5 so this song sampling it isn’t gonna bother me that much. No, my biggest turnoff is Ms Peaches, and from tons of searching on the internet I don’t know if she even exists, but she is the female voice on this song. So there’s an adult woman on the hook that’s singing about how she wants to be this 11-year-old boy’s girlfriend - did no one in the studio question this at all? And the fact that Lil Romeo seems to be embracing all of it, there’s literally a lyric that goes “Got girls passin notes tryin to be my wife/Got grown women, wantin to be in my life”. There’s a lyric here about the fact that if they call him Romeo, she’ll be his “Juliet”, y’all do realize that that book ended in both characters dying, right? And again, this is so cringeworthy, there’s a line where Lil Romeo flexes his Bugs Bunny chain. Look, this is absolutely embarrassing and I dearly hope that Romeo has moved on from this, because just...no.

6...Again, it says a lot about how utterly safe most of the music from 2001 was that a song that’s literally subtitled “Murder Remix” sounds like an actual nursery rhyme...

6. Jennifer Lopez f/Ja Rule - I’m Real (Murder Remix) (YE: #5, PEAK: #1)

The murder remix of “I’m Real” was #1 the week of 9/11...yikes, unfortunate timing. Well, when the song hit #1 obviously doesn’t change the fact that this song is really bad. As I said before, for a song that’s literally the “murder remix”, it sounds aggressively safe and lame, with the nursery rhyme cadence and the farting synth. Also, Ja Rule once again is terrible at rapping, but my focus here is on J Lo. I’m just gonna be brutally honest, for a song that’s about how “real” you are, this is the fakest and phoniest shit I’ve ever heard. She is so checked out on this song and I don’t remotely buy the fact that she’s “real” in any way, she barely does anything to sell that! And then she proceeds to drop the n-word and now I’m just about done trying to put up with this shit. It’s a boring ass phony as hell song that has rightfully been forgotten.

5...Of all the songs on this list, this is probably the one that’s the most surprising. I mean, I feel that it’s easy to see this song as just another nothing special adult contemporary bore in the sea of them. And yet...

5. Diamond Rio - One More Day (YE: #86, PEAK: #29)

On the surface, “One More Day” is just a dull song, but it isn’t something that would place this high on this list. And yeah, it’s hard to not see this as just another boring AC song that’s just been lost to time. But “One More Day” just gets way worse for me on the basis of being so cheesy and not even being able to be interesting in it. Let’s get the obvious out of the way: this is the definition of snoozefest. It starts off with just acoustic guitar and piano, but it doesn’t build up beyond that. There is so little going on in this mix that it becomes actively insufferable. It’s an irritating mellow that seems to never end. Not to mention just how cheesy this song is. The song is about how our narrator had a dream where he got one wish, and he would wish it for one more day with his former partner, but he knows better, because that’ll leave him just wanting for one more day with her yet again. It’s not a bad premise for a song, but the incredibly whiny vocals combined with the absolute nothingness of the production make this so boring that it becomes actively insufferable. And with how I don’t recall ever hearing this song prior to researching this year-end list, I’m pretty sure this was too boring even for AC stations to handle.

4...This next artist is one that vanished off the radar fast, this is her only year-end hit. And, I’m not joking, her reasoning as to why her followup to this flopped was that 9/11 stole the attention of the song. And, also not joking, one of her like 5 singles is literally called “Sexy Sex Obsessive”. I think that should say it all...

4. Willa Ford f/Royce Da 5’9” - I Wanna Be Bad (YE: #84, PEAK: #22)

I’m just gonna say it, the lyric “I wanna be bad” just sounds so cringey here. I’m not entirely sure why it sounds like that here, considering I like MGK and Camila Cabello’s “Bad Things”, but if I could guess anything, I’d probably point to that hideous autotune. Seriously, it drowns out the personality that Willa Ford brings that could’ve salvaged this. Granted, she isn’t really helping things out here, considering the fact that she is serving “we have Britney Spears at home”. I’ll quote Wikipedia: “In a 2017 interview with Billboard, Ford stated that although she did not dislike manufactured popstars such as Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson, she was not this type of person and wanted to let people know this fact with "I Wanna Be Bad"”...yeah nice try, but you’re not fooling me that easily, if you told me Britney Spears sung this instead, I probably would’ve believed you. Willa Ford is saying she wants to be bad, turns out she ended up being worse than bad, because this is absolutely terrible, next!

3...So you probably know that my worst hit song of 2021 was “BANG!” by AJR. And don’t get me wrong, the song is still atrocious to me, but note the key word “hit”. There were plenty of worse songs that charted on the Hot 100 in 2021 than that song, it’s just that everyone seemed to agree that they were too atrocious to make them stick around. One of them would be “Am I The Only One” by Aaron Lewis, basically Aaron Lewis bitching about how the left was destroying America, including Bruce Springsteen of all people, which would’ve without a doubt been my worst hit song of 2021 had it became a hit, hell some critics actually consider it a hit under their qualifications - it literally made the top 20 on the Hot 100 and rightfully crashed off the week after. Just so you know though, before Aaron Lewis turned country, he was frontman of the post-grunge band Staind. Were they any good? Well...

3. Staind - It’s Been Awhile (YE: #14, PEAK: #5)

Even in the post-grunge scene, Staind was actively being mocked by other bands. I think that should say a lot, really, and “It’s Been Awhile” is enough to convince me of why. Now look, I respect the fact that this song is about getting past your struggles, with Aaron Lewis mentioning it’s been a while since he could hold his head high, or say he wasn’t addicted, or say he loves himself, I respect that. But here’s my problem: Aaron Lewis just cannot sell the fact that he has overcome his struggles. His delivery is lifeless, monotone, and dreadful, which yeah, it’s better than the Lewis Capaldi-esque yowling he did on “Am I The Only One”, but it doesn’t help him sound convincing at all. It doesn’t help that the instrumental sounds so dull and sour. It doesn't sound like a song you’d play when you overcome harsh struggles, it sounds drab, not being able to remotely sell its central idea and not something I can see myself willing to listen to at all at any point, it sounds absolutely miserable. It isn’t the worst post-grunge song to become a hit in the 2000s by any means - in a future list we’ll get to that - but it’s still lousy as hell. Let’s hope that it’ll be a while before I ever have to hear this ever again.

2...So I did say that most of the music this year was just aggressively safe and waiting room core. There was one big exception to this that went in the complete opposite direction, a song that was very unsafe and was descriptive to an uncomfortable degree...and okay, there was no way this song wasn’t making this list...

2. QB Finest f/Nas & Bravehearts - Oochie Wally (YE: #98, PEAK: #26)

I would not at all be surprised nor could I blame anyone if they called this the worst hit song of 2001. It’s a nauseatingly filthy song that seems to go into disgustingly descriptive detail about orgasms, from “he really really made me scream and shout” to “he really taught me how to do it with my mouth” to “you hypnotized on how my long dick stretch your insides”, you could almost call this a parody, like this is this so filthy that its over-the-top nature would be enough to wind up liking it ironically. And while I’ll admit to getting a bit of a laugh out of the girl in this song saying “he really really really fucked my coochie” with that ridiculous delivery, the biggest issue here that keeps me from liking it ironically is that godawful production. I have no clue who recorded that pan flute and made it sound like it’s dying halfway through the loop, but it’s also so high pitched that it’s painful. And then they decide to actually raise its pitch at random points!? And one more thing, is anyone sounding like they’re having any fun? Or at least remotely attempting to make this feel more ridiculous or funny? This is irritating as hell, and could’ve very well been the worst hit song of 2001, with one exception.

1...You know, if there’s one good thing I can say about 2001, the worst list fell out way faster than 2000 did. And while I didn’t really know what my worst hit song of 2000 would be before writing the list, I was very immediate with this one. Right from the very instant I heard this song when going through the year-end list, I knew right then and there that this song would be a strong contender for my worst hit song of 2001.

Basically...fuck Uncle Kracker.

1. Uncle Kracker - Follow Me (YE: #19, PEAK: #5)

No seriously, fuck this guy, this guy may just be one of my least favorite artists to ever work in music - 6ix9ine wants you to hate him so you can only get so angry at him, Uncle Kracker is actively trying to be a good artist and yet he makes absolute shit music. I fucking hate this dude with every fiber of my being, right down to his fucking stage name, which is just truly...no, WHO THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD STAGE NAME, you couldn’t name a whiter stage name if you tried. And spoiler alert, this will not be his only appearance on these lists, hell it already wasn’t, given that “Smile” made my worst list for 2010. I was more charitable to him in that list, but going through these year-end lists made me realize how much I truly detest his music. Okay, I’ll admit, part of me wanted to be slightly kind to it, the acoustic guitar has an okay groove and it’s kinda chill. But good god, I can’t deny it, this song absolutely repulses me. But first, what is this song even about? Well, I’ve seen people say it’s about cheating, and I’ve seen people say it’s about heroin, Uncle Kracker’s response is literally that it takes on multiple meanings. Well, if that’s the case, then I’m gonna say the very first thing I thought of when I listened to this: in 2007, Uncle Kracker was arrested for a second-degree sex offense charge. Now knowing this, imagine the shock I had when the chorus came: “follow me, everything is alright/I’ll be the one to tuck you in at night/and if you wanna leave, I can guarantee/you won’t find nobody else like me”. I would’ve probably put this song at #1 based on that alone, but I reconsidered...maybe I was overthinking it. So I considered both the heroin and cheating arguments, and yeah they do fit the song’s lyrics, I guess, but does that even matter?! The song is still complete shit! The production is way too light and carefree to have such a dark meaning as that to it, it’s such a jarring tonal dissonance. Plus, Uncle Kracker’s voice is complete garbage, he can’t sing and he doesn’t make this song interesting at all. And no matter what the song is about, it could literally be about swimming with the dolphins under the rainbow for all I care, I absolutely cannot get past “I’ll be the one to tuck you in at night”. Seriously, how does Sam Hunt of all people steal your production for “Body Like A Back Road” and then somehow do it better than you!? So ultimately, no, I wasn’t overthinking this, this song is truly that awful, and with all that, I feel it’s safe for me to make this call: “Follow Me” by Uncle Kracker is easily the worst hit song of 2001. If I want a song about cheating, I’ll just listen to Shaggy and Rik Rok’s “It Wasn’t Me”. And in the end, more people will be listening to that than those who will ever follow Uncle Kracker, and good riddance.

So that’s the list, I know, I got a little angry at the end but hey, sometimes these songs deserve it. Best list will be in the works, and I’m eager to see if anyone has any predictions on how it will turn out. Stay tuned for that, but until then, you’ve been reading Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes, and take care.