The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs Of 2002

 

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2002

In the following article, I take a look at one of the best years of the 2000s for the Hot 100 and look at the songs that hold it back from being the absolute best.

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 2002!

So unlike the previous two years of the 2000s, 2002 is not uninteresting, it was quite great!! Honestly, it’s one of the best years of the 2000s for the hits, where even most of the songs on this list are more mediocre or boring than outright bad! That said, that doesn’t make it immune to bad songs at all, as we’ll investigate in this list.

Pop delivered excellence, rock held mostly good to great quality, and hip hop and rap delivered a lot of classics! All while the 90s trends were getting pushed out and teen pop started to collapse. 2002 is definitely a very great year with the good songs being fantastic, so now, let’s look at the songs that hold this back from being the absolute best year of the 2000s. There were 20 songs here that were mediocre or worse, including the 2001 repeats. As a rule, the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 in 2002 in order to qualify, that said though, none of the 2001 repeats would’ve made this list, so let’s get things started with our dishonorable mentions!

DM #1: Diddy f/Loon & Usher - I Need A Girl (Part One) (YE: #15, PEAK: #2)

This is mainly here because it bored me, I mean I know that the 90s trends continued into the early 2000s, but were we really willing to eat up even the most uninteresting R&B songs at the time? Nothing else much to say, this is just mid, next!

DM #2: Diddy f/Loon, Ginuwine, Mario Winans, & Tammy Ruggieri - I Need A Girl (Part Two) (YE: #18, PEAK: #4)

And yes, both part 1 AND part 2 both made this list! And just like the first part, this is boring and none of the artists here are elevating it to being interesting! Bad sign when the most notable part I found about this song was the line “Someone who truly understands/How to treat a man” which just rubs me the wrong way. Plus, the beat is really weak. With that annoying percussion and the simply dreadful sounding...I think it’s a synth, I have no idea what that is honestly but it just makes me cringe at its sound.

DM #3: LL Cool J - Luv U Better (YE: #73, PEAK: #4)

Another not really bad song, rather it’s just aggressively mediocre. LL Cool J isn’t that engaging as a performer and the beat isn’t interesting enough to back him up.

DM #4: Puddle Of Mudd - Blurry (YE: #10, PEAK: #5)

This definitely is not the worst song I’ve heard from this band, we’ll get to that in a future list, that’s all I’ll say. But this is still mediocre, Wes Scatlin doesn’t have a good voice in his ripping off of Nirvana and the production just sounds lifeless and generic. Nothing else to say here.

DM #5: Michael Jackson - Butterflies (YE: #63, PEAK: #14)

Pretty flaming hot take here, but this is dreadful to me, Michael Jackson’s falsetto here sounds extremely grating, and for a song about how your partner gives you butterflies, it sounds so lifeless, Michael Jackson doesn’t sound all that lovestruck here and it the song’s production just drones on and on, the melody isn’t even interesting, I’m sorry, this is mid and one of MJ’s worst songs.

DM #6: B2K - Uh Huh (YE: #90, PEAK: #37)

Yet another mediocre song, the boys in B2K have no presence here and the “uh huh”’s are annoying. Nothing else to say here, let’s move on.

DM #7: Shakira - Whenever, Wherever (YE: #90, PEAK: #37)

Probably a flaming hot take, and honestly, I get the appeal of this, the production is pretty breezy and Shakira has a lot of personality here, and trust me this isn't her worst at all, given she would later release “GIRL LIKE ME” with the Black Eyed Peas in 2021 which is so much worse than this, but onto this song, this is honestly only here because of the English translated lyrics, I’m sure this song would be beautiful in Spanish and I honestly would’ve gotten onboard with this song but, then the lyric “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble/So you don't confuse 'em with mountains” comes and it’s just so bad, I’m sorry

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

10...No, if I want a stalker anthem I’ll just stick with “Every Breath You Take” by The Police...

10. Enrique Iglesias - Escape (YE: #57, PEAK: #12)

This is just mediocre, but it rubs me the wrong way which sealed it a spot on the list proper, people may come after “Hero” more, but that song is sweet enough to the point where I kinda liked that song, no, it won’t be on the best list, I’ll say that right now, it wouldn’t be eligible anyway, it made the year-end list in 2001, which already disqualifies it, now onto this song, the line “You can run, you can hide/But you can't escape my love” just feels so creepy and with the production being a pretty basic filler dance production, which I suppose is pleasant enough, I’ll give it that much, but that means the lyrics are all I can focus on! And I can’t find it remotely romantic or anything, coming from someone who later in 2011 would make a song literally titled “Tonight, I’m Fucking You”, it just rubs me the worst possible way.

9...Again, why was Ja Rule so big in the early 2000s?...

9. Irv Gotti - Down 4 U (YE: #6, PEAK: #44)

I mean seriously! How many times can you be the worst part of your own song! Ja Rule’s voice sounds horribly unsexy to the point where even if Ashanti’s contributions are kinda pretty, I don’t like this at all. And Vita just sounds so out of place here with her intense delivery not matching with the minimalist laid back production! In short, this is just a mess.

8...So I didn’t really talk about country music in 2002 yet, so, how was it? Well, it existed all right, don’t get me wrong, there were some pretty great songs that came out of that genre this tear, but for the most part, it kinda just existed, that said this is bad...

8. Kenny Chesney - The Good Stuff (YE: #82, PEAK: #22)

I’ve never liked Kenny Chesney. His voice is incredibly flat and he does nothing to elevate most of his work, as is the case here and with the instrumentation being a guitar melody that doesn’t stick out at all, this is a HUGE snooze.

7...Screw you Ja Rule..

7. Jennifer Lopez f/Ja Rule - Ain’t It Funny (Murder Remix) (YE: #13, PEAK: #1)

What’s with all these murder remixes of J. Lo’s songs!? If her hit song last year and this are any indication, they were a bad idea! Ja Rule is once again a bad rapper, and J. Lo is trying to be chill and laid-back in this song but she simply cannot sell it, she sounds so bored here. This is just a disaster, next!

6...You know what 2002 has in common with 2017 for the Hot 100? Both year-end lists are great but both had awful songs top their year-end lists, case in point, this...

6. Nickelback - How You Remind Me (YE: #1, PEAK: #1)

This isn’t the worst thing I’ve heard from Nickelback by any means, but this is still bad nonetheless. From Chad Kroeger’s awful voice to the painfully generic post-grunge production, it makes all too much sense why Nickelback was considered the worst band ever at one point.

5...I briefly mentioned Enrique Iglesias’s “Hero” on this list, this “Hero though, is so much worse than that..

5. Chad Kroeger f/Josey Scott - Hero (YE: #25, PEAK: #3)

This is just a Nickelback song. Once again, Chad Kroeger’s voice is awful and for a son about being a hero, it sounds so so dour. Also, I genuinely didn’t notice Josey Scott was on this song until I checked the song’s credits.

4...Good god, this song is beyond cheesy..

4. Steve Holy - Good Morning Beautiful (YE: #84, PEAK: #29)

This isn’t really bad in an offensive way, but it’s one of those aggressively and mind-numbingly lame songs that don’t stimulate you at all and any anger you have towards it is because it literally bored you to tears! Fuck this sappy ass shit, this is terrible. Next!

3...HEY HEY YOU YOU I DON’T LIKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND, oh shit wrong song...

3. NSYNC f/Nelly - Girlfriend (YE: #33, PEAK: #5)

I feel like Avril Lavigne made her song “Girlfriend” to effectively and rightfully erase this song from everyone’s memory. And Avril’s song is a banger, spoilers for future my best of 2007 list, but this song on the other hand, is terrible, I’ve said before that I find JT the most overrated artist in the music industry and he’s especially unlikeable to me on this song. This song just feels like a nice guy anthem and while “Treat You Better” by Shawn Mendes is at least melodically nice, “Girlfriend” isn’t even that. The guys in NSYNC sound overly persistent in stealing this girl, to the point where they ask her if her boyfriend is even alive to even referencing their biggest hit “Bye Bye Bye”, man any other song, I’d tune it out but it just makes me cringe so badly. And Nelly isn’t even that good here either! His flow is mid at best here and it makes me tune out during his verse. Still not NSYNC’s worst hit this year, well, we’ll get to that.

2...Scott Stapp still sings like he’s choking on a gallon of milk...

2. Creed - One Last Breath (YE: #27, PEAK: #6)

Admittedly, melodically, I find this better than say, “With Arms Wide Open”, but that gets crushed by that absolutely horrendous vocal delivery. Scott Stapp screaming with his inability to enunciate drags this down horribly to being terrible, still not my #1 though.

1...I’m kinda shocked that this song ended up as my worst hit song of 2002, I don’t know what to say, there were  no obvious candidates this year and this kinda wound up as my #1 worst hit song.

1. NSYNC - Gone (YE: #75, PEAK: #11)

I didn’t think this would be my worst hit of 2002 but whatever, this is trash so I don’t really care. This sounds so bleak that it’s insufferable. The melody is just unbearably boring along with the guys in NSYNC whining in agony, but this ultimately was my #1 because it’s the absolute dullest song on the year-end list. Fuck this song and “Gone” by NSYNC is without question the worst hit song of 2002. Spotify playlist is below the article and the best list will be in the works, but until then, You’ve been reading Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes, and I’ll see you next time!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1jJ1WyJiIzXLwGOdgLEDUs?si=a9dc0e2b11d14113