The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2007

 

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2007

In the following article, I take a look at a decent year of the 2000s for the Hot 100 and take a look at some of the songs that make it only decent.

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 2007!

So 2007 is a year that I feel kinda serves as a prequel to 2008, crunk was on its way out and the club boom was starting to make its way in, though not nearly as strongly as the following year, and being more present in hip hop and R&B, and post grunge had another pretty bad year. And then country...it was practically absent this year. So with that, let’s get this list started off, there were 32 songs on the Hot 100 year-end list for 2007 that I found mediocre or worse, including repeats from 2006 - and as a reminder of the rule, the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 list for 2007 in order to qualify, so “Far Away” by Nickelback, “SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake, and “Lips Of An Angel” by Hinder are ineligible for this list. So let’s get this shit started as always with our dishonorable mentions!

DM #1: Fabolous f/Ne-Yo - Make Me Better (YE: #44, PEAK: #8)

This song isn’t necessarily bad, but it sure ain’t good. The production, for starters, sounds absolutely dreadful, from those strings sounding like something that would play in a YouTube video when you step on a Lego, seriously they sound dreadful here. And then there’s the first verse where they resort to repeating sounds and it sounds incredibly annoying. This doesn’t so much sound like music that’s supposed to be about how your partner makes you better rather than music you’d play at the funeral of someone whose guts you hate if you were an absolutely horrible person. NEXT!!

DM #2: Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats (YE: #6, PEAK: #8)

Okay, I think it’s safe for me to say that overplay was the biggest reason this song made this list. My AC radio station seems to absolutely adore this song to the point where they overplay it to sickening degrees quite frankly. And yes, the ripoff that spawned 14 years later that is “I Hope” by Gabby Barrett is worse than this by a considerable margin but that doesn’t make this any less mediocre. Yes I do get why the content may be satisfying to see a cheating victim getting revenge on a cheater but honestly, it’s the production that absolutely destroys any enjoyment I could get out of the lyrics, from the minor key notes from the guitar just sounding awful to me and Carrie Underwood’s vocal performance sounding really grating to me, yeah, I know I won’t make any fans for this entry but at this point if you expected good music taste from me, you probably should lower your expectations haha.

DM #3: T-Pain f/Yung Joc - Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin') (YE: #5, PEAK: #1)

Sometimes, T-Pain’s autotuned voice can work to his advantage - see “Low” in 2008, this is certainly not one of those times, because the autotune here makes this an absolute slog to sit through, clashing very badly with the minimalist R&B production and not remotely matching the atmosphere that this song is creating. But somehow, Yung Joc sounds even worse!! His verse is forgettable at best and so non-distinct, at least you can recognize T-Pain’s voice here, as bad as it is in this song, no, this is a bad song, NEXT!!

DM #4: Plies f/T-Pain - Shawty (YE: #60, PEAK: #9)

Yuck, Plies sounds awful here and that production sounds very grating too, with the flimsy and dated sounding synths and again, T-Pain’s autotune really doesn’t work here. If this and “Buy U A Drank (Shawty Sippin’)” are any indication, T-Pain’s autotune just does NOT work on R&B songs, this is a bad song, there’s a reason this song was forgotten, NEXT!!

DM #5: Snoop Dogg f/R Kelly - That’s That Shit (YE: #99, PEAK: #20)

I could just say that the intro to this is quite possibly the worst intro of all time and leave it at that but I do have other reasons for finding this song bad, there’s obviously the repulsive, unlikeable presence of R fucking Kelly and Snoop Dogg sounds extremely out of place here, and that reference to “Drop It Like It’s Hot” just feels so forced, and then we get that production which sounds utterly lifeless with the synth horns (I think that’s what those are?) sounding nothing close to sexy or anything. And that “thaaaaat’s thaaaaaaaat (shit)” just sounds super grating to me, maybe because of R Kelly being the one singing it but still, very annoying.  Bad song, only saved from the list proper because outside of that intro it’s not worth putting that much energy into hating this.

DM #6: Unk - Walk It Out (YE: #30, PEAK: #10)

Part of me kinda wants to be charitable to this song because Unk has tons of energy and personality here, which yeah, kept it off the list proper, but that delivery is also extremely annoying, not helped by the nothingness of the production, consisting of only synths and handclaps and that synth progression becomes grating in record time. There’s a reason no one remembers this song or this artist, for that matter.

DM #7: Unk - 2 Step (YE: #78, PEAK: #24)

Ed Sheeran outsold. This song is basically crunk that has no idea what made crunk music good, Unk is at best an amateur rapper and even that’s probably being generous because from his constant repetition of the reference to “Gettin Jiggy Wit It” by Will Smith which I don’t even like as is to his lack of any discernible technique, that’s already getting into pretty rough territory, but then there’s the awful production, with the poorly mixed synths being the only thing you can hear in this mix! And that forces you to pay attention to Unk’s horrible rapping, bad song, there’s a reason this song was forgotten.

So all those sucked, but now for the garbage proper...

10...So sometimes disappointment will play a factor in these lists, sometimes it won’t, I’ll admit it, I’m a bit inconsistent about that, but yeah, this song? No! Coming from someone who’s only really familiar with “Stereo Hearts” and “Ass Back Home”, both of which I like, Gym Class Heroes? I expected better from you!....

10. Gym Class Heroes f/Patrick Stump - Cupid’s Chokehold (YE: #23, PEAK: #4)

Ok, let me start by saying that I get how this song could be seen as endearing, but Patrick Stump pretty much takes the cake for everything I don’t like about this, I don’t remember his voice being this annoying on his songs with Fall Out Boy like “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down”, what happened here!? But from the annoying ass “Mbabarara”’s and Stump sounding utterly checked out here. And then there’s the production, which sounds soulless with the guitars not having nearly enough pleasant tune or power and the cymbal crashing throughout just feeling very clunky to me. Yeah, bad song, moving on...

9...Wow, 2007 had a lot of noname rappers got one hit and then disappeared off the face of the Earth...

9. MiMS - This Is Why I’m Hot (YE: #16, PEAK: #1)

I bet many of you guys don’t know who MiMS is, this was his only hit, it hit #1 and then this guy basically immediately vanished. And honestly this is only here because of the production, which is a mess of different synths with a mid at best rapper rapping on top of it and then that chorus where like “I Think They Like Me” by Dem Franchize Boyz from the previous year, the chorus sounds like whoever produced this copy-pasted the same take of MiMS saying “this is why I’m hot” over and over badly and it’s amateurish in the most irritating way possible, but then there’s also the lyrics, just MiMS saying that he’s hot even though he’s never had a hit prior to this and he can get a hit by doing basically nothing. Bad song, there’s a reason no one remembers this guy or this song, but if there’s one consolation I can give him, he’s better at predictions than Todd In The Shadows at least - “This is why I'm hot: I don't gotta rap/I could sell a mill sayin' nothin' on the track” - he, no joke, actually did this with this song.

8...Hey, did you guys know that the “Blurred Lines” guy actually had another hit prior to “Blurred Lines”? Was it any good? No!…

8. Robin Thicke - Lost Without U (YE: #48, PEAK: #14)

I recently came to the conclusion that “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke, TI, & Pharrell Williams is my least favorite song of all time, everything about that song utterly infuriates me, now his hit prior to that one isn’t quite as bad as that song, but it’s still terrible. And maybe I’m just penalizing this because this guy is the “Blurred Lines” guy but this song is just annoying either way to me so I’d like to think this song is here on its own merits. Let’s start with the fact that the production is like the whitest possible “R&B” production, it’s nothing except a ukulele. And then there’s Thicke himself, Todd In The Shadows has described Robin Thicke as someone “But if we're really looking at why Robin Thicke imploded so fast and so hard, you have to start with one simple truth. There was just a vibe coming off of him...A mildly, but tangibly repellent vibe. Just something that made people unhappy when he was happy...and happy when he wasn't.” And while I don’t really think that was the case with this song here because Thicke is a very weak performer too, from that very wimpy sounding falsetto that is nothing close to sexy or anything. In short, if I’m lost without this guy, I’d rather be lost.

7...So  Let’s think of songs with the word “fuck” in the title: “Tonight (I’m Fucking You)” by Enrique Iglesias and “Fuck You” by CeeLo Green for instance, the latter of these two is pretty good but the former is just creepy, I don’t know who got it in these guys’ heads that something to the extent of “I’m gonna fuck you” is not creepy but whoever it was needs to be fired into the sun, but you know what? At least Enrique’s song is significantly less creepy when you listen to the clean version and production wise it doesn’t make me wanna jump into an active volcano, more than I can say for this pile of horseshit quite frankly...

7. Akon f/Snoop Dogg - I Wanna Fuck You (YE: #8, PEAK: #1)

Even the clean version of this song is fucking gross. Let’s start with Akon, he sounds like what would happen if Jason Derulo tried to sing right after being kicked in the balls and he isn’t able to make this sound remotely sexy at all, though that’s assuming an actually competent performer could pull this off, because the lyrics are downright creepy, it’s just Akon pining over a stripper and wanting to fuck her. And yet saying it in the worst way possible, I already talked about how awful Akon’s delivery here but it feels like he’s stressing the title line so much and it gives me the creeps, plus when you consider some of the things Akon has done, the lyrics get significantly more creepy, oh yeah and Snoop Dogg is here too, and honestly he rides the beat pretty well with a good flow but that reminds me, the beat is skin-crawlingly annoying, just twinkling keys that sound like they came from a music box and it only puts the lyrics and Akon’s annoying vocals to the forefront. Awful piece of shit of a song, one of the worst #1 hits of the 20000s and yet some-fucking-how, there were 6 songs I found worse, oh god...

6...So, hot take, I don’t actually hate “Eenie Meenie” by Sean Kingston from 2010, it’s kinda cute to the point where I didn’t mind the admittedly cringey lyrics, I can’t say the same about his hit from 3 years prior though...

6. Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls (YE: #31, PEAK: #1)

I’ll give this song this much: I get how some may find this song endearing or charming, but the reason I put this here isn’t the production, which contains a pretty harmless sample of “Stand By Me” by Ben E King, no, the reason I don’t think this works is because of Sean Kingston whose vocals remind me of a bad cross between Akon and T-Pain. I don’t know, maybe I’m being too harsh on this? But Why this is higher than “I Wanna Fuck You”? Well, at the very least as bad as Akon’s vocals are on that song, it’s better than the ripoff and Snoop Dogg’s flow and voice are fine enough there.

5...Oh look, another rapper who got only one hit this year and disappeared off the face of the Earth right after!...

5. Hurricane Chris - A Bay Bay (YE: #56, PEAK: #7)

This sounds like a ripoff of a ripoff. Hurricane Chris sounds like a Chingy ripoff, and Chingy as  is sounds like a Nelly ripoff! And that’s before the production which in true overexposed crunk fashion, sounds really cheap and is a mess of flat synths with no discernible melody and all of this outs the attention on the “A Bay Bay” gimmick which gets annoying in record time. Terrible song, there’s a reason no one remembers this guy or this song, NEXT!!

4...Oh my god, I feel like on this list alone I’ve put like 10 of these songs already and I think I’m running out of things to say...

4. Huey - Pop, Lock, & Drop It (YE: #34, PEAK: #6)

Ok, let me start off by saying that I don’t mean any disrespect to Huey for putting this song so high on this list, I honestly didn’t know until just now that apparently he died back in June 2020. Rest in peace. That said, this song is still an annoying migraine to sit through. From the mess of synths with again, no discernible melody and that car alarm sounding-chime and Huey not having nearly good enough personality to make this work. Terrible song, RIP Huey, but this doesn’t stop the song from being a migraine.

3...Between this and Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” in 2019 can artists just stay away from “The Sound Of Music”?...

3. Gwen Stefani - Wind It Up (YE: #83, PEAK: #6)

The yodeling is straight up ear torture. But then there’s Gwen Stefani’s sing-rapping which sounds atrocious and it may be due to The Neptunes’ minimalist production putting all the attention on that. But then there’s the strings which genuinely make this song sound like a Satanic ritual. It’s not worse than Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” because in the end it is still basically a novelty and I’ve never seen anyone willingly defend this, but make no mistake, both songs have one thing in common: they’re baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad missteps for both artists that sample “The Sound Of Music”. There’s a reason this is only remembered to be mocked in hindsight. Bye.

2...So I didn’t really touch on post-grunge from 2007 in this list yet, you could probably make the argument that next to the overexposed crunk it was probably up there as one of the biggest genres in 2007, and thus we’re stuck with shit like this...

2. Hinder - Better Than Me (YE: #97, PEAK: #31)

It’s not worse than “Lips Of An Angel” but it’s honestly only not worse by a hair. Austin John Winkler’s voice continues to be the absolute worst, if you’re trying to come off as more sensitive, then why are you screaming in agony on the chorus? It just feels extremely off. And let’s just be blunt, “I really miss your hair in my face/And the way your innocence tastes” just feels so uncomfortable in so many ways I'd rather not explain. And then the production, which is just generic post grunge that is also stripped back enough to try and come off as more sensitive but  because Winkler’s vocals sound  horrendous here, it just doesn’t work, he isn’t being subtle, he’s screaming like someone stabbed him. So yeah, Hinder is just the worst, nothing new here, so what could possibly be worse?

 

1...So, chances are you’ve heard that Hinder song before and are currently scratching your heads as to what I possibly found worse than it, well here’s what I chose as my worst hit song of 2007: a band that is so generic that even when they try to switch it up a little, they still sound generic...

1. Nickelback - Rockstar (YE: #36, PEAK: #6)

Okay, a song being generic alone usually wouldn’t be enough to top my worst list, but here’s the thing: “Rockstar” to me, represents Nickelback, on top of the world at this point trying to do something different by making a satire song but still being too generic and awful to do it successfully. I can’t believe I have to comparatively praise this song, but at least “Freaky Friday” by Lil Dicky was easy to  tell is novelty, no “Rockstar” isn’t worse than that song because “Freaky Friday” was made in bad taste, but here “Rockstar” is so hard to tell is supposed to be satire because Chad Kroeger’s voice is really ugly and basically the same as in any Nickelback song, it just feels like he’s earnestly singing this, and that takes us to the content which, if you don’t know this is supposed to be satire, comes off like Kroeger is still wishing for better things despite being frontman of arguably the biggest band at the time and it’s insufferable...their signifier of this rockstar life is gold diggers being VIP at a movie? But then there’s the production, which is soulless even for a Nickelback song, the melody has no life in it at all and quite frankly just seems to irritate you more by not stimulating the listener. Even ChatGPT hates this song: “‘Rockstar’ by Nickelback is a prime example of everything that is wrong with mainstream rock music. The song is a cheesy, formulaic anthem that seems to be pandering to the lowest common denominator. The lyrics are superficial and self-indulgent, featuring a laundry list of clichéd rock star tropes that add nothing to the overall message of the song. The instrumentation is equally uninspired, with a generic chord progression and an overly polished production that lacks any real grit or edge. The vocals are grating and monotone, with little variation or nuance.” Overall, "Rockstar" is a forgettable, disposable piece of music that does nothing to advance the genre or showcase any real talent or creativity. If you're looking for genuine, innovative rock music, look elsewhere.” In other words, “Rockstar” is an atrocity even by Nickelback’s standards and easily the worst hit song of 2007.

Well anyway, the Spotify playlist will be below the article as always and the best list for this year will be in the works, but until then, you’ve been reading Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes, and I’ll see you!

hSpotify Playlist