The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2008

 

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2008

In the following article, I take a look at one of the best years of the 2000s for the Hot 100 and take a look at some of 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 2008!

So 2008 is a year that is pretty fucking strong all things considered, crunk was on its way out and the club boom was sliding in, now I was far too young to remember anything about 2008, but I found a quote from Spectrum Pulse’s best of 2009 list that explains this transition between crunk on the club boom very well: “it was impossible to not see [2008] as a year of reckless abandon: the economy had crashed, most of [his] generation was broke, and if [they] didn't have money, [they] were going to party as if [they] did - it might have seemed bleak, but [he] [thinks] a lot of [them] were riding the contact high that came from a new president and a desperate desire to believe in hope... even if that contact high would lead to incoherent silliness and a hangover [they'd] only halfheartedly regret.” and post grunge had yet another pretty bad year. And then country...once again, it was practically absent this year. So with that, let’s get this list started off, there were 30 songs on the Hot 100 year-end list for 2008 that I found mediocre or worse, including repeats from 2007 - and as a reminder of the rule, the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 list for 2008 in order to qualify, so “Kiss Kiss” by Chris Brown and T-Pain is ineligible for this list. So let’s get this party started as always with our dishonorable mentions!

DM #1: Trey Songz - Can’t Help But Wait (YE: #86, PEAK: #14)

For the most part, these dishonorable mentions are more mid than bad but that doesn’t make this song any less worthy of making this list. The production is very boring which forces you to pay attention to the lyrics, which fit squarely in the mold of trying to steal someone’s girl, and Trey Songz just comes off as insincere here to me, saying that he’ll wait for this girl to realize he’s the better option, and saying he’ll treat this girl better than this guy does. Other than that, this is just forgettable at best, not worthy of that much attention honestly.

DM #2: Lil Wayne f/Bobby V & Kidd Kidd - Mrs. Officer (YE: #91, PEAK: #16)

This is a song that I’ve seen get criticism for the lyrics, and yeah, they’re definitely cringey, but honestly what pushed this on the list was those grating “Wee-ooh-wee-ooh-wee”’s courtesy of Bobby V. But that’s not to excuse such horribly offensive lyrics like “Rodney King, baby, yeah I beat it like a cop”...yikes dude, really? And then there’s Lil Wayne’s delivery, I just can’t stand his vocals here. This song is not funny nor is it clever, NEXT!!!

DM #3: Rick Ross f/T-Pain - The Boss (YE: #84, PEAK: #17)

For a song about how much of a boss you are, wooooooow this fails epically, with the production just consisting of synths with no intensity or firepower to match Rick Ross’s forceful delivery, and then there’s T-Pain, whose autotuned hook strips away any intensity he could possibly have, this just fails as a song, NEXT!!

DM #4: The-Dream f/Young Jeezy - I Luv Your Girl (YE: #75, PEAK: #20)

This song is just super icky, from the skin-crawling production with the dark synths that are so muted that you can barely discern a melody to the awful vocal delivery, with The-Dream having no charisma on this song and making those I’s in particular extremely grating and then there’s the line “Wife beater with the denim” which immediately turned me off the song and I’m still unable to get past it (okay, I’ve gone through several more entries as of writing but I’m coming back to this because I just found out it’s apparently synonymous with an undershirt, ah well, this song still sucks ass though and this lyric did in fact turn me off and still does so let’s keep this line here) thanks to the aforementioned vacuum of personality performance given by The Dream. And apparently Young Jeezy is on this track too, honestly I didn’t even notice his performance here and I still don’t know what part he sings here. Bad song, there’s a reason no one remembers this song, next!!

DM #5: Three 6 Mafia f/Project Pat, Young-D, & Superpower - Lolli Lolli (Pop That Body) (YE: #70, PEAK: #18)

I stood up for “Stay Fly” from 2006, but I can NOT stand up for this catastrophe, from the overly repetitive hook of “lolli lolli let me see you pop that body” until nothing in that line sounds like coherent sounds anymore, let alone words. It’s kinda a shame, because I honestly think Juicy J’s flow is pretty solid here and I don’t hate Project Pat’s intensity here either, but yeah, this shit is bad, NEXT!!

DM #6: Plies f/Akon - Hypnotized (YE: #77, PEAK: #14)

What’s with Akon constantly sounding like Jason Derulo if he was kicked in the balls in almost every song I’ve heard from him? Not that Plies is much better here, his performance is utterly forgettable here and he just can’t  match the vibe here, somehow Akon is doing a BETTER job of matching the vibe than him! But the lyrics are pretty cringe here too, they’re basically about Akon and Plies being so dazed at this girl shaking her body - “You got me so hypnotized/The way yo' body rollin' 'round and round/That booty keep bumpin'/Titties just bouncin', up and down”. I mean, it’s not the first nor worst song Akon has made in this territory given “I Wanna Fuck You” exists, but this song is still pretty damn bad. The Notorious B.I.G. outtalented. NEXT!!!!

DM #7: Snoop Dogg - Sexual Eruption (YE: #50, PEAK: #7)

I don’t care what anyone says, the two words “sexual eruption” used together is just disgusting, plus there’s Snoop Dogg, who for some unknown fucking reason is trying to mimic T-Pain by autotune crooning on the hook and god, how do you misuse your own talents this badly!? Yeah, not much else here to say, let’s move on.

So that’s a nice healthy start, but now for the garbage proper...

10...Somehow, “Lolli Lolli” wasn’t even the worst song this year to use the syllables “Lolli”....

10. Lil Wayne f/Static - Lollipop (YE: #4, PEAK: #1)

Why was this one of the top 5 biggest songs of the year? The beat, okay, it’s fine, I’ll give it that much, the bass is pretty nice even if that synth(?) pattern is kinda annoying. But what I can’t excuse is Lil Wayne, who sounds like he’s literally drowning in the autotune! And he sounds genuinely creepy when trying to sing. And then there’s that stuttering throughout the song, which grates on you in record time. And then the content? Um, I’ll leave it to you to figure out what the “lollipop” in this song is referring to, the content is just super creepy all around, and makes me feel like this was a leftover from 2005’s overly horny rap hits. Skip the lollipop, settle for a Reeses instead. Leave this worthless song in the trash, where it belongs.

9...Another one of the top 20 biggest songs of 2008, oh joy...

9. Ray J f/Yung Berg - Sexy Can I (YE: #11, PEAK: #3)

And the creepy hits that we should’ve left in 2005 continue with this one! First thing’s first, Ray J sounds like Chris Brown at his most unlikeable and with the production being so muted, that’s all I can focus on! Aside from that, there’s the annoying “hey”’s. Oh yeah, and Young Berg is on this too, I honestly can’t tell he’s saying anything half the time and when I can discern when he’s rapping, he’s so off the beat that I feel his contributions were supposed to go on a different beat! Yeah, this just sucks, moving on.

8...It’s good to know that even before the Jonas Brothers’ 2019 comeback, they were still absolute shit!…

8. Jonas Brothers - Burnin’ Up (YE: #73, PEAK: #5)

Well, I’ll give this song some credit, it’s not as bad as that atrocity “Sucker” or that trashfire “Only Human” and the production actually isn’t terrible, the guitars actually have some muscle and there’s a decent groove, but what made me put this song on this list is Joe Jonas and even Nick Jonas sound like they’re literally trying to be babies, that weird squeak in the vocals literally sounds like a baby crying, and Big Rob, who I guess had enough dignity to not ask for a credit on this, serves as a just hypeman and yet still somehow manages to run circles around all the Jonas Brothers here! Basically, I’d rather burn up into literal flames from the sun than listen to this terrible ass song. Radio Disney would be ashamed to play this song.

7...This guy both had more and less hits than I thought he did in the 2000s...

7. John Mayer - Say (YE: #60, PEAK: #12)

I’m finding out through these lists that I may dislike John Mayer more than I previously thought. While this song isn’t as bad as something like “Daughters”, this is still terrible, and I can assign most of the blame to the disgusting amount of repetition of the word “say”, to the point where “yuguioghjcugiyfkcngxcuhcuilfcnyukgcnyukjtcngxyujtncgxyfkjgcn” would genuinely sound more coherent than the word itself. The song is about as deep as a puddle, with the only lyric in the chorus being “say what you need to say” being repeated ad nauseum. There’s also the fact that John Mayer sounds absolutely lifeless here. The production is just stock Hallmark or adult contemporary radio fodder that tries to have strings add some swell but it just falls flat. This song was apparently intended for a movie called “The Bucket List”, and trust me when I say this, you’d be better off putting something actually exciting on your bucket list like skydiving or ziplining over putting listening to this on that bucket list, you deserve better.

6...Transitioning from that into quite possibly the most hated song of the entire year...

6. The Pussycat Dolls - When I Grow Up (YE: #49, PEAK: #9)

This song can be summarized in two words: unlistenable noise. And emphasis on “noise”, this barely even sounds like music, right from the start you are hit with around 4.5 minutes of noises just seemingly all smashed together into one big hodgepodge/clusterfuck of unpleasant sounds. I don’t know who this/these Darkchild person/people is/are, but apparently they produced this cacophony, and can I just ask them, do you have ears? There’s no way you could have heard this trainwreck and thought it was a good sound. None of the Pussycat Dolls are even on key in this song, and then there’s the content, which, ugh. Basically, it’s a sarcastic song about what the Pussycat Dolls wanted when they grew up, all while mocking the audience with the “ha ha ha ha”’s and the infuriating line “But be careful what you wish for/'Cause you just might get it” which I take major offense to for reasons I won’t go into here. But the main point of me bringing up that line is that it, in conjunction with the other lines here, implies that nothing bad ever happens to famous people. And given how you could argue credibly that this song killed the Pussycat Dolls’ careers, that line is certainly not true for them. And then there’s the cringy lyric “I wanna have boobies”, oh shit never mind it says “groupies” but quite frankly with how much of a cacophonous wreck this song is, you can cut me some slack for mishearing this right? Yeah, there’s a reason that this is only brought up these days to be hated and quite frankly that would be a stretch of how often this song gets brought up in the first place, good god, how did I find 5 songs worse!?

5...Oh god, I think this’ll be kinda contentious...

5. Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl (YE: #14, PEAK: #1)

I’ve honestly dreaded talking about this song for quite some time now because I was kinda scared of putting my foot in my mouth here. But then I realized all my issues with the song are in the vocals and production - the production consists of painfully dated synths and what sounds like a guitar that clashes horribly with the synths. And then there are those vocals, oh god, Katy sounds like she’s straining to hit every other note. Yeah, I find this song terrible on those grounds alone. I don’t know, I’m not queer, whether or not you think this is queerbaiting or offensive is up to you, it’s not my grounds to tell you whether to enjoy this song or not. I’m just purely stating my opinion. NEXT!!

4...I honestly cannot think of an intro for this, so here’s the entry...

4. Buckcherry - Sorry (YE: #44, PEAK: #9)

Let’s start with this: I cannot buy a “remorseful” power ballad from the same guys who have a song literally called “Crazy Bitch” which honestly may be even worse than this, but there’s also the fact that frontman Josh Todd cannot pull off sincerity to save his life. For crying out loud, even Austin Winkler of Hinder could do a better job here! And then we get the production, which is sludgy post-grunge production with no power and comes off as schmaltzy and it makes this a boring slog to sit through. Then there’s the writing, which is extremely smarmy, lyrics like “And when I see you cry, it makes me want to die” don’t do a great job of convincing me you’re actually sorry here. I can’t believe I’m saying this but even Ruben Studdard had more sincerity in “Sorry 2004”! Utter trash, so what 3 songs are worse?

3...I had a similar experience on my first listen to this song as I did for Uncle Kracker’s “Drift Away” cover from 2003, and even though that song is far more atrocious, that doesn’t stop this from being a trashfire!...

3. Kid Rock - All Summer Long (YE: #85, PEAK: #23)

Yeah, the first time I heard this song several years ago, I may not have been bored to tears like that atrocious Uncle Kracker cover of “Drift Away”, but I was definitely way more than slightly annoyed by it to say the least. That beat for starters is a mashup of “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd and “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon, two songs I don’t like at all, possibly for the petty reason that I only associate them with this trashfire now but fuck it. Then there’s Kid Rock’s dreadfully awful voice that makes me want to fire myself into the sun that shines all summer long. Yeah, this song is a bit of one that creeps up on you how awful it is, and GOD is it shitty, fuck this song, and yet still 2 songs worse than it?

2...Post-grunge in 2008 was kinda a dying genre and I think you could argue that this was the song that killed the genre’s mainstream popularity, and good riddance...

2. Saving Abel - Addicted (YE: #97, PEAK: #20)

Where to even begin with this atrocity? This was utterly painful to listen to the first time I heard it. The production I guess for starters, is as with most post-grunge not named “Wherever You Will Go” by The Calling is sludgy and lacking any firepower whatsoever, and yet even by the standards of post-grunge, this is a slog! Lead singer Jared Weeks is singing this as lifelessly as ever, making this brooding and sludgy production that much more unbearable. And then the content, which is about a bad relationship where the guy only stays with the girl for the sex, and it’s not like I don’t think this premise was dead out the gate, I genuinely like “One More Night” by Maroon 5 from 2012, but here’s what makes “Addicted” fail while that song succeeds: “Addicted” does not have any groove or tightness or even decent vocal performance, yeah “One More Night” is definitely one of Adam Levine’s best vocal performances of the 2010s haha. But yeah, “Addicted” is atrocious, but what’s worse?

 

1...People probably forget that this song was a hit this year, associating it more with 2009 instead, but this was a hit this year! So it’s topping this list by a fucking country mile...

1. Jason Mraz - I’m Yours (YE: #27, PEAK: #6)

I’ll be honest when constructing this list I genuinely wondered if I was being too harsh on this song, like is it really worse than “Addicted” or “All Summer Long”? Okay, I’ll answer my own rhetorical question, yes, it is worse than those songs. I was only partway exaggerating when I said in Pulse Music Board’s Discord server that this song ruined the radio. And even without the radio, I will get back to it later, purely as a song, “I’m Yours” is a dumpster fire, from the generic, boring white-guy-with-acoustic guitar production to Jason Mraz’s obnoxious, insufferable vocal inflections to the half-assed structure of the verses, multiple times in the first verse alone Jason Mraz falls off the beat and it drives me insane. But all of that pales in comparison to that skin-crawling bridge, which genuinely may be one of the worst things I’ve ever heard - “Do you, do, do, do you/But do you, do you, do, do/But do you want to come on?/Scooch on over closer, dear/And I will nibble your ear/A-soon da-ba-ba-ba-ba-bum/Whoa, oh-oh-oh/Whoa, oh-oh-oh-oh, whoa-whoa-whoa/Uh-huh, hmm” - the fact that there’s actual lyrics here intertwined with all the skin-crawling adlibs just shows how much Mraz half-assed the entire song. So, back to what I said about this song ruining the radio, why is that? Well, here is why: this song has wound up recurrent on AC radio and even pop radio for that matter and especially on AC radio, it’s felt like it’s inspired many many ripoffs to pop up, this song genuinely is probably why any retail store goes out of business, say what you want about “Addicted”, at least that song hasn’t had any staying power, and outside of maybe the very occasional radio recurrent spin, “All Summer Long” has kinda vanished off the radar too, “I’m Yours” on the other hand is that annoying, smug, sticky plague that has managed to stick around. This song lasting as long as it has is a pandemic itself. Fuck this song, “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz is easily the worst hit song of 2008. Let’s hope this crap doesn’t last into the 2020s. Bye.

Wow, 2008 had worse hits than I expected. 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!

Spotify Playlist