The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of the 2000s

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of the 2000s

In the following article, I FINALLY take a slightly stronger decade for pop music than the 2010s...and take out the trash once and for all.

Hey y’all, welcome back to Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes. And it’s time to take this on. Yes, it’s a really big one, today we’re looking at the top 10 worst hit songs of the 2000s!

You know, I did state in another one of my lists that I was worried I’d be more biased against this decade or prior to 2010s because the 2010s were the decade I grew up during, but honestly, when constructing this list, I found myself really having to stretch to find songs for this list, honestly I’d argue that some of my dishonorable mentions aren’t even that worthy of being called “worst of the decade” tier. And it may come down to the fact of me not being as exposed to the shit from this decade as I was in the 2010s. That said, I do have something worth mentioning: my qualifiers for this list are gonna be slightly different from my 2010s decade worst list; I’m not gonna be looking at cultural damage, or at least be paying attention to it much, this list for the most part will be the songs that made me wanna chop my ears off the most, and to be 100% honest, my knowledge of the cultural damage that certain songs inflicted was limited at best even for my 2010s worst list and in hindsight I felt like I was coming off like I was out of my depth in that list, that doesn’t mean that it’s not gonna be a factor at all just so we’re clear. And another thing, music tastes evolve. Yes, I did create more than half of my best and worst lists for this decade’s years in just the past four months, but even then, opinions can change a lot. So when you’re reading through this list, don’t be surprised if my #2 pick for a year manages to sneak on, yet my #1 pick for a year doesn’t. However, all my picks for this list have made one of my worst lists in the past.

Oh yeah, and as with my 2010s decade list, don’t be surprised if one year gets more representation on this list than others, there are great and terrible years for the Hot 100. But anyway, it’s time to start this list off. As a rule, the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 list from any year spanning from 2000 to 2009 in order to qualify, so any 1999 repeats will be reserved for the 2000s if I ever end up doing that and you won’t be seeing any obscure garbage here like “Hey Mister” by Custom - these songs don’t deserve more attention. So let’s start things off with the dishonorable mentions!!






DM #1: Justin Timberlake - SexyBack (#9 2006)
JT is one of the most overrated artists in the music industry. This only barely edged out “My Love” for this list, but admittedly that song grew on me upon revisiting it for this list - still trash for what it's worth - but not quite as bad as I previously stated it was. And I’ll state this for the record: “What Goes Around...Comes Around” would’ve made my worst of 2007 list if I hadn’t been the world’s biggest idiot and forgot to put it on. And no, it’s not gonna be on this list. Now, unlike with “My Love” JT’s presence here has definitely NOT grown on me at all, between all the effects piled upon JT’s voice and the obnoxious repetition of “Go 'head, be gone with it”, this is probably his worst ever performance on a song. The production feels like a hodgepodge of a bunch of effects that all clash with each other badly plus we have the unsexy as hell cowbell. JT, you say you’re bringing sexy back, I’m not sure you ever had it to begin with.


DM #2: Yung Joc f/Brandy “Ms. B” Hambrick - I Know You See It (#70 2006)
One of the the laziest hits of the decade, from the synth that somehow also sounds like it’d be anywhere else to Yung Joc and Ms. B who don’t have any chemistry and also sound like they’d rather be on another planet than this song and then there’s the terrible lyric “She chewin on the dick like a piece of Bubble Yum”. Yeah, I know I see it too if “it” is that this song is lazy trash, NEXT!!


DM #3: Pharrell Williams f/Jay-Z - Frontin’ (#34 2003)
Utter trash, Pharrell Williams’ falsetto sounds horrible. And the soulless organs and boring percussion seems to bring it all to the forefront. And then there’s the painfully forced rhyming from JAY-Z of “audience” and “nonchalant”, but really, if this were in the 2010s, it would’ve missed my worst of the decade list, for the simple reason that that decade had “stronger” (or weaker?) competition for the worst of the decade list. Still doesn’t change the fact that this is trash though! NEXT!!!!


DM #4: R Kelly - Thoia Thoing (#61 2003)
R Kelly is one of the worst artists in the 2000s, maybe entirely due to the fact that he’s a disgusting sex pest, a fact that has tainted even the music I like from him, like “I Believe I Can Fly”, that fact has made him such an unlikeable presence that it makes me wanna apologize to JT for ever calling his presence repulsive. That said, even if R Kelly wasn’t a disgusting sex pest, “Thoia Thoing” would still be garbage, almost all because of the grating high-pitched sample in the chorus, and the percussion that sounds extremely messy. Let’s just leave R Kelly to rot in jail like he deserves and move on with our lives.


DM #4: QB Finest, Nas, & Bravehearts - Oochie Wally (#98 2001)
You know, I think this song is actually lower than people expect on this list, and I can’t blame anyone who thought this would be way higher here, but really, this is just a forgotten embarrassment that only barely made the year-end list near the very bottom. It’s a very nauseatingly filthy song that goes into TMI about orgasms with delightful lyrics such as “he really really made me scream and shout” and “you hypnotized on how my long dick stretch your insides” and “he really taught me how to do it with my mouth” with the pan flute that sounds like it’s dying halfway through the loop. And then there’s the fact that nothing about this song is even remotely sexy and wouldn’t be even on an alien planet. No one, especially the girl here, whoever she is, is having any fun and quite frankly that dying pan flute that gets pitched up near the end of the loop makes this sound like the soundtrack to hell. But in the end, at least the ridiculous delivery on “he really really really fucked my coochie” was enough to stop it from making the list proper, small victories? I guess?


DM #6: Creed - With Arms Wide Open (#38 2000)
Creed are in fact as awful as everyone says they are, potentially even worse than Nickelback, all while singing quite possibly the worst genre of the 2000s - post-grunge, the jury is still out on whether that genre is worse than bro-country, but it’s still an awful genre. That said, I did think long and hard about whether this song deserved to make it or not, and let me just say this: as I said in my worst list for 2000, I can respect the sentiment of Scott Stapp writing a song for his future child that he’ll show them everything, and I’m sure that even over 2 decades later, this still means a lot to him, but while the sentiment is respectable, “With Arms Wide Open” is still utter trash that represents the worst aspects of much of the worst hits of 2000 - it’s sludgy and boring without any intensity and yet in addition to that we have Scott Stapp, who sounds like he has what I can only call “Dying Constipated Goat Syndrome”, which from this point forward I’ll refer to as DCG Syndrome, where he literally sounds like a dying constipated goat that also happens to be choking on 5 gallons of milk. It makes the song that much more sludgy if that was even possible. Utter trash, let’s show this song the door instead of welcoming it in with arms wide open.


DM #7: *NSYNC - Gone (#75 2002)
You know what, though? As truly horrible as “With Arms Wide Open” is, at least it had a point to its existence! I truly don’t see the point of “Gone”, it’s the sparsest and emptiest hit song of the entire decade, it’s unbearably boring, with the colorless instrumentation and the guys in NSYNC all wailing in agony. Not to mention, the strings make this sound like a parody. Also, I don’t think it’s JT’s presence that made me put this song on this list, this was originally intended for Michael Jackson and given how much of a snooze “Butterflies” is, If Jackson sang this instead, I don’t see myself liking it at all either. Let’s just make this song being “gone” from memory the reality and move on.


DM #8: D4L - Laffy Taffy (#46 2006)
Now this song, somehow even lazier than “I Know You See It”, may not be the worst #1 hit of the 2000s, but is definitely up there, there’s a reason this is arguably one of the most infamously shitty #1 hits of all time, with that lazy synth that makes the one in “I Know You See It” sound like there was actually effort put in it, and then come the rappers in D4L who all are amateurish at best rappers, to be generous. It falls too flat to be a good party song and yet somehow even with all that, it appeared in the 2007 Guiness World Records book for being the most downloaded song of all time, were people that starved of good music at the time? And given one of the rappers here has said that even he hates this song, I think that’s all the proof I need to conclude that this song is trash.




DM #9: Hinder - Lips Of An Angel (#30 2006)
Somehow, my entire top 5 from my worst of 2006 list made this list. Maybe I was being charitable when I just called it a “weaker” year for the Hot 100, but anyway, back to this song, Hinder is one of the worst bands of the 2000s. They only had 2 hits this decade, both trash, and I’m stuck between this and “Better Than Me”, which’ll just be missing this list, that said, while “Lips Of An Angel” may be sonically better barely, it’s made this list because of the lyrics, they’re trying to make us, the listeners, sympathize with a guy cheating on his girlfriend with an ex, and it’s not doing a thing to help me sympathize with frontman Austin Winkler due to him wailing in agony like someone stabbed him, I mean when “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy and RikRok had a similar sentiment, it was humorous, you could call it a novelty song! You can’t do that here, with the use of the D major key here it feels like it’s supposed to be taking itself seriously, and it’s deplorable that we’re supposed to sympathize with this shit at all. Basically for a song called “Lips Of An Angel”, it sure does sound like it came from the lips of the devil.




DM #10: Trillville - Some Cut (#49 2005)
I almost put this song on the list proper for how much it’s stuck around in the realm of popular music today. It’s sampled in many songs because of those grating bed spring noises. It's even songs I like such as most recently, “What It Is (Block Boy)” by Doechii, which directly interpolates it on the hook! That’s not to forget that purely as a song, “Some Cut” is already trash, borderline atrocious, with the aforementioned grating bed springs, the unnecessarily horny lyrics such as “Number one staller that takes dick in the ass and won't holler”, and the amateurish at best rapping. Let’s hope that we stop sampling and interpolating this song sooner rather than later.




DM #11: Asher Roth - I Love College (#73 2009)
I’ll say it again - I don’t start college until this fall and I already know for a fact that this is not representative of what college is like at all. I know this because my cousin has said that in her first year of college, she hasn’t been to one party and was busy studying for exams and whatnot. Asher Roth, on the other hand, is “singing” this with the smugness of well...another certain song on this list that we’ll get to later. Roth may have more likeable vocals than people like Surfaces on “Sunday Best”, and it comes off like he’s taking advantage of the fact he’s earning a degree and potentially getting a successful career as a result, an opportunity that some kids would kill to have, and instead using his 4 years of college to party, which he could literally always do after college. Maybe I’m reading too much into this and this is supposed to be a novelty, but it sure as hell doesn’t sound pleasant, with the production sounding so sparse that Roth’s awful, smug vocals are all I can focus on! This only barely missed the list proper because it hasn’t really had the same staying power that some of these other songs have had and it is a novelty in the end. But there’s a reason Asher Roth didn’t have a successful career as an artist after this, just saying.




DM #12: Saving Abel - Addicted (#97 2008)
I honestly almost left this song off the list for being more criminally tedious than anything, but as you can clearly see, it definitely made the list because it’s one of the worst post-grunge hits of the decade. As with most post-grunge, the production is incredibly sludgy and frontman Jared Weeks is singing this incredibly brooding-like and sounds utterly lifeless. Then the content, which is about how the narrator stays with this girl because of all the sex they have. At least in “One More Night” by Maroon 5, there was an emotional struggle in the lyrics, “Addicted” gives us not even emotion given how lifeless everything is. This was only spared from being higher here because this was at least the dying last breath of post-grunge in the mainstream, and I’m pretty sure no one misses it.




Alright, that’s a lot of trash already, but for now let’s knock out the list proper...




10...It’s important to think about the context in which a song became popular or the time in which it became popular, because that can significantly alter a view of a song, and thus, when you have a song about an American soldier get popular during a war that led to 4,000 American deaths and over 100,000 Iraqi deaths that we know of...


10. Toby Keith - American Soldier (#90 2004)
Yes, this doesn’t explicitly mention the Iraq War but considering it got popular around the time the war started, it has really bad undertones attached to it for me. It’s absolutely not the worst song to garner popularity in the wake of /11 - we’ll get to that soon, but it’s still pretty atrocious if only for those undertones, purely as a song, though? It’s still a boring ass slog, the production is gentle without ever really taking off, it’s stuck at a constant, boring mellow, where despite Toby Keith’s powerful voice, his jingoism in other songs like “Courtesy Of The Red, White, & Blue” make me unable to buy into this song. Yeah, this American soldier needs a better song to march to.




9...Post-grunge continues to be the absolute worst...


9. Nickelback - Rockstar (#36 2007)
This may very well be Nickelback’s worst ever song. “Rockstar” is Nickelback at their most soulless, in a long line of soulless, generic Nickelback hits, this is easily their most soulless and corporate, in my worst of 2007 list, it was so insufferably soulless that I couldn’t sit through it and had to resort to using ChatGPT to write a negative review to pad out the review. “Rockstar” is supposed to be a satire song, but Chad Kroeger’s ugly voice sounds like it’s been in every other Nickelback hit in the 2000s, unable to sell any irony. Nickelback uses a bunch of cliche signifiers of a rockstar life, like gold diggers being VIP at a movie. Yeah, Nickelback are another one of the worst bands of the 2000s and “Rockstar” is their worst hit by a country mile.




8...I mean, there was no way in hell that this guy was gonna miss this list, especially given the many, many rants I’ve written about him on these worst lists as of late...


8. Uncle Kracker - Follow Me (#19 2001)
My review of this song in my worst of 2001 list was the last review I wrote before I nearly lost my life last summer, I choose to believe that Uncle Kracker was the reason for my AVM rupture, fuck his talentless ass for doing that to me. I mentioned DCG Syndrome back with Creed, but honestly, if anyone deserves that label, it’s Uncle Kracker, who may just have the worst singing voice not just of the 2000s, but of all time, but while Scott Stapp sounded like the kind of dying constipate goat that was choking on several gallons of milk, Uncle Kracker sounds like the kind that is perpetually suffering from a bad head cold. That said, the content repulsed me the first time I heard the song, and I’ll be fully honest, the first time I heard the line “I’ll be the one to tuck you in at night”, I literally thought this song was about being a sexual predator. And even now, knowing that the song is not about that, I’m unable to get past the lyric without getting creeped out. That lyric is made even worse when you learn that Uncle Kracker was arrested for a 2nd-degree sex offense charge in 2007. Now for what this song is actually about? It’s about either heroin or cheating, and if you’re gonna make a song with either of those meanings, you can’t use this lightweight and jaunty instrumental that sounds like the soundtrack to something peaceful like swimming with the dolphins under the rainbow. And Uncle Kracker can’t sing for shit, even I sing better than him! There’s a reason that in the 2010s, this guy has faded from all facets of popularity.




7...You know, my dad considers himself an Eminem fan, and the first time he heard this song, his first remark was “Did he die?”. That should say it all honestly...


7. D12 f/Cameo - My Band (#59 2004)
Eminem had a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad 2004 and this is easily the worst single he’s ever made. Yes, this is supposed to be satire but it’s extremely unpleasant to listen to so that means the fact that it’s satire is kinda a moot point. The synth sounds awful and the fact that it’s in a minor key makes it sound worse and it makes Eminem sound that much worse, I never considered him a great singer but god, I don’t think he’s sounded worse than on the hook and the bridge. And then we got that “my salsa” bit which sounds racist for reasons that don’t think I should even have to explain. Em is going out of his way to sound the most obnoxious here and he’s winning for sure, but I wouldn’t consider that a win. Honestly, these guys should be thanking their lucky stars that there’s even a small proportion of people that know the name of this supergroup. And when this was their only real successful hit, I can’t say I feel sorry for them that they couldn’t really go anywhere after this before they disbanded. Fuck this song.




6...Now, I mentioned at the beginning of this article that “cultural damage” wouldn’t be a huge factor in this list, but to me, more than any other song this decade, this is the one that’s persisted the longest for the worst...


6. Jason Mraz - I’m Yours (#27 2008, #7 2009)
When people say “dippy-doo schlock”, this is the first song that comes to my mind. Yeah, I’m not apologizing for this when I say this song ruined the radio thanks to it becoming a pop and Hot AC radio staple for the years to come. Yes, this half-assed dreary garbage. The production is boring, bland white-guy-with-acoustic-guitar production that would be an insult to blandness, it’s so colorless that I don’t find it endearing, especially with Mraz’s smug delivery and atrocious inflections, especially on the bridge which I still stand by being the worst things I’ve ever heard, I mean - “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” - all the actual lyrics being intertwined with the skin-crawling adlibs makes this so much worse, it shows how much Mraz half-assed this entire song. I wouldn’t be surprised if this song was the reason for any small business retail store to collapse, at least “Hey, Soul Sister” by Train is kinda charming in its idiotic lyrics, but in “I’m Yours”, Jason Mraz is so thoroughly convinced that what he’s singing is pure genius that he’s smug throughout the entire song. Fuck this song, let’s not make this last into the 2020s, we already got enough of it throughout the 2010s.




5...Without spoiling anything, as with my 2010s list, somehow two years managed to take up all the slots in my top 5, but to start with, if you want a clear example of everything wrong with hip hop music in 2005...


5. Ying Yang Twins - Wait (The Whisper Song) (#53 2005)
I was genuinely horrified the first time I heard this song, the whispering here was quite possibly the worst idea one could’ve had for this song, over this subbass loop with no melody it makes this come off as more threatening than sexy, it comes off more like 3rd graders at a sleepover trying to say the nastiest things they can think of without the adults hearing. There is nothing sexy about two creepy guys whispering “wait till you see my dick” over and over across this tuneless nonsense. And all of this puts the lyrics to the forefront and these are not lyrics you want to stand out - from “Got a sexy ass body and ya ass look soft/Mind if I touch it to see if it's soft?” to “And I'm known to be a real nasty man/And they say a closed mouth don't get fed”, it’s somehow not even the worst example of the overly horny and creepy hip hop we got in 2005, either, that dishonor goes to...




4...It’s easy for me to say that this is one of the most vile and disgusting songs I’ve heard in my life and is the worst hip hop song of 2005, exemplifying everything wrong with the genre that year and then cranking those negative aspects to an 11...


4. David Banner - Play (#51 2005)
This song is a musical and lyrical catastrophe, I was honestly tempted to make a very loose connection between this and “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke at first, saying how because of this song becoming a hit, it allowed “Blurred Lines” became a hit, but I’m not gonna go that route, for as much as I truly loathe “Blurred Lines”, even Robin Thicke is smart enough to not take inspiration from this, again, musical and lyrical catastrophe, with lyrics like “Lickey, lickey, lickey, like a peppermint swirl” and “I wanna see you/cum in the middle of the dance floor”, to say this is nauseating would be the understatement to end all understatements and musically...I asked this in my worst list for 2005 - how did this even leave the drawing board stage? If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve guessed that Mr. Collipark intentionally produced it like this to sabotage David Banner’s career, from the atonal wiry synth to the other synth progression that sounds like someone tried and failed to autotune their farts and that’s not to mention all the moaning everywhere! And then there’s David Banner himself, whose delivery sounds incredibly threatening and just creeps me out to no end. There’s a reason that after only having one more hit in 2008 that couldn’t even hit the top 30, David Banner disappeared, and I can’t say I feel sorry for his “legacy” being this song as his biggest hit.




3...I don’t think I showed you how bad post-grunge could actually get in the 20000s, what could I possibly show to convince you otherwise? Another Nickelback song? More Hinder? Creed? Okay yeah, #3 is Puddle of Mudd...


3. Puddle Of Mudd - She Hates Me (#70 2003)
Wes Scatlin doesn’t quite have the worst voice in post-grunge given Scott Stapp’s nonenunciating voice exists, but it’s at least bad enough for it to be a nailbiter finish for the






worst. In the chorus he just screeches “S̸̢̡̡̛͎͈̼͎̫͙͎̺͉̤̫̯̲̲͇͍̞̠̪͙̦͉͙͑̀̍̂͐́͛̈́͜͝H̵̨͎͈̉̒̋̋͂͋̾͋̽̎̊̑̈͂͒̓́͑̈́̉̚͘̚̚E̸̤̝̩̻͔̥͎̱̝͌͜͠ ̴̨̯̹̹̥̪̰̞̳̘̞͙̠̲̮͉̼̤̟̟̺̞͈͕̃̇̈́̌̎̓̈̿̽͋̾̒̊́͊́̓̚͘͠͝ͅF̸̨̼̼͖̬͇̣͓̖͙͔͍͎̳̺͚͎̱͓̝̙̦̐̆̐̓̀̓̄̈́̄͒͂̂͐̚͘͜͝Ų̸̧̼͎̞̭̰͚͚͖͋̐́͌̋̎̍̽̃̌̓͂͘͘̚͠͝C̸̡̡͎͚̭̘̗̯͓̜̱̍͑͊̐̑͗̽͊̑̐̌͌̉ͅK̸̡̨̥̥̠̳̺̪̙͈̬̗̰̫̰̻̝̝̇͑̑̌̿͗͐̋̀̈̇̏̏̀̊͂͘̚͘ͅİ̷̡̢̹͕͇̥̝̠͎̰͍̜̝̲̞͈̣͎͇͉̝̣̝̔̂̄̂̈́̒́͒̈͆̓͒̋̄͛̈́̈̄̋͘̚̕͜͠͝͠͝͠͝ͅN̷̼̹͙̺̳̬̜̻̝͇̘͔͈̲̼͓̞̣̜̋͛̌̓͒̀͂̒́̾͛̄̾̔̇͒̋̒͘͜͝G̵̢͇̝̝̬̻̺͌̿̅͌̊̿̕͠ ̸̢̡̡͎̠̠̯͍̼̗͚̻̖̝̱͍͍̞͇̬͈͚̫̈́̑̄͑̓̊̅̆͑̈́̓̑̀͋̚͜͜͝ͅḤ̸̡̨̳͉̲͚̹̣̫̻͔̂̔̈́̈́̏̋̓͊́͆̿̏̎̏̈̉̎͆͛̚͜À̷̻̦̯̳̣͉̻͔̮̝̺͓͇̮̈́̈́́͂̀͑Ṫ̷̡̮̭̘̳͓̞̱͋͊͊̿̋͛̅̆̈́̉͋̅̐̈̃̽́̍͂͐̽̊͒̿̋̚̕͠͠E̴̛̛̱̤͈̱͕̠̫̻̪̖̗͕͉̮̜̭̝̹͎̗̞̮͇̜̻͎̻̰͉͑̓̅̐̄̉̂̑̍̈̊̓̀͘̚S̴͉͇͎͔͍̱̙͕̍̄͒͊̽̓̈́ ̸͖͉̲̜̹̰̲̪͔̔̈́̉̔̕ͅM̷̨̨̢̭̳̭̳͚̗̻̟̪̲̦͖͇̩̹̲͎͎̑̍̓̂͋̈́̾͒͝͝E̵̙̭̺̯͐̾ ̸̨̛̹͖̩̩͖̹̗͈̜͉̝͒̓̿̀̈́̎̕L̴̡̧̟̫͖̤̳̞͖̮̥̖͈̬͍͔̞̪͍̖̠͉͙̈́́͗̒̀̐̾͑̈́̇̊̌̅̌͂̿̓̍̇̕͠͝͝Ȃ̶̗̝͔͉̜̠̫͓͕̠͚̤̱͎̰̩̇̍̅̏̔͐̑̂͐̿́̍́͗̆̀͛̒̄͑̍̀̑̄͊̕͜͠ͅ ̸̨̨̡̨̛̛̪̹͇̻̻̳͋̈́̿̉̋̃̓͊̎͘͜͠L̵̡͚͎̼̹̲̹͖̘̬̤͖͕̥̭͉̫̖̲̘̰̜̺̭̹͚̒̈̅̀̍̈́̎͗̒̍͐́̆͐͜͝͠A̸̡͉̭̥̦̣̗̻͚̫̱͓͚̭̩͚̙̞̿̍̒̀͑̈́̆̾ ̷̧͇͈̜͊́L̸̨̡̡̛͚͍͎̜̻͍̮͉̖̼̪͙̘̎̾̀̐̽̎͋̿̎̃̅̄̓̅́͘̕͜͝À̶͉̼̠͖̗̗̺̪̮̠͎̜̟̮͇́̋̈́̚ ̷̨̨̛̛̺̣̗̖͈͎̤͉̜̫̳̪́̆͐̿͗̎̈́͑͑͐̇͂̋̊̈́̔͌̈́͘͝͝͠ͅḼ̸͆̈́̈́O̷̧̧͔͕͉͎͚̼̺̪͖̮͓͓̲̻̹͙̭̝̦̭̪͈͐V̵̬͔̻̲͎̳͉͈̟̫̟͍̟̑͂̋͆͒̃̾̓͌̓̌̔̏̉͗́̊̈́̐̽̾̎̐͌̋͘E̴̛͈͇̔͒̀͆̋̌̆̾̎͋̉́̄͊͛̐̏̇̓̅͊̚̕͠”. Not to






mention, the production is so overly brooding and angry that it quickly becomes laughable how much of a meltdown this drama queen is throwing over a relationship that only lasted a week or two - don’t believe me on that? Scatlin says so in the song! “Met a girl, thought she was grand/Fell in love, found out first hand/Went well for a week or two/Then it all came unglued” - an atrocity and failure of a song with no catharsis to be found whatsoever, and to quote what I said in my worst of 2003 list, “...after this song a lot more people than just she will fucking hate you trust me.” I’m pretty sure no one likes this song anyway, what 2 songs could possibly be worse?




2...I mean, you could’ve seen it coming that this song and artist would make the top 2 worst here, given how much I hate the artist who made this and how I consider this the worst thing I’ve ever heard from him, I’ll make the argument that this is the most soul-sucking cover I’ve heard since probably Calum Scott’s “Dancing On My Own”, and honestly I think this song is far, FAR worse than that one...


2. Uncle Kracker f/Dobie Gray - Drift Away (#19 2003)
I said in my worst list for 2003 that just because you get the original artist on your cover doesn’t automatically make it good, but more to the point, Dobie Gray’s original was always pretty uninteresting for me and I’ve hated this far before I heard the original, mainly because Uncle Kracker still has DCG Syndrome with a bad head cold and he makes this UNBEARABLY boring! It bored me to tears the first time I heard it and is the absolute most soulless song I’ve ever heard. Even Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” from 2019 had more soul than this! Fuck this garbage, it can drift away into a storm and get lost forever, and that leaves us with #1...


1...As alluded to earlier, somehow 2005 and 2003 managed to take up all the slots in my top 5. I don’t know how else to say it, it just happened like that. Now, this song should not surprise anybody at all as my worst hit song of the 2000s. I did say that cultural damage would not play as significant of a role in this list as it did in my 2010s list, but when the damage this song has inflicted is so flagrant and unignorable, it really couldn’t be anything else. Only one song on this list actively caused societal harm, and it was this, guess you could say that some of us have not forgotten...


1. Darryl Worley - Have You Forgotten? (#90 2003)
I gave this song a pretty scathing review in my worst of 2003 list, but honestly? I don’t think I went far enough. I’ll get back to that later but for the song itself...as I said in my worst of 2003 list, “this is disgusting pro-war propaganda disguised as a 9/11 tribute tugging on people’s heartstrings just to get them to support the Iraq War.” A war that would later lead to 4,000 American deaths and over 100,000 Iraqi deaths that we know of, this is blatantly pro-war shit, this lyric is one of the many that blatantly tells you such: “I hear people sayin'. We don't need this war/But I say there's some things worth fightin' for” There is a very realistic chance that this song actually convinced people back in 2003 to support the war in Iraq, which as I just mentioned, led to 4,000 American deaths and over 100,000 Iraqi deaths that we know of. But this has in a way also persisted in the culture today - here’s a comment I read on Pulse Music Board in one of their weekly poll series about this song - “Also keep in mind that it became a hit the same year that The Chicks got blackballed by Nashville radio for their antiwar comments, so in that case it was especially galling to see such an abhorrent song become a hit in that incident's wake.” Nashville Radio for many years would refuse to play female artists in exchange for any interchangeable male, this situation is only starting to get better now, case in point, Kacey Musgraves not getting jackshit promotion for her album Golden Hour, despite that album being quite possibly the best album of all time, no I’m not taking that back. And you know who received all the promotion instead? Sam fucking Hunt. Basically, all in all, fuck this abhorrent deplorable garbage, and “Have You Forgotten?” by Daryl Worley is easily the worst hit song of the 2000s. Let’s make sure that the fact that we have forgotten this reprehensible piece of waste is the reality and move on.

But, that’s the list! My next list will be the best hit songs of the 2000s! I hope I can get that out soon. But in the meantime, the Spotify playlist with all the songs I mentioned in this article will be right below the article if, for some fucking ungodly reason, you wanna torture yourself and listen to these songs, other than that, if you’d like to comment your own lists of the worst hit songs of the 2000s, feel free, I’m eager to see any lists! Also you don't wanna know how much trouble it was to copy paste this from my Google doc into the text editor here haha.


Spotify Playlist