The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2020 REDUX

 

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2020 REDUX

Well, about time we do this. Today we’re reexamining the top 10 worst hit songs of 2020!!

I remember back in late 2020 when everyone was making their lists for 2020 the overall cliche sentiment was that “2020 sucked, but at least the Hot 100 was really good”. And revisiting this list...honestly, for the most part, the bad stuff has only aged worse over time while the great stuff has aged exceptionally well. But I’ll be honest, there are two main reasons why I wanted to redo my lists for 2020 in particular (besides the fact that some of my points in my original list were cribbed from elsewhere): 2020’s pop music has always fascinated me because of how much of an artifact it feels like. 

Since people had the desire to leave the bad shit of 2020 behind, it leads to a very messy picture of now long dead TikTok trends that people turned to to distract themselves and gigantic radio smashes that were only gigantic radio smashes because lockdown forced everyone out of their car and very few people were listening to the radio. Also I may have done a research project on how the pandemic affected the sentiment of the hit music haha. While relistening to the year-end list, even the bad stuff, I honestly couldn’t help but be in awe at how much of a relic this year-end list is, a product of a world-changing pandemic that we are still, if not to nearly as extreme of a level now, are feeling the aftereffects of it. Tik Tok became one of the go-to avenues for indie artists to break through and several hits this year had both unintentional and intentional references to the pandemic. Listening to the biggest songs of 2020 felt like I was walking in a museum filled with dinosaur fossils or like I was on a tropical island with tons of exotic wildlife. It’s a year that feels extremely disconnected from any trends that came off of 2019 (Tik Tok aside) and any trends today. Looking back in 2024, the musical landscape feels drastically different now. That said, it made for a year that aged better than expected overall, I’ll examine that side of the coin in the next list redux.

As for the songs eligible for this list, it’s any song that made the Hot 100 year-end list for 2020, but if the song made 2019’s year-end, it had to place higher on 2020’s YE to qualify, with any and all Christmas songs being replaced by the songs that placed just below the year-end. However, if the repeat is in the YE top 20 for 2020, it’s eligible regardless of its placement in comparison with the previous year. But for now, let’s go back to the songs that we probably would’ve been better off with having COVID-19 kill them during the pandemic, starting with looking back on my old worst list!!

DMs:

Chris Brown & Young Thug - Go Crazy

Cardi B f/Megan Thee Stallion - WAP

Young Thug f/Gunna & Travis Scott - Hot

Pop Smoke f/Lil Baby & DaBaby - For The Night

Rod Wave f/ATR Son Son - Rags2Riches

Morgan Wallen - More Than My Hometown

Lil Baby - Sum 2 Prove

10. Gabby Barrett f/Charlie Puth - I Hope

9. Luke Bryan - One Margarita

8. Lil Baby & 42 Dugg - We Paid

7. Drake - Toosie Slide

6. YNW Melly f/Juice WRLD - Suicidal

5. StaySolidRocky - Party Girl

4. Jason Aldean - Got What I Got

3. Justin Bieber - Yummy

2. Tones And I - Dance Monkey

1. Surfaces - Sunday Best

Yeah...there are more than a few notable changes you’re gonna see here. So let’s see some of those changes by kicking things off with the dishonorable mentions!!!

DM #1: Blake Shelton & Gwen Stefani - Nobody But You (YE: #52, PEAK: #18)

...I’ll be 100% honest, I didn’t hate this when I first heard it, I probably even liked it. But yeah, in the end, this is just bad in the most uninteresting way possible, Blake and Gwen have less chemistry than two couch cushions here and the production is criminally generic, this somehow makes me feel like Gwen Stefani got whiter!! Both of these artists can do so much better, give Gwen her personality back, Blake!!

DM #2: DaBaby - BOP (YE: #29, PEAK: #3)

One singular element of this production dragged the song from just being mid to being outright bad. That flute just sounds like it’s dying. Of course it doesn’t help that in 2024 DaBaby’s flow feels so stale and derivative, making this feel all the more interchangeable. The only thing “bop” about this is that I want to bop my ears into a spike bed when hearing this. But these first two dishonorable mentions are kinda predictable for me, why don’t we get into a curveball?

DM #3: Tones And I - Dance Monkey (YE: #14, PEAK: #4)

Yes, I was on the hate bandwagon for this song back in 2020. And it wasn’t like it was for “Baby” by Justin Bieber where I pretended to hate it but really liked it. I genuinely loathed “Dance Monkey”, to the point where it nearly topped my original worst list. And let’s make this clear, this song is still pretty bad, even away from all the overplay. Tones And I’s vocals sound horrendous here. But I have to admit the production is actually kinda good and if the vocals were better it’d probably be a great song, the bassline is actually really sweet and I appreciate the subtle swell it has throughout the track. But yeah, those vocals are very grating, where Tones And I literally sounds like a monkey here. But you know what, the more that time put distance between me and this song, I started feeling genuinely sorry for Tones And I. Because no matter how horrendous a song may be, no artist deserves even a fraction of the hate and harassment Tones And I received for “Dance Monkey”. And it’s not like I think she’s untalented; she has a song that was a hit over in Australia called “Never Seen The Rain” which is legitimately pretty good. And this isn’t anywhere near the worst song I’ve heard from her either - “Ur So Fucking Cool” and “Bad Child” might’ve topped this list, or at least come very close. But yeah, this still isn’t good, but stop hating on Tones And I, do better, more productive things with your life. But speaking of one hit wonders that have a lot better...

DM #4: Trevor Daniel - Falling (YE: #22, PEAK: #17)

This is such a nothing of a fart of a waste of a song. Trevor Daniel sounds like a cross between The Kid LAROI and blackbear at their most unlikeable. For a song about the torn struggle of catching feelings for someone and having trust issues, why does Trevor Daniel’s personality feel so nonexistent here? With him telling the girl to “come closuhhr”. This is just a miserable song that feels like even Tik Tok should’ve rejected it. The legitimately great “Past Life” with Selena Gomez was right fucking there and y’all chose this miserable nothing of a song over it?! What’s wrong with you guys!? 

DM #5: StaySolidRocky - Party Girl (YE: #64, PEAK: #21)

Is it weird to say that I have a perverse sense of nostalgia for this? I’m not lying, the piano key-filled production had potential, it captures that lonely, dreadful feeling that churned in the pit of most people’s guts during lockdown. But the main problem is StaySolidRocky, who sounds like a low rent YNW Melly without any engagement that at least gave “Murder On My Mind” some sort of tense atmosphere. In other words, this is just an even more miserable nothing of a song than “Falling” was.

DM #6: Sam Hunt - Hard To Forget (YE: #69, PEAK: #26)

You know, with the way this song completely butchers the sample of “There Stands The Glass”, it probably wouldn’t sound that out of place if it were released in 2023. Granted, all jokes aside, this is a bad song, the trap percussion clashes horribly with Sam Hunt’s voice and the sample and while I’ll admit to getting a bit of a guilty pleasure out of the chorus melody somehow reminding me of Teletubbies and giving me a sort of nostalgia that feels oddly uncanny, this just takes us to the lyrics where Sam Hunt is delivering a very toxic message that probably wouldn’t sound out of place on Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time (come to think of it, as of writing this really reminds me in a bad way of “You Proof”). Where Sam Hunt is delusional in thinking that because he saw his ex on multiple occasions - which he phrases as “It's kinda funny how I can't seem to get away from you” and am I the only one getting stalker vibes from this? - and because of these “encounters” his ex is playing “hard to forget”. And I can almost hear how this delusional mindset could be seen as appealing, only for that awful trap percussion turns this song back into a bad hangover on a summer day and I immediately wanna set Sam Hunt on fire. I wish I could forget this disaster of a song.

DM #7: Black Eyed Peas X J Balvin - RITMO (Bad Boys For Life) (YE: #50, PEAK: #26)

I didn’t hate this when it dropped...and in hindsight I feel like I really should’ve, the Black Eyed Peas were responsible for some of the most unlistenable trainwrecks of beats from the mid 2000s to the early 2010s, I really should’ve hated their comeback. But let’s be honest, this is just 2020’s “The Time (Dirty Bit)”, taking a classic dance song and desecrating it through ugly sampling and horrible drops - in this case feels like DJ Snake should sue for royalties with how much the drop sounds like “You Know You Like It” - and the only somewhat redeemable part of the song being the pre-chorus. And for the brief comeback some 2000s artists had in 2020, I’m stuck between this and Eminem’s bad lyrical miracle rap song in “Godzilla” that’s just missing this list. This isn’t even close to the worst thing the Peas have made since “GIRL LIKE ME” with Shakira unfortunately exists, but this is still pretty damn bad. If this is supposed to be the rhythm of the night, I’m going to bed.

DM #8: Drake - Toosie Slide (YE: #32, PEAK: #1)

Remember when for a singular week in April of 2020 this was the most popular song in the United States? Yeah, me neither. Ok but half-jokes aside, this is a boring, moody, sad excuse of a dance song where Drake asks you if you wanna dance with him in the most lifeless delivery ever before he claims he can dance like Michael Jack. Son. And that he can give you satisfac. Tion. But the way Drake describes the toosie slide - left foot up, right foot slide, basically he’s saying either way either way you’re about to slide - I don’t think he could dance like Michael Jackson or even Michael Jack. Son, whoever that is! Also wait, did he really just say “Basically, I'm saying either way, we 'bout to slide”? So you can do either slide on those dance cues? Drake, it’s very kind of you to be so accommodating to those who can’t distinguish between left and right, but even if you were actually meaning to do that, you couldn’t write something better? I don’t know, just write “this foot up, that foot slide” and then you can use that extra line you can get rid of for I don’t know, another dance move? That said, this is just another generic moody Drake song that sounds like it was trying to ring out Macarena from “Yes Indeed” by Lil Baby. I don’t want to dance with you Drake.

DM #9: Jawsh 685 X Jason Derulo - Savage Love (Laxed-Siren Beat) (YE: #35, PEAK: #1)

Okay, Jason Derulo proving to be a big asshole by jacking some 18 year old kid’s beat aside, this has aged REALLY badly. Sure, Derulo’s pre-chorus isn’t that bad, but the entire beat sounds so cheap and the way Derulo sings “savage” just makes my skin crawl. It feels like it’s trying to be a sex song for kids somehow, like the Kidz Bop version of itself, with how this song literally sounds like it was produced on a Bop It. Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce should slap you, Jason Derulo, for trying to steal the clout of a far better song with “Savage” in the title!

DM #10: Justin Bieber f/Quavo - Intentions (YE: #17, PEAK: #5)

I’m pretty sure the only reason I liked this song back in 2020 was that it was in comparison to one certain disaster that we’ll get back to later on this list. And yeah, let me just say that this was the last cut from the top 10 proper, this is absolutely terrible. An embarrassment of a song that sounds like a leftover from 2017 that tries to sound like a love song for Bieber’s partner, but it winds up sounding like a love song written by boardroom executives. With very poetic lines like “stay in the kitchen cooking up, cut your own bread” and that’s before we get to Bieber saying that this girl is a bill that was already passed with no approval and saying she doesn’t need no sponsor, she’s the whole brand now! Or that she’s an asset, and a triple threat by being a boss, bae, and beast. And then the most inexplicable moment in the entire song, where he shouts out her mom and dad for making her and that they deserve a standing ovation for doing a great job raising her...yes, because that’s what you want to do in a love song for your partner, Make them think about how their mom and dad had sex to bring them into the world!! This sounds like a wannabe “Hey Soul Sister” by Train and even failing at that! Because at least in “Hey Soul Sister” the abysmal and asinine lyrics felt charming! Here, the buzzing poppy beat sounds soulless and charmless. Bieber had a particularly terrible year in 2020, and this was only the “best” of his hits this year. We’ll get back to him in due time, but in the meantime, this is terrible. Any sane girl’s intentions upon hearing this mess would be to dump Bieber on his ass right then and there.

Alright, now for the true disasters...

10...One thing I should probably mention is that for this list, given that 2020 was the year where so many remixes dropped, where it was a complete crapshoot as to whether those remixes would have longevity or not, I’m gonna be counting the versions of the songs that were credited on the Hot 100 YE for 2020 - it’s why the “Say So” remix with Nicki Minaj won’t be making this list. And for this song, the remix credited on the YE may have improved it, but it’s STILL terrible regardless!...

10. Gabby Barrett f/Charlie Puth - I Hope YNW Melly f/Juice WRLD - Suicidal (YE: #75, PEAK: #20)

This is an utterly dreadful song. Juice WRLD may marginally improve this, but even his part is painfully oversold in an uninteresting way, it’s not like “Lucid Dreams” or even “Robbery” where the oversinging kinda amplified the wallowing emo feel of those songs. In “Suicidal”, you can tell that Juice WRLD’s vocals weren’t meant to be on this track. On “Robbery” and “Lucid Dreams” the oversinging felt more controlled (I realize this is a contradiction but just run with it), here it reminds me of the emo rap version of Lewis Capaldi (both of his hits this year only just missed this list, holy shit I’ve turned on them so hard), which is just a bizarre thing to be in comparison to. But I haven’t even gotten to YNW Melly yet! He is overly brooding and sounds lifeless (pun not intended) here, like the emo rap version of Nickelback. YNW Melly’s pathetic attempts to sing and hold a tune here only makes this remind me of the darkest, loneliest, and emptiest aspects of the COVID lockdown. To make a very edgy joke, if this song is suicidal, maybe it should’ve acted on those thoughts.

9...This song was only barely eligible for this list under my new criteria, it literally finished only ONE spot higher than it did on 2019’s YE. That said, brushing off all conversations of whether or not this song is an accurate representation of 2020, even if it’s only barely eligible, it’s still eligible! And when the song is this trash, it’s absolutely making this list!!...

9. Luke Bryan - One Margarita Jonas Brothers - Only Human (YE: #77, PEAK: #18)

I’ll say it again because if there’s one thing I still stand by from my worst of 2019 list, the Jonas Brothers’ reunion and comeback in 2019 was an underwhelming, overhyped disaster. And while “Only Human” doesn’t give me the same inexplicable rage I feel whenever I hear “Sucker”, I still absolutely hate it. I can’t stand how undercooked the production is, it’s so grooveless. The horns fall so flat and the Jonas Brothers’ falsettos are painfully thin. It sounds like it’s trying to be a diet Santana song. And even then, that might be insulting Santana. Because Santana knows what grooves are and doesn’t only spend 90 minutes creating his music! The Jonas Brothers’ only good songs that I’ve heard, even from before the reunion, were when they collaborated with other people. The fact that the fucking Marshmello collab is my favorite song from them should say it all, really. TRASH!

8...Again, Justin Bieber had a particularly terrible year in 2020, and this isn’t the last we’ll see of him, but the fact that he chose to star in this song’s music video should say how desperate he was back then...

8. Lil Baby & 42 Dugg - We Paid DJ Khaled f/Drake - POPSTAR (YE: #66, PEAK: #3)

I honestly don’t have that much to say about this song. The beat is a generic, incredibly formless trap beat that sounds like Drake just recycled it from “Nonstop” and Drake’s false starts and him trying to bend the word “doctor” to try and somehow make it rhyme with “popstar” makes my skin crawl. Drake, you’re not a doctor, nor are you a “doctahh”. Nor are you a popstar, for that matter. The irony is that now in 2024, Kendrick Lamar of all people might be more of a popstar than Drake will ever be again. 

7...This might be simultaneously one of the most forgotten and yet one of the most controversial songs on this list. And years removed from the scummy charity controversy, this is still a dumpster fire of a song that’s one of those forgotten songs that nowadays kinda just exists in a vacuum but when you remember it, the ickiness of it rushes back to you...

7. Drake - Toosie Slide Ariana Grande & Justin Bieber - Stuck With U (YE: #80, PEAK: #1)

Ariana honestly doesn’t even sound close to bad here. But she and the man of the hour himself, Justin Bieber, have less chemistry than Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton did on “Nobody But You”! Bieber’s falsetto sounds awful and his vocal performance as a whole feels so hollow. But no, that’s not why this song made this list so high. In 2020, during a world-ending pandemic, two overprivileged and rich celebrities who’ve both made flexing anthems singing about being stuck with each other just feels gross on a number of levels. How it’s possible to have made a song that’s unironically worse than the Skittle Clown’s song that this song blocked from #1 is almost beyond me, but let’s be honest, there’s a reason you’ve likely forgotten this song exists.

6...This is a song that, like “Only Human”, it’s very debatable whether it had more impact in 2020 than 2019 even if it technically fits in my criteria. That said, if you want the goopy commercial-core we wound up having after we decided we wanted a break from Imagine Dragons this year...

6. YNW Melly f/Juice WRLD - Suicidal SHAED - Trampoline (YE: #53, PEAK: #13)

I’ve hated this song from the first moment I heard it. It’s an indie song that’s trying to rely a lot on grace without any beauty to distract from the fact that the abstract and cryptic lyrics are really not saying anything. I’m so lost as to what the song’s setting is; the narrator has been having dreams of splashing in the summer stream, then she’s got the sudden realization that she’s on fire while she’s so deep in love while she dreams of dying...? It’s trying to cram too many metaphors into one chorus and says nothing with them. But I don’t even have to go that far. Chelsea Lee sounds utterly lifeless here, it feels like she’s trying to be one of those creepy dolls in a cliche horror movie and is failing even at that. And that lifeless, dead-eyed delivery makes this song insufferably boring. This can jump off its trampoline into an active volcano. Utter garbage song. It’s “I’m 14 and this is deep” in song form.

5...So one of my earliest album reviews on this blog was of Gabby Barrett’s Goldmine and I HATED the album. Looking back, that review has not aged well at all. It feels like I’m punching down way too much and being very unfair, in hindsight. And I’ll say it, the solo version of “I Hope” has honestly aged better than I was expecting! Had that solo version been the version that was credited on Billboard’s YE list though...

5. StaySolidRocky - Party Girl Gabby Barrett f/Charlie Puth - I Hope (YE: #12, PEAK: #9)

The solo version of “I Hope” is a song I’ve grown to appreciate more with time, mainly because I do feel the genuine hurt and resentment Gabby Barrett has for this guy who cheated on her and rather than trying to ruin the guy’s life over it, she just angrily says she “hopes” his new girl cheats on him like he did to Gabby. But this remix with Charlie Puth is utterly pointless, it takes the entire lyrical conceit and makes it nonsensical. Charlie doesn’t change any of the lyrics outside of the pronouns, so it’s clear we’re supposed to take it as Puth firing back at Gabby basically saying “no YOU cheated on me”, it’s trying to be “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye and Kimbra. Here’s the thing, though, what made “Somebody That I Used To Know” work was that Kimbra fired back at Gotye with tangible points, she brings up how he was emotionally abusive and screwed her over time and time again. Charlie doesn’t do any of that, he literally is doing the musical equivalent of “no u” here! Not helped by Charlie’s vocals sounding extremely shrill here, like he inhaled a whole helium tank before recording his take. I only hope that when time passes, this horrible remix falls out of relevancy and the original is what gets recurrent play instead.

4...Well, it’s the second worst country song in an otherwise great year for country!...

4. Jason Aldean - Got What I Got Luke Bryan - One Margarita (YE: #70, PEAK: #19)

I don’t know if I can call this Luke Bryan’s worst hit, but it’s absolutely close. And my issue with this isn’t even the generic bro-country cliches in the lyrics, it’s just how utterly repetitive it is and the horrendous effect that’s used on Luke Bryan’s voice that makes him sound like a broken robot. As a Pulse user said several years ago, “ [....I’ll] be recording every time he mentions drinking something:

‘Sippin' on a frozen drink’ 1 drink

‘One margarita, two margarita, three margarita, shot’ 3 drinks and a shot

‘One more barefoot round, one more last chance to say’ 1 shot

‘A salt and a Buffett song?’ a salt references a margarita, 1 drink

‘One margarita, two margarita, three margarita’ 3 drinks

repeat chorus twice, 3 drinks and a shot, 1 shot, 1 drink, 3 drinks, 3 drinks and a shot, 1 shot, 1 drink, and 3 drinks, so all in all, [Luke Bryan] consumes 

22 full drinks and 6 shots, totaling in about 75 ounces of alcohol drank, and totaling the fact that [Luke Bryan] is about 200 pounds, 

[Luke Bryan] is fucking dead”. Sums it right up, really. Trash.

3...This was a song that I loathed so much back in 2021 that it topped my original worst list. And in hindsight, it feels like I’m unfairly punching down, given the song’s intentions were to help people feel good in trying times and I think it certainly worked for its audience. But you just have to acknowledge a lack of talent when you hear it...

3. Justin Bieber - Yummy Surfaces - Sunday Best (YE: #61, PEAK: #19)

Let’s just address this quickly: Surfaces sound like complete fucking shit here. They sound like drunk frat bros trying to do karaoke and I genuinely can’t tell if they are aware of how atrocious they sound or are just that tone deaf. They also sound like they’re singing every other line while pinching their noses, making the way they say “grounded” or “surrounded” or “sound did” or “around it” make me want to punch a hole in the wall. The way they sing is so distracting that even if you want to praise the production, which is really clunky with the trap percussion not complimenting the positive piano keys well at all, you’re stuck with some terribly written lyrics like “Keep good things inside your ears Just like the waves and sound did”. Yeah this is atrocious and makes me feel like I’m living my Sunday worst, it could’ve easily topped this list again, but what two songs beat it?

2...So, I’ve mentioned one certain artist a couple times in this list already, and that’s likely left you wondering where one certain easy target is. The answer is right here!...

2. Tones And I - Dance Monkey Justin Bieber - Yummy (YE: #58, PEAK: #2)

Yeah, I’d be shocked if Justin Bieber doesn’t already regret releasing “Yummy”, it’s the sort of atrocious disaster that when it first dropped at the start of 2020, we all knew that we were in for the worst year ever, like it was a bad omen or something. Justin Bieber should stay at least 100 ft away from doing R&B because he isn’t remotely convincing in doing it. R&B is a genre where the singer needs to be expressive, invested, and convincing in their delivery. Bieber is none of those, he is such a vacuum of personality on this song. But you know what, maybe give this song to Usher, change the title of the song to something less...childish, it might’ve been salvageable!! Justin Bieber once again had a really bad 2020, and this was the worst of his hits that year, and his worst ever, so what song could’ve topped this disaster?

1...I’ve always thought this song was bad and I even thought it was atrocious back in 2021! But in reflection of my feelings towards this artist and the outright reprehensible nature of this song, in hindsight it should’ve never been anything else...

1. Surfaces - Sunday Best Jason Aldean - Got What I Got (YE: #60, PEAK: #16)

I almost wanna throw Jason Aldean a bar mitzvah or something because this list officially makes him the very first artist to top THREE of my worst lists!! Like “Today you are a shitty artist” or something. But yeah, when I found out about the context behind “Got What I Got”, it immediately cemented my impression of Jason Aldean as an unlikeable asshole. Let’s put that to the side for now. This song sounds fucking miserable, Aldean sings this in the same sludgy tone as the guitars and he doesn’t sound lovestruck here at all, it’s like a sludgy leftover from the 2000s post-grunge scene. But then the lyrics, and...what do I even say here? This is literally a song that’s about how Aldean doesn’t miss his ex-wife or kids after he dumped them for a (transphobic) woman 10 years younger than him that he cheated with on his ex-wife. For any other artist this’d very likely be the worst song of their career. But no, for Aldean, it’s not even his worst HIT this decade, since unfortunately that evil song from 2023 we don’t speak of exists. But yeah, “Got What I Got” by Jason Aldean, EASILY the worst hit song of 2020. In a just world, this song should’ve killed his career. And it nearly did actually...he was very much on the way out until people decided to dunk on his 2023 hit and he rode the backlash all the way to making that song his biggest ever Hot 100 hit. Go fuck yourself Jason Aldean, you actual piece of human garbage.

But yeah, this year has aged...interestingly for sure. But that’s another list redux down! Next articles will be a few special ones before I get to doing the best list redux. Stay tuned for those and in the meantime, if you’ve got your own lists of the worst hit songs of 2020 or predictions for how my best list redux for 2020 will go, feel free to comment down below!! And the Spotify playlist is right below this article as always. Until then, thanks for reading and keep it Fire!

Spotify Playlist