The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 1997

 

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 1997

Hey guys, it’s Fire from Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes back with another year-end list!! Today, we’re looking at the top 10 worst hit songs of 1997!!

Time for a 90s dive?

Yeah, since the 1997 Hot 100 rankdown opened up on Pulse, I guess the next decade I’m exploring for pop music is the 90s. I’m honestly kinda curious to see where this dive takes me as growing up I had two Hot AC stations in my area and they would often overplay 90s throwbacks for me as a kid resulting in me getting very sick of a lot of the songs they played. This also sorta led to me concluding that the 90s were the worst decade for pop music since my exposure to 90s music was so narrow. However, even in the two 90s years I’ve done best and worst lists for so far, I found plenty of gems; 1996 is still up there as one of the best years for pop music I’ve ever looked at and 1998 isn’t all that far behind! Now 1997, it feels like a year that’s a bit glossed over by a lot of people. I saw one singular worst list someone else wrote when I was trying to research what the general consensus was for this year and the person who wrote that list straight up called it the worst year of the 90s. And...yeah, I sorta get why. I wouldn’t say this is a terrible year for music so much as a very uninteresting one. There were certainly tons of songs that I liked and even loved which you’ll see in the best list, but I really had a hard time feeling strongly one way or the other about most of these songs. R&B got pretty bland, hip hop became safer and less threatening after Tupac’s death, and the pop balladeers somehow got even whiter and duller. It’s far from the worst year I’ve looked at, but it’s certainly a year where I definitely get why barely anyone has talked about it and probably the worst year of the 90s that I’ve looked at so far.

Again, many of the biggest hits of the 90s were not allowed to chart on the Hot 100 since they did not have a physical release. As such, my criteria for this list is the same as it was for my 1998 and 1996 lists (and will be my criteria for every 90s list I do); any song that debuted on the Hot 100 year-end for 1997 is eligible, but if the song made the list in a previous year, it had to outdo its position on this year-end to qualify UNLESS the repeat is in the top 20, where it’s eligible regardless of its position the previous year. In addition, any song that made the Hot 100 airplay year-end in 1997 and placed higher than it did the previous year plus top 20 year-end songs on that chart are eligible regardless of its position last year. So if you want the full pool of songs in which I’m choosing from, you can check out this Spotify playlist right here. And with how rare and hard-to-find information regarding the Hot 100 Airplay year-end lists are, I could’ve very easily missed an eligible song or accidentally included an ineligible song. Anyways, let’s get this started with our dishonorable mentions!

DM #1: Rome - I Belong to You (Every Time I See Your Face) (YE: #24, PEAK: #6)

Okay, this song isn’t so much bad as it is boring with a few missteps. Rome is certainly trying to sell this song with as much soul as he can muster up but the way he tries to intentionally strain his vocals to come off as deeply in love sounds more like he’s deeply constipated. And I don’t think it can be stressed enough but this guy’s falsetto is so weak and grating. If this belongs to me, it’s not too late for a breakup, right?

DM #2: Dru Hill - Never Make A Promise (YE: #56, PEAK: #7)

Bland. I could leave it at that, but I’ll elaborate a bit; the production doesn’t elicit any mood and that means that, try as hard as he might, our vocalist singing this with as much personality as he can still can’t add any color to this. I also really don’t like the way he goes into the half-talk half-singing delivery in the chorus, it makes the song so painfully overwrought. Of course, even without that, I still wouldn’t like this, but still.

DM #3: Whitney Houston - I Believe In You And Me (YE: #33, PEAK: #4)

It’s probably worth saying that while Whitney Houston has made good ballads like “I Will Always Love You” that are still remembered today, she still has more than a fair share of duds to her name. Take this song, for example, which takes the tried and true formula for generic AC ballads of:

• Achingly slow tempo ✅

• Melody that goes nowhere ✅

• Percussion that slams down to try and add some nonexistent power ✅

• The song sounding so empty that it’s impossible to make out which instruments are being played ✅

The reason this is just mediocre instead of bad is that Whitney Houston is still a powerhouse vocalist who can save a lot on vocal performance alone. But sadly I don’t think it’s worth believing in this bore.

DM #4: Lil Kim f/Puff Daddy - No Time (YE: #80, PEAK: #18)

Imagine the least sexy p*rn video you’ve ever watched. The song is Lil Kim and Puff Daddy trading off sex bars and they have 0 chemistry with each other. That second verse in particular gets pretty explicit (gross) and Lil Kim doesn’t really do that good of a job rapping on this, her flows and rhymes are weak and I genuinely hate the way she pronounces the “-et it” rhymes in the 3rd verse. I have no time for this mid ass song.

DM #5: New Edition - I’m Still in Love with You (YE: #44, PEAK: #7)

Snooze. Let’s run down the checklist again:

• Achingly slow tempo ✅

• Melody that goes nowhere ✅

• Percussion that slams down to try and add some nonexistent power ✅

I also don’t like these guys’ singing here, they sound like they got stabbed in the stomach. In other words this is a generic bland R&B ballad that was way too common in 1997.

DM #6: Puff Daddy & Faith Evans f/112 - I’ll Be Missing You (YE: #3, PEAK: #1)

Yeah, when people think of lazy sampling from Puff Daddy in the 90s, I think this is one of the first songs that comes to mind, trying to be a heartfelt tribute to The Notorious B.I.G. but they try to wring out the grief from an obvious sample of the most famous stalking anthem of all time. Faith Evans sadly cannot sell the grief here, which is crazy since she was literally The Notorious B.I.G.’s WIFE! There’s still enough heart for me to call it more mediocre than bad and I doubt The Notorious B.I.G. is going like “I CAN'T believe you disrespected my murder with this song you monsters!” from beyond the grave, but still, I won’t be missing this song whatsoever.

DM #7: Matchbox Twenty - Push (YE: #21 ON HOT 100 AIRPLAY)

This got worse for me when I listened to it for this list and I’m convinced the only reason it exists is for Ryan Gosling to cover it for Barbie 26 years later and actually do the song better than Matchbox Twenty!! Because “Push” only makes sense in the context of 2023’s Barbie, where it could be used to symbolize hypermasculinity. Because on its own, the song is miserable, where Rob Thomas is angry at this girl for hurting him and makes a song dedicated to how he wants to exercise his power over her and will. The production sounds sour despite some admittedly solid power in the guitars and Thomas honestly sounds like an angsty teen throwing a tantrum because he got grounded. Even if Ryan Gosling’s cover of this is only decent at best, I’ll still take that over this.

DM #8: Next  - Butta Love (YE: #91, PEAK: #16)

True story, I actually had this on my 1998 worst list last year as a dishonorable mention, but I realized at the last second it wasn’t eligible for that list. So let me paste the review that was originally gonna be in that article here since this song is still just as bad as it was when I wrote the review last year!! Enjoy:

I was willing to be more lenient to this song at first thanks to that rhythmic hi-hat giving this a tiny bit of a groove but even that, with repeated listens, feels incredibly limp. The song is about how this girl has that “butta love”...I think they mean “butter love” here? With how they describe this girl’s love as smooth and creamy...ewwwwwww. And you know what, if a more expressive singer were to sing this, maybe it’d work a lot better. But the guys in Next all sound so vacant. Yeah, this is pretty bad. This butta love is better off being melted into ghee love (I’m 99.9999% sure only Desis will understand this pun but fuck it).

Yeah I think that sums it up nicely, next!!

DM #9: Hootie & The Blowfish - I Go Blind (YE: #45 ON HOT 100 AIRPLAY)

I honestly think I like Hootie & The Blowfish more than I dislike them. “Time” was an honorable mention on my 1996 best list and I also think “Only Wanna Be With You” is a great song. But “I Go Blind” really is my limit because this song is quite bad. Darius Rucker’s vocals sound fried here; his raspy vocal tone is super grating. The repetition of “every time I look at you I go blind” feels oddly gimmicky and when paired with the awful vocals, it creates this bad song that isn’t even amateur hour, it’s more noob hour! This song almost makes me wish I could go deaf so I never have to hear this again.

Alright, now for the list proper!!

10...I mentioned at the very start that R&B in 1997 got pretty bland, where even if you liked the songs, you likely wouldn’t remember them after an hour. The song here at #10 is an R&B song that...isn’t bland. You’ll definitely remember this, but for all the wrong reasons....

10. Brian McKnight f/Mase - You Should Be Mine (Don’t Waste Your Time) (YE: #86, PEAK: #17)

Insert Spectrum Pulse “taking YOUR girl” here? But truth be told, the lyrics definitely don’t help this song in my eyes, but they aren’t my only problem with this song. The production sounds awful, it sounds like a car alarm after you put it in drive, it’s just the same two notes over and over again and it gets SUPER old fast. And I don’t buy Brian McKnight as a performer on this track at all, he cannot sell this “nice guy” persona at all and Mase’s contributions here feel super disposable. So no, I won’t waste my time...this should not be mine!

9...So as I mentioned in some of my other 90s worst lists, Puff Daddy was kinda the “mastermind” of lazy sampling in the 90s. So I suppose it only makes sense that Puff Daddy’s breakthrough on the charts was a song full of lazy samples!!...

9. Puff Daddy f/Mase - Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down (YE: #5, PEAK: #1)

This song contains samples of “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five and “Break My Stride” by Matthew Wilder, as well as taking the drums from “Rock With You” by Michael Jackson. I feel like such a clusterfuck of samples being what made Puff Daddy such a dominant force in the late 90s kinda charted his career trajectory and the music that he’d ultimately be most remembered for. I haven’t even heard any of the 3 songs this samples and I still can smell the stench of laziness and non-effort coming off of this. Mase and Puff Daddy have very unimpressive flows at best. They try to project some confidence in that hook but they don't sound like they care at all! And considering that by the time Puff Daddy will be released from prison I’ll have already completed my undergrad and either be working on or have finished my masters, I think he is being held down right now. Good riddance.

8...So the 90s were also a huge time for Disney, when they were in their Renaissance period, releasing instant classic after instant classic in quick succession to critical and commercial success. The soundtracks to those movies were also quite solid, if I do say so myself. From “A Whole New World” to “Beauty & The Beast”, there was a plethora of fantastic classic Disney songs. The pop charts were also rocked by these soundtracks, often resulting in pop stars covering staple Disney songs which are largely forgotten in a tradition that in some ways still persists today. Mainly because the covers often felt like transparent attempts at pop crossover success that added no substance to the original song. There’s a reason why Demi Lovato’s cover of “Let It Go” is pretty much forgotten in comparison to Idina Menzel’s original, just saying. So why not talk about one of the worst Disney covers I’ve ever heard?...

8. Michael Bolton - Go the Distance (YE: #89, PEAK: #24)

If there’s one good thing I can say about this song, it’s that it actually got me to watch Hercules for the first time because I wanted to see how the song fit in the movie’s context. And yeah, it’s safe to say that Hercules is one of the best movies I’ve ever watched. “Go The Distance” is a song that Hercules sings throughout the movie to motivate himself to reach his end goal of reuniting with the Gods. The song serves as a motif throughout the movie as Hercules goes through the classic hero’s journey plotline. Michael Bolton’s cover lacks all of that subtext. When Hercules says he’s dreamed of a far off place where a hero’s welcome is waiting for him, he’s singing about reuniting with his true family. When Michael Bolton sings about dreaming of a far-off place where a hero’s welcome is waiting for him, it just sounds so smug and self-impressed. Not even like it’s a cliche song that could be applied to anything and anyone, it’s the way he says a “hero’s welcome” is waiting for him. Michael Bolton is framing himself as a hero who hasn’t received his recognition yet. Sorry Michael Bolton, but nothing I’ve heard from you is remotely good enough to justify you as an unrecognized hero. It doesn’t help that the production is dreadfully boring, with the cheesy guitar solo, the complete inability to make out any instruments in the mix, and the lamest key change I’ve heard in a while. What made this song work in the movie is that the composition felt cinematic, not this bland dirge. I also really don’t think Michael Bolton has a good singing voice, he’s really straining himself on this song and he just sounds awful. So on top of being a watered down pop sellout Disney cover, it’s also boring, cliche, and sounds like if Lewis Capaldi sang Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb”. The most distance this awful song should ever go is the nearest small business retail store’s playlist, if even that.

7…But back to bad sampling....

7. Warren G - I Shot The Sheriff (YE: #85, PEAK: #20)

Okay, this is apparently a cover that partly also samples another cover of the song. The original “I Shot The Sheriff” was by Bob Marley and Warren G covered it and rewrote the lyrics to be his original lyrics and the chorus samples Eric Clapton’s cover of the song. Got all that? Now why does “I Shot The Sheriff” not work? I already just don’t like the chorus because the female vocals are really grating to me. But then the chorus just goes “I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy” and he tries to justify that he shot the sheriff because he was mistaken for someone who was liable...okay? Just get your lawyer, you didn’t have to shoot the sheriff, now you have an attempted manslaughter charge. It’s trying so hard to highlight police inequality and it’s not doing that well at all. But that’s when it clicked for me: this is trying to be “Ridin’” by Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone from 2006. But Warren G is no Chamillionaire nor is he a Krayzie Bone. With “Ridin’”, the flow and chorus kinda just pummel over you so it’s impossible for you to object to any wrongdoing. And when we have “Ridin’”. There’s no reason to have this.

6...I know some might be shocked that this song isn’t higher on my list, considering it nearly topped my 1998 worst list. Believe me, I was tempted, because this song is still just as awful as the first time I heard it...

6. Smash Mouth - Walkin' On The Sun (YE: #49 ON HOT 100 AIRPLAY)

I couldn’t quite justify putting this song higher on this list considering some of the shit coming up, but “Walkin’ On The Sun” still sucks on pretty much sound alone. Frontman Steve Harwell sounds really ugly here and the minor key production only amplifies that. The horns and wonky keyboard tones give this the vibe of a local band doing an open mic night, but not in a way that sounds charming, more in a way that sounds amateurish.

5...1996 was a year that showed the utter dominance of international music. One of the most prominent examples of this was europop. But by 1997, I think it’s safe to say that this music had been firmly etched into the pop music scene to the point where it barely felt novel. So let’s get a song that sounds like a burned leftover of europop...

5. Mr. President - Coco Jamboo (YE: #92, PEAK: #21)

I’ll just be straight here, I can’t stand Lazy Dee’s chorus, it really doesn’t match this production that sounds jacked from Ace Of Base. And yeah, it was that awful, obnoxious chorus that pushed this song so high on this list. I don’t want Ace Of Base at home, next!!

4...Obligatory “fuck you R. Kelly” goes here...

4. R. Kelly - Gotham City (YE: #70, PEAK: #9)

I mean, whenever I make these worst lists for the 90s, you can expect R. Kelly to be a regular on them. I don’t care that he’s technically really talented, his disgusting sex pest self actively makes you feel like he’s peeing on you when you listen to his music. And while this year he had one of the very few songs I actually genuinely like from him in “I Believe I Can Fly”, “Gotham City” is just a really dull song that puts R. Kelly’s repulsive persona at the forefront. The kick drum is just bashing and thudding over the airy production, making this song feel like it trudges on and on. It’s only 5 minutes and yet it feels like 50! The key change is also extremely cheesy and cliche and the outro where the kids start singing the title...R. Kelly should not be anywhere with kids, FULL STOP. And thankfully since we live in a city of justice and a city of love, R. Kelly will be in prison until he’s almost 80. Go rot in prison, Robert.

3...But speaking of cheesy key changes...

3. Barbra Streisand f/Bryan Adams - I Finally Found Someone (YE: #53, PEAK: #8)

This song placed so high on this list purely because of how dull it is. The dullness of the production crosses the event horizon here even by the standards of generic AC ballads from this time period. Barbra Streisand and Bryan Adams have absolutely no chemistry; they sing about how they finally found someone, referring to each other but their chemistry here gives the impression they’ve never even HEARD OF each other, let alone “found”. Barbra Streisand may have technically great vocals here but even then her performance still sounds very dull. And Bryan Adams sings like he’s recovering from a head cold, his belting sounds fucking terrible. Add on top of that the cliche and cheesy key change, and you get another dime a dozen boring AC ballad that there was already way too much of. So while I still haven’t found someone yet, I did find someTHING; the correct place on my worst list for this terribly boring shit.

2...But speaking of boring ballads...

2. 98 Degrees - Invisible Man (YE: #45, PEAK: #12)

Is it enough for me to say that this is an incredibly boring ballad and move on? Or should I also say that I just hate the way the guys in 98 Degrees sound? Or that as a boyband, 98 Degrees have absolutely no ability to harmonize? And yeah, the allergic reaction I have to the vocals was what almost pushed this over the edge to top this list. I wish this shit was an actual invisible man or, you know, a nonexistent man so I don't have to hear or see this trash ever again. So what’s worse?

1...I’ll admit that at first this was only #2 on this list at first, “Invisible Man” was my #1 for a while. But then I paid more attention to the lyrics, and it all fell apart...

1. Bob Carlisle - Butterfly Kisses (YE: #65 ON HOT 100 AIRPLAY)

The premise of this song is kinda cute, slowly walking through the life of a girl as she grows up from the father’s perspective. But a few of the lyrics just rub me the wrong way. Look at this line in the second chorus:

"You know how much I love you, Daddy, but if you don't mind"

"I'm only gonna kiss you on the cheek this time"

Um…911?????????? The implication that she’s “only gonna kiss [her dad] on the cheek this time” meaning that usually it’s another location...like the lips????????? That’s gross to me. There’s obviously nothing wrong with parents kissing their child on like the cheek, it’s a cute symbol of affection and love. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard of parents and their children kissing on their lips...like that’s just straight up incest, I’m not the only one who hears that, right? Maybe it’s just a cultural thing I’m missing but still, choosing to make that the motif of your song is a...choice, for sure. But I think that all obscures perhaps the greatest sin of this song, it’s a dull as shit CCM song that doesn’t even have the courtesy to be sung well. For a song about the life of a little girl growing up, it sure does sound like it takes a lifetime. More than anything though, in a year with tons of sleepy ballads, this tops them all by implying incest under the guise of something heartfelt by virtue of it being a ballad. So save your butterfly kisses, leave them in your chrysalis. “Butterfly Kisses” by Bob Carlisle, the absolute WORST hit song of 1997!!!

And that’s the worst list done!! Next article should either be the best list for this year or maybe my 2025 lists if the 1997 best list takes longer than I anticipate. Stay tuned for that and until then, if you have predictions for that list or your own lists of the worst hit songs of 19967 please comment them below!! I’m eager to read them. And until the next list, the Spotify playlist with every song on this list is linked right here. And until the next list, remember to keep it Fire!