The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2025

 

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2025

Hi everyone, it's Fire and today we're FINALLY gonna count down the top 10 WORST hit songs of 2025!!

So in the past, when writing my annual year-end lists, I've tried to explain how my personal life was during the year to find a narrative throughline to why I felt a certain way about the pop music that year. After all, I've always believed that pop music doesn't exist in a vacuum, your emotions will influence how you feel towards art in a particular moment and trying to detach your emotions from the pop music to explain their objective quality almost feels like trying to explain why water is wet. But this year? I really got nothing. So I'm not gonna bother wasting your time: 2025 was one of the worst years for pop music of my lifetime. 2024 was a blockbuster year, showcasing the breakthroughs of Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and Gracie Abrams, a historic rap beef between the most critically acclaimed rapper of our generation and most commercially successful rapper of our generation, Post Malone making the country album he always wanted to, the "Take Me To Church" guy getting a second hit 9 years later out of nowhere, and so much more. But 2025 was just a whimper of a follow-through where the charts just hit a brick wall of stagnation. 2024 took a victory lap all of 2025, with many of last year's big hits stagnating on the Hot 100 long past their expiration date regardless of the quality—this was not helped by how inconsistent Billboard was with their recurrent rules all year. And when asking for new hits, it was like we were dealing with a monkey's paw!! The good new songs rarely picked up traction and somehow the crappy new songs lingered!! The country boom hit fatigue levels with Morgan Wallen releasing a feature film of an album and basically oversaturating the genre singlehandedly. Pop really slumped, getting taken over with the aesthetic of CCM - not a good thing!! Not even Regional Mexican or reggaeton, which in 2022 and 23 were in an absolute golden age, could salvage this year all that much. And most notably of all, 2025 was finally the year where I had enough with Billboard. It probably should've come 2 years prior; it's not like they don't deserve the shade I've thrown at them since their idiotic decision to end the tracking period for the YE lists in October. But in a year where they decided to PAYWALL EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR HOT 100 CHARTS except for the current week AND THEIR RETRO YEAR-END LISTS, I had enough. I don’t care how passionate I am about chart-watching; I’m not gonna pay you $7.00 a month just to look at lists of songs, Billboard! And since their tracking period shows absolutely no signs of getting better, in working with @mikerivera on Pulse, we've produced a 150 song year-end list that aligns with quite frankly what I've always believed would be more representative of the biggest songs of the year; to track from January to December. I'm likely gonna use this pool of songs going forward. Not only does this mean I can finally get around the Christmas avalanche without having to create special rules to exclude them, but it also allows me to consider songs that may have been caught between years. I admittedly considered revisiting my best and worst lists for earlier decades because I wanted consistency across the decades to ensure validity of my picks. However, the deeper I thought about the work required, the less it aligned with my passion. Listening to and ranking potentially up to 500+ additional songs per decade is a massive undertaking, and I realized that it would drain the joy I find in exploring and analyzing music. This means that these expanded lists will only apply to the 2020s and for any retro YE lists, I'll be sticking to Billboard's admittedly broken YE lists. If you wanna know what the top 150 list looks like, you can check out this Spotify playlist here because we actually, you know, value accessibility of historical records...something that for Billboard, the historical archival service they are, greed trumps over apparently!!!! So let’s get started by looking at my worst list from 2024 and seeing what would change:

DMS:

Nicki Minaj - FTCU

The Kid LAROI - Nights Like This

310babii - soak city (do it)

4Batz f/Drake - act ii: date @ 8 Warren Zeiders - Pretty Little Poison

Nicki Minaj f/Lil Uzi Vert - Everybody

Taylor Swift - Down Bad

Jelly Roll & Lainey Wilson - Save Me The Weeknd, JENNIE, & Lily Rose-Depp - One Of The Girls

Teddy Swims - Lose Control Real Boston Richey - Help Me

Drake f/Yeat - IDGAF Jordan Adetunji - Kehlani

Tucker Wetmore - Wind Up Missin’ You

10. Nicki Minaj - FTCU Taylor Swift - Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me?

9. Sexyy Red - Get It Sexyy Benson Boone - Beautiful Things

8. Eminem - Houdini

7. ¥$: Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign f/Rich The Kid & Playboi Carti - Carnival Morgan Wallen f/ERNEST - Cowgirls

6. Benson Boone - Beautiful Things Benson Boone - Slow It Down

5. Benson Boone - Slow It Down Teddy Swims - Lose Control

4. Morgan Wallen f/ERNEST - Cowgirls Jessie Murph & Jelly Roll - Wild Ones

3. HARDY - Truck Bed Moneybagg Yo f/Morgan Wallen - WHISKEY WHISKEY

2. Jessie Murph & Jelly Roll - Wild Ones FloyyMenor X Cris Mj - Gata Only

1. Floyymenor & Cris Mj - Gata Only ¥$: Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign f/Rich The Kid & Playboi Carti - Carnival

Yeah, I’ll be blunt, many of the shifts on this list are thanks to my new criteria flooding in more bad songs. That said, there are three relevant shifts here I wanna address—first off “Carnival”, when I realized that Kanye’s verse wasn’t just him making dumb comparisons to convicted rapists and that he was using those comparisons to actively brag about how he can't be cancelled for being a Nazi...let’s just say it proved I was still far too kind to Vultures 1 last year even when I gave it a 3/10 (that album would be a 0/10 now if you were curious, worst fucking album of the decade and it isn’t even close). Secondly, “Get It Sexyy”—I still don’t like that song per se, but I did finally get the appeal of it and the setting it’d work best in so I find it decent now. And thirdly, “Lose Control”...let’s just say you’ll see why it moved so high later on this list. Also I would retroactively put “The Heart Part 6” by Drake as an IDM if I didn’t have a personal rule that I don’t go back to edit my takes after I publish them. Seriously, I completely forgot about that song when I was writing my worst list, but what the actual fuck is that song?

So with all that being said, if you wanna know what my lists for other years of the 2020s would've looked like under this criteria, then you can see this Google doc I've linked here. You all know the rules, the songs had to debut on the January-December Top 150 YE to qualify or be higher than a previous standing OR be in the YE top 20 if they're repeats, so let's dig through this dumpster fire of a year with a slightly expanded list of our dishonorable mentions!! 

DM #1: Taylor Swift f/Sabrina Carpenter - The Life Of A Showgirl (YE: #130, PEAK: #8)
I mean, spoilers, Taylor Swift is gonna be on this list. A Lot. The Life Of A Showgirl is by a comfortable margin her worst album to date and the title track is by no means the worst song on that album (we’ll get there eventually), but it’s still a huge disappointment of a collaboration by two artists who underwhelmed with their albums this year. First off, if you’re gonna get Sabrina Carpenter on your song and you don’t make the song a bop...what the fuck are you even doing? Sabrina’s best songs are A) her horniest, or B) her bops where she finds earworms and leans to the mean girl persona with a wink at the audience to let us know she’s in on the joke. “The Life Of A Showgirl” is neither, instead jacking the chord progression of only the 3rd worst Jonas Brothers song of their 2019 comeback for a song where you can practically hear Taylor biting her lip as she writes these lyrics, rhyming “Kitty” with “witty” with “pretty” with “city” with “legitly” before rhyming “fishnets” with “missteps” with “kismet”. It underscores just how badly overwritten this is. There’s no groove at all and Sabrina isn’t able to lean into her cheekier attitude. Give this song to a singer who can actually fit into the relaxed production, like, say, Lana Del Rey, this could’ve been pretty good. As is, this isn’t the worst song either artist released this year—for Sabrina, “Nobody’s Son” wasn’t quite big enough to qualify for this list and for Taylor, well, we’ll get there—but this is still bad. These showgirls’ time is up, it’s time to say goodnight.

DM #2: Doechii - Anxiety (YE: #38, PEAK: #9)
I’ll be honest, I didn’t hate this for the longest time in spite of all the hate this was receiving earlier this year. I still don’t think this song is entirely dead in the water, to be clear. Doechii is a decent singer and taking the beat of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” isn’t actually a bad idea, it has a pretty off-kilter vibe that could enhance the feeling of anxiety. But there’s no getting around this, this song is a weak demo where Doechii doesn’t showcase any of the talent she has as a spitter. And I’m sorry, some of the lyrics just straight up make me cringe. Does anxiety really feel like an elephant is standing on you? And even if it does, you could’ve put together a better string of words that didn’t sound so...goofy that conveys the same meaning. It doesn’t feel like an outtake from a therapy session, it feels painfully contrived. And then the second verse is all about police violence against black people, I mean, I get it, but what does this have to do with anxiety? 2025 was supposed to be a huge breakthrough year for Doechii, and this bad demo killed her momentum before she could properly get traction for her best songs. America, you wanted this instead of “NISSAN ALTIMA”, I hope you’re happy with yourselves.

DM #3: Alex Warren - Ordinary (YE: #1, PEAK: #1)
Song of the fucking year. America, when I said “do better next year” in my worst list last year, I didn’t mean “do better than the bare fucking minimum”!! But truth be told, this was probably the song of the year that 2025 deserved, because no other song I heard this year better displayed the profound emptiness and dread of 2025, not just musically, but culturally. And what we have is basically if Dermot Kennedy sang a gospel Imagine Dragons song. But say what you will about a song like “Demons”, even if I don’t at all stand by it topping my 2013 best list, there’s a decent melody to mask how empty the song was!! “Ordinary” is about as generic of a song as you can get—a love song without any intimate details that make it feel personal in exchange for gospel imagery all with a melody that’s so basic you can hardly register that it’s literally in D Major and not C Major!! Alex Warren doesn’t sound very good here—when he doesn’t sound like he’s about to cry he sounds like someone stabbed him in the stomach. You can’t make out any actual instruments here, it’s like you’re getting beaten to death by clouds. The only things that kept this from being an instant station changer for me all year was, well, the fact that my dad loves this song for some reason, and the fact that the bridge melody is kinda nice. America, you made this the song of the year over “On My Mind” with Rose or anything from Addison Rae, repent until you’re dead and buried, because this song lives up to its title in the worst way possible.

DM #4: Justin Bieber - YUKON (YE: #66, PEAK: #17)
Justin Bieber’s R&B comeback album SWAG was shockingly decent. The album produced two hits this year, one being the pretty great “DAISIES”, but the other was this dud. And the big problem here is the chipmunked vocal effect applied to Bieber’s voice that makes him sound like 2009 him. And the reason I liked that era of Bieber was that the songs were so goofy and young Bieber’s attempts to sound cool falling flat just felt adorable to me. But hearing 2009 Bieber singing in modern Bieber’s vocal cadence is jarring. It doesn’t come off as cute in any way to me, making lyrics like “I pull up like Jimmy Neutron” and “I can help you get a move on like U-Haul” just feel far less sexy than they are intended to be. Yeah, this sucks. I know I’m getting help with my moving from Penske from now on!!

DM #5: Luke Combs - Back In The Saddle (YE: #104, PEAK: #22)
Luke Combs makes an “I’m back, bitch” single and showcases exactly why he should not be making “I’m back, bitch” singles!! Luke Combs has a great voice with a very rich baritone that’s perfect for storytelling songs or even love ballads. But “Back In The Saddle” doesn’t flatter Luke’s baritone at all. He sounds distressingly close to Chad Kroeger of Nickelback on this. The song isn’t anything you wouldn’t expect out of an “I’m back, bitch” single—big sounding production and empty lyrics that do nothing more than reassert the artist’s importance. But this is so much worse because not only does Luke sound awful here, his heart just doesn’t sound in it. In other words, it’s time to get off your horse, Luke.

DM #6: Scotty McCreery f/Hootie & The Blowfish - Bottle Rockets (YE: #110, PEAK: #32)

You know, I tend to like Scotty McCreery more than dislike him. I wouldn't consider myself a fan, but I can recognize that he’s got one of the better male voices in Nashville and is a quietly sharp songwriter. But “Bottle Rockets” is an absolute dud. The song centers around McCreery singing “Hold My Hand” by Hootie & The Blowfish (a song I don’t really like anyway) to his girlfriend and winning her over. The production is admittedly pretty hazy in a summery vein and creates a very nostalgic vibe, but the problem here is that McCreery gets Hootie & The Blowfish to sing the actual interpolation that’s supposed to represent McCreery singing the song to his girlfriend. If the song was set at, say, a Hootie & The Blowfish concert, then them singing the interpolation would make sense. And that’s when it clicked for me—this really wants to be “She Had Me At Heads Carolina” by Cole Swindell. And once I noticed that comparison, nothing here even remotely measures up to the energy and fun of one of the most infectious country songs of the decade. So let’s get this straight: in 2025, critically acclaimed country singer Scotty McCreery tried to badly rip off Cole Swindell, the former frat brother of Luke Bryan, to get another hit. If you told a country fan that in 2014 their hair would turn white. This is humiliation and a blatant sellout if there ever was one. But speaking of sellouts...

DM #7: Morgan Wallen f/Tate McRae - What I Want (YE: #16, PEAK: #1)

Ever since 2013 we’ve gotten one universally panned country song that crosses over to pop radio. In 2013 it was “Cruise”, 2017 it was “Body Like A Back Road”, 2021 it was “Fancy Like”, and this is 2025’s entry into that canon. I admittedly kinda liked this at first thanks to the decent guitar rollick. But any fondness I could possibly have for the song evaporated the instant I noticed how little chemistry Morgan Wallen and Tate McRae have. Tate sounds awful here with her weak nasal vocals oozing all over the trap country mix like ear bleach. And you look at the lyrics, which really aren’t anything too out of the ordinary for modern-day Wallen—a toxic relationship where the two partners are only still with each other for the sex and treating the entire relationship as transactional. And suddenly it makes way too much sense that Tate admitted that she and Wallen have never even met!! The whole background of the song’s creation is as transactional as the song’s content is!! Tate basically only hopped on this to cross “#1 hit” off her popstar checklist. It’s kinda ironic that neither artist’s fanbase seems to like this song. This isn’t a song that anyone wants, except for the artists in question so they can get a depressingly calculated #1 debut.

DM #8: Fuerza Regida - Marlboro Rojo (YE: #133, PEAK: #64)

Fuerza Regida are some of the worst Regional Mexican acts in the mainstream right now. They had two hits this year, one being this and the other being the pretty good “ME JALO” with Grupo Frontera (which was only good thanks to Grupo Frontera anyways). Now Fuerza Regida first came on my radar in 2023 with multiple hits that ranged from mediocre at best to pretty damn bad at worst, but I’ve come to know them most for their frontman’s brayingly obnoxious voice that somehow makes the farty trumpets sound more farty! That vocal tone certainly makes Fuerza Regida sound distinct, but it also makes them far more grating to hear. And that’s essentially the fundamental problem with this song. The frontman of Fuerza Regida has one of the most punchable voices in the subgenre and actively makes every instrument sound worse. I can accept that maybe the Regional Mexican sound just isn’t for me, but I can also acknowledge quality in culturally traditional music. Bad Bunny’s album this year was very faithful to traditional Puerto Rican music and it spawned multiple hits ranging from good to great! We don't need this.

DM #9: Taylor Swift - Elizabeth Taylor (YE: #87, PEAK: #3)

I’ve never thought this darker reputation style of production was Taylor’s strong suit and I only came around to finding “Don’t Blame Me” pretty good in recent years. I bring this up because “Elizabeth Taylor” sounds like diet “Don’t Blame Me”, with the piano intro and the pummeling chorus where instead of synths, it’s pianos that don’t have the same impact that “Don’t Blame Me” had. And then the line “you’re only as hot as your last hit baby”, I get Taylor is trying to ironically lean into what her haters say about her being the face of public drama, but when coupled with some of the other songs on the album where she leans into the drama, it comes off as unbelievably thin-skinned coming from her. Taylor, if you’re only as hot as your last hit, I suggest returning to making actual bops again, before this album’s hits are what get considered your last hits. Because you do not want this to be how people remember you.

DM #10: Drake - What Did I Miss? (YE: #132, PEAK: #2)

Drake, maybe take Kendrick’s advice, because to quote him, “I like Drake with the melodies, I don't like Drake when he act tough”. In all seriousness though, “What Did I Miss?” is an incredibly pissy and whiny song where Drake goes after everyone who turned against him after his beef with Kendrick. Drake, you do realize after your catastrophic wail of defeat on “The Heart Part 6” any sane human would lose all respect for you, right? Drake, if you’re asking what you missed, based on how surprised you seem to be at how many people hate you, I’d say you missed your entire beef with Kendrick. To quote Todd In The Shadows, “Uh, you missed every shot you took at Kendrick. And, you know, I'm guessing you probably missed the Super Bowl, a lot happened during that.”

DM #11: Brandon Lake & Jelly Roll - Hard Fought Hallelujah (YE: #90, PEAK: #40)

The first time I heard this song on the radio, I had to check to make sure I hadn’t accidentally tuned into a Christian station. When I checked, I was indeed listening to a pop station. If that’s not a searing indictment on the state of 2025’s pop music, I don’t know what is. The big issue with “Hard Fought Hallelujah” isn’t just that it’s Christian—it’s that Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll are trying to muscle up a bunch of gnarly grit in their delivery in the weakest Chris Stapleton imitation I’ve heard possibly ever. They can’t remotely match the intensity or firepower of the guitars and the song winds up as just another generic CCM slog that there was way too much of on the Hot 100 this year.

DM #12: BigXThaPlug f/Ella Langley - Hell At Night (YE: #119, PEAK: #35)

You know, Ella Langley has generally been a welcome presence on the Hot 100 as the closest we’ll probably ever get to Same Trailer, Different Park era Kacey Musgraves getting hits on the Hot 100. And even with “Hell At Night”, her weary yet beautiful vocals are what saved this song from the list proper. The song is in the vein of a song like “I Hope” by Gabby Barrett and Charlie Puth where after a breakup you only wish the very worst for your ex. I can appreciate that there are two coherent perspectives to this song unlike the garbled mess that was the “I Hope” remix, but the real problem here is BigXThaPlug, who sounds like he’s struggling to keep his flow on the beat, it’s like the song is too slow for him and it makes the song feel really clunky. BigXThaPlug did prove on “All The Way” with Bailey Zimmerman that he has a lot of respect for both country and rap and is able to effectively blend the two genres, but this is still a real misfire.

DM #13: Riley Green - Worst Way (YE: #35, PEAK: #20)

You know, if you’re gonna make a sex song called “Worst Way”, the last thing you wanna do is make the song not sound intense or fun in any way. In fact, I’ll just say it—this song sounds like CCM, it’s dreadfully boring and Riley Green doesn’t sound invested whatsoever. He may have proved on his collabs with Ella Langley that he’s a better artist than I gave him credit for, but this is him phoning it in for a quick radio hit. He sounds so disinterested and the brutal lack of any sexiness in this song makes this as sexy as a wet dish towel. In other words, it’s the sort of sex song that only Mormons could enjoy. And speaking of Mormon sex songs...

DM #14: Benson Boone - Mystical Magical (YE: #39, PEAK: #17)

First of all,

@maddennovogratz the people’s princess #govball ♬ original sound - Madden Novogratz

Anyways, yes, I can’t believe it either, “Mystical Magical” by Benson Boone, the world famous “moonbeam ice cream” song, actually missed the list proper. And believe me, in a stronger year, this would absolutely make it—because this song is fucking TERRIBLE. I could start with the observation that apparently Benson Boone’s career as an Australian that he attempted on “Cry” went nowhere so now he’s trying to be an opera singer. The way he sings “moonbeam ice cream” on the hook is so overwrought, it literally sounds like he’s trying to be in an opera!! I could also bring up how the production sounds like Harry Styles’s “Late Night Talking” from Temu, from wish.com, at home. But I wanna focus on that “moonbeam ice cream” lyric. Apparently according to Genius.com, Benson had writer’s block when writing this song and essentially wrote that lyric as a filler lyric! And honestly, that makes all the sense in the world, that’s a lyric you should completely get rid of the second you think of it, not pen onto a top 20 hit!! Benson, I suggest you get out of the sun before your moonbeam ice cream melts. Bring Harry Styles back please, holy shit. But speaking of Benson Boone...

DM #15: Benson Boone - Beautiful Things (YE: #7, PEAK: #2)

Songs like this still remaining in heavy rotation on the radio were what made pop music so tedious to keep up with this year. And at least last year, I could see why someone could find catharsis in this song, but there’s absolutely no reason for people to still be actively consuming this song when Benson released TWO singles from his followup album to the one that “Beautiful Things” is on!! In the meantime, yeah, the screeching on the chorus is still as unlistenable as ever but what I wanna focus on is the allegations that came out against Benson Boone earlier this year. For those of you who don’t know, Benson Boone was accused of cheating on his girlfriend with actress Kylee Anderson, down to Kylee having a song literally called “Benny” where the music video featured a Benson Boone lookalike. Well Benson, if these allegations are true, I sincerely hope that Kylee Anderson likely thinking your dick was bigger than your ex-girlfriend gave you credit for was justifiable reason to cheat on your ex. To paraphrase an actual Benson Boone stan in the Pulse Discord server, you didn’t need God to take your beautiful thing away because you did.

...Alright, let’s get to the list proper now!! If you’re wondering where the IDMs are, we’ll get back to them right before #1, it’ll just help the flow of this list. So anyways, let's start with...

10...But speaking of dicks being bigger...

10. Taylor Swift - Father Figure (YE: #94, PEAK: #4)

I can’t pretend that the biggest reason this song made the list proper isn’t that really clunky “I can make deals with the devil because my dick's bigger” lyric. But really, this song feels like a masterclass of terrible lyricism from Taylor. I already mentioned the “dick’s bigger” line, but then there’s the line “I pay the check before it kisses the mahogany grain”, which apparently is Taylor’s favorite lyric on the album? I could make the hacky joke that I sincerely congratulate Taylor on coming out as trans, but the real problem is that Taylor, just because you have a thesaurus and can use big words, it doesn’t make you sound smart! I literally wrote a song this year and it isn’t anything particularly great or deep, but I also didn't use big words to try sounding smart!! If anything, it makes Taylor sound way more out of her depth—she tries to use these lyrics to go after the powerful men who exploit naive and inexperienced female artists but the clunky lyrics make it feel so clumsy. It certainly doesn’t help that the production is lousy, the percussion-heavy production feels like a dated callback to 2010s generic radio pop and forces Taylor into her awful airy falsetto. So what we’re left with is the cold reality that this has all the ham-fisted social critique of gender norms of “The Man” but this time with way worse lyrics. And promptly, Taylor needs to stop working her wordfinder and recrudesce to crafting pleasurable compositions. What? You don’t know what I just said? Well, if Taylor can rely on big words alone to sound smart, I can too!

9…So a prediction I have is that with Morgan Wallen having oversaturated the country boom, we might see less huge country crossovers than we have the last few years. Obviously I’m not saying the genre will die entirely—country music itself is its own established ecosystem, there’s no way it can die in the near future. But going into 2026, it feels like Ella Langley is the only artist on Nashville radio to chart highly on the Hot 100. And in the wake of this, this year some country acts tried to rip off other styles to see what sticks. There were 2 such ripoffs that were hits this year—one being shockingly great in Russell Dickerson of all people ripping off WALK THE MOON’s “Shut Up + Dance”, but the other decided to rip off the man who oversaturated the country boom in the first place, and thus we got this...

9. Thomas Rhett - After All The Bars Are Closed (YE: #89, PEAK: #35)

When I saw this comment on this song’s lyric video when I was writing this review, I wanted to jump out my bedroom window:

Forget any racial barriers that Beyonce broke down with COWBOY CARTER last year. How can you in any capacity say that this dreck is revolutionizing country music!? Because this is just a carbon copy of Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night”, from the snap-trap beat, the liquid guitars, to even the bad pho-rapping cadence, this is just a shameless ripoff that only became a hit because Nashville radio prefers to play it safe. Bar’s closing now, so clear out Thomas Rhett.

8…So 2025 was a better year than you’d expect for Drake. After last year’s beef and his utterly devastating loss, he still managed to notch 3 hits this year. Only one of them was good though, naturally being the biggest hit, “NOKIA”. Despite this, you’d have to be delusional to think that Drake had a great 2025—you can’t have the entire Super Bowl call you a pedophile and still have a great year. We went through one of his other hits already in the dishonorable mentions with “What Did I Miss?”, but he also dropped this, which didn’t really help things for him....

 

8. PARTYNEXTDOOR, Drake, & Cash Cobain - SOMEBODY LOVES ME (YE: #88, PEAK: #27)

It feels very telling that Drake felt he had to rely on PARTYNEXTDOOR, a C-list Drake wannabe at best, to get an album bomb on the Hot 100. And really, the moment Drake got an album bomb on the Hot 100 was the first sign to me that 2025 was gonna prove that nothing in 2024’s pop music was gonna matter in the long run. The fact that Drake managed tangible chart success for $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, the malformed slog that that album is, is mystifying to me. And “SOMEBODY LOVES ME” is not the worst song on the album—we’ll get there in the IDMs, but it’s still terrible. The remix with Cash Cobain may be ever so slightly better (two coughing babies here though) thanks to adding a reggaeton beat that gives the song a slight foundation, but even then, this song is undercooked as hell. Everyone on this song is smothered in oppressive autotune and the keyboards sound dreary as hell, especially on the weakest executed beat switch I’ve heard in a while. This song and the entire album aren’t remotely $exy, you can keep it.

7...I was a bit shocked when assembling this list at how high this finished. I never really liked it per se, but I thought it was wistful enough to be passable. But the devil’s in the details here...

 

7. Morgan Wallen - I’m A Little Crazy (YE: #107, PEAK: #17)

This got worse with every listen. I could start with the fact that Morgan Wallen sounds like he’s dying in his bed here as he musters up as much heartfelt sincerity as he can. The production might be more wistful than the shitty trap-country that Wallen usually does, but it also makes his twang sound terrible. For the most glaring example, I didn’t know until I was literally writing this review that he was singing “I’m a coyote in a field of wolves” and not “I’m a cowdy in a field of wolves”. This was enough to put this song as a dishonorable mention at first. But then that forced me to dig into the lyrics more and this REALLY soured on me. The song has a lot of conservative undertones, such as Wallen admitting to screaming at his TV—congrats on turning into Aaron Lewis!! It’s also very telling how he mentions that kids walk/ride past his house scared and then go missing, because it underscores the distressing of conservative undertones of this song. And all of a sudden it makes all the sense in the world that Wallen recontextualized this as a tribute to Charlie Kirk at one of his concerts!! This is far from Wallen’s worst hit, even this year, but it’s still pretty terrible.

6...So here’s a fun fact—since I’m now using this expanded list as my qualifier as to what counts as a “hit” in the 2020s, there are 11 artists who’ve had hits every year this decade so far. 10 of them are Ariana Grande, Bobby Helms, Brenda Lee, Mariah Carey, Cardi B, Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Tate McRae, Taylor Swift, and The Weeknd. Who could be the last one? Which A-lister, which cultural presence, which iconic artist that everyone loves?

...Yes, Gunna. I do not make this up...

 

6. Gunna f/Burna Boy - wgft (YE: #135, PEAK: #40)

I wonder what “wgft” stands for...whe gortured foets tepartment? We’re gay...f slur twinks? Yeah, no. It stands for “we’re getting fucked tonight”. And that prompts the first real criticism I have of this song—if you’re gonna make a song called “we’re getting fucked tonight”, you’d think you’d sound excited that you’re getting laid, right? Even if you wanted to argue that Gunna’s lack of passion is intentional to accentuate the emptiness of the debauchery and how the whole thing isn’t making him happy, the production doesn’t remotely support any interpretation. It’s a vibeless little squirt that's moody and generic. Even Burna Boy doesn’t sound very good here!! He might sound more alert than the Xanax that is the rest of the song, but that just clashes with the production hard. Gunna has only ever been good when the production is good, because he’s thoroughly vacant as a rapper in flow and lyricism. This is not hedonistic, it’s a boring wallow that I fail to see why it has any right to exist. And in a just world, this song being a hit is The Last Wun Gunna ever gets, if you get my reference.

5...This is the worst fucking song of all time...

 

5. Teddy Swims - Lose Control (YE: #5, PEAK: #1)

Okay, no, it’s not the worst song of all time, I put 4 songs above it on this list. But god damn, if there was any song I wanted to hear less this year, I didn’t hear it. Last year it was only a dishonorable mention, but the more I heard it on the radio this year, the more the sheer lack of good here really wore on me. I initially gave this song some credit for Teddy Swims showing what I thought were pipes. But then I saw a video of Benson fucking Boone covering the song at one of his shows, and to my amazement, he sounded decent!! And that’s what cinched it for me, at least Benson Boone is a good singer. And that’s also why I ultimately put this song higher than “Beautiful Things” on this list. As unlistenable as the chorus is on “Beautiful Things”, there at least was a clear artistic point Benson was trying to convey—the fear of losing everything. And most importantly, there was a cathartic emotional core you could get from the song if you had the same anxiety that Benson does on that song. With “Lose Control”, there’s no emotional connection anybody could get from it because the music is so stiff and bland. I’m 100% convinced that anyone who actually likes this song is just an AI model that’s physically incapable of getting exposed to music outside of reading waveforms on a graph. So of course, because of how bland it is, it became an entrenched recurrent staple of all radio formats, allowing this song to set a longevity record for the most weeks on the Hot 100 of all time with 112 weeks!!! I know that sounds like a huge number, but do you have any idea of just how long that is!? When “Lose Control” debuted, Joe Biden was still in office!! By the time it left, Donald Trump was almost one full year into his second term as president!! A lot has changed in that time!! In fact...

Seriously though, fuck this song so hard. And with our luck, this’ll be a department store staple for the next few decades, joy.

4...If you don’t engage with the broader context surrounding a song, you might be shocked this song is so high on this list. I mean sure, I’ve made my opinion on this guy’s music this year abundantly clear, but on the surface, this seems like a run-of-the-mill douchey song we get all the time from this artist nowadays. But the context is relevant here y’all. So it's time to explain why this song is one of the worst songs Morgan Wallen has ever made....

4. Morgan Wallen - I’m The Problem (YE: #10, PEAK: #2)

Before I thoroughly eviscerate this atrocity, let me get any faint praise I have out of the way. The smoky production actually sounds pretty decent, especially with the lack of any trap percussion. But no, the big stain on this song is its content. On the surface, it’s extremely douchey—Wallen condemns a girl for calling him the problem and tries to gaslight her into thinking she’s the actual problem even though he gives every indication that he’s the bad guy. But if it just stopped there, it’d absolutely be trash but it wouldn’t be this high on this list. And yes, I know that in the context of the album, this song is supposed to intentionally paint Wallen as a douchey man in order to later set up the recovery arc of the album. But no, that’s not an excuse for the context I’m about to bring up. This summer, I was in several back-to-back intensive therapies. At one of those intensives, one of the PT’s told me she had gone and seen Morgan Wallen live that weekend and that when he performed this song, he overlaid the screen behind him with screenshots of his controversies. I was in utter disbelief, so when I went home I searched up a live performance and saw this, which essentially proved what that PT said to be true:

This means that when he says “And it got me thinkin'/If I'm the problem, well, you might be the reason” he's SUBTEXTUALLY TALKING TO THE AUDIENCE asking if he's the problem why we're keeping him around. I don’t care if he only did it to be “edgy”, the fact that he did it means that he clearly saw how the lyrics could be interpreted. This is to Morgan Wallen what “Deuces” was to Chris Brown in 2010; a douchey man wallowing in his bad public image and framing HIMSELF as the victim. It's reprehensible all the way down and it should speak to how awful this year’s music is that it's not even in my top 3 on this list. Let’s make sure that this doesn’t keep Wallen’s career afloat for the next 15 years like “Deuces” did with Chris Brown. We can only pray. And you know what, let me answer Wallen’s question: we stuck around this long because when you broke through you established yourself as a standard-bearer for real country. But given how increasingly distant those days are getting, I seriously wonder why we’re keeping you around too!

3...So given how angry I got there, you might be shocked that “I’m The Problem” isn’t my #1, that I found 3 songs worse than it. Well, as atrocious as the subtext of “I’m The Problem” is, that’s all it is. It’s just subtext. The actual text may also be douchey, but if you weren’t paying attention, you could be forgiven if you liked the song. These last three songs, on the other hand, are all unbearable from start to finish on their surface level qualities alone....

 

3. Jessie Murph - Blue Strips (YE: #52, PEAK: #15)

I had this sinking feeling of dread when I saw how quickly “Blue Strips” was rising near the start of the year from streaming alone. It sounds abysmal, especially on the chorus where Jessie Murph starts squawking about how she isn’t mad at her ex and is getting revenge on him by paying his new girlfriend at a strip club? And Jessie Murph’s nasal squawking is unlistenable. You’re not Beyonce, you’re not Rihanna, you don't remotely have the firepower or attitude to credibly sell this!! You sound like Donald Duck got lit on fire!! Somehow Ariana Grande runs circles around you on “7 rings”. And the most damning indictment? This is genuinely top half on Sex Hysteria. Guys, we’re officially in the era where artists in my age group can get hits in the mainstream—we don’t need to turn to some of the least talented ones!! Hell, sombr had multiple great hits this year!! Yeah, let’s keep sombr around for 2026, leave Jessie Murph’s wannabe D-lister ass in the wasteland that is 2025, and move on.

2...So there’s an art to making diss tracks. Even if you paint yourself as the hero and your opponent as the victim, which is pretty risky, I think Kendrick Lamar proved last year that you can go down this route and still wind up successful—humor, quotability, great production, sharp jabs, smart strategic thinking. Sometimes you can get songs like “Not Like Us”, other times though...you get this...

 

2. Taylor Swift - Actually Romantic (YE: #150, PEAK: #7)

Believe it or not, I’m not putting this song this high just out of blind affection for Charli XCX. In case you somehow don’t know, “Actually Romantic” is a diss track to Charli XCX for her song “Sympathy is a knife”, which had these lyrics:

“This one girl taps my insecurities

Don't know if it's real or if I'm spiraling

One voice tells me that they laugh”

“'Cause I couldn't even be her if I tried

I'm opposite, I'm on the other side”

Which I guess Taylor took as an attack, which, it's so obviously not. If anything the song is Charli praising Taylor rather than dissing her. And then the connection clicked. Taylor, I’m glad you seem to be really good friends with Sabrina Carpenter, but you didn’t have to try copying possibly her worst ever song “Skin”! Both songs are, aside from being atrocious diss tracks from blonde white women, response songs aimed at songs that actively praise the women dissing! And yet, Taylor, you have even LESS justification for this song than Sabrina did with “Skin”. Sabrina was in her early 20s, barely able to drink, when she dropped “Skin”. Everybody’s stupid at that age. Additionally, she had plausible deniability that it was intended to hurt Olivia Rodrigo. You could credibly argue that Sabrina was intending the song to be a response to Olivia’s fans attacking her over “drivers license” and that a few lyrics were just a bit misguided. But you, Taylor, are in your MID-THIRTIES!! I’m not saying that everyone has to have life figured out at that age, but as far as I know, Charli’s stans did not attack you after “Sympathy is a knife”. And even if they did, you’re the biggest fucking popstar in the world! The sheer volume of Swifties who will defend you keeps you very well-insulated from any backlash!! You should not be this ridiculously thin-skinned!! Also, this is kinda a moot point at this point, but the song sounds like garbage too. The way Taylor says “wet” in this song is the worst two seconds in pop music of 2025 and the song sounds like a choppy rock reject with no groove or firepower. The way Taylor’s vocals stack up at the end of the song is also abysmal. The disses are also just really weak, “Like a toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse”? How did Katy Perry do a better job at dissing you in “Swish Swish” when she called you “cute as an expired coupon”? And given how Charli XCX basically ignored this song, the only person who came out worse for wear is Taylor Swift herself. Watch, Taylor is gonna see this review and write a diss track towards me, it’s actually romantic. This is absolutely the worst hit Taylor had this year, the biggest miscalculation of Taylor’s entire career, but yet still not the worst song on The Life Of A Showgirl. But while we’re in that territory...

Now before what could’ve possibly been #1 over that, let’s run through our ineligible dishonorable mentions finally!!

IDM #1: Taylor Swift - CANCELLED! (YE: #158, PEAK: #10)

⅓ of The Life Of A Showgirl made this list, and if this song lasted just a bit longer, the album would’ve taken up ⅕ of this list. And this song in particular would’ve had a strong shot of topping this list because this is the worst song of Taylor Swift’s career. Did you grasp that? I’m not exaggerating. The worst. Song. Of Taylor Swift’s career. Worse than “ME!”, worse than “You Need To Calm Down”, worse than “Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me”, worse than “I Did Something Bad”, even worse than every other song from this awful album on this list. The production is garbage and sounds like the worst possible reject from reputation. The guitars sound like a 90s grunge reject. Taylor’s lyrics have never been worse, so many horrendous lines—”Did you girlboss too close to the sun?”, “Or bring a tiny violin to a knife fight?”, somehow I think Taylor is the one with the tiny violin, because this cuts as deep as a marshmallow. But more than anything, what I despise most about this is the attitude Taylor presents. She’s trying to go after everyone who’s ever tried to cancel her even though with her power and platform, she’s virtually invincible to being cancelled!! She’s trying to call out the hypocrisy of people trying to cancel her but again, these people are insignificant little atoms to you, Taylor!! Yeah, this song is abysmal and if you actually like this garbage, have better standards for yourself. And even at Taylor’s current level of fame, if this song and album don’t thoroughly kill her career, she should dedicate a 10-minute portion at every concert she does for her next 2 tours to thanking every higher power on her hands and knees. But let it not be said that I’m not fair to people who have wronged Taylor in the past...

IDM #2: Ye - WW3 (YE: N/A, PEAK: N/A)

This song got removed from Spotify and the lyrics are incredibly hard to find. But if you can find the lyrics, I think reading them should be enough explanation for why this song is here. All I’ll say is that I think this song proved by review of Vultures 1 last year to be prophetic.

IDM #3: Jessie Murph - 1965 (YE: N/A, PEAK: #84)

This is worse than “Blue Strips”. And somehow I feel like I’m in a position where I have to defend this song. Jessie Murph got in really hot water for this song for it being “degrading to women” and “sexist” and...guys, you all know that it’s clearly a joke, right? She’s not literally saying she wants to be a tradwife to a man double her age. Are y’all seriously taking a song that uses the lyric “slap slap” or severely misplaced consecutive uses of the word “fuck” at face value? It’s not a well-executed joke by any means, but it’s clearly supposed to be satirical. The real problem with this song is Jessie Murph’s vocals, she sounds like a less charming Lewis Capaldi as her voice gets increasingly scratchy on that chorus and the traditional pop production is awful. The percussion constantly sounds like it’s about to fall off the beat. Coupled with the single worst music video I’ve ever seen featuring a literal porn scene that happens right after a scene of a child walking in on it (there’s literally no reason for that to be in that music video 😭), and this is an utter disaster. Yeah, this is horrendous, but not for the reasons you guys are saying it is.

IDM #4: Drake, PARTYNEXTDOOR, & Chino Pacas - MEET YOUR PADRE (YE: N/A, PEAK: #63)

Whoever told Drake that this was a good idea wants Drake’s career to end. The timing of this song just a year after Drake’s beef with Kendrick is too precise for there to be any other explanation.  PARTYNEXTDOOR calling himself “Fiesta next door” is also just pathetic. Drake, how are you gonna lose a widely publicized beef and be this blatant about how you’ve learned nothing from it? This is complete and utter humiliation all the way down, and it would’ve been a lock for at least the top 2 on this list if it stuck around.

IDM #5: Hot Chelle Rae - The Labubu Song (YE: N/A, PEAK: N/A)

Just add Hot Chelle Rae into the same category as AJR for trios of white men who are shaky at best songwriters who I actually stuck up for and then they rewarded me by making indefensible cringe like this. Seriously, how do you go from touring with Taylor Swift to making the single worst jingle I’ve ever heard, what the fuck?

IDM #6: Tom MacDonald - CHARLIE (YE: N/A, PEAK: #77)

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

IDM #7: Spalexma - We Are Charlie Kirk (YE: N/A, PEAK: N/A)

...Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

And now onto our final entry...

1...And yet, for as angry as I got with my #2 and #3, I was never gonna give "Blue Strips" or “Actually Romantic” my #1 spot, “Blue Strips” because it would've felt like punching down on my end, And besides, “Blue Strips” is the sort of boringly horrendous song that I really don't see sparking any trend or leaving any lasting impact; if it does I see it most likely in other artists trying to rip off that style and doing it better than Jessie Murph can. And for “Actually Romantic”, once you realize that Taylor Swift has been incredibly thin-skinned her entire career, it’s much harder to get disappointed or angered by it. But this? It's the crux of a very worrying trend in pop music that’s been infiltrating the mainstream and looks disturbingly hard to kill. And its trail has already strewn across this list. Forrest Frank says God's way's better, so who am I to not follow God's way and deny him the top spot on this list?...

1. Forrest Frank - YOUR WAY’S BETTER (YE: #111, PEAK: #61)

I suppose that it's not too surprising that one of the Surfaces guys became a Christian artist after their big hit in 2020 - it was literally called “Sunday Best” after all - but you know what? For as atrocious as “Sunday Best” still is, there's at least a way you could read the shitty vocals as trying to lighten the mood in rough times. Here, Forrest Frank's nasal ass vocal tone that still serves drunk frat bro doing karaoke only really succeeds in generally proving that Forrest Frank has no vocal talent. And you're supposed to take this song seriously; you're supposed to believe Forrest Frank found spiritual clarity in his darkest moments. But these horrendous vocals make it feel like it's trying to be a parody of CCM; this doesn't sound like someone who turned to God in times of strife and trauma, this sounds like AJR going to Sunday School, with the staccato pianos, the cringeworthy lyrics such as “Lord, I am so thankful for the ways that you blessed me/Everything you say making waves like a jetski”, and the worst key change I’ve heard all year. But okay, one shitty CCM song is definitely garbage, but is it really worth calling the worst hit of the year? On its own, probably not, but to me, this is the crux of a trend that's been slyly creeping into pop music in the 2020s; the very Jesus-y mindset that sounds like it came straight from the Bible Belt. Songs from the past few years, like “Holy” by Justin Bieber or hell, even Benson Boone's “Beautiful Things”, use religious imagery without crossing over into overt worship territory. Obviously literally everyone, Christian or not, uses religious imagery in art. But this song was the point where it became directly about religion. Even something like “You Say” by Lauren Daigle could be read as a secular pop song if you wanted it to. “YOUR WAY’S BETTER” is a song literally directed at Jesus, about Jesus, everything Jesus. There's no second way you could interpret the lyrics. Nothing inherently wrong with religion. But it starts with one overtly Christian hit, then it spreads like a virus. And suddenly, pop music becomes the new medium to spread regressive messaging. And MAGA heads don’t even need talk radio anymore. We've made so much progress, and this song could undo so much of it. And if you think I’m being hyperbolic, let me prove to you my concern is valid. As horrendous as the vocals on this song sound, they’re also precisely delivered to appeal to the TikTok crowd that encompasses much of my generation. “YOUR WAY'S BETTER” by Forrest Frank: easily the worst hit song of 2025. Yes, I know what I said about “Actually Romantic” being the biggest miscalculation of Taylor Swift’s career. But I hate this more than “Actually Romantic” because while Taylor herself was the only one who came out looking worse after that song, this isn't just a cringeworthy Christian pop song; it feels like an early sign of a rebranded cultural pipeline that uses religion as a vehicle for conservative messaging under the guise of positivity. And if we don't kill the trend fast, we're in for a dismal future. Get ready to see “Real Men Love Jesus” by Michael Ray see a resurgence in 2026, everyone!!

The best list should be up soon! I‘ll be working on that, and there were gems in 2025, so stay tuned! In the meantime, if you have your own lists of the worst hit songs of 2025 or predictions on what my best list is gonna look like, please comment them down below, I’m eager to read them!! Also if you like my graphic for this article, please let me know haha. Until then, Spotify playlist for this list is linked right here and remember to keep it Fire!!