The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 1993

 

The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 1993

Hey guys, it’s Fire from Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes here to continue our 90s dive with the top 10 WORST hit songs of 1993!!

So after what’s generally agreed on as one of the greatest and most revolutionary years for popular music in Hot 100 history in 1992, 1993...was okay? I don’t really know what the critical consensus is on this year—I found two retro year-end lists done for this year (Spectrum Pulse and some other reviewer’s site which is now long abandoned) and one of those lists argued that 1993 was pretty good for music but the other said...it was a pretty rough year. So here I am, naturally, taking the middle ground—I guess the hottest take possible for 1993 in music. It’s nowhere near the worst year for music I’ve ever covered, but I’d hesitate to call it among the best years of the 90s either.

I guess I can sorta see why some might be underwhelmed by just looking at the 1993 YE. It’s pretty much been headcanoned in our cultural psyche that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” immediately and permanently changed the course of pop music for the rest of the decade. But then you look at the 1993 YE and realize that it wasn’t really the case. Grunge hadn’t yet become the dominant sound of rock, meaning that rock music in 1993 had either become parodic or was still the leftover dregs of 80s cheese, to kinda mixed results.

However, what I think elevates this year a lot for me was rap and R&B. You’ll see more of it on the best list, but those genres had really damn great years, especially rap with g-funk rising to prominence.

So now to start on this list!! The songs eligible for this list must have met one of these rules:

• They debuted on the 1993 Hot 100 YE

• Repeating songs must have beat or matched their previous standings on this YE

• Songs in the YE top 20 are eligible regardless of the first two rules

• The same rules apply for the Hot 100 airplay YE

If you want the full list of songs I considered for this list, you can check out this Spotify playlist here.

So with that, let’s dig through the worst of this...year starting with our dishonorable mentions!!

DM #1: Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle - A Whole New World (YE: #18, PEAK: #1)

You know, I actually liked Peabo Bryson and Celine Dion’s cover of “Beauty & The Beast”. Sure, it didn’t hold a candle to the masterpiece of the original Angela Lansbury version, but as a cute little pop cover, I thought it was much better than it had any right to be. But this shit is just pointless. A part of my disdain for this cover comes from the fact that I did perform a school production of Aladdin in 5th grade (I was the sultan if you were curious), so I was super familiar with the centerpiece of the film, “A Whole New World”, to the point where I also consider it one of the all-time best Disney songs. What made “A Whole New World” work in the movie was that Aladdin and Jasmine genuinely sounded starstruck by the sights they were seeing on their magic carpet ride as the dynamics of the production rose and fell perfectly. But take away the context of the film and give the song instead this AC blandness and...the song loses all of its magic. Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle have the chemistry of divorced parents. If the parents had the chemistry of two couch cushions. They don’t sound invested in the song—they sound...bored. This doesn’t sound like a song to soundtrack a thrilling magic carpet ride where you’re seeing breathtaking sights for the first time, it sounds like bland wedding fodder that even most weddings would reject. This is utterly useless, and yet of course, it was a #1 hit. Congrats y’all, hope it was worth it.

DM #2: 4 Non Blondes - What's Up? (YE: #50, PEAK: #14)

Musically, this sounds like something I’d ordinarily like—I’m usually a sucker for this sort of acoustic rock. But no, the real failure of this song is the...vocals. They straight up sound atrocious, with Linda Perry jumping across so many different vocal registers that any vibe just fails to coalesce, making the “hey-yeah”’s on the chorus feel grating. This doesn’t even sound like a charmingly low-budget or like an amateurish college experiment—if anything, it sounds like someone recorded a vocal warmup and released it as a single. And there is unfortunately a very good reason why singers don’t push their vocal warmups as singles. I mean, this is better than when Lizzo covered it for Cardi B to sample on “What’s Goin On”, but that’s a low bar to clear if I’ve ever seen one.

DM #3: Joey Lawrence - Nothin' My Love Can't Fix (YE: #92, PEAK: #19)

Truthfully, the production isn’t my issue with this song—the New Jack Swing groove is actually pretty solid. The problem here is Joey Lawrence—his singing sounds like a low-rent boyband extra and his rapping sounds like Gerardo’s...as in the “Rico Suave” guy. That means he doesn’t sound credible as a presence or a desirable option, especially when he says this girl is avoiding him because he smells like the Philly Zoo (why does it even matter what zoo you smell like bro). In the end though, those diva house-esque synths and that bassline are quite solid and do just enough to keep this from the list proper. There’s definitely something your love can’t fix Joey—this song.

DM #4: Inner Circle - Sweat (A La La La La Long) (YE: #77, PEAK: #16)

Shockingly, UB40 missed this list, mainly because I can tolerate “Can’t Help Falling In Love” as a decent (if only barely so) cover of a great Elvis song. So for as much as UB40 are the fucking worst of 90s cod reggae, it really pains me to leave them off this list while putting an actual reggae song on it instead. But I think the issue here is really obvious—can you spot it? Let’s see...maybe it’s entirely the fact that they are repeating “lalalalala-longly-long” a-lalalalala-lotly lot of times and that each and every time it sounds cringey as hell. I’m not particularly a fan of a lot of reggae, but I’d like to think that even if I were, this still would’ve sucked.

DM #5: Dino - Ooh Child (YE: #88, PEAK: #27)

In theory, this absolutely had the potential to be good—the uplifting melody doesn’t sound bad and the lyrics about telling a young child to remain hopeful make for a nice, if corny, message. There’s really only one reason this song falls apart for me—it’s that bridge, where Dino starts...talking. It’s not rapping or even speak-singing, because he’s not on the beat at that point!! And it’s really that bridge that makes the entire song pass the event horizon of cheese, turning what should be a sincere, uplifting message of hope to a young child into a sermon. When I say it’s Christian-core, it’s not because there’s anything overtly religious about it. It’s because it feels condescending in a really cheesy way. In other words, this sounds like something they’d play at Sunday School.

DM #6: Ugly Kid Joe - Cats In The Cradle (YE: #61, PEAK: #6)

This is a cover of a pretty great 1974 song by Harry Chapin. But Ugly Kid Joe’s cover of it is utterly pointless. The original worked because it starts slow, allowing the final verse to hit like a gut punch. But here, the stodgy hard rock production doesn’t come with any of that slow build, it’s just constantly trudging, like you’re on a 50-mile backpacking trip in 100° weather. And frontman Whitfield Crane’s vocals just sound dreadful—there’s too much hair metal snarl in his voice and he can’t sell this song at all. Every minute of this song feels like an hour—and considering this song is only 4:02 that would be an impressive feat if I didn’t feel the urge to die of pure boredom hearing this.

DM #7: Jeremy Jordan - The Right Kind Of Love (YE: #68, PEAK: #14)

I don’t have anything to say about this song other than that this sounds like a knockoff of *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” and this Jeremy Jordan Khia sings and raps like if 98 Degrees had no personality. And I’d like for you to take a moment to reflect on what I just said, because that’s a pretty self-affirming statement of shittiness.

And now onto the list proper!...

10...Okay, I know my 90s worst lists thus far have probably painted the picture that I simply hate AC ballads on principle. And yes, while I certainly do dislike a lot of them, there is a bit more nuance to it—for me, it generally comes down to if the singer(s) sound engaged, if there is chemistry, and if the production takes some actual chances instead of dissolving into the safe white glop that becomes utterly indistinguishable from any other song. For this next song, it’s a shame because it was very close to being good, and I don’t think I can assign the blame for the track’s failings to either of the singers here...

10. Vanessa Williams & Brian McKnight - Love Is (YE: #21, PEAK: #2)

There are certainly many things to appreciate about “Love Is”—Brian McKnight and especially Vanessa Williams sound really good against the piano line. But the big reason this fails is the tone—the song is about how love is many things, from a blessing to something that breaks your heart. The idea is that love is a universal force that’s unbreakable if it’s true love. That’s not a bad idea to build a song around, but when you give it this AC ballad melody that makes it difficult to even discern what you’re supposed to feel when listening, my mind just processes it as dull. Based on the sound alone, I can’t tell if this is supposed to be a love song or a breakup song! Am I supposed to feel like I’m getting words of wisdom from elders? Cozy for an intimate declaration of love? Sad for the narrator(s) following a devastating breakup? Like I’m 500 pounds? What am I supposed to feel? Love is a lot of things, but I don’t think it should be dull.

9...Again, I’m not against AC ballads on principle—it’s just gotta have production that actually takes chances and the singer must sound engaged. If the song fails in either of these, it can completely ruin the entire song. And while we’re talking about Brian McKnight...

9. Brian McKnight - One Last Cry (YE: #54, PEAK: #13)

Asking me to analyze this song is like asking Gordon Ramsay to do a taste test on a bottle of Aquafina. Because there’s literally nothing here!! It’s so crushingly dull—there’s no intensity and Brian McKnight sounds so overwrought. It’s a dramatic performance that doesn’t have the production to justify it. And yet paradoxically, Brian McKnight’s performance sounds both dramatic and half-assed!! Like he knows he has to sing with his full range but doesn’t have the heart to put his full emotion into it. The only purpose this song serves is to drive people into psychosis from how unstimulating it is. For a song about your last cry of grief following a breakup, it sounds awfully weepy and “not over it”. From what this song sounds like, I think Brian McKnight will have many more cries after this. As well as me if I continue trying to analyze this.

8...But on the topic of tropes in music I might seem to be against on principle based on my 90s worst lists, another trope I’ve heavily criticized is the spoken-word bits in a lot of R&B songs in this era. But I said it in my 1992 worst list—if you’re gonna employ spoken-word interludes in your song, they should go at the beginning of the song to set the mood and never appear again. I think spoken-word passages can be great devices in songwriting, especially on concept albums. But if you abruptly employ them in the middle of the song, the song feels much more pretentious. Or in this song’s case...creepy?…

8. Silk - Freak Me (YE: #5, PEAK: #1)

This song is just too blunt—the guys in Silk are begging their girl(s) to get freaky with them. It’s probably best to directly quote what they say. They’re asking if they can “lick [her] up and down” and “play with [her] body” to get her real hot. And get her soaking wet. And the spoken-word verses make all the imagery with whipped cream and getting freaky feel pushy and creepy. And the production doesn’t help any of this feel sexy. I’d say someone like Sabrina Carpenter has the goofy and inviting playfulness to make this work, but the production is so bland and pillowy that there’s no playfulness to it—even she wouldn’t be able to save this. So all we’re left with is blunt requests that don’t set the mood. I think I hate whipped cream now.

7...One big trend in 1993 that I haven’t mentioned at all on this list is Miami bass. And the main reason for that is...well, I like a lot of Miami bass as fun dumb party music. It’s the same reason I like the club boom of the early 2010s so much. But when Miami bass got bad, it got bad...

7. Duice - Dazzey Duks (YE: #16, PEAK: #12)

Want me to describe how this song sounds in one sentence? Imagine if 6ix9ine made “Baby Got Back”. But that might be an insult to “Baby Got Back”, which had way more creativity, humor, and charisma than this disaster. Creo-D has a real lack of distinct personality or technique and thus has to shout to compensate. The rhymes aren’t clever and there’s nothing memorable or quotable here!! Say what you will about “Baby Got Back”, you will never forget “Oh my god, Becky look at her butt” or “My anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns hun” or “I like big butts and I cannot lie”. “Dazzey Duks” only wishes it were that memorable. And that’s not to mention that the production is awful, with the weak Miami bass percussion and buzzing synths that sound like you’re standing next to a wasp nest. Creo-D’s flow is weak at best and sloppy at worst—rhyming legs with sex SHOULD work, but the way he pauses before he says “legs” makes it sound like he’s struggling to find a word to finish the line. And to end on “Baby Got Back”, you did NOT earn that reference on the second verse. Thankfully, this bad wannabe has been pretty much lost to time at this point.

6...So as I mentioned at the start, rock in 1993 had either become parodic or remained the leftovers of 80s cheese. Now, it’s not a secret that a lot of 80s glam metal/hair metal just doesn’t work for me—I often find it too stodgy and the vocals too snarly. Those snarly vocals mean that when glam metal bands tried to venture into softer sounds, the result was shit like this...

6. Def Leppard - Two Steps Behind (YE: #100, PEAK: #12)

Musically, I already feel predisposed to dislike this because the frontman’s vocals sound too snarly, clashing awkwardly against the gentle acoustic instrumentation. It makes the song feel tedious to sit through—it’s trying for intimacy but the vocals sound like the frontman just finished singing “Livin’ On A Prayer” 6 shots in at karaoke. The backup vocals sound as bored as I am listening to this. But then you start paying attention to the lyrics...he’s saying wherever this girl goes, he’ll be two steps behind. On the surface, this seems to be a promise of companionship and support in times of strife and trauma. But note the first verse: 

“Walk away if you want to

It's ok, if you need to

You can run, but you can never hide

From the shadow that's creeping up beside you

There's a magic running through your soul

But you can't have it all”

So translating...you can leave this relationship if you want to. And it’s okay if you need to. You can run but never hide from the shadow creeping up beside you—if the shadow is creeping up beside her, it’s probably not her shadow, since it’s always there with her to begin with. That must mean he’s talking about HIS shadow creeping up beside the girl’s. And that’s when I realized that this reads like a stalker anthem. When I hear “When you turn around, I’ll be two steps behind”, I hear the guy literally in pursuit of this girl wherever she goes. This’d be excusable if this were intended as a stalker anthem (think “Every Breath You Take”), but this acoustic guitar production with the string embellishments is trying to create an intimate atmosphere. I don’t think Def Leppard were trying to make a stalker anthem—I believe they were trying to make an intimate promise of companionship. So girls, I’m sure the guys in Def Leppard are decent people IRL, but if I were you, I’d look over my shoulder if you’re around them. Because you won’t like what’ll happen when they finally catch you...

5...Again, good AC ballads require production that takes chances and the singer to sound engaged. And if either of these fall short, the entire song fails. So what happens when both fall short?...

5. Jon Secada - Angel (YE: #72, PEAK: #18)

This might just be the single most painfully generic song I’ve ever heard. The music key is C major—the single most basic key in existence, and the guitar solos are weak and cheesy as shit, meaning that none of the lyrics even register. It wasn’t even until I started writing this entry and looked up the lyrics on genius.com that I realized that this wasn’t a love song!! It’s a song about how much he misses his ex because she’s an angel. I made a joke earlier about “Love Is”’s tone being indecipherable, but goddamn, I should’ve saved it for this. C is a basic key that’s intended as baby’s first piano scale. It’s a very easy key to learn because every note in the scale is on the white keys. So when artists use it, the tone of the song has to rest entirely on the production and the singer’s voice. I’m not trying to say C major is a fundamentally bad key or anything—“Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter is an amazing C major song. But “Espresso” worked because the production was frothy and summery and Sabrina nails her performance on it. But on “Angel”...sure, Jon Secada has a decent chest voice, but his falsetto is thin and grating and he doesn’t sound invested whatsoever. He’s putting just enough power into his performance to make the song feel marketable but not enough to make you believe that he means what he’s singing. But really, it’s that awful falsetto that pushes this from just being dull to flat-out terrible.

4...But speaking of terribly sung AC ballads...

4. Rod Stewart - Have I Told You Lately (YE: #32, PEAK: #5)

Okay, why does Rod Stewart sound like Bryan Adams here? Seriously, his voice sounds terrible here. And the bland AC production just puts his awful singing in the spotlight. The song’s melody just meanders with no direction, with the production desperately in search of a big climax that never happens. And Rod is clearly looking for that big climax as well because for such lowkey instrumentation, he excruciatingly oversings to try to convince us “yeah these words are coming from deep inside my soul, man”. But the way he rhymes gladness with sadness just feels so hacky and amateurish. And that makes the song feel a lot less intimate or sincere. So yeah Rod Stewart, I’m happy your girl takes away all your sadness and replaces it with gladness, but your song takes away all of my gladness and replaces it with madness. I wrote most of this entry not realizing this was a Van Morrison cover. I did not listen to the original song, but I can say that the flaws in the hacky songwriting were likely made worse by this awful cover thanks to Rod’s terrible singing. You have not told me this lately Rod, and I’ll happily go the rest of my life without you ever telling me these hacky lyrics ever again.

3...I have the feeling that my decade dives as I explore music history will result in me finding one artist who I have an intense hatred for despite them not really deserving that much anger. I don’t think there’s one I can pin down for the 2010s, but for the 2000s it was Uncle Kracker, and for the 90s, I’m fairly certain it’ll be Michael Bolton...

3. Michael Bolton - To Love Somebody (YE: #83, PEAK: #11)

Yes, I know this is a Bee Gees cover. I have not heard the original song, but while this is far from Michael Bolton’s worst cover when his atrocious “When A Man Loves A Woman” cover from the previous year exists, this is still terrible. Michael Bolton oversings so painfully and sounds like he’s garbling his words as a result—“TRRR LRRRRRRRRRRRRRVE SOMEBODY”. The closest comparison I can land on is somewhere between Lewis Capaldi and Scott Stapp of Creed. Not to mention that the production is this flavorless, whitewashed AC blandness that doesn’t flatter Michael Bolton’s big voice in any way. It strips the song of any soul the original could’ve had. This is a fucking terrible song—music for the sort of folks who cross the street when they see a black person. So what two songs were worse?

2...So I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this on my blog before, but I have perfect pitch. I guess I sorta alluded to it in my 2000s lists when I tried to make “the return of D major” a running gag. But this means that I tend to be more susceptible to noticing if the melody of a song sounds wrong or even if a radio station’s frequencies are causing the song to sound just a tad in a different key. I bring this up because while this song is still pretty terrible, I’m not sure how much of my disdain for it comes from the melody just sounding wrong. But I judge music based on how it hits my ears, so thus...

2. Aerosmith - Cryin' (YE: #60, PEAK: #12)

I genuinely feel bad that Aerosmith have now made 3 of my 90s worst lists—I still genuinely think “Dream On” is a great song. But I think it’s safe to say that in the 90s they were beginning their slow fade into a nostalgic legacy act, and “Cryin’” is rough. The chorus melody sounds...incorrect. Each bar on the hook resolves up to an A from below, implying a buildup and resulting in an unsatisfying resolution. But more importantly, frontman Steven Tyler sounds like complete and total ass on this song. His screaming is backed by this awful rock instrumentation that somehow tries to split the difference between being soft and intense and winds up as bland instead. In other words, it’s the sort of terrible radio filler that’s destined to make you hate it with overplay, and given how thoroughly it’s disappeared from radio since, that appears to be what happened. I’m cryin’ too, cryin’ from how utterly painful this song is to listen to. So what’s worse?

1...When it comes to the song I choose as the worst hit of the year, it’s usually the song that’s aged the worst in hindsight or made me the angriest or just sounds the worst. Hell, even the song that made me feel the most unsafe. But this is uncharted territory for me, because I don’t usually call a song the worst hit of the year based solely on the absence of good. But no other song this year thoroughly wasted my time like this...

1. Kenny G - Forever In Love (YE: #73, PEAK: #18)

“Forever In Love” by Kenny G was a song I had never heard of prior to listening to the 1993 YE list. When the song started, I heard the pleasant-sounding instrumentation and thought this had the potential to be good and was waiting for the vocals to come. It was about halfway through the song when I realized that this song was entirely instrumental. I’m astonished how this sold enough copies to become a hit, because what purpose would this serve you? What would it say about you if you called this your favorite song? It’s waiting room music, plain and simple. The instrumental is so bland and forgettable that it goes in one ear and out the other. The sax solos just blend into the rest of this boring instrumentation. I feel the same way I did about my best friend when Japanese study music topped her Spotify Wrapped. Like, I’m just embarrassed for anyone who considers this their favorite song. This is the sort of shit that you hear when you’re in the lobby waiting for your doctor’s appointment. And outside of that context, I don’t believe music like this has any right to exist. And that’s the reason this song topped this list—it’s pointless hold music that goes nowhere and inexplicably sold enough copies to become a hit. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must’ve been to be listening to pop radio back then, hearing this song, and thinking you accidentally tuned into some Sunday morning broadcast shit. “Forever In Love” by Kenny G: the worst hit song of 1993.

And that’s the worst list finished!! I hope you enjoyed reading, my next article should be the best list for this year! Stay tuned for that and until then, if you have predictions for my best list or your own lists of the worst hit songs of 1993, please comment them below!! I’m looking forward to reading them! And until the next article, remember to keep it Fire!