Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2001

So, when putting together my previous top ten lists regarding the best and worst hits of 1991, I was primarily motivated to do it out of curiosity. However, after putting them together and looking back on all the music I’d exposed myself to, I realized I actually really enjoyed myself when doing this. Sure it had me listening to a lot of music I probably didn’t want or need to expose myself to, but I was also pleasantly surprised along the way. Even some of the artists that appeared on the worst list demonstrated themselves to be much better than the singles that made that list would imply from them. And I even felt some level of inspiration from listening to all these different artists and getting exposed to these different styles of music. So, I figured that the next step would be to pick another year and repeat the cycle.

This time around, however, I picked a year based off of a suggestion from a friend rather than by my own choice, with the year that was suggested to me being 2001. And in doing so, I’ve now learned that I need to be a lot more careful when letting other people make my decisions for me because 2001 was the year of disaster. I’m not even talking about the 9/11 attacks; this was just a terrible year for pop music. Seriously. I know that some people point to years like 2005 and 2006 as some of the worst years in pop music history. Really though, what were the worst things those years had to offer exactly? ‘My Humps’ by the Black Eyed Peas? ‘Hollaback Girl’ by Gwen Stefani? ‘Bad Day’ by Daniel Powter? You know what? At least those were bad in a way that they left an impression on you. The worst songs of this year weren’t even the kind of bad that left an imprint on the public consciousness. And it’s not even just that the bad stuff was bad or that there was so much of it, although there certainly was a lot of it. However, there was also the issue that there was just so little actual good music and the little that there was wasn’t even all that good. I managed to find three songs I’d classify as ‘great’ songs in my 1991 list, but I’d be hard pressed to find even one from 2001. Again, give 2005 and 2006 some credit; at least they were able to present good music to counterbalance the bad music! I could have made a list of the top twenty worst hits of this year, and if I had I still would’ve had to make some cuts to it!

However, this was the year I decided to go with, so I’ll try not to let the issues I take from it get me down too much. First things first of course: let’s take a look at our dishonorable mentions for this list, shall we?

All Or Nothing (O-Town) [41; 3; 16 weeks]

Does anyone even remember these guys? Of the late ‘90s/early 2000s boy band acts that I know of, these guys are probably the ones with the least distinction to them, not that it helps that they were given such a boring song to perform. The music’s dull and lifeless; the percussion doesn’t even come in until the second verse and even then it’s just as weak as the rest of the track. Also, the song never really builds up to a satisfying pay off; it remains just as dreary from beginning to end. The only real things that the boys themselves bring to the song are lyrics that no one in a relationship would say in real life, such as ‘I’m sharing you with memories,’ ‘Sharing this relationship gets older’ and ‘I’ve had the rest of you now I want the best of you, it’s time to show and tell’. O-Town wants me to give them all? Too bad, they get nothing.

Crazy (K-Ci & Jojo) [36; 11; 21 weeks]

Much like the entry above, this song suffers from being just plain boring. The main problem here is with the production, which is terribly lackluster and is overpowered by the vocalists, whose overuse of auto tune drowns out the rest of the track save for the annoying woodblock effect that’s just loud enough that it’s audible over the singers, but just soft enough that it’s still in the background. This is just a pet peeve, but woodblock sound effects, or anything that tries to create some kind of watery sound effect hits the exact nerve in my mind to really piss me off. Not that the singers make up for it with their drunken performance that the auto tune fails to cover up or with their incredibly stupid lyrics. One minute they say ‘I apologize for all the things I’ve done’. Not sure what things, but you know, those things, whatever they are. The next minute, they’re saying ‘If you really love me then why are you leaving me?’ Also, they repeat the word ‘crazy’ in the song over fifty times, and at no point does it sound like it fits into the song naturally.

I’m a Slave 4 U (Britney Spears) [--; 27; 3 weeks]

 Talk about a dance song that makes you just want to find a spot on the wall. The music to this is already lacking any fun on its own, what with its seasick beat and incomprehensible melody. Throw in Britney’s vocals on top of that, which sound incredibly breathy and atonal, and it just becomes the audio equivalent of water boarding. If this had been an actual hit, it easily would’ve made it on the list proper. In lieu of that though, there were several songs worse than this one, which by itself should be enough indication of how bad this year was.

Peaches & Cream (112) [20; 4; 25 weeks]

Is it weird that this song actually makes more sense to me if I interpret it as the guys on the track giving blowjobs to the women they’re singing about? I mean, the peach metaphors seem to be referring to the vagina, so unless they like sharing peaches and cream flavored things with these women, I’m not sure how else to interpret this one. Sadly, having the song make sense doesn’t make it better; the rappers’ tones are still creepily breathy and reedy, the production includes an obnoxious buzzing noise that sounds like a horde of wasps and the wordplay here is incredibly unimaginative. They repeat the chorus a grand total of twelve times on this song, and that’s taking into account that the chorus is always repeated twice whenever the song gets to it. Thanks 112 for ruining peaches and cream-flavored anything for me forever!

Wait a Minute (Ray J ft. Lil’ Kim) [--; 30; 5 weeks]

Speaking of uncomfortably creepy, repetitive dance songs. The first half of the first two verses is repeated line for line, and the chorus consists of a single, irrelevant line repeated over and over. This might’ve made the list if not for Lil’ Kim, who’s probably the only remotely good thing on this song.

Irresistible (Jessica Simpson) [63; 15; 13 weeks]

Does anyone still care about Jessica Simpson? Of the blond-haired pop princesses from the ‘90s, I wouldn’t necessarily call her the worst, but she was certainly the least interesting. This song is a good example of how she shouldn’t be performing; she sounds incredibly breathy and her voice actually pitches out at points. No wonder the chorus includes the line ‘I can hardly breathe,’ not that you’d likely remember that, or any of the lyrics to this song outside of the first two lines of the chorus. Also, there are points in this song where the production sounds like fart noises, which the immature part of my mind finds kind of hilarious, though the rest of my mind just finds it embarrassing.

Butterflies (Michael Jackson) [--; 21; 5 weeks]

This just was not a good year for the king of pop. MJ himself isn’t really to blame for the issues I take with this song, rather the production is. This song is an amalgamation of some of my biggest pet peeves in music; the beat’s incredibly slow and tedious, and that obnoxious water sound effect permeates the entire song. The really sad part is just how lacking in passion Michael sounds here.

My Sacrifice (Creed) [--; 9; 7 weeks]

I don’t think anyone will be surprised that I think this song sucks. I dislike it for pretty much the same reasons everyone else dislikes it. The lyrics are incredibly pompous and holier-than-thou, the music in incredibly sludgy sounding and Scott Stapp’s vocals sound like they were filtered through a really crappy recording program while he was singing with food in his mouth. Next!

I Wanna Be Bad (Willa Ford) [84; 22; 11 weeks]

Willa Ford was the poor man’s Britney Spears. She released one album and had a second album in the works in 2004, but ultimately shelved it, not that I can imagine anyone actually wanting to buy it considering how much of a mess this song is. The attempted incorporation of hip-hop slang and serious overuse of auto tune both contribute to this song’s failure, but really the problem is Willa Ford herself. She wants to convince me that she’s capable of being a ‘bad girl’ type? I do not buy that for a second. Of course, this isn’t the only example of a song that came out this year where a female performer tries way too hard to convince the listener of something to the point that it stops being believable. We’ll see that when we get into the list proper though. Still, Willa Ford wants to be bad? Wish granted!

Speaking of what’s on the list, those unprepared for what follows best make like a bird and fly away now. For all others, we’re counting down…

…THE TOP 10 WORST HIT SONGS OF 2001!

            #10

             The early 2000s were considered the apex of neo soul music. While it saw its mainstream breakthrough in the mid-to-late ‘90s, this period was pretty much the peak of its success, with the genre seeing a decline as the decade went on. Some people might attribute it to such artists getting screwed over by the industry or struggling with releasing follow-ups to the albums that came before. Honestly, that wouldn’t surprise me that much because of the neo soul hits that came out in 2001, the vast majority of them felt, for lack of a better word, soulless. They were all just dull, slow and without any kind of pulse to them. Even the artists performing them seemed checked out and unable to bring any kind of intensity or passion with them. 

            Most of the other entries placed on this list because they were terrible, but this made the list just by being plain boring.

            #10. Love (Musiq Soulchild) [67; 24; 13 weeks]

            No, by the way, that isn’t a typo. He really does spell his stage name that way. Poor literacy seems to be a recurring theme in his music, particularly his albums. Anyway, Musiq Soulchild was originally from Philadelphia, having grown up as the oldest of nine children. After dropping out of school at 17, he discovered his talent for music, and so decided to adopt the name ‘Musiq’ with ‘Soulchild’ being added on later as a sign of respect for past soul artists. This song was his second, and highest charting single from his first album, and was later covered by gospel group Trin-i-tee 5:7, who changed the name to ‘Lord’ and made it a gospel song. Personally, I think it made a lot more sense as a gospel track, because with how it was originally written it just doesn’t work.

            The idea of the song is that Musiq here is speaking directly to the concept of love. The thing is the way he does so it sounds like he’s speaking to an actual person. I know some of you are probably thinking, “Well, of course he’s speaking to the concept of love as if speaking to an actual person; lots of songs have people doing that.” But the choice of words he uses makes no sense when you step back and look at them. The first verse starts with the lines: 

So many things I’ve got to tell you

But I’m afraid I don’t know how

Cause there’s a possibility

You’ll look at me differently

How does the concept of love look at a person, let alone differently? For that matter, how do you say things directly to the concept of love? I mean, you can try, but I wouldn’t expect a direct response. And then we get to the chorus, which talks about people using its name in vain and those that have faith in it going astray. Okay, the idea of people saying the word ‘love’ in a way that it’s devoid of meaning, I can understand getting frustrated about that, but people that have faith in love going astray from it? How does that even work? All he does is talk about the concept of love as if speaking to a special, personal lover. That’s kind of weird because, even if love were a person, it’s not exactly singling this guy out as the only person it would bother to grace with its presence. You are not special for discovering the concept of love, Musiq!

            All of this is before we get into the real problem of the song: the production. The main problem I have with most of Musiq Soulchild’s music is twofold: the vast majority of it sounds exactly the same, with only a song here or there standing out, and the vast majority of them are incredibly slow and lifeless. This song, sadly, falls into that majority, probably being one of the slowest, dullest, songs of his that I’ve heard. There is no pulse to this whatsoever. And it’s kind of a shame that I have to put it that way because, in all honesty, Musiq Soulchild is not a bad singer; he does have a decent voice. The problem is that I just don’t feel any passion or energy in it, though God knows he tries.

            I’m not even sure what else there is to say about this. Though I guess Musiq isn’t wrong; so many people do use the word ‘love’ in vain, and sadly he is one of those people.

            #9

            Back on my ‘worst of 1991’ list, I mentioned one particular style of song that I did not really buy into, but I at least understood the appeal of. That particular song is the slower, smoother, R&B love ballad that tries to present this softer, more romantic side to its singer. The main reason it doesn’t work for me is that the slower, smoother tone the song goes for makes the song come across as sad and unhappy. Sadly, apparently, that particular trend either didn’t die off or some artists decided to persist with it into 2001.

            #9. Differences (Ginuwine) [50; 4; 19 weeks]

            It also didn’t help matters that the particular singer that decided to try his hand at it this time completely sucked. Say what you will about ‘Love’ by Musiq Soulchild; at least I felt like his statements were believable; nonsensical, and maybe even kind of stupid, but believable. However, Ginuwine (a name that’s both stupid and kind of ironic, I might add) presents nothing but hollow cliché after hollow cliché to describe how much he loves this woman he’s singing to. That probably wouldn’t be such a big issue if it weren’t for the fact that the woman he was singing to was his wife. Kind of makes you wonder why a little more effort wasn’t put into the song to make it feel a bit more sincere. Of course, considering what a large number of other songs in his discography were like prior to this, things like ‘Pony,’ ‘Holler,’ ‘Same Ol’ G’ and ‘What’s So Different?’ I think it would be a wonder for him to even conceptualize the idea of sincere love, let alone write a full song about it.

            Of course, much like ‘Love,’ the music is also a huge problem. Unlike ‘Love’ though, the problem here is that the music is so muggy that it basically mutes any kind of emotion out of the song, and blurs out the majority of the lyrics to the point that they have no meaning. The lyrics were bland and lacking any believability to begin with, but this is still an issue. The bass and minimal, snap percussion don’t really help matters either, barely offering any kind of support for the song to move forward, and only further cementing how little passion or emotion or anything is seeping through.

            Also, if the song’s hollow, unconvincing statements of how this girl is ‘the special one’ weren’t enough, the fact that he and his wife ended up separating as of November of last year was likely the last nail in the coffin regarding this song having any meaning. It’s pointless, it’s unconvincing and it’s completely devoid of substance. Next!

#8

And speaking of unconvincing…

#8. He Loves U Not (Dream) [28; 2; 14 weeks]

The best way I can think of to describe Dream is that they were what the Spice Girls would’ve been like if they were American and more watered down. The vast majority of their music consisted of sentiments focused primarily towards a female demographic specifically targeting sentiments that they thought would be relatable. ‘Pain’ is told from the perspective of someone stepping out from a stressful, one-sided relationship, ‘Mr. Telephone Man’ is told from the perspective of a girl that feels unappreciated and suspicious of her lover, ‘This Is Me’ is told from the perspective of a girl whose boyfriend is hesitant to fully commit due to lingering fears from his last relationship, etc. And there’s nothing wrong with that; a lot of groups have target demographics, and it makes sense that they would be pandering to those specific demographics. Business is business. The problem comes from the fact that they weren’t very good at it. And I don’t think there’s a better example of that than ‘He Loves U Not’.

This song is specifically written from the perspective of someone that’s overly possessive of her boyfriend and gets incredibly aggressive towards another girl out of suspicion that she’s trying to steal him from her. Okay, speaking as a guy I will say right away that I’m not the target demographic that Dream was trying to pander to. Even if I were though, how are the girls listening to this supposed to relate to it? Yes, people get suspicious of others around them when they’re in a relationship, usually towards their own lover, but also, on occasion, with other people as well. The thing is, for all the song goes on about how the narrator’s boyfriend won’t ever hook up with the girl being scorned in this song, what proof is there to actually back that up? For that matter, what evidence is there that the girl is even trying to hook up with the narrator’s guy in the first place, the fact that the narrator says so? That’s kind of a stretch for me to believe because, and here’s the real problem with this song, even if the girl actually is trying to hook up with the narrator’s guy, and if the guy is as faithful as the narrator says he is, why does the narrator need to try this hard to convince us of it!?

Actually, the fact that the girls are going to this much effort to put this other girl down kind of paints them in the bad light here! Is the girl they’re confronting really as evil and as desperate to get with the guy as Dream seem to think she is? For all they know she might just be in the same book club as him, or maybe she’s just a colleague he’s on friendly terms with at work or something. In fact, here’s what I hear every time the song gets to the chorus: “My guy is mature and can make his own decisions. And he’s MINE YOU SLUTTY WHORE! MINE, YOU HEAR!? MINE! MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!”

Also, it’s kind of funny that they would release a song bragging about how loyal to them the ones that love them are because, not even two years after this song’s release, the band ended up breaking up due to the fact that their second album’s first single, ‘Krazy,’ didn’t really see as much success as this song, resulting in that album’s second single never even being released, the entire second album’s release being repeatedly postponed, and finally the band being dropped by their record company. Still, that doesn’t save ‘He Loves U Not’ from being a complete train wreck. ‘Dream’? Please. This song leaves me feeling like I just woke up from a nightmare after a bad hangover.

#7

You know what kind of song just makes me want to roll my eyes in exasperated annoyance? The ‘I’m a famous person and you should feel bad for me because being famous is so hard’ song. The song where the person behind it tries to point out all the different ways in which being famous sucks and tries to get the audience to sympathize with them. These kinds of songs never work, ever. For starters, the excuses they present as to why we should sympathize with them tend to be too unspecific or generic to really warrant being sympathetic about. They might bring up that they’re under a lot of stress, but never really where that stress is coming from. However, the biggest issue with these kinds of songs is this: the people making them are famous! You’re making several times what normal people make, and you’re likely living in the lap of luxury! No one could possibly sympathize with that!

It becomes especially difficult to sympathize with someone when they’ve had a lot of rather controversial stuff about them brought forth in the media that doesn’t exactly paint them in a sympathetic light. With that in mind, let’s talk about R. Kelly.

#7. I Wish (R. Kelly) [87; 14; 7 weeks]

The sad part here is that R. Kelly legitimately is a good singer. He’s got a strong voice, he’s got a diverse musical palette; the guy is nothing to sneeze at. At the same time though, he’s also kind of a disgusting human being, as the following year would go on to prove. Of course, this is purely a list based on quality and personal or moral feelings shouldn’t factor in when criticizing it, but even in that regard ‘I Wish’ is still a complete failure specifically because it has R. Kelly begging for sympathy from the listener. Keep in mind, prior to this song’s release, R. Kelly released a song called ‘Did You Ever Think,’ where he spent the entirety of the song talking about how awesome it is to have become as rich and famous as he was.

Of course, anyone can write a song that’s about how bad they have it despite being famous. Ultimately that alone isn’t really what makes this song as bad as it is. No, the real reason this song sucks as much as it does is the fact that it was released under the pretense of R. Kelly writing a song mourning the death of his mother in1993 and his friend Tupac in 1996. And, for the first verse anyway, it does just that, up until the prechorus starts up and he starts whining, ‘folks don’t know the half,’ ‘somebody pray for me,’ ‘ever since this money come it’s been nothing but stress’...For the love of God, just shut up! Also, this is a minor nitpick, but the fact that he does this thing where he rushes lyrics to make them fit in the bar during his verses just grates on my nerves.

There’s just no reason that I can imagine anyone sympathizing with this; it’s a song by a despicable human being complaining about how hard it is to be famous and expecting people to feel bad for him because of it! Screw that! If I had one wish, it would be to wipe this song from existence!

#6

The ‘80s and ‘90s were a good time for hip-hop and rap music. The 2000s, however, were not. Okay, I’ll be fair here; good hip-hop music did come out in the 2000s. ’03 and ’04 would be seeing the introduction of Kanye West, who legitimately is a talented rapper and producer, even though his behavior in real life has revealed him to be kind of an obnoxious jackass. And the Black Eyed Peas would release probably one of their best songs to date: ‘Where is the Love’ in 2003. Though that was before they went on to release one of their worst songs, ‘My Humps’ two years later. If we’re restricting ourselves to 2001 though, rap music options were a lot more limited. There was Missy Elliott, OutKast, Jay-Z, and even though I didn’t mind their music nearly as much as the nearly endless streams of brag-rap, ‘gangster’ and party songs to come out this year, I couldn’t really buy into a disappointingly large number of their songs. Maybe it’s just personal preference, but I just can’t say I felt like 2001 was kind to mainstream hip-hop. As one critic once said, the worst thing to happen to hip-hop music was that it became all about having it all rather than wanting it all. And the vast majority of the hip-hop music that came out this year was dumb, thoughtless, woman-objectifying, shamelessly bragging nonsense like this. This one just happened to stand out because a rapper who should’ve known better helped make it.

#6. Oochie Wally (Nas & the Bravehearts) [98; 26; 9 weeks]

You know a song is not exactly top quality material when it consists of two words that are absolute nonsense. According to urbandictionary.com, it’s apparently an urban step rhyme that can be used to refer to freaky sex or someone that performs freaky sex. And that’s exactly what you want to think of when you think of someone like Nas, right? I’ll just say right now that I’m not a Nas fan; I don’t really connect with his music because, much like with Dream, I’m not part of his target demographic. That said, I do have respect for a lot of the music he released, since it did legitimately seem to match what hip-hop was originally meant to do: represent the poor and disenfranchised. However, there is one sentiment that most of Nas’s diehard fans share that I completely agree with, that being that ‘Oochie Wally’ is one of the worst songs he’s ever released. It really says something about a song when huge fans of the artist that released it don’t like it. In that regard, ‘Oochie Wally’ is essentially Nas’s ‘St. Anger,’ something incredibly stupid that was not what the his fans wanted or needed to hear and only serves to piss them off. Of course, this isn’t really a Nas song by itself; no this is actually a collaboration song between Nas and his posse the Bravehearts. Unfortunately, I think I can safely say that Nas’s talent as a rapper has not exactly rubbed off on the rest of them. That’s especially apparent when you consider that this is the only hit song they ever released.

Just looking at the lyrics, they clearly present lack of effort or complete douche baggery in their delivery. Two of the verses start with blatant lyrical lifts from Snoop Dogg and the Notorious B.I.G. In addition to that, there are some incredibly dated pop culture references in this song, including Kelly Long, Nia Price and, I kid you not, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” In addition, one of the guy’s verses presents some rather graphic imagery of how he screws women, while another contains KKK terminology. One thing all of them have in common, however, is the fact that every one of them seems to involve the guys screwing their women, several times in fact, with some even passing them on to the next guy, then kicking them out. Not that you’d likely notice any of these things just based on how much they slur their lyrics and delivering each of their lines in this dull, flat monotone that doesn’t really go along with the music.

Speaking of which, the music on this track is terrible. It’s just this discordant, ugly mess of lazy percussion and some attempted exotic music that just isn’t pleasant to listen to. I understand that some hip-hop is intended to sound down and dirty, but this doesn’t even sound like it’s having fun with it. It sounds like something someone lazily put out on some cheap audio production program and didn’t bother editing afterwards.

Nas did end up continuing to make his own music after this, and some of it was at least decent quality. As for the Bravehearts, they dropped both of their albums after this song’s release, one in 2003 and one in 2008, neither of which really saw the same level of success that Nas achieved, and thank God for that. The saddest part, however, is that there were still worst hip-hop songs that came out this year. We’ll get to those later on though; prepare yourselves.

#5

Oddly enough, country music was one of the few genres of music that I wasn’t too bothered by this year. It’s not a genre that I’ve taken that much of a preference for, but it’s one I haven’t really minded too much, even in more recent years with its serious decline in quality. Unfortunately, that decline in quality still exists, and one particular subgenre of country music still has yet to win me over: bro country.

#5. Follow Me (Uncle Kracker) [19; 5; 27 weeks]

I think this is a good example of how bro country songs that try to present their performer as caring, sensitive, or romantic only serve to expose them as the sleazy assholes they are. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this ‘More Than Words’ levels of bad in terms of trying to pass itself off as more romantic and less punchable than it really is; it’s not even close. Trust me though; it’s still awful. The only thing this song really has going for it is that its chorus is incredibly catchy; that’s it. There are many things that a decent chorus can redeem in a song, but when the entirety of the song is just complete crap there’s nothing to salvage.

Where this song really suffers, of course, is in the lyrics. People have interpreted the song as being about both drugs and cheating. On one hand, lines like ‘All you know is when I’m with you I set you free / And swim through your veins like a fish in the sea’ suggest the former. On the other hand, lines like ‘I’m not worried ‘bout the ring you wear / ‘Cause as long as no one knows then nobody can care’ suggest the later. Either way though, these are still rather sleazy lyrics that no one says in real life, yet still paint the person that would use them as just a slimy asshole. Interestingly enough, when asked about this in a 2007 interview with MTV News, his response was, “I guess it’s kinda both. I would never want to say anything that would get myself in trouble, being married with a couple of kids. That song is like a dirty picture painted with a pretty brush.” That is not an apology; that is a giant middle finger to everyone that expected something better out of this song. Ladies, gentlemen, if a guy or girl tries to sell themselves to you like this, I beg you do not follow them. Just turn around and run as fast as you can to the police, or to someone you know and trust and never cross paths with that person ever again.

#4

I don’t like Ja Rule. Big surprise, I know. The guy always performs every song with the same dull, atonal drone that destroys any attempt at atmosphere. He always sounds like he’s suffering from a serious case of strep throat while drunk off his ass. That, for the record, is when he’s trying to sing, though it’s not like he’s much better when he’s rapping. And that’s before we even dissect his actual lyrical content. The vast majority of his songs are built around the ‘thugs need love too’ song formula, which I feel holds about as much weight as the ‘being famous sucks’ song formula. The basic idea for this particular formula is that the rapper tries to explain why he needs this person he’s presumably in a loving relationship with, but also still trying to keep up their thug image by bragging about various thug clichés, including having lots of money and sleeping with lots of women. In addition, the song generally also has a female singer on the hook to give it a much softer, more romantic feel. Maybe there are thugs out there that legitimately are in positive, monogamous relationships, but I find it hard to believe that Ja Rule is one of them. For those of you with doubts, let’s look at his attempt at winning over the ladies with his biggest hit single to date.

#4. Always On Time (Ja Rule ft. Ashanti) [--; 7; 5 weeks]

Ja Rule seems to rely a lot on people like Lil’ Mo and Ashanti to carry his songs, which is a shame because listening to such songs demonstrates that they clearly are trying their best to do so. They’re just stuck working with a guy that can’t maintain the tone they’re trying to set. If this had been a better year, I likely would’ve included more Ja Rule songs on this list. In lieu of that, I’ll settle for this one because it’s the one where Ja Rule’s biggest flaws are the most prominent.

Keep in mind that this song is trying to make Ja Rule seem like a figure that is both sensitive and caring, a guy that has a special relationship with that one girl that’s right for him. Now, allow me to completely shatter that image by pointing out that the first verse points out that she has a restraining order against him. Kind of killing the sweet, romantic atmosphere by pointing out that you can’t stand within a hundred feet of her, or communicate with her or anything. And with the following verses, he only serves to further present exactly why she’s likely justified in not wanting to be around him. For example, he talks about how he values material things over ‘bitches,’ which he classifies this girl he’s in a relationship with as. Furthermore, he’s rather graphic about his descriptions of how he treats the girl, mentioning that he yanks her braids, smacking her butt and fucking her like crazy. The censored version is even worse, with the descriptions in the verse instead replaced with statements that make it sound like he’s assaulting her. On top of this, he also brings up that he has other women, according to him two or three for every car that he owns, whom he keeps high on ecstasy and sends home sexually aroused. And to top it all off, he goes on to question this girl’s loyalty and complain about mean things she’s done to him even though he’s done nothing but indicate that he most likely deserved it.

Honestly, if this song confirms anything for me, it’s that Ja Rule is little more than a poser. He wants to make us believe that he’s both a tough thug and a sensitive, caring lover, and yet the way the song’s delivered he fails to convince me of either one. Then again, considering the vast majority of his songs are carried either by lazily used samples or much better performers, I find it hard to believe he ever had any integrity to begin with. Ja Rule: barely a rapper, hardly a thug and not even remotely romantic.

#3

I didn’t really get into this on my previous top ten lists, but I try not to be too hard on child performers. They’re still little kids; they’re not really old enough to know better regarding the quality of their work. In time, they might mature and grow and become the people that serve to shape the future of performance art, for better or worse, be it in music, dance, theater or some other form of performance art. And those that don’t tend to either fade from the public consciousness or lead incredibly unhappy lives that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. So, please understand where I’m coming from when I say that I feel really bad about putting something like this on the list because it’s not like I’m doing it to be mean to the performer. I just feel like there’s a point where someone is old and confident enough to be able to perform music and perform it well, and then there’s letting a little kid have a microphone and say whatever someone else put in his hand without realizing that he would likely be embarrassing himself if he were old enough to know better.

#3. My Baby (Lil’ Romeo) [74; 3; 10 weeks]

I honestly do not understand how anyone thought it would be a good idea to put this kid in a studio, write up something like this for him to rap and play it for a mainstream audience. This kid was not ready for radio play; he doesn’t sound like he knows what he’s doing. Percy Romeo Miller, Jr., who at the time went by the name Lil’ Romeo, though now just goes by Romeo or Maserati Rome, was the son of rapper and entrepreneur Master P and former rapper Sonya C., nephew of rappers C-Murder and Silkk the Shocker, cousin of producer, singer and rapper Mo B. Dick and brother of singer and actress Cymphonique Miller. With a background like this, I’m guessing that the only reason he even got a record deal was through nepotism and connections. It wouldn’t surprise me if such were the case.

Even within the context of the song he sounds like he’s too young to be rapping at his age. He states in the song that he’s only eleven years old. Yes, Michael Jackson was the same age, possibly even younger when he started performing but besides him child music performers are just not the right pick for mainstream radio play. Speaking of Michael Jackson, let’s talk about the sample they used for this song. Back on my worst of 1991 list I had considered putting 'O.P.P.' by Naughty by Nature on the list but ultimately gave it a pass because it was a fairly clever reworking of the context of the sample it lifted from the Jackson 5’s ‘ABC’. ‘My Baby,’ in turn, also lifts a sample from a Jackson 5 song, but its use of it is much lazier and far less effectively executed. For starters, the female singer they hired to sing the hook sounds like she’s straining her vocals at points and she doesn’t transition between lines smoothly at all. It doesn’t even sound like they gave her decent quality recording equipment to use for her lines! For another, they didn’t even do a good job editing the sample for this song. There are points in the music where you can clearly hear the lines ‘I want you back’ being sung in the background. Someone did handle editing on this, right?

Furthermore, the subjects he raps about are things only a kid would care about. He talks about owning a Bugs Bunny chain and watch and even quotes Looney Tunes in the song. Not sure what you’re trying to prove kid, but I don’t think admitting you own Looney Tunes merchandise is going to boost your street credibility. Also, he mentions that he’s making A’s and B’s in class and after high school, he plans on going pro. Again, I don’t mean to rag on the kid for this, but I must ask why did someone think that these were things that a mainstream audience would be able to relate to? Who else owned a Bugs Bunny chain and watch at the time this song was released? How did the fact that this random child planned on going pro at basketball after high school affect the lives of anyone else in America? Of course, one thing that does jump out at me is the fact that he mentions people wearing gear produced by No Limit, the record label he’s signed to. Yep, the kiddies these days are never too young to be used for commercialism.

When I first heard this song, I was under the belief that they let this kid write the material himself or make it up as he went. However, a friend of mine informed me that the lyrics were actually written for him by studio executives. In response, I simply have to ask what they were thinking when they wrote this. I feel like I should say that this sounds like something they should be old enough to know not to write, but honestly I feel like even little kids could write something better than this.

I’m honestly not even angry or seething at this song; I’m just confused. Who is this supposed to appeal to exactly? Say what you will about Justin Bieber; at least when he got big he had a specific demographic that he appealed to. This though, I’m not sure what was going through the minds of the people that took responsibility for this poor kid. Regardless, for allowing him to make terrible music as a child, he has now proceeded to continue making terrible music through his adolescence and into adulthood. Not that anyone would notice, since he’s not had any chart success since ‘My Baby.’ I wish I could say that this was a sign that the general public has learned its lesson about letting child performers take the stage before they’re ready to do so, but then I remember that nine years later we were given ‘Whip My Hair’ by Willow Smith. God, this world…

#2

Some of you were probably expecting me to include ‘How You Remind Me’ by Nickelback on this list. Sorry, that’s not happening. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a Nickelback fan by any stretch of the word. I just don’t get the hate that so many people have for them. I mean, I’ve seen the reasons people list regarding why they hate Nickelback, but I can’t say that they’re unique regarding those qualities. Nickelback are derivative and all of their music sounds the same? Rick Astley’s music started out being rather samey-sounding, yet I still like it. Chad Kroeger’s vocals are incredibly abrasive and grating? I don’t see how they’re any different from the vocals Klaus Meine used on ‘Wind of Change,’ and I really like that song too. The band takes most of its influence by lifting ideas from other bands before them? Welcome to the modern music world; everybody does that!  The band members are obnoxious jackasses that rub their success in the faces of their haters? Well, I guess that’s not something I really have a defense for, even though there are other celebrities that do the same thing.

I just don’t feel the same hatred for these guys that everyone else does, and I don’t understand why it’s Nickelback that’s seen as the face of all that is wrong with modern rock music. Creed I can understand the hate for; Scott Stapp always sounds like he’s singing underwater and the band’s sound is just muddy and ugly, but Nickelback are not exactly a group worth pouring all your hatred towards in my opinion. No, if you want a band that does deserve for you to spend your time venting your anger and hatred at…well, I guess you could go with Limp Bizkit, but barring that, there’s Crazy Town.

#2. Butterfly (Crazy Town) [29; 1; 18 weeks]

Crazy Town is probably one of the most monotonous bands you will ever hear. Every single song, they always perform with these dull, flat vocals that bring forth no enthusiasm or passion at all. That’s probably one of the worst things I could say about a rock song; that it was ‘passionless.’ Yet that word perfectly describes Crazy Town’s entire discography to a ‘T’. When I first heard this song, I didn’t even realize there were two rappers in this band just because both of them sounded exactly the same! And even with their songs that do have them shifting their tone slightly, they still have the habit of needlessly repeating single phrases in some vain attempt to fill up space in the song.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the lyrics to this song. The first thing I notice is that the narrator apparently has a short attention span since he talks about specific details that he sees about the girl he’s describing, including that she has a tongue ring and I guess really weird fetishes, then ends it with the line ‘The only thing I really know is she got sex appeal’. Furthermore, the second verse has him starting by talking about how he’s no good for this girl because of the wild lifestyle he lives, just to interrupt it with the random line ‘So yo, what’s happening now?’ It doesn’t fit the rhyme scheme, it doesn’t fit into the story he started telling then just gave up on; the line serves no purpose. Then there’s the bizarre ‘Sid and Nancy’ line. I’m guessing that’s supposed to refer to the romance between Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. That particular romance resulted in Sid Vicious devolving into a heroin addict like Nancy was, the disbanding of the Sex Pistols, Sid’s disastrous solo career and the eventual death of both people, one via a knife wound, the other via overdose. Not sure if that’s the romance the guys at Crazy Town had in mind when they wrote that line. Since I wasn’t alive at the time the events transpired, and thus couldn’t witness it, I mostly had to go off of the 1986 film based on that romance. And man, it is a depressing watch. The film is not even the slightest bit romantic. I wouldn’t recommend it for a date night.

Of course, the real issue comes from the fact that they clearly just repeated lyrics in the song for the sole purpose of filling up space. Not an instrumental solo or anything, just more repetitions of lyrics. One example is the chorus, which is always repeated twice, and is stated a total of eight times throughout the song, twice between each of the verses and four times at the end of the song. What’s that? Even that wasn’t enough to fill up the dead space in the song on top of the nonsensical lyrics? Why don’t we also include the phrase ‘come and dance with me’ repeated sixteen times at the end of the song for no reason?

I don’t think I can think of a song that more perfectly captures the essence of 2001’s pop music better than this song; it is monotonous, meaningless, repetitious and asinine. And yet, believe it or not I found a song that I thought was even worse. We’ve dug the grave, built the casket and made the funeral arrangements. Time to set the final nail in the coffin for this God-awful year…

#1

When putting together my list of the top ten best hit songs of 1991, I was pleasantly surprised when I chose to expand my picks to include anything that charted in the top 20 or 40 in 1991. This was because I had opened my options up to look at other songs and found, not just songs I liked, but the song that ended up being my choice for the best song of that year. Sadly, the exact opposite happened when I opened my options up for 2001. Not only did I find few songs that I actually did like, some of which sadly wouldn’t qualify for my best list, but I also ended up finding even more songs that I absolutely hated. I tried to be flexible and let myself be surprised. In response I just found myself disappointed even further.

And that brings us to my number one pick for this list, which I only found out about by reaching beyond the year-end hot 100 list for 2001. When I first listened to this song, I was left in shock. I found myself grappling with the concept of how a song like this could possibly become a hit. Everything else on this list gave me various different reactions: disappointment, boredom, horror, disgust, annoyance, anger, but these are things that any generically bad song could inspire. No, something has to be a special kind of bad to leave me feeling absolutely insulted.

#1. Because I Got High (Afroman) [--; 13; 6 weeks]

I’m guessing many of you didn’t even realize this song was a hit. Look, I am completely aware that this song is meant as a joke. There is nothing wrong with that; a song is an artistic medium and thus a means for expression, so the musician behind it is free to write it about whatever he wants. The problem is it’s not a funny joke. It’s stupid, witless humor that has a flimsy setup and an unsatisfying payoff.

In the event those of you reading aren’t familiar with this song, allow me to sum up the ‘plot’ of the song, if you will. The narrator is a married man with a child, is going to college, and is basically living his life out through his normal day-to-day routine. However, he ends up getting high and has his life spiral downhill, eventually leading to a meta joke that the narrator of the song is currently high as he is performing the song in that very moment. That’s it. As far as jokes go, this is the musical equivalent to ‘Freddy Got Fingered’. It doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel because it’s not the bottom of the barrel. It’s not even below the bottom of the barrel. It doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as barrels! I hope you’re happy Afroman; your song has reduced me to lifting the quote Roger Ebert used to describe ‘Freddy Got Fingered!’

By the way, the idea behind this song was apparently inspired by Afroman’s ‘unwillingness to clean his room,’ leading to him playing around with the idea of a guy having his life ruined by drug use. That’s the most minimal inspiration I can think of for someone to come up with for a song. And the music certainly matches in terms of its minimal percussion, production consisting purely of a single bass line and background vocals, and the performer’s off-key singing. If Afroman were to state that he actually was high at the time he performed this song, I would totally believe it!

Within the first few minutes of hearing this song, I was honestly left in shock, actually pondering putting it as an honorable mention on the best list. It was just such a terrible song that it was incredible; I paced for almost an hour wondering what kind of response I could come up with for this song before realizing exactly what had just happened: ‘Because I Got High’ by Afroman broke something in me. I had nothing I could say about it, I couldn’t talk to other people about just how awful it was, I wasn’t even able to take notes down when putting this list together to document its awfulness. It is complete and absolute crap. Screw this song, screw Afroman, screw this list, and screw 2001!