Music

The 10 worst songs of 2015

by Anthony Hansen

2015 was, by many accounts, a turbulent and troubled year that nevertheless managed to produce some truly stunning music in spite of itself. Clearly, many artists saw this as a decisive make-or-break moment and were inspired to rise to the occasion. Though one hopes that brighter days are ahead, it would be hard to make a case against 2015 on a purely creative level.

But hey, it’s gotta be worth a shot, right?

Sam Smith – “Writing’s On The Wall”

It should go without saying that “James Bond weeping uncontrollably” is not a mental image one should ever associate with a Bond theme, but… well… here we are.

Neil Young + Promise of the Real – “Monsanto Years”

It was tough to pick just one track from the sad, sad mess that was The Monsanto Years (a.k.a. Your Uncle Just Joined Greenpeace And Is Posting About It Incessantly On Facebook: The Album), but the title track just barely wins out by a slim margin because, in its attempt at alarmist rabble-rousing, it winds up imbuing the words “Monsanto” and “Safeway” with all the ominous, foreboding power of a Count Chocula commercial.

Bloc Party – “The Love Within”

Russell Lissack of Bloc Party is taking a stand.

Russell Lissack of Bloc Party has nothing to be ashamed of.

Russell Lissack of Bloc Party is making sweet, sweet love to Ms. Pac-Man and he doesn’t care who knows it.

Hopsin – “No Words” and “Fly”

There’s probably no sadder indictment of an artist than when the ironically over-the-top production gimmicks he uses on an unfunny “comedy” song are actually far subtler and more tasteful than the earnestly over-the-top production gimmicks on his “serious” material. If you ignore the fact that he’s spouting obnoxious gibberish to prove a really tired point, the Auto-Tuning on Hopsin’s voice in “No Words” sounds fine, whereas on “Fly” he combines Auto-Tune with some kind of awful pitch-shifting effect that makes him sound like a robot yelling for help from the bottom of a manhole. The fact that both of these misfires are accompanied by such a strong dose of holier-than-thou attitude (as evidenced by Hopsin’s charming tendency to directly address his listeners as “dumbasses” and “simpletons”) only makes their shortcomings that much more glaringly obvious… and hilarious.

Magic! – “#SundayFunday”

Magic!’s breakout hit “Rude” was… not a good song. However, ill-conceived as it was, you could at least tell it was something someone actually took the time to sit down and write. That would normally be a simple statement of fact and not a compliment, but “#SundayFunday” fails to clear even that extremely low bar, building its threadbare lyrics around: 1) a blatant lift of the stupidest line from The Bangles’ “Manic Monday” 2) a direct reference to the fact that the lyrics are ripping off “Manic Monday”, and 3) two different lines referencing some guy named ‘Jimmy’, who is never heard from again. It’s all in the service of the poisonously catchy title hook, which is only ‘fun’ to the extent that doing absolutely anything that doesn’t directly cause lasting physical harm to one’s own person could be considered ‘fun.’

All this to say, if you have incredibly low standards, we have some great news for you.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – “Downtown”

Sadly, it seems that not even hip-hop is immune to the sway of the world’s powerful moped lobbies.

Matt & Kim – “Hoodie On”

This is a song about how great it is to be white because you can wear hoodies all the time without getting arrested.

OK, it’s not actually about that. There’s probably nothing to it other than that the singer really likes wearing hoodies, but it’s hard not to feel like this is coming from the perspective of someone who’s never been followed around by security guards in the mall for wearing a hoodie, or randomly stopped and harassed by cops for wearing a hoodie, or, or, or, etc., etc. Still, that on its own would be some pretty flimsy justification for declaring a song one of the worst of the year. No, what really pushes this one over the edge is its stilted, awkward, unfathomably irritating vocal performance. It’s like listening to someone trying to imitate Jamaican patois in order to support a bizarre conspiracy theory that claims to debunk the existence of reggae.

Nate Ruess – “AhHa”

Speaking of irritating vocal performances…

Though he may very well be a perfectly decent fellow in person, fun. frontman Nate Ruess sings like the stereotypical theatre school reject with no “off” switch, dominating every square inch of sonic space with his strained, histrionic air raid siren of a voice. While such a gonzo, no-holds-barred approach could be invigorating in theory, “AhHa” just feels like someone cycling through every weird, gimmicky vocal affectation they can think of, like a roving, sentient black hole for good taste and subtlety. It is, quite literally, headache-inducing.

American Authors – “Go Big Or Go Home”

If you like overproduced indie-folk with football stadium chorus vocals AND generic top 40 dance-pop songs about getting wasted, you’ll theoretically LOVE:

– Eating Lean Cuisine while being punched repeatedly in the stomach

– A luxury suite at the Ritz-Carlton that’s inexplicably full of dead eels

– Wax eyelids

– This!