Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2014

Hey everyone, Drake, known online as Urtar Reviews here, and today I am going to be going over my picks for the worst hit songs of 2014. 2014 is a year that gets a lot of shit in this community and I do not agree. This year is not just very good, but great! While it had some songs I hated, it had less than most years of the 2010s and it also was pretty darn stacked when it comes to songs I adore. I only have 6 Dishonorable Mentions for this list and if you know me, you know that's a small number considering I often have over 10. Anyway, rules are as usual, songs have to debut on the Jan-Dec Year End list for 2014 or make the Billboard Year End for 2014 and not a Jan-Dec list. And as usual, this is all subjective, my opinions, if you disagree with me that's totally fine. 

10. Happy - Pharrell Williams 

Look I like Pharrell as a singer and producer. He's produced some classics from the 2000s and also sung in some of those, as well as some really good songs from the Despicable Me movies, like Fun, Fun, Fun and Just A Cloud Away. But yeah, as someone who will defend the Despicable Me movies a lot more than most art critics, I hate this song. Pharrell's voice is really annoying on this song, and as someone who doesn't mind repetition in music, this is too far even for me. This song just feels like a repeating loop with no changes, it just goes on with the same thing over and over. And that could work for me if the loop was one I enjoy, like an instrumental track I made called At The Beach but it isn't, it's a very annoying and bad sounding one. I get the appeal of this song but for me it does nothing but  annoy me. 2014 had some fantastic songs about being happy that I loved that work for me but this one does not work for me. 

9. 

In 2014 Beyonce had a big hit with Drunk In Love with Jay-Z and it is a song that is a very common 2014 worst list pick in this community. So of course since I am not your average music critic, I would put the other one on the list and not even mention Drunk In Love. 

9. Partition - Beyonce

I don't even really dislike Drunk In Love it's a fine song if you ask me. But her forgotten minor hit that barely scraped the Year End list on the other hand, I've always hated. This song is a multi part 5 minute song. Now there are lots of songs that have multiple parts that I enjoy like Bohemian Rhapsody or All Too Well 10 Min Version but the thing with those songs is that the parts all keep me captivated to get me to listen to the full song. Not a single part in Partition keeps my attention making the 5 minute runtime excruciating. I'm amazed this was even released as a single and even took off given how much of an oddity it is, feels like it would be an obscure deep cut of hers, not the second biggest hit off her self titled album. 

8. 

Imagine Dragons are overhated in my opinion. But on the other hand, oftentimes their rip-offs deserve the hate they get if you ask me.  Like for instance...

8. Best Day Of My Life - American Authors

This song is like if you took It's Time by Imagine Dragons, a song I still like a lot, and made it terrible. This guy's voice sounds like Dan Reynolds with a cold and it sounds so terrible and annoying. The instrumental sounds like if you took It's Time's instrumental, chopped the tempo it in half with a sword and made it from hell and it's absolute torture. Also the lyrics can't even fucking stick to a theme. Like half the song is about having the best day of your life and half of it is about not wanting to wake up. Like what the fuck do they have with each other. Maybe it's trying to be like the inner battle of the sides of your brain whether you should actually get up out of bed but then why does it sound so chipper and cheerful. This song is utterly confused as to what it wants to be and it's incredibly annoying. Add to my annoyance the fact that my dad loves it and constantly plays it around the house and you have a song I never want to hear again. 

7. 

Jason Aldean 

7. Burnin' It Down - Jason Aldean 

I've expressed my hatred of Jason Aldean's music before numerous times on this blog, and this song is one of his worst songs I've heard. Jason Aldean probably heard a R&B song on the radio and was like "I can do this too" and in my opinion this song utterly fails at being one. Jason Aldean just sounds like he does not care and so why should I. This song just sounds like garbage an utterly failed attempt to make R&B by one of the worst country singers in the industry right now if you ask me. Don't really have more to say. 

6. 

Piano ballads are a very extreme genre if you ask me. On the best side you can have some phenomenal songs like Someone Like You by Adele. On the other side you can have some of the most boring and generic music on the radio. And 2014 had two such songs. So let's discuss both. 

6a. Say Something - A Great Big World, Christina Augilera 

This song is so boring. Like really boring. Have I mentioned this song is boring. This song is like driving down a long straight road with no curves and endless fields and you don't have any entertainment with you. You're just sitting there watching endless fields go by. The lyrics and vocals aren't even that bad, this song is just so boring that I can't get into it in the slightest and listening to it is torture, like what I described above. 

6b. All Of Me - John Legend 

This song is also boring and it comes across like a song John Legend made because he knew it would become massive not because he wanted to make it. And the writing is laughable. Now this song could fall into the same territory as like If It's Love by Train, where the hilariously awful lines add to the charm for me, if this song was at all interesting, but unfortunately this song is just incredibly boring. 

5. 

As you know, unlike most music critics in this community I use an alternative Year End list in addition to the Billboard one. And that means I have a lot of songs that are eligible that aren't for most people. Most of the time they're songs I enjoy or are indifferent towards. But in 2014 there was one stinker that got caught between the Billboard chart years, but made the Jan-Dec Year End. 

5. Blame - Calvin Harris, John Newman 

Now you might be expecting me to hate this song because of the lyrics, but I honestly don't mind them. It's just this guy regretting cheating on his wife and saying that he's not to blame, the women he cheated with is. No, my problem with this song is very simple, I just hate how it sounds. John Newman's voice is really raspy in a very annoying way, and I hate the drop. As someone who is a big Calvin Harris defender who has praised him before and will undoubtedly continue to do so, this is the worst drop I've heard from him. It's just so stiff and clunky, lacking the force and power that a lot of his other drops from the early 2010's had for me. 

4. 

More lists of mine, more shitting on Chris Brown,  that's just how it works. 

4. Chris Brown

It's him again. He had three songs on the Year End, including Show Me by Kid Ink featuring him, which I don't hate, so I'm gonna discuss the other two. 

4a. Loyal - Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, Tyga

Chris Brown complaining about hoes not being loyal over a very stiff limp beat, rapping while he's doing so, giving me flashbacks to Look At Me Now from 2011, neither guest artist saving it, and the song feeling like it goes nowhere. That's all I'm gonna say.

4b. New Flame - Chris Brown, Usher, Rick Ross

And yet I hate this one, the one most people don't put on their worst lists, even more. It's Chris Brown encouraging a girl to fall in love with him. So basically, it's Chris fucking Brown trying to make himself look like "such a nice guy", which just creeps me out. Also the beat is just so limp and both Usher and Rick Ross deliver far below average performances. 

3. 

As I've said before a lot, I'm a big bro country defender. I enjoy most of the genre's biggest hits and think the genre gets a lot more hate than it deserves. But if there was one song not by Sam Hunt to make me understand why people hate the genre so much, it would be this...

3. Bottoms Up - Brantley Gilbert

This is a bro country song from hell. Now I don't actually hate the lyrics, they're generic bro country cliches similar to a lot of Luke Bryan songs I love like That's My Kind Of Night. No my problem is that this is one of worst sounding country songs I have ever heard. Brantley Gilbert's voice is just devilish I CANNOT STAND HIM here. And the production might be the most cluttered and overproduced I have ever heard in a country song and it is ABYSMAL. This song has an incredibly dark and uncomfortable atmosphere which does not at all match with the party lyrics, making this song a very bad time in addition to being unlistenable. And yet there are two songs from this year I hated more. 

2. 

You ever have one of those songs where others hate the lyrics, but you don't all that much, and yet you hate it more than those people because it makes you feel sick?

2. Rude - MAGIC!

Yeah I don't actually hate the lyrics that much these days, it's a portrayal of someone who is desperately in love with a girl, and yet her father won't say yes. Yes this guy keeps coming back despite saying that he will run away from her, but I think that kinda portrays his state of mind. Yes he's being immature by calling this guy rude, but with the framing of a teenager it works in the same way Olivia Rodrigo's songs do. No why I despise this song comes down to the sound. Now I actually don't mind the first verse, it sounds pleasant enough. But from the first chorus onward, listening to this song feels like accidentally eating a piece of cheese with mold on it without noticing (something I've done before by the way) , it sounds foul and disgusting, like listening to it will infect your body. The guitars combined with Nasri Atweh's voice sounds is just sickening and the guitar solo is nauseating. 

DM. Come With Me Now - KONGOS

I get why people like this one, but oh boy am I not one of those people. 

DM. Love Never Felt So Good - Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake

Grave robbery, and it isn't even good grave robbery. The opposite in fact. 

HM. Jealous - Nick Jonas

Has some okay moments but the rest is insufferable. 

DM. Love Runs Out - One Republic

One day I swear, I will understand why people love this song so much, and maybe I will love it then, but for now I just don't get it. 

DM. Dirt - Florida Georgia Line

Yes, the only Florida Georgia Line hit from the early 2010s I dislike is the ballad trying to be more mature that most people like. I'm not even sure why I dislike it, but I do. 

DM. Chandelier - Sia

Every now and then I'll listen to this song and feel the magic that others have with it, but every other time this is just so fucking annoying and hard to listen to. Also, fuck Sia. 

1. 

DJ Mustard was the main producer of hip hop in 2014 having produced at least five songs on the Year End list. And I honestly think he wasn't that bad in 2014. All the songs he produced were at least fine, and some even good, with one exception. So let's get into that exception, which ended up being my least favorite hit of the year...

1. Don't Tell 'Em - Jeremih, YG

Yeah you all knew this was coming. Don't Tell 'Em by Jeremih and YG. Widely agreed to be the worst song Mustard produced in 2014, and one of the worst hits of the year. 

And it's a song I actually like. Yeah no, I'm not joking. I get why some people hate it because of the lyrics, but I don't mind them, and the song is just a comfortable vibe. No if you want the Mustard produced R&B song from this year that I ACTUALLY hate, we have to talk about this...

1. Na Na - Trey Songz

This song has one of the most uncomfortable atmospheres of any song I have ever heard. The beat combined with Trey Songz's vocals make me feel uncomfortable, like someone is about to sexually abuse me. And finding out that Trey Songz is actually a sex offender certainly didn't help with that. In fact it made not just the atmosphere even more unbearable for me, but also made the originally innocent  lyrics suddenly come off as very creepy to me. This song is one of the most unpleasant listenening experiences I've ever had and I genuinely never want to hear this song again after I make this list. Na Na by Trey Songz. My pick for the worst hit song of 2014!

Thanks for reading! Urtar Reviews signing out! I'll see you next time!