I have to confess, the bad music of last year just didn’t hit like usual. Certainly, there are plenty of objectionable tracks to choose from, but there’s nothing profoundly, totally awful; no Reinventing Your Exits or even a Trouble. Further, with some exceptions at the top, this list could be in nearly any order. The honorable mentions are stronger choices than 2022’s, but the list proper lacks the same awful escalation. 2023 was a pretty good, if somewhat one-dimensional year (more on that in a few days), and that is reflected in a worst list that contains a multitude of genres but lacks some variety within those genres. With nothing else to add, let’s get into the list proper:
#10: Grenade by QUIX
Looking at this title, you might wonder why it made the list proper. A track from a perfectly respectable Trap producer with a violent-sounding name? Sounds like a banger. And you would be justified in assuming so, but that’s how they get you. This, the lead off single for QUIX’s otherwise solid EP from last year, contains a poison pill in the form of one Andrew Taggart of disgraced, mercifully irrelevant EDM ruiners The Chainsmokers (I’ll bet you didn’t even know they put out an album in 2022!) Three years removed from playing a festival amidst the height of Covid, Taggart lends his wimpy, faux-softboi vocals to this track. Not sparingly, either! He’s all over this thing, croaking out generic nonsense about some girl. As for the instrumental…it rips. I’m not gonna lie, if there was no singing, I’d love it. The drums are propulsive, the first drop is this wild polyrhythmic synth line that sounds as good as anything QUIX has made, but it’s all marred by two full verses from an uncharismatic shitheel and a frankly unnneccesary sample of Kendrick Lamar’s ELEMENT.
#9: Wait by Derek Minor
What happened to Derek Minor, man? Five years before this he released The Trap, one of the greatest Christian Hip-Hop albums of all time (don’t laugh). In the years since he’s let artistry take a backseat, releasing three full compilation LPs of juvenile, cheap sounding jock jams designed to fill time on ESPN, a collab EP with Propaganda that should’ve been much better than it was, and a 17-minute lo-fi mixtape. Then, after years of conscious mediocrity, he finally buckled down and made a proper album again. And it shows up multiple times on this list. Nobody’s Perfect is ironically only barely a step above the preceding five years of forgettable output from this artist, coasting on (very strong) features and production that finally sounds like it cost something. But the album is full of the problems present in latter-period Christian rap: ill-advised melodic hooks, and many staples of the genre that just need to die, which brings us to this entry. The “song for the wife” is a trope of Christian rap going back more than a decade. Minor himself gave us one of the better versions of this (by blatantly cribbing from Jeremih’s Dont Tell ‘Em,) and of course Andy Mineo has practically made it an art form. This is…not that. To be completely fair, California legend DJ Mal-Ski crafted a perfectly serviceable instrumental with plenty of West Coast appeal, aside from a somewhat irritating saxophone loop. The real problem here is Derek himself. He is certainly an above-average singer, but his performance here is grating. Anytime he gets into his upper register he has this whiny affect that’s completely at odds with his intended smooth delivery elsewhere but not remotely at odds with the lyrics, which range from banal to really, really pushy. “BABY. WHERE YOU. BEEN. BRING THAT. LOVING. TO ME. RIGHT. NOW.” Be still, my beating heart. This is the problem with trying to make songs about desire within a culture that is scared of it, you’re left with very few avenues of expression. Either talk shit about other men or resort to lines that were played out in the R&B of fifty years ago. This song does both. At least it’s short?
#8: Bad For Me by Skrillex, Corbin, & Chief Keef
I really hate that album cover. Whiny hooks abound here as well, only this time the artists are bitching about women, not trying to seduce them. Joy. Skrillex’s second album from 2023 was a frustrating listen, but more on that later. His production here is decent enough, a pleasant melodic Trap groove that better frontmen could make good use of. Unfortunately the bulk of its brief runtime goes to Corbin, who grouses about some girl who’s bad for his health, rejecting her while trying to sound like he’s the one hurt in this exchange. “Girl you’re bad for me, like cigarettes” OOOOOOOOO GOT ‘EM! Chief Keef is barely on-topic when he can even be understood, it sounds like he was dragged into the booth and charged Skrillex by the minute. Another short experience but all the more obnoxious, capped off with a pointless anti-drop right at the end.
#7: Don’t Get Too Close by Skrillex & Bibi Bourelly
Oh look, here’s that terrible album again. While Quest For Fire was a masterpiece welding together innovations in the past half decade of UK Garage, Bass House, and EDM Trap into a cohesive listening experience, Don’t Get Too Close was like a CV to pitch Skrillex’s inclusion on pop albums going forward. A pointless endeavor, as his work on RENNAISSANCE alone guarantees he will have plenty of work for the next half decade. There were a handful of good tracks, mostly the ones centered on vocalists who can sing well, but overall the album felt like it was chasing the spotlight, not generating it. The title track, however, is a different beast. Bibi Bourelly has fully earned her status as a legend in electronic music, as the vocalist on SOPHIE’s magnum opus Faceshopping, to say nothing of her work with TOKiMONSTA, Rico Nasty, etc. etc. These two working together ought to produce greatness (as it does on Quest for Fire). Instead, a meandering, listless collection of marimba and distorted synth gives way after ninety seconds to Bourelly’s stream-of-consciousness musings from, if I had to guess, middle school. This entire song is very juvenile, repeating the same platitudes about how “you don’t know me” and “my mom hates me” and so on. The real ugliness here, though, is Sonny’s vocals. I’ve never cared for his metalcore-but-weaker style of singing, and it’s especially odious contrasted with Bourelly and the spaced-out production. I do not begrudge this dual-album’s victory lap endings, and that tone does work in other cases, but Sonny channeling his inner teenager is not something I or anyone asked for.
#6: Without u by Juuku & Holywatr
Who wanted a song about being sad about a breakup that lists no reasons for missing this girl except “sex is fun”? Beyond the classlessness of it, it’s boring! Juuku was one of the most exciting producers of the early ‘20s, with his blown-out, psychedelic walls of synth with a vaguely chiptune-adjacent aesthetic. Here on his major label debut, he sacrifices all of that for a pretty generic Drum n Bass drop, otherwise taking a backseat to give Holywatr’s unbearable vocals center stage. There is no continuity between the vocalist’s tortured verses and the bombastic drops in between them. Of special note is the acoustic version also included on this EP, if you want to really punish yourself.
#5: Graves by KB & Brandon Lake
I am so very very tired of KB lifting choruses from worship songs. This one is fine. Pretty generic but not objectionable. The problem is that KB velcroed a generic Trap song onto it. KB really earns his title as the Christian Big Sean too, with lines like “now I’m giving ya kids bops” and “‘Til the Spirit raided my whole tomb like Laura Croft”. He’s always been able to flow like nobody’s business, but here he mostly keeps it in neutral, with some truly awful mixing in places and one long triplet verse for no reason.
#4: Phonies by Dorian Electra
(Sigh). I like this artist. I like this artist a lot. I do not, however, like being trolled by this artist. Everything about this song is ugly. The crunchy, dissonant bass guitar loop, the “doo-doo doo doo doo!”s, the completely asinine lyrics bitching about, well, “phonies”. Unlike many other entries on this list, there’s nothing objectionable, it’s just annoying.
#3: NEW GROUND by Juelz & KILLY AI
This one doesn’t even top 2 minutes, but it grinds one of the best albums of last year to a fucking halt just to show off this bullshit AI voice of some rapper nobody’s ever heard of. Juelz barely even tried here, grafting on an inferior version of the Moondance drop, then making the AI sing the Floorspace motif at the end to justify slapping this onto the album RIGHT before the best track on it (ooooo, foreshadowing!). It’s boring, AI is the death of creativity, and one of the most exciting young artists in EDM should know better.
#2: Holland by Showtek & Earl St. Clair
No moral crusades here, this is just bad. Earl St. Clair chose to deliver his lines in a, uh, stereotype-laden manner, and that’s his prerogative, even if I’m surprised he didn’t go “shhhheeeeeeiiiittt” at any point. Fun fact: he produces most of Machine Gun Kelly’s music! Somebody stop him! Outside of the computerized tourism voice and St. Clair’s response brimming with (ahem) flavor, that’s all in service of a painfully boring House track with abundant misuse of the amen break. Showtek peaked ten years ago, they could just hang it up at this point.
Dishonorable Mentions:
3am by Skrillex, Prentiss, & Anthony Green
As whiny as Bad for Me, but without the misogyny and with much better production. In the interest of fairness, the drop at the end is pretty sick.
Nothing’s Perfect (VARI Remix) by NGHTMRE, Oliver Tree, & VARI
What’s worse than Oliver Tree? Oliver Tree slowed down.
Counting Sheep (V2) [2018 Export Wav] by Flume & Injury Reserve
zih-zih-zih-zih-zih-zih, zih-zih-zih-zih-zih-zih-zih-zih
Freak Mode by Dorian Electra
A couple good musical ideas (the guitar and the “la”s on the chorus) buried under a mountain of frat bro nonsense.
It’s Okay by Derek Minor, Susan Carol, Byron Juane, & Greg James
A pile of empty platitudes on top of a pop instrumental straight out of 2017. Derek needs to stop giving features to his cousin who can’t rap, but Derek’s own performance is actually pretty good, which along with Byron Juane’s excellent verse saves this from the list proper.
Laserbeam (Stumpi Remix) by Ray Volpe, Wooli, & Stumpi
You know what the best dubstep track of the 2020s really needed? A progressive house remix! That’ll show those kids! Why enjoy loud aggressive music when you can listen to the same four-beat loop for three minutes? My favorite part is when it briefly pretends it’s building to something interesting then falls back into the same archaic “groove”.
Help Me by Deorro, NIIKO X SWAE, & Kiiara
Y’all remember Kiiara? That Selena Gomez clone who rode the most obvious Spotify payola ever to a one-hit wonder? No? Well she’s been relegated to EDM hook artist for a while now; made a pretty solid track with Jauz years ago. This is on here because she’s still a shit singer and it’s physically painful to listen to Deorro water his sound down this much in a naked bid to land on the Kohl’s department store playlist.
Nothing’s Perfect (OddKidOut Remix) by NGHTMRE, Oliver Tree, & OddKidOut
What’s worse than Oliver Tree? Oliver Tree pitched up a couple whole steps. Awful drop on this one too.
Shut Shit Down by TroyBoi & Armani White
White’s flow is solid despite TroyBoi’s boiler plate beat, but then the drop is one of the most annoying things I’ve ever heard. Landed a spot here off the crypto reference.
The Love You Give by Derek Minor
I have nothing against this track or songs like it. Christian Hip-Hop has been holding up a mirror to the hateful rhetoric and behavior of evangelicalism for a decade now. Hell, Lecrae has 2 albums worth of material about them. This is just unbearable to listen to, a lethargic, plodding drum loop with awful auto-crooned vocals all over it.
#1: Believe the Hype by Alice Longyu Gao & Oli Sykes
I get no pleasure from this. Oli Sykes has been credibly accused of assault by female fans. In addition to being a piece of shit, he is also a gigantic poser. Yet here he is, glomming onto a nascent genre populated by mostly young, mostly queer people. Of particular note is the line “I don’t even splice, baby, I fucking abuse it”. Cute. Alice Longyu Gao is great, but aside from a serviceable metalcore drop in the middle of the thing there’s just nothing here but Gao’s sound reduced down to cliches. I come away from this relatively brief single filled with disappointment in an artist I respect, and also a splitting headache. The hook is just screaming and it’s annoying as hell. If this is the future of music, heaven help us all.
intentionalnachos 