The Worst Hit Songs of 2022 (8 Months Late)
Songs That Were Somehow Made Hits Instead of "American Teenager" by Ethel Cain
2022 possessed an ironic beauty that few other years have had. Both my personal life and the world at large were in a constant state of flux. I graduated college and started a full-time job; I moved back home to New York City for two months just to leave it again and go to a state where I knew no one; I lost a bunch of friends, but made plenty of new ones in their place. Weirdly enough, however, this disorienting flux couldn’t be easily found in my favorite form of escapism. If anything, popular music possessed a stasis that little else had this year.
For example, according to Billboard, the biggest hit song of 2022 was “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals: a song that was released in 2020, became a megahit in 2021, and lasted on the charts in 2022 due to radio stations’ unwillingness to replace with anything or anyone newer (and better). This “Heat Waves” observation isn’t originally mine, but does it have to be? The pessimism regarding the validity of the Billboard Hot 100 is something that’s existed for decades in niche online chart-watching spaces; however, by 2022, it’s become the collective sentiment held by the majority of pop culture nerds. Between overlong stream-trolling albums, Tik Tok, autoplay and playlisting payola on streaming services, regular radio payola, and the increased use of mass-buying sales tactics, who cares what the Billboard Hot 100 even has to say anymore?
I mean… I sort of do. If you didn’t realize the fact that I write long-winded culture critiques on the weekends, I sometimes struggle to make friends in real life, and one of the ways I try to connect with the people around me is through mutual interests in music (talking about music, vinyl shopping, spending time at bars that have live bands or at least “good music taste”, and going to concerts). It’s amazing when you come across someone who knows a more obscure singer or song that you love, but it’s simply easier to find like-mindedness through more popular music since its existence in the public consciousness allows it to reach a wider and more diverse group.
Also, popular music doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it reflects what sounds and aesthetics can be commodified and are socially acceptable. Music has been a storytelling medium, a political tool, and a bonding technique for centuries, and—similar to centuries past—the popular music scene right now is a microcosm of the sociopolitical climate we live in, for better or for worse. Therefore, music reviews are inherently cultural critiques, and summarizing the hit songs of 2022 can be a unique lens to view the modern-day zeitgeist through.
So what are the major takeaways of 2022? Not much honestly. For popular music, 2022 was a year that relied on nostalgia-baiting, established megastars, hit songs from the two years prior, and Tik Tok virality to determine popularity. Overall, I don’t have the same rage with the hit music of 2022 that I’ve had with years like 2016 and 2018. If anything, outside of my top 4 picks, I view a lot of these tracks with boredom, disappointment, and embarrassment. Nevertheless, 2022 is a major backslide in popular music quality, with lower highs and far lower lows than both 2020 and 2021 before it. Sadly, there was no shortage of tracks fitting for a piece about The Worst Hit Songs of 2022.
Rules (skip this if you don’t care about statistics)
Despite my defenses for the general Hot 100 chart, I can admit that the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 does not properly encapsulate all of the Hit Songs in 2022. Many songs lost their placement on the chart due to being pushed out of the Hot 100 altogether by stream-trolling albums with nearly 30 songs. Smaller sleeper hits are not accounted for at all because of mass-bought and radio payola tracks from established artists that out-charted them despite lacking the same cultural resonance (at least in my echo chambers). And the schedule for the Billboard charting year (Early November to Late October) negatively biases songs released in the fall and early winter that were edged out by Christmas music. So here’s how I defined a hit song in 2022, a track is a “Hit Song of 2022” if it satisfied one or more of these criteria:
Debuted on the BB Year End Hot 100 in 2022
Placed in the Top 5 for 1 Week on the BB Hot 100 & lasted 2+ Weeks on the Chart
Placed in the Top 10 for 1 Week on the BB Hot 100 & lasted 4+ Weeks on the Chart
Charted in the Top 10 for 2+ Weeks on the BB Hot 100
Placed in the Top 20 for 1 Week on the BB Hot 100 & lasted 12+ Weeks on the Chart.
Placed in the Top 20 for 2 Weeks on the BB Hot 100 & lasted 8+ Weeks on the Chart.
Charted in the Top 20 for 3+ Weeks on the BB Hot 100
Placed in the Top 40 for 1-2 Weeks on the BB Hot 100 & lasted 16+ Weeks on the Chart.
Placed in the Top 40 for 3-4 Weeks on the BB Hot 100 & lasted 10+ Weeks on the Chart.
Charted in the Top 40 for 5+ Weeks on the BB Hot 100
Charted on the BB Hot 100 for 20+ Weeks
So you won’t find “Mother” by Meghan Trainor, “Circo Loco” by Drake and 21 Savage, the entirety of Slut Pop by Kim Petras, “Fancy Like” by Walker Hayes, and “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals on this list despite how bad they are. These songs were selected from a pool of 146 Songs that I would classify as the Biggest Hits of 2022. Also, these are just my opinions. I’m not going to get too personal here! These songs are just not for me. So, without further ado, here are my Worst Hit Songs of 2022, starting with the Dishonorable Mentions!
Dishonorable Mentions
DHM #1: “Enemy” by Imagine Dragons feat. JID
Imagine Dragons made a song for a Netflix series based on League of Legends, and it might be even worse than that description. Accented by blaring horns with no texture, a grating vocal performance from Dan Reynolds, and an awkward composition where the choruses have zero cohesion with the verses (especially the chorus after JID’s verse), “Enemy” is an irritating cash grab that’s among the Imagine Dragons’ worst singles to date. I’m not dignifying JID’s phoned-in but competent verse with an analysis. Go listen to The Forever Story, he deserves so much more.
DHM #2: “Unholy” by Sam Smith and Kim Petras
I’m shocked this didn’t make my list proper. It’s for the best, any commentary I’ll have about Kim Petras will be mean-spirited and personal. Nonetheless, Sam Smith’s awkward retelling of the story of a man cheating on his wife as an observer is both cringe-worthy and devoid of details (why is Sam not just singing from the perspective of the person sleeping with “Daddy”). More perplexingly, Kim Petras’ verse is inconsistent with this story, instead talking about a sugar daddy in the first person who will buy her things, presumably not the same “Daddy” who’s “getting hot in the body shop doing something unholy”. Ultimately this song didn’t make my Worst List because the production is passable and there’s a unique groove to the hook.
DHM #3: “Silent Hill” by Kendrick Lamar feat. Kodak Black
If you haven’t, read my piece on sundial by Noname, all of the context for this track is outlined there; however, no context from Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers is necessary to say that this is Kendrick’s worst song as a lead performer. The chorus is a more irritating version of whatever Ant Clemons and Ty Dolla $ign somehow pulled off on Kanye West’s “All Mine”. There’s also a weird chirping noise in the back of the mix that plays throughout the entire song and you can’t unhear once you find it. Kodak Black’s verse is actually what saves this from being on the list proper. It’s fairly focused, the singular flow is pretty tight, and his wordplay is not bad. The only issue is that it’s a Kodak Black verse in the year 2022 so it’s amateurish as hell. And speaking of amateurish…
Is This Amateur Hour?
This subsection is devoted to five songs that reek of amateurism. These are probably my favorite Hit Songs of 2022 mentioned on this list, but they still fill me with both exasperation and second-hand embarrassment.
DHM #4: “Boyfriend” by Dove Cameron
Gay rights! It’s cool that Dove Cameron made an unapologetically queer song. It’s a shame that it sounds like a Billie Eilish rip-off with a rejected instrumental from the Fifty Shades of Grey Soundtrack. I’m more amused at the chorus than outright angry.
DHM #5: “I Love You So” by The Walters
I didn’t know this song existed until last week. Apparently, it’s from 2014, and I have to assume that it blew up on Tik Tok. It has almost a billion streams on Spotify and has about 30 times more streams than The Walters’ second most popular song. It’s just a boring indie song with bad vocals, a basic arrangement, and even more basic writing. We could’ve made Lizzy McAlpine a star instead.
DHM #6: “Romantic Homicide” by d4vd
Good for d4vd for getting a hit song. Not only is he incredibly young, but he’s one of the only Black alternative artists who charted this year. But as someone who listens to a lot of alternative, rock, and emo, this is painfully weak. The guitars have zero bite, any ambient vibe he’s trying to cultivate isn’t immersive at all, and the writing rivals the worst of 2000s emo and post-grunge. But at the end of the day, this kid is 18. There’s definitely room to grow, but “Here With Me” isn’t much better. Maybe give him a couple of years?
DHM #7: “Betty (Get Money)” by Yung Gravy
I don’t get it. I never found “Rick Rolling” funny. Maybe I’m just neurodivergent and love music, but I never understood the joke of clicking on a link and it just being “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. First, it’s a pretty good song that’s way better than the boring adult contemporary ballads that plagued the late 80s. Second, there was no legacy of the song being unlistenable or even bad before the meme. All of the confusion aside, “Betty (Get Money)” is weak. His “so bad it’s good” approach to lyricism doesn’t work for me, his voice is annoying, the chorus is sung off-key, and the only saving grace of the song is the chorus of girls that pop in and out. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather have Jack Harlow; he’s not on this list at all.
DHM #8: “TO THE MOON” by JNR Choi and Sam Tompkins
“TO THE MOON” is a drill remix of a Bruno Mars song that blew up on FinTech and NFT Bro Tik Tok where the single cover on Spotify is a screenshot of an Elon Musk tweet. What else can be said about that? In what way, shape, or form can this song be anything but abysmal? The 15-second snippet used for Tik Tok sounds like ass and the rest of the song isn’t better. Horrendous.
DHM #9: “I Ain’t Worried” by OneRepublic
This is the first “Worst Hits of 2022” list I’ve seen where this song isn’t in the Top 10. Maybe I don’t listen to enough generic pop music or watch the kind of saccharine commercials that this sterile song was made for. I never came across it naturally, and that degree of separation softens my distaste for this track. Sure, it’s a rip-off of “Feel It Still” by Portugal. The Man, but that song was always pretty underwhelming in its own right so I don’t care. It’s just a bland pop song from a band that I don’t expect more from but can do a lot better. Hopefully, OneRepublic goes into hiding for a couple of years and comes back with another “Love Runs Out”.
DHM #10: “I’m Good (Blue)” by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha
I spent the majority of my New Year’s 2023 gay club hopping with one of my best friends. At the best bar we went to, they played “I’m Good (Blue)”. And you know what, in the right state, that hook is solid and the sample flip of the Eiffel 65 song is a considerable improvement over the original. The verses sound horrendous, but who’s really listening to “I’m Good (Blue)” by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha in its entirety sober? That club moment was enough for me to keep it off the Worst List, but without it, the song would be in my Bottom 5 for the year.
DHM #11: “Take My Name” by Parmalee
BORING. I WOULD NEVER MARRY YOU. Also, Parmalee being a band and not one singer is shocking considering they have not done a single interesting thing instrumentally in the ten songs I’ve heard from them. BORING.
Now that that’s over with, let’s get to…
The Top 13 (Or So) Worst Hit Songs of 2022
#13 - So Gayle Has Sons. Does This Mean Olivia Rodrigo Has Grandsons?
“abcdefu” by Gayle won’t be on this list. It’s a dumb song for sure, but there’s a level of respect that I have for what it’s trying to do. It’s a bratty teenage pop-rock song that’s tearing into a toxic and immature man using a childish phrase to stoop down to his level. It’s just a harmless and mediocre version of “good 4 u” by Olivia Rodrigo from a teenager who can do much better. Now what would happen if an artist decided to make a song in the same vein as “abcdefu”… for some reason? What if you kept the bratty teenager pop-rock but removed Gayle’s huskier voice? What if you tore into toxic men with none of Gayle’s well-placed irony? What if you took nothing from “abcdefu” except for the childlike provocations (everyone’s LEAST favorite part of the song)? Well, you’d get…
“she’s all i wanna be” by Tate McRae, “Victoria’s Secret” by Jax, and “Fingers Crossed” by Lauren Spencer-Smith
The longest-running music meme of 2022 was the rise of “Tik Tok music”, typically reserved for annoying pop-rock songs with childish lyrics. Funny enough, to these girls’ credit, they weren’t the worst examples of this dubious subgenre in 2022. If anything, Leah Kate’s “Twinkle Twinkle” was worse than all of these songs combined, but at least Universal Music Group knew not to push a 30-year-old woman sampling “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with a music video set in a childhood bedroom while talking about sex. We already have one Melanie Martinez after all.
“she’s all i wanna be” by Tate McRae
Nevertheless, these three songs encapsulate one of the worst modern trends in music, biting off the success of more talented and accomplished artists, namely Olivia Rodrigo. The most direct comparison comes from Rodrigo’s close friend Tate McRae. Putting it bluntly, she’s a weak vocalist with a similar irritating timbre to Bebe Rexha at her shrillest with none of the range or firepower. Couple that with unimpressive writing and the weakest pop-rock production since a Disney Channel Original Movie soundtrack deep-cut, and “she’s all i wanna be” is a flailing disaster. She recycles the same concept of “this girl is prettier than I am, and I can’t compete because the boy I like is shallow” and adds absolutely nothing new or interesting to the conversation. In my opinion, she could have focused more of the song on the men that openly revel in seeing girls compete for male attention and reify her insecurities… but maybe it’s for the best that she didn’t.
“Victoria’s Secret” by Jax
“Victoria’s Secret” is a well-intentioned song, highlighting the fact that Victoria’s Secret is a mega-corporation run by men to set unattainable beauty standards for women, and I can see it being emotionally resonant for listeners, especially younger ones; however, many of my issues with the song mirror the ones I had with “she’s all i wanna be”. Jax is not a good singer; she has similar vocal inflections to Halsey but her deeper register doesn’t suit this “cursive” singing style, and there’s a tonal dissonance between the “comforting” lyrics (where she explains “Victoria’s secret” to her younger self) and the sour vocal delivery. Also, the instrumentation on the chorus sounds like a pop-punk stock beat from YouTube that was never mixed properly, and it doesn’t help that it rushes in with no build-up after the spare mix of the first verse.
Finally, despite agreeing with the overall message of the song, the writing still feels misguided when viewed through a more critical lens. Jax, as of writing this song, is not fat. Thus, a lot of her expressed insecurities about “feeling overweight” feel underwhelming compared to where discourse around fatphobia and Desire capital is in 2022. Jax ragging on Victoria’s Secret models with the “skin and bones with big boobs”, whose Desirability doesn’t stop them from being exploited by this same system, in the chorus reads like an even less tasteful and more vapid version of “All About That Bass”. Of course, I’m probably reading too much into this, but there’s not a single line on this entire song that discusses any other factors that would promote internalized fatphobia (television shows, films, family, or even childhood bullying). It was lazy when Meghan Trainor failed to do it nearly a decade ago, and it’s even more lazy now. You know what: less “Victoria’s Secret”, more Victoria Monet.
“Fingers Crossed” by Lauren Spencer-Smith
The worst of the three is easily “Fingers Crossed”. This is just a boring adult alternative ballad made by a girl who’s singing every single syllable with either a melisma or vibrato. It’s incredibly irritating by the middle of the first verse and laughable by the chorus. The relationship drama on this song is so dull that I can’t even remember why Lauren and this person broke up, but the reason this song made the list was because of the central line: “when you said you loved me, well, you must've had your fingers crossed”. I know adults cross their fingers to signify that they’re lying (it’s apparently a way to absolve yourself in the eyes of God even though you’re still lying… I don’t really get it), but there’s a level of petulance to this line and its delivery that makes the entire song unbearable. It has the energy of two first loves in seventh grade pinky-swearing that they’d be together forever. Then, as childhood relationships do, it ends two weeks later, leaving both people to post sad song lyrics on their Instagram stories. Again, if we wanted a teenage girl in pop music with sharp writing skills, way better vocal arrangements, and an ear for interest production, we could’ve made Lizzy McAlpine a star.
#12 - My Disappointment is Immeasurable, and My Day is Ruined
The most difficult part about making a list like this is that music enjoyment can be a very personal experience. The last thing I’d want to do is make anyone—especially someone who took the time to read this piece—feel as though I’m making a value judgment on them for the art that they enjoy. With that in mind, it’s uncomfortable to place a song from an artist that I, and many of the people who will read this, like on a Worst List, especially considering the heavy and personal themes this artist explored on her most recent album. I’ve heard a lot of defenders for this song and I completely understand the appeal. Nevertheless, this song just didn’t work for me at all, and I wouldn’t put it on this list without good reason.
“Oh My God” by Adele
I knew this song was going to be somewhere on this list in its first second. That shrill horn intro (accented by the loud first trumpet squawk) is probably my least favorite ten seconds of music this year. And while the song improves from there—it would be nearly impossible not to—it transitions into one of the blandest songs in her entire catalog. Aiming for a fun kiss-off to her dissenters, Adele talks about rebounding with a man because of how good their sex is together. And after nearly four minutes (which in 2022 feels like six), we get little to no details about this relationship, just their cosmic and larger-than-life energy in the abstract. The song has an off-kilter groove that, at first, was fairly unique (even though I couldn’t unhear the off-key horns in the back of the mix). I didn’t like the song but I understood its appeal to other people and how said appeal was singular to “Oh My God”.
But then I realized something odd about the singles rollout of Adele’s most critically contentious album 30: there were only two singles and they were both blatant retreads of better songs from 25. Now 25 is an album that I think is good but not necessarily great, especially compared to her breakthrough debut and sophomore albums; however, “When We Were Young” rivals “Chasing Pavements”, “Someone Like You”, and “Take It All” as my favorite Adele song. Also, while a lot of music critic spaces heralded “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” as Adele’s worst song at the time, I enjoyed the more upbeat pop sensibilities of the song, and the chorus is downright fantastic.
With no nuance and little explanation (until another list coming in a week or so): “Easy on Me” is “When We Were Young” Junior. And in a similar vein, “Oh My God” is the natural predecessor of “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)”; it’s the most danceable song on the album with a lyrical pivot towards having fun with a moral ambiguity that was novel on 25, but feels slightly less earned on 30. So much of her relationship drama (since she was a teenager) is rooted in wisdom beyond her years, personal detail, and larger-than-life stakes. To see Adele insert herself back into that drama with none of the introspection that made Adele’s best work so emotionally resonant, was disappointing for sure. Again, she’s capable of much better.
#11 - I Think It’s Time For You To Go Away…
But what if you have the opposite situation? An artist whose cult of personality has been centered around how flagrantly unlikable they are? A person who, in most spaces, is met with so much contempt and disgust that artists are judged for even associating with him? No, it’s not Chris Brown. Chris Brown’s celebrity is arguably even more insidious, as he and his rabid fanbase aim to gaslight the general public into thinking he’s a changed man who doesn’t have countless transgressions. This guy, on the other hand, knows he’s awful; so awful that many of his connections to other men in his genre come with sympathy. For many, he can be a mirror to their worst impulses (had they grown up in worse conditions or not improved upon “making it”). And that may work for Kendrick Lamar, but it doesn’t work for me.
“Super Gremlin” by Kodak Black
Here’s my most cancellable take: I don’t hate Kodak Black’s music. I’ve known about him for nearly a decade now and I see the appeal of the majority of his early work. I have an appreciation for his “Project Baby” saga, and I can’t deny the emotional resonance behind his come-up story. With this in mind, he’s also a misogynistic, violent, colorist rapist who can’t even be “separated from his art” as those transgressions are what anointed him as THE “Big Stepper” on Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers.
Also, my enjoyment of some Kodak Black songs doesn’t mean that his music is not drowning in laziness and non-effort. “Tunnel Vision” is one of my least favorite hit songs of the decade, “ZEZE” would probably be one of my favorite songs period if not for his awful verse, and every single full-length album I’ve heard from him is mediocre at best. So of course “Super Gremlin” would make this list like it’s made so many others before. Kodak Black’s vocal delivery is a slurry mess, the child choir gives me migraines (after “fallen alien”, FKA Twigs’ best song, everyone else should’ve given up on child choirs), and the piano-led trap beat is so basic that I wouldn’t call even call it a stock beat (those teenagers using Garage Band deserve way more credit than that).
The worst part of “Super Gremlin”, however, is the writing. I mean it’s a Kodak Black, what do you expect? This is actually a diss track about his longtime collaborator Jackboy, who takes credit for Kodak’s success. But I don’t blame you for not knowing that because the title is a reference to a bar on the hook where he calls himself a gremlin for taking fake Percs. Most gratingly, in the middle of the second verse, he references his friend being called to the r-slur and then reclaiming it as a positive thing… for some reason. No.
One day, I’m going to write a piece about the appeal of Kodak Black and it’ll get mistaken for apologia and run me off of Twitter. But at this point, after all these years, we might have to give up on trying to make Kodak Black work.
#10 - YOU REALLY NEED TO GO AWAY
It’s been 14 fucking years.
“Under the Influence” by Chris Brown
Ad hominem attacks on Chris Brown are boring at this point; justified, but boring. If anything, they give his dwindling fanbase the ammunition they want. If I bring up that stuff, I’m “not separating the art from the artist” and being “unfair”. So let me play that game. It makes writing this a lot easier. Chris Brown is one of the worst vocalists in music today. The pitch correction on his voice makes him sound like a robot gargling Listerine. I’ve listened to Soundcloud Hyperpop made by preteens (or whatever Emily Montes is) with better vocal production. On a musical level, it’s both laughable and offensive that people are trying to crown him as the “King of R&B”. The instrumental in this song is oily and gross. This song sounds like strip club music in a bar that serves 10 “boneless wings” for $2 but it’s just Tyson Chicken Strips on a paper plate. I’m pro-sex worker and class-conscious so I find it necessary to add that the strippers and the chefs at this club don’t like the music either. Lyrically, it’s just a generic hookup track, and since I’m “separating the art from the artist”, I can’t talk about the cry like a baby line or the creepiness of the and you be like “baby who cares?” but I know you care line. Very bad song. Not good at all. Fuck this song. Fuck his music. And most importantly fuck him.
#9 - You Know What, You Can Go Too
The last two entries were so heavy. Luckily, this guy just sucks.
“AA” by Walker Hayes
I don’t think I dislike Walker Hayes as a person. If anything, his anti-charismatic music paints a more vapid and problematic picture of him than he probably deserves. His commentary on Morgan Wallen seemed like a PR team-sabotaged way of saying he didn’t support him. And, more importantly to me—out of all the hitmakers of the last fourteen years who have associated with her—he was the only major name in music who supported and promoted Gag Order by Kesha. He seems like a cool guy.
This weird parasocial acquaintance I have with Walker Hayes doesn’t save either of his big hits in this decade from being awful. This is simultaneously more competent and more embarrassing than “Fancy Like”. Sure he’s not talking about “dipping fries in her Frosty” or saying he’s “fancy like Applebee’s” but this song sounds like a slowed and reverbed version of the Hokey Pokey where he talks about his main goals in life, one of which being “keeping his daughters off poles”. I’ve always thought it was weird for parents to insert sexualized standards onto their children, but I know that’s a massive reach, especially for a song as mindless and plastic as “AA”.
Lines like these show that Walker Hayes is just trying to paint himself as the everyman! The kind of everyman who can name-drop John Deere and make more in two talk-sung words than the average product engineer at Deere (information I know for… reasons). My biggest pet peeve with the track, however, is how slow it is. At least “Fancy Like” had a pulse to it, this is just a mid-tempo dud that’s less danceable than half of the ballads that were made this year. I shit you not, I think “Fingers Crossed”, the piano breakup ballad from #13, has a faster pace than this song. This track is a hot mess. Walker, I don’t mind you man, but you can go too.
#8 - Can Someone Bring Sexy Back?
Despite what my last pick may suggest, I like country music. As a Black person who grew up in New York City, I didn’t grow up with the genre outside of “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus and the theme song to “Reba”, but once I heard Same Trailer Different Park by Kacey Musgraves as a 13-year-old, I was hooked. And in hindsight, I’m glad that my introduction to country music was mainly outside of the modern mainstream scene. My teenage years were defined by the rise of “Bro Country” where the songs were silly like “Cruise” by Florida Georgia Line, sour like “Bottoms Up” by transphobe Brantley Gilbert, or racist like “Boys Round Here” by Blake Shelton, his more talented ex-wife, and the “God Made Girls” girl (remember her?).
And by the end of 2022, I would have said that mainstream country has improved on average in the 2020s. Right now, I disagree with that entirely, but hey: they had a good run. The early 2020s saw a pivot towards more traditional sounds and the rise of more homegrown and indie country artists (namely Kelsea Ballerini, Zach Bryan, and Luke Combs, all of whom I’ll be talking about on my Best List). But this general improvement doesn’t mean it’s all been great. A whole decade after its inception, Bro Country still hasn’t gone away, and this might be one of the most embarrassing examples of the subgenre.
“She Likes It” by Russell Dickerson and Jake Scott
This is the most pathetic song of 2022. I said in my Shawn Mendes piece that I’m not the most romantically-oriented person on Earth, but this makes me feel entirely aromantic. But then again, no one including chart-followers I know who are in happy relationships like this song so maybe I’m not the odd person out here. There’s an artificiality to this song (supported by that jolting and awkward excuse for a groove) that removes any perceived cuteness; it’s too plastic to be earnest. The white-bread Hallmark card sentiments of dressing up nice, buying flowers, back rubs, and making dinner reservations is the epitome of the anti-men “the bar is hell” sentiment that men rightfully earned.
It’s nice that they love their wives and want to celebrate them. I’m not trying to find something repugnant about it in the subtext either. This song just feels like the soundtrack to a terrible Tik Tok trend done in middle America where a girl posts her date to Applebee’s with her boyfriend. It’s a song that highlights the most generic random acts of kindness because “she likes it” and a happy wife leads to a happy life or something. Just not good at all. Skip it.
That’s not satisfying enough for a #8. I know I’m forgetting something. Oh yeah… this is a sex song.
Yes, the song about Russell Dickerson and Jake Scott treating their wives with slightly more than bare-minimum care and respect has an added twist in the hook. All of these sweet gestures were to set the mood for a night where they drink Tequila, play John Denver (eh, they can do better) on a little Bose speaker (nice product placement), kiss, and… it’s Nashville radio, do you think they’re gonna talk about sex? Never. They just repeat “she likes it when I” three times in a row because that implies sex. I think.
A post-review note: Fun fact, I thought “She Likes It” was performed by only one person until I checked the credits after listen number two. Despite a dozen listens to the song since then, I still can’t tell their voices apart. The only reason I know who’s singing which parts is because I watched the music video. Also, Russell Dickerson kind of looks like Phil Dunphy and if I say anymore I’ll be Black Queer Twitter’s next poster child (if you know, you know).
#7 - Tales of Disappointment 2: I Wish I Fucked All Your Enemies
I don’t even know if disappointment is the right word here. I’m more confused than anything. Two of the largest pop stars in the world team up for a collaboration, off the backs of the three most commercially and critically successful albums of the last five years. And not only does it fail to reach the top five, but it sounds like this…
“One Right Now” by The Weeknd and Post Malone
“Circles” by Post Malone and “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd are the two most deserving megahits of the decade so far, the kind of timeless anthems that everyone in mainstream pop has tried to recreate and failed miserably. With that said, both acts are capable of much better than “One Right Now". It’s an incredibly generic synth-pop track (with an ugly bass line led by a synth that’s way too loud) that has none of the danceable grooves of The Weeknd’s best or the angst of Post Malone’s best. In hindsight, this song was dead on arrival for trying to combine the very different appeals and skillsets of two artists and meeting at their intersection point: bitterness, the worst part of The Weeknd’s and Post Malone’s music.
The song opens with this gem from Abel: “Said you love me, but I don't care that I broke my hand on the same wall that you told me that he fucked you on”. Delivered in a shrill falsetto, these lines come out awkwardly and set a sour tone for the rest of this kiss-off track. Post Malone continues with the gross “bought you a new face, you should call me ‘Dad,’ baby.” It’s just a level of pettiness that’s not appealing to listen to without more emotional complexity or introspection.
The line that takes me out of the song completely, however, is “you're a stain on my legacy. We can't be friends, can't be family. You probably fuck all my enemies.” If they’re so unaffected by this and they’re fitting as many of her friends in their Rolls Royce clown-car style to have sex with them (and rub it in their ex’s face), why does it matter who she has sex with? They ended things with her. They’re going “body for body” because they’re “so petty”. Wouldn’t her “getting her lick back” feed into their delusions of grandeur and give them even more ammunition for their hedonism? It’s The Weeknd and Post Malone, it’s not like they’re going to stop regardless.
This is the kind of petty, sex-crazed hedonism that’s less reminiscent of the catalogs of The Weeknd and Post Malone and more closely resembles Tedros. You all remember Tedros, right? The dramatized self-insert character for Abel on Sam Levinson’s disastrous show “The Idol”. It’s a shame because they’re both capable of better and the hype behind this collaboration was there. Maybe next time, I guess.
#6 - Grave Robbery from Two Living People
Well… this is poorly timed.
“Hold Me Closer” by Elton John and Britney Spears
I mean if radio stations needed a boy-girl collaboration to play in 2022, “reckless driving” by Lizzy McAlpine and Ben Kessler was right there. Come on, it even tells listeners to “keep [their] eyes on the road”.
All jokes aside, there’s a laziness to this that borders on insidious. This is a mashup of three older Elton John songs with an EDM spin, showing a troubling trend of him strip-mining his classics before other artists can do it for him I guess. I’ll get into this more in my #2 entry, but outside of “Tik Tok music” the borderline obsession artists had with sampling in 2022 (that was both lazy and failed to recontextualize the art they were taking from) might be the worst trend in mainstream music. This song might be even more insulting because Elton John takes “Tiny Dancer”, “The One”, and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”, but doesn’t elevate the text of these two classics and “The One” in any conceivable way. It’s artless.
Not to mention that it sounds awful. Elton John is a half-century out of his prime and you can tell in the strained delivery of that chorus. The arrangement has no groove to it and the stock “EDM remix” production was lifted right from “Cold Heart”, his other attempt at reviving his old tracks which won’t make this list because… ok, we need to address the elephant in the room. This was the first song that Britney Spears released post-conservatorship. Now I think Britney’s catalog is a mixed bag; although she has classics, I wouldn’t call any of her albums great, and she has more duds than good songs. Britney’s voice doesn’t work on this track at all. Not only do she and Elton have no chemistry together, but her unique vocal delivery is deeper and frailer than it ever has before. As a whole, this is incompetent, only saved from the Top 5 because I do understand how this song doubles as a political statement, uplifting Britney after her abusive conservatorship rooted in ableism, greed, and misogyny. I’m happy for Britney and I’m not mad this song exists, I just wish it were better.
#5 - 21, Please Don’t Do Your Thing
Duh.
“Rich Flex” by Drake and 21 Savage
At the end of 2022, Drake had dropped three albums in a year and inundated the 2022 Billboard Year-End List with spillover tracks from Certified Lover Boy, singles from his mismanaged experiment Honestly, Nevermind, and various tracks from his collaboration album with 21 Savage Her Loss. And as contentious as this might sound, this is the only Drake-led track that will be making this list. All of the other qualifying tracks from “Her Loss” are painfully mediocre (and “Circo Loco” would be #2 if it qualified); however, the incompetence behind “Her Loss” is made even more infuriating by the fact that Drake and 21 Savage already had two good collaborations that were hits in 2022 with “Knife Talk” and “Jimmy Cooks”.
Her Loss was a cynical cash grab made by an insecure man-child to appease his fanbase after they didn’t accept his experimental house album (which I would go on a ledge can call his best since More Life), and “Rich Flex” was its quintessential moment. The “21, can you do something for me?” meme was stale upon inception and vaguely homophobic, but everyone fails to mention that it’s easily the best part of the track. 21 Savage is on complete autopilot outside of a line asking his girlfriend who’s on her period to suck his dick instead and a lame interpolation of “Savage” by Megan The Stallion, which ruins a song that I don’t even love. The real “star” of the show here is Drake. After the overlong 21 Savage verse, Drake shifts into an off-key singing interlude that gets more gross with each passing lyric.
Then, for some reason, the beat switches again for a more aggressive trap beat with interpolations from “X” by 21 Savage and Metro Boomin which again… ruins a song that I don’t even love. And instead of just spitting, which Drake can do, he continues to sing off-key for four more bars until finally beginning to rap. At the 2:30 mark of this track, I got a little hope that it would morph into a stronger track. All of this hope dies, however, Drake says I’m steady pushing p / you niggas pushing ptsd. I’m not going to stand on a moral high horse can call this line ableist. I can, but I won’t. I just think that it’s interesting that a rapper who grew up between middle-class and affluent neighborhoods in Toronto, Canada will joke about the PTSD experiences of other rappers when his collaborator, 21 Savage, has a solo song on this very album called “3AM on Glenwood” (the best song on the entire album) about living with PTSD after the street violence he experienced throughout his youth.
There’s an ugliness to “Rich Flex” that I can’t condone, even when I don’t view it through a feminist or class-conscious lens. Thank God Taylor Swift was doing the lord’s work and keeping this off of the #1 spot on Billboard (again… with a song that I don’t even love). Fuck this.
#4 - Music for an Anxiety Attack
The subtitle for this entry isn’t a lie. The first time I heard this song in mid-2022, I got overstimulated, started having an anxiety attack, and had to sit on my couch to do self-soothing techniques and drink water for 15 minutes. Once I was emotionally prepared to revisit this song, I didn’t have the same visceral reaction to the track but I still knew it was a clunky, overproduced mess and the worst song in this artist’s entire discography.
That brings us to February 5th, 2023. A day that will live in infamy. Trevor Noah holds an envelope that reads the name of the recipient of “Album of The Year” at the 2023 Grammys. He walks around to ten “superfans” of the nominees (who, I have to note, all had awful arguments for why their favorite album should win in the roundtable interview, only ONE fan even mentioned an individual song from the album they liked). He walks past the lovers of great music—Renaissance by Beyoncé, Un Verano Sin Ti by Bad Bunny, and In These Silent Days by Brandi Carlile—to hand the envelope to an elderly woman who jumped for joy. Then, this song started to play, and all of that same disorienting, panic-inducing memories came back…
“Music for a Sushi Restaurant” by Harry Styles
Why did they have to play “Music for a Sushi Restaurant”? “As It Was” and “Late Night Talking” were both bigger and better hit songs in 2022, and it wasn’t helped by the credits rolling to the tune of “Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg (another irritating song from an incredibly overrated album that beat much more deserving acts that night).
The lyrics are almost surrealist in how ridiculous they are. There’s a charm to lines like “if the stars were edible and our hearts were never full, could we live with just a taste?” They make little-to-no sense and that’s the point; it’s reminiscent of the kitschiest songs from the 70s. This, however, is where the 70s worship stops being cute and starts being grating. The scatting reminds me of the worst possible examples of blue-eyed soul and the high-pitched belting he does throughout the track is irritating.
But the reason this song made the list so high was the production. The horns are blaring throughout the entire track but are most abhorrent during the intro which leads to a climax that does sound like a worse version of the “A.N.T. Farm” theme song. With production as audacious as this—which matches nothing of the lowkey vibe of the rest of Harry’s House—it seems eager to make a statement. This is his “I’m Back, bitches” song, but it makes me want to do nothing except turn the album off. It’s a blatant misfire, and even the fans agree. It debuted in the Top 10 upon release and failed to crack the Top 40 again, despite the music video coming out months after and being pushed as a late album single.
I don’t believe that Harry’s House is some abomination to music that was underserving of any success. “Little Freak”, “Matilda”, “Cinema”, “Boyfriends”, and “Late Night Talking” disprove any of those claims, but I know a horrific song when I hear it, and “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” is just that.
#3 - The Coldest Hot Take On The List
In my senior year of college, there were two animated Disney films rooted in complex, multi-generation, supernatural family dynamics that made waves throughout my campus. One of them is easily in my Top 10 for animated Disney films; it was hilarious but not lacking in heart, had a quirky and lovable lead, the ending was feel-good but still managed to make me cry, and the soundtrack was wonderful (it helps that it was written and produced by one of the most gifted songwriters of our generation).
And the other one was “Encanto”. This is not a film review, but I’ll say the following: the plot is incredibly messy, the final resolution had no emotional pathos for me, and the character arcs outside of Mirabel are one-dimensional. The weakest part of the film, however, was undoubtedly the music. Lin Manuel Miranda is gifted, the “Hamilton” soundtrack is his magnum opus, and the “Moana” soundtrack is fairly underrated amongst Disney fans (“How Far I’ll Go” is a fantastic ballad).
But at the end of the day, I do have my limits when it comes to Lin Manuel Miranda’s writing and production. Pair that with one of the worst vocal performances of the entire year and you get…
“Surface Pressure” (from “Encanto”) by Jessica Darrow '
Under the sURface! I think about my pURpose! Can I somehow presERve this?
Can I just say that and be done? Jessica Darrow did a fine enough job as the voice actress of Luisa, but she is not a singer and does not have the vocal charisma power to sell singing “Happy Birthday” convincingly, let alone being crushed under the weight because being an unstoppable force that’s supposed to combat even the most immovable of objects. Her vocal inflections are awkward throughout the entire song, but they get even worse during the pre-chorus, which is composed to be a crescendo leading into the hook, but the chorus goes for a sad and restrained energy instead; it’s an odd choice.
The writing is just as abysmal. Lin Manuel Miranda is very wordy and on the “Hamilton” soundtrack that worked. These were highly neurotic men who were the upper-echelon of 1700s Colonial America, their entire livelihood was based on thoughts and ideas more than outright actions, so rambling verses with too many words stuffed into a bar only augmented the listening experience. On “Surface Pressure”, it’s just clunky. The Hercules and Cerberus reference was laughable, but then Miranda describes this all-consuming pressure as “berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus”; it’s kitschy and lame.
And it’s not like the production is helpful. This song is supposed to be largest than life, the emotional apex of the film where we realize that the powers that Mirabel has desperately wanted her whole life are not the utopian fantasy she thought it was. All of this emotion is expressed through a weird stock reggeaton-ish groove and zero bombast. The track is sonically underwhelming, placing Jessica Darrow’s weak vocals front and center of the mix where every strained note and overstuffed line are what’s primarily in focus. Overall, this is terrible. Considerably worse than the other songs on the soundtrack, and one of the worst Disney soundtrack moments I’ve ever heard. The American public chose to make this a hit over “Nobody Like U” from “Turning Red” (an admittedly short and underwritten boy band parody with a monster of a hook and way better performances and production). I’m furious.
#2 - The Bee Gees Should Sue
In my discussion of “Hold Me Closer”, I said the sampling trend is one of the worst things to come from mainstream music in 2022, and that’s only half true. Sampling is an art form that’s been around since the dawn of music, and “Renaissance” by Beyoncé proved that you can reimagine older and more obscure songs while elevating their quality and still making them marketable to newer audiences. On the other hand, as we should know by now, not everyone is Beyoncé.
Let’s take a song that nearly made my dishonorable mentions list: “Big Energy” by Latto (produced by Dr. Luke). She brazenly lifts a sample from “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey, referencing it in the chorus and getting Mariah herself on a poorly conceived remix with DJ Khaled that no one remembers. Latto is a competent rapper, which kept it off my worst list, but the track has little substance outside of the novelty that it’s sampling such an iconic Mariah Carey song; however, “Fantasy” heavily samples “Genius of Love” by Tom Tom Club and this is never referenced throughout “Big Energy” which felt like an ignorant oversight and a missed opportunity (since Harry Styles and The Weeknd have made Talking Heads worship trendy for the younger listening public). I genuinely think I would have liked the song if she somehow managed to merge the more off-kilter energy of “Genius of Love” with her authoritative presence inspired by ODB’s verse from “Fantasy”.
This issue is extended past Latto, however, where artists will pick the most obvious songs imaginable to crib from—many of which already have modern songs sampling them. Renaissance is one of my favorite albums of 2022, but it’s not like we were void of modern songs that sample “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred and “Show Me Love” by Robin S (that’s forgiven in my eyes because every other sample used by Beyoncé on the album is innovative, inspired, and fantastically executed). Coi Leray sampled “It’s My Party” by Lesley Gore for “My Body” eight years later than Melanie Martinez did on the much better song “Pity Party”. “I’m Good (Blue)” sampled a song that nobody likes. And Ava Max has built her entire career on this concept to mixed commercial and critical results.
Despite the merits of songs like “She Had Me At Heads Carolina” and “Break My Soul” (and the plunderphonics genre as a whole), I think 2022 was where I became a lot more critical towards sampling. And this was the sledgehammer that broke the camel’s back. Hey, I said “Rich Flex” would be the only Drake-led track on this list. I never said it would be the only Drake song…
“Staying Alive” by DJ Khaled ft. Drake and Lil Baby
Drake exists in a liminal space for me. I’ve never been an outright fan or an outright hater. He is simultaneously one of the most influential people in rap but doesn’t have a sound or aesthetic that is uniquely his own because of his insistence on conforming to the most mainstream trends possible. He’s a talented rapper who ebbs and flows between non-effort and trying way too hard. He’s so confusing that I don’t even have conclusive opinions on his relationship with sampling. “Emotionless” from Scorpion was a shrill disaster, but “Nice For What” is probably my second favorite Drake hit ever, only rivaled by “Take Care” (a song and album whose history is rooted in one of the most inspired uses of sampling to ever chart). I mentioned “Way 2 Sexy” in passing, but—despite how stupid it is—I’d argue that it’s a better song than “Look What You Made Me Do” by Taylor Swift and I respect it for feeding into the novelty of the original Right Said Fred track (something the chorus of “Alien Superstar” didn’t do and always felt more awkward for it; it’s a lesser cut on Renaissance for me).
Despite all this, “Staying Alive” is his laziest and worst example of sampling put to record. The original “Stayin’ Alive” is one of the most beloved songs of all time and for good reason. It’s a darker disco cut—with an amazing bassline, the catchiest chorus ever created, and unmatched vocal performances from the Gibb brothers—outlining the collective struggles of New Yorkers in the 70s that highlights the systemic woes keeping these people down but commends everyone for pushing through and finding joy despite their aimlessness. Unsurprisingly, Drake decontextualizes this and focuses on himself, as he’s “staying alive” despite people wishing him harm… again.
The biggest issue with Drake’s overproduction (more than his peers Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift’s) is that so much of the writing is one-note. A lyrical analysis of this song is futile because we’ve heard this all before. This is quintessential Drake. If anything, the DJ Khaled leading credit feels more perfunctory than it ever has. He’s stealing someone’s girlfriend, focusing slightly more on emotional cheating than sexual cheating, and bragging about being rich. Between EPs, mixtapes, and albums, this man has released nearly 20 projects in the last decade and this is the arc of almost all of them.
Lil Baby is here, and I’m not sure how long I want to give him a pass for being a pretty disinteresting presence behind the microphone because he made “The Bigger Picture”. If he didn’t have that “all whites not racist” line on an otherwise fantastic song, I would say five years; however, he did say that so I’ll say three (which means his time is up). This is an incredibly generic and slurred verse that’s only saved from being awful by the fun callback to the first verse where Drake passed some girl to Baby, and Baby acknowledged it in return (I never said it was a layered or deep callback).
And DJ Khaled is here! Is he here? It’s allegedly written by him, but I don’t believe that, and he doesn’t have production credits or say anything outside of three ad-libs. He doesn’t even say “God Did” on the single version of this song; he only says it in the music video. As a whole, Drake and Khaled have needed to stop working together since “For Free?”. It’s never good, and this might be the worst example of it yet. And in a year where sampling became second nature to so many popular artists, it’s sad that the worst example of it comes from someone who undoubtedly has respect for the craft. Listen to “Take Care” instead.
#1 - why.
If any chart followers are reading this piece, you may have noticed one glaring omission from this list. An artist who has impacted the cultural perception and fervor of his genre in a way no artist has done since I started chart-following in 2013. He charted 6 hit songs in 2022 without releasing an album and just broke the record for the longest solo #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 of all time. Despite my dislike for all of his albums, I can’t deny the cultural impact he’s had. If anything, acknowledging that he’s a superstar and a culturally relevant figure can allow us to better critique how and why he’s on this pedestal. You get nowhere living in denial and then coming to Twitter being confused as to why not one but two country songs with alt-right talking points are being mass-bought to achieve the arbitrary goal of becoming a number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 in a month. And this is where things get ugly…
“Wasted On You”, “You Proof”, and “Broadway Girls” ft. Lil Durk by Morgan Wallen
It got ugly. I said that it should’ve been him instead of Christina Grimmie and quickly deleted it (see, you can take full accountability for your past transgressions). I got 1000 words in and hadn’t reviewed any of the three songs I picked yet. I’m not dignifying these songs with a review. I linked the songs so you can hear the sour, melodramatic country-trap song “Wasted on You”, the braying idiocy of “You Proof”, and the atrocious vocals on “Broadway Girls” (the actual worst song, hit or otherwise, of 2022).
And a note for the “separate the art from the artist” crowd:
You barely know what that means and only say that when people call out bad music from artists who happen to be atrocious people.
I didn’t include “Flower Shops”, “Thought You Should Know”, or “Sand in My Boots” on here, and “Sand in My Boots” might make my Best List. Are you happy now?
Maybe a piece about “The Morgan Wallen Effect” will come, maybe it won’t. I can’t be bothered to waste my time on this racist joke who opened the floodgates for the mainstream country establishment to be one of the primary instigators of culture wars that are impacting public perception of LGBTQ+ folks and people of color. At first, it was mass-buying the messy and uneven Dangerous: The Double Album in response to Morgan Wallen being removed from a “Saturday Night Live” slot due to a lack of COVID safety and saying the N-word. Now, it’s country artists using the Bud Light “scandal” to get back in Nashville’s good graces and the rise of “Try That In A Small Town” and “Rich Men North of Richmond”.
The most upsetting part is that the blatant non-effort of Mainstream Country Music’s Good Ol’ Boys Club (Morgan Wallen, Sam Hunt, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton, and the list can go on for days) gets rewarded over more talented artists who have all paid their dues to Nashville with songwriting credits ten times over. Sure, I could say, Kacey Musgraves, Jason Isbell, all of the Highwomen, Yola, Ruston Kelly, Caitlyn Smith (who you can thank for “High” by Miley Cyrus), Brandy Clark, and Tyler Childers deserve better, but we don’t even have to look that far.
Zach Bryan released American Heartbreak and only had one veritable hit from it despite having 34 songs and the same homespun appeal as Morgan Wallen minus the controversies; Adeem the Artist released White Trash Revelry and injected it with more class consciousness than that industry plant Oliver Anthony and they showed more solidarity with small town rural white folks than MACON, GEORGIA NATIVE Jason Aldean; Orville Peck’s Bronco showcased better vocal chops than anyone in country music not named Chris Stapleton; and even Chris Stapleton himself gets muted airplay compared to his peers (he gets about one hit per album) despite washing every last one of the Good Ol’ Boys’ entire discographies with Traveller. It’s just gross. And Lil Durk is complicit. Fuck this.
Until Next Time…
So I had a lot of free time and needed a creative outlet this week so the Worst Hits of 2022 came early! It was also fairly long (no wonder the videos I watch with this format are 45-75 minutes long), but I think the structure was fairly conducive to skimming and if not I’ll switch it up by the time I write the best list. Best Hits of 2022 coming in the next two weeks! Something fun and less dense! Yay!
until next time,
e