Top 20 albums of 2017

It's the big one! This has been a bit delayed by the late release of BROCKHAMPTON's Saturation III, but I'll be damned if I miss out a great album. This has been another decent, if not outstanding year for music, but as with any year there was a fair share of great projects, so let's go though my favourite 20!

20. Sandy (Alex G) - Rocket

Despite having an awkward and sketchy artist name (and I thought it couldn't get worse than 'Car Seat Headrest'), Alex G produced a breezy, atmospheric album that is mainly folk but has some entertaining surprises. 'Sportstar' is a vocoded piano ballad, and comes right after the Death Grips-esque 'Brick'. This song in particular is at complete odds with the teenage emotion of 'Bobby' and 'Proud', but it means this album is never predictable, and all great.

19. Creeper - Eternity In Your Arms

Creeper is one of the more interesting bands to come out of the UK in the past few years, and seem ready to bring some bombast and theatrics back! 'Eternity in Your Arms' is a collection of 10 fittingly gothic tunes that follow a loose storyline, but the real appeal are the energy of 'Poison Pens' and 'Suzanne', the sing-along of 'Black Rain' and 'I Choose to Live' and the pure self-aware hilarity of 'Misery'. This is sure to be my go-to Halloween album for some time.

18. Sampha - Process

Few artists released albums so difficult to classify this year as Sampha. 'Plastic 100°' and 'Reverse Faults' make a good case for calling it electronic, 'Blood on Me' has the chorus of an alternative R&B song, but a surprisingly funky bassline in the verses, while the instant classic 'No-one Knows Me Like the Piano' is more of a singer-songwriter tune. Either way, this is an inspired, beautiful and textured debut. One mercury award later, I can't wait to see what Sampha does next.

17. St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION

I'd never really been a fan of St. Vincent before 'MASSEDUCTION', as although I loved 'Birth in Reverse' something had always stopped me wanting to listen to her self-titled 2014 effort. This has changed things completely, and at this point the purposefully tacky cover art is burned into my brain. A pop concept album with a real brain, this is an album about romance in all it's forms, from the heartbreak of 'New York' and 'Slow Disco' to the fetishism of 'Saviour' and the title track, and all in an innovative synth/guitar sound. 

16. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods

It's weird to think that one of my most-listened to and undoubtedly one of my most enjoyed albums of the year is a meme mashup album, but 'Mouth Moods' is so good it may just go down as one of the all-time best mashup albums. 'ACVC' and 'Smooth' are hilarious the first time you hear them, but later come to show how similar stylistically opposite songs can be. That's not to mention the 'meme collage' madness of 'The Starting Line' and 'Annoyed Grunt', which seem to introduce a new sample every few seconds. best of all though are where Cicierega edits songs to actively improve them, turning 'In the End' by Linkin Park into something that would fit onto the Mario Kart soundtrack and turning 'Wild Wild West' by Will Smith into an actual banger.


15. The Mountain Goats - Goths

I always love it when I leave an album feeling like I've learnt something, and 'Goths' delivers this in spades. The songs here tell intriguing and charming stories about the goth lifestyle, for which the band clearly has a great affection for. From the bombast of 'Rain in Soho' to the joy of 'Wear Black' and 'Unicorn Tolerance', this is a concept album that proves there are hundreds of dormant ideas for songs, and that you can make a compelling album about anything if this level of humour and melody is incorporated.








14. King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard - Everything

A substantial amount of bands have only ever released four or less albums. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard released four significantly different concept albums in 2017 alone, with a fifth apparently planned to be released before the year is out. This could have gone totally wrong, but at the same time it's easy to see why it didn't. The saharan microtonal sounds of 'Flying Microtonal Banana' - my favourite of the four albums - are distinctly different from the end of the world psych-rock of the three-song 'Murder of The Universe', which is completely opposite from the chilled out jazz/funk of 'Sketches of Brunswick East', all of which seemed to lead up to the single song prog-rock masterwork that is 'Polygondawanaland', which was released for free with no copyright, allowing fans to use the music for whatever they want. Throughout 2017 King Gizz were a reliable source of music and memes with a clear love for their fanbase, and surely they deserve a break after LP 5!

13. Jens Lekman - Life Will See You Now

Hidden behind the terrible cover to 'Life Will See You Now' are the most upbeat, joyful pop songs of the year that helped brighten up a vaguely depressing summer. 'Festival Song' is probably the most cheerful song of the year, and it has competition from the groove of 'Wedding in Finistere', 'To Know Your Mission' and 'What's That Perfume That You Wear'. The rest of the tracklist pulls at the heartstrings with the aching perfection of 'How Can I Tell Him' and 'Our First Fight' to the surprisingly dark 'Postcard #17'.








12. King Krule - The OOZ

Out of everything released this year, this was the album that more than any other I was swallowed by. It's a bleak, depressing album that is filled with drowned, defeated passages that create an atmosphere of sadness so deep it's as if the narrator is converting the gritty English streets around him into an underwater chamber of isolation - 'Czech One', 'La Lune', 'The Cadet leaps' and the title track all build up tension, which eventually bursts into scrappy post-punk/jazz jams like 'Dum Surfer' and 'Emergency Blimp'. If you want to feel depression English-style just sit down and listen to this.






11. IDLES - Brutalism

If 'The OOZ' was depression English style, the this is anger English style! IDLES have such a raw punk energy, that you feel like you are being assaulted every time you listen threw it. Frontman Joe Talbot's vocals are maybe the most exciting I've heard in 2017, bile-filled and harsh on 'Well Done' and 'Mother' but surprisingly emotive on cuts like 'Slow Savage' and 'Exeter'. If you think punk is dead, this will revitalise your hopes, keeping the simplicity, raw production and energy of the classics but updating the song topics for the bleakness of modern-day England.







10. The Horrors - V

Another album that's easy to get lost in, 'V' presents a pitch black world of... well, horror. What really intrigues me about this project though are the lyrical themes of delusion in the digital world. 'Press Enter to Exit' and 'Point of No Reply' look at online extremism, while 'Something to Remember Me By', 'Ghost' and 'Machine' look at online ghosts, dead accounts of the gone. All in all, it's an exciting synth-driven album perfect for technophobic fans of 'Black Mirror'.









9. Kirin J. Callinan - Bravado

Few songs have brought me more joy this year than the ones on 'Bravado', which may also be the experimental album here despite it's pop stylings. This is an album where the creepy funk of 'Down 2 Hang' is followed by the pop rock of 'Live Each Day'. This is an album where pitch-shifted vocals from modern EDM are slotted into an 80s synthpop jam in 'S.A.D', and cowboy ballad 'Big Enough' turns into a call for World peace complete with a screeching cowboy drop. That's not to mention the title track 'Bravado', which is one of the most fitting and brilliant closing tracks of the year, summing up and explaining the face-pissing, dick-flashing persona Callinan adopts here. All this time, it was all bravado.



8. Remo Drive - Greatest Hits

Quor mate what you can say about Remo Drive that hasn't already been said by the man himself James Baker. Now everyone loves a some proper lads who can scream out a bit of emo while sill wearing minions shirts in their videos. You can see the influence from other bangers on this album with a wee hint of pinkerton and my name jeff rosenstock all mixin into this masterpiece. Whenever im alone in the house i like play all there songs together and scream out the few lyrics can make out. The instruments are mmmm nice with the drums going doon doon doon dun dun doon doon doon.. don don don at the start of your killing me and i cant talk about the rest of the instruments because im a drummer so i don't bother to listen to them. While im writing this im watching the cinema classic of pich perfect and i think an album of this caliber should have its own remake of pitch perfect with only this album and the live version of it and there demos before this being sung. That would be a classic movie. There is so much potential in the future albums and movies based around these three blokes and cant wait to see em boom up and become proper big boys in the music.

7. The Magnetic Fields - 50 Song Memoir

This album makes me feel old in the best possible way. Going through main architect Stephin Merritt's literal life story is incredibly entertaining, mainly because of how ordinary it seems. Nothing particularly strange happens, making this a joyful look at one normal man's history, from the cynical hilarity of 'Life Ain't All Bad' to the electric riffs of 'How to Play the Synthesiser' and 'Foxx and I'. The first half of the album is undeniably stronger than the second, but it's still full of highlights, like the goosebump inducing 'Fathers In The Clouds' and the heartbreaking 'Have You Seen It In The Snow'.






6. Run The Jewels - RTJ 3

 'RTJ 2' was my favourite album of 2014, so I had high hopes for the follow up, and when this dropped on Christmas day last year it completely delivered. The album is thematically split between top-tier bangers like 'Stay G.O.L.D' and 'Legend Has It' and more politically charged tunes - '2100', 'Talk to Me' and the revolutionary closing track 'Kill Your Masters'. Best of all is the thought-provoking and gut-wrenching 'Thursday In the Danger Room', which is easily one of the best songs Killer Mike and El-P have ever made. Overall, this was a great way to start 2017, and it has been on repeat all year.







5. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy

2017 wasn't exactly the best year for humanity, and no album seemed to predict this better than 'Pure Comedy'. Almost every song here tackles a concept that is very recent, whether its name-dropping the oculus rift on 'Total Entertainment Forever' or looking at increasingly radical and divisive politics on 'Two Wildly Different Perspectives'. Many people (including myself) slated this as boring and pretentious when it first came out, but something compelled me to keep listening. What I found was a rare album that isn't afraid to tackle huge political and philosophical themes with some of the best lyrics of the year and a biting sense of humour, with music that grows on the listener each time they listen. Brilliant, although it can also give you existential dread.

4. Lorde - Melodrama

The pop concept album has been increasingly common thanks to megastars like Beyonce, but 'Melodrama' just might be the best we've got so far this decade. This is an album where every every track is outstanding, and 'Supercut', 'Writer in the Dark', 'Perfect Places', 'Liability', 'Homemade Dynamite' and 'The Louvre' are all classics, and the rest of the tracklist glues these tracks together remarkably well. This is a startlingly mature and nuanced look at what it's like to be a party-savvy but heartbroken teenager in 2017, yet it ultimately feels like this album will last much longer than just this year.






3. BROCKHAMPTON - SATURATION I, II and III

Slightly less prolific but more consistent than King Gizzard this year were BROCKHAMPTON who managed to produce 3 almost equally great albums in 2017. Saturation I is maybe the best of the 3, with 'STAR', 'GOLD' and 'MILK' all being some of my favourite songs of the year, but this can also be said of the sequels - 'JUNKY', 'SWAMP', 'QUEER' and 'SWEET' from sat II and 'BOOGIE', 'BLEACH' and 'HOTTIE' from Sat III. The sheer volume of great music they released this year is surely some kind of World record. Watching every artist in BROCKHAMPTON gradually improve over the three projects has been one of the most wholesome experiences of the year, and I hope that these boys keep up the hard work for 2018.



2. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me

It seems like every year I encounter a new 'Saddest album I've ever heard'. In 2015 it was 'Carrie & Lowell' by Sufjan Stevens, in 2016 it was 'Skeleton Tree' by Nick Cave and now it's 'A Crow Looked At Me' by Mount Eerie. This is the kind of album so powerful that it only needs to be listened to a single time, and after i initially checked it out from morbid curiosity it's haunted me. The minimally orchestrated lyrics are consistently soul-destroyingly sad from the first line to the last. That the album manages to find some kind of conclusion in 'Crow' is honestly amazing, and is what elevates this into something truly legendary.





1. Alex Cameron - Forced Witness

And yet, after all of the philosophical themes of 'Pure Comedy', the game-changing 'Melodrama' and the heart-breaking 'A Crow Looked at Me', my album of the year is an album about online dating. But I'll be damned if this isn't the catchiest, most enjoyable and ultimately thought-provoking album of 2017. The first thing you'll notice about Alex Cameron's masterpiece is it's brilliantly terrible cover art, which shows only a little indication of the character study the listener is about to embark upon. After my first few listens of this I was already sold on it as a great album, with every song being a glitzy, catchy take on soft-rock, but when I really dug into the lyrics the genius behind this became clear. The characters presented in 'Running Out of Luck', 'Candy May', 'Marlon Brando' and every other song here are not the hyper-macho stereotypes I first thought, but actually pathetic, creepy sketches of what extreme masculinity can lead some to. Whether it's the teenager stalking of 'StudMuffin96' or the online transactions presented in the hilarious 'Beautiful Eyes'. Every track on here is vitally important to it's concept and it's the most I've loved an album this whole year. Bring on 2018!

Top 10 worst songs of 2017

2017 is nearly over, and it's been... Ok for music? The charts have generally been alright, with most of the worst material being bland rather than unlistenable trash, and the best stuff being legitimately great thanks to Kendrick Lamar and Lorde among others. However, underground music hasn't had an especially outstanding year, with most of the best releases of the year not even being the best releases by it's creator(s) (St. Vincent and LCD Soundsystem, for example.). But still, plenty of good stuff was released in 2017, and of course a huge amount of awful, horrible music. Here are in my opinion, the 10 worst songs of the year, from bad (number 10) to worst (number 1).

10. Train - Play That Song


Is this the most out-of-touch song of the year? Quite possibly. I've had a vendetta against Train since 'Hey Soul Sister' back in 2009, where the high pitched tinny ukelele, high pitched ear piercing vocals, and the high pitched drums and 'bass' led to one of the most headache-inducing songs of the 2000s. 'Play That Song' isn't quite as bad (if only because it hasn't been in as high rotation on the radio), but Patrick Monohan's vocals this time range from ear-piercing to a weird drunken drawl, and his lyrics are uncomfortably aimed at a teenage audience while using a lexis that's been out of date for two decades. No wonder it's been way less successful than their previous singles.

9. Kodak Black - Tunnel Vision

On the other end of the musical spectrum is this trap-flavoured monstrosity from Kodak Black. The beat isn't great to start off with, with it's awkward, jumpy synths that seem to flux in-and-out of rhythm with the beat, but the real problem is Kodak himself. The chorus is unbearable, and seems to make up more than half of the song, with the extended "nnnnnnn" sounds on the end of each bar making Kodak sound incredibly bored the whole time. When he does start spitting his lyrics range from generic to flat out awful. The music video is also laughably edgy and poorly executed.

8. Iggy Azalea - Mo Bounce


Iggy Azalea was an easy target for music critics almost as soon as she arrived on the scene with her fake accent and generally lazy production, but I never truly despised a song by her until this year. Apparently after her last single 'Team' failed spectacularly last year, Azalea has completely given up hope of getting popular off of talent and instead  just created this queasy, bass-heavy throwback to the worst music from the early 2010s, along with a borderline pornographic music video. It's hard to imagine anyone ever sitting through more than 20 seconds of this.

7. The Chainsmokers - Break Up Every Night


  I feel like I could put any song released this year by the Chainsmokers in this spot and it would be deserved, but 'Break up Every Night' takes the crap-cake due to it's central lyrics of "She wants to break up every night, then tries to f**k me back to life". Ewww.

6. Linkin Park - Battle Symphony

It's a tragedy that Chester Bennington took his own life earlier this year, and so it's a shame that nearly all of 'One More Light' was filled with bland drivel that is the definition of what it means to sell out in 2017. 'Battle Symphony' is especially bad, since it manages to rip-off one of the worst songs of 2015, Rachel Platten's 'Fight Song'. The chorus seems to have been copied word-for-word and then translated into edgy language to appeal to... seemingly very few people. The production strips any potential for bombast or energy, and it's generally a very sad note to go out on for a writer who made some classics while he was alive.

5. Taylor Swift - Look What You Made Me Do



This is maybe the biggest mistake I've ever seen an artist this big make in the limelight in my 7 years of closely following pop music, and for several weeks after this was released it was being ridiculed by seemingly everybody, and deservedly so. At this point you've heard this, either with utter dismay or with glee, depending on your opinion of Taylor Swift, so I'll Swiftly move on.

4. Hopsin - Happy Ending


There is an official video for this travesty, but I highly recommend not seeking it out - it was so awful it was actually removed from Youtube (At least the high quality version). This song is straight-up racist and it seems to innocently gleeful about it that it's impossible not to listen to the entirety of this with your head in your hands. Hopsin is notorious for his overly serious, self-righteous tunes, but this is infinitely worse. The autotuned fake asian accented chorus (Sample lyric: "I can give you sucky sucky") and the unlistenable second verse - essentially Hopsin reciting his own erotic fanfiction - bind together to make this a laughably awful song.

3. Jake Paul & Co. - It's Everyday Bro


This was the year of eye-roll worthy Youtube diss tracks, and while it was easy to avoid nearly all of them, this song actually crossed over to the billboard hot 100. This is a totally amateur production by a bunch of irritating, arrogant bunch of overgrown children. A number of lyrics have already gone down in the Meme dictionary ("England is my City", "Selling like a God Church" and "Let me Educate ya; I ain't talkin' book", for example), and I think that's a testament to how groan-worthy this song is.

2. AJR - No Grass Today


Twenty-One Pilots have become unfairly maligned by many for their pop sensibilities and admittedly irritating fan-base, but surely even the most hardened TOP hater will give them some credit after hearing this disaster by AJR. Imagine Tyler Jospeh's stilted vocal delivery with lyrics about not smoking weed - although framed in an off-putting and overly defensive way that makes the song seem like it shouldn't exist. Now imagine the worst bridge you've ever heard EVER and you have 'No Grass Today'.

1. Fall-Out Boy - Young and Menace


I knew this was going to be the worst song of the year the moment I heard it. It's so hair-tearingly awful that not even AJR could usurp them. But hey, the first minute isn't even that bad, so how could this be the worst of the year? Well if you drift along the first minute of build-up you will get to the worst drop I have ever heard. Yes, not even the drops of '#SELFIE' or of Will.I.Am's EDM years can compare to this 40-SECOND(!!) horror show of pitch shifted screams and dubstep-leftover production that has produced the most painful, least enjoyable piece of music I have heard this year.

Top 10 best hit songs of 2016

2016 had a real drought of good music charting in the United States. Beyonce released a hugely-hyped and amazing album and only one song crawled onto the bottom half of the year-end list. Huge albums from Radiohead, the 1975 and Kanye West failed to have any hits that stuck around. Prince died and 'Purple Rain' re-entered the top 10 and was way better than anything in the top 100. That said, there was some decent music in the charts. The only criteria is a placing on the Billboard top 100 year-end list and to have not been on it last year, otherwise 2015 hits would be half this list - but anyway:

10. Flo Rida - My house




Yes, the piano line is ripped straight from 'Trampoline' by Kalin and Myles, and yes the song is shallow and yes, the pre-chorus is pretty awful, but I can't help but love 'My House'. The piano line is bouncy, the song is incredibly fun and in a year where music slogged along at a snails pace, this managed to speed things up without being a trashy EDM monstrosity.

9. Jeremih - oui




Why couldn't we get more of this kind of music in the chats in 2016? Music that just, ya know... sounded really good. 'oui' reminds me of one of my favourite 2013 hits, 'Suit & Tie' by Justin Timberlake and Jay Z, (The song references it in the chorus and the bright keyboards are obviously inspired by it.) and yet it doesn't feel like a copy, and so just ends up as a great song.

8. Adele - When we Were Young




One of the only slow songs to chart this year that wasn't boring, 'WWWY' is easily as good as 'Rolling in the Deep' or 'Someone Like You' and is also one of the few songs to try and tell a story in the lyrics, which was refreshing. It's also great to hear a song build up to a climactic final chorus, something which is so rare that only someone with the fame of Adele could make it into a top-20 hit.

7. Beyonce - Sorry




There were two massive songs this year titled 'Sorry' - an overplayed but otherwise bearable Justin Beiber song and an infinitely better Beyonce song. The only song that really stuck around from 'Lemonade', this isn't the best song off the album, but is still great. With angry lyrics backed by one of the best instrumentals of the year, it's as astoundingly real as everything else Beyonce has done in 2016.

6. Twenty-one pilots - Stressed Out



Obviously this was overplayed to the point where it was basically white noise, so it's hard to re-listen to this song with fresh ears. Nonetheless, it's far more interesting than so much of 2016's produce, with lyrics that are perhaps the most relatable of the year (Hence why it as so big.) and a chorus which is both unconventional and builds on itself every time. Plus, it was so refreshing simply to hear real drums on a massive hit.

5. Mike Posner - I Took A Pill In Ibiza (SeeB remix)



Nobody was expecting this. Not only did Mike Posner return from obscurity out of seemingly nowhere, he did purely out of the power of how good 'Ibiza' is. The most personal song to end up on Year-end list, it's so specific to Mike Posner that it's a wonder the public latched onto it - Hell, the original acoustic version didn't make any waves until the remix. But the remix is the superior version of 'Ibiza', with it's legitimately great drop that manages to give off fittingly creepy, chaotic vibes and yet also be danceable.

4. Bruno Mars - 24k Magic



YES, IT WASN'T ON THE YEAR END 100, but you can't deny that this was a massive hit. Plus there honestly aren't 10 great songs that landed on the list (I mean, I put Flo Rida on here...). Ultimately, 24k Magic is pretty much perfect. Bruno Mars has slowly morphed from one of the most unbearable artists of the early 2010s into someone making massive retro jams that give respect to the classics while creating banging modern classics in the process. It's almost the most fun song of the year.

3. The Weeknd - Starboy




Any song that stops Daft Punk from being known as one-hit wonders in the US already has my gratitude, but 'Starboy' is far more than an attempt to stay relevant - it's the Weeknd declaring that he has won the music industry. And with beats this sharp you believe him.

2. Flume ft. Kai - Never Be Like You




The weirdest, wonkiest hit of the year. Sure, Flume's glitch-pop masterpiece felt out of place next to the Rihannas and Drakes of the year, but that only added to it's charm. It's wailing, trippy and one of the catchiest songs of the year. Many hits of this year will be forgotten quickly - and trust me that's for the better - but 'Never be like you' will be one of the defining songs of 2016 for years to come.

1. D.R.A.M. ft. Lil Yachty - Broccoli




2016 was year where hip-hop struggled in comparison to recent year. Most big hits were terrible (Juju on that beat), Not rap at all (Drake) or memes (Panda). But there was one song, one unexpected breakthrough hit that outclassed every song released all year. And yes, I believe that song to be 'Broccoli'. It's the piano. It's the infection happiness in D.R.A.M's voice, it's every charmingly terrible line Lil Yachty spits. But most of all it's that flute! It sounds straight out of 'Earthbound' and I'm 100% sure it's not only why this song was a smash, but also the best hit song of 2016.

Top 10 Worst songs of 2016

Only rule: It has to have been a hit, otherwise this would just be 10 songs form 'Angelic to the Core: Angelic Rockadelic/ Angelic Funkadelic' by Corey Feldman. Now that that's out of the way...

2016 was a rubbish year for pop music, with way more bad songs than good, and it was a suprise to see a good song in the top 10 once in a while whether you lived in the UK or the USA. It seemed like the trend of the year was sounding-like-you're-not-trying and so artists like Drake and Rihanna sleepwalked themselves onto the radio with such force that it made me stop listening to top 40 radio, which I still haven't returned to. But what was the worst of the worst?

10. Fifth Harmony ft. Obligatory Rapper for Mainstream appeal - Work From Home



Where to start, eh? For a group named 'Fifth Harmony' there isn't a whole lot of harmonising going on, or a lot of effort in the vocal department. The lyrics are trash, and I can't help but feel like (combined with the music video) they're just an attempt to sell the 'sexiness' of the song - especially considering it was written by six men. The production has a lullaby feel to it that makes me sleepy and the melody is ripped completely fro the even-worse 'Gotta Get Thru This' by Daniel Bedingfield from 2001, and there's an obligatory rap verse from Ty Dolla Sign.

9. The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey - Closer



Another song that rips it melody straight out of the 2000s, 'Closer' ruins the melody of The Fray's hit 'Over My Head (Cable Car)'. That's far from the only problem, with super-cheap sounding minimalist production and Andrew Taggart giving an unbearable vocal performance. Number one for 10 weeks.

8. Zay Hilfigerrr and Zayion McCall - Juju On That Beat




Another year, another four note stupid dance song. It's no worse than 'Watch me Whip/Nae Nae' or 'Teach Me How To Dougie', but man, I'm getting too old for these kinds of songs. 'If you compare me and you, there wouldn't be no comparance' is maybe the worst lyric of the year.

7. Maroon 5 ft. Kendrick Lamar - Don't Wanna Know




Much like a stupid dance song, at this point it's an annual occurrence for Maroon 5 to release a terrible piece of music, whether it's 'One More Night', 'Animals' or 'This Summer' and once again 'Don't Wanna Know' isn't much worse. It is, however, by far the most boring Maroon 5 (At this point it's just Adam Levine let's be honest) song and KENDRICK LAMAR SHOULD NOT BE ON THIS SONG. The music video's pretty good though.

6. Drake - One Dance



(Yes, it's not the official video, but it's close enough and you know what it sounds like by now.)
'One Dance' doesn't feel like a song. It uses the ultimate stock beat, the most basic sparse piano and an awkward slowed down sample as the 'music' of the song, with lyrics about needing 'a one dance' and Drake sounding asleep the whole time. Now it's the second longest-running number one in UK history.

5. Meghan Trainor - NO




Did Meghan Trainor successfully transfer from making unbearable doo-wop to making edgy 90s pop? NO
Does this song sound good? NO
In all seriousness though, Meghan Trainor could be preaching world peace and I would still feel inclined to disagree because of her self-righteousness and apparent superiority complex.

4. Hailee Steinfeld, Grey ft. Zedd - Starving




It's not too bad until the chorus. Then the lyrics are the first aspect of the song to crash and burn as the line 'By the way, By the way you do things to my body' is confusingly thrown in despite not rhyming, taking all momentum out of the narrative and being a super-clunky line in it's own right. But the real reason this is on here is that AWFUL drop. Just what I want to hear when I tune into Capital FM - Headache-inducing screams from Hell!

3. Charlie Puth - One Call Away




Up until this point I've met someone who likes each of these songs - but none of these top 3 have in my experience got a single fan. 'One Call Away' sounds like the kind of music a senile Puritan grandma would want you to listen to, but Charlie Puth's high pitched squeal of a voice means that even she would flip stations. 'Superman got nothing on me' is not only a line that makes me contort whenever I hear it but is the most forced rhyme of the year.

2. Shawn Mendes - Treat You Better




My least favourite song topic in general is 'I'm going to steal your significant other', and Shawn Mendes' ode from the friend-zone is this topic mixed with awkward teenage angst. It's completely unaware of itself and sounds like something a 14 year-old boy would write in a diary. The production is 'Tropical-flavoured', similarly to Maroon 5's effort, and is equally as boring. The cherry on top is the climactic injured-animal cry of 'BADDADANEEKAN' which is probably the most mockably bad musical moment of the year.

1. Meghan Trainor - Me Too




I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the worst song I have heard in all my time following the charts. Even if I was including anything that came out this year - which includes 'Spoons' by Macklemore and the aforementioned Corey Feldman - This would still be number one. The audacity that somebody with an image as already dislikable as Meghan Trainor to suggest that I would want to LITERALLY BECOME HER is unbearable. This isn't a self-love anthem, but a 'Meghan Trainor love' anthem that somehow became a hit. The production sounds like an autotuned frog reminiscent of a squashed up Will.i.am beat and the lyrics... 'My life's a movie Tom cruise, Bless me baby, ah-choo' is Right Said Fred levels of terrible and by the end of the song you feel legitimate hatred for the performer that calls herself 'Meghan Trainor', mainly because you just had to sit through three minutes of the worst music that will hopefully ever grace the radio. It's all the small things, the 'Turndebassup' refrain the weirdly whisper-spoken chorus the oddly specific lyrics... It doesn't get worse than this.