The Worst Songs of 2023

Aka “Try That in a Sundown Town.” This was a year when other country stars were making huge crossover strides, inviting curious new fans and even international markets to check out the genre. And what was Aldean’s contribution to that welcoming wave? Releasing a hostile anthem of proud xenophobia that basically amounted to putting up a “Stay the hell away… or else” sign. His defense of the song was that no one could be against the violent crime described in some of the lyrics, but these words — which sound like they were assembled in random order in a five-minute writers’ room session — weren’t nearly coherent enough for anyone to definitively state what the song is against, besides the big city. Legitimate protests were conflated with carjacking, both meriting a vigilante beatdown. (Also the epitome of big-city life: “cussing out a cop”… something that has never, ever happened outside a small-town bar, we’re certain.) As far as setting the music video in a historically well-known lynching setting, let’s be generous and give Aldean credit for not knowing about that sinister history before he shot the ominous visuals there. We could even give him credit for proabably not being consciously aware of how much the lyrics echoed the anti-civil-rights threats made in small towns in the ’60s. Now, imagine if we could just give him credit for something greater, like being a country music uniter instead of divider. Or just picking less hacky songs. —Willman

“How am I antisemitic? I just fucked a Jewish bitch.” Enough said. —Horowitz

Imagine the brainstorming session behind Fall Out Boy’s rewrite of the 1989 “classic.” “Let’s remake a Billy Joel song! Our fans are clamoring for it.” “Great! What’s one of his most beloved songs?” “Too easy. Let’s go for the one universally considered most annoying — not only in his catalog, but maybe of the 20^th century.” “Awesome idea. But should we update the lyrics?” “Of course, but only if we put everything in completely random, non-chronological order, unlike the original. Our only criteria should be to make the juxtapositions as jarring as possible.” “Cool — I was thinking ‘Afghanistan’ next to ‘Cubs.’ Hey, what rhymes with ‘John Bobbitt’? Did ‘The Hobbit’ get published after ‘89?” “Just make it ‘Bobbitt, John.’” “But we do need to maintain a rhyme scheme through the whole thing, right?” [Dirty looks are exchanged as the clock shows 12 minutes of studio time remaining.] —Willman

We’ve apparently come to the age in time where sampling tracks from the 1990s — or even the early aughts — has become de facto, encouraged even. And it was a perennial stitch in 2023’s side. Sampling in and of itself is an art form, and when done effectively, it can transform the master track into something new and inspired (see: Beyoncé’s “Renaissance”). Which isn’t the case for David Guetta’s “Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” an empty rehash of Haddaway’s 1993 club smash “What is Love.” “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” feels stiff and sapped of vitality, a recreation of a classic without intent. Guetta has had a decades-long career translating the sound of the club into something more palatable for top 40 listeners, and this signals a misstep. —Horowitz

I’m not even one of the people that thought it was inherently a bad idea for Waters to remake the entirety of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” album as a solo effort, with subdued instrumentation and mostly whispered vocals. It’s… interesting. And “interesting” counts for at least a little when it comes to what mostly set-in-their-ways classic rockers are up to in 2023. But, that said, there’s something deeply perverse about doing a remake of one of the most-loved songs in the 1970s rock canon, cutting out the instrumental solos, and replacing David Gilmour’s contribution in the middle of the tune with a four-minute poem about… boxing. Well, not really about boxing, I’m sure, but I haven’t summoned the will to parse the actual metaphorical meaning of muttered lines like “Through toad lids he squints his vision of the world.” If you’re looking for positive assessments of this bizarre re-do, it’s no surprise that they’re giving none away. —Willman

Listeners were quick to call Will.i.am’s bluff on “Mind Your Business” as a collaboration with Britney Spears that was scooped off the cutting room floor. And wouldn’t you know, it was. The Britney Army has long been skeptical of the Black Eyed Peas frontman, namely for his contributions to the underwhelming “Britney Jean,” and while prior collaborations including “Scream & Shout” and “Big Fat Bass” generally escaped the pitchfork’s pointy end, “Mind Your Business” took the brunt full-on. There’s nothing original happening here, and the canned synthesizers suggest that Will.i.am’s musical sensibilities are stuck in 2009. (Or, 2000 and late, if it were.) Where Spears’ duet with Elton John on “Hold Me Closer” felt tasteful (even if it plays like marketing as music), the release and sound of “Mind Your Business” couldn’t have been more poorly timed. Clearly, with Spears fresh out of a conservatorship, the last thing she needed was to revisit blunders of the past. —Horowitz

One of the reasons that Sam Smith’s 2023 album ‘Gloria’ so effectively resonated is because it positioned the singer as a star reborn anew, confidently embracing their sexuality in a pop arena that’s rarely accepting of such liberating queerness. “Vulgar,” their one-off collaboration with Madonna timed specifically to Pride month, flung that notion off the deep end. An overt bid to cater to ball culture, the track sees Sam and Madonna (get it? S&M?) settling beneath their artistic integrity, with production that sounds like a ‘Drag Race’ runoff and a severe lack of performative dynamism. Those seeking a melody will come up empty-handed by the song’s end, left with mere hollow, iconoclastic boasts with little to justify it. —Horowitz

He came so close — so close! — to being able to claim an anthem for a working-class generation that just about everyone could claim some sympathy for. The non-specificity of most of the lyrics could have led it to be embraced by both right and left, even if they didn’t agree on which Washington fat cats or which money-wasting government policies he was protesting. But then he had to go and punch down… and despite his disavowals, there’s no other way to read the “5’3? and 300 pounds,” except as some kind of right-wing editorial-cartoon caricature of welfare recipients. Victim-blaming? Oh, fudge. —Willman

Credit goes to Drake for his ability to maintain his chokehold on music this far into his career. His eighth album “For All the Dogs” arrived in October as an overblown compendium of songs that feature Drake being Drake, with largely strong returns (at least, according to his devoted fan base). But he warmed up audiences with one of his snooziest attempts to date in April with “Search & Rescue,” a song that’s by no means offensive but feels like a half-attempt. Drake is at his best when he actualizes a thought in its entirety, and “Search & Rescue” scans as shapeless, something akin to a stream-of-thought freestyle that escaped the studio. Woe-is-me Drake is often when he glimmers brightest, and yet his yearning for a partner to meet him eye-to-eye lands uninspired. —Horowitz

One of the more tertiary of the Trumps offers a “Come and get me, coppers!” cover of one of Tom Petty’s greatest songs, practically daring the Petty estate to try to take it down, after the heirs’ previous public disapproval of her dad-in-law using it at rallies. Instead, it met the fate met by most amateur crooners using a cover to try to break into the biz: invisibility. Maybe we could recommend some other selections from the ex-president’s rally playlists for Lara to try her hand at, like “YMCA,” as long as she’s not backing down from a music career. —Willman

Meghan Trainor has had nine lives in the pop industry, and rightfully so. Since she hit it big with “All About That Bass” in 2014, she’s consistently defied the odds by doing what she does best: crafting unshakeable pop songs that break through whatever noise surrounds her. Last year, she did it yet again with “Made You Look” on the back of a TikTok trend that found crossover ubiquity. But lightning rarely strikes twice in a row these days in pop music and “Mother” couldn’t touch down. In a year of songs bursting with samples, “Mother” rebuilds The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman” as a double entendre, referencing her literal motherhood and the more colloquial definition of being “mother.” What results is a schticky putdown of overzealous men that weirdly crams “mansplaining” into the chorus. “Mother” slots musically into her discography, but it’s simply unforgivable to use the “bum bum bum” sample to refer to someone as a bum. 

It’s a hip-hop song that comes Marjorie Taylor Greene-endorsed, so you know it’s gotta be good. Forgiato Blow, a self-described “MAGA rapper,” went into an actual Target store to shoot the video for this proudly homophobic and transphobic protest song, which rails against the chain “targeting your kids.” And as evidence that Target is going after children, the video shows the rapper brandishing Bud Light and champagne with a rainbow label, two products obviously aimed at tykes. “We need ? clean-up on every aisle / Inside this stor? Satan resides / Wash it with the bl?od of Christ… / God is coming for revenge,” they rap. At least they resisted the temptation to portray blood flowing through the beer section, but there’s probably only so much you can accomplish in a five-minute rogue video shoot. —Willman

The interpolation craze may have hit rock-bottom with this soul-destroying adaptation of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me”… which, take it from me, could ruin your appreciation of that classic oldie forever. (Do not click on the video, above. You’ve been warned. We place it there only in the hope that, like “The Grudge,” the curse can be passed on.) Surely whoever owns the publishing for this 1961 Lee/Leiber/Stoller composition violated some federal law by allowing this desecration. If not, now is the time for Congress to act to avoid similar tragic violence in the future. As much as the musical arrangement packs a kind of bubblegum it’s hard to imagine anyone over the age of 9 cottoning to, the lyrics are right out of an old-school porn scenario: Derulo tells his foxy neighbor she can come over to borrow some sugar any time, so she comes over dressed in a robe, which, according to his reportage, she drops as soon as she’s in the front door. “I won’t be afraid,” Derulo sings, in the only line left over from “Stand by Me,” but anyone exposed to this veritable horror movie should be afraid… very afraid. —Willman

This isn’t a knock on Coi Leray as an artist whatsoever. In fact, over the past few years, the Grammy-nominated artist emerged as one of the most promising young emcees with her punctual rhymes and fluid ability to toggle between a rap-sung cadence. But the buck stops at “My Body,” a single included on her 2023 album “Coi” that crassly samples Leslie Gore’s classic “It’s My Party.” On it, she transforms the naïveté of the source material into an exercise in self-aggrandizement: “It’s my body, I could fuck who I want to / It’s nothin’ new, you just mad it ain’t you.” Where rappers of yesteryear have mutated big band songs into fresh takes—Missy Elliott’s “Big Spender” comes to mind—“My Body” feels like a stumble, one that leans on nostalgia without offering anything of value. —Horowitz

This counts as a bit of a troll — tricking some music fans and search engines into thinking the song is a salute to Korean pop when it’s really about the seductive effects of the ketamine lollipops pictured in the single art and video and loosely described in the lyrics. When Scott and his guests put this out back in July, it was many months before ketamine became most famous for apparently killing off one of television’s most beloved stars, so maybe the pro-drug stance of “K-POP” shouldn’t be judged by December 2023 standards. Still, if you were thinking it’s possible to make a good song about the drug, this wasn’t it, marking a low point on a Scott album that was otherwise pretty well-received. Naturally, the Weeknd’s guest verse had all the quotably decadent lines you’d expect (“We gon’ fuck till we seasick,” etc.). And he was the one who brought race into it: “Even though she Korean / Get her wet like tsunami.” There’s no double-entendre like the kind where all the entendres are equally risible. —Willman

Where to begin. Jax may not be a household name, but listeners may recognize her as a third-place finisher on “American Idol” or, later, a TikTok star. While she’s been releasing music for years, she hit her mainstream stride last year after “Victoria’s Secret,” a body-positivity anthem that took the lingerie company to task, became her first single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The from-the-hip lyrics resonated with fans seeking a takedown of the impossible cultural standards imposed on women. But on her follow-up, “Cinderella Snapped,” Jax invokes Disney princesses and reimagines their storylines to cringy effect. “Rapunzel shaved their head so there was nothin’ to climb on / Jasmine made out with Mulan / Sleeping Beauty sued the dude who kissed her while she was asleep / And Ariel was confident without any feet,” she sings. It trudges on from there. Fantasy is nothing new to pop music, but attempting a rewrite of the entire Disney oeuvre to shoehorn unintended narratives feels antithetical to the magic of what made those stories so endearing in the first place. Sure, the intention here feels genuine, but the execution is farcical at best. —Horowitz

What was poised to be Kim Petras’ solo breakthrough following the runaway success of “Unholy,” her collaboration with Sam Smith, ended up fizzling upon arrival. Billed as her “debut album” (despite the fact that she has numerous “debut albums” on her resume), ‘Feed the Beast’ felt less like the glossy risk-taking fare that largely drives her discography and more like a thin, conventional bid for mainstream crossover. There are certainly bright spots on the album—“Uh Oh” and “Revelations” rightfully earned spots in the Petras hall of fame—but it was with the lead single “Alone” featuring Nicki Minaj that the momentum slowed to a crawl. Mining from a sample of Alice Deejay’s classic ‘90s club banger “Better Off Alone,” the single strips away the urgency of the original, cutting the pace nearly in half for a trudge of a single that could very well have tickled fans’ desires. Much of its detriment is due to the inversion of pace from verse to chorus: The drums pitter patter across the former, only to cut out as Petras hits her vocal stride on the latter. Remixes of “Alone” tried to course-correct, but the damage had already been done. —Horowitz

Speaking of Chevys — as Oliver Anthony was, earlier in this list — Lynch sings an ode to the brand with “Chevrolet,” which is set to a full-length interpolation of the Dobey Gray classic “Drift Away.” (Or should we say the Uncle Kracker classic “Drift Away”? Snce that 2002 cover is the likelier place for Lynch to have picked it up.) This song seems like it was crafted solely to get adopted by the carmaker itself for an ad campaign, the way that Applebee’s adopted Walker Hayes’ anthem after the fact. But the lyrics don’t exactly represent a realistic scenario. Lynch is trying to seduce a woman in a bar, and she’s telling him she wants to go get down in his Chevy, but since they just met, you’re thinking: Really? Bragging “I have a Malibu parked out back” was one of your pickup lines? Also, since the music is lifted entirely from “Drift Away,” did it really take three Nashville songwriters just to come up with lyrics so terrible you’d think not even one of them would want credit? —Willman

There’s a perception that you’d have to look to hip-hop to find as many felons or possible soon-to-be-felons gathered on one track, so thanks are due to the former president and the insurrectionists behind bars on his behalf for correcting that. —Willman

Artificial intelligence became a prominent talking point in popular music over the past year, namely due to producer Ghostwriter gaining traction with an AI-generated track featuring mimetic vocals from Drake and The Weeknd. Grimes was just one musician quick to fall in line with the growing trend, encouraging musicians to use AI to resemble her voice on a track of their creation in exchange for a share of the profits. She took it one step further with “I Wanna Be Software,” and oh, how far we’ve strayed from the light. Where Grimes has built a career retrofitting experimental turns in electronic music into a pop format, she goes quite literal on “Software,” a computer glitch of a song that ambles as much as it wobbles. Over production that could very well be a Garage Band preset, she sing-raps about, you know, wanting to be software. “You can write me, you can design,” she deadpans. If only she’d put as much effort into the track itself. — Horowitz