The Worst Songs Ever Performed

By Nick
This is a personal list of the worst songs ever performed. It does not include rap music, which is almost uniformly horrible, and it does not include ditties from children’s TV shows. And I cannot attempt to be comprehensive, so this list only encompasses that little area of music that I’ve listened to.


“Hey, Soul, Sister” by Train.
There has never been, nor will ever be, a song as bad as this one. The song is so stupendously horrible that it lacks the comic value that other awful songs have. It transcends awfulness. There are no words to describe how nonsensical the lyrics are. If their singer had come up with anything more ridiculous, it would have been read at the Obama Inauguration. Lyrics aside, the singer sounds like he’s in pain while singing. How did Train go from “Drops of Jupiter” and “Calling All Angels” to this.

“The Hap-Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” by Donna Fargo
So hap-happy it’s sickening. Donna Fargo’s magical ability to ruin country music has amazed thousands. Unless you like songs with lines like “It’s a skipped-doo-dah day”, then avoid this treacle like the plague.

“Funny Face” by Donna Fargo.
Like the above, only worse. If the government really wants to torture terrorists, just make them listen to this.

“The Good Ship Lollipop” by who knows whom.
A staple of dance recitals, the song gives me a feeling in my stomach that would be the equivalent of eating a gallon of Jolly Ranchers. I’ll take “Yellow Submarine” any day.

“Over The Rainbow”
OK, so the Judy Garland version was good, and there were some other good versions of it, including one sung by my sister. But there have been so many awful, schmaltzy remakes of this song that I had to include it.

“Summer Nights” by the Grease Cast
Tell me less, tell me less. It has an obnoxious, repetitive riff, whiney gang vocals, that sentimental romancing of the 1950s as the best time ever, and something about making out under the dock. Family entertainment.

“It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls.
No one quite knows why there’s not a song called “It’s Raining Women”.

“The Disco Duck (Pt. 1) by Elmore Leornard or somebody.
Even worse than the above. The absolute worse disco song ever, it could have only happened during the Carter Administration.

“Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees.
If you haven’t already figured out that I hate disco…

“Tik Tok” by Ke$ha.
A sort of white trash version of Britney Spears (if that’s possible), who pulls of the amazing feat of sounding more drunk than Lady GaGa while singing lyrics about taking drugs. Awful.

“Your Love is My Drug” by Ke$ha
The Title says it all. The song sounds so much like “Tik Tok” that there’s no reason to say anything else. And why do people persist in pronouncing her name Keh-sha instead of Kee-sha?

“Oi! To The World” by The Vandals.
At first, the idea of having a punk rock Christmas song was funny. Then the radio station played it over and over again to the point where it was nauseating. Makes me want to hang myself by the chimney with care.

“Don’t Trust Me” by 30H!3 and “Good Girls Go Bad” by Cobra Starship.
Both of these songs are so similar I had to put them together. Snarky, Vulgar club-emo music. This is what government schools are producing.

“Addicted” by Saving Abel.
And speaking of Vulgar, here’s exhibit A. Absolutely disgusting. Makes Breaking Benjamin sound like Beethoven.

“If Everyone Cared”, “Rockstar”, “Somebody”, all the other radio hits by Nickelback.
Nihilistic, existentialist lyrics combined with Chad Kroeger’s strained, scratchy voice, and you’ve got a recipe for awfulness that the radio stations will play again and again and again. And again.

“This Afternoon” by Nickelback.
Even worse than all the other Nickelback songs. Sounds like the worst country music ever, coupled with Chad Kroeger’s strained scratchy voice, which I can’t overemphasize. Chad Kroeger sounds like he eats gravel for breakfast.

“I’m For You” by TobyMac.
Proof that awful music is not just for atheists. TobyMac is sort of a overblown youth pastor who thinks he’s cool. His name should be TobyWack.

“A City On Our Knees” by TobyMac.
Pretty much all this guy’s music is awful, but this one is slow, too.

“Wake Up, Wake Up” by KJ Five-Two.
I’m sure there are worse songs by KJ, who is sort of a budget TobyMac, but this is the only one that AirOne Plays. It’s sort of a rock/rap hybrid, and, trust me, it’s worse than it sounds. KJ is so 2000 and late.

“Sea Cruise” by somebody.
An oldies track in the world of awful music. It’s been years since I’ve heard it, and I don’t miss it a bit. Words do not describe how bad this is.

“Fireflies” by Owl City
The music world is so messed up that some loser who lives in his parents basement can record this song and become a celebrity. It sounds like the menu music for one of those lame video games that don’t have any blood in them coupled with whiney, girly, save the earth lyrics.

“Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi
Preferably Dead.

“Don’t You Want Me Baby” by some 80s band.
Another case of radio overkilling a song. It’s funny occasionally as a piece of 80s cheese, but one I’ve heard it 5763 times in one month…

“I Kissed A Girl” By Katy Perry
You know, there used to be a time when gay singers didn’t do songs about being gay. “Rocket Man” has nothing to do with Homosexuality, and most of Queen’s songs have nothing to do with it either. (I chalk their weird onstage spandex costumes up to classic rock flamboyance more than being gay. There were plenty of straight bands that wore tight clothes and sang weird stuff.) But now we have a non-lesbian singing this ridiculously stupid song that’s offensive to straights and gays alike. What is this world coming to?

“California Gurls” by Katy Perry.
You know, there used to be a time when singers didn’t steal their song titles from other people, and thay new how 2 spel.

“I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz.
OK, I’ll give him this: he does have a cool last name.

“This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race.” by Fallout Boy
Wimpy, snobby pop-emo from wimpy-snobby rich kids from New York. Ditch the strings and go back to punk.

“Sweethearts of America” by FalloutBoy
Is it Fallout Boy, FalloutBoy, or Fall Out Boy? Nobody seems to know. This song is even worse than the above, and it’s slow. What idiot came up with slow rock songs?

“Hey There Delilah” by The Plain White T’s
The Delilah who’s being “Hey-There’d” isn’t the singer’s girl. No it’s some random chick who barely even knows the singer. That and the corny rhymes put it on the list.

“Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls
“I Don’t Want the World to See this/Cos I don’t think that they’d understand./This song deserves to be broken/That would make me a happy man.”

“I Will Not Bow” by Breaking Benjamin.
The Slow, Boring Rock Song to kill all slow, boring rock songs.

“The Last Night”, “Savior”, and “Rebirthing” by Skillet.
Possibly the worst rock band of all time, (Calling Cobra Starship a rock band insults the genre), Skillet sounds like Chad Kroeger meets Breaking Benjamin produced by TobyMac and aimed at Christian Kids whose parents won’t let them listen to Disturbed.

“Everything You Ever Wanted” and “Zero” by Hawk Nelson.
Have you ever noticed that awful bands also have a tendency to make every song sound alike. I mean, couldn’t there be a band that was awful, but at least creative. I counted 35 first-person references in “Everything.” Now that’s me-centric.

“In My Head” by Jason Derulo.
Honestly, Jason, I don’t want to know what’s in your head.

“Just Dance”, “Poker Face”, “LoveGame”, “Bad Romance”, “Poparazzi” by Lady GaGa.
Club Music’s apogee. Repetitive, machinelike, just plain nasty. Lady GaGa has a talent for sounding drunk. You say you’re a lady, act like it.

“Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” By Beyonce’
Another dance recital staple, it has almost no music whatsoever, jejune lyrics, and a beat that’s so complex that Beyonce’ gets off beat. Put a Lid on it!

“It’s Only Rock And Roll (But I Like It)” by The Stones.
I don’t like it.

“TNT” By AC/DC
How can anybody take these guys seriously. While they are supposedly “Rock Gods”, they sound to me more like junior high boys trying to freak out their parents.

“All Around Me” by Flyleaf
A song that sounds like it’s about meeting up with a stalker, sung by a chick who sounds like she’s about to vomit. And why on earth is this played on the Christian pop/rock stations near me? There’s nothing remotely Christian about it.

“Misery Business” by Paramore
The Fake-Punk version of Flyleaf. Neon-red hair does not a punk make.

“Decode” by Paramore
A slow, slow, slow version of Misery Business, complete with a whiney, shrieking chorus. We can tell the red hair is fake. Just ditch it.

“Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon
The ultimate lame, slow, Coldplay/U2 ripoff. Nothing is as bad as this. Nothing.

“Go All The Way (Into Twilight)” By Perry Farrell.
I think I turned this song off about two seconds into it.

“Amerika” by Rammstein.
Shut up, shut up, shut up, you German Freaks.

“Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains of Wayne.
Let’s see how tacky we can get, guys.

“All The Small Things” by Blink-182
You know, they still make Moo-llennium Crunch ice cream even though the turn of the millennium is over.

“I Don‘t Need A Soul” by Relient K.
You know, this band used to be good. Now they just sound like a generic Owl City

“My Life Would Suck Without You” by Kelly Clarkson
You know, back in the 70s this would have been banned from the radio on the grounds of obscenity. Just sayin’

“So What!” by P!nk
Back in the day, P!nk was that cute girl with the pink hair. Now, she’s just a mean, trashy, Britney Spears gone to seed. She has radio hits-so what?

“Womanizer”, “Gimme More”, “Circus” by Britney Spears.
The original white-trash girl celebrity, inspiring numerous copycats. Nothing quite beats the original.

“SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake.
Why can’t old boy band singers just fade away. *NSync was alright back in the early 2000s, but this guy is just sleepwalking toward his royalty check.

“I Ain’t as Good As I Once Was” by Toby Keith.
Had to include at least one country song in this list. Sounds like it was written while dead drunk, with lines like “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I was good once as I ever was.” This one weren’t never good at all.

“Imma Be” and “Boom Boom Pow” by the Black Eyed Peas.
Lacking both basic elements of music and grammar, the Black Eyed Peas show us that Fergie can sound as much like a drunk white-trash chick as anyone.

“Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal)” by Fergie
They do if they hear this song.

“Innocence” by Stellar Kart
Stellar Kart needs to float off into a black hole.

“Piece of My Heart” by Janis Joplin.
Erma Franklin’s rendition of this song is heartrending. Joplin’s is just ugly. Sorry. I know she’s supposed to be this great legend and all, but…it’s just no good. Bad music isn’t just new music.

“Ballroom Blitz” by The Sweet
Kill me, please.

“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day.
Slow, Depressing, and off-key. Anyone who could record a song this bad must be an American Idiot.

“You Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” By Pitbull
The fakest rapper ever, he is not even worthy to be called rap, and that alone is pretty sad. Pitbull is probably the wackest man in show business, and his non-talents include passing off a mixtape as an album, pretending to be gangsta when in fact he owned a bakery before he broke in to rap, and putting awful stuff like this on the radio.

“Shut Me Out”, “Soaring In The Sky”, “To Know That You’re Alive”, by Kutless
Sort of a Christian Breaking Benjamin, with the cursing replaced with sweet evangelical nothings. How come Christian Rock bands like to have misspelled names. I mean, there’s Relient K and Kutless, and…that other band.

This list is far from comprehensive. I could have included the entire musical works of Linkin Park (Excluding Shadow of a Day), Disturbed, Breaking Benjamin, Poison, Miley Cyrus, Nickelback, Justin Bieber, Anything from American Idol, Kenny Chesney, Sugarland, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Cobra Starship, 3OH!3, Beyonce, Rihanna, and almost every rap song since 1998. The opinions presented in this paper all are true and must not be questioned. Disagreement may result in fines, jail time, death, and your kids inability to go to the college of their choice. Listener discretion is advised. Please feel free to suggest your own worst songs. I welcome your comments.