So many comments Todd makes about Drake here are hilarious given the context of what’s been happening these last couple weeks. 10:28 “A pissing contest with Drake seems a little trivial right now” LOL.
God I hate country music always preaching unto us about farming, Jesus, women, and hating on us (especially any of us, who are gay or on welfare or can't get education)
@@emranismail4875 One time I was forced to listen to the local country station and I heard this song where a guy was singing about how he works hard on the farm so that, quote, "My daughter won't have to be a stripper and my son won't have to be a drug dealer"
In fairness, bro-country never went away entirely. It's just not remotely as relevant a crossover cultural force as it was between 2013 and 2017. But its DNA is right there in much of Morgan Wallen's music in that, after all, Joey Moi is his producer. Same with HARDY, who had written many songs for Florida Georgia Line prior to his recent career ascension as a lead performer. You hear its DNA in some emerging names over this past year including Nate Smith, George Birge and Jordan Davis with the snap tracks and rhythmic vocal phrasing. It may not be lighting up the charts nearly as much as it did in the mid-2010s and obviously isn't nearly as popular as the Zach Bryan-led neotraditional country resurgence with hints of heartland rock as well, but it never went away either and is sneakily having a minor comeback.
He misses Pitbull and bro country but Maroon 5 is like that annoying guy who hangs around at the party way too long and you're like "CHRIST, thought he'd never leave!"
You know this was a bad year for music when one of the entries has Todd angrily defending Pitbull and talking about missing him...and the song that inspired the rant is still only #8 on the list.
He came around on Pitbull in the same way that Bill Maher did. From what I remember, he was called a bad singer. Pitbull responded by saying that he wasn't a singer, but rather an entertainer. I might dislike some of his songs, but I can't help but enjoy his charisma. There was once a contest to have Pitbull show up and perform a concert, and the Facebook poll sent him to the most remote Walmart in Kodiak, Alaska. The madman did it and earned my respect.
@@kazmiller96 I read about that even though the people organizing the contest found out someone rigged the contest and Pitbull was told he didn't have to go, he still decided to go through with the trip just for the people in Alaska who were expecting him.
The “whips and chains” line ESPECIALLY seems like Drake sang it JUST to give Kendrick justification for the “you not a colleague, you a damn colonizer”
I don't miss bro country one bit but I *get* missing Pitbull. He was from an era where pop music was all about shameless fun, and there's an appeal to that in hindsight when you're dealing with a stretch of pop that feels intentionally not fun to listen to at times.
Toddstradamus called it! A Pitbull song made it into the honorable mentions for 2015's best list, and Todd prophecied, "You know, I think I'm actually going to miss Pitbull when his career runs out." And, to the astonishment of all, here he is.
Oh yeah, I forgot about those 10 crazy days at the very end of 2023 where 10 chart-smashing singles come out and become culture-defining icons on Dec 31 at 11:59 PM
I’m gonna be much more surprised if a best list comes out cause chart music was so nothing this year but it’s a lot easier to find bad songs than it is good one when it comes to music that charts among the slim pickings that there are
Jason Aldean was born in Macon, Georgia which has had a population of over 100k for his entire life. He currently lives in Nashville. Jason Aldean has no idea what would happen if people tried that in a small town because he has never lived in one.
You can tell, because anyone who has actually lived in a small town would be aware that they do, in fact, have crime problems of their own. Lord knows my trash hometown did.
@@thatoneguy9582 Pitbull has had the same redemption arc that Twilight's had: he wasn't the worst thing ever to happen to music, like we pretended he was. He was just cheesy, shameless fun, but we were too busy trying to make ourselves look intellectual and mature by covering ourselves up in layers of irony. Was he a genius that went unfairly unappreciated? Hell no lol But he was trashy fun, and we all love McDonalds every now and then.
@@xisco5525 ehhh, I think the thing with Pitbull and Twilight is that their fans tended to be really fucking annoying, so shitting on the thing they liked, right or wrong, was in part to take them down a peg.
7:25 Vampire had several options for the clean version before choosing "Dream crusher" as a replacement for "fame fucker" - fame hunter - fame lover - tree hugger - whale blubber - garlic butter - Mark Zucker
That was a video made as a (honestly somewhat funny) joke. It’s nice seeing someone just joke around and act their age once in a while in the music industry.
I think a parody of Try That in a Small Town where Al is pissed off about literally the smallest thing would be hilarious. Like how his Trapped in the Drive Thru is so funny because it's such a dramatic song that he turns into a shaggy dog story.
You have no idea how upset I was when I told a friend how excited I was to see Mother by Meghan Trainor on this list, only to be told that it was so unsuccessful that it didn't qualify as a hit and would be ineligible. I was looking forward to it so much. The combination of "I am your mother! You listen to me!" like an actual strict mother, and "You need to learn how to satisfy me like a real man!" comes across as genuinely incestuous.
@@labbaby189 it's all 'drinkin' beers and ridin' trucks and gettin' girls with them cowboy hats and big boots'. and describing a woman's body as a 'backroad'.
@@labbaby189 as someone who listens to country music regularly I miss bro country too lmao. It’s dogshit but at least it’s not sappy boring dogshit like boyfriend country
I hate to say it too, I but I miss Bro Country too. Maybe its my Southern Rock fandom showing, but is it weird that I find drunk rednecks talking about shiny trucks and hot girls and boots/booty far more sincere than someone singing about how much he'll cherish and wait for you and how special you are girl? The fluffy boyfriend country-pop stuff is somehow WAY more annoying and offensive to me!
Butthurt Todd critic: Well actually I am a law abiding and responsible gun owner who won't be dealing with any cops Todd. Me: And.........you missed the point. Brilliant!
@RenaldyCalixte I'm a bit late but yep. Todd is for entertainment purposes but misses the point. Take a look at the new laws Virginia just passed, 2 schools are going back to their original names.
Pretty shocking Todd was able to put the worst list before 2024. But then again James Somerton deleted his apology so it was an equivalent exchange and much needed.
I truly think Todd underestimates the number of Midwestern hair salons with Easy Listening Country Music stations on Spotify playing twelve hours a day, every day.
Here in Marietta, Ohio, a lot of our hair salons don't even bother using Spotify and literally just tune their radios to WNUS or WGGE, the two main country stations in our area. I fucking hate it.
Fun fact: Jason Aldean didn't even have songwriting credits for "Try That In A Small Town". So Todd, that's why he couldn't defend what he wrote, because he didn't write anything
@@nejdalej NOOOO, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE *theme music slowly starts to play* DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU STARTED *a bright yellow glow comes from the floor*
My hypothesis about Daylight is that it's the first song designed and marketed specifically for inclusion on Dungeons and Dragons character playlists. The reason the 'temptation' is so vague is that it has to be broad enough to account for every kind of warlock pact.
“Can’t Have Mine” sounds like it was written exclusively to be played at those weird evangelical proms where dads get “engaged” to their own daughters or whatever the hell
@@garbageboy9164 you know, that regular normal thing where you make tween girls promise not to kiss boys (obviously; who else could your daughter even want to kiss??) by framing it as “cheating on” their daddy. Just like jesus talked about
You know it’s a bad year for music altogether when everything about the songs on this list just bore tf out of me rather than piss me off or make me cringe.
eh, it's a bad year for hits, sure, but it's not been bad for music all around. metalheads have been FEASTING in 2023. and tons of impeccable non-metal albums too. though I didn't listen to too many, Exulansis [on Hymns of Collapse-they also had a metal album, which was my AOTY], The Vagaband, and McKinley Dixon were stellar. in terms of singles, you've got stuff like "Ghost!" by Tkay Maidza, "Pearls" by Jessie Ware, and "Sunday" by Narrow Head all providing fun, catchy songs.
@@MelMelodyWernerNah. Even metal is boring this year. When Sleep Token and Spiritbox are revered by the masses as great and groundbreaking when they’re just falling into the same boring trends like minimalist, electronic beats and using riffs & styles that other bands have already created, it’s not a good year.
Vampire is a musical theatre song forced to be a pop song, like it really feels like an orchestra should come in for the second half and the sudden drops in energy makes more sense in that context as well
That's kinda not fair to other musical theatre songs forced to be pop songs. Like "Total Eclipse of the Heart" which was, no joke, originally written for a musical about literal vampires.
Having watched Todd for about a decade now, hearing him openly call Pitbull "fun to listen to" when comparing him to Drake and outright admit he misses the former is absolutely surreal, and yet I can't deny what he's saying, either.
There is a famous story that pro wrestling manager Jim Cornette tells about his former booker Ole Anderson. After not having seen him for a while, Cornette runs into Ole who says to him "Cornette, at one time, I thought you were a dumb fuck. But so many other dumb fucks have come along who are worse than you that it's moved you up the ladder without you doing anything." same thing applies to Pitbull. He moved up the ladder due to everyone else who has shown up over the years and have sucked worse
I'm so shocked; I didn’t know a single song on this list. Usually, a lot of contemporary hits make their way onto the corporate-mandated playlist that serenades us at work constantly before the endless Christmas songs kick off around Thanksgiving. None of these songs got on that playlist in any way. Not the work-safe radio versions, or any other arrangements. Amazing. (For the record, we're hearing a LOT of vintage and retro hits on repeat. It goes by decades and once it hits the mid-2010's it dips back to the '70's again.)
Unless you listen to current top 40 stations, rap or country stations (though Rich Men North Of Richmond never got played on the radio despite being a #1 hit), stream on Spotify or Tiktok, you're not gonna know any songs. We're in the streaming era nowadays, radio no longer fully dictates what gets popular, the audience does and everything's pretty niche nowadays to the point where a song could pull high streaming numbers and top the charts for a while, but half of the public still won't recognize a song. We're in an era that's pretty much either "get with the times or get left behind". Also, retail stores aren't dependable nowadays. A lot of the modern stuff they play aren't even on the charts anyway, they just choose what's safe to play. That's the story.
I don't listen to a lot of modern music anymore, but I knew Vampire because of Olivia, and Rich Men North of Richmond/Try That In a Small Town for the political controversy. I had never heard of the #1 song and I didn't even know Drake had a new album right now, which seems like a good summary of this year.
My previous job at Whole Foods played popular top 100 songs from three or four years ago at the latest mixed in with pop classics from the 10s, the 00s, the 90s, the 80s, and the 70s.
Yeah, the only ones I knew were Vampire and What Is Love. Idk if it's just a "not being American" thing but I'd never even heard of any of the controversial ones, let alone the big controversies around them.
I know these aren't Todd's favorite videos to make, and they cause a lot of stress, but I really am grateful to him for continuing to make his year end lists. Every year, no matter what's going on in my life, I have these to look forward to and I feel a sort of comfort from watching them and knowing we've made it through another one. Thank you Todd!
It's remarkable that a song can top the charts for about a third of the entire year and yet leave no lasting impression whatsoever. That's almost impressive.
After seeing what took the top spot, I looked back 10 years into the past to remind myself of what a pop megahit with actual flavor looks like, and folks, I'm getting nostalgia for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. I'm not even ashamed of it, Thrift Shop is just a funny song to have nostalgia for.
"Thrift Shop" was even a breath of fresh air back then. It feels so funny that the biggest hit of a year as downbeat as 2013 was a song that sounds like it was literally purchased from a Thrift Shop and played on the radio. And I mean that as a compliment. That song was fire back then and jt's fire now.
This is the first Todd list in a while where I can say that I know less than half the songs he’s talking about. That speaks to how irrelevant pop music was this year. When a lynching anthem reaches number one on the charts, you know you’re in deep trouble.
This is the first year I didn’t know any of them. Scary. I have some vague slippery memory of hearing two-second snippets of Last Night somewhere, but that’s it.
What? You can’t make an insane claim like that because it shows youve obviously never even listened to the song. The song is about rich corporate tycoons taking over a small town and how the residents suffer from that. If anything, I’d expect a progressive such as yourself to support the message of the song…but since it’s a white guy singing country music it must be instantly bigoted. But have ever you listened to the song fully? Or seen interviews with him where he actually explains the song? Of course you haven’t because you watch BreadTubers like Todd and let them decide your beliefs and views for you. I’ll be honest, you seem like the kind of person that has a hard time connecting to other peoples struggles and feeling empathy. It’s not a lynching anthem….maybe you’d get the song more if you grew up dirt poor having to struggle. The fact that you think it’s a “lynching anthem” shows how disconnected you from the majority of people in this country that don’t get the privilege of growing up in a city and having opportunities at every step around you. There are people that really relate to the song because it’s about real stuff that real people go through. Maybe go have some more life experiences and feel what’s it’s like to have to actually struggle and survive. I’m not even sure why todd put this song on here…of course he’s going to lambast because he lives in LA and has been trained to think that anyone who doesn’t live in a city or anyone that likes country music is a “Trump supporter” and is every name in the book that ends in -ist or -ism. Sucks that this is the state of the world; Where people won’t even learn about what something is about before making insane accusations…like this being a “lynching anthem” when in reality it has nothing to do with anything of the sort.
@@keyscored3710 That's literally what it's been called by pretty much every news source. Even the articles defending it bring that up. It's even stated at the beginning the song's Wikipedia page. Why are you getting at me for stating the obvious? lol
@@VulpesHilarianusI'm looking forward to "Mumblerap Mallard" and "Regional Mexican Chicken." At least that would put a look on my face of bewilderment rather than horror.
18:04 WARNING Ladies: if you find your car in the empty parking structure with the tire suddenly flat, and some guy drives up in his truck to help you, Run! Run back to the place you were just in, call a mechanic, and maybe the police.
@@rand0mguyontheinternet That's what looks like is happening in that country video: a woman finds her car with a flat, some guy pulls up to help her with it, and (I'm sure in the case of the country video) it's a match made in heaven. I'm just saying that parking lots are a hotbed of creeps looking for someone to assault and anyone who is by themselves (woman or man) and approached by someone in a parking structure, should be more cautious than moist.
8:06 Even though I didn't mind "Vampire", Todd describing it as "trying to wring an 'All Too Well' out of a situation that only deserves a 'We are Never Ever Getting Back Together'" had me CACKLING
That seems like a weird and kinda grossly inappropriate thing if Vampire is supposed to be about a predatory relationship? Which… isn’t that clearly exactly what it’s about??
@alexbennet4195 I could be wrong but I swear something somewhere (maybe I read an article or something?) Gave me the impression it was about a groomer relationship, you know the kind where the girl is way younger, am I just totally imaging things now?
His rant against that song is the most horrendous music opinion in this entire video. I could never really get into Todd because he'll just hate something because it annoys him or because he hates the lyrics, not for any technical reason he can actually articulate.
NGL, I dunno if this is a hot take or not but I think the pop song stuff is maybe Todd's least interesting videos these days? OHW and Trainwreckords are fascinating trips into artists that are usually more interesting than they're given credit for, and it feels like whenever Todd has to review a pop song it just feels perfunctory - like, do most of the people watching these days even remember when Todd was a Channel Awesome guy?
@@uhhhmaeve I do miss his pop song reviews, but also kind of agree. I also think that pop music has changed so instead of something big and dumb like black eyed peas, a lot of pop songs now are kind of dull so it's hard to make interesting videos critiquing them.
@@uhhhmaeveAgree - Todd is an insightful critic, but he’s also an excellent music journalist/historian. The OHW and Train Wreckcords videos give Todd a chance to flex the skills that set him apart. It’s not just that he has interesting opinions and observations, he’s good at finding a story, researching and following it and then presenting it in a compelling way.
@@uhhhmaeve pop music doesn't really have the broader cultural significance and impact it used to have, because culture is so fragmented nowadays (especially music with streaming being the dominant way to consume it). You can be a number 1 artist and the most important thing happening right now to some group of people and be a 'literally who' to a bunch of others. And it used to be that if an artist was mega popular, it was hard to escape them. This kind of environment makes it hard for Todd to talk about popular music because he has always liked to examine its broader role or impact in the current zeitgeist and what it says about its artist, and it's just kind of a fact that music seems to matter less and less every year (again, in a broader cultural sense). I'm not surprised his pop music reviews are becoming increasingly rarer and he's way pickier about which songs he chooses to review when it happens.
@@Rose-ew7bvDon't. These days Drake is repulsive both on the record and off it, and SZA could do so much better. I've never been a SZA fan yet I feel like she and every other woman in existence needs to stay as far away from Drake as possible.
I remember Todd said in one of these reviews that Maroon 5 doesn't even bother him anymore, they're just such an obligatory radio act that it's like getting upset at a towel or a napkin. Like, he's just become numb to Maroon 5 that he doesn't even see their songs as good or bad anymore. I can't say I disagree. For me, Imagine Dragons is the same. They're such a perfect radio band that I find their music both completely inoffensive but also completely unmemorable. That seems to be how Todd views Maroon 5 now.
This is a really weird transitional period for media, not just for music. Mostly everything is some of the worst garbage ever, but like 5-10 things will come along and blow me away. The meaning of art is going through some growing pains right now with the internet, post irony era and it's fascinating to watch.
We would argue art as a whole is doing as fine as it always does. It's simply media corporations that are having a difficulty getting a grasp on how Gen Z consumes media. Everything is so spread out and diverse that it's difficult to get a large following, even in terms of nostalgic media. Note that a majority of things that are popular nowadays are either Indie (The Amazing Digital Circus) or started out independent (Five Nights At Freddy's). Outside of fresher mediums like gaming, the major companies are now barely present in the artistic scene.
@@TheMadwomen Yeah there's a bunch of amazing media and art out there, but because people don't go looking for it they see the stuff that gets recommended, which is usually just hot garbage
Yeah, I've found myself enjoying Pitbull AND Flo Rida lately and it's not just the nostalgia cycle - turns out they're both really good lighthearted fun when they're not literally all you hear every single time you're exposed to pop music. Who knew, right?
Im not a particular fan of pitbulls music but he has my full support after seeing him live 😂❤ My cousin Megan in Montana sent Pitbull a wedding invite as a joke and he actually went 😂😂😂😂 A deeply unserious but nice guy 😂❤ bro came for the reception, in a Versace suit, with a gift and 15 minute set lol. At first we were all trying to figure out who hired the impersonater lol Edit: 😭💀✋ he is, in fact Mr. Worldwide lol
Never thought I would be contemplating giving a second shot to Nickelback, but this is the reality we live in. New stuff just buzzes in and out without leaving much of an impression. Let's bring back the stuff with some personality PLEASE, If I want hyponotic monotones I'ed just puit in Vapor/retro wave; or maybe some ASMR. Have you all forgotten how to ENTERTAIN us?? Give you a hint, bland like eveything else to the point of unrecongizable aint it.
Fun fact for 1:27 - Silence are a Slovene synthpop act whose origins go as far back as 1992. Their third studio album is widely considered their best. It sounds like new wave and in a really good way, whereas their fourth album, released on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, is just that little bit better despite the instrumentation being a lot more sparse. Next time you hear “Daylight” by David Kushner, I recommend that you give "Musical Accompaniment for the End of the World" a listen to feel this kind of gothic vibe done right.
Todd saying he misses Pitbull while forgetting/ignoring he released an album this year of horribly mixed samples is a haunting picture of nostalgia blindness in action.
To be fair, he’s probably talking about the charts. I looked it up (because lord knows I hadn’t heard of it) and Trackhouse was so unpopular that it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page 😅
That album was hilarious so what’s the problem? Would rather listen to the most obnoxious song on there like the one that samples What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes as opposed to Morgan Wallen (🤮🤢)
Yeah, as someone who never minded much of Pitbull's previous discography and even unironically enjoyed some of his high-octane stupidity............his latest singles are easily his worst in how lazy and low-effort they are in egregiously taking from earlier dance hits. At least with previous efforts where he obviously sampled, more thought and effort was put into it like with "75, Brazil Street" for "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)" and "Push The Feeling On" for "Hotel Room Service". But his latest releases where he is shamelessly copying "La Freak" and "Jump Around" is just peak laziness in comparison.
Time for the annual tradition of seeing the songs on Todd's worst songs list and saying to myself "Wow, this year was bad, but surely next year couldn't possibly be worse".
I've just realised: you could argue that Vampire is how the showbiz world has treated Olivia. She's framed it like a toxic love song about a person she wants to leave. Like it's also about an older guy taking advantage of her too, but you know what else is old and takes advantage of young people? Hollywood and the music industry. Idk I just have that hunch and I wanted to get it out of my system. Also oh my god, we've had the same number 1 worst songs two years in a row. I feel so seen 😂
@@LeBimbo todd doesn't include the music in-between the numbers in the actual list. the only exception is abcdefu from the worst list 2022 but i don't think he'll do that again for a long time
11:42 "He's gonna just become DiCaprio -- he's gonna become a weird old guy plowing his way through models half his age for the rest of his life." More like "a third of his age".
My only frustration with “Flowers” is that it (a mid-song) was a mega hit for Cyrus when in the preceding years she had some of her best output barely register on the charts (“Midnight Sky” or “Mother’s Daughter” should have had that kind of success, NOT “Flowers”). I’m happy to see Miley getting attention, just wish it had been for a better song. Heck, “Muddy Feet” off of the new album would have been a more deserving song to have received that sort of success.
@@judgesaturn507 River was so fun. Should have been one of the biggest hits of pride month (along with Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” and Jessie Ware’s “Free Yourself”)
Music critic Pat Finnerty took down “Try That in a Small Town” the best when he, a Philadelphia native born in Scranton, went around his neighborhood and asked people if they’d stick up for the person next door. Everyone basically said yes. He also noted Scranton, many times smaller than Philly, is rife with crime due to it being in the goddamn Rust Belt. Similarly, I also live in Philly and we’ve had car jackings throughout the year. If anyone saw that happening, they’d get their ass beat. Of course, the cops have kinda shrugged their shoulders and have done nothing because of ineptitude and mismanagement for decades. I’d sooner trust anyone in my apartment building than Aldean or a pig.
as someone from washington DC, even though people here are kinda rude, i absolutely trust that we'd stick up for each other when it really matters. i've had strangers/near-strangers in DC help me plenty of times. people in the city aren't just a bunch of cold, uncaring mobs. even in the urban northeast, the place these rednecks hate so much, we have plenty of humanity. hell, i'd certainly rather be here than anywhere that people think the idea of murdering protestors is cool and badass
Conservatives love using small towns and villages as an argument for their moral values, when those places are actually the biggest example of how their ideology is a failure. Neglected by their policies, rife with crime, everything they accuse cities of being.
@@NJGuy1973 no one said it was? literally the whole point is that it's not a small town, but still has the same "fraternity" what's-his-name boasts about in "Try That in a Small Town". the whole premise of the song is stupid
When I saw the #2 pick, I was a little taken aback because I didn't think it could be anything else. So I racked my brain thinking what could possibly be #1. Then your #1 came on and it dawned on me... I forgot this existed. This was the biggest hit of the year, it spent a solid 4 months at the top of the charts, making it one of the biggest hits of all time, and it left zero impression on me whatsoever. That has NEVER happened to me before. There have been times where I despised the #1 song on the year, but I at least remembered it. There needs to be a certain set of circumstances for something like this to occur, and yet, here we are. God what a weird year for music this was.
You've at least HEARD the #1, I NEVER HAVE? Like this? THIS is the song of the year??? Either I'm out of the loop pop-scene-wise or my radio rotation and Spotify behaviour has improved lol
I think it's hilarious how Pitbull is gone from, well, whatever he started out as, to endearing. Mr Worldwide really stuck with it and has proven himself a class act.
I think Pitbull has been relatively consistent in his music, which is why people like him and he's been endearing. He seems one of those artists that is aware of what he does, doesn't try to be anything bigger, and he's cool with that. It's the reason why I don't think he'll ever have a "Trainwreckords." I don't see him trying to be "hard" like MC Hammer or "serious" like Katy Perry.
You're so right about "Daylight". Songs about Christian guilt should either be fun OR be agonizing. Not this guy who sounds like, "I was tempted by something, & now I'm sad aww 😕😕😕"
Yes! This is exactly how I feel about it but couldn't figure out how to explain. I believe it's an earnest expression of his feelings (and my family is that kind of religious, so I do empathize) but it's just not good music!
@@MissaBrevisI think part of the problem is that these types of songs lack depth. Like, they never examine *why* they're feeling these feelings. They just sort of wallow in their angst without any self-examination that makes the agony compelling.
The only reason I knew a couple of these was cause I watched Diamond Axe Productions' lists, who also likes Todd. So yeh, I too also knew these songs only cause music reviewer lists.
I only knew about most of them, especially the more political ones, because I spend way too much time on Twitter. I have never once listened to 90% of these songs by my own free will.
I work as a childcare assistant for a Jazzercise class, and it was very cathartic to hear Todd ripping into Baby Don't Hurt Me. Songs from the '80s and '90s repackaged as horrible dance beats seem to be an integral part of Jazzercise.
I won't lie I mostly use these videos as a way to gauge how out of touch I am with pop culture writ large. This year is a 10 for 10 "whuhhh????" moment -- I've heard of none of these songs. My retreat from society and evolution into a total hermit is complete. I would like to thank my parents, God, and the academy.
As a late 40s non American , I too avoided these , unless they generated enough controversy to end up on a news article. Also when did the default singing style for guys become a mushmouth monotone moan ( moanotone?) with a hint of bad autotune? Christ! No wonder we're missing Pitbull , at least he sounded like he wasn't sedated . Jesus it makes Sisqo sound like Pavarotti ( ask your mum).
it's not just because you're old, popular songs just aren't as popular as they used to be. I'm a full youngster but there are some here that I haven't heard either
My biggest gripe with this years music is that seemingly any popular song out of any genre I usually like was just "vibe-y" and that was it. There was no excitement, no groove, no funk, nothing to dance to just . . . 5000 songs that are all "vibe-y", sometimes have decent beats and have either mubled and/or autotuned and/or boring lyrics and that's it. You're just supposed to "vibe" to all of them - which is fine, I guess - but I'd actually prefer a mixture of that with some other stuff. This is the year I randomly went back to songs like "Starships", "Timber" and "Lean On", songs I never really liked too much before, but at least they were poppy, fun and dancable.
I blame Gen Z for this, they seem extremely averse to bright catchy pop music that actually has a tempo, everything has got to appear midtempo and aloof
@@KylieWilsonyou're right but it's funny that k-pop, which is generally the exact opposite of "midtempo and aloof", is also relatively huge right now
Hey hey don't wrap older Gen Z into this. 2009 - 2015 is MY era of pop and I will stand with everyone else telling the younger gen Z and gen alpha that modern pop sucks lol.
@@KylieWilsontbf i dont think this is everyone, kpop has a massive gen z fanbase and a lot of those songs are rlly upbeat and loud. plus this is more anecdotal but ive seen people say they became kpop fans BECAUSE of how vibey and downbeat pop music had become for them
Blame TikTok and the culture around it. A song isn’t described as Twee Pop anymore, it’s “coquette female incel corecore”. It’s not the genres that matter, but the aesthetic it matches with the best. Here’s a fun fact, the reason Fiona Apple pulled all of her music from TikTok was because lady incels tried to appropriate her art as part of their pro-anorexia and phrenology bullshit
24:30 Anne-Marie actually had two US top 20 hits prior to 2023... both of those being with other EDM producers (Rockabye with Clean Bandit & Sean Paul in 2017 and FRIENDS with Marshmello in 2018). So yeah, I don't blame you for assuming that she didn't exist before 2023.
Todd is like church to me. I mostly come for Easter and Christmas services (year end lists and the whatever video he makes on the pop song controversy of the year), but doing so is of profound spiritual importance and I am so grateful for its presence in my life, amen.
I remember Todd putting Paramore on his Best Songs list back in 2014 and hoo boy do I wish Paramore could have had a hit with one of their new songs. And speaking of Paramore (or at least got accused of copying them a couple of years ago), I wish 'Bad Idea Right' by Olivia Rodrigo had been way more of a hit because that song is great.
I don't know if it's eligible as a hit, but man do I hope that we get a "I Don't Fuck With You"-type situation where it lands on the best list, even as just a non-hit honourable mention. This Is Why might actually be my AOTY tbh
Genuinely felt like an oasis every time todd got to the end of another entry about a boring, nigh unlistenable failure of the industry to hear one of the best tracks of the year from a band playing at 100% capacity. Thank god for paramore
"I don't know what's wrong with you girls...I feel like y'all don't need love" is ten times funnier considering drake featured on a song called...wait for it...girls need love
The reason Travis Scott's rap name makes you angry is because just about everyone at some point at least once tried to come up with a cool rap name and found out just how hard it is. A rap name that's not only clever and fun to say, but also marketable is not easy to find, and yet Travis Scott over here just made a normal ass name and became a popular rapper anyway.
Similar to Todd, I also find myself frequently missing Pitbull. He put out a new album this year, by the way. In case anyone is curious, here's a small list of things I remember from it. - The intro is horribly mixed and T-Pain is on it. - A song that samples "Jump Around" with a feature from Lil Jon. - Actually, there's just a lot of really hilarious sampling on that album. He samples, I shit you not, "What's Up" by 4 non blondes. Yes, THAT What's Up. It's called "Let's Take a Shot" and I think everyone should listen to it for the time of their life. - The lyric "baby I got ADD, A Delicious Dick" from a song that samples "My Type" by Saint Motel - I'm pretty sure one of the Spanish songs tells women to take their shoes off and talks about their feet for the entire song. - It sounds pretty much exactly the same as you remember Pitbull sounding. After that point I'm not even entirely sure if I blacked out and made the whole thing up. I almost wished that album was a smash success for old time's sake. Would've been great to see Mr. Worldwide grace the TiTs worst of list just one more time...
I grew up about 10 miles from where Jason Aldean is from. He's from a city of 150,000 people and went to a private school my comfortably-middle-class parents couldn't afford to send me to. Him pretending to speak for the small town south is musical blackface.
99% of the time, any artist that pretends to be some "small town yokul" is just lying out their ass. Kid Rock is the same thing, his whole schtick is he's some kind of down-in-the-dirt country bumpkin, when he grew up wealthy on a farm in a very affluent part of Detroit. Who made rap/rock in the late 90s before realizing he could find new relevance grifting the MAGAtards (similar to the guy from Staind). It's pathetic but it makes them money. I wouldn't be surprised to learn Aldean does the same thing.
the connections between Morgan Wallen and Maroon 5 go even deeper than you may have realized because Morgan Wallen was on Team Adam during the season of The Voice that he appeared on
I love watching these lists and realizing how about half of the entries are always one-hit wonders (at best). I can only assume Todd makes most of those statements in jest.
The 3 seconds of This Is Why between every song has the same euphoric effect on my body as finally eating a piece of fruit after way too much junk food does
@@paranormal17dude yeah same! funny enough the song was so catchy that I started listening to Paramore because of this video so thanks tod for that lol
Every year, I forget just how huge Drake is, and then every December, you remind me and I get depressed just in time for Christmas. There has never been a bigger gap between quality and success in the history of music.
I'm a Latino kid in Miami who grew up on Pitbull taking over every radio station physically possible, and I'll say this. Was Pitbull a good rapper? Debatable. Was Pitbull Spanish? Barely. Was Pitbull a lyrical genius? Absolutely not. And yet I still have the strong urge to punch Drake after hearing that line.
Pitbull's music has always been stupid and interchangeable, but at least it has a pulse and you can believe what he's selling because he always sounds like he was having a ball during every recording session. Drake's music just leaves me feeling utterly empty.
The only artist I enjoyed during that whole era was Ivy Queen. To me, Pitbull will always be the reason I hate giving out my number outside of Florida and the guy who made me wonder if women really could be cars
Pitbull wasn’t known for his spectacular talent or anything, but he (or whoever his producers or writers) know how to make a club banger! And his raps know how to get you moving.
I remember times when American music charts and music charts in my country was kinda alike. But... Now I've realised that I haven't heard of all of these songs (except for "Daylight", just because I kinda like sad emo boys. And "What is love", because our radio stations are lazy as well). That's truly weird.
it's continued glocalisation. People are listening more to artists from their own country and in their own language rather than listening to music from the US, UK etc www.lse.ac.uk/european-institute/Assets/Documents/LEQS-Discussion-Papers/EIQPaper182.pdf
We're in the streaming era now. Radio has long stopped fully dictating what does or doesn't get popular (although a few of them were radio hits as well, Im surprised you didn't hear at least one). Audiences do. It's basically either "get with the times or get left behind". Music in America has basically become so niche that a song could pull big streaming numbers and top the charts for a long time, but half of the population still wouldn't know the song even if they mentioned it.
@potatolord_lordofpotatoes7801 then, you're not listening to the radio or going on Tiktok. In other words, you're out of touch. That, or you live in another country.
Also, I've noticed that there seems to be a difference between Todd's audience and every other TH-camr that makes year end music lists. On every other worst list video, everyone recognizes at least one song while on Todd's videos, half of the commenters don't know any of the songs. If I had to guess, it has more to do with most of Todd's audience being in their mid to late 20's, 30s and older, or you guys just aren't the target audience anymore since it's pretty much teens and young adults making the songs popular or you're simply from another country as this list is according to the U.S. popular hits or you might be around the demographic but don't really listen to the radio or is streaming or checking the charts. That seems to be the discourse here. At least that's my two cents on the matter.
10: "K-POP" - Travis Scott, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd (2:03) 9: "Vampire" - Olivia Rodrigo (5:04) 8: "Search & Rescue" - Drake (8:31) 7: "Daylight" - David Kushner (12:10) 6: "Can't Have Mine" - Dylan Scott (15:25) 5: "Rich Men North of Richmond" - Oliver Anthony Music (18:50) 4: "Baby Don't Hurt Me" - David Guetta, Anne-Marie, Coi Leray (23:26) 3: "Slime You Out" - Drake ft. SZA (26:24) 2: "Try That in a Small Town" - Jason Aldean (31:12) 1: "Last Night" - Morgan Wallen (38:20)
0: The fact that "Last Christmas" was UK Christmas number 1 yet again 🤮 In terms of good music though, VNV Nation released the album 'Electric Sun', so that's where the best 2023 songs are 😁
“Try that in a small town” is a complete lie about small towns. I mean it depends on the town but small towns can be as “bad as big cities”. I grew up in alot of small towns in the south and in Appalachia and they were not the best. Im honestly happier in the big city that I live in now (New York City area) and wish I was here all my life. Asides from my long rant, just know not all small towns are nice and friendly.
I thought the whole point of the song was that small towns aren’t friendly (they only take care of “our own”, nobody else, and “our own” = “good ol’ boys”, which is an old school way to refer to the KKK)
What I find funniest about the Baby Don’t Hurt Me video is: in their attempt to recreate the Night At The Roxbury dance, they don’t even get THAT right! That head move was keeping the head straight and using your neck to slide it side to side. Guetta and Co. tilt their heads, which is not how the move goes!
Just another thing that Guetta fakes. He is a fraud of the highest order! I can't believe the deluded audience of DJ MAG, and the so-called writers thereof, keep naming this talentless hack "World's No1 DJ"! Do they not have ears?
It’s not a bad year for music, it’s just a bad year for popular music. I’ve heard some great albums this year, you just have to put in the effort to look for them.
@@crowyo9137 as if "you will find good music if you commit to searching it" isn't just as old and tired response. No-one is stupid enough to think that from the population of 6 billion no good music was produced within a year is plausible. But with 100 000 pieces of music released DAILY it isn't humanly possible for anyone to shift through all of it to find the gems. Curation, minimum threshold for consideration, industry support, etc. are all important for actual accessibility of music. If the moment of "I feel like listening to some music" is likely to result in bad results, people abandon music as form of entertainment. And they essentially have.
I disagree the statement that that pop music sucked this year when you have stuff like the album GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo. And the statement that all new music is bad is just straight up stupid because yeah a lot of pop music is bad but there is still tons of amazing stuff you just got to know where to look.
![โรงเรียนห้ามรัก โดนจับได้ตาย...!! [เอิร์นไดเม่]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4u02Sbr556Q/mqdefault.jpg)
At 29:57 "I need somebody to tell Drake directly to shut the fuck up"
Well Todd, you got your wish, just a few months late.
Came to say exactly this, can't tell you how delighted I am
So many comments Todd makes about Drake here are hilarious given the context of what’s been happening these last couple weeks.
10:28 “A pissing contest with Drake seems a little trivial right now” LOL.
in the worst way
Better late than never
BLACK PEOPLES
"Buy a house and raise a family? Gee thanks I hadn't thought of that I was going to smoke crack" killed me
Best line of the video.
I had to pause and rewind, that’s how hard I was laughing😂😂😂
God I hate country music always preaching unto us about farming, Jesus, women, and hating on us (especially any of us, who are gay or on welfare or can't get education)
My mom and I both laughed out loud at that part
@@emranismail4875 One time I was forced to listen to the local country station and I heard this song where a guy was singing about how he works hard on the farm so that, quote, "My daughter won't have to be a stripper and my son won't have to be a drug dealer"
You know it's been a historically bad year when Todd actually says the words "I miss Pitbull so much" and "I miss bro country"
We down horrendous lol
Funny thing is he did release an album this year... but nobody has heard it.
same todd.
like please bring back fun summer party music with no purpose
In fairness, bro-country never went away entirely. It's just not remotely as relevant a crossover cultural force as it was between 2013 and 2017.
But its DNA is right there in much of Morgan Wallen's music in that, after all, Joey Moi is his producer. Same with HARDY, who had written many songs for Florida Georgia Line prior to his recent career ascension as a lead performer. You hear its DNA in some emerging names over this past year including Nate Smith, George Birge and Jordan Davis with the snap tracks and rhythmic vocal phrasing. It may not be lighting up the charts nearly as much as it did in the mid-2010s and obviously isn't nearly as popular as the Zach Bryan-led neotraditional country resurgence with hints of heartland rock as well, but it never went away either and is sneakily having a minor comeback.
"Slime You Out" is a 37 year old man bemoaning that the teenage girls he dates are acting immature.
And it’s up there with things like “moist”, “getting slizzered” etc that sounds absolutely disgusting and I never want to hear it.
@@phastinemoon Worst one to me is "runny". Gross word.
"Highschool yearbook photos
you were even bad then" -P. Drizzy
fuck what do i have to do to be able to be that self unaware.
@@kalackninja A lot of alcohol, and percocet, apparently. That's what he does, plus gambling.
"I miss Pitbull."
"I miss bro country."
"I still hate Maroon 5."
The more things change, the more they stay the same 😏
Maroon 5 was once the most talented band on the charts with smart lyrics and a brilliant sound. Now they’ve just become soulless sellouts.
Aman
He misses Pitbull and bro country but Maroon 5 is like that annoying guy who hangs around at the party way too long and you're like "CHRIST, thought he'd never leave!"
@@graytloThat was what back in the late 00s?
You know this was a bad year for music when one of the entries has Todd angrily defending Pitbull and talking about missing him...and the song that inspired the rant is still only #8 on the list.
He came around on Pitbull in the same way that Bill Maher did. From what I remember, he was called a bad singer. Pitbull responded by saying that he wasn't a singer, but rather an entertainer. I might dislike some of his songs, but I can't help but enjoy his charisma.
There was once a contest to have Pitbull show up and perform a concert, and the Facebook poll sent him to the most remote Walmart in Kodiak, Alaska. The madman did it and earned my respect.
@@kazmiller96 I read about that even though the people organizing the contest found out someone rigged the contest and Pitbull was told he didn't have to go, he still decided to go through with the trip just for the people in Alaska who were expecting him.
@@jonathanbarr9764 Mr. Worldwide includes Alaska as part of his world lol.
@@kazmiller96I never heard about that, but now that I have, he’s earned my respect.
@@kazmiller96honestly makes sense. He seems more like the guy ya hire to get the energy up at a party ya know a hype man. Not a singer
Pretty amazing that, despite not releasing a single song this year, Maroon 5 still managed to take #1 on the worst list. Honestly commendable.
Considering Last Night pretty much jacks Payphone's chorus melody, I'm not surprised.
You mean Saloon 5.
Dunno if this considers a spoiler 😂
No one's ever really gone...
Oh god, fantano's comment section people are arriving...
(although you're only wrong in technicality)
Tod: “someone should tell drake directly to shut tf up”
Kendrick: “bet”
Todd told Kenny to make Drake bleed
kendricks been needing to stfu when he wrote "humble"
@@dannyaraya8017 lol you riding Drakes meat all over the place, he lost got called out for being a culture vulture and predator, deal with it.
The “whips and chains” line ESPECIALLY seems like Drake sang it JUST to give Kendrick justification for the “you not a colleague, you a damn colonizer”
@@Toastybeesduh. it’s called being a fan
"I miss Pitbull" "I miss bro-country" Wow...as someone who rewatched old Todd videos all the damn time, this was almost like heresy to hear.
Next year:
"I miss Maroon 5"
Good or bad both had an energy to their music that has been missing from "pop"-music for a while now.
I don't miss bro country one bit but I *get* missing Pitbull. He was from an era where pop music was all about shameless fun, and there's an appeal to that in hindsight when you're dealing with a stretch of pop that feels intentionally not fun to listen to at times.
The things we say when trapped in the valley of mediocrity... At least bro country was fun to hate, ans pit bull was stupid but at least he was fun.
@@Ianskogberg - Oh, now, really! That's just crazy talk....
Even Adam Levine doesn't miss Maroon 5.
From hating Pitbull to missing his presence on the charts.. Todds really come full circle
I don't miss Pitbull specifically, but I miss fun party songs also becoming mainstream. Lizzo can't be the *only* upbeat artist on charts.
Dale!
Like an aged warrior honoring the name of his greatest rival.
Ayo. Just in the middle of binging older Worst Hit lists when this dropped. Merry Christmas to me!
I need to hear a "DALÉ!" on the charts again
I loved the part where Todd pulled the mask off of the #1 pick, scooby-doo villain style, to reveal it was actually Maroon 5 all along
😂😂😂
(Adam Levine to Morgan Wallen): "You have learned well, my young apprentice!" ;)
It was old man Levine all along!
IT WAS ME, TODD!@@AussieDragoon
Damn I totally forgot about them until I read this comment. Todd has a good point about how if they skipped one year, no one would miss them (or him).
Toddstradamus called it! A Pitbull song made it into the honorable mentions for 2015's best list, and Todd prophecied, "You know, I think I'm actually going to miss Pitbull when his career runs out." And, to the astonishment of all, here he is.
Todd has a long career full of ironic as a commentator on popular music.
He planned it, no doubt
(Probably not, lol)
Toddstradamus' short-term takes end up not happening, but his long-term ones boomerang around.
He needed to say it three times
we must be living in an alternate universe where these videos actually come out the same year they are talking about
the main reason Todd got this video out this early was because there were barely any major pop releases to talk about this year
@ramenai I'm going to laugh if, at the end of this year, the worst song Todd has ever heard shows up.
He's been releasing his Worst lists the same year since 2018.
@@marycovey3353Really? Wow, I'm ignorant. When I saw this vid in my sub feed, I said "ooh, already?" out loud
Oh yeah, I forgot about those 10 crazy days at the very end of 2023 where 10 chart-smashing singles come out and become culture-defining icons on Dec 31 at 11:59 PM
Drake's journey wasn't struggling with becoming a douchebag, it was him not being confident enough to be the douchebag he wanted to be
‘Drake the type of guy’ moment
Aubrey went full Drake mode
A true "nice guy" through and through haha
Drake doesn't even have enough personality to be a douchebag, and this isn't even mentioning his negative charisma.
The douchebag we didn't need nor deserve
Bro Country transitioning from shitty dudes partying to shitty dudes giving you unsolicited advice... Bro Country has become Uncle Country
All the bros accidentally knocked up those girls who were wearing tiny jeans in the back of a truck with alcohol. So now their partying days are over.
Dutch Uncle Country is the most cursed form of country
I thought Uncle Country was in prison.
Bruh Country
I’m gonna start using the term “Uncle Country” now. Thank you.
“A weird guy going through girls half his age”
TODDSTRADOMUS
@Comment_Leaver Lmfao
more like ⅓ his age
@@Kyaryyyy6yyyy88 lmao
this truly is a toddstradomus moment, because god damnit we'd be lucky if they were only half his age, because at least then they'd be legal.
@@comfyghost god damn lmao
I’m surprised Todd was able to make this list, as I assumed pop music had ceased to exist amongst the infinite homogenous blob that are the charts now
Most of these people on the list I haven't heard any of their songs, but I know their names. That's not good...
May as well have been. Good thing the charts aren’t the only thing to look for when it comes to music.
I was expecting a list of nothing but country music tbh
I’m gonna be much more surprised if a best list comes out cause chart music was so nothing this year but it’s a lot easier to find bad songs than it is good one when it comes to music that charts among the slim pickings that there are
ik, like most of my favorite pop songs of 2023 werent even chart toppers (i mostly listen to asian and european music lol)
Jason Aldean was born in Macon, Georgia which has had a population of over 100k for his entire life. He currently lives in Nashville. Jason Aldean has no idea what would happen if people tried that in a small town because he has never lived in one.
If you think “small town” is only referring to actual size or population, you’re actually autistic
HES NOT EVEN FROM A SMALL TOWN OH MY DAYS
You can tell, because anyone who has actually lived in a small town would be aware that they do, in fact, have crime problems of their own. Lord knows my trash hometown did.
Y’all should check out Pat Finnerty’s new “What Makes This Song Stink” video on this song, it’s epic, he absolutely guts this song for a whole hour
The Nashville songwriting brain trust 😅🗑️
The turnaround on Pitbull has been truly incredible to witness. Another one of Todd's greatest arcs on the channel.
okay A) i didn't think you were into todd and B) that is so true, how the tables turn
hot take pitbull's never been _that_ bad yall he's dumb fun and there's nothing wrong with that
@@thatoneguy9582 exactly, sure i've never actively listened to him much but he's good and deserves his fame
@@thatoneguy9582 Pitbull has had the same redemption arc that Twilight's had: he wasn't the worst thing ever to happen to music, like we pretended he was. He was just cheesy, shameless fun, but we were too busy trying to make ourselves look intellectual and mature by covering ourselves up in layers of irony.
Was he a genius that went unfairly unappreciated? Hell no lol But he was trashy fun, and we all love McDonalds every now and then.
@@xisco5525 ehhh, I think the thing with Pitbull and Twilight is that their fans tended to be really fucking annoying, so shitting on the thing they liked, right or wrong, was in part to take them down a peg.
7:25 Vampire had several options for the clean version before choosing "Dream crusher" as a replacement for "fame fucker"
- fame hunter
- fame lover
- tree hugger
- whale blubber
- garlic butter
- Mark Zucker
Whale Blubber LOL😂
All her songs have the same structure
That was a video made as a (honestly somewhat funny) joke. It’s nice seeing someone just joke around and act their age once in a while in the music industry.
Mark Zucker would have been epic
Timmy Turner
I think the worst thing I can say about this year's pop music is that I can't imagine any of these songs making for a good Weird Al parody.
That’s surprisingly brutal
I think a parody of Try That in a Small Town where Al is pissed off about literally the smallest thing would be hilarious. Like how his Trapped in the Drive Thru is so funny because it's such a dramatic song that he turns into a shaggy dog story.
@@doylerudolph7965 Try that in a ball gown.
@@doylerudolph7965Or a song about how everything closes at 8 pm, and you have to drive an hour to the nearest Walmart, and the cell service sucks.
@@doylerudolph7965
this comment has put the thought into my brain of rock opera weird al
You have no idea how upset I was when I told a friend how excited I was to see Mother by Meghan Trainor on this list, only to be told that it was so unsuccessful that it didn't qualify as a hit and would be ineligible. I was looking forward to it so much. The combination of "I am your mother! You listen to me!" like an actual strict mother, and "You need to learn how to satisfy me like a real man!" comes across as genuinely incestuous.
A Dose of Buckley got you covered
And not even incestuous in a hot way!
Glad I wasn't the only one lol
@@wafflesthewookiee4716 I don't think it's even possible for it to be hot in the first place
let her cook, she'll get it next year for sure
"I miss bro country" and "Pitbull is fun" are two sentences I thought I'd never hear Todd say in 2023. I couldn't agree more whole heartedly.
What's "bro country"? Is it that "Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy" mess?
@@labbaby189 it's all 'drinkin' beers and ridin' trucks and gettin' girls with them cowboy hats and big boots'.
and describing a woman's body as a 'backroad'.
@@labbaby189 as someone who listens to country music regularly I miss bro country too lmao. It’s dogshit but at least it’s not sappy boring dogshit like boyfriend country
@labbaby189 Think Florida-Georgia Line.
I hate to say it too, I but I miss Bro Country too. Maybe its my Southern Rock fandom showing, but is it weird that I find drunk rednecks talking about shiny trucks and hot girls and boots/booty far more sincere than someone singing about how much he'll cherish and wait for you and how special you are girl? The fluffy boyfriend country-pop stuff is somehow WAY more annoying and offensive to me!
"'I love cops and you aint takin my guns.' Who do you think enforces gun laws you idiot, the mailman?"
I'm dead lmao
Butthurt Todd critic: Well actually I am a law abiding and responsible gun owner who won't be dealing with any cops Todd.
Me: And.........you missed the point. Brilliant!
@@RenaldyCalixte most of these guys love cops right up until the moment they get pulled over for a traffic violation.
“Gestapo? You idiot, I’m the mailman!” - Lenny Bruce
@@darkdialga777lol or break up their loud parties or bonfires
@RenaldyCalixte I'm a bit late but yep. Todd is for entertainment purposes but misses the point. Take a look at the new laws Virginia just passed, 2 schools are going back to their original names.
Pretty shocking Todd was able to put the worst list before 2024. But then again James Somerton deleted his apology so it was an equivalent exchange and much needed.
It's the law.
Especially so close to Buckley's last Saturday
I’m so mad he deleted his apology before I got the chance to see it
@@octaviablackthorn9 Maybe someone took screenshots
@octaviablackthorn9 oh it's still around
I truly think Todd underestimates the number of Midwestern hair salons with Easy Listening Country Music stations on Spotify playing twelve hours a day, every day.
As someone who lives in Omaha, I feel attacked. 😂
At first I read your comment as talking about "hair saloons."
Grocery stores too :))))))))
I worked at a rural hardware store this summer, good GOD am I sick of some of the songs on this list
Here in Marietta, Ohio, a lot of our hair salons don't even bother using Spotify and literally just tune their radios to WNUS or WGGE, the two main country stations in our area. I fucking hate it.
You know it's a terrible year when Todd gets his year end list done BEFORE the next year.
Before Christmas even.
Well, it's pretty unlikely anything worse will come out
@@Nakia11798 there’s like a 50% chance something shows up under the wire and makes next year’s list because Todd can’t leave it alone.
Good call. I didn't even notice that...
I don't usually watch these bcuz I don't know the songs and I'd like to keep it that way.
Because who would drop new music the last week of the year?
Fun fact: Jason Aldean didn't even have songwriting credits for "Try That In A Small Town". So Todd, that's why he couldn't defend what he wrote, because he didn't write anything
How did It take four writers
@@henrynelson9301dumb stuff takes a lot of cooks
🎶too many cooks 🎶
@@nejdalej NOOOO, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE *theme music slowly starts to play* DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU STARTED *a bright yellow glow comes from the floor*
@@henrynelson9301look how many writer that David Guetta dumpster fire had
Somerton deletes and Todd uploads. Natural balance
Nature is healing.
As all things should
I Swear, I Really Wanted to ‘Fact-Check The Worst Video Essayist On TH-cam’ but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time
@@FakeAmberFranklin I came to make this comment. You're faster at my jokes. Godspeed!!
At least Somerton knows he's hated now. Unlike The Completionist...
“Crippling addiction to gay heroin” now there’s a brand new sentence.
I love gay heroin so much dude
James Somerton would beg to differ
@@FIXTREME😂😂😂
That’s what I’m calling HRT from now on lol
You can distinguish it from straight heroin because the gay heroin is pronounced heeeeyyyyyroin.
My hypothesis about Daylight is that it's the first song designed and marketed specifically for inclusion on Dungeons and Dragons character playlists. The reason the 'temptation' is so vague is that it has to be broad enough to account for every kind of warlock pact.
That is so weirdly specific lmao
I subscribe to this theory 😂
see i believe this. or like a good omens playlist maybe
If my warlock was EVER associated with that song, I would quit that campaign on the spot.
Yeah I'll subscribe to that
“Can’t Have Mine” sounds like it was written exclusively to be played at those weird evangelical proms where dads get “engaged” to their own daughters or whatever the hell
That’s a thing?!?!
They do WHAT?!
Yeah, look up "purity balls"
@@garbageboy9164 you know, that regular normal thing where you make tween girls promise not to kiss boys (obviously; who else could your daughter even want to kiss??) by framing it as “cheating on” their daddy. Just like jesus talked about
welp, the business end of this 12g is looking very tasty
You know it’s a bad year for music altogether when everything about the songs on this list just bore tf out of me rather than piss me off or make me cringe.
Even Todd can't make these boring songs interesting.
Even shit like Rich Men and Try That In A Sundown Town. It's like, oh goody now we SING the quiet parts out loud
Im kinda surprised the fudge rounds guy is on here lmao, but yeah this years billboard music has been the dullest in music I’ve lived through tbh lmao
eh, it's a bad year for hits, sure, but it's not been bad for music all around. metalheads have been FEASTING in 2023.
and tons of impeccable non-metal albums too. though I didn't listen to too many, Exulansis [on Hymns of Collapse-they also had a metal album, which was my AOTY], The Vagaband, and McKinley Dixon were stellar. in terms of singles, you've got stuff like "Ghost!" by Tkay Maidza, "Pearls" by Jessie Ware, and "Sunday" by Narrow Head all providing fun, catchy songs.
@@MelMelodyWernerNah. Even metal is boring this year. When Sleep Token and Spiritbox are revered by the masses as great and groundbreaking when they’re just falling into the same boring trends like minimalist, electronic beats and using riffs & styles that other bands have already created, it’s not a good year.
Vampire is a musical theatre song forced to be a pop song, like it really feels like an orchestra should come in for the second half and the sudden drops in energy makes more sense in that context as well
agreed
I think that's why I like it
Makes perfect sense to me because the first time I ever heard it was at karaoke when it was sung by a theater kid.
Oh absolutely you're correct
That's kinda not fair to other musical theatre songs forced to be pop songs. Like "Total Eclipse of the Heart" which was, no joke, originally written for a musical about literal vampires.
"I need somebody to tell Drake to shut the fuck up."
Foreshadowing is a literary device whe-
"Yes he actually called Taylor Swift the n-word. Big year for her" LOOOOOOOL
Having watched Todd for about a decade now, hearing him openly call Pitbull "fun to listen to" when comparing him to Drake and outright admit he misses the former is absolutely surreal, and yet I can't deny what he's saying, either.
And missing bro country
Drake is mid as fuck
@@person.w9780 Isnt drake too lazy for mid?
Character development
There is a famous story that pro wrestling manager Jim Cornette tells about his former booker Ole Anderson. After not having seen him for a while, Cornette runs into Ole who says to him "Cornette, at one time, I thought you were a dumb fuck. But so many other dumb fucks have come along who are worse than you that it's moved you up the ladder without you doing anything." same thing applies to Pitbull. He moved up the ladder due to everyone else who has shown up over the years and have sucked worse
I love the constant Paramore clips underscoring how much great music is going on and how easy and meaningless mainstream single charts have become.
Ikr? As much as there has been shitty songs climbing the charts, there has been so much good music happening
It that the 'This is why I don't leave the house' bit?
What bands do you recommend??@@benjirivoh
Yes, it's a great song from their newest album :) @@Syurtpiutha
That song was from last year, incidentally.
...so it's perfect for a video about pop music in 2023
I'm so shocked; I didn’t know a single song on this list. Usually, a lot of contemporary hits make their way onto the corporate-mandated playlist that serenades us at work constantly before the endless Christmas songs kick off around Thanksgiving. None of these songs got on that playlist in any way. Not the work-safe radio versions, or any other arrangements. Amazing. (For the record, we're hearing a LOT of vintage and retro hits on repeat. It goes by decades and once it hits the mid-2010's it dips back to the '70's again.)
Unless you listen to current top 40 stations, rap or country stations (though Rich Men North Of Richmond never got played on the radio despite being a #1 hit), stream on Spotify or Tiktok, you're not gonna know any songs. We're in the streaming era nowadays, radio no longer fully dictates what gets popular, the audience does and everything's pretty niche nowadays to the point where a song could pull high streaming numbers and top the charts for a while, but half of the public still won't recognize a song. We're in an era that's pretty much either "get with the times or get left behind". Also, retail stores aren't dependable nowadays. A lot of the modern stuff they play aren't even on the charts anyway, they just choose what's safe to play. That's the story.
I don't listen to a lot of modern music anymore, but I knew Vampire because of Olivia, and Rich Men North of Richmond/Try That In a Small Town for the political controversy. I had never heard of the #1 song and I didn't even know Drake had a new album right now, which seems like a good summary of this year.
My previous job at Whole Foods played popular top 100 songs from three or four years ago at the latest mixed in with pop classics from the 10s, the 00s, the 90s, the 80s, and the 70s.
Yeah, the only ones I knew were Vampire and What Is Love. Idk if it's just a "not being American" thing but I'd never even heard of any of the controversial ones, let alone the big controversies around them.
I know these aren't Todd's favorite videos to make, and they cause a lot of stress, but I really am grateful to him for continuing to make his year end lists. Every year, no matter what's going on in my life, I have these to look forward to and I feel a sort of comfort from watching them and knowing we've made it through another one. Thank you Todd!
100% agree! Having a wild bout of depression this year, and these lists are what I’ve been looking forward to most at the end of this shit year.
I honestly love to see how year after year his constant "I'M AN ALLY I'M A FEMINIST!" just makes him more and more miserable and I'm here for that.
A lot of stress to make a stupid video on TH-cam? Lol
Same
"Another one"
It's remarkable that a song can top the charts for about a third of the entire year and yet leave no lasting impression whatsoever. That's almost impressive.
That's marketing dollars lol
its like the music version of the original avatar
@@theofficialthehomedepottmy9160Jesus that's an amazing burn
It has some real "Bryan Adams Everything I Do" energy.
Cause ain’t no competition on the charts
After seeing what took the top spot, I looked back 10 years into the past to remind myself of what a pop megahit with actual flavor looks like, and folks, I'm getting nostalgia for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. I'm not even ashamed of it, Thrift Shop is just a funny song to have nostalgia for.
Thrift shop is camp idc
Can't Hold Us is a fucking icon of pop, i think
what up i got some shit from the thrift shop.
"Thrift Shop" was even a breath of fresh air back then.
It feels so funny that the biggest hit of a year as downbeat as 2013 was a song that sounds like it was literally purchased from a Thrift Shop and played on the radio.
And I mean that as a compliment. That song was fire back then and jt's fire now.
... I prefer downtown to thrift shop, it's so good
"Build a house and start a family? WOW I didn't think of that. I was just gonna smoke crack" Best yearbook quote I've ever heard 🤣🤣
Another good one from this video is "it's a fantasy. It's porn that isn't hot😒"
Now I can easily imagine Adam Levine singing Last Night with almost no changes, except being up a couple octaves
laaAAAAst niIIIght!!!!
This is the first Todd list in a while where I can say that I know less than half the songs he’s talking about. That speaks to how irrelevant pop music was this year. When a lynching anthem reaches number one on the charts, you know you’re in deep trouble.
That says more about you. I know every song listed.
This is the first year I didn’t know any of them. Scary. I have some vague slippery memory of hearing two-second snippets of Last Night somewhere, but that’s it.
What? You can’t make an insane claim like that because it shows youve obviously never even listened to the song. The song is about rich corporate tycoons taking over a small town and how the residents suffer from that. If anything, I’d expect a progressive such as yourself to support the message of the song…but since it’s a white guy singing country music it must be instantly bigoted. But have ever you listened to the song fully? Or seen interviews with him where he actually explains the song? Of course you haven’t because you watch BreadTubers like Todd and let them decide your beliefs and views for you. I’ll be honest, you seem like the kind of person that has a hard time connecting to other peoples struggles and feeling empathy. It’s not a lynching anthem….maybe you’d get the song more if you grew up dirt poor having to struggle. The fact that you think it’s a “lynching anthem” shows how disconnected you from the majority of people in this country that don’t get the privilege of growing up in a city and having opportunities at every step around you. There are people that really relate to the song because it’s about real stuff that real people go through. Maybe go have some more life experiences and feel what’s it’s like to have to actually struggle and survive. I’m not even sure why todd put this song on here…of course he’s going to lambast because he lives in LA and has been trained to think that anyone who doesn’t live in a city or anyone that likes country music is a “Trump supporter” and is every name in the book that ends in -ist or -ism. Sucks that this is the state of the world; Where people won’t even learn about what something is about before making insane accusations…like this being a “lynching anthem” when in reality it has nothing to do with anything of the sort.
@@keyscored3710 That's literally what it's been called by pretty much every news source. Even the articles defending it bring that up. It's even stated at the beginning the song's Wikipedia page. Why are you getting at me for stating the obvious? lol
Uh-oh...someone doesn't know they are old yet...
you know we're in The Darkest Timeline when Todd misses Pitbull and bro-country
What if music gets so bad that Todd starts to miss Maroon 5
Seriously!
The era of regression has come. Brace yourselves for the return of novelty disco.
@@moviesquad73 Delete this now! Don't you dare witchcraft that into existence!
@@VulpesHilarianusI'm looking forward to "Mumblerap Mallard" and "Regional Mexican Chicken."
At least that would put a look on my face of bewilderment rather than horror.
18:04 WARNING Ladies: if you find your car in the empty parking structure with the tire suddenly flat, and some guy drives up in his truck to help you, Run! Run back to the place you were just in, call a mechanic, and maybe the police.
Wrong video???
@@rand0mguyontheinternet That's what looks like is happening in that country video: a woman finds her car with a flat, some guy pulls up to help her with it, and (I'm sure in the case of the country video) it's a match made in heaven. I'm just saying that parking lots are a hotbed of creeps looking for someone to assault and anyone who is by themselves (woman or man) and approached by someone in a parking structure, should be more cautious than moist.
8:06 Even though I didn't mind "Vampire", Todd describing it as "trying to wring an 'All Too Well' out of a situation that only deserves a 'We are Never Ever Getting Back Together'" had me CACKLING
Because they're both about Jake Gyllenhaal?
@@FromElsewhear Lmao I didn't even think of that, that only makes it even funnier
That seems like a weird and kinda grossly inappropriate thing if Vampire is supposed to be about a predatory relationship? Which… isn’t that clearly exactly what it’s about??
@@alexbennet4195tbh as a random person who has no idea about olivia rodrigo gossip…no
@alexbennet4195 I could be wrong but I swear something somewhere (maybe I read an article or something?) Gave me the impression it was about a groomer relationship, you know the kind where the girl is way younger, am I just totally imaging things now?
I love Todd saying he put “Take me to church” on a honorable mention list a “few” years ago when it was almost a decade ago LMAO
No it wasn't, shut up, I refuse to believe that it happened _that_ long ago, it _couldn't_ have been that long ago
Shut your dirty mouth!
His rant against that song is the most horrendous music opinion in this entire video. I could never really get into Todd because he'll just hate something because it annoys him or because he hates the lyrics, not for any technical reason he can actually articulate.
@@azalago He's no musicologist but he also doesn't pretend to be one. He states his opinions about music and some people like that. That's all.
Take me to church was like two years ago what are you talking about...
The fact he was able to make a worst hit list despite reviewing almost no pop songs independently this whole year, impressive
NGL, I dunno if this is a hot take or not but I think the pop song stuff is maybe Todd's least interesting videos these days? OHW and Trainwreckords are fascinating trips into artists that are usually more interesting than they're given credit for, and it feels like whenever Todd has to review a pop song it just feels perfunctory - like, do most of the people watching these days even remember when Todd was a Channel Awesome guy?
@@uhhhmaeve I do miss his pop song reviews, but also kind of agree. I also think that pop music has changed so instead of something big and dumb like black eyed peas, a lot of pop songs now are kind of dull so it's hard to make interesting videos critiquing them.
@@uhhhmaeveAgree - Todd is an insightful critic, but he’s also an excellent music journalist/historian. The OHW and Train Wreckcords videos give Todd a chance to flex the skills that set him apart. It’s not just that he has interesting opinions and observations, he’s good at finding a story, researching and following it and then presenting it in a compelling way.
Absolutely shocked over vampire’s inclusion
@@uhhhmaeve pop music doesn't really have the broader cultural significance and impact it used to have, because culture is so fragmented nowadays (especially music with streaming being the dominant way to consume it). You can be a number 1 artist and the most important thing happening right now to some group of people and be a 'literally who' to a bunch of others. And it used to be that if an artist was mega popular, it was hard to escape them. This kind of environment makes it hard for Todd to talk about popular music because he has always liked to examine its broader role or impact in the current zeitgeist and what it says about its artist, and it's just kind of a fact that music seems to matter less and less every year (again, in a broader cultural sense). I'm not surprised his pop music reviews are becoming increasingly rarer and he's way pickier about which songs he chooses to review when it happens.
I had never heard of "slime you out" before and I am utterly horrified🤮🤢
You Can't Do That On Television, but we can only wish you couldn't do it on the radio.
I was weirded out by the title when it dropped but honestly drake kinda hits that shit and sza is amazing on it
@@Rose-ew7bvDon't. These days Drake is repulsive both on the record and off it, and SZA could do so much better. I've never been a SZA fan yet I feel like she and every other woman in existence needs to stay as far away from Drake as possible.
@@StormyKopaAMVs i went to a drake concert the other day, shit was gas. Bro was puttin his heart into that shit
@@Rose-ew7bv did he put ket in your water, perchance?
At this point, Maroon 5 aren't just on the worst list in spirit, I think Adam Levine is actually haunting the list.
Did Maroon 5 even make music this year?
@@manyachievablesthey only released one single that I don’t even think charted
😂
I remember Todd said in one of these reviews that Maroon 5 doesn't even bother him anymore, they're just such an obligatory radio act that it's like getting upset at a towel or a napkin. Like, he's just become numb to Maroon 5 that he doesn't even see their songs as good or bad anymore. I can't say I disagree. For me, Imagine Dragons is the same. They're such a perfect radio band that I find their music both completely inoffensive but also completely unmemorable. That seems to be how Todd views Maroon 5 now.
This is a really weird transitional period for media, not just for music. Mostly everything is some of the worst garbage ever, but like 5-10 things will come along and blow me away. The meaning of art is going through some growing pains right now with the internet, post irony era and it's fascinating to watch.
So what era are we in now?
We would argue art as a whole is doing as fine as it always does. It's simply media corporations that are having a difficulty getting a grasp on how Gen Z consumes media. Everything is so spread out and diverse that it's difficult to get a large following, even in terms of nostalgic media. Note that a majority of things that are popular nowadays are either Indie (The Amazing Digital Circus) or started out independent (Five Nights At Freddy's). Outside of fresher mediums like gaming, the major companies are now barely present in the artistic scene.
@@TheMadwomen as it should be they don’t care about the art they just want the buck this should’ve happened ages ago
@@TheMadwomen Yeah there's a bunch of amazing media and art out there, but because people don't go looking for it they see the stuff that gets recommended, which is usually just hot garbage
It's like a deluge of garbage and also some of the best shit I've ever seen/experienced. Wild times.
Yeah, I've found myself enjoying Pitbull AND Flo Rida lately and it's not just the nostalgia cycle - turns out they're both really good lighthearted fun when they're not literally all you hear every single time you're exposed to pop music. Who knew, right?
Im not a particular fan of pitbulls music but he has my full support after seeing him live 😂❤
My cousin Megan in Montana sent Pitbull a wedding invite as a joke and he actually went 😂😂😂😂
A deeply unserious but nice guy 😂❤ bro came for the reception, in a Versace suit, with a gift and 15 minute set lol.
At first we were all trying to figure out who hired the impersonater lol
Edit: 😭💀✋ he is, in fact Mr. Worldwide lol
Never thought I would be contemplating giving a second shot to Nickelback, but this is the reality we live in. New stuff just buzzes in and out without leaving much of an impression. Let's bring back the stuff with some personality PLEASE, If I want hyponotic monotones I'ed just puit in Vapor/retro wave; or maybe some ASMR.
Have you all forgotten how to ENTERTAIN us?? Give you a hint, bland like eveything else to the point of unrecongizable aint it.
"they're both really good"
Let's not go too far to the other side of the spectrum either
To paraphrase Professor Oak, there’s a time and place for everything…even Pitbull and Flo Rida apparently
Fun fact for 1:27 - Silence are a Slovene synthpop act whose origins go as far back as 1992. Their third studio album is widely considered their best. It sounds like new wave and in a really good way, whereas their fourth album, released on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, is just that little bit better despite the instrumentation being a lot more sparse.
Next time you hear “Daylight” by David Kushner, I recommend that you give "Musical Accompaniment for the End of the World" a listen to feel this kind of gothic vibe done right.
"They're just doing hip hop for people who are afraid of black people." -Steve Earle on modern country music.
Damn didnt know Steve Earle had that dawg in him! props!
Todd saying he misses Pitbull while forgetting/ignoring he released an album this year of horribly mixed samples is a haunting picture of nostalgia blindness in action.
To be fair, he’s probably talking about the charts. I looked it up (because lord knows I hadn’t heard of it) and Trackhouse was so unpopular that it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page 😅
That album was hilarious so what’s the problem? Would rather listen to the most obnoxious song on there like the one that samples What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes as opposed to Morgan Wallen (🤮🤢)
Yeah Pitbull has gone ALL-THE-FUCK-IN on streaming these days. And his live shows are still damn good too by the way.
@@Dogy0909ooo which one samples what's up?
Yeah, as someone who never minded much of Pitbull's previous discography and even unironically enjoyed some of his high-octane stupidity............his latest singles are easily his worst in how lazy and low-effort they are in egregiously taking from earlier dance hits.
At least with previous efforts where he obviously sampled, more thought and effort was put into it like with "75, Brazil Street" for "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)" and "Push The Feeling On" for "Hotel Room Service". But his latest releases where he is shamelessly copying "La Freak" and "Jump Around" is just peak laziness in comparison.
Time for the annual tradition of seeing the songs on Todd's worst songs list and saying to myself "Wow, this year was bad, but surely next year couldn't possibly be worse".
You know, if next year is worse it’d at least be notable.
I've just realised: you could argue that Vampire is how the showbiz world has treated Olivia. She's framed it like a toxic love song about a person she wants to leave. Like it's also about an older guy taking advantage of her too, but you know what else is old and takes advantage of young people? Hollywood and the music industry. Idk I just have that hunch and I wanted to get it out of my system.
Also oh my god, we've had the same number 1 worst songs two years in a row. I feel so seen 😂
Honestly, that was my initial read too
the "THIS IS WHY I DON'T LEAVE THE HOUSE" transition is so good 😭
I thought he was about to trash Paramore and I was ready to throw hands.
@@LeBimbo todd doesn't include the music in-between the numbers in the actual list. the only exception is abcdefu from the worst list 2022 but i don't think he'll do that again for a long time
@@LeBimboomg same. Paramore is my favorite band ever
@peccator4050 Yeah, I was listening to the video in the background while working. I just heard Paramore start playing and was like 😱
@@peccator4050 he has once before
"The new garbage so bad it makes me miss the old garbage" would unironically make for a pretty good song in and of itself.
They do. There’s a reason a lot of artists are making lazy samples. It’s because nostalgia sells.
by fall out boy
"I miss Pit Bull so much." -Todd in the Shadows
Goddamn these are dark times.
11:42 "He's gonna just become DiCaprio -- he's gonna become a weird old guy plowing his way through models half his age for the rest of his life."
More like "a third of his age".
a minoooooooooooooooooooor
My only frustration with “Flowers” is that it (a mid-song) was a mega hit for Cyrus when in the preceding years she had some of her best output barely register on the charts (“Midnight Sky” or “Mother’s Daughter” should have had that kind of success, NOT “Flowers”). I’m happy to see Miley getting attention, just wish it had been for a better song. Heck, “Muddy Feet” off of the new album would have been a more deserving song to have received that sort of success.
River too
@@judgesaturn507 River was so fun. Should have been one of the biggest hits of pride month (along with Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” and Jessie Ware’s “Free Yourself”)
The art of dumbing down, look it up it great video explains this sentiment
You said it! I hate Flowers, but Used to Be Young was good, and I ADORED Midnight Sky and Edge of Midnight, the Stevie Nicks collab
midnight sky was so good it was insane
As a massive Paramore fan, I absolutely love the choice to make them the bumper for this list. Kudos, Todd.
It really had me worried though!
@@AdamArcherPigeons the bumper song scares me every. single. year.
That song is horrible too
Made me anxious he'd put it on his list
@@dxfifano.
"yes he actually called Taylor Swift the N Word... Big year for her"... lmfao that line took me out
29:57 "i need someone to tell Drake to stfu"
BOY, SOMEONE SURE DID, THIS YEAR.
Music critic Pat Finnerty took down “Try That in a Small Town” the best when he, a Philadelphia native born in Scranton, went around his neighborhood and asked people if they’d stick up for the person next door. Everyone basically said yes. He also noted Scranton, many times smaller than Philly, is rife with crime due to it being in the goddamn Rust Belt.
Similarly, I also live in Philly and we’ve had car jackings throughout the year. If anyone saw that happening, they’d get their ass beat. Of course, the cops have kinda shrugged their shoulders and have done nothing because of ineptitude and mismanagement for decades.
I’d sooner trust anyone in my apartment building than Aldean or a pig.
Scranton isn't a small town. A small town has 8,000 or less people.
as someone from washington DC, even though people here are kinda rude, i absolutely trust that we'd stick up for each other when it really matters. i've had strangers/near-strangers in DC help me plenty of times. people in the city aren't just a bunch of cold, uncaring mobs. even in the urban northeast, the place these rednecks hate so much, we have plenty of humanity. hell, i'd certainly rather be here than anywhere that people think the idea of murdering protestors is cool and badass
Conservatives love using small towns and villages as an argument for their moral values, when those places are actually the biggest example of how their ideology is a failure. Neglected by their policies, rife with crime, everything they accuse cities of being.
@@NJGuy1973unless you're saying that at under 8000 ppl get extremely racist, mind yourself
@@NJGuy1973 no one said it was? literally the whole point is that it's not a small town, but still has the same "fraternity" what's-his-name boasts about in "Try That in a Small Town". the whole premise of the song is stupid
When I saw the #2 pick, I was a little taken aback because I didn't think it could be anything else. So I racked my brain thinking what could possibly be #1. Then your #1 came on and it dawned on me... I forgot this existed. This was the biggest hit of the year, it spent a solid 4 months at the top of the charts, making it one of the biggest hits of all time, and it left zero impression on me whatsoever. That has NEVER happened to me before. There have been times where I despised the #1 song on the year, but I at least remembered it. There needs to be a certain set of circumstances for something like this to occur, and yet, here we are. God what a weird year for music this was.
dawned on me
That's it. #2 is actively infuriating. #1 is nothing.
You've at least HEARD the #1, I NEVER HAVE? Like this? THIS is the song of the year???
Either I'm out of the loop pop-scene-wise or my radio rotation and Spotify behaviour has improved lol
Todd going up to bat for Mr. Worldwide is truly the most shocking moment of 2023
I think it's hilarious how Pitbull is gone from, well, whatever he started out as, to endearing. Mr Worldwide really stuck with it and has proven himself a class act.
I think Pitbull has been relatively consistent in his music, which is why people like him and he's been endearing. He seems one of those artists that is aware of what he does, doesn't try to be anything bigger, and he's cool with that. It's the reason why I don't think he'll ever have a "Trainwreckords." I don't see him trying to be "hard" like MC Hammer or "serious" like Katy Perry.
You're so right about "Daylight". Songs about Christian guilt should either be fun OR be agonizing. Not this guy who sounds like, "I was tempted by something, & now I'm sad aww 😕😕😕"
Yes! This is exactly how I feel about it but couldn't figure out how to explain. I believe it's an earnest expression of his feelings (and my family is that kind of religious, so I do empathize) but it's just not good music!
@@MissaBrevisI think part of the problem is that these types of songs lack depth. Like, they never examine *why* they're feeling these feelings. They just sort of wallow in their angst without any self-examination that makes the agony compelling.
@@gregorywiederecht I blame lewis capaldi for starting this shitty trend
There’s such a lack of authenticity to it that leaves what should be a deeply emotional song utterly hollow.
This guy is also nowhere near Hozier’s level of lyricism
Maybe I’m just extremely out of touch with the music scene but it always feels like most of these songs don’t exist until Todd reviews them
Same, I had no idea about any of these save for Flowers, and that's only because it's always on the radio at work.
For the last couple years, I haven't known most of the songs on both Top 10 lists.
The only reason I knew a couple of these was cause I watched Diamond Axe Productions' lists, who also likes Todd. So yeh, I too also knew these songs only cause music reviewer lists.
I only knew about most of them, especially the more political ones, because I spend way too much time on Twitter. I have never once listened to 90% of these songs by my own free will.
@@ShyRangerman, 2023 sure does exist, doesn't it?
Todd choosing silence as his new favorite genre has me pumped for the John Cage's of the world.
I think The Hard Times recently had something about a punk band doing a cover version of that piece that lasts only 90 seconds.
Nice reference
@@beaudure01😂😂😂
How dare Todd try to enjoy the silence after admitting in his review of Rihanna's "S&M" that he doesn't like Depeche Mode?
As long as it's in a 4 minute response, i'm sure it'll be fine. :)
I work as a childcare assistant for a Jazzercise class, and it was very cathartic to hear Todd ripping into Baby Don't Hurt Me.
Songs from the '80s and '90s repackaged as horrible dance beats seem to be an integral part of Jazzercise.
... and the over 80's Hydrotheraphy/aqua aerobics class that you are subjected to when you just want to swim/exercise peacefully by yourself! 😂
I won't lie I mostly use these videos as a way to gauge how out of touch I am with pop culture writ large. This year is a 10 for 10 "whuhhh????" moment -- I've heard of none of these songs. My retreat from society and evolution into a total hermit is complete. I would like to thank my parents, God, and the academy.
This list is why I don't leave the house.
Same lol, I've heard more honorable mentions than top 10 worst this year
same lmao
As a late 40s non American , I too avoided these , unless they generated enough controversy to end up on a news article.
Also when did the default singing style for guys become a mushmouth monotone moan ( moanotone?) with a hint of bad autotune? Christ! No wonder we're missing Pitbull , at least he sounded like he wasn't sedated . Jesus it makes Sisqo sound like Pavarotti ( ask your mum).
it's not just because you're old, popular songs just aren't as popular as they used to be. I'm a full youngster but there are some here that I haven't heard either
I thought mother by Meghan trainor was gonna be number one but then I remembered we’re not letting her have any more hits. Keep up the work everyone!
Mother Didn’t even Touch the Hot 100
@@tracyl8939perfectly balanced, as all things should be
the world is right 🙏
Todd also constrains his list to the Billboard Hot 100 year-end list.
My biggest gripe with this years music is that seemingly any popular song out of any genre I usually like was just "vibe-y" and that was it. There was no excitement, no groove, no funk, nothing to dance to just . . . 5000 songs that are all "vibe-y", sometimes have decent beats and have either mubled and/or autotuned and/or boring lyrics and that's it. You're just supposed to "vibe" to all of them - which is fine, I guess - but I'd actually prefer a mixture of that with some other stuff. This is the year I randomly went back to songs like "Starships", "Timber" and "Lean On", songs I never really liked too much before, but at least they were poppy, fun and dancable.
I blame Gen Z for this, they seem extremely averse to bright catchy pop music that actually has a tempo, everything has got to appear midtempo and aloof
@@KylieWilsonyou're right but it's funny that k-pop, which is generally the exact opposite of "midtempo and aloof", is also relatively huge right now
Hey hey don't wrap older Gen Z into this. 2009 - 2015 is MY era of pop and I will stand with everyone else telling the younger gen Z and gen alpha that modern pop sucks lol.
@@KylieWilsontbf i dont think this is everyone, kpop has a massive gen z fanbase and a lot of those songs are rlly upbeat and loud. plus this is more anecdotal but ive seen people say they became kpop fans BECAUSE of how vibey and downbeat pop music had become for them
Blame TikTok and the culture around it. A song isn’t described as Twee Pop anymore, it’s “coquette female incel corecore”. It’s not the genres that matter, but the aesthetic it matches with the best. Here’s a fun fact, the reason Fiona Apple pulled all of her music from TikTok was because lady incels tried to appropriate her art as part of their pro-anorexia and phrenology bullshit
24:30 Anne-Marie actually had two US top 20 hits prior to 2023... both of those being with other EDM producers (Rockabye with Clean Bandit & Sean Paul in 2017 and FRIENDS with Marshmello in 2018).
So yeah, I don't blame you for assuming that she didn't exist before 2023.
I do kinda blame him, he’s a music reviewer for pop music and they were both huge songs lol
Todd is like church to me. I mostly come for Easter and Christmas services (year end lists and the whatever video he makes on the pop song controversy of the year), but doing so is of profound spiritual importance and I am so grateful for its presence in my life, amen.
I think you should watch the regular sermons (One Hit Wonderland and Trainwreckords)
LMAO this is a great way to describe it
🙏🙏
You might say he... takes you to church
Same
Paramore being the title card made me so happy. Just elevates them each time you have to hear garbage and then it cuts to Hayley Williams making PEAK
I remember Todd putting Paramore on his Best Songs list back in 2014 and hoo boy do I wish Paramore could have had a hit with one of their new songs. And speaking of Paramore (or at least got accused of copying them a couple of years ago), I wish 'Bad Idea Right' by Olivia Rodrigo had been way more of a hit because that song is great.
I don't know if it's eligible as a hit, but man do I hope that we get a "I Don't Fuck With You"-type situation where it lands on the best list, even as just a non-hit honourable mention. This Is Why might actually be my AOTY tbh
@@gracecarpinter8623 i do think bad idea right? has been a hit. Maybe not chart-topping, but I've heard it often
Genuinely felt like an oasis every time todd got to the end of another entry about a boring, nigh unlistenable failure of the industry to hear one of the best tracks of the year from a band playing at 100% capacity. Thank god for paramore
@@thylacina5989I feel you, incredible album
"I don't know what's wrong with you girls...I feel like y'all don't need love" is ten times funnier considering drake featured on a song called...wait for it...girls need love
It's like Drake thinks Nice For What gives him a pass to slime out girls. Smh 🤦♂️.
say that you a lesbian, girl, me too
The reason Travis Scott's rap name makes you angry is because just about everyone at some point at least once tried to come up with a cool rap name and found out just how hard it is. A rap name that's not only clever and fun to say, but also marketable is not easy to find, and yet Travis Scott over here just made a normal ass name and became a popular rapper anyway.
Todd telling drake to stay away from SZA got me. “GET A JOB, STAY AWAY FROM HER” lmao
Sza is special so I don't blame Todd for yelling at Drake for working with her.
Similar to Todd, I also find myself frequently missing Pitbull. He put out a new album this year, by the way. In case anyone is curious, here's a small list of things I remember from it.
- The intro is horribly mixed and T-Pain is on it.
- A song that samples "Jump Around" with a feature from Lil Jon.
- Actually, there's just a lot of really hilarious sampling on that album. He samples, I shit you not, "What's Up" by 4 non blondes. Yes, THAT What's Up. It's called "Let's Take a Shot" and I think everyone should listen to it for the time of their life.
- The lyric "baby I got ADD, A Delicious Dick" from a song that samples "My Type" by Saint Motel
- I'm pretty sure one of the Spanish songs tells women to take their shoes off and talks about their feet for the entire song.
- It sounds pretty much exactly the same as you remember Pitbull sounding.
After that point I'm not even entirely sure if I blacked out and made the whole thing up. I almost wished that album was a smash success for old time's sake. Would've been great to see Mr. Worldwide grace the TiTs worst of list just one more time...
I watched Brad Taste In Music’s reaction to this album, it gave me so many laughs, we need more “so bad it’s funny” music like Pitbull
@@KylieWilson yeah I legit only knew this album existed because of Brad. he's made me realise how much terrible, hilarious music is really out there
Shouldn’t it be TitS?
I need Todd to review stuff like this, esp if the charts continue to give as little as they've given this year
linda perry signed off on this
"its a FANTASY it's PORN that isn't HOT" you're a genius this is exactly how i feel when i hear some guys talk about women 😂
I grew up about 10 miles from where Jason Aldean is from. He's from a city of 150,000 people and went to a private school my comfortably-middle-class parents couldn't afford to send me to. Him pretending to speak for the small town south is musical blackface.
99% of the time, any artist that pretends to be some "small town yokul" is just lying out their ass. Kid Rock is the same thing, his whole schtick is he's some kind of down-in-the-dirt country bumpkin, when he grew up wealthy on a farm in a very affluent part of Detroit. Who made rap/rock in the late 90s before realizing he could find new relevance grifting the MAGAtards (similar to the guy from Staind). It's pathetic but it makes them money.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn Aldean does the same thing.
the connections between Morgan Wallen and Maroon 5 go even deeper than you may have realized because Morgan Wallen was on Team Adam during the season of The Voice that he appeared on
Of all the people who were on the voice why did HE have to be the one to make it
"This is the last time you'll hear of Coi Leray," Noted, judging by Todd's track record she will be the biggest female rapper of the next five years
I hope not, she's such a blatant nepo baby industry plant (her father is Benzino).
That's not saying much these days.
watch she ends up on the worst list or best honorable mentions
I love watching these lists and realizing how about half of the entries are always one-hit wonders (at best). I can only assume Todd makes most of those statements in jest.
I did one of those slow-motion "Nooooo!"s out loud when I heard him say that
I still can't forget how David Guetta at one point was "This goes out to George Floyd and his family" like-
shout out to his family!
😳💀😭
the edit where he plays "the hampsterdance song" right after that line is among my favourite memes of all time
Even though I'd seen the I'm Good video I forgot he even existed till I watched this video.
European DJs and Electronic music has always been goofy asf
"Ask for money, get advice. Ask for advice, get money twice" - Pitbull
The 3 seconds of This Is Why between every song has the same euphoric effect on my body as finally eating a piece of fruit after way too much junk food does
Kinda got jump scared the first time it played thinking he was gonna crown it one of the worst of the year
Same thing with Save Your Tears from the 2021 list
@@paranormal17dude yeah same! funny enough the song was so catchy that I started listening to Paramore because of this video so thanks tod for that lol
Every year, I forget just how huge Drake is, and then every December, you remind me and I get depressed just in time for Christmas. There has never been a bigger gap between quality and success in the history of music.
I'm a Latino kid in Miami who grew up on Pitbull taking over every radio station physically possible, and I'll say this.
Was Pitbull a good rapper? Debatable. Was Pitbull Spanish? Barely. Was Pitbull a lyrical genius? Absolutely not. And yet I still have the strong urge to punch Drake after hearing that line.
I have nothing to add to your opinion, just that I agree and also your profile pic is cute.
@giantpinkcat i drove past a mural of Pitbull next to Jose Martí in calle ocho, he is our Mr 305 for a reason 😂
Pitbull's music has always been stupid and interchangeable, but at least it has a pulse and you can believe what he's selling because he always sounds like he was having a ball during every recording session.
Drake's music just leaves me feeling utterly empty.
The only artist I enjoyed during that whole era was Ivy Queen. To me, Pitbull will always be the reason I hate giving out my number outside of Florida and the guy who made me wonder if women really could be cars
Pitbull wasn’t known for his spectacular talent or anything, but he (or whoever his producers or writers) know how to make a club banger! And his raps know how to get you moving.
I remember times when American music charts and music charts in my country was kinda alike. But... Now I've realised that I haven't heard of all of these songs (except for "Daylight", just because I kinda like sad emo boys. And "What is love", because our radio stations are lazy as well). That's truly weird.
Ngl I'm in America and consume a ton of music, only heard the What Is Love song, haven't heard any of these otherwise
it's continued glocalisation. People are listening more to artists from their own country and in their own language rather than listening to music from the US, UK etc www.lse.ac.uk/european-institute/Assets/Documents/LEQS-Discussion-Papers/EIQPaper182.pdf
We're in the streaming era now. Radio has long stopped fully dictating what does or doesn't get popular (although a few of them were radio hits as well, Im surprised you didn't hear at least one). Audiences do. It's basically either "get with the times or get left behind". Music in America has basically become so niche that a song could pull big streaming numbers and top the charts for a long time, but half of the population still wouldn't know the song even if they mentioned it.
@potatolord_lordofpotatoes7801 then, you're not listening to the radio or going on Tiktok. In other words, you're out of touch. That, or you live in another country.
Also, I've noticed that there seems to be a difference between Todd's audience and every other TH-camr that makes year end music lists. On every other worst list video, everyone recognizes at least one song while on Todd's videos, half of the commenters don't know any of the songs. If I had to guess, it has more to do with most of Todd's audience being in their mid to late 20's, 30s and older, or you guys just aren't the target audience anymore since it's pretty much teens and young adults making the songs popular or you're simply from another country as this list is according to the U.S. popular hits or you might be around the demographic but don't really listen to the radio or is streaming or checking the charts. That seems to be the discourse here. At least that's my two cents on the matter.
10: "K-POP" - Travis Scott, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd (2:03)
9: "Vampire" - Olivia Rodrigo (5:04)
8: "Search & Rescue" - Drake (8:31)
7: "Daylight" - David Kushner (12:10)
6: "Can't Have Mine" - Dylan Scott (15:25)
5: "Rich Men North of Richmond" - Oliver Anthony Music (18:50)
4: "Baby Don't Hurt Me" - David Guetta, Anne-Marie, Coi Leray (23:26)
3: "Slime You Out" - Drake ft. SZA (26:24)
2: "Try That in a Small Town" - Jason Aldean (31:12)
1: "Last Night" - Morgan Wallen (38:20)
0: The fact that "Last Christmas" was UK Christmas number 1 yet again 🤮
In terms of good music though, VNV Nation released the album 'Electric Sun', so that's where the best 2023 songs are 😁
@@lyrimetacurl0 Last Christmas was never number 1 in the UK its the first time it was
“Try that in a small town” is a complete lie about small towns. I mean it depends on the town but small towns can be as “bad as big cities”. I grew up in alot of small towns in the south and in Appalachia and they were not the best. Im honestly happier in the big city that I live in now (New York City area) and wish I was here all my life. Asides from my long rant, just know not all small towns are nice and friendly.
I thought the whole point of the song was that small towns aren’t friendly (they only take care of “our own”, nobody else, and “our own” = “good ol’ boys”, which is an old school way to refer to the KKK)
The fact that vampire is on this list is something I couldn't disagree with more.
The Paramore transitions saving us from bad music is always welcome
palate cleanser
love paramore and such a perfect lyric for this 😂
Gave me a fright though lol thought he was putting them on the list
Paramore really sucked until they stopped trying to be Paramore.
You all actually like that awful song?
What I find funniest about the Baby Don’t Hurt Me video is: in their attempt to recreate the Night At The Roxbury dance, they don’t even get THAT right! That head move was keeping the head straight and using your neck to slide it side to side. Guetta and Co. tilt their heads, which is not how the move goes!
The poetic irony of this is sublime ❤
Yeah I was very confused by that. I think maybe they did TOO MUCH coke during the video shoot and the neck just lost all rigidity.
Just another thing that Guetta fakes. He is a fraud of the highest order! I can't believe the deluded audience of DJ MAG, and the so-called writers thereof, keep naming this talentless hack "World's No1 DJ"! Do they not have ears?
Todd: "A few years ago I put Take Me to Church on my worst list."
The "few years ago" in question: 10 years ago.
It’s not a bad year for music, it’s just a bad year for popular music. I’ve heard some great albums this year, you just have to put in the effort to look for them.
exactly this. So sick of this "worst year for music" shit when there is so much good shit to come out this year
He’s clearly referring to pop music though. Like he literally says that in the video.
@@crowyo9137 as if "you will find good music if you commit to searching it" isn't just as old and tired response. No-one is stupid enough to think that from the population of 6 billion no good music was produced within a year is plausible. But with 100 000 pieces of music released DAILY it isn't humanly possible for anyone to shift through all of it to find the gems. Curation, minimum threshold for consideration, industry support, etc. are all important for actual accessibility of music. If the moment of "I feel like listening to some music" is likely to result in bad results, people abandon music as form of entertainment. And they essentially have.
@@mgp1203 exactly, this is a pop music review tradition, he explicitly refers to the charts when doing his reviews
I disagree the statement that that pop music sucked this year when you have stuff like the album GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo. And the statement that all new music is bad is just straight up stupid because yeah a lot of pop music is bad but there is still tons of amazing stuff you just got to know where to look.