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Let’s start off with the five songs that were bad, but weren’t quite bad enough to make the cut.

“Animals” – Architects

Mainstream Rock
#5 peak (April 3, 2021)
#25 year-end, 26 weeks on chart in 2021

A running theme with these dishonorable mentions (except for one of them) is that they tried to legitimately help people or to speak up about important social or world issues, but couldn’t get their point across in a aesthetically pleasing way. This brings us to Architects, whose album For Those Who Wish To Exist took on the environment and how human actions are placing our Mother Earth in danger. It’s an interesting topic that quite honestly deserves attention with global warming and rising water levels becoming very much a problem. But “Animals,” the lead single from the album, wasn’t the best way to introduce the topic.

How did it fail? Well, let’s start with the music. Since rock’s decline in the late 2000’s, mainstream rock music has long been accused of being nothing more than angry metal and hard rock bands bashing out one-note songs with overprocessed guitars. No rock song this year provided more fuel to the argument than this song, which relies constantly on a single staccato chord. While the band does switch up the chords (late) in the opening riff, the bridge is just that annoying chord. As a result, “Animals” gets old fast. It doesn’t help that the guitar tones are just loud and biting, resulting in a colorless song that’s supposed to talk about the pending destruction of the Earth.

Then there’s the hook. I will give it credit, “Animals” does provide a bleak picture of the end of world, and while not all the lyrics are very specific, they do provide room for interpretation about the vulnerability of Earth. But then we get to the chorus.

We’re just a bunch of f**king animals

Look, I’m not a prude like I was as a 13 year old learning about four-letter words. But there was no reason for this swear word to be placed in the song, it just sounds like a desperate attempt to make it angrier and more vicious, when it just makes the message more try-hard than anything. Spoiler alert, I will be going over another song about the environment on the best list, which also features heavy use of four-letter words, and also comes up with the bleak message that the world is beyond saving. With its bland guitar work and its less warranted use of said profanity, “Animals” is by far the weaker of the two.

“Deep End” – Foushee

Alternative
#10 peak (March 27, 2021)
#38 year-end, 20 weeks on chart

I’m warned to tread lightly on this song. When I first heard this song, I figured it was a song about daily struggles with mental illness. But no. This is a song about black female empowerment. And as a white man, I’m intended to be sympathetic to the message. And honestly, I wish that I did like the song for what it was going for, but this just did not work.

Let me be clear. I do not dislike the song because of the message. If anything, I find it admirable that Foushee tried to stand up for black women and urge them to unite in their struggles for equal rights. In the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, I totally agree that blacks deserve greater opportunity throughout the country, and I believe there is no place for systemic racism in the country. But again… the song needs to be presented in an intriguing way. What prevented this song from working for me was the chorus.

The chorus is where all roads to a song meet. It’s the part that has to stand out. The chorus is where the primary hook occurs, or the primary musical riff, or the lyric you will come out singing. But on “Deep End,” the chorus is a non-presence. The song just… loses its momentum and collapses as the music quiets and Foushee whispers her protest techniques. Why are you whispering? If anything, wouldn’t you just stand up and SHOUT HOW MUCH YOU WANT EQUAL RIGHTS? Come on! You’re fighting the good fight! There should be an explosive instrumental effect, or a powerful hook! Not a downtempo trap beat and whispered vocals! Maybe I’m missing the point, but the lack of a powerful chorus leaves me feeling empty. Maybe next time, Foushee.

“Heat Waves” – Glass Animals

Pop
#7 peak, #16 year-end

Alternative
#1 peak (March 20 – April 3, 2021)
#9 year-end, 27 weeks on chart in 2021

Until right near the end of writing this list, I was planning on passing on this song being here, but then I realized, I really don’t like this song. And while I thought that was motivated by just how popular this song is, I realize that this song really isn’t that good regardless of how you break down the song’s unlikely success.

I should be happy for these guys, but I’m not. Glass Animals are a British Indie Pop band that has released three albums to date, when unexpectedly, “Heat Waves” because not just their first hit on the pop charts, but also one of the biggest hits of the past year. I’m no expert on Glass Animals, having only heard their hits, but for this song to become their hit is just a grim reminder that life is not fair. “Gooey” may have had one of the worst videos ever, but it was surprisingly soulful. Previous single “Your Love (Deja Vu)” was essentially a rewrite of “Life Itself” with its sunny synths and percussion, but it grew on me anyways. And “Life Itself”: What a fantastic song. A song about a down-on-his-luck character brought to life by frontman Dave Bayley’s falsetto, complete with thunderous tropical percussion and powerful synth work in the chorus. None of that is present on “Heat Waves.” Instead, we get a repetitive trap beat and music that is noticeably quieter than on their previous singles, which just puts more emphasis on that stupid pitch-shifted voice that opens and closes the song.

Why did they do this? As exemplified on similar misuse on songs like “We Can’t Stop,” pitch-shifted voices hardly ever work. And the pitch-shifted voice on “Heat Waves” is particularly bad, because it is placed front and center in the mix with no reason for its existence. Why are you putting something so artificial in a song that is supposed to be about baring your soul? It may be on only two parts of the song, but that pitch-shifted voice assures that this song starts and ends poorly. The two worst parts to mess it up. And aside from the fact that I’ve never gotten into the catchy but awkward “Sometimes all I think about is D’YOUUUUUU” hook, Bayley seems to have run out of ideas while writing about his fractured relationship, as evidenced by this gem in the bridge…

I just wish that I could give you that
That look that’s perfectly un-sad

“Unsad?”

Yeah… all you cool kids that listen to current music can keep this one for yourselves. I’ll stick with “Life Itself.”

“My Ex’s Best Friend” – Machine Gun Kelly feat. Blackbear

Pop
#20 peak, #23 year-end

Alternative
#1 peak (March 13, April 10-17, 2021)
#2 year-end, 49 weeks on chart in 2021

I really wanted to put this song on the worst list. I really did. After a year where MGK just put real rock stars on blast because they wore normal shoes and took on people who knew way more about rock music than he does, nothing would have been more satisfying than to give him what he’s been giving everyone else. But I can’t. That doesn’t mean that “My Ex’s Best Friend” deserved the title of the SECOND BIGGEST ALTERNATIVE SONG OF THE YEAR.

I can’t put this song on the list because while I’ve been pretty quickly turned off by MGK surrounding himself with major label capital and Travis Barker to make himself sound better than he really is, he isn’t terrible on this song. His voice works far better here than it does on his other hit song from this year “Love Race,” and the lyrics, while repetitive, aren’t terrible. What puts this song on the list? Blackbear. Ugh.

Blackbear is a rapper who’s gotten quite a bit of criticism as far as I’ve been concerned, for covering “Do Re Mi” for his first hit in 2017 and for his hit last year, “Hot Girl Bummer.” My only real exposure to him before this song has been his verse on the all-world-conquering “Monsters” by All Time Low. While Blackbear’s verse was the part of the song that cost the song a chance at last year’s Honorable Mentions, at least he had the excuse of just being meh. But his verse on “My Ex’s Best Friend” is where it all falls apart, specifically when he switches to triplet flows on the final two bars. It automatically makes the song incredibly generic, and the stiff flow completely stops the flow of the song and makes it sound offbeat. To all rappers out there, STOP MAKING TRIPLET FLOWS! THEY SUCK!

But Blackbear isn’t alone. There is also the production, which decides to stop aping Blink-182 and switches to a droning bass (which is not from an actual bass, mind you), a generic trap beat, and a complete non-presence of actual instrumentation. To MGK, you think you’re so much more rock and roll than Corey Taylor? Well, trap beats with no emphasis on instruments is NOT ROCK AND ROLL! Rock is about the instruments and riffs, not the computers. Additionally, it wastes the talents of producer Travis Barker, who is overexposed these days, but is a great drummer. And that is why I wanted to put “My Ex’s Best Friend” on the worst list, because MGK came out to save rock and roll only to put out a big hit that is half rock and half trap rap.

“Overwhelmed” – Royal & The Serpent

Alternative
#6 peak (January 23, February 6, 2021)
#26 year-end, 14 weeks on chart in 2021

Like with Foushee, I will try to tread lightly on this song. Ryan Santiago wrote “Overwhelmed” about her anxiety and mental struggles, specifically with sensory overload. She explained that “sensory overload was a really big thing for me. So being out all the time, being at shows all the time, a lot of lights, a lot of loud, a lot of stimuli everywhere was becoming incredibly overwhelming for me.” Unfortunately, a misguided instrumental landed the song here on the dishonorable mentions.

The element that wrecked the instrumental is the main element of “Overwhelmed”: a stiff, plonky keyboard that plays the song’s five chord sequence at each switched chord. Maybe Santiago intended it to be this way to symbolize how stimuli affect her brain, but for me, all it does is distract me from the lyrics and the other instruments. Whenever I try to focus on the baseline, I go straight back to that plonky keyboard. When I try to understand the lyrics, that keyboard comes in and interrupts me. It’s frustrating. Adding to the song’s problems in the chorus, where the vocal melody consists of a single note until the final “somebody else” line. It comes across as generic and boring.

It’s a shame because unlike the songs I’ll be going over on the main list, “Overwhelmed” does have some good ideas. In the second chorus, Santiago adds a low-end guitar riff that does add some tension to the subject matter, and in the bridge, a brief, high-reaching guitar bend comes in. And after listening to this song multiple times, I will admit that the televised news report in the background is an interesting idea. But the problem is that on “Overwhelmed,” the annoying idea takes center stage and the good ideas don’t have enough time to shine. The guitar riff in the bridge often gets covered up by synths and beats, while the news report quickly fades into the background due to that keyboard. Ryan, the effort is appreciated, but this is not helping.

Yeah, that’s it. Five songs. Alright, now onto the main list.

COMING UP NEXT: A Florida band gets lost on I-75 for number 10.

SOURCES

Zipper, Marni. “Royal & The Serpent On The Feelings And Intentions Behind ‘Overwhelmed.’” Audacy 23 October 2020. Web. 23 December 2021 https://www.audacy.com/music/alternative/royal-and-the-serpent-on-the-feelings-behind-overwhelmed.

IMAGE SOURCES

“Animals” single cover from Last.fm

“Deep End” single cover from Genius

“Heat Waves” and “My Ex’s Best Friend” single covers from Wikimedia

Friends GIF taken from Tinalicious.com

“Overwhelmed” single cover from Spotify