Usually when you make my worst list, it’s because the song has a big problem.

It can be that the song has terrible music with no real instruments that stand out or a lack of memorable riffs, or blatantly simple music that insults our intelligence. Or the song could have absolutely terrible lyrics. Lyrics that are stupid, or hateful. Lyrics that features a multitude of awful punchlines, or an overall offensive theme.

But sometimes, it’s just one line. And that one line ruins everything for you.

“Mood” – 24kGoldn feat. Iann Dior

Pop
#1 peak (October 24-31, November 14-28, December 12, 2020, January 9-16, 2021)
#47 year-end (2020), #4 year-end (2021)

Alternative
#8 peak (November 28-December 5, 2020)
#41 year-end, 12 weeks on chart in 2021

Every year there’s a song on the Alternative Airplay chart where I don’t understand what it’s doing there. This year, “Mood” is that song. Both artists are primarily involved with hip hop and pop rap rather than Alternative music, and this song was already very successful on the mainstream charts when it was randomly decided one day that this song should be moved over to a rock chart too. Some will argue that this song does belong on the Alternative charts since it centers around a guitar riff, and that Iann Dior also featured on Mike Shinoda’s “Happy Endings” this year, another song that made the year-end list. To that I say, “Good 4 U” featured far more of a punk/rock edge than this song and didn’t even chart on the Alternative charts.

That being said, we can’t put “Mood” on the worst list simply because it’s a pop rap song. And we also have to come up with a legit reason because this song is ridiculously popular. After continuing its smashing success for a second straight year, it is now the 49th biggest song of all time in the history of the Billboard charts. Additionally, it is one of 190 songs to achieve over a billion streams on Spotify, with a mind-melting 1.33 billion streams as of Christmas 2021. No, it is not the worst song in this club, because “Believer” and “Thunder” by Imagine Dragons, “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5, and most embarrassingly “Sad!” by XXXTentacion are also on the list. But why does “Mood,” a cataclysmically popular song, deserve to be on this list of the worst songs in rock and alternative in 2021?

First off, I get that rap isn’t my genre. Country and rap are the two genres I don’t understand, and thus I can only judge the really good and the really bad. But I do have one rule when I am faced with such a song on my lists. Whenever I get challenged by a country or rap song, I will not put such a song on the list because it’s country or rap. I will put it on when it goes above and beyond the call of duty for bad music. As in, “Yes Indeed” by Lil Baby does not go above and beyond the call for me. It just comes across to me as typical bad. But “Crank Dat” by Soulja Boy Tell’Em, a song that is supposed to be about a dance but instead fails to be about anything, or “Pop Champagne,” a song with the most cartoonishly awful use of auto-tune and some of the most asinine synths I’ve ever heard? Oh yes.

So with that in mind, I can’t really put the song on the list because of the theme. “Mood” is about a man frustrated with the signals his girlfriend is showing him, and how they fight when they’re not getting it on. Not my favorite topic when a guy shows frustration towards his girl, but again, not necessarily terrible. Nor can I put the song on the list because of its beat, which is pretty generic for pop and trap music these days. The guitar riff is repetitive with its four chord structure repeating throughout the song, but at least we have a real instrument rather than a synth powering the song. The autotune on Iann Dior’s voice is annoying for me, I don’t like it when singers turn to autotune to adjust their voices. I’ve only enjoyed it on a select few songs. But even that is a bit of a nitpick. Halfway through the song, we just have our typical pop/trap hybrid song that has become all the rage these days.

But then we get to 24kGoldn’s verse. And then we get to the reason this song is on the list. Remember I said that this song is about struggling to understand his girlfriend? Well, he has this to say.

I won’t ever let a shorty go and set me up
Only thing I need to know is if you wet enough

I’m sorry, 24kGoldn… what was that?

Only thing I need to know is if you wet enough

Oh boy. It’s one of these songs. It’s a song where the woman is not a priority in the narrator’s life. She’s just a thing that he has sex with. In one line, 24kGoldn turned this song from a pretty normal rap/trap song to yet another retread of “Tonight’s The Night.”

I don’t automatically hate songs that are not my genre. But I do not like songs that are disrespectful to women. Look over this lyric carefully. This one line turns 24kGoldn’s ramblings about his girlfriend into a whinefest about how badly he wants sex. His goal was not to understand his girlfriend. It was just to get some action. And we don’t know what the woman thinks about all this, because it’s all from the guy’s perspective. Just this one lyric makes more prominent lyrics that much harsher in hindsight. Go back to this chorus lyric:

I ain’t tryna tell you what to do, but try to play it cool

Before That Lyric, this just seemed to be a line about trying to respect his girlfriend. Maybe there were some mixed messages with him telling her to “play it cool,” but at least there was potential to see the lyric as being about trying to repair their relationship. But after That Lyric, it becomes impossible to take this line as truth. What on earth makes you think you’re not telling her what to do? You have one goal, and one goal only. Scoring some booty. Pathetic.

And if you think I’m a prude about the song topic, I have quite a few songs about sex in my rotation. My epicenter for pop music is from 1974 to 1980, where it seemed like everyone at some point or another was writing about sex. You just don’t know how many Top 40 hits snuck orgasms into the song for all to hear. Heck, right now on my playlist is one of the dirtiest sex songs of the era, Leon Haywood’s “I Wan’ta Do Something Freaky To You.” So why is that song good and “Mood” crap, besides the fact that the former song’s main riff was sampled in Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang?” It’s the attitude.

“I Wan’ta Do Something Freaky To You” is filthy for its time. The song features Haywood announcing that he wants to slide in “the valley of love” while referencing sex positions relating to the zodiac signs, and the song is filled with female moans of pleasure. I don’t think she’s happy because she just hit the scratch & win for the lottery. But unlike “Mood,” where 24kGoldn doesn’t give a rat’s butt about what his lady thinks about his want for sex, in “I Wan’ta Do Something Freaky To You” Haywood specifically shows interest in his woman and sings about not just how he wants to have sex, but how he wants to fulfill her sexual fantasies. Compare “I won’t rest until I bring joy and happiness” and “I’ll put it where you want it” with “I only care if you’re wet enough” and it is obvious which song is better. And sexier. Look, you can have your sexual fantasy and ride it to the top of the charts too, but you need to explicitly demonstrate that you care about this woman and how you want to make her happy. 24kGoldn and Iann Dior did not get the memo.

Maybe it’s just one line, but in a year filled with 6/10 songs on both the rock and alternative charts, the most glaring mistakes, no matter how small, get you in trouble. And with that, I don’t care how big “Mood” got, because it’s yet another song that wallows in its male fantasy even when it tries to be about something else. Maybe the narrator’s woman was in a mood over how selfish his mindset was.

UP NEXT: MGK needs some comfortable shoes at #7.

IMAGE SOURCES

24kGoldn album cover art for Eldorado from Genius

Tree falling on car photo is a stock photo from Pexels.com, provided by WordPress

Album cover for Leon Haywood’s Come And Get Yourself Some from Discogs