If there's one holiday tradition I look forward to every year, it's my annual ritual disemboweling of the worst garbage music to hit the airwaves. I've been chronicling the worst songs of the year since 2010, and my ears have endured all manner of trash. This year didn't seem quite as bad, honestly. Sure, there was tons of crap all over the airwaves (and streaming services), but it doesn't seem like we pushed the envelope of bad like, say "Rude" by Magic did. That said, all ten of these 2015 songs are total aural garbage that should be prosecuted as crimes.
J Sutta - Feline Resurrection
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, J Sutta, Feline Resurrection]()
Is there any phrase that implies musical quality less than "from a former member of the Pussycat Dolls?" For some reason, record companies believe that the flash-in-the-pan group of lingerie dancers turned pop stars are still relevant, so 2015 saw the release of former Doll J Sutta's abhorrent "Feline Resurrection." If you wanted one song that summed up all of the awful musical trends of the year, this is a pretty solid pick. Pitched-down male vocal hooks? Ok. Inept lady rapping? Sure. Inept lady rapping at double speed? Why not! Insanely dumb-ass lyrics? She says "this pussycat's learned to growl," so there you go.
iLoveMemphis - Hit The Quan
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, iLoveMemphis, Hit The Quan]()
Yes, this was the year of Silentó's ubiquitous "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)," but as bad as that song was, the endless deluge of imitators trying to cash in on it was worse. Probably the most egregious was iLoveMemphis's "Hit The Quan," where the young rapper literally took a dance done by Rich Homie Quan and made a whole song around it. And the song... is bad. Like a lot of modern radio-ready hip-hop, it's infuriatingly repetitive, but iLoveMemphis (and he should lose points for that awful-ass Steve Jobs-ass stage name) has some of the worst flow of any charting MC this year and sounds like he's only halfway through puberty.
Nickelback - She Keeps Me Up
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, Nickleback, She Keeps Me Up]()
It's almost a cliche to put Canadian rockers Nickelback on a "worst music" list, considering that their name has basically become shorthand for awful taste. But their 2015 single "She Keeps Me Up" pushed the group into new and hilariously bad territory. A warmed-over lite-funk joint with lyrics like "Coca Cola Roller Coaster," it sounds like somebody's dad discovered "Uptown Funk" and tried to copy it. There's auto-tuning, wah-wah guitars, and a video that looks like a real estate agency's Christmas party. Who would have ever thought that leaving nu-metal behind would actually make a band worse?
Chief Keef / Andy Milonakis - Hot Shit
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, Chief Keef, Andy Milonakis, Hot Shit]()
Oh, no, buddy. Hip-hop history is full of rappers collaborating with unusual musicians -- who can forget Run-DMC and Aerosmith knocking that wall down in 1986 with "Walk This Way" -- but sometimes it's good to say no. Chief Keef's one of Chicago's most prominent rappers, but "Hot Shit" is anything but. This track is ass even for a mixtape toss-off, with Keef sounding bored and barely rhyming, but the real disaster comes a few minutes in when the track's guest comes in. Andy Milonakis is a former viral video star with a hormone deficiency that keeps him permanently looking like an awkward pre-teen... and apparently he raps now. No thanks.
Nikki Tino - Shake That La La
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, Nikki Tino, Shake That La La]()
When your song debuts on Radio Disney, you know you have a problem. Staten Island singer Nikki Tino is 25, acts and dresses like she's 14, and for some reason sings in a bizarre fake-Jamaican patois. Throw in a backing track that seems to be 90% hillbilly whistling and handclaps and you've got one of the most perplexing and painful songs of the year. This seems like the kind of thing a super-rich Mafia dad would do for his daughter to get her to shut up about "her career," already. Like you can see Meadow Soprano in this video, completely.
Bret Michaels - Girls On Bars
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, Bret Michaels, Girls on Bars]()
What happens when you're just too old and flimsy to sell the rock 'n' roll lifestyle anymore? You go country. That's what former Poison frontman Bret Michaels did this year with "Girls On Bars," easily the worst honky-tonk track of 2015. Everything about this is a mess, from the cliched lyrics to the awful delivery. The modern country trend of almost rap-esque talk-singing is in full effect, but when Bret puts his pipes into play it's almost worse. We're not even mentioning the backing track, which sounds like you paid somebody on Fiverr $5 to lay it down.
Britney Spears / Iggy Azalea - Pretty Girls
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, Britney Spears, Iggy Azalea, Pretty Girls]()
Oh, Britney. Britney, Britney, Britney. Every time it looks like you're going to be able to crawl out of the Cheeto-dusted hole your career has been in for a decade, you make a bad decision and throw it all away. Spears's solo career has floundered so hard that she basically just does features for more popular artists. The latest installment? "Pretty Girls," which pairs her with abhorrent Australian rapper Iggy Azalea. The hate on Iggy is well-documented, so we won't waste the space, but this is an obvious attempt to make another "Fancy" that results in an even worse track. And that's saying a lot.
Dead Cold Inside - Making Me Nothing
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, Dead Cold Inside, Make Me Nothing]()
Most of the songs I spotlight on these lists are from major label artists, successful musicians who are making bank to suck. But I don't want to be prejudiced, so I try to survey the world of independent music as well to find tracks that are truly awful even if you don't hear them on the radio a million times. Meet Dead Cold Inside, a two-man "numetal-core industrial experimental metal rapcore" group from Dayton, Ohio. That's twice the core! One core for each dude! "Making Me Nothing" is such a hilariously ill-advised track that I've been obsessively sharing it with people so they, too can experience the horror.
Meghan Trainor - Dear Future Husband
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, Dear Future Husband, Meghan Trainor]()
Meghan Trainor rose to fame in 2014 with the irritatingly catchy "All About That Bass," a bubbly ode to body positivity that was played to torturous excess. As befits any one-hit wonder, she's been spending the last year trying to recapture that success with increasingly diminishing results. "Dear Future Husband," Trainor's paean to the qualities she requires in a mate, reads like a time traveler from 1954 landed in modern-day America and quickly suffered a traumatic brain injury. The cliched, corny doo-wop production and idiotic lyrics are literally painful to listen to, and hopefully we won't have to much longer.
Madonna / Nicki Minaj - Bitch I'm Madonna
![10 Worst Songs of 2015, Bitch I'm Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Madonna]()
We're not the kind of guys who think that the only value women have is in their youth. There are plenty of mature, accomplished female musicians who are still doing great work decades after they debuted. Madonna... is not one of them. The Material Girl has aged into a terrifying automaton, desperately grasping at current stars for relevance, and her 2015 album "Rebel Heart" was lousy from stem to stern. This track, the biggest hit on the LP, features a verse by Nicki Minaj and production by list two-timer Diplo, crammed into a vaporwave mish-mosh that's legitimately irritating to the ears.
Related: 11 Reasons Music Sucks Now More Than Ever
J Sutta - Feline Resurrection
Is there any phrase that implies musical quality less than "from a former member of the Pussycat Dolls?" For some reason, record companies believe that the flash-in-the-pan group of lingerie dancers turned pop stars are still relevant, so 2015 saw the release of former Doll J Sutta's abhorrent "Feline Resurrection." If you wanted one song that summed up all of the awful musical trends of the year, this is a pretty solid pick. Pitched-down male vocal hooks? Ok. Inept lady rapping? Sure. Inept lady rapping at double speed? Why not! Insanely dumb-ass lyrics? She says "this pussycat's learned to growl," so there you go.
iLoveMemphis - Hit The Quan
Yes, this was the year of Silentó's ubiquitous "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)," but as bad as that song was, the endless deluge of imitators trying to cash in on it was worse. Probably the most egregious was iLoveMemphis's "Hit The Quan," where the young rapper literally took a dance done by Rich Homie Quan and made a whole song around it. And the song... is bad. Like a lot of modern radio-ready hip-hop, it's infuriatingly repetitive, but iLoveMemphis (and he should lose points for that awful-ass Steve Jobs-ass stage name) has some of the worst flow of any charting MC this year and sounds like he's only halfway through puberty.
Nickelback - She Keeps Me Up
It's almost a cliche to put Canadian rockers Nickelback on a "worst music" list, considering that their name has basically become shorthand for awful taste. But their 2015 single "She Keeps Me Up" pushed the group into new and hilariously bad territory. A warmed-over lite-funk joint with lyrics like "Coca Cola Roller Coaster," it sounds like somebody's dad discovered "Uptown Funk" and tried to copy it. There's auto-tuning, wah-wah guitars, and a video that looks like a real estate agency's Christmas party. Who would have ever thought that leaving nu-metal behind would actually make a band worse?
Chief Keef / Andy Milonakis - Hot Shit
Oh, no, buddy. Hip-hop history is full of rappers collaborating with unusual musicians -- who can forget Run-DMC and Aerosmith knocking that wall down in 1986 with "Walk This Way" -- but sometimes it's good to say no. Chief Keef's one of Chicago's most prominent rappers, but "Hot Shit" is anything but. This track is ass even for a mixtape toss-off, with Keef sounding bored and barely rhyming, but the real disaster comes a few minutes in when the track's guest comes in. Andy Milonakis is a former viral video star with a hormone deficiency that keeps him permanently looking like an awkward pre-teen... and apparently he raps now. No thanks.
Nikki Tino - Shake That La La
When your song debuts on Radio Disney, you know you have a problem. Staten Island singer Nikki Tino is 25, acts and dresses like she's 14, and for some reason sings in a bizarre fake-Jamaican patois. Throw in a backing track that seems to be 90% hillbilly whistling and handclaps and you've got one of the most perplexing and painful songs of the year. This seems like the kind of thing a super-rich Mafia dad would do for his daughter to get her to shut up about "her career," already. Like you can see Meadow Soprano in this video, completely.
Bret Michaels - Girls On Bars
What happens when you're just too old and flimsy to sell the rock 'n' roll lifestyle anymore? You go country. That's what former Poison frontman Bret Michaels did this year with "Girls On Bars," easily the worst honky-tonk track of 2015. Everything about this is a mess, from the cliched lyrics to the awful delivery. The modern country trend of almost rap-esque talk-singing is in full effect, but when Bret puts his pipes into play it's almost worse. We're not even mentioning the backing track, which sounds like you paid somebody on Fiverr $5 to lay it down.
Britney Spears / Iggy Azalea - Pretty Girls
Oh, Britney. Britney, Britney, Britney. Every time it looks like you're going to be able to crawl out of the Cheeto-dusted hole your career has been in for a decade, you make a bad decision and throw it all away. Spears's solo career has floundered so hard that she basically just does features for more popular artists. The latest installment? "Pretty Girls," which pairs her with abhorrent Australian rapper Iggy Azalea. The hate on Iggy is well-documented, so we won't waste the space, but this is an obvious attempt to make another "Fancy" that results in an even worse track. And that's saying a lot.
Dead Cold Inside - Making Me Nothing
Most of the songs I spotlight on these lists are from major label artists, successful musicians who are making bank to suck. But I don't want to be prejudiced, so I try to survey the world of independent music as well to find tracks that are truly awful even if you don't hear them on the radio a million times. Meet Dead Cold Inside, a two-man "numetal-core industrial experimental metal rapcore" group from Dayton, Ohio. That's twice the core! One core for each dude! "Making Me Nothing" is such a hilariously ill-advised track that I've been obsessively sharing it with people so they, too can experience the horror.
Meghan Trainor - Dear Future Husband
Meghan Trainor rose to fame in 2014 with the irritatingly catchy "All About That Bass," a bubbly ode to body positivity that was played to torturous excess. As befits any one-hit wonder, she's been spending the last year trying to recapture that success with increasingly diminishing results. "Dear Future Husband," Trainor's paean to the qualities she requires in a mate, reads like a time traveler from 1954 landed in modern-day America and quickly suffered a traumatic brain injury. The cliched, corny doo-wop production and idiotic lyrics are literally painful to listen to, and hopefully we won't have to much longer.
Madonna / Nicki Minaj - Bitch I'm Madonna
We're not the kind of guys who think that the only value women have is in their youth. There are plenty of mature, accomplished female musicians who are still doing great work decades after they debuted. Madonna... is not one of them. The Material Girl has aged into a terrifying automaton, desperately grasping at current stars for relevance, and her 2015 album "Rebel Heart" was lousy from stem to stern. This track, the biggest hit on the LP, features a verse by Nicki Minaj and production by list two-timer Diplo, crammed into a vaporwave mish-mosh that's legitimately irritating to the ears.
Related: 11 Reasons Music Sucks Now More Than Ever