This is another subjective list of mine, mainly because I'm negatively ranking a group of songs that went to number one here in Australia at one point or another. Bear in mind that I had to listen to a bunch of songs to make this list and that my opinion can widely change depending on what mood I'm in, so don't think this is a comprehensive list of what I dislike because that's not the case here. Please also keep in mind that the qualifier for this list is that each of these songs hit number one on the AUSTRALIAN charts, meaning that commonly cited chart toppers on these types of lists such as James Blunt's "You're beautiful" and Creed's "With arms wide open" won't be appearing on here as neither were chart toppers down under (even though I agree that they're both terrible songs.) This will also be presented as a Countdown, meaning that each song will be worse than the last as you go down this list.
#50
By all accounts, this song isn't that bad as its only real crime is the excessive use of autotune. It's the fact that it was overplayed to hell and back upon its initial release that earns it a spot on this list, specifically how it was touted as the anthem for being in the future which even as a seven to eight year old, I felt was lame as fuck (and I'm still a fan of Aqua's "Barbie girl" to this day, hence why that's not appearing on this list.)
#49
Again, this song by all accounts shouldn't even be on this list as its only crime is being a mildly irritating dance track with questionable but ultimately benign lyrics. It makes the list due to sparking quite possibly the dumbest dance craze of all time and for inspiring many other lame dance crazes since.
#48
Honestly, I debated about including this song as it's more lame than terrible, however I've never liked this song and was subjected to it at an early age due to my mother's love of it, so here it goes on the list due to childhood trauma (not the only song on here where that's the case either.)
#47
If I'm in the right mood, I could dismiss this track as a stupid but harmless club track from what I consider to be the worst time in modern music (that is if we consider the music itself and not the industry's practices.) However, this song was once considered the most successful of all time, meaning that it deserves no such mercy from me with its awful rapping and terrible production.
#46
I know this song has great intentions, however the fact that musically it's a bad rip-off of "Express yourself" by Madonna (the album version that is) ensured that this would be a shoe in for the list. Also, this isn't the song's fault, but I've grown tired of this "you're perfect just the way you are" mentality that it promotes.
#45
If I were judging this song simply as a song, it wouldn't make the list as it's your typical skivvy track about a guy trying to hit on a woman. My problems with this song come from the fact that it unintentionally is responsible for everything wrong in our society from cancel culture to shoddy plagiarism cases, hope putting this out there in the world was worth it guys.
#44
Bruce Channel called DJ Otzi, he says he wants a personal apology for desecrating his one and only hit from 1962 for the 2002 FIFA world cup. The sad thing is that this wouldn't be the case if the Austrian singer could, know you sing.
#43
While I've never been a huge fan of Ed Sheeran, I will say that most of his songs are at least somewhat interesting for me to listen to no matter how goofy they get. This doesn't have that luxury as it feels like anyone could've sung it, making this this worst kind of bland from an otherwise interesting artist.
#42
I've avoided putting a song on the list simply for being boring, while that's certainly the case here, I feel this goes above and beyond with the howling the John does throughout the track which makes it sound like he's in physical pain.
#41
I don't hate this song because of its forced positivity, nor do I hate it because it's an a Capella track made during the height of 80's bombast. I hate it because it's beyond stupid to the point that I still find it hard to believe it was ever a real song.
#40
Another song on here that's boring beyond all reason, this time however it was needlessly turned into a duet with Christina Aguilera of all people in order to boost the song's popularity. While I'm no fan of the original track, the blatant cash grab of this version almost makes it as bad as those crappy victory singles that clogged the charts throughout the 00's.
#39
The original version was already dull and lifeless, I guess Ed felt this was also the case so when it was released as a single, he recruited Beyonce of all people which took an already cliched love ballad and turned it into a song that makes less than no sense due to the two artists thematically having nothing to do with each other.
#38
I've never liked Bruno Mars, rest assured that if all of his songs went to number one here in Australia, there's a good chance they would all make the list. This is mainly for his whiny singing which is at its absolute worst with both his entries on this list, although it's slightly more tolerable here.
#37
This is one of the emptiest ballads I've ever heard, although it wouldn't have even made the list were it not for it shamelessly ripping off "Brave" from Sara Bareilles the same year that song was released. At least "Brave" did become a hit for Sara shortly after this topped the charts worldwide.
#36
Throughout the 2010's, we had the rise of what's been commonly referred to as "hipster bullshit," this is where a band or artist acts all pretentious either with the music or lyrics in an attempt to seem cool with the alternative scene. While this isn't the worst example of this, it's by far the best representation of what many people (me included) despise about this sub-genre.
#35
Good to know that the only chart topper Chris Brown had here in Australia (at least by himself) was the very first song he released, naturally it's also one of his worst songs thanks to amateur vocals, Scrabby doo posturing and not one but two verses from one of the worst rappers I've ever heard of.
#34
What was even the point of this collaboration? Who looked at these three artists and felt they could make a great song together? Unsurprisingly, the result is a boring track with Kanye West and Rihanna over singing over Paul's sparse instrumentation for no other reason than the novelty of the three artists on the same track.
#33
This has what might very well be the dumbest premise for a song, the joke that Sandi would've had the shit beaten out of her by other punk rockers for having flowers in her hair has been told to death by this point, which just about sums up why the premise is crap. The song is also bad musically as the melody is boring and Sandi isn't a particularly good vocalist either.
#32
If this was your typical emo heartbreak ballad, I wouldn't have included this as those are dime a dozen regardless of what era of music we're looking at. However, Akon went up and beyond the competition by recruiting Alvin and the Chipmunks on backing vocals for this track, so here we are.
#31
I honestly wouldn't have bothered with including this song if I just judged it as a song, after all, it's yet another rip-off of "One sweet day" given the subject matter and the production. What earns it a spot on this list is that it was commissioned specifically for the ending scene of Furious 7, meaning this song only exists to cash in off the death of the film's star Paul Walker and it shows with the lifeless performances of both Wiz and Charlie.
#30
For the longest time, I was benign towards this track as it sounds no worse than a sellout track from Bruce Springsteen from around this time. Then I paid attention to the lyrics, and then I realised why many consider this to be one of the worst songs of all time.
#29
Is this even an Usher track? I mean that's clearly him on the cover, however this feels more like a Will I am track with the boring production, cliched club lyrics and unusually checked out performance from the RNB prince.
#28
Apparently, this song is a collection of ideas the band had for their other songs that they threw together, if that's the case, then that would explain how fragmented and disjointed it is.
#27
It's hard to feel bad for Katy pandering to the "woke" crowd (EI terminally online Twitter users) only to ruin her career for doing so given how this was the song which began said career. Katy isn't even LGBT and yet she made this track about experimenting with women clearly to piss off audiences of the moment.
#26
While none of these songs are bad in the technical sense, I've put them all on here because by all accounts, none of them earned their success as they're just publicity stunts from Australian idol to infiltrate out charts at the expense of other established and up and coming artists.
#25
This is Bruno's only other appearance on this list and believe me this is a far better representation of what I can't stand about his music than his earlier entry given how in addition to his whimpering vocals, we have his melodramatic songwriting which we're all supposed to find charming but instead comes off as pathetic. At least both of these songs weren't ripping off another artist like his later material.
#24
Quite possible the most tone deaf, arrogant song ever written. Yes, this song has good intentions even if said intentions were originally brought up by those responsible for "Do they know it's Christmas," however I think we can all agree that having a bunch of multi-millionaires tell us to support a famine in a third world continent is about as patronising as you can get.
#23
Expect to see plenty of joke tracks on this list, although I'm throwing a two for one deal with this entry as both of these songs are just Eminem desperately trying to recreate the magic of "The real slim shady" but failing miserably due to dated pop culture references and shoddy production.
#22
I'm not even sure what the joke was supposed to be with this track, I assume this was a joke track given how I refuse to believe that ANYONE took this seriously back in the day with it speak talk vocals and production that feels like it came from a shoddy Disney cartoon.
#21
It's hard to believe this song was commissioned for the second Rugrats film given how ubiquitous it's become over the years (mainly through the sports community) harder still is that this is actually a song highlighting sexual harassment towards women given that the dogs in question are actually horny men praying on them. It's easy to see why given how irritating the vocals and production is here.
#20
Another joke song to feature on this list, I guess this was a bit ahead of its time given how beauty standards weren't really questioned that much back in the day. It doesn't make it any more tolerable with its messaging or the song any easier to listen to sonically due to how smug and arrogant the vocals are.
#19
This is basically an LMFAO song, it's not the worst we'll be looking at on this list, however everything I said about "Party rock anthem" applies here even if we're only covering half of the duo in this spot.
#18
Now there's been no shortage of ballads that has a performance we can describe as whiny; however, this song is actually meant to be a self-congratulation from Lukas Graham and his band Lukas Graham from their album Lukas Graham, meaning we have a tonal dissonance on this track.
#17
I'm not opposed to having theme songs from a children's show become a hit in the mainstream, however I draw the line when said theme song is irritating as is and is then stretched out to a full four-minute song without adding any substance to it.
#16
If this were your typical Black eyed peas track, this wouldn't have made the list as there were no shortage of bad club bangers from the early 2010's to become a success worldwide. It's the nostalgia bombing of Dirty dancing which earns it a spot on this list, specifically because this track has since convinced everyone that charming 80's classic is a terrible movie at this point.
#15
Sorry but I never got the humour around bogan culture, as a result, this song is just irritating noise to me as Bob puts on an awful Bogan impersonation over unfunny lyrics about being a dirge to society.
#14
So many joke songs on this list, why anyone ever found this track funny is beyond me given how it's actually really disturbing were you to take it seriously due to how much weed has messed up this guy's life. Even ignoring the content, it also sounds like crap as Afroman can't sing to save his life and the production is close to non-existent.
#13
Now I've refrained from putting boring ballads on this list, after all, their biggest crime is that they can put an insomniac like me to sleep due to how emotionless they ultimately are. This doesn't have that problem however due to it being a creepy pseudo stalker anthem (I know the lyrics suggest Lionel isn't a stalker but still) made worse by the infamous music video which depicts a blind student of his as his lover interest.
#12
There's a special place in hell for me where this song is playing endlessly on loop, however bad memories of my mother overplaying this song aside, it's just a vanity project for Fergie as she convinces Will I am to practically drool all over her on the track with some of the worse lyrics ever written.
#11
Basically, rage bait the song, it was always destined to be a chart topper given how inescapable Ms swift has been over the last two decades, however playing into the bad girl image social media wrongfully pictured her as whilst interpolating Right said Fred's earlier entry was the worst possible way to recover her damaged reputation.
#10
Talk about a song that's the definition of pathetic, not only do we have a shrill and irritating performance from Pat Monahan, but this is easily their worst song when it comes to the writing as we have bad 80's metaphors in addition to pick up lines that feel like rejects from How I met your mother.
#9
I didn't want to put a mashup song on here as naturally I'm not a fan of songs that simply stitch together preexisting songs, however I made an exception here due to how poorly the songs in this mashup are edited together here as there's no cohesive transition between them like other mashup tracks.
#8
Basically, the anthem for the fat acceptance movement, naturally this wouldn't be so bad if A: this movement wasn't a danger to society overall with its toxic messaging and B: if Meghan Trainor herself wasn't such a narcissist on the track and was also a decent singer to boot.
#7
I refuse to believe this was meant for adult audiences, I mean it literally sounds like a nursery rhyme musically and it's performed by an Australian singer putting on an Italian accent that I'm sure would've been deemed to be cultural appropriation were it released nowadays.
#6
Say what you want about Right said Fred, at least you can consider them brave and daring for releasing "I'm too sexy" when they did. Not only is this a less funny version of that track, but beauty standards have been challenged for well over a decade by the time this came to be making it redundant.
#5
Even as a kid, I thought this song was crap. What were we all thinking when we allowed this pseudo-Macarena dance craze to take off when it did? I guess audiences felt this was funny because of the blend of English, Spanish and Portuguese lyrics resulting in it being nonsensical lyrically.
#4
Oh joy, another rage bait song to grace our list. This one's even more egregious than Taylor's earlier entry given how Ariana was specifically baiting off her negative press from earlier in the decade which involved the terrorist attack at one of her concerts. Honestly the less said about this song and its intentions, the better.
#3
This was always meant to be a joke; it was released as a marketing gimmick for ringtones after all. However, when the joke becomes so potent that it gets to number one across the world, you know that it's been taken too far.
#2
How can I make a list of bad number one songs without including this travesty? Of all the songs to benefit from YouTube's shoddy algorithm, this is the luckiest of them all due to Billboard deciding to incorporate the website's data into their charts when this blew up online. At least the rest of the world quickly discarded this track the week after its debut.
#1
OK seriously, how did this dance remix of a Jack Nicholson quote get to number one when it did? From the screensaver music video to just how much of a meme it was destined to be (despite coming out a decade prior to the existence of YouTube) there was no other candidate for number one on this list.
Disagree? I'm sure you do, so tell me what you would take out or add in down below! (you can check out the #1 singles here in Australia here for reference.)
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