Chude Uzoka-Anofienem, Staff 

2022 felt like a weird year for music to me. It seemed like every song that I’d hear on the radio, I was thinking to myself, “who the heck is this?”, making me feel as out of touch as the older adults in my life who say, “you’re the only way I hear about new music.” The fact that I’m still listening to radio is probably part of the problem, but basically what happens is a song gets popular on TikTok, and then makes the rounds on Spotify, which gets it to chart on Billboard, and then it starts to receive radio airplay. A month later, your mom’s in the car singing along to a song your favorite TikToker used in their video and now it’s not cool anymore. There were lots of songs this year that I liked (Silk Sonic being my favorite act that delivered this year), but there were lots that I could do without. 

Before I get into the actual list, here are some dishonorable mentions:

Big Energy by Latto

Sweetest Pie by Dua Lipa & Megan Thee Stallion 

pushin P by Gunna & Future ft. Young Thug

Fingers Crossed by Lauren Spencer Smith

Broadway Girls by Lil Durk ft. Morgan Wallen

Bet On Me by Walk off the Earth ft. D Smoke

Music for a Sushi Restaurant by Harry Styles

She Likes It by Russell Dickerson ft. Jake Scott

Made You Look by Meghan Trainor 

#10 Woman by Doja Cat 

When I first heard this song, I thought, “What’s a ‘wooma’”? Turns out she’s putting on weird Patois, which is about as out-of-place as me “axing you question, no cap!” Doja Cat, born in Los Angeles to a Jewish mom and a South African dad, is trying to sound like she’s from the Caribbean, when the closest island she was born to was Santa Cruz. Now it’s no secret that Doja Cat is trying to sound like Rihanna, as in the song she says, “I could be the CEO, just look at Robyn Fenty.” Doja, it’s okay. We don’t need a replacement for Ri-Ri. Truth be told, I really didn’t miss her.

#9 Super Gremlin by Kodak Black

I have never, for the life of me, been able to understand the appeal of this guy. His flow is nasal and slurred, his writing is sloppy, and I can never get over his voice. He sounds like a coclique baby crying itself to sleep. ZEZE, the one song from him that I can stomach, was saved by the steel drums and contributions from Travis Scott and Offset. Kodak Black, who gets in trouble with the law about as often as I get gas, had the ninth most popular song of 2022 and it doesn’t really do much to impress me in any way. The chipmunk vocal sample grew on my nerves in record time, the trap beat is completely hackneyed, we get several poop references throughout the song, and he talks about taking fake drugs, which can lead to at best the worst trip of your life and at worst a surprise OD. Apparently, this song is a diss track towards somebody named Jackboy, who’s a member of Kodak Black’s Sniper Gang crew, but the lines are so interspersed with the bragging that I could hardly notice. Kodak Black frames himself here as a troubled antihero who’s on a redemption arc, which is always essential for a flimsy justification for defending him. When it comes to this song and gremlins in general, I’d like a little sunlight.

#8 Boyfriend by Dove Cameron

From what I’ve been able to gather, Dove Cameron is kind of like this generation’s Miley Cyrus, but on a much smaller scale. Whereas Miley Cyrus skyrocketed to fame as a child star with Hannah Montana and then went on to have 8 top ten hits as an adult, Cameron was on a show where she played her own twin and then played Maleficent’s daughter in a made-for-TV movie and then……this. In this song, she sees a girl who’s with this jerk of a guy (we have to assume) and thinks she can treat her better, in a sort of gender-swapped version of Shawn Mendes’ “Treat You Better”. It sounds like it was made in some smokey lounge and then they invited an EDM artist to completely ruin the afterparty.

“Never would have left you alone/ For someone else to take you home.”

This just seals the deal. That girl’s all by herself, because her man stepped away from her for a few seconds and Cameron thinks she’s fair game to be taken home by someone else. Let’s all thank Dove Cameron for showing everyone that a bi girl can be just as big a sex pest as a frat guy. 

#7 I Ain’t Worried by OneRepublic

I don’t have much to say here. OneRepublic is a band that I don’t really care too much for. Ryan Tedder’s falsetto is something that I can tolerate from time to time. “Feel It Still” did grow on me, but this song feels like your short window of time is running out and you’re desperate for something to hold people’s attention – which is echoed in the melodic key progression. It feels like it’s trying to diffuse into some tension, but never reaches that point, only remaining in limbo and stagnation.

#6 Bring Back the Time by NKOTB and a bunch of old goobers from yesteryear

This may have been funny a few years ago, but it’s just sad now. In 2018, these guys released a song called “80s Baby”, which is pretty much the same as this just with different guest stars. This time, the Old Kids On the Porch teamed up with Rick Astley, En Vogue and Salt-N-Pepa for what is the musical equivalent of attending your twenty year high school reunion and then attending your twenty-five year high school reunion while telling the same stories. I’d like to mention that every year, the NKOTB have a cruise, where people who lost their looks a long time ago can spend a week on a boat in hopes that a half-drunk Donnie Wahlberg can sing to them one more time. 

“So Bring Back the Time/You know we still got the magic”

Yeah, keep telling yourself that, whatever helps you sleep at night.

#5 TO THE MOON by JNR Choi and Sam Tompkins

This song begins with an abbreviated cover of Bruno Mars’ ‘Talking to The Moon’ by UK singer-songwriter Sam Tompkins, whose crooning strips the song of R&B flavor. Since drill uses samples in this vein, and adds huge percussion over it, we have UK drill rapper JNR Choi, who dropped an album last year that hardly got any attention. On this song, he seems to be doing his best Pop Smoke impression and the song goes viral because the catchphrase ‘to the moon’ is common in the crypto scene. I mean, the cover single is literally a screenshot of Elon Musk tweeting it. Capitalizing on current trends would be enough to dislike this, but the drill beat is painfully sterile, and this guy JNR doesn’t acquit himself well at all. It’s a generic love and sex song and naturally it got an American remix, with Fivio Foreign and Gunna delivering more bland garbage. So, let’s be clear here: this song got popular because of a bad cover, an even worse remix and a crypto meme. This is less like Apollo 11 and more like Apollo 1 or 13, completely worthless.

#4 High by The Chainsmokers

After releasing new singles consistently from 2014 to 2019, The Chainsmokers took a three-year hiatus. Why would DJs who make music for people to dance to might not have put out any music during a pandemic, when lots of clubs were closed down? Who knows. But during the break, they spent a lot of time listening to the Arctic Monkeys. A lot of the songs seems to be reminiscent of that era. The song is about being an enabler to an addict who can’t change. Feel like there are some comparisons to be made to people who still listen to The Chainsmokers, despite the fact that even though they suck, they just can’t help themselves. Remember when they used to get singers like Halsey and Daya? They need to do that again, because—seriously they spent three years doing nothing—they couldn’t take a couple singing lessons. Nah, just overproduce the vocals and mask it with an awful beat and we’re good to go. I could say that people could only love this song when they’re high, but I don’t believe for a second that any drug would make this tolerable.

#3 h2hoe by cupcakKe

 

Uhhhh, yeah, I can’t really type the lyrics to this song without having to delete it anyway. Anyway, for those who aren’t familiar with “cupcakKe”, (try not to cut yourself on the edge) her whole gimmick is that she’s a shock rapper. The “throw the GPS, make him come the fastest route” line made me laugh a bit, even if it is super clumsy. Honestly, I’m trying to say something about this song that won’t get me in trouble with my editor. Even though I really hate the cadence of this song, the worst part is that flute/recorder thing in the background. What is that? Overall, this song is just gratuitous for the sake of being gratuitous. It’s not particularly clever and there’s no message here, just her trying to say as many vulgar things as she can in three minutes to make a sixteen-year old’s laugh. If the goal was to expose the double standard of men being allowed to talk about sex whereas women aren’t, that would’ve been ok if Cardi B and Nicki Minaj didn’t already do this and showed the world that no one really cares outside of prudes who look like they avert their eyes whenever their wives take their socks off. I think this song is just as stupid and pointless as the rap songs about sex by men that I’ve made fun of in the past. 

#2 Rich Flex and Privileged Rappers by Drake & 21 Savage

That’s right, it’s a two-way tie, but they both get the Rick Ross award for Fakest Rapper.

“Ayy, ayy, ayy, ayy, ayy

I’m on that Slaughter Gang sh!t, ayy, murder gang sh!t

Ayy, Slaughter Gang sh!t, ayy, murder gang sh!t, ayy”

I have a question for just about every rapper out there. Why do you let Drake get away with this? Is it because he’s so popular? That every time he releases an album every song from it is in the Top 20? Do you want to be nice to him so he might feature you and be left with the sloppy seconds from his Spotify pennies? If that’s not it, then why do you let him pretend he’s such a hard gangster when he’s an actor from Canada who has a career as a rapper because Lil Wayne was high on cough syrup and said he could be on Young Money. I mean, I get it, lots of rappers are full of it. Eazy-E, one of the grandfathers of Gangsta Rap, sold drugs and then became a rapper because he felt it was an easier way to make money. I get some of it’s an act. However, a lot of them came up in rough neighborhoods and they can rap about what happened to their friends or family. Drake grew up in a country that has an average of 145-gun homicides a year. A YEAR! And he’s talking about being “on that Slaughter Gang sh!t” and “chrome on chrome”. Get – and I can’t stress this enough – outta here with that! Then he has the gall to release a song called “Privileged Rappers” and it’s NOT about how easy he had it. In fact, he says this: “I hate a privileged rapper who don’t even know what it take”. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! You’re a privileged rapper, Aubrey! And I know Drake stans will be saying, “but didn’t you see that post from his first show?”

This made the rounds on social media last October. He got paid $100 as the opener for a show in Toronto. You know who he opened for? ICE CUBE! Tell me who, in their first show, gets to be the opening act for a LEGEND. How does that happen without connections or privilege? Drake has so little self-awareness, he couldn’t tell you where his elbow is. Maybe next year he can write a song about how he hates Canadian rappers who had a friend whose dad was an acting agent which led to them doing over 100 episodes of TV, then had two uncles in the music industry and was able to somehow open for Ice Cube and then almost immediately, start working with Lil Wayne, who was the hottest rapper of the mid-to-late 2000s. It’s a real shame this man bought a $100,000,000 mansion and it didn’t come with a single mirror.

#1 ABCDEFU by Gayle

This song was released in 2021, but it didn’t blow up until February 2022, peaking at #3 on Billboard off the strength of angry teenage girls discovering it and using it in the TikToks to help them get through their funny little teenage breakups. Everything about this song is just horrendous. From the vocal fry singing to the lyrics where she outs herself as materialistic and self-centered. She’s mad that he has a relationship with his family, and I hate that basic guitar they buried in the instrumental so they could pretend this is a “rock” song. Finally, the whole reciting the alphabet gimmick is just childish. If “Numb Little Bug” was baby’s first ennui, then this is baby’s first teenage angst. It also goes without, but the sequence of letters in the title doesn’t spell anything. If you want to spell things, how about O N E – H I T  W O N D E R. Since releasing this song, she’s released five more; none of them charted. Her first EP debuted two months after this song’s peak success, hitting #138 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. The slot above was Bob Seger’s Greatest Hits album. That’s right, her debut album got beat that week by a CD they’ve been selling at truck stops since before she was even born. Last but not least, I’d like to cap it off with this. She says “that sh!t you call art”. There’s an old saying Gayle, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw steaming piles of barely coherent, poorly produced, ultimately unlistenable pieces of excrement.