We're more than halfway through the year and 2016 has already given us so many truly awful songs. Here are some of the worst:
Spoons - Macklemore
Chris Schulz: Everyone knows Macklemore are terrible. It's just a fact. But this, a "song" about deciding whether it's best to be the big spoon or little spoon in bed, just confirmed it.
Proof? It's got whistling, an off-tune hook, and this line, which someone actually wrote down and believed in at some point: "I'm stuck, completely numb in my left arm / Her knees are bony, I need my homies."
I hope they played it at Vector Arena last night so their fans could suffer.
Siena Yates: I have a lot of problems with this song, not least of which being how similar it sounds to a certain Britney Spears song, but I think that's more a matter of her just throwing back to 90s/early 2000s pop in general, rather than plagiarism.
Because here's the thing: This entire track sounds like what would happen if Mya and Britney Spears ever made a song together in the early 2000s, except worse.
The synths, the backing vocals, the beat stop in the middle followed by a big note in the chorus, using lines like "running game" and putting "to the" between random words to fill out a hook - literally, "Nah to the ah, to the no, no, no".
It was cool when Jay-Z did it in Izzo (H.O.V.A), but that was in 2001 - kind of like Overprotected.
First she's throwing back to 50s doo-wop, now she's hitting the early 2000s pop, and all the while she's trying to do a weird hip hop thing that isn't particularly convincing. So it's a yeah, nah for No.
Ghostbusters (I'm Not Afraid) - Fall Out Boy & Missy Elliot
Karl Puschmann: The remake of Ghostbusters is without a doubt the worst thing to come out this year. Possibly ever.
Oh, I don't mean the movie. That was fine. No, I'm talking about the horror show that is the movie's theme tune.
Pop-punkers Fall Out Boy and rap icon Missy Elliot - who really should've known better - pooled their powers to unleash a musical Frankenstein onto an unsuspecting world.
Titled Ghostbusters (I'm Not Afraid) this cacophonous travesty transplanted recognisable parts from Ray Parker Jr's brilliant original Ghostbusters theme onto a brand new clanging and chaotic corpse.
This created an unholy aberration between old and new that proved that these guys (and gal) are far more evil than the actual baddie in the film.
No Money - Galantis
Rachel Bache: One song I absolutely cannot stand so far this year is No Money Galantis. Every time I hear the first grating opening lines "Sorry I ain't got no money I'm not trying to be funny but I left it all at home today" I quickly change radio stations.
The up-tempo dance beats of the chorus can't save this one. Actually, it's incredibly difficult to even make it that far into the song. And it's a shame because I loved Galantis' 2015 Runaway (U & I), but No Money just feels like a badly repacked, super annoying version of that track. It has ladies-only gym/dance-aerobics class written all over it.
Love is a Soldier - Specter vs Smash Mouth
Karl Puschmann: Fratboy party starters Smash Mouth return from well-deserved exile with this new burst of musical nonsense. I guess we have Specter to not thank for that...
Specter, whoever that may be, shows up for this terrible collab with some horribly dated Euro-techno while Smash Mouth's contribution is their dusty blend of bland party-rock.
It's a helluva combo and one that -surprise, surprise - manages to completely not work at all.
Still, credit where it's due, Smash Mouth's lyrical contribution to this trainwreck is really quite special.
"Sex is a gun / You're ammunition", "Love is a soldier / And nothing can hold ya" and, in what has to be the most Smash Mouth-y of all Smash Mouth lyrics ever, "Counting down da down down / Yeah it's on tonight".
The song's one saving grace is that it's short. But even at a mere 3:09 seconds it manages to totally outstay its welcome.
If love is a solder, then raise the white flag because I unconditionally surrender.
Honourable mention: Yung Mommy - Snooki
Siena Yates: This one's kind of a bonus song because in all fairness, it was never meant to be taken seriously. But that doesn't make it a) not exist, or b) any less terrible.
Snooki - of Jersey Shore fame - figured she'd "tried everything" except making a song and then figured, how hard can it be?
