Absolutely awful number-one songs of the 2000s

I have to admit that I kind of had fun writing a series of articles choosing the worst number-one songs from each decade between the 1960s and the 1990s. And readers seemed to like reading them, even though they mostly seemed to enjoy telling me just how big an idiot I am for this selection or that. That’s OK – big boys don’t cry. (That’s a very subtle foreshadowing of a song that may or may not be coming up for discussion in a little while.)

But even though it was kind of fun giving another listen to some truly dreadful, yet in their time, popular songs, I really didn’t intend to extend the series past the turn of the millennium. There are a couple of reasons for that. First off, since these songs are not from the distant past, their status hasn’t had time to change as much as their older counterparts. I assumed that what their popularity says about the times and the culture and the music industry as a whole wouldn’t be quite as interesting as something from a very different era.

But more importantly, I just didn’t think I’d have as much raw material with which to work. As a simple matter of numbers, there just weren’t as many songs to draw from. That had been a trend in the late 1990s and it continued unabated into the aughts. 2006 had the most different number-one songs of the decade. It had 18 different number ones. That total would have been fairly typical for a year back in the ‘60s or ‘70s.

Fantastically terrible number-one songs of the 2000s

But in the aughts, mainstream pop music continued a consolidation that tended to homogenize the product. Of course, a quirky song could still break through. And true genius and virtuosity could still triumph. It’s just that neither seemed to happen all that often. Not like it used to be.

I feared that since so much popular music began sounding so much alike, I wouldn’t have the obvious duds from which to select. I feared that the floor for what constituted bad pop would be somewhat higher while the ceiling for greatness would be somewhat lower. The entire product would be compressed and that makes it both harder and probably less interesting, to pick the best and the worst.

So I was going to stop with the 1990s.

But then people kept asking. Maybe not a lot of people – but enough to at least make me take a look. Or give it a listen. And what I found both confirmed my early fears and also surprised me a little bit. There was still room for true greatness, while also plenty of room for some awful pop hits. Some of those bad songs came from marginal talent who just happened to catch a wave. But some of it came from tremendous artists – artists who produced some of the best music of the era.

It just goes to show that anyone – no matter how brilliant – is capable of a misstep.  I mean, the day I started writing this, I saw Justin Tucker miss a field goal. (That analogy may not mean much to readers who aren’t fans of American football, but trust me, it’s appropriate.)

So anyway, these are my choices for the ten worst Billboard number one songs between 2000 and 2009. I want to stress this is my personal opinion. We didn’t have a bank of computers crunching the numbers. We didn’t ask AI to do it for us. The good folks at AudioPhix just turned me loose. I don’t speak for any of them.

But I will say, I tried to be as objective as I could. To wit … I don’t think I have ever personally liked a Justin Timberlake song, but I am not including any of his three chart toppers in the following list. On some level, I can recognize why those songs worked for listeners.

On the other hand, in doing a casual poll amongst friends, I learned that people really, truly HATE “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter. But I don’t. At worst it would be a (dis)honorable mention for me. Besides, I have several nearly identical songs standing in for it that I think are worse.

So with that out of the way, here we go. No (dis)honorable mentions this time. Let’s get right to the good … er … bad stuff.