Ranking Every Song That Charted on Alternative in 2014

[Green Baron]

Okay, so that last Ranking Everything list was a bit of a clusterfuck, but this one will be better organized and timed. And I should probably also mention that only songs that debuted in 2014 are eligible for ranking. No matter how long or short the chart run is, if it's on, it counts!

Cody Pipa Devin Web Devil Marlena Nylund shakermaker Daryl the Beryl American Idiot Shadows in the Dark Kurt H. maine Zeebz Lordef†ones

[Daryl the Beryl]

Looking forward to this again.

[H.]

I will be following along.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Also, I predict that "Habits (Stay High)" will be Baron's worst song that charted on Alternative.

[maine]

Jan 24, 2015 21:05:09 GMT -5 Daryl the Beryl said:

Also, I predict that "Habits (Stay High)" will be Baron's worst song that charted on Alternative.

Guessing this too lol.

[Web]

Looking forward to this list! I'm guessing this is using Billboard's charts to determine the eligible songs?

I'd hope to see Dosas & Mimosas, My Sweet Summer, or A Sky Full Of Stars at the very bottom. Those would probably be my bottom 3. I don't think it's Habits though, I think Tove Lo grew on Baron after her album dropped so he might have softened his stance there. (could be wrong too)

[Green Baron]

120
"Doses & Mimosas"
Cherub
Peak: #23 | Weeks on: 18

To me, there was no excusing this clusterfuck of a song, a five minute piece of absolute s**t that would make even the worst of the year jealous like Nick Jonas about the fact that they couldn't have sucked more than Cherub did this year. They say you only get one chance to make a first impression, and when your first impression is a song about "bitch ass hoes", it's safe to say I'm not interested in checking out anything else you made. I mean, come on. Rhyming champagne and cocaine with each other wasn't cool when Cavo did it back in 2009, and it's not cool in 2014, especially when it follows "To all the punk ass f**ks that just wanna talk s**t, I hate you too. To all the high class ass that's too hard to pass, oh yeah I hate you too." All I know is this, Cherub. I hate you too. Oh yes I do.

[Green Baron]

119
"Habits (Stay High)"
Tove Lo
Peak: #19 | Weeks on: 20

Okay, so it wasn't quite the worst song to chart on Alternative this year, but it certainly made a case for it. Whether it's the nails-on-a-chalkboard annoying "ooh-ooh-ooh"s or the absolutely stupid lyrics (advice to future lyricists: don't talk about "binging on Twinkies" or "going to sex clubs"), there was next to nothing redeemable about this huge pile-o'-crap. Side note: I've ranted about this enough, but come on, this is a run-of-the-mill pop song. Alternative my butthole surfer. But I digress. Her debut album isn't all too bad, but this is easily the worst song on it. "Not on Drugs" is actually kind of good, I have to admit. Then again, that wasn't the world's introduction to this Swedish self-deprecating mess. Oh, how I wish it was.

[Green Baron]

118
"Shark Attack"
Grouplove
Peak: #20 | Weeks on: 15

I absolutely loathe Grouplove. One of the worst bands of the indie era, the lead singer sounds like his nuts have been caught in a vise and is straining to redeem any sense of manhood he still has left in him as his testicles are slowly mutilated. This s**t is grating. It's an instant station-changer and as soon as Christian Zucchini opens his mouth, I run to the hills (run for your liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!). "Tongue Tied" was awful. "Itchin' on a Photograph" was awful. "Ways to Go" was absolute f**king crap. This ranks somewhere in the middle, and I don't think they'll ever make a song as un-bad as "Colours" was. Aside from Zucconi's ear-splitting singing, there's also the annoyingly jittery vibe of the instrumentation. It's a recipe for disaster, and disaster it was.

[Green Baron]

117
"Reflections"
MisterWives
Peak: #31 | Weeks on: 11*

Oh, hey, wanna talk about annoying vocals? Here's another one for you. Nothing goes right in "Reflections". The instrumentation has this very irritating disco vibe to it, and as soon as Mandy Lee opens her mouth, there's no turning back from the ninth circle of Hell that this song has unleashed. There's a yodelling that you can blatantly hear under it, and it sounds like a cow. The part where everything breaks down and makes the rest of the song sound like a Dylan classic is when she does his pig-squeal and sings "Put me on the shelf, discipline myseeeeeeeeeeelf". It makes me cringe just to type those lyrics because A) They're really f**king terrible and B) THE WAY SHE SINGS THEM IS JESUS f**king HORRIBLE!!! Get this out of here!

[Green Baron]

116
"Bridges"
BROODS
Peak: #25 | Weeks on: 18

You know what? The beginning of this song isn't too bad. There's an ethereal atmosphere floating around in the background, and the vocals line up nice with the instrumentation. And then there's... "AND WE'RE BURNING DOWN THE BRIDGES! *synth**synth**synth*synth*". Yep. That chorus is so horrible it just negates anything decent that the verses had to it. God damn. Lay down on the synths a bit, will you? The sheer onslaught of it is like dubstep, only it's not as in-your-face. It might not be as bad as "Habits", but it's probably right below it. 

[Green Baron]

115
"Best Day of My Life"
American Authors
Peak: #18 | Weeks on: 20

If it truly was the best day of my life, I would never hear this song at all. Unfortunately, that's damn near impossible because of the constant recurrent airplay it still gets on Hot AC and CHR stations, not to mention the small percent of Alternative stations that still have this in rotation. Melodically, this is the exact same song as "It's Time" by Imagine Dragons, mixing in elements of "On Top of the World" as well. Listening to their debut album, Oh, What a Life, the melodies of "How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty and "I Believe" by Basic Vacation (a song that'll show up here soon enough) are also borrowed. "Best Day of My Life", individually, is just a very bad song. The mandolin gets annoying after some time and the chorus is tacky and cheesy. Didn't this chart on Hot AC first anyways?...

[shakermaker]

Lol "Best Day of My Life" should've been at the very bottom of the list along with fucking "Car Radio", like I've said before that Cherub song is a guilty pleasure of mine (along with the Nick Jonas song alluded to here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[Daryl the Beryl]

Tove Lo is pop. Thank goodness Habits didn't reach the top 10. Anyway, predictable list so far. Wait, how did "Best Day of My Life" appear before "A Sky Full of Stars" when you gave the former a D- and the latter an F?

[Green Baron]

Jan 25, 2015 2:34:02 GMT -5 Daryl the Beryl said:

Tove Lo is pop. Thank goodness Habits didn't reach the top 10. Anyway, predictable list so far. Wait, how did "Best Day of My Life" appear before "A Sky Full of Stars" when you gave the former a D- and the latter an F?

My ratings aren't set in stone. They fluctuate.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Jan 25, 2015 2:41:55 GMT -5 Green Baron said:

Jan 25, 2015 2:34:02 GMT -5 Daryl the Beryl said:

Tove Lo is pop. Thank goodness Habits didn't reach the top 10. Anyway, predictable list so far. Wait, how did "Best Day of My Life" appear before "A Sky Full of Stars" when you gave the former a D- and the latter an F?

My ratings aren't set in stone. They fluctuate.

I see. Looking forward to the rest of the list!

[Web]

Okay so I was right about Cherub and wrong about Tove Lo. I'll take it.

Broods and American Authors I didn't hate but they were wholly unmemorable. The rest I'm very happy to see this low. 

[H.]

I love Cherub and Tove, but the American Authors song is the worst.

[Green Baron]

114
"My Sweet Summer"
The Dirty Heads
Peak: #3 | Weeks on: 26

When The Dirty Heads released "Spread Too Thin" as the lead single off of their second album Cabin By the Sea, it showed that maybe they had stopped sucking. It flopped, settling for only a #14 peak, while the other two singles off that record struggled to crack Top 30. After that, I assumed these reggae-rappers were done, until they released "My Sweet Summer" and earned their second-biggest hit of their career. There's absolutely nothing redeemable about this song at all. It's just awful. What happened to the reggae, mahn? This sounds like "One More Night" by Maroon 5, and the rapping in it is choppy and unbearable. Second single "Sound of Change" looks to be far less of a hit than this was, thankfully, but that doesn't excuse how the band's worst single to date struck it so big.

[Green Baron]

113
"A Sky Full of Stars"
Coldplay
Peak: #5 | Weeks on: 20

Chris Martin was dumped by Gwenyth Paltrow and became sad. The sadness manifested into an album. The album manifested into a tedious listen that would rank somewhere between X&Y and Mylo Xyloto. That's not a compliment. Part of the reason why was because of "A Sky Full of Stars", which saw Coldplay sell out and go the EDM route. This song was produced by Avicii, which is pretty much all you really need to know. It's whiny, the EDM sounds completely forced and out of place, and when Martin tries to reach that high note and sing "such a heavenly vi~eeeeeeeeee~www" it's so off-kilter that there's no masking my disgust for it anymore. I had predicted that the EDM on it would turn Alternative listeners off, but it didn't. And here we are now, with this song ending up as one of the band's biggest hits. Disgusting.

[Green Baron]

112
"Cool Kids"
Echosmith
Peak: #35 | Weeks on: 12

The fact that this song even charted on Alternative is a travesty. It was a Top 10 Hot AC it when suddenly stations jumped on the bandwagon and drove it into the top 40 here. It's also a terrible song, no matter what format or genre. Vocalist Sydney Sierrota sounds a lot like Taylor Swift, and she also has a tendency to sing like she cares way too much about stupid little things. In this case, the stupid little things are cool kids. How old are you? 12? The lyrics are incredibly cliched, and I never thought I'd ever hear anyone make a song talking about these so-called kids and how badly they want to fit in with them. This sounds like a teenage girl's diary entry in the sixth grade, dammit. Instrumentally, it's boring, and it's near impossible to tell that there's an actual band behind the singer, because the instruments are toned down so significantly to make the singing shine out. "Cool Kids" is a song made by people who don't know what it's actually like to want to be cool kids, because if they did, they wouldn't be singing about what goes on in the reality that movies portray.

[Web]

My trifecta is complete (Cherub, Coldplay & Dirty Heads)! I am in complete agreement with you so far and do not enjoy any song that has been listed. I will forever fail to understand why A Sky Full Of Stars became so popular. Songs like Clocks, Viva La Vida, The Scientist, Politik, Yellow, and even Speed Of Sound are far far better.

[H.]

I also hate Cool Kids.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Still waiting for Baron to give rants on Vance Joy, Milky Chance and The Black Keys (Fever)

[Lordef†ones]

Well I can safely say I rather enjoy the bottom 5. "Doses & Mimosas" and "Reflections" I actually disliked at first but they grew on me. Nonetheless I'm looking forward to this even if it never gets finished.

[Green Baron]

111
"Stolen Dance"
Milky Chance
Peak: #1 [1o weeks] | Weeks on: 33

2014 was an extremely weak year for #1s. Aside from "Do I Wanna Know?", "Dangerous", "Come With Me Now" and "Something From Nothing", the tracks that were at the pinnacle were a hodgepodge of boring, irritating and unmemorable. The debut single from this German folktronica duo manages to hit all three on the head. The vocalist sings with an annoying slur in his voice, like he drank a gallon of expired milk and is now attempting to sing with a rancid taste in his mouth. The lyrics are a cross between something about dancing and something about marijuana withdrawal, which makes me wonder, why didn't they just call this song "Stolen Weed"? The cops clearly busted him and took away his sweet leaf, so why talk about dancing?

"I want you, we can bring it a bong
Smoking pot while I sing this song, shouldn't talk about it
Hookah, vaping, blunts, puffing ganja all night long
Stoned in paradise, shouldn't talk about it
I'm Peter Parker and I need my Mary Jane
Without you I am so pained, shouldn't talk about it..."

[Green Baron]

110
"Centuries"
Fall Out Boy
Peak: #4 | Weeks on: 19

This is so close to being a Maroon 5 song. Rhythmically, this is identical to "Animals", while Patrick Stump's whine can easily be compared to Adam Levine's. Both bands started out promising only to fizzle out fast, and on album number seis, Fall Out Boy take a dump on two classic movies by defecating on the album that bears their names. This is yet another step in the continuous poppification of what used to be a fairly decent pop-punk act. Take This to Your Grave was a good debut, and now we've come to the point where they sound like one of the worst pop bands in the business. ESPN didn't help matters, as everytime Sportscenter was on I was treated to a constant repetition of this awful, awful tune. No one will remember this song in the next five years, much less for centuries.

[Green Baron]

109
"Best Friend"
Foster the People
Peak: #15 | Weeks on: 15

Torches was a fairly decent debut album, containing some songs that I found very enjoyable. Unfortunately, they could not strike gold twice as Supermodel proved to fail both critically and commercially. Lead single "Coming of Age" was an underwhelming start to the era, and the followup "Best Friend" was the worst song on the album. They had gems like "Are You What You Want to Be?" and "Ask Yourself" in the wings, and instead they went with essentially a how-to guide for making sure your friend enjoys his time tripping on acid. Foster's vocals on this are deplorable, and when he reaches into his falsetto it pierces my ears. It's just annoying and not even radio-friendly. 

[Green Baron]

108
"Yellow Flicker Beat"
Lorde
Peak: #10 | Weeks on: 16*

Another artist who disappointed in 2014, the precocious New Zealand pop star became the primary contributor to the soundtrack of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part I and in turn created her worst song yet. There's a darker vibe on this that makes it a bit more alternative, but in turn she sacrifices quality as "Yellow Flicker Beat" is completely unmemorable. The hook to this is not effective, and aside from the "I'm going in hard", I can't remember a single line in this. Lorde's quirk was that she could write simple, catchy pop songs that had a darker, more complex tone to them than the average pop star, but the catchiness on this does not exist.

[Shadows in the Dark]

I'm looking forward to this. I can get behind most of this bottom list (although I like "A Sky Full of Stars", "My Sweet Summer", and "Centuries").