Worst Pop Radio Callouts

[iHype.]

Worst Pop Radio Callout Scores (1999-2019)

This is a compilation of songs that reached the lowest scores in Pop radio callouts at one point -- negative net positive's. Archives of callouts: www.mmr247.com/mmrweb/call/index.asp


It is very hard to improve largely negative scores, and even harder to become a radio hit following.

Net Positive = the total % likability. Measured by adding % of people who view song positively, and subtracting % of people who view song negatively.

Example: Song has 63% positive reception, 13% negative reception, for a total of +50% net positive.

RANK	ARTIST	SINGLE	NET POSITIVE	NEGATIVE	POP RADIO PK.
1.	Eminem	My Name Is	-53.3%	73.3%	#29
2.	Major Lazer	Bubble Butt	-37.2%	63.6%	#40
3.	Kreayshawn	Gucci Gucci	-23.7%	56.5%	#43
4.	The Chainsmokers	#Selfie	-21.0%	55.5%	#14
5.	No Authority	Can I Get Your Number	-19.3%	42.9%	#33
6.	No Doubt	Simple Kind of Life	-17.1%	48.6%	#32
7.	Cher	Song for the Lonely	-16.7%	46.7%	#38
8.	ATC	Around the World	-14.7%	44.6%	#12
9.	U2	Beautiful Day	-13.7%	44.6%	#19
10.	SoulDecision	Ooh It's Kinda Crazy	-13.5%	43.2%	#26
11.	Kendrick Lamar	Swimming Pools	-12.5%	50.0%	#42
12.	Kid Rock	Cowboy	-11.4%	48.6%	#34
13.	Kanye West	Clique	-10.6%	50.0%	#44
14.	Lil Mama	Lip Gloss	-9.7%	48.4%	#40
15.	Enrique Iglesias	Sad Eyes	-9.7%	38.8%	#34
16.	Emilia	Big Big World	-9.2%	45.0%	#26
17.	Britney Spears	Pretty Girls	-9.0%	43.4%	#18
18.	Willow Smith	Whip My Hair	-7.7%	49.0%	#28
19.	Backstreet Boys	The Call	-7.7%	41.0%	#19
20.	The Darkness	I Believe in a Thing Called...	-7.3%	45.4%	#35
21.	Eminem	The Real Slim Shady	-6.8%	48.6%	#13
22.	Maroon 5	Feelings	-6.7%	41.9%	#29
23.	Madonna	Nothing Really Matters	-6.7%	36.7%	#25
24.	Mike Posner	Looks Like Sex	-6.5%	45.4%	-
25.	Silento	Watch Me	-6.4%	44.0%	#18
26.	LMFAO	Sorry for Party Rocking	-6.2%	43.8%	#19
27.	Christina Aguilera	Car Wash	-6.0%	44.0%	#23
28.	Jay-Z	Show Me What You Got	-5.9%	43.4%	#37
29.	Daft Punk	One More Time	-5.9%	32.4%	#33
30.	Las Ketchup	The Ketchup Song	-5.2%	44.9%	-
31.	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Californication	-5.1%	39.7%	-
32.	Will Smith	Freakin' It	-4.1%	40.8%	#40
33.	Kanye West	Mercy	-3.4%	46.4%	#40
34.	Pharrell Williams	Happy*	-3.2%	49.9%	#1
35.	Big Sean	I Don't F*ck with You	-3.2%	47.0%	#27
36.	Vengaboys	We Like to Party	-3.0%	45.1%	#23
37.	Robin Thicke	Blurred Lines*	-2.9%	49.6%	#1
38.	Jay-Z	Girls, Girls, Girls	-2.7%	45.6%	-
39.	Avril Lavigne	Wish You Were Here	-2.7%	41.9%	#30
40.	Simple Plan	Shut Up	-2.6%	41.1%	-
41.	Alice Dejay	Better Off Alone	-2.1%	39.3%	#20
42.	Mariah Carey	I Still Believe	-2.1%	37.5%	#21
43.	Sean Kingston	Back 2 Life	-1.9%	41.7%	#39
44.	Carly Rae Jepsen	I Really Like You	-1.7%	41.4%	#30
45.	Madonna	Give Me All Your Luvin'	-1.6%	41.8%	#24
46.	blink-182	What's My Age Again?	-1.5%	40.2%	#28
47.	Jesse McCartney	She's No You	-1.5%	37.7%	#24
48.	Chris Brown	Look At Me Now	-1.0%	45.5%	#32
49.	Drake	Started from the Bottom	-0.8%	42.4%	#38
50.	Britney Spears	Ooh La La	-0.5%	41.0%	#21
51.	Ariana Grande	Focus	-0.5%	40.8%	#13
52.	Jennifer Lopez	Papi	-0.3%	40.8%	#33
53.	Fannypack	Cameltoe	-0.3%	40.8%	-
54.	Fatboy Slim	Rockafeller Skank	-0.2%	39.5%	#21

* = this was far after a song's peak. It was played so much on radio that it ran into heavy dislike before going recurrent. The song had largely great scores while it was first a hit.

[Choco]

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting combo of subpar songs ("Ooh La La", "Whip My Hair"), songs that weren't really made for CHR in the first place ("My Name Is", "Started from the Bottom"), and some inexplicable ones ("The Call" is great, people).

[Pat the Cat]

Thanks for putting this together! A few thoughts/questions:

-I couldn't find LWYMMD in the fall 2017 archives on the link - do you remember what its nadir was?
-Including LWYMMD, it's interesting that songs that we suspect got payola'd well past their natural peak (another one was Alive by Krewella) haven't broken the strong negative correlation between worst net callout and chart peak yet. Perhaps we give payola too much credit for surprising chart runs?
-On the latest report, people seem to be all about Khalid - his three last hits as lead artist (including Love Lies!) are all top 10 for net callout! And Eastside is #12! All of Ariana's last four singles are between 21-30.
-Thank you for reminding me of the greatness that was the Ketchup song

[walt91]

Surprised that I Still Believe, Beautiful Day, The Call, and Californication are on here, they don't sound like they'd be that divisive.

Also, holy s**t @ My Name Is having a -53 net positive

[iHype.]

Jun 9, 2019 14:36:04 GMT -5 walt91 said:

Surprised that I Still Believe, Beautiful Day, The Call, and Californication are on here, they don't sound like they'd be that divisive.

Also, holy s**t @ My Name Is having a -53 net positive

I think ones like I Still Believe, Maroon 5’s Feelings, and Xtina’s Car Wash which aren’t viewed *badly* and aren’t controversial just did bad because the artists had radio fatigue with listeners (lots of hits the past years) and they released something very mid-level that just didn’t stick with listeners upon first impression.
-
Eminem’s debut radio single doing absolutely terrible just shows how controversial he was when he debuted. I bet nobody would’ve thought he’d become the top selling artist of the century after.

[ry4n]

So basically, any song that stands out and sounds different from the average norm is what's in this list.

[iHype.]

Listening to many for a first time and:
Cher Song for the Lonely
Mike Posner Looks Like Sex
Will Smith Freakin' It
Fannypack Cameltoe
Enrique Iglesias Sad Eyes
Backstreet Boys The Call
Emilia Big Big World

Are all pretty laughably bad.

[iHype.]

Jun 9, 2019 14:25:07 GMT -5 Pat the Cat said:

Thanks for putting this together! A few thoughts/questions:

-I couldn't find LWYMMD in the fall 2017 archives on the link - do you remember what its nadir was?
-Including LWYMMD, it's interesting that songs that we suspect got payola'd well past their natural peak (another one was Alive by Krewella) haven't broken the strong negative correlation between worst net callout and chart peak yet. Perhaps we give payola too much credit for surprising chart runs?
-On the latest report, people seem to be all about Khalid - his three last hits as lead artist (including Love Lies!) are all top 10 for net callout! And Eastside is #12! All of Ariana's last four singles are between 21-30.
-Thank you for reminding me of the greatness that was the Ketchup song

www.mmr247.com/mmrweb/call/callout.asp?Sort=P&Archived=1&FORMAT=H1&SEX=3&AGE=3&GRC=C&TestDate=11%2F24%2F2017&newPage=Show+Report

LWYMMD only reached a low of +23.8% net positive. Which is pretty low, especially for her standards, and one of the lowest of 2017 but not close to an all-time low. 

[SPRΞΞ]

Blurred Lines and Happy overstayed their welcome for many weeks. I understood the eventual negative.

[walt91]

Ok out of morbid curiosity I listened to that Cameltoe song... oh my f**king god, what pop station decided to play that?

[cassiuscasanova]

I agree with most of these choices minus cliqueand swimming pools

[Au$tin]

Damn, I miss the days when even songs that hadn't charted yet could reach callout scores. Nowadays we get like 15 recurrent and a sporadic view of songs already in the top 25.

Eminem My Name Is -53.3% 73.3%

Dear God. 💀

[Khia]

This is really interesting! Thanks for posting. I remember the callouts for "Focus" being a big deal; I didn't realize 50 songs did worse 💀

"Californication" did chart, though. It peaked at #31.

[deepston]

17. Britney Spears Pretty Girls -9.0% 43.4%

can't say I'm surprised though

[Brazilian Guy]

Simple Kind of Life does not deserve wtf...

[Love Plastic Love]

From the way people talk about it, I would have expected Taylor to have at least two songs in the top 25 (LWYMMD and Me!)
Some of these make sense because they were not pop (or not pop yet?) like Eminem. Some are just bad songs. But, seriously, why would Simple Kind of Life be among the worst ever? Or Nothing Really Matters and Wish You Were Here or hell, even the Call. Well, I guess context matters. If I remember correctly, The Call came out when that type of sound and BSB themselves were over or on their way out. I bet if it had come earlier in the teen pop explosion it would have tested better.

[NeRD]

I'm sad about Beautiful Day having bad callous. :(

[ry4n]

Jun 9, 2019 19:38:04 GMT -5 NeRD said:

I'm sad about Beautiful Day having bad callous. :(

Kinda surprising since it won ROTY and SOTY at the Grammys

[NeRD]

Jun 9, 2019 19:58:21 GMT -5 ry4n said:

Jun 9, 2019 19:38:04 GMT -5 NeRD said:

I'm sad about Beautiful Day having bad callous. :(

Kinda surprising since it won ROTY and SOTY at the Grammys

I guess talent always wins in the end after all. :'(

[jodakyellow]

“Wish You Were Here” is so damn good why is it here lol.

This is the thread I’ve been waiting for, btw, so THANK YOU

[trustypepper]

Jun 9, 2019 21:36:12 GMT -5 jodakyellow said:

“Wish You Were Here” is so damn good why is it here lol.

This is the thread I’ve been waiting for, btw, so THANK YOU

I think the “damn damn damn” part always threw people off. It did for me at first too but I grew to love the song.

[neverduplicated]

This is very interesting. Thank you for compiling the list. Is there a list of best call out scores ever?

[iHype.]

Jun 9, 2019 17:08:37 GMT -5 SPRΞΞ said:

Blurred Lines and Happy overstayed their welcome for many weeks. I understood the eventual negative.

Both have the two highest radio audience peaks in a week ever. So I think its no coincidence they got pushed into record negative levels while still current at radio lol.

Jun 9, 2019 23:35:47 GMT -5 neverduplicated said:

This is very interesting. Thank you for compiling the list. Is there a list of best call out scores ever?

Actually coming soon. 

[willapted33]

swimming pools lmao

they probably mistook it for a drinking song

edit: one more time is probably an even bigger mistake, arguably a top 5 dance song ever

[Enigma.]

Damn, Eminem really had a lot of haters back in the day. But at irrelevant tracks like Back 2 Life even making the callouts.

[kingofpain]

I don’t even remember No Authority!

[vithor]

'Happy' is probably the most annoying song ever created in the history of humanity.

[Deleted]

iHype. for President!

I don't know if this was the case for Feelings, but I was really disappointed when IRLY got yanked so soon as it was showing signs of being a grower as familiarity increased (I would have given it two more weeks before making a final decision), but radio dropped it.

[divasummer]

Jun 9, 2019 18:42:31 GMT -5 Love Plastic Love said:

From the way people talk about it, I would have expected Taylor to have at least two songs in the top 25 (LWYMMD and Me!)
Some of these make sense because they were not pop (or not pop yet?) like Eminem. Some are just bad songs. But, seriously, why would Simple Kind of Life be among the worst ever? Or Nothing Really Matters and Wish You Were Here or hell, even the Call. Well, I guess context matters. If I remember correctly, The Call came out when that type of sound and BSB themselves were over or on their way out. I bet if it had come earlier in the teen pop explosion it would have tested better.

On top of what you said about "The Call" and the boyband sound starting to fade.
The girl talking when he's calling her and all the Hello's etc may have annoyed people as well.
I think it may have been a little polarizing.
I love it now but when it was first released it took me a little bit to get into.
I saw them in concert that era. lol

[kcdawg13]

One More Time getting that kind of score is a travesty