The Sloppy Dog's Worst of 2011: Singles

It’s been a barren year for music, with the pop genre in particular churning out some truly awful material. The likes of Pixie Lott and The Saturdays have rarely been bastions of pop greatness, as evidenced by their awful output in 2011, but even the more reliable contenders such as JLS have produced some serious tripe. Luckily for them, none of them have made our final ten...

10. Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger
You can’t stop! Looking at her! MySpacing her! Chattin’ shit ‘bout her! That makes you’s a hater, but we’s also’s a hater, so you’s in good company. Some begrudging respect must go to Lloyd for such brazenness, and it certainly got people talking, but beyond that, it’s hard not to actively detest every single note of Swagger Jagger.

9. Viva Brother – Darling Buds of May
Initially, the promise of such a Britpop-heavy entity was hugely appealing, but in its execution, it all went horribly, horribly wrong, laden down with piss-weak riffs, scoff-inducing lyrics and affected vocals. Had this appeared at the heady days of the genre’s reign, it would’ve been laughed out of the Melody Maker within its first eight bars.

8. Kreayshawn - Gucci Gucci
It’s a mercy that this slithery, sub-Ke$ha trampfest didn’t perform better than it did, although just a couple of seconds exposure is all it takes to poison your system, with irreversible effects. That said, you can take some amusement from the fact that, even amidst all its attitude and boastfulness and supposed stabs at credibility, it just sounds like The Llama Song slowed down.

7. Jason DeRulo - Don't Wanna Go Home
He’s always been partial to the more peculiar sample, as far back as his passable debut single Whatcha Say. But the interpolation of The Banana Boat Song – a song whose inclusion in Beetlejuice and/or 1980s Trio ads is hard to shake off – was one sample too far. And for the love of God, STOP SINGING YOUR BLOODY NAME. Just look what happened to Craig David.

6. Nicole Scherzinger – Right There
Becoming one of the most loathed women on television thanks to her many X Factor USA misfires, ol’ Shitsinger’s popularity is taking quite a plummet lately, and yet, her musical output is still the worst thing about her. Right There was a desperate stab at Rihanna-style sluttiness, grinding away scuzzily, rhyming ‘dirty’ with ‘dirty’, and all stuffed to the gills with cod-Patois.

5. Yasmin - Finish Line
A song with so little substance it barely even exists. It’s mad that a producer actually finished this beige puddle and thought “Hey, that’s pretty good.” Or that a label executive thought it single material. Or that DJs considered it worth playing. Even with its peculiar nod to Mortal Kombat , it was the single most boring track since Sixpence None The Richer shat their sappy Christian crud all over the charts.

4. SBTRKT – Wildfire
Actually not a million miles from Finish Line in that it’s pretty much a lukewarm cesspool of swilling ad-libs and R&B clichés, but its constant overplay on 6Music was the final nail in its coffin. As producers, SBTRKT certainly know how to work a mixing desk, but somewhere along the line, they got very, very stoned and created this molten, miserable, slapdash non-entity of a song.

3. The Wanted - Glad You Came
Proving that All Time Low was (a) very much a one-off, and (b) way too good for them, The Wanted continue in their quest – even in the presence of One Direction – to become Britain’s most pointless boyband. The foolish Balearic squelch of Glad You Came was utterly devoid of character, and urinated all over the very concept of house music. Well done, all parties involved. *slow clap*

2. Adele - Rumour Has It
Rolling In The Deep just missed out on a place in our countdown of undesirables, on account of it sounding like a particularly violent yawn, but the insipid Rumour Has It manages the feat. Adele’s actually gone up in our estimations this year, but the complete lack of chorus here cannot be excused. One can only assume this was written on the back of a fag packet in five minutes one hungover morning.

1. Rihanna - What's My Name
Technically released in 2010 – but then, technically, it’s not even actual music – this discharge-splattered, dishwater-dull, airplay-rapist of a track lived well into 2011, polluting airwaves with its abysmal lyrics, its teeth-grinding hook and its general Rihanna-ness. And while the woman herself carries much of the blame, radio, TV and press should be ashamed of themselves, consistently peddling this useless creature’s atrocious output, irrespective of quality. If pop music really is dying on its arse, it’s down to fucking inexcusable tripe like this being put on a pedestal.