No one mourns the wicked, but we do take it upon ourselves to eulogize the truly awful every year about this time. Some pop artists seemed to be outrightly trolling to get onto a list like this — you don’t release a song called “Think U the Shit (Fart)” thinking you’re going after a Grammy — while others at least started out with the best intentions. Take “Woman’s World,” which ended up being an anthem of empowerment, as intended … if empowering a global sense of schadenfreude counts.

Sometimes a song doesn’t reach peak wretched until the music video hits. And, yeah, such was the case with Katy Perry’s single, which on its own merely seemed like a kindergartner’s attempt to remake “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” or “I’m Every Woman.” It took the video to make it clear just how confused everyone involved in the enterprise was, even as it was the audience that got blamed for being mixed up, when we had to be informed that the first half was supposed to be a send-up of sexism, while the second half was honestly woman-glorifying. (For the record, the satirical and sincere parts seemed interchangeable.) Surely this could have been avoided by putting it in front of a focus group? Or was there a focus group that whispered amongst themselves and collectively decided to prank Perry? (It brings no joy to say this, by the way, speaking as somebody who often loves Katy. Sometimes it’s hard to be a Kat.)

One thing we can’t help noticing: Out of the 15 tracks in this worst-of-2024, eight have featured guests or involve collabs, all of them mismatches where the artists just brought out the worst in each other. (And this isn’t even including other match-ups that could just as easily have made our list, like Imagine Dragons and J Balvin’s equally misbegotten “Eyes Closed.”) Remember, kids, in music, the buddy system can result in a bomb even more readily than a boon. —Chris Willman

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