Vote for the Worst Presents: The 10 Worst Songs of 2001

Each week, we'll be featuring the worst songs from each year this decade. We'll be counting down the absolute worst songs to come out each year from 2000 to 2009, and we'll be bringing back all of the songs you wish you'd forgotten. These are the songs that people just can't seem to believe exist, because they're just so terrible. There is a good mixture of guilty pleasures (the awfully funny) and complete crapfests (the awful with no merit). At the end of the 10 weeks, you'll have an opportunity to vote on the worst song of the decade.

2001 brought out some terrible music that you probably haven't thought of since then. Well, here's a trip down memory lane with the awful songs you had to endure on the radio in 2001.

10. Nsync - Pop
Bragging about how your group is amazing and your style of music is the best should be reserved for hip hop. When 5 white kids did it, you knew the result would be hilarious, and this song didn't disappoint. Justin Timberlake sings about how Nsync's style of music is not a trend... only to have this be the group's last album. Even the producer of the song, BT, said, "I couldn't believe that they played that on the radio, much less that it was a single and a hit." That makes two of us.

9. Mariah carey - Loverboy
This song takes Cameo's 80's hit "Candy" and completely strips it of what made the song fun to begin with. The song is repetitive, obnoxious, and quickly started Mariah's career on a slippery slope downward that took years to recover from. The song was the single from the soundtrack to Glitter, 'nuff said.

8. Britney Spears - I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman
Britney Spears should never sing ballads. Ever. Her whiny voice suits dance music perfectly, but trying to get deep and release a song about puberty just didn't work. The over the top vaginal metaphors in the music video are just the icing on the cake. And whoever told Britney to sing a song where she pauses for about 20 seconds between the lines "I'm not a girl" and "not yet a woman" didn't realize how easy tranny jokes were to come up with.

7. Shaggy featuring Ricardo "Rikrok" Ducent - It Wasn't Me
Did your girl catch you cheating? No worries, just tell her it wasn't you. For some reason, this nonsensical explanation yielded a hit song. But it ain't all the man's fault. After you see your man banging the girl next door on the bathroom floor, on the counter, on the sofa, in the shower, and in front of the camera, it's time to leave him, girl. Besides, who the hell knows what Shaggy's saying?

6. 3LW - No More (Baby I'ma Do Right)
Trying to replicate the success of groups like Destiny's Child, horrible girl groups became all the rage in the early 2000s. One of the worst was 3LW. The song combines autotuning to the max, ridiculous lyrics, and a singer with the funniest lisp of the decade. Listen to her sing "I'm getting a little tired of your broken promitheth, promitheth (promises, promises)", her overusage of the letter S, and her rap in the middle of the song. Classic. By the time one girl starts ad libbing "no more, no more", you have to agree with her. 2 of the 3LW girls went on to be in the group The Cheetah Girls and one of them went on to date a Kardashian. That's about all they amounted to, predictably.

5. Destiny's Child - Bootylicious
Destiny's child was clearly in on the joke about this song, but it doesn't stop the fact that the song is a wonderfully awful. The catchphrase "I don't think you're ready for this jelly" became an instant punchline. Kelly Rowland finally got the chance to outshine Beyonce on this one, but since then Kelly has mentioned that this is the most irritating song that she recorded as a member of Destiny's Child. The video highlight is Beyonce's belt, which misspells the song's title as "Bootyliciuos".

4. Crazy Town - Butterfly
Rock-rap bands like Linkin Park spawned plenty of other awful clones, and Crazy Town was one of them. This song is beyond awful and no explanation is really needed. It's quite possibly the most unintentionally homoerotic video of the 2000s.

3. Afroman - Because I Got High
This is the ultimate stoner song. It encouraged everyone to start saying "I was gonna... but then I got high." Afroman jokes about the terrible things that happen to him because he was high. Still, to hear any contestant on American Idol perform this song would be the highlight of the series to date. Afroman went on to do nothing else, probably because he got high. Fuckin' stoner. He then rereleased this song in 2009 with new lyrics because the money from the first version was gone and he needed some Cheetos.

2. P. Diddy - Bad Boy for Life
In 2001, mixing rock and rap was the thing to do. Jumping on the bandwagon, talentless P. Diddy decided to brag about how awesome he is, a common theme on his songs. Diddy even convinced people like Dave Navarro and Travis Barker to make cameo appearances in the video, playing the same ridiculous loop over and over. We learn that property values go down when P. Diddy moves in, but not as much as when Crazy Town moves in. Yes, Diddy wanted the song to be even worse, so Crazy Town even makes a cameo at the end of the video. He sure knows how to create a shitfest from beginning to end.

1. O-Town - Liquid Dreams
There's no competition for the worst song of 2001. It's clearly "Liquid Dreams" by O-Town. The only groups selling more records in 2001 than rock-rappers were boy bands. So naturally, reality TV stepped in and created a talentless group of pretty boys named O-Town to compete in the market. Their first single, about having a nocturnal ejaculation to the perfect girl made up of various celebrities' body parts, struck VFTW gold. Entertainment Weekly said the song's "fraudulence is only magnified by the idea that teenage boys would fantasize about old broads Janet Jackson and Madonna." From the ridiculous corporal drums at the beginning to the video apparently drenched in lubrication, this song is stiff competition to be the worst song of the decade.

Leave a comment with your choice for the worst song of 2001, and check back for the worst songs of 2002 next week.

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