Vote for the Worst Presents: The Worst Songs of 2006

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.

2006 was the year where artists who just plain can't sing dominated the airwaves. A woman who was famous for a sex tape, the most obnoxious overuser of autotune, a lonely goatherd, and others made the radio a painful place. You couldn't turn the dial without your eardrums splitting open. Could 2006 be the worst year for music ever, or will 2009 make 2006 seem utterly brilliant? As we start to head to the end of the decade, check out the songs that made you lose faith in humanity in 2006:

10. Daniel Powter – Bad Day
This song just blows. American Idol sent it to radio repeat hell, but it was a bad song to begin with. So what, you had a bad day? I can't hear this song anymore without picturing awful slow motion montages with the words "it was a great experience" and "I'm so proud of myself" over and over. Not to mention Daniel Powter says in interviews that he doesn't even like it that much. If he doesn't even like it and he makes stupid frowny faces everytime he talks about it, I'm sure not going to like it.

9. Jibbs- Chain Hang Low
In a year filled with awful rap songs, this one sticks out as one of the worst. I almost had "Snap Yo Fingers" here until I remembered this ode to "Do your ears hang low?" Now, you can sample a lot of terrible songs in pop music. But you don't sample "Do your ears hang low?" and change it to "Do your chain hang low?" What's next? "Mary Had a Fresh New Grill"?

8. Keyshia Cole - Love
The first time I heard this song in the radio, it just seemed kind of boring. That is until it got to the chorus. At that point Keyshia starts doing this obnoxious thing with her voice that makes me want to kill kittens. So you're listening. Boring. Boring. Boring. "I fow-how-ow-ound... fow-how-ow-ound... fow-how-ow-ound..." And then you start thinking to yourself, "What the hell was that?" Who in their right mind told this woman that singing like that would sound pleasing to the ear? And she doesn't just do it once, she sings like that over every single chorus because she thinks it sounds good.

7. Paris Hilton - Stars are Blind
This is pretty self-explanatory. Paris Hilton can't sing. So when she sings a song, it sounds terrible. I don't think I've heard a song in my entire life where the Pro Tools manipulation stands out as much as this one. It's no wonder her record didn't sell... this was the first single.

6. T-Pain featuring Mike Jones – I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)
T-Pain is one of the most obnoxious singers on the planet. His voice needs to be synthesized to death to sound appealing, which is why he was on this countdown last year with "I'm Sprung". Immediately after releasing that piece of shit, he releases a song where the chorus goes "She poppin she rollin she rollin/She climbin that pole and/I'm N Luv with a stripper." Besides the fact that you need to put in a lot of effort to misspell that many words in the title, the song is about how pathetic T-Pain is that he can't get a real woman and needs to ask strippers to go back to his place so he can pay them. Dude, at least fall in love with a waitress or the girl at the DMV... something else.

5. Lumidee featuring Tony Sunshine – She’s Like the Wind
Anytime Lumidee releases anything, it's shit. This is no exception. The Patrick Swayze original wasn't that great to begin with, so let's take Lumidee who can't sing, and Tony Sunshine who will melisma a song to death, and put them together for a gigantic train wreck. Even though Lumidee is supposed to be the main artist on the song, she basically just makes a few cameos to rap and quickly sing off key, letting Tony Sunshine do most of the work so the song has a chance at succeeding. Not that Tony saves it, but at least Lumidee is kept to a minimum as to not encourage people to turn off their radios.

4. Fergie – London Bridge
Apparently Fergie thought it would be clever to make a song about England because people confuse her with the other famous Fergie. Ha. Very funny. Yet, the song isn’t. And it makes no sense. In an interview, Fergie explained that the lyrics “How come every time you come around/My London London Bridge wanna go down” should be left up to interpretation and that she would never reveal what it really meant. That’s because the lyrics mean nothing and make no sense. Is the London Bridge her mouth? Is it her coochie? Either way, it’s really idiotic and only slightly more annoying than her other song this year, "Fergalicious".

3. E-40 featuring T-Pain and Kandi Girl – U and Dat
I thought this song was a joke the first time I heard it. It’s basically a lot of people singing about getting to “U and dat booty” and then “U and dat monkey.” Except it’s T-Pain singing about getting with a girl’s monkey. Now, I may not be up on all of the latest slang, but a monkey is a penis. Does T-Pain want to find a chick with a dick? And to make it even worse, he’s “banging the donkey” to get with “u and dat monkey.” What the fuck? Once E-40 comes in, it doesn’t even matter, as the song is one of the strangest things to ever be played on the radio.

2. James Blunt –You’re Beautiful
I wrote some poetry back in high school where I would rhyme obvious words with one another and talk about how I was sad. Granted, I never showed this to anyone because it was awful. If I had shown my poetry to people and set it to music, it would have come out something like James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful”. One of the absolute worst songs in years, James sings about how he saw some girl on a train, thought she was beautiful, but then realizes he’ll never see her again. Deep, man. Just to emphasize how shitty the lyrics are, here are some samples: “She caught my eye/As she walked on by.” Nice observation. “I don’t know what to do/Cause I’ll never be with you.” Oh and “I don’t think I will see her again/But we shared a moment that will last till the end.” I bet he went to college for this. Oh and his voice is whiny and obnoxious. That makes it even worse. Anyone who likes this song must be partially deaf.

1. Gwen Stefani – Wind It Up
Gwen, what happened? During your No Doubt days you seemed so cool. Then you decided to release a solo record and it was pretty awful. “Hollaback Girl” delved into excruciating and ridiculous. I didn’t think you could do any worse. I was wrong. “Wind It Up” samples “The Lonely Goatherd” from The Sound of Music. So for half the song, Gwen is yodeling. For the other half, she’s either talking about nothing in particular or singing about how boys like her and her clothing label. It’s even more vapid than it sounds. You haven’t experienced musical pain until you’ve listened to this. The fact that her record label hasn’t dropped her yet is just a sign that they didn’t actually listen to the song before putting it out. The song was panned by most everyone. OMH called it ""just horrible, and possibly the worst start to an album this year," Rolling Stone called it "yodel-trocious," and Guardian Unlimited called it "a pinnacle of madness." And that is why Gwen’s awful tribute to how hot she finds herself is the pinncale of the worst song of the 2006.

Leave a comment with your choice for the worst song of 2006, and check back for the worst songs of 2007 next week.

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