Worst #1 Hits

I agree. By the end of 2016, I was really sick of hearing it played so constantly on the radio. 

God's Plan is really that bad to you?

British chart:
'The Legend Of Xanadu' by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich
'So You Win Again' by Hot Chocolate
'You're The One That I Want' by John and Olivia
'Summer Nights' by John and Olivia (Love the film, love them, but hate the songs)
Total Eclipse Of The Heart' by Bonnie Tyler
'Relax', '2 Tribes' and 'The Power Of Love' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood
'19' by Paul Hardcastle
'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' by Kylie (pretty much everything by her if I'm honest!)
'Ride On Time' by Black Box

American chart:
'Love Is Blue by the Paul Mauriat Orchestra

I never bothered with the charts until the age of 13 by which time I had changed countries so I can't comment on the Irish chart. I don't know much about the Australian and Canadian charts either although I adore John Farnham and Gordon Lightfoot.

Now for the US:



I know this is a cover, but coming from a grown man like Ringo Starr, this is even more harmful to the guy's image than "Wish I Was a Powerpuff Girl" was 40 years later.



I love the new jack swing track from Mariah Carey's Music Box, but this is just garbage.



This guy sounded great on Paul Oakenfold's "Starry Eyed Surprise", but "Butterfly" is one of the few examples of Y2K era cheese that I can't in fact stomach.



The #1 song that caused me to not follow pop music during my teens.



MIKA was just too eccentric for ya, huh? You just had to send this to the top of the charts instead. Ugh...



Cheesy, but for all the wrong reasons. The premise is just so dumb it's embarrassing. Really, this is a much better example of the One Direction appeal in music done to its very worst. Clearly, this piece of dreck only made it to the top because of its easy appeal to hopeless romantic tween girls with strict parents. At least One Direction's most infamous hits are real love songs with energetic production and unforgettable hooks.



Seems Desiigner is one of the very few one-hit wonders of the 2010s. How did he do it? By naming his barely existent trap song after an endangered Chinese bear, I suppose. Considering his next song was called "Timmy Turner", novel song titles seem to be this guy's entire appeal.



I actually like "Stir Fry". Too bad it's this miserable turd that brought Migos a whole lotta new money instead.



This may be the very worst #1 single in the US to this date. It may not have had quite the same scarring effect on me as "Laffy Taffy" did back when I was 13, but it's still a truly horrible listening experience that absolutely did not deserve to christen Cardi B as one of the biggest rappers of today. Nicki Minaj was so right when she pointed out on "Chun-Li" how she sounded good on "Finesse (Remix)" purely because of the beats that make anybody sound good, not because of individual talent.

"Rockstar" also made it to #1 in the US, but I already listed that for my UK list.

Reviving this thread because I'm in a mood to bash some bad music . This time I want to focus on the lowest points of the Billboard number hits from the 1950s-1970s which tend to be forgotten.


I know this is 1959, and being culturally sensitive wasn't exactly a priority, but this phony and cartoony native american romance story is wholly unpleasantly tacky. Made worse with the "tribal chant" making the verses unbearable.
The "tribal chant" intro to Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling" is similarly annoying, though here it feels completely out-of-place in relation to the rest of the song:

And this went to #1 in the US instead of ABBA's pre-"Dancing Queen" singles? What?


The early 60s were a great time for jazz music. The genre saw so much creative, adventurous, envelope-pushing material released back then. The American pop charts though instead chose to embrace bland, lifeless, milquetoast elevator music like this.


Bobby Vinton released plenty of bad stuff, and this one might be the least tolerable of his US #1s. Here he transforms a cute little 40s big band jam into a completely transparent song that keeps dragging on, and with the harmony on the chorus being particularly hideous.
This was also notoriously the last Billboard number one before The Beatles hit the American charts' top spot, and it indeed exemplifies everything bad about the pre-Beatles era.


I already bashed these guys in another thread, but they're indeed easily the worst British Invasion band. The lead singer's vocals might not be as stilted and unpleasant here as on "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter", but this is still taking the British novelty song to intolerably cheesy territories. My blood curls everytime I hear that "Second verse, same as the first!".
Go hear New Vaudeville Band's "Winchester Cathedral" if you want a an actually good British novelty song that topped the Billboard.
The fact that this band recieved two Billboard number 1 singles, while The Kinks, The Who and The Hollies recieved null is criminal.


1966 was just a little before the backlash of the counterculture movement was in full-swing. It's still really off-key how a song that glorifies militarism to a nationalist degree could reach the top of the Billboard charts at the height of the Vietnam war. It doesn't help that the singer is completely uncharismatic and the production stutters around aimlessly.
A definite blight in an otherwise flawless year for music.


1974 had three atrocious covers of 60s songs hitting the US charts. Though thankfully Fancy's "Wild Thing" never reached the top of the Billboard. We're still stuck with two that did, one of them being this trainwreck, no pun intended.
It replaces the Little Eva version's driving saxophone line and choir with unbearable glam rock swagger. The chorus in particular is one big discordant wash.


The other awful 60s cover that topped the 1974 Billboard. I like the Carpenters, but there's no denying that their version of "Mr. Postman" is singlehandedly one of the biggest whitewashing in pop music history (Pat Boone is still the uncontested champion in this category). The original Marvelettes version was a soulful love plea with a layered sound that predicted some subsequent pop soul and Motown trends. This is a dull wallpaper rendition which remains flat all the way throughout, coupled with some terrible drunk singing from Karen Carpenter.


This is actually also a cover of an early 60s song that topped the charts in 1974. Though this time it's not actually bad sounding (though I don't like the singer much), no the problem lies on the fact that it transforms the original French chanson classic with its biting lyrics about having the last word before dying into a generic happy-go-lucky love song. And as a huge fan of Jaques Brel this song is just offensive to my ears.


I don't per se hate country novelty songs. C.W. McCall's "Convoy" is a guilty pleasure of mine for instance. I just find it funny that this cancerously bad gag song topped the Billboard right before Wings' "Band on the Run" did. Maybe the biggest upswing in quality in Bilboard number ones' history?


I just really don't see the point in this. It butchers one of the greatest compositions of Beethoven with a generic disco beat that just awkwardly sticks out. Disco was still a relatively new genre on the upper end of the Billboard by 1976. I'm honestly shocked random combos like this were already done for some reason.


Low-hanging fruit, but still easily the cheesiest song to ever top the Billboard, coupled with a smug sense of parodying, really unpleasant Donald Duck impressions and a horribly catchy chorus that gets stuck in my head.


This was the biggest Billboard song of the 1970s? Really? This unpleasant karaoke song? Unbelievable. As if Pat Boone wasn't bad enough, his daughter had to continue his legacy of crap. This spectacularly fails at everything Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were" is great at.

Oh, I’m a Barbie Girl, in a Barbie world. What a great song *so says my 6/7 year old self*. 

Seriously though, what about Lollipop (Candyman)?


I think about the best song Aqua ever released was Turn Back Time. Most of their stuff was cheesy af though.