Matthew's All Time Worst Acts - 55

[matthew_dixon]

As some of you will be aware, over the past almost 10 years, I've been putting together a new all time chart. It's been a lengthy process, gradually working through the history of music, but I'm finally at the position to start counting things down. As there are figures attached to each of the songs, it means it is possible for me to pull out other charts from the list - album charts and act charts, as well as worst charts! So, I'm going to start the mass publishing exercise with my all time Worst Acts!

It's going to be a top 200, for the simple reason that there's a fair number of pretty terrible acts over the years, and due to my general dislike of a fair majority of recent music, recent acts do rather crowd out this list. Expect a large number of rap and dance acts on the list, but also acts from a wide range of genres, from rock bands to novelty acts and just about everything in between.

For those of you who are interested in exactly how the figures are worked out… well here goes.

Spoiler!

Each song enters my chart at its peak position, which is a personal choice of where I feel it should enter in a perfectly average week. Every song therefore enters somewhere between 0 (theoretically, but next to nothing does better than 0.5) and 75 as a raw score. Then, in its second week it falls to just over double what it scored in its first week, and continues down in a just-more-than-linear progression after that. The charts are then ordered each week, and turned into an actual chart. The length of the actual chart is scaled to ensure that every song makes it onto the chart somewhere, but that we don’t have loads of songs on the chart that shouldn’t be. Then each chart position gets a score of e to the power of minus half the chart position, plus the difference between the chart position and the full length of the chart+1 divided by 100. Therefore, if the chart were a top 75, the number one song would get 0.75+e to the power of -1/2 – which would be 1.36 points, whilst the number 75 song would get 0.01+e to the power of -75/2 – which would be pretty much 0.01, as e to the power of -75/2 is tiny. The scores are added up across the year, with a tiny scaling making the end of the year a bit tougher – largely to try and reduce ties – and then each song gets a score. The weeks of the year are then scaled, to allow for tougher and weaker periods of music. The general aim for this scaling is that a truly great song gets at least 10 points, a song warranting a top 10,000 place gets at least 3 points, and a song I dislike gets no more than 1 point.

That creates the songs chart. Then, to create an acts chart, it’s really simple. Add up the scores of each song by the act, and then subtract the total number of songs from the act. Therefore, each song that scores less than 1 point affects the act negatively, and all the others affect it positively. For a song with a “featuring” credit, the featured act(s) get a half score – so they get half the score of the song minus 0.5 as opposed to the full score of the song minus 1.

[hun]

Vanilla to win!

[heppolo]

The thing about quantifying the chart - some #1s make much more impact on me personally than other number ones and even the spins/plays may not fully reflect that, so to paraphrase Salvador Sobral "music is not numbers, music is feeling"

[matthew_dixon]

The thing about quantifying the chart - some #1s make much more impact on me personally than other number ones and even the spins/plays may not fully reflect that, so to paraphrase Salvador Sobral "music is not numbers, music is feeling"

Agreed. The maths doesn't always come out with the right answers. Therefore, on the top end of a "songs" chart there is always going to be an element of head to head comparison of songs. Where it's an artists chart, then it's actually generally all coming out in the wash.

[matthew_dixon]

Vanilla to win!

I can reveal at this point however dreadful Vanilla are, I only actually know two songs by them. Therefore, watch out for them in the Worst Songs chart, but they're sufficiently minor an act that they miss the Worst Acts chart - only come in at 412.

[Thriller]

Marsh Family ftw!

[matthew_dixon]

Marsh Family ftw!

LOL! I think it's safe to say they won't be in this list - though there are a handful of tracks - like this objectively pretty dire version of "500 Miles" when the kids were tiny and their musical ability was "questionable" shall we say, that would be considered for a worst chart.

[matthew_dixon]

200. Chingy

(What you doin'?) Nothing chillin at the Holidae Inn
(Who you wit?) Me and my peeps won't you bring four of your friends
(What we gon' do?) Feel on each other and sip on some Hen
One thing leading to another let the party begin

Score -3.215
Years Active 2003-2004
Number of Songs - 4.5

5 Bad Songs
Balla Baby
Holidae Inn (featuring Ludacris and Snoop Dogg)
I Like That (Houston featuring Chingy, Nate Dogg and I-20)
One Call Away (featuring J-Weav)
Right Thurr

So - as Black Eyed Peas once said, "Let's get it started". First up, in at 200, we go back to the early 00s, 2003 and 2004 to be precise, with St Louis rapper Chingy. If I have to be honest, there's no Chingy song that is going to make the top end of my worst songs of all time chart. However, I can't think of a single one of the songs above that I could even remotely consider a "good" song. From "One Call Away" that features in the video above, to "Holidae Inn" - whose lyrics are above, to "Right Thurr", which even my autocorrect wanted to change to "Right There", Chingy just really made some pretty dire rap music. Oh, and that Houston song he guested on was just terminally dull.

[matthew_dixon]

199. Nafe Smallz

All them man lose s***, I put the salt in it
'Cause you never know where you gon' go with it
Where I'm livin', I don't go on road with it
But my family's still gotta stroll with it
Put the VVs on, cold with it
P***y smellin' like a rose, innit
Dive in it, out my zone with it
Nah, she don't ever wanna go, n****

Score -3.223
Years Active - 2018-2020
Number of Songs - 4

5 Bad Songs
5AM (with M Huncho)
Broken Homes (The Plug) (with M Huncho and Gunna)
Greaze Mode (Skepta featuring Nafe Smallz)
Part Of The Plan (featuring M Huncho)
Thumb (M Huncho featuring Nafe Smallz)

I'll try and get two acts posted a day to keep this moving, and particularly because a number of them I don't really have THAT much particularly to say about them. The thing is, when listening to music that has been successful in the past 5 years there's so much of it that I don't see the fuss in at all. Luton rapper Nafe Smallz is a prime example. Basically, all the songs I've heard that he's featured on (the reason his 5 songs are listed as "4" above is that two are solely guest appearances) are just really really incredibly dull. I just don't get the appeal in this sort of music at all.

[Benny]

This will be interesting to follow! Agree on Chingy, never heard of Nafe Smallz though (and don't really want to check him out if he appears on this countdown).

[steophonic]

I'm following! Thankfully I'm not too familiar with your first two acts save for "Right Thurr" which was relatively forgettable.

[SholasBoy]

Nafe Smallz, just one of thousands of acts like him that I can't differentiate from recent years. Chingy is often on lists of worst rappers ever, but some of his songs I don't mind. "One Call Away" was his best.

[Marius]

I'm following! Thankfully I'm not too familiar with your first two acts save for "Right Thurr" which was relatively forgettable.

Agreed on this

[vinnie65]

very interesting countdown. I am excited

[matthew_dixon]

198. Ferry Corsten

Oh woman you make me feel...
Like I'm on fire,
Oh woman you make me feel...
Like I'm on fire,
Oh woman you make me feel...
Like I'm on fire,
Oh woman you make it real...
It's the only way for me

Score -3.231
Years Active - 2002, 2004, 2006
Number of Songs - 4

4 Bad Songs
Fire
It's Time
Punk
Rock Your Body Rock

Whilst there might be a fair amount of rap in my top 200 worst acts, there's also going to be quite a lot of dance music. In at 198 it's someone who presented me with a challenge. It was relatively easy to decide that Snoop Dogg and Snoop Doggy Dogg are the same act. The same goes for Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Diddy and Diddy - Dirty Money. However what about Veracocha, System F, Gouryella, Starparty, Moonman and Ferry Corsten. Well, I believe that all of them are essentially the same guy - Dutch DJ Ferry Corsten. However, some might have been duos, and short of searching through each and every random dance act to see if they were the same person, there wasn't that much I could do with the world of dance aliases. Therefore, all of them were treated separately. System F got very close to actually being a "best" rather than a "worst", but even that got -0.003. The other aliases of Ferry Corsten were varying shades of bad, but it's only his work in his own name that makes it into my worst 200 acts - four songs, two of which (Fire and Punk) are particularly dreadful.

[hun]

Did you know Janet was on a Chingy track?

[heppolo]

I only remember Right Thurr being played to death on music video channels back in the day

[matthew_dixon]

197. Cooper Temple Clause

We dare you to mean a single word you say
We dare you to mean a single word you say
We dare you to mean a single word you say
We dare you to mean a single word you say
Feel free if you've time to try and change our minds
Feel free if you've time to try and change our minds
Feel free if you've time to try and change our minds
Feel free if you've time to try and change our minds

Score -3.235
Years Active - 2001-2003, 2006
Number of Songs - 7

5 Bad Songs
Blind Pilots
Film Maker
Homo Sapiens
Let's Kill Music
Promises Promises

I'm guessing no-one saw this one coming. Yes, I'm a big fan of rock and indie music, but that doesn't mean it's exempt from my worst chart, and alas for the Coopers, they're one band who make it in. I don't exactly hate them, but they just didn't do anything that particularly grabbed me, and a fair amount of pretty noisy songs. It took them 7 songs to make it, unlike the 4-5 songs of the previous acts, so they have that in their favour.

[heppolo]

I actually enjoyed TCTC back in the day and still elisten to their catalogue (even have 1 CD of their 2003 album somewhere), they did stray away from the more melodic side of indie music into an aggressive/noisy/wall-of-sound production during their first two albums. "A.I.M." is still one of my all-time faves.

[steophonic]

Ferry Corsten & Cooper Temple Clause... you're losing me Matthew!! I like both acts and love "Who Needs Enemies".

[matthew_dixon]

196. Yxng Bane

Yo, I've been jugging and jugging to get these bands up
Man got a problem I'll get a man touched
Back of the rave we keep the ting tucked
Still man are bogging at me thinking they're Montana
Moving like Mad Max top shotta
Leaving with Rita check my aura
Nickname lemonade, my bae sour
But I tell her time is money let's make hours

Score -3.240
Years Active - 2017-2019, 2021
Number of Songs - 4.5

5 Bad Songs
Answerphone (Banx and Ranx and Ella Eyre featuring Yxng Bane)
How It Is (with Roddy Ricch and Chip)
Nice To Meet Ya (Wes Nelson featuring Yxng Bane)
Rihanna
Vroom

Okay, can someone tell me how on earth Young is spelt YXNG? Talking of Xs, how do you say the act name of something like the one for "How It Is", which was credited "Roddy Ricch X Chip X Yang Bane" is it cross, times, multiplied by, ex, or simply "and", and if it's and, why not say and? Basically this is just another recent UK rapper that I don't get the fuss in.

[matthew_dixon]

195. Wildchild

Back once again for the renegade master
D4 damage with the ill behavior
Back once again for the renegade master
D4 damage with the ill behavior

Score -3.263
Years Active - 1995-1996, 1998
Number of Songs - 4

4 Bad Songs
Bad Boy (featuring Jomalski)
Jump To My Beat
Renegade Master
Renegade Master '98

Whilst The Cooper Temple Clause above were a bit of an anomaly on this list, sorry to all dance fans but Ferry Corsten wasn't. Here's another dance act - Wildchild, best known for the dreadful repetitive "Renegade Master", but I considered both versions of that plus two other songs, and it was enough for them to enter this list on just four songs, as they are all IMHO so bad.

[SholasBoy]

Wildchild died in 95 before the bulk of his success Fatboy Slims 98 remix of Renegade Master goes off!

[Thombus]

Daym gurl how you get all of dat in dem jeans, dem jeans how you get all of dat? TUNE.

Jermaine Dupri did Chingy good on that one. Glad it's not in your top 5 bad songs.

[steophonic]

Renegade Master was not my favourite though does stand out as a defining dance track of its day.