Country songs fall all over the quality spectrum, but only a chosen few can earn the dubious distinction of sitting at the bottom of the barrel. Through a special combination of poor production, subpar songwriting, and vacuous vocals, the songs presented below are the sorts of headache-inducing tracks that move listeners to plug their ears, turn their dials, or just run screaming from the room.
Just as with my mid-year list, these songs will be presented without comment because a) I’m lazy (so much so that I copy-pasted all this opening text from last year), and b) I’ve wasted enough words on this junk already in my prior reviews. Let’s get this over with quickly, shall we?
Last Year’s “Winner”: Michael Ray, “One That Got Away” (1/10)
Ray set the record for an all-time low score on the blog last year, so can anyone match his tire fire of a single this time? (I hope not…)
Dishonorable Mentions:
| Artist, Song | Final Rating | |
|---|---|---|
| #15 | Dustin Lynch, “Ridin’ Roads” | 3/10 |
| #14 | Dan + Shay ft. Justin Bieber, “10,000 Hours” | 3/10 |
| #13 | Sam Hunt, “Kinfolks” | 3/10 |
| #12 | Luke Bryan, “What She Wants Tonight” | 3/10 |
| #11 | Chase Rice, “Lonely If You Are” | 3/10 |
#10: Kenny Chesney, “Tip Of My Tongue” (final score: 3/10)
#9: Kip Moore, “The Bull” (3/10)
#8: Mitchell Tenpenny, “Alcohol You Later” (3/10)
#7: Chris Lane, “I Don’t Know About You” (3/10)
#6: Rayne Johnson, “Front Seat” (3/10)
#5: LANco, “Rival” (3/10)
#4: Jon Langston, “Now You Know” (3/10)
#3: Blake Shelton ft. Trace Adkins, “Hell Right” (3/10)
#2: Blake Shelton, “God’s Country” (3/10)
To say it was a bad year on the blog for Shelton is an understatement, as he picks up this year’s Dustin Lynch Memorial Anti-Excellence Award for putting two tracks in the bottom five of the rankings. At least Garth Brooks dragged him up the list with “Dive Bar,” I suppose…
#1: HARDY, “REDNECKER” (2/10)
HARDY and his all-caps styling didn’t quite reach the depths that Ray did last year, but frankly, he didn’t miss it by much. When you’re this low on the grading scale, the relative rankings don’t matter anyway: An F is still an F.
The good news is that amazingly, there were no consecutive repeat offenders this year: Everybody on this list in 2018 managed to avoid it this year! …The bad news is that a few folks from 2017’s worst-song list are back again, suggesting that whatever progress they made was fleeting.
On behalf of country listeners around the globe, I humbly ask Mr. Hardy and everyone else on this list to make better single choices in the future. I have a sinking feeling that 2020 is going to be bad enough without bad songs like these clogging up the airwaves…
Kyle's Korner 
I can’t agree with you more that that Rednecker trash was the worst song. That song makes me think of all the kids in high school who were “fake country boys” that would fail out of their classes and go bass fishing and drink on the weekends. They were straight a**holes. And HARDY is the perfect artist to speak to them, and no one else. However, I would switch God’s Country and Hell Right…God’s Country is much more tolerable even though it isn’t great by any means. I’d also much rather listen to God’s Country than Now You Know, as Langston sounds fake and corporate, and even though the same can be said of Blake, his song avoids the stereotypical tropes that make me turn off the radio, like “cold beer drinking every Friday night singing them songs ‘bout the girl I ‘love’” (quotes because I doubt Langston actually has real feelings for this “girl.”)
As for your proposal on Twitter to go indie country in 2020, I think that would just be giving up on the genre. Even though country music is in an unexpected slump right now (2018 and early 2019 were great), this blog is the place I come to when I want insight on all of the mainstream artists and songs. I can go a million other places to hear the same old stuff about how Tyler Childers, Margo Price, Whitey Morgan, and Sturgill Simpson are soooooo much better than anything the mainstream is putting out (which is not true…I can’t stand most of their discography. Childers and Chris Lane are equally country. It’s just that Lane relies on pop influences and Childers relies on folk influences.). Sure, if you want to compliment your reviews with some insight on the independent scene, I’d be all up for that, just don’t let that come at the cost of everything else.
Lastly, did you happen to see what I sent you on Twitter a few days ago? If you’re interested in this, you can reply to me at samfmisontheair@gmail.com. Have a wonderful holiday season.
Sam Wilson
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