Oh, my God. List Week, List Week, List Week, List Week. We're powering through. We are powering through.

Hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for another installment of 2024 List Week with my worst albums of the year. Yes. Just like every year, I have to talk about my worst singles. I also have to talk about my worst albums. Yes, not just tiny, terrible songs, but big, terrible records.

I have a top 10 here for you, but before I get into it, I do want to say this year's list is unique from every awful album list prior that I've done on this channel. The reason why is that 2024 was a particularly saturated year for new music. This is a trend that has been moving upward slowly for quite a while now. It's quite a while now, and it's to the point on this channel where I can't even cover all of the records happening within a 365-day period that are warranting some discussion every week. But with so much music and so many projects and a limited amount of time, I just have to make some cut or some sacrifice somewhere.

When looking at these albums, I'm just thinking, I don't want to review this shit. So there aren't even full-length in-depth reviews to cover every single reason as to why these records are awful, in my opinion. But I will try to give the best snapshot possible of each of them, at least for the ones that I didn't talk about prior all that much. And yeah, you may be surprised to see that many of the most negative reviews I've dropped this year actually don't even make the cut on this list because in my opinion, these albums were so much worse.

So with this list, we're actually digging a couple of crap layers deeper into not just the worst of what you see me talking about on my channel – even below that. Now, I will spoil this list a bit and say that higher up on the list, you know what's not here? Artists like Katy Perry with her new record, 143, which for sure was super mediocre, a total disappointment. But I just find the internet's very negative collective reaction to that record interesting because while it was bad, there were certainly worse pop albums that dropped this year, like this one, it's just that they didn't warrant the same level of response because there was nobody sitting here actually anticipating this album would be good. So there was no collective disappointment involved.

10) Meghan Trainor - Timeless

Honestly, every criticism you could level at the Katy Perry album, it's soulless, it's generic, the writing is bland, it's boring. Yeah, you could also say that goes double for this Meghan Trainor album, but on top of it, it's obnoxious, it's tacky, and it is outright annoying as Meghan Trainor keeps trying to write the same goddamn three or four songs over and over and over and over while, again, pillaging and destroying melody ideas and chord progressions and lyrical illusions to the worlds of doo wop and jazz and soul.

Yeah, I mean, if you want to put Meghan Trainor into a special niche genre all her own, I would call it soulless soul. Nearly every fucking song on this thing sounds like a Target ad, which makes sense because Lawrence is on the record, too. I mean, they're the number one-stop shop for that thing on TikTok.

But yeah, awful record, awful music. Ironic title because this thing is going to have no shelf life. There was barely any discussion about it when it dropped even less six months after the fact, and you can just basically extend that out to six years and people won't even remember it.

9) 6ix9ine - BLACKBALLED

Speaking of completely worthless no shelf-life albums that are essentially meaningless trash and amount to nothing, we have number nine, 6ix9ine, BLACKBALLED.

Yeah, the point of this project was for 6ix9ine to remind us that he exists. It's an outright failure because not only did this thing not really warrant any discussion once it came out, but it's so short and so unmemorable and just so generic by 6ix9 standards that there's nothing really to even say about it. I mean, the standard of quality for his music when he was relevant was already pretty low. Every single song, every single song on this record, just sounds like a shittier version of a track he's released already.

No need to put yourself through the thought experiment of what would 6ix9ine sound like if he just progressively got worse and worse, that exists, and it's right here. I just have to come on here and remind you that it exists because this 19-minute project made absolutely no impact whatsoever because he's essentially put no effort into it. I don't even know why he's still trying to push himself as a figure, as a musician, as in anything, because he's clearly not trying at all at this point. Can we just stop? Can we Can we just quit? Can we just know more?

8) Tones and I - Beautifully Ordinary

The album at our number 8 spot, though, from Tones and I, Beautifully Ordinary, is a record that, by comparison, is worse, and yet somehow sounds like there was actually effort put into it.

Now, I do think there were some marginal improvements made to this album when compared to the previous Tones and I record, but that is a very low bar to pass. Even if this Australian singer and songwriter did pass it, it was really just by the smidgiest of smidges. Because once again, on this record, we have absolutely nasally obnoxious and grading vocal inflections that are now delivering to us ballads that are going for an angle, a vibe, and emotion that comes across more mature than the last record when in reality, it's ultra melodrama and gross and makes me just go through eye roll after eye roll after eye roll until I start to have my vision blurred. And that's when the record is doing the whole ballad thing. There are actually pop tracks and pop soul songs on this record where it's really trying to get you hype, dig into some passion, and it somehow comes across even more annoying.

But yeah, this record is awful, and Tones and I continues to be a perplexing figure in music to me because I've never seen a zoomer artist fall prey this hard to the worst and ugliest and most hideous millennial pop ballad tropes just again and again and again. Semingly that is where Tones and I' most major musical influences start and end, and somehow they are just filtered in such a way to where they are made worse in the music on this record.

7) MGK & Trippie Redd - genre : sadboy

Speaking of things getting worse, we have number seven, which is a collaborative project between MGK and Trippie Redd. That would be genre : sadboy. As if the emo trap and emo rap genre wasn't already full of mediocre, terrible, annoying, obnoxiously woe-as-me records, this project, which isn't even an entire album – technically, it's an EP – somehow this EP dips below those already very bare bones quality standards and goes to subterranean levels of awfulness with just one whiny, corny song after another, with some of the most generic songwriting this style of music has ever seen, and absolutely little to know vocal or personal creative chemistry between MGK and Trippie Redd on this record.

Why did they even make this? Because it's not even that exciting. It's not like they came together with a sound that was definitive to this style of music or, I don't know, upped the ante in any way new, or novel, or exciting. It's just like one of the most boring and uninspired emo trap records you're ever going to hear, and that's it.

6) G-Eazy - Freak Show

Boring and uninspired, though, are two words I would also use to describe our number 6 album. That would be the G-Eazy record, Freak Show.

Man, this record is perplexing because G-Eazy at one time was a rap artist of note. He's a guy who actually made some bangers, made some waves. He might have not been my cup of tea, but there was a demand out there for G-Eazy music. He had a contingency of fans.

It's funny because I virtually saw no conversation around this new album whatsoever. I mean, the fall off is absolutely insane. As bad as some of the records and artists on this list are, you could argue still that many of them have passionate fan bases that are actively engaged and deeply care about what these artists do. I really can't say that's the case for G-Eazy with this album because this thing really fucking dropped to crickets.

It's funny because the lack of response or interest in this album takes what little wind this record might have in its sales behind its narrative, which is all about G-Eazy wrestling with Fame and people confronting him about switching up and so on and so forth when it's like, dude, you don't have any fame to wrestle with on this album.

There might be some freak to this album, but believe me, there is no show. Even with the really fucking annoying, ridiculous theatrical carnival barker intro it tries to shove down your throat. Then every mediocre song to come afterward with boring instrumentals, ab-so-fucking-lutely sauceless bars, and performances on the mic. Boring features. Uninteresting song ideas. This is handily one of the most pointless albums of the year.

5) Skillet - Revolution

The record at number five though on this list was an even more difficult listen. That is going to be Skillet with Revolution.

Yeah, one of the crappiest and most annoying bands in alternative metal is back, and they are bringing, once again, everything that has always made them just difficult to listen to and uninspired and boring. But then add into that a bunch of bullshit lyrics about how they're revolutionary and 'I don't care about saying my beliefs if they're unpopular'. Just all of that super bullshit generic I'm worried about cancel culture right wing adjacent pap that totally mindless morons seem to latch onto so easily because they don't actually think about the implications of what any of that means or where it comes from. That's essentially what this album stands for and is making a big deal about.

Just think about all of the generic, ill-defined political opinions that were voiced on the recent Muse album, but they're a bit more right wing coded and somehow come across even dumber. "I fight for my faith, my family, my freedom." It tries to sound so hard and so dramatic and so righteous. Simultaneously, it's the most fucking lame-ass loud rock you've ever heard in your entire life.

I'm sorry. If you like this record, if you mess with this album, you have no fucking clue, no idea whatsoever what rock music is, what rock music is all about, what makes rock and metal music exciting and thrilling. All this record is just volume, just loud guitars, and a centrist guy who listens to Joe Rogan whining and bitching and crying.

4) ian - Valedictorian

Moving up to number four on the list. That's going to be ian with Valedictorian.

Yeah, this is another one of the more pointless and crappy projects that we've heard this year. What's funny about this particular rapper is that it's not the only stupid bullshit project he's dropped in '24 that was also Goodbye Horses.

Having to drop two piss-ass mediocre projects in one year just to keep your name on people's minds is hilarious because it just goes to show know how fucking uninspired and basic and surface level and bland his music is. Not only because his lyricism sucks, but his delivery is mediocre and nonspecific. He is the most nondescript rapper of all time. His beat choices are pretty terrible as well.

Anything that is actually good or valid about his music, he just steals from other artists. Be that Future, be that Carti, be that Lil' Baby. The guy literally has nothing to his sound, nothing to his style. The only thing that sets him apart is that he's just a young white guy. Literally, that's it.

This project and Goodbye Horses are trash. They're a waste of time. Throw it in the garbage, listen to somebody better.

3) Lil Mabu - YOUNG GENIUS

Everything that I'm saying about this project applies to our number three spot, but it's somehow even worse and more annoying to listen to. That would be the Lil Mabu project – what the fuck is it? – YOUNG GENIUS.

Yeah, all the biting, all the cultural robbery, all that stuff that you can apply to ian, it also applies even more to Lil Mabu, this kid who has been hot on the New York drill scene as of late. But what's even more annoying about Lil Mabu is that he's actually even more successful in some respects, and yet he seems blissfully unaware of just how gross his existence in the world of drill music is and how far his white privilege, if you want to call it that, has taken him.

There's literally a fucking bar on this record that has other drill rappers collaborating with him on it, by the way. Many other rappers are on this record. He says, 'I wasn't supposed to make it this far. I'm talking racially.' Bro, you're a fucking young white boy who was not born into destitution, living in New York City. You literally were supposed to make it, and you are fucking making it. But no, he's so dumb and so small-minded that to him, what he thinks about all this is like, 'Yeah, I'm just a young white boy. I'm not supposed to make it as a rap artist. It's hard for us white guys and crap, isn't it?'

As if it couldn't get any worse, there's even a verse on this thing where he's telling this whole story about how he gets away from being pulled over by a cop. As if this story wasn't supposed to end with him driving away from the situation to begin with, he ends up lyrically going through this whole rigmarole about how the cop pulls him over and then he gets molested by the cop during a search, and then he pays the cop 10K and drives off. It's just so ridiculously fucking cringe and stupid. I can't believe it.

2) Falling In Reverse - Popular Monster

You could say that's even more so the case for this record that is at the number two spot here - that is Falling In Reverse with Popular Monster.

While it is true that Falling In Reverse has always been the commercial loud rock brainchild of singer and songwriter and rapper, Ronnie Radke, you could argue that the band, the project, as it were, has become even more centered around Ronnie Radke as of late.

This album is indicative of the fact that in the world, publicly speaking, there really are two versions of Ronnie Radke: There's the version of him that you will often see on social media, whining and bitching and complaining and being annoying, talking about, 'Oh, people don't like me. Why do you guys hate me so much? I got canceled before. Why would you hate me? Why would you say things about me that I don't like to hear. I'm just a small bean.'

You have that side of Ronnie Radke, and then you have the popular Monster side here, a record that is fronted with an image here that's like,'Ooh, it's a mugshot.' Again, the title is Popular Monster, and when you dig into the songs on the record, Ronald is just repeatedly writing about what a fucking loser douchebag piece of shit he is. "I'm the bad guy, I'm a savage / I'm obsessive, I'm dramatic / I'm a loner, I'm an addict / I'm so goddamn problematic / I'm the bad guy, I'm a loser / I'm a psycho, believe the rumors."

So like, 'Oh, the world hates me. Oh, why does the world hate me so much? But also, every single bad thing you hear about me, believe it.' Make up your fucking stupid ass mind. He really wants to have it both ways. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too. He wants to benefit from the perception that he's dark and he's edgy and he's an asshole and he's a piece of garbage and he's unlikeable and he's an awful person. But simultaneously, when there are actually repercussions for the behavior and the reputation that comes along with those things, 'Hey, why are you saying that mean stuff about me?'

Not only is that aspect of the album's narrative and personality just outright annoying, there are just so many shitty metal guitars on this record that don't even sound good. It's overproduced crap. The super pitch-corrected vocal harmonies are total shit. On top of that, you have all of this fast, edgy white guy rapping happening over a lot of these songs, too. So many lyrical-miracle-ass bars.

Really, all I want to say in response to this album is, grow up. You're not 12 anymore. Take some responsibility for your emotions and act like a man. And I don't mean man in the gender role sense. I mean, just be a full-grown adult. Start taking some ownership for the way that people perceive you because of how you present yourself in the world.

You can't broadcast to the entire globe I'm a dirtbag, I'm a piece of crap, then want everyone to grovel at your feet and think you're amazing. That's like some psychotic dictator shit. You're a musician. Write some good music. Nobody cares about your crappy annoying personality. And there we go.

1) Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign - VULTURES 2

Let's move on to number one on this list. That's going to be the Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign collab project, Vultures 2, which is just such a messy, unpolished turd that it even had Kanye fans disappointed and disillusioned when it came out. This thing is crap. It's not worth your time. It's garbagio. It's a mess. I don't care.

And that's my top 10. Top 10 worst albums of the year. There they are. Let me know what they are for you. I'm sure you will. Have you given any of these albums a listen? If you did, let me know what you thought.

Anthony Fantano. 2024. List Week. Forever.