15 Songs Your Favorite Artists Never Should Have Made

*pounds palm to fist*

*cracks knuckles*

Sometimes music is painful. And sometimes that’s a good thing, like the sonic monstrosity of Yeezus, or the seasickening tumult of a Flatbush Zombies crowd. Sometimes music literally elbows you in the ribs, and it's wonderful. Sometimes, though, music fails you in the worst way, yielding neither pleasure nor even delightful irony. Sometimes music just sucks. 

There's nothing impressive about a bad musician making bad music, or even a decent musician releasing an awful track or two. When a consistently dope artist drops a dud, however, that's a red blot on a permanent record, a smudge of the legacy. We're talking legendary Ls. The sort of music that's so bad, you have to apologize to your mentor and idol for making it, or laugh it off, or just pretend it never happened.

We're feeling petty today, so here's our list of 15 awful songs by otherwise amazing artists. 

*ducks*

Producer: Syience, Ne-Yo

Album: Kingdom Come

Best YouTube Comment: “man your stupid there is no Illuminati” —verycoolchicka

Previously, we made the case for “I Know What Girls Like” as Hov's most resounding L. And while “Girls” is indeed a goofy track, “Hollywood” has become something of a curse at this point: Anytime you see Beyoncé credited on a Jay Z album, prepare to skip, or else cringe. “Reminder” is more immediately irritating to hear, but “Hollywood” is the low, most ill-advised point of Hov's worst album. —Justin Charity

Producer: Bangladesh

Album: Pink Friday (scrapped)

Best YouTube Comment: “I only clicked on this song because I saw Massive Attack…. I thought they were collaborates. But I was wrong… 3 and a half minutes lost of my life” —jeremy davis

Heads hate on indisputable pop smashes like “Starships," but “Massive Attack” is the unforgivable sort of infraction, in which Nicki cedes all of her strengths, dials that vaguely metropolitan affect up to 11, and then bass-thumps her way to anonymous oblivion. The beat is a pop horror show. —Justin Charity

Producer: Dame Grease

Album: Money, Power & Respect

Best YouTube Comment: “damn…my childhood i miss them performin this on nickelodeon” —K. David

Not an objectively awful song, but an awful song in the LOX's grand scheme. Arguably, this is where they went left, sounding less like Yonkers, more like Ma$e. “Feel So Good” and “Honey” are where their suits turned to aluminum, but those hits ring indisputably, to this day. “Jiggy” just cringes. —Justin Charity

Producer: Kanye West, Jon Brion

Album: Graduation

Best YouTube Comment: “lol this nigga serious?” —JGHProductions88

All the misanthropy of Yeezus with none of the joy nor the benefit of Auto-Tune. With “Drunk and Hot Girls,” you're getting your money's worth: the worst Kanye hook, the worst Kanye flip, the biggest waste of Mos Def, all together the worst Kanye track. If you were riding shotgun in the Murciélago with Yeezy himself, and you slid the dial to “Drunk and Hot Girls,” don't you imagine he'd tell you to cut that shit off? —Justin Charity

Producer: Salaam Remi, will.i.am

Album: ​Hip Hop Is Dead

Best YouTube Comment: “he clearly says 'look here she' and not 'look here see'” —h20kill

​Hip Hop Is Dead is a nostalgia-driven project, but here Nas takes it six decades too far, giving us his best/worst Edward G. Robinson impersonation in his surreal quest to resurrect hip-hop and elect Eric. B president. "Sekou Story" this is not. —Justin Charity

Producer: ???

Album: n/a

Best YouTube Comment: “big words” —kinggrobsky

In which Lauryn Hill is possessed simultaneously by David Byrne, Tupac Shakur, and Slavoj Žižek​, oh joy. Here's a sublime parody of rap “awareness” tracks. Sony must've put the figurative gun to her head and demanded something, anything for the fans. Be careful what you extort. —Justin Charity

Producer: Soulja Boy

Album: n/a

Best YouTube Comment: “SWAGGG SWAGGG SODMG OCEAN GANG OR DROWN SUSHI” —inVAINwetrust

After beefing with Lupe Fiasco, Ice-T, and Charles Hamilton, let's presume that Soulja Boy understands that “real” rappers take him for a fool. And yes, he does clown. While frivolity is Soulja Boy's hallmark, “Scarface” is a remarkably irritating chant of every rap cliche that's been resented since 1991. Soulja was trolling; mission accomplished. —Justin Charity

Producer: Eric B.

Album: Paid in Full

Best YouTube Comment: “are there supposed to be lyrics??” —Sidney Goodrich

Already I've made this joke about DJ Mustard just last week, but this Eric B. cut from Paid in Full is literally Chinese water torture. The beat is a medley of Hong Kong Phooey-tation, urinal sploshing, and the most unpleasant DJ scratching I've ever willingly endured. You can't dance to this shit. AC/DC ain't hip-hop! —Justin Charity

Producer: LL Cool J, Dwayne Simon

Album: Walking With a Panther

Best YouTube Comment: “is it me or does it seems like these girls are from toronto.because newyork girls would rob him and beat his girl up and she is hot lol” —cable1525

Just watch the music video, which features bucket hats and ghosts. Wonder, as I've wondered, whether this is (a) a failed LL Cool J ballad, or (b) a Wayans Bros. parody of LL Cool J ballads. Or maybe it's both. —Justin Charity

Producer: Puffy

Album: Harlem World

Best YouTube Comment: “this song is dedicated to all the pillow talkers around the globe” —Daniel Gomez

Lately there's been some disputing over who, exactly, gets the trade credit for rap-singing. Putting aside the fact that Biz Markie originated the shit: Ma$e is one of the first great melody rappers, and his Harlem World debut honors that legacy, for the most part, with one grating exception. Harlem World's outro cut, “Jealous Guy,” which showcases Ma$e doing his very worst attempt at '90s prom karaoke. Puffy's all over this shit, too. They may be clowning, but this shit ain't quite funny. —Justin Charity

Producer: Noah “40” Shebib

Album: Take Care

Best YouTube Comment: “drake got me missing my ex girlfriend from the 4th grade” —RobTheSharkie

Chastising Drake for making simp anthems is akin to being mad at Rick Ross for not rapping about being a corrections officer. You just gotta let some things go. However, being mad at Drake for co-opting one of the greatest and rawest party anthems and declawing it by turning it into a simp anthem is fair game. If the song were merely to interpolate Mannie Fresh's plump synths, it wouldn't make this list. After all, the "Back That Azz Up" beat is so legendary it deserves to be in the Library of Congress. But the fact that dude went a step further and used the chorus after a verse where he sung about a girl (presumably a stripper) who he's been talking to about pain and regret, is borderline sacrilegious. It's nearly as much of a troll as Take Care's cover art. The only good to come out of this whole thing was the video. —Damien Scott

Producer: R. Kelly

Album: Double Up

Best YouTube Comment: “Axl Rose is the only thang missin in this video,he is tha most realest rockstar to walk tha earth,tha goddamn definition of rockstar should Axls face next to it,he tha symbol of everythang rock n roll should be,i don't care what all yall hatin bitches is going to bark!” —The Real Mccoy

While Kells is an amazingly varied singer, this particular clusterfuck blew a dent in the bounds of his imagination, and ours. There's all the standard talk of clubs and afterparties, but the production and concept are simultaneously too Ludacris and too Kid Rock to suit R. Kelly here, leaving the greatest R&B singer of a generation sounding wayward and anonymous on his own album, the unfortunate Double Up, not to be confused with Ma$e's likewise-titled sophomore flop. —Justin Charity

Producer: J.R. Rotem

Album: Undisputed

Best YouTube Comment: “true spoken words at the end” —Snoop Dogg

Writers, rappers, humans in general: We all fall off eventually, but DMX's decline was especially, unnecessarily steep. After finishing a Maricopa County jail stint and leaving Arizona behind him, DMX returned to NYC to reclaim his title, taking shots at Drake and Rick Ross during his comeback media blitz, in which X also sang Christmas carols and learned how to use the internet. Then he released this single with Machine Gun Kelly. Then we gave up. —Justin Charity

Producer: Lil Wayne

Album: Rebirth (scrapped)

Best YouTube Comment: “delete this” —Jafar Shubbar

Weezy time-traveled to 1998 to record a middling grunge ballad, and neither Baby nor Juvenile could stop him. Juve, why didn't you stop him?! —Justin Charity

Producer: J. Cole

Album: Cole World: The Sideline Story

Best YouTube Comment: “This is why I love JCole, the first rapper to acknowledge obesity and make a song about how to fix it.” —thePhilChanky

J. Cole apologized to Nas for making this song. Bygones, my nigga. —Justin Charity