Luke Nuttall (Editor / Writer)
5. LØLØ – falling for robots and wishing i was one
This likely wouldn’t have made this list, except for the fact that LØLØ apparently has the same lack of emotional maturity in real life, which makes this considerably worse. Like, it’s still bad on its own—it’s a 2020s fairweather pop-punk album that’s as wafer-thin and underdeveloped as all the others; of course it is. But LØLØ’s apogee of cringe, undeserved breakup melodrama starts bad and quickly turns absolutely wretched. There’s not a thing to enjoy about this grown woman’s high-school mentality and how determined she is to occupy its most annoying features, to where you begin to think this conveniently blank slate of an ex dodged a bullet when the relationship ended. Worse still, you had outlets that should know better throwing out plaudits like “the best debut of the year” upon release. This wouldn’t be the best debut of the year if it were the only debut of the year.
4. Delilah Bon – Evil, Hate Filled Female
Somehow, Delilah Bon released an album that’s more painful to listen to anything the noise or avant-garde circles brewed up this year. The entirety of Evil, Hate Filled Female feels like being tied to a chair while Delilah Bon and her posse cackle an inch from your face and call you an incel for 50 minutes straight. It’s truly unpleasant, to the extent that its fervent dedication to female empowerment only works the tiniest smidge in its favour. Of course, when your target audience is toddlers who’ve never heard anything else remotely political (and apparently the journalist set who’ll cave into the pressure to like this), you can get away with whatever harebrained idea of ‘punk’ that is. For anyone else with even the barest bit more music experience, this is insufferable.
3. Marilyn Manson – One Assassination Under God – Chapter 1
No album in 2024 had less of a right to exist than this one. Put aside the abuse allegations; put aside that there hasn’t been a good Marilyn Manson album in years; even put aside the fact that this album is no good. The fact that this is so heavily coloured by Manson’s pleas for sympathy and a woe-is-me attitude coming directly out of nowhere is what makes One Assassination Under God as worthless as it is. It’s like being gaslit in real time, where this arrives at a juncture in which it’s impossible to believe that Manson isn’t trying to manipulate what’s left of his audience into his favour. The whole thing leaves a horrible, noxious vibe that seeps into the many cracks of its ugly mood, text and presentation. It’s not Manson’s usual ‘controversy’, but he sure as hell isn’t pretending that’s not a factor working for him. Instead, as he tries to prove he’s a real, genuine person with problems that aren’t being heeded and listened to, everything can’t help but curdle in place that makes it completely deplorable.
2. Falling In Reverse – Popular Monster
It’s low-hanging fruit, yes, but sometimes, fruit hangs so low that it gently deposits itself on the fresh cowpat beneath. Not the only way that Ronnie Radke is a bad apple, then, where he continues to unconvincingly milk that for all it’s worth, and subsequently produce dreck like this. A childish, mean-spirited and plainly repulsive listen, Popular Monster is Falling In Reverse operating like clockwork—another product where the middle-aged man upfront tries to be a tortured emo ‘genius’ and the grandstanding prick who’s better than you. They’re already boring, overplayed tropes with nothing of worth, a fact made all the clearer when they’re coming from the personification of uselessness’s word-hole. The music, too, is the ever-faithful unctuous, colourless time capsule of scenecore turds past, without even the good graces to be memorable. Basically, Popular Monster earns every bit of scorn thrown its way. As usual.
1. Skillet – Revolution
Skillet’s idea of ‘revolution’ is fundamentally wrong. For one, they’re trying to extol it via some of the most phony, nauseatingly incompetent radio backwash put to wax in years. More to the point, they’ve compounded any past awfulness through Conservative Christian ‘values’ that—on this mainstream rock album, bear in mind—feel compelled to smuggle in bigoted, transphobic, borderline fascistic dog-whistles in the name of ‘rebuilding’. John Cooper’s desperation to feel oppressed has led to a product with negative worth, almost collapsing in on itself. It’s a vehicle for alt-right ideals that already look poised to negatively shape the climate of the US for the next few years to come (at least), all while brandishing faith and family as its defence, should it ever be challenged. That doesn’t make you a ‘revolutionary’; that makes you scum.
Georgia Jackson (Deputy Editor / Writer)
5. Imagine Dragons – LOOM
Music listeners have long been sick of Imagine Dragons’ overblown stomping and alley-cat yowling vocals, and this year’s LOOM was more of the same. Some of the worst albums of the year committed the crime of creative bankruptcy, and while Imagine Dragons clearly pushed themselves in a more electronic direction than their last releases, it was to hilarious effect. The chainsaw-revving vocal refrains of Wake Up; the reggae-lite of Gods Don’t Pray; the particularly unpleasant yelling on Kid; the flirting that comes off as sinister on Nice To Meet You—this sure is an album on the Worst list, but it’s a riot.
4. Jason Derulo – Nu King
There are two types of bad album—boring to the point of sticking fingers in your eyes and viscerally insane to the point of manic laughter. Jason Derulo’s 78-minute-long Nu King is somehow both, stringing you along with creatively devoid R&B before sneak-attacking with something completely baffling. The non-exhaustive list includes multiple uber-trendy interpolations like Michael Bublé collab Spicy Margarita that’s anything but spicy, lyrics about a love as “suicidal as Cobain”, a feature on a Punjabi track, a ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ refrain, all glints of out-and-out ridiculousness in a swamp of contrived wannabe-hits.
3. Jojo Siwa – Guilty Pleasure
Yes, it’s only an EP, but it’s honestly impressive just how much of a mark Jojo Siwa makes in just twelve minutes. Overproduced and gaudy as hell, Guilty Pleasure is clearly music made for a club but with no understanding of the chemistry of a dance anthem, never having a moment where a track actually hits its apex. Siwa herself can’t even save the songs with charisma (something her ‘edgy’ single Karma was ridiculed for), her delivery completely straight-faced and drowned in effects to the point where it can sound like a different singer on every track. Just because one has the resources to start a music career doesn’t always mean they should, something Jojo Siwa definitely should’ve been told before whatever this is.
2. Jax – Dear Joe,
Sabrina Carpenter was an example of an artist letting their personality shine through their work this year, but Jax should’ve gone back to the drawing board when channelling hers on album Dear Joe,. The (often ukulele) interludes between basically every song on the record are supposed to be quirky and witty but are just eyeroll-worthy nursery rhymes. Titles like hawk tuah and neurospicy age the album immediately and don’t even elicit a snort, let alone full-on laughter. They’re also such a stark contrast to the snoozefest ballads that make up the main tracklist, the two extremes countering each other throughout the album’s runtime until there’s sheer annoyance in place of any enthusiasm you may have had before. Truly one of the most sigh-worthy records of the year.
1. Falling In Reverse – Popular Monster
Soundboard readers are probably (and unfortunately) more than familiar with the work of Falling In Reverse, Popular Monster a perfect sum-up of everything wrong with them. Sure, this is stale metalcore with lead vocals unpleasant in whichever form (rapping, growling, actual singing) they take on, but more so, this is a case study of an out-and-out egomaniac. If the cover being Ronnie Radke’s actual mugshot from when he was arrested for domestic violence wasn’t enough, we have to endure his boasting about how evil he is in the eyes of the libtards (who he constantly ‘owns’ with his online rants), as well as his whining about the poor public perception of himself. When it’s this desperate and annoying, it more than deserves a place atop this list.
