[Shaun]

Before I bestow any praise let met get my bad blood out of my system, so I can enter the festive period drained The following may not be the worst of ALL released this year, but just of what I had the misfortune of hearing. Apologies in advance.


#10 - "Union J" - Union J
My last review will prove that I don't have a total intolerance of UK boybands, but one of the most cringeworthy music moments of the year was sitting down to watch Kick-Ass 2 and seeing their music video not-so-subtly shoved in by promo-folk. Let's hope this is the last we'll hear of them.


#9 - "James Arthur" - James Arthur
Not a good year for self-titled X Factor releases, is it? Idiotic motormouth with no ability to rein it in on his vocals. Agonising listening.


#8 - "Magna Carta Holy Grail" - Jay Z
He fell off a long time ago but I never suspected he'd ever produce something so dull and so lacking in life as this.


#7 - "The 1975" - The 1975
There're still 2 self-titled albums to come below, actually. Every year, the UK teen-rock press gets behind the one repetitive, uninteresting band, and this year's was them.


#6 - "Blurred Lines" - Robin Thicke
How best to follow a song as huge and excellent (dubious message behind it aside) as the title track? Not this.


#5 - "Mechanical Bull" - Kings of Leon
I'd rather they were all fighting and battling addiction again than churn out something like this.


#4 - "Britney Jean" - Britney Spears
We cannot let this happen again.


#3 - "MGMT" - MGMT
The sound of a band telling its fans it doesn't give a **** about them. Petulant, directionless garbage.


#2 - "Avril Lavigne" - Avril Lavigne
Grow up, Avril.


#1 - "Loud Like Love" - Placebo
So, the very worst? I was a Placebo fan in the mid-00s. I was aware that people find them trite and annoying (on account of Molko's whine), and that was fine because they were still capable of pretty good songs (and, to be honest, the whole gender-bending emo nonsense appealed to me). But this is a career low, and awful listening.