Top 10 Worst Music Genres

Some music genres just seem to rub people the wrong way, and we're diving deep into that musical abyss to uncover the worst of the worst. We're talking about those genres where autotune reigns supreme, banjos are a constant threat, and lyrics about partying all night long are somehow still a thing in the 21st century.
The Top Ten
Country

The only truly great country artist, Johnny Cash (who didn't even have a particularly good singing voice), saved country music in the '60s and '70s - two of the BEST decades for music.

Even before modern country, old country had the same topics over and over again, annoying banjo sounds, and songs about farming during the Depression. But since Billy Ray Cyrus, we've had artists like Zac Brown, Luke Combs, Luke Bryan, and Florida Georgia Line.

That's why country is #1 for me in terms of worst genres. I hate how, in the 2020s, its popularity has reached an all-time high with Post Malone, Beyoncé, Shaboozey, Jelly Roll, and Morgan Wallen - some of the worst people to exist! Modern country is the same as old country, just worse. It's all about drinking beer, going to beach parties, getting drunk, and having sex. It's basically pop but with more annoying vocals and heavier auto-tune.

Rap

Congratulations, you can speak lyrics to a beat. Try picking up an instrument, or even editing your own rhymes. Maybe join a group, spend months practicing a new album, timing all your sets, and actually perform your songs and all their parts live. Alternatively, you could try to perform a duet where you take turns talking to a beat.

I'm sorry if you like rap, but honestly, aside from lyrical talent, it takes little to no musical talent to perform or create. Just compare some modern frontrunners like Lil Wayne and Drake to metal bands such as Trivium and Five Finger Death Punch. All of them are great artists in their own right, but they are on entirely different levels when it comes to performances and tracks.

I mean no disrespect to anyone who enjoys rap, nor to any of the early rappers who talked about real problems in their lives. I'm merely voicing my opinions and would like to thank you for your time. Rap is music, but it is hardly on par with many other genres when it comes to talent and performance.

Pop

90% of pop is repetitive, auto-tuned garbage made for money rather than talent. Even for the 10% of pop I enjoy, I still rank this genre in my top ten worst. How can anyone get through a single Justin Bieber or One Direction song without wanting to stop? Maybe once or twice, but three times - no.

The sad truth is, it's way too easy to make pop music now, unlike the '80s, '90s, and '00s pop (and some '10s pop), which required real talent. These days, it's "required" to be shallow and uninspired. I only listen to good pop songs from up to the '10s and music from nearly every other genre.

Bad pop song: Partying, being rich, sex, heavily electronic.
Good pop song: Poetic, good melodies, harmonies, not overplayed.

Emo Emo is a style of rock music characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. It originated in the mid-1980s hardcore punk movement of Washington, D.C., where it was known as "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace.

First off, modern emo is all whiny and stuff, but the real emo was a lot different. Original emo was a music genre and was mostly not sad. In fact, it was quite a happy type of music. It was called emo because of the emotion the musicians put into their music, unlike pop singers who just sing what they are told to.

Sunny Day Real Estate is a good example. They were original emo. Listen to their music and look at the actual band members. None of them have dyed their hair, worn eyeliner, or anything like that. Modern emo can be annoying, but if you're going to discuss a music genre, make sure you're clear about it.

Dubstep

Yep, this is the EDM subgenre that had short-lived success. While some dubstep tracks are good, others are ear-bleedingly insufferable to listen to (early Skrillex, in particular, never really got me that deep into dubstep).

The genre peaked in the early 2010s but devolved into mediocrity by 2015/2016, partly due to MLG memes and videos gaining popularity. Just try listening to a dubstep song while imagining it being distorted, with sounds of airhorns, sniper rifles, someone shouting "OOOOOHHH!", and random things like weed references.

I kind of miss this era of memes unironically. The popularity of dubstep in the online gaming community definitely helped boost its rise.

K-pop

Get this genre ranked higher than pop! In the 2010s, while 90% of pop was utter garbage, the 2020s are even worse. We've gone from dancing and making heavily auto-tuned noises to whining so much it hurts.

While electronic-influenced sounds are fading away, the 2020s have still managed to get worse. Artists like Lewis Capaldi, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, and, worst of all, every K-pop artist, are overly whiny. Even worse, people now claim every genre is improving in every way!

K-pop was always bad, but at least it used to be catchy and danceable. Now it isn't. It tries to appeal to simple kids and has contributed to the lazy sampling trend. It just keeps getting worse. We've gone from robotic hits like How You Like That to ripoffs of the worst songs of the 2000s, like APT.

Pornogrind

I agree that this is terrible, but I have to say the following: 1) This isn't really a music genre. It's grindcore with explicit lyrics, and it's incorrect to create music genres based solely on lyrical themes. 2) We are talking about only a few bands here, and they're getting too much attention. 3) Many people think Pornogrind/Grindcore are metal genres, but they're not.

Grindcore has little-to-no metal in it. It's mostly punk - hardcore punk and crust punk - mixed with industrial and noise rock. There may be some slight traces of thrash metal, but thrash metal itself is a fusion of speed metal and hardcore punk, so part of thrash is punk again.

Screamo

I do not enjoy songs that are all screaming, but if a song has a few lines of screaming, then it is very possible that it could be a good song. Bring Me the Horizon, Get Scared, Black Veil Brides, and Sleeping with Sirens all have very talented singers in their bands.

When I think of screamo, I think of angst, madness, and anxiety, which is exactly what these artists are trying to express. The people who do this for a living have figured out how to make money by screaming, so they aren't total idiots. Moreover, it is incredibly difficult to execute good screaming for a song.

I admit there are terrible songs that consist solely of growling, screaming, and shrieking, but there are also really good songs. Originally, punk artists were trying to be unpopular and to sound really bad, and yet they receive less hate than screamo does. A really good example of high-quality music with screaming are True Friends by Bring Me the Horizon and Until the Day I Die by Story of the Year. These songs aren't exactly screamo, but they are exactly what you should listen to when starting out and getting used to screaming in music.

Hip-Hop

I feel that Hip-Hop is an okay genre, but half of the time, it is just about sex, drugs, and many inappropriate things. I can understand that there are good songs sometimes, but many of them convey horrible messages. It is hard to listen to something that primarily discusses sexual relationships between females and males.

It isn't as though every song in the genre has a problem. It's just that many of them are hard to listen to because the most popular songs often revolve around these topics. I just don't like the message or the lyrics that it spreads. It is hard to ignore them since they constitute most of the song lyrics.

Nightcore A nightcore edit (also known as a sped-up song, sped-up version, sped-up remix, or simply sped-up) is a version of a music track that increases the pitch and speeds up its source material by approximately 35%. This effect is almost identical to playing a 33⅓-RPM vinyl record at 45 RPM... read more

This should not be considered a music genre in the slightest. It merely involves speeding up or pitching up someone else's work. At least with other genres, like Dubstep, for example, there is effort put in to create a final product that resonates with the listener, whether they like it or not. This genre seems like a lazy way of appealing to an audience, involving little to no real work or innovation.

Certainly, not a lot has to be done to make a good track or song all the time - sometimes simplicity is a great thing. However, in the case of Nightcore, since no actual work is done, this is the exception. This is just my opinion, though.

The Newcomers

? Children’s Music

I never liked children's music. It was so forgettable. I am 18 now, and I decided to listen to pop, rap, rock, and folk music at a very young age.

This is my only problem with children.

? Hyperpop

I like this genre, but it's just overrated. Everyone is using it.

They sound like robots, mostly autotune.

The Contenders
Mumble Rap

I originally posted this comment on a remix, but the listing got deleted.

Mumble Rap? More like Double Crap! It's unbelievable how mainstream modern "rappers" can become so wealthy when they seemingly have no skill! My parents are fortunate to have grown up listening to what I consider real music, while I'm stuck with Mumble Rap.

The entirety of my school seems not to understand that true music is supposed to be art. The music they listen to lacks art or passion, and yet they still call themselves fans of music. I can't stand this sub-genre, nor can I stand most other modern mainstream rap "music"!

Bro Country

I disagree with the majority of this list. I think that almost every genre has some good songs and some bad songs. If you don't enjoy them, then maybe it's simply not for you, but it's still wrong to denounce an entire genre as terrible.

However, I agree that one of the few exceptions to this is Bro-Country. From what I've seen, the only appeal of these songs comes from them being catchy (most of the time) or from interesting elements in the production (which is pretty rare). But honestly, that's it.

The rest of the elements in this genre are pretty terrible, especially the horribly clichéd and garbage lyrical content. Not to mention that, at times, there are even elements stolen from other genres, typically Hip-Hop. So yeah, like another comment here said, this subgenre of country is what gave the genre a bad reputation. It's very likely that when most people vote for country as the worst genre on this list, they're mainly mad at Bro-Country instead.

Teen Pop

Oh my God. Nothing could be worse. The only reason these guys have any fame is because teen girls, as the name suggests, think the lead singer is hot. Listen to some of Ross Lynch's music and tell me those songs would be considered even remotely likable if he were average-looking. And the worst thing is, he isn't even attractive, so he is officially the worst musician ever.

People who tell me that their songs are meaningful and cool are also the people who claim that Ross Lynch is a better singer than Freddie Mercury and a better guitarist than Jimi Hendrix. It also disgusts me that people call R5 rock but refuse to say they are pop. Teen pop is not music. R5 is not a band. Ross Lynch is not a musician. Led Zeppelin is music, Pink Floyd is music, The Rolling Stones are music, and Jimi Hendrix is music.

Crunkcore Crunkcore (also known as crunk punk and scrunk) is a musical fusion genre characterized by the combination of musical elements from crunk, post-hardcore, heavy metal, pop, electronic and dance music. The genre often features screamed vocals, hip hop beats, and sexually provocative lyrics. The genre... read more

This is by far the worst genre of music that I have ever heard in my life, and it's due to the bands that use it! BOTDF is, by far, the worst band of all time, due to their behavior and style of music, which is this genre I'm talking about here! These people don't deserve to be signed to a record label.

Also, one of my old friends listens to this horrible band for no reason whatsoever. It's just terrible! If you want to listen to a better band with a better song, such as Green Day's Bang Bang, Evermore's Hey Boys and Girls, or Paramore's Pressure, for example, go do that rather than wasting your time listening to a band that has no talent. You will know what I mean by that!

Death Metal

The only reason why meatheads love this genre is that they always want something "heavy," and heavy always means "more awesome!" But that's not the case. Metal was already close to being unbearable to listen to because the lyrics are nothing but killing and dying.

With Death Metal, I can't even hear the lyrics for crying out loud. They're wailing on guitars and drums, and screaming so much that it goes up and down like a child trying to bang on the drums. The end result is nothing but noise. There's a big difference between music and noise, and this genre and all of its bands are the most unintelligible. Keep banging your heads and hope that you won't lose your heads.

Deathcore

I'm really surprised that this hasn't made it past the top 20 yet. It's way, way worse than death metal, at least that requires some talent!

In a deathcore song, there are about 20 breakdowns in each song while the singer screams and pig squeals about how he wants to confront the school bully. Notable bands are Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, and Carnifex.

Made by people who misunderstood death metal. The lyrics aren't as powerful, and quite often, you will find bands with clean vocals and emo-like lyrics along with breakdowns.

Not to say there aren't good artists, but they are few in number. It's basically metalcore's big brother.

Country Rap

Who thought mixing country and rap was a good idea? Well, it is an atrociously terrible idea. It is just a bunch of country people, rapping with awful southern accents, rapping about how rednecks are the best and farms, with a beat mixing banjos and the electronic rap beat.

I listened to country rap before, and it is a disgrace to all country, so much so, that I will never listen to it again. This music makes me cringe so much.

When people thought this was going to be the next big genre, I genuinely feared for the future of the music industry. This is the most annoying genre, and I never want to hear it being blasted from another pontoon boat again!

Dance

Good dance music (EDM) is actually just as challenging, if not harder, to make than rock music. Yes, I like my rock and have an extremely wide knowledge of its history and culture, especially psychedelic rock. EDM is looked down upon by the older generation or by teenagers who think they were born in the wrong generation.

For those of you who think EDM is a brand-new genre of music, you are wrong. A group called Kraftwerk produced one of the first electronic albums and were a huge success. Do you know why? Because the genre can produce limitless sub-genres due to the way it is made. Dance is one of the best genres of music, and for those of you who don't like it, give a listen to 808 State Pacific 202 and then come back.

Bollywood

I don't understand how people in India have the courage to even call Bollywood a music industry. Seriously? It seems like a talent-less bunch saying "Your eyes, your face, our love, our marriage" over and over again in every song. Plus, there's no production quality at all. Everything is borrowed from other international music. Bollywood is just commercial marketing noise which is sold off as music to a billion people with no taste and no clue as to what real music is.

And then there's some random so-called "rapper" who occasionally chips in to "rap," which always consists of "Get on the floor, yeah, groove it, yeah, yo, yo, move it." Ninety-nine point nine percent of the songs are like that.

Damn, how can this be at number 3? Vote this up, people!

Gangsta Rap

Absolutely the worst type of noise that can come out of a speaker or someone's mouth. It seems like everyone who listens to it thinks they are some cool gangster who can harm families and disrespect everyone they don't like, and they are better than everyone else because they can spew out offensive words at everybody. How about they rank this pile of music in place number 2, right next to its brother. Bunch of irresponsible people grabbing their crotch because apparently that's the only way they can make a song.

Trap Music

Good 2010s EDM songs in the style of Avicii's hits (up to 2015) and tracks like Zedd's Clarity and David Guetta's Titanium all disappeared when the Chainsmokers emerged with hits like Closer, Don't Let Me Down, and Something Just Like This.

Rap music took those trap beats, and even pop started using them. These beats are unbearable to listen to. They keep being used, yet they always sound outdated. Trap needs to go.

I don't like to criticize music, as I'm a musician, and the music I listen to isn't mainstream. It's mainly underground. However, these are the reasons I dislike, nay, detest this genre. It's a lousy excuse for music. It's a genre full of beats that all sound the same, with lyrics glorifying sex and drugs and autotuned vocals. Ninety percent of the artists can't sing to save their lives.

It takes little to absolutely no talent to produce this "music," and the lyrics are nonsensical jargon that revolve around money, fame, sex, and drugs. Artists such as Cardi B prove this. This genre needs to die, and it needs to die quickly.

Black Metal

This genre is the worst - I repeat, the worst! It takes no talent or skill to play, and it's all about how fast you can play your instruments. There is no meaning at all in Black Metal.

The Reasons Why I Hate Black Metal (2nd Movement)

1. It's repetitive. The guitar riff in one song sounds exactly the same as the riff in another song. The same goes for the drums.

2. Guitar. The musicians either tremolo-pick throughout the song or simply strum two power chords followed by three simple notes all the time. Solos are nonexistent in the genre.

3. Bass. Do these bands even have bassists?

4. Drums. Nothing special here, just blast beats (which do require some talent, but once you learn them, they're easy) and double bass drumming.

5. Vocals. This is one area where Black Metal excels, but the vocals are often incomprehensible and sometimes even disgusting.

6. Lyrics. This is another area where Black Metal shines. However, I personally don't care about the lyrics. What's the point if you can't even understand them?

7. It's overrated as a metal sub-genre.

8. Most of the fanbase for this genre consists of naive teenagers who think they're cool simply because they listen to Black Metal and worship Satan.

9. Most of the musicians in this genre are poser Satanists. They wouldn't even harm an ant, although they write lyrics about Satan and goat sacrifices, among other things.

Nu Metal

Seriously, I hear metal every day on television while I'm watching movies and series in different countries. One of my local TV channels plays a metal song just before every series starts.

However, I hate listening to them because they sound cheap. They are overplayed by individuals who think that they can be energized by metal instead of something like Trance.

Drum beats are OK, but the screaming is out of hand, and distorted guitars sound like thousands of loud, distorted farts.

If they're so happy about these sounds blowing up on their speakers, how about they stop overplaying this trash which spreads anger?

R&B

There's no denying that this is the worst genre. Now, don't get me wrong. Some R&B musicians are very talented, but the music they write is just crap.

Justin Bieber, anyone?

I would rather listen to whiny emo music than to this corny, horny R&B piece.

And who put metal at 13? What?

If you ask me, it's R&B in first place, then pop. Both are complete disgraces to music. They are only liked by people with no musical sense because that's what mainstream media show, so they think it's good. It's just a pile of garbage. Just kill this genre already!

Rihanna produces pop, and honestly decent pop, which is more than I can say about most pop artists these days. But yeah, the new Chris Brown song, and Don't Tell 'Em? That song is terrible. REAL R&B is TLC, Destiny's Child, older Beyoncé songs, and R. Kelly.

So listen to that, and you will know what was good. Also, Alicia Keys. The '90s and the early 2000s (2000 to 2009) were the best times for R&B.

Techno

Techno is the soulless dance music of soulless dance music. Eminem literally said, "Nobody listens to techno" in 2002, and he was right.

Techno should rank higher than mumble rap. Sorry.

Techno is a soulless genre of electronic music. There's no emotion, creativity, or expression in the music. It's a monotonous, repetitive beat with no depth or substance. The lyrics, if there are any, are generic and meaningless.

It's music for the sake of it, without any real passion or meaning. It's the equivalent of a computer algorithm pumping out generic, boring, formulaic crap. Techno is the musical equivalent of white bread.

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