Pop Music’s 13 Biggest Fails Of 2010

Erika Brooks Adickman | December 20, 2010 8:59 am

Unfortunately, 2010 couldn’t be all Gaga mega-music videos and Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasies. As the year comes to its close, it’s time to revisit and reflect on some of pop’s biggest faux pas from the past year — how else are our favorite artists going to learn from their mistakes unless we rake them over the coals one last time? We’ve compiled music’s 13 lowest moments from the last twelve months, and though Miley’s birthday trip to Salvia Land is on the list, it didn’t make number one — jump below to see what did.

#13 – Kings Of Leon Vs. Pigeons: It’s Hitchcock’s The Birds meets Jackass: the rock band came to perform at St. Louis’ Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, but a flock birds had other plans. After just three songs into their 20-song set, the “Sex On Fire” group had to call it quits due to raining pigeon poop. Clearly, these birds came across some bad bread crumbs — or they’re just not very big KOL fans. Final score: Kings Of Leon 0, Pigeons 1.  Rematch in ’11?

#12 – T-Pain Turns The King Of Pop Into A Robot: Some things get better with Auto-Tune (the news, Justin Bieber getting hit in the head with a water bottle) and others — like a timeless Michael Jackson song — are better left without the T-Pain touch. The robotic rapper can defend his reinterpretation of the King Of Pop’s hit all he wants, but we still stand by the fact that his “P.Y.T.” was really P.D.A: Pretty Darn Awful.

#11 – John Mayer’s Loose Lips: Ahh, to think there was ever a time when the name John Mayer evoked images of a sweet, sensitive singer-songwriter. Earlier this year, Mayer opened his mouth in an interview with Playboy magazine, revealing not only the intimate details of his sex life (namely with Jessica Simpson, who had to go on Oprah to defend herself from being known as “sexual napalm” for the rest of her life), but his nature: a giant [insert word from the chorus of Kanye West’s “Runaway”]. And this is after telling Rolling Stone, “Before I make coffee, I’ve seen more butt holes than a proctologist does in a week.” Even he must have realized he talks way too much, as he voluntarily took himself off of Twitter.

#10 – Wyclef Jean’s Presidential Hope For Haiti: When the rapper decided to run for President of his native country of Haiti, his heart was in the right place. His house, however, was not. After being called out by none other than Sean Penn, the artist was deemed ineligible to run because he has been living in New Jersey. A double bummer, because the presidential hopeful had already recorded his own campaign song. Futhermore, the accounting books from Wyclef’s charity Yele Haiti were also under major scrutiny this year. We’d say Jean should take a break from politics and focus on a Fugees reunion in 2011, but somehow we don’t think that’s going to happen.

#9 – Taylor Swift’s TV Gigs: It’s no wonder Taylor Swift always looks so surprised to win (over and over and over again) at award shows — she’s heard herself perform live. Is T-Swift a gifted singer-songwriter? Definitely. But if you’re going to make Stevie Nicks sing back up on her own song, at least have the decency to do “Rihannon” justice.

#8 – M.I.A., D.O.A.: Speaking of botched live performances, M.I.A. definitely had some of the year’s worst. Combine that with the singer’s childish Twitter feud with a New York Times journalist and some messy/chaotic music videos, and we think 2010 is going to be the year the “XXXO” artist will X out of her memory. Hopefully, her New Year’s Eve mixtape Vicky Leekx will get 2011 off to a fresh start.

#7 – Katy Perry’s Boobs Are Hot ‘N Cold With PBS: Katy Perry suffered the opposite of a sophomore slump with her hit album Teenage Dream, and though we loved each and every one of her colorful (and sexy) get-ups from the past year, not everyone did. While it was no Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction, Katy Perry’s cleavage-bearing outfit while appearing on Sesame Street sent parents into a tizzy. The children’s television show was flooded with so many complaints about the pop star’s assets on full display, producers yanked the “Hot N Cold” spoof from Sesame Street’s YouTube channel. This kind of thing would never have happened on Yo Gabba Gabba!

#6 – Christina Aguilera’s Tumultuous Year Of Fails: Christina’s highly anticipated sixth studio album Bionic (which had some of the most fail-tastic lyrics of the year) suffered poor reviews and low sales from disinterested fans — albeit for one Xtina die-hard — as well as a canceled tour, due to “Burlesque promotions”. The video for “Not Myself Tonight” fell flat, and for an album with 18 tracks, she only bothered to release one more tune as an official single (“You Lost Me”). Sadly, Aguilera’s disappointing year topped off with a divorce announcement. At least Burlesque scored decent box-office numbers, plus a few Golden Globe nominations for Christina’s songwriting.

#5 – T.I.: King Re-caged: Just shortly after announcing his King Uncaged album, it appeared the LP no longer suited T.I.’s current situation. After being arrested on drug possession, the King was given an 11 month jail sentence, thus forcing him to change the title of his seventh album to No Mercy. May that be a lesson to all aspiring musicians: be sure to name your album something vague enough that a plot twist in your life won’t make you back peddle on your chosen title.

#4 – 50 Cent’s Terrible Twitter: Twitter is really a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s managed to make us feel closer to our favorite pop stars by giving us greater insight to what’s on their minds. On the other hand, there’s 50 Cent’s filthy, misogynistic, homophobic Twitter feed. With such gems as “If you a stripper and you have a low self esteem Its probably because your fat and ugly. I suggest you kill yourself” and “If your a girl that would ask your man to wait with u till your period go’s away. Your going to lose that man. My advice suck a dick. Lol” it’s a wonder that he manages to still have over 3 million Twitter followers — unless they’re all Chelsea Handler.

#3 – American Idol Season Nein: Let’s see, the ratings for Idol‘s most recent finale was down 18% from last year (the lowest since Season 1), and the first week sales from Season 9 champ Lee DeWyze’s debut album were the lowest in Idol winner history. In a show where the fans have the final say, they’re clearly screaming, “Fail!” And while we managed to come up with five reasons why American Idol Season 9 didn’t suck — we could only think of five (and we were being generous). Here’s hoping the complete facelift Idol is getting for Season 10 breathes new life into this ailing show.

#2 – Miley Cyrus “Partying” Too Much In The U.S.A.: Every year Miley Cyrus has an embarrassing controversy — last year it was strutting around a stripper pole on the Teen Choice Awards. We assumed Miley’s big fat public fail in 2010 would be the video of her giving a lapdance to her 40-year old The Last Song producer, but sneaking in last minute was the leaked video of the clearly un-tameable ex-Disney princess smoking Salvia, the (currently) legal drug that makes you see visions of Liam Helmsworth. Oh Miley, we can only begin to imagine the trouble you’ll be getting into in 2011! We can’t wait.

#1 – BlueWater Comics LAME series: BlueWater Comics seem to have scoured the globe for artisans with the least amount of pop music knowledge — or simply demand on taking obscene amount of artistic license. Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and the cast of Glee have all gotten the FAME treatment this year, and the results are hilariously tragic. Not only do the illustrations look absolutely nothing like the artists they’re supposed to be, the content inside is often just as baffling. And just like the song that bears the comics name, it looks as though this biographic series is “gonna live forever” — 2011’s already slated for Black Eyed Peas and Britney Spears editions. Yay?

What were your favorite fails of 2010? Tell us in the comments.