All in all, 2009 wasn’t really a bad year for music as a whole. Pop music made a surprisingly strong showing, indie had plenty to wet itself over, rock and metal did fine…you get the idea. But, as usual, there were several trends that need to go the hell away, and soon.

Crunkcore
If you got to take all of the worst bits of the Oughties and put them together, I get the feeling that they’d look a lot like brokeNCYDE and other crunkcore kids. Actually, with the Kanye/generally tacky shades, wrist tattoos, too-tight scenster clothes, chemical sewage treatment hair dye/cuts, and mom-and-dad-bought-bling-bling, I’m fairly certain that these guys are the worst thing to come out of the Oughties. Beats easy enough to be Soulja Boi knockoffs? Check. Auto-tune? Sadly, yes. Party Party lyrics so vapid the Black Eye Peas wouldn’t touch them? All too many. Slipknot inspired screams? You bet. Many genres get labeled as the worst thing to ever happen to music. Crunkcore might just deserve it.

Autotune
Unlike crunkcore, which might peter out in a few months, I get the feeling Autotune’s going to have a much longer lifespan. Autotune started out not so bad; T-Pain made a few great singles and some features with it, so did Weezy. Then, somewhere around Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak in late ’08, everyone started using it, and AT’s pitch shifting was heard more and more anywhere you looked during ’09. What started as a tool used by a few artists became the Gimmick of the Year.

The Jonas Brothers/Miley Cyrus
Do I even have to explain myself on this one?