2017 was an amazing year for hip-hop. The great Kendrick Lamar returned with his fourth studio album, DAMN., several legends like Rick Ross, JAY-Z, and Wu-Tang Clan released new music, and entertaining feuds like the one between Nicki Minaj and Remy Ma took center stage. However, there has been some awful music released this year as well. With the continuing evolution of mumble rap and several disappointing albums by renowned artists released this year, there is no doubt that there is a pile of songs I wish I could erase from existence. I decided to look back at all hip-hop discography released this year and compile my “Top 10 Worst Hip-Hop Albums of 2017.”

I put together the list based on relevance, quality, and degree of disappointment. Therefore, the albums at the top of my list are definitely not as bad as some other music released this year, but I put them at the top based on how acclaimed the artist already was and how disappointing their album was in relation to their reputation. So, let’s get started!

#10: “Lil Pump” by Lil Pump

Lil Pump is a culture vulture, there is no way around it. This kid is finessing every hip-hop fan by somehow making millions of dollars off of saying nothing that reflects depth or relevancy over beats that are absolute trash. He is simply taking advantage of the culture that has literally saved the lives of others. He shouldn’t be allowed to make music. His abhorrent behavior is one thing, but his music is something else. None of the beats he raps over are good, not even the beat on his most famous song “Gucci Gang.” They’re composed lazily and designed to be part of club banger songs. Lil Pump is also by far the poorest lyricist of 2017, as he often repeats phrases in his songs, which are songs with an average length of about two minutes. How a trash rapper like Lil Pump got MC’s like Rick Ross and 2 Chainz on his album is a mystery to me, but one thing is for sure: his self-titled album is absolute garbage and should not be championed by anyone who truly cares about hip-hop culture.

#9: “FUTURE” by Future

2017 was a big year for Future. The Atlanta rapper released two major projects back to back in February and topped the year off with a mixtape with Young Thug. While his second album this year, “HNDRXX,” was a great project, his self-titled album “FUTURE” was pretty dull. Future is one of the frontrunners in the mumble rap movement, so for him to say anything profound or lyrically clever is naturally out of the box. Besides that, most of the songs on the album are simply forgettable and all sound alike. No one can forget “Mask Off,” his most popular song ever so far, but besides that, I don’t think anyone can name five other good songs on the album. Furthermore, the release of “HNDRXX” just a week after “FUTURE” was released was supposed to be seen as an amazing feat for the Atlanta MC, but I actually think it discredits “FUTURE” as an album. It shows that Future is ultimately good at releasing a lot of low-quality trap music for fan service, so therefore he also doesn’t put a lot of thought into his songs individually and his albums as a whole. “FUTURE” is thus a compilation of individual club bangers, and not much more.

#8: “Teenage Emotions” by Lil Yachty

There was a lot of pressure on Lil Yachty this year. He is one of the most popular rappers out there after he blew up in 2016, and therefore a lot of weight was on his shoulders in the period leading up to the release of “Teenage Emotions,” his first album. What could have been an interesting, introspective album turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments of the year. Outside of the song “Peekaboo,” which has a killer beat and features Migos, the album just looks and sounds two-dimensional. Not only did Lil Yachty decide to conform to the mumble rap song stereotypes of a bumped-up bass and easily thrown together beats, he also continued to use his heavily autotuned vocals on most of the songs, which didn’t make the album varied at all. The fatal flaw of “Teenage Emotions,” however, is that it so desperately tries to be about something profound, and yet it fails tremendously. The album cover shows what Yachty calls different types of “outcasts,” like two men kissing, an obese woman, and a woman with her hair dyed green. In an interview with the hip-hop show Everyday Struggle, Yachty justifies the cover as a symbol of him being the “outcast” of the rap game, and therefore throughout the album he tries to spread a message of self-respect and optimism. Nowhere on this album, however, do I see that message being conveyed, and therefore Yachty tremendously disappointed me this year.

#7: “Super Slimey” by Future and Young Thug

I was unaware Future and Young Thug were making a joint mixtape this year until the day before its release. I stayed up until midnight and listened to the entire album all the way through, and found it a huge disappointment. First of all, I find it kind of funny how the best verse on this album comes from neither Future nor Thugger, but rather from Offset, who bodied both of them on the tape’s most famous track “Patek Water.” Outside of Offset’s verse on the album, the album was pretty forgettable. All the songs have the same Atlanta trap sound to them, and neither Future nor Thugger has anything important to say. This project was made for nothing but making more money, which is what none of the three rappers on this album need to necessarily do, and fan service. In five years everyone will have forgotten about this project.

#6: “Luv Is Rage 2” by Lil Uzi Vert

It appals me that this project is what got Lil Uzi Vert his Grammy nod for best new artist. Like his contemporary Lil Yachty, Uzi had a lot of pressure this year, as many of his fans and other member of the hip-hop community anticipated this project’s release. 2017 brought the Philadelphia MC his biggest song yet, “XO Tour Llif3,” which was a great song about his breakup with his longtime girlfriend Brittany Byrd and really showed a darker side of Uzi, but what followed was an album full of hype songs with no real profundity to their lyrics. And that doesn’t even cover the waste of potential with the collaborations on this album. Uzi had chances to make great tracks with Pharrell and The Weeknd, but he wasted both of their talents on this album with the tracks “Neon Guts” and “Dark Queen.” Uzi’s new aesthetic of upside down crosses and satanic tendencies could have also influenced this album, but really none of that is apparent on “Luv Is Rage 2.” It does not show work ethic, skill, coherence, or a message.

#5: “Double Or Nothing” by Big Sean and Metro Boomin

This was by far the strangest collaboration project of the year. I do not deny the skill of Metro Boomin or his influence, but his record shows that he is a producer best suited for making beats for trap artists. For instance, his collaboration with Offset and 21 Savage on “Without Warning” was fantastic. That worked and was a commercial success. Meanwhile, Big Sean is one of the best rappers of this decade. “I Decided” was a great project that came out this year that showcased Sean’s skill as an MC very well. Big Sean, however, is not a trap artist. Why, then, did he decide to collab with Metro Boomin? This choice by itself is a disastrous one, and the album affirms that. Big Sean’s lyrical ability is never apparent on this album, and Metro Boomin’s beats sound simple and lazily crafted, save for one or two songs. Both of them also get upstaged on the album by a killer guest verse from Detroit MC Kash Doll. While this project is an embarrassment for Metro Boomin, it’s a worse one for Big Sean, as he is able to do much better than this, but he limits himself to making this kind of music, which discredits him after releasing “I Decided,” the much better Big Sean project of 2017.

#4: “Control the Streets Volume 1” by Quality Control

What do you get when you take a dozen or so mumble rappers who only wish to make more money and release a few more popular hype records? A trash project like “Control the Streets.” This project came out of nowhere and gave the public a super-sized collection of new verses from Migos, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Lil Yachty, and Tee Grizzley, among many more. However, this project would have been ten times better if at least half of the songs had not been included. The beats on most of the songs are very elementary, and weak verses from people that are usually much better than this (Tee Grizzley and Nicki Minaj, for instance) make most of the songs feel like filler material so that the album’s standouts like “Interview” and “Bosses Don’t Speak” look better. I also give this album credit for containing the worst Lil Yachty song yet, horribly entitled “Boat Skirrt.” “Control the Streets” is an overload of lazy beats and verses and, like many of the other albums on this list, a desperate attempt at more commercial success that is unnecessary for rappers like Migos and Lil Yachty.

#3: “More Life” by Drake

2017 should have been Drake’s year to bounce back after he released the mediocre album “Views” the year before. He has the quality producers behind him, the contacts for good collaborations, and more than enough talent to release another amazing album like “Take Care.” What Drake instead did this year was release one of the most disappointing albums of the year. The production on the album is good, Drake has okay verses, but the album is barely cohesive and some of its songs are straight up trash (I’m looking at you, “Portland”). Most of the songs has Drake talking about his fame, friends, and status in the rap game, but the best rapper on that subject matter this year by far and away was Kendrick Lamar, whose album “DAMN.” is also by far more cohesive than “More Life” is. “More Life” is essentially what Drake calls it, a “playlist,” and that title is also its biggest flaw. To call it a “playlist” sets it up to seemingly be a collection of tracks that were rejected from other albums, so now they’re thrown together just to be released as a cash grab for everyone involved in the making of them. And that’s exactly what the album sounds like to me. Several of the albums on this list also earned their place on the list because the best verse belonged to a featured artist, and the same goes for “More Life,” as both Skepta and 2 Chainz body Drake on this album. “More Life” gave Drake the opportunity to bounce back from “Views,” but instead Drake regressed even further.

#2: “Grateful” by DJ Khaled

This album is not only a disappointment and an embarrassment to almost all artists involved, but it is by far the most disorganized, chaotic album I have listened to in the last year. Khaled included way too many songs with way too many features, and the result was a confusing heap of songs hyped up to be hits, of which only two or three are memorable. The only artists that come out completely unscathed from this album are Rihanna, Bryson Tiller, JAY-Z, and Beyoncé, as “Wild Thoughts” and “Shining” are the only solid songs on the album. The rest of the songs range from pretty good (“I’m the One”) to flat-out terrible (“To the Max”). The songs on “Grateful” also barely fit within the same genre of music. They range from trap to pop to gospel, which makes the album the least cohesive collection of songs I’ve heard this year. Some of the collaborations also straight up don’t make sense. What is Travis Scott doing on a song with Calvin Harris, for instance? Why is Quavo providing a verse on a song with a Justin Bieber hook? “Grateful” is essentially a string of bad choices on Khaled’s part that led to one of the worst albums of the year.

#1: “Revival” by Eminem

I was excited for this album ever since its release was first announced. Eminem should have topped off a great year for hip-hop with his return to the spotlight, and it looked like that when he targeted Donald Trump in his BET Awards cypher. Soon, however, the opposite happened. “Walk On Water” was released, which is a mediocre song at best, and then the horror that is “Untouchable” dropped just before the album came out. What Slim Shady gave us instead of a great new album was the biggest disappointment of the year. First of all, “Revival” is not a hip-hop album to begin with. The features on it are either pop or RnB artists, with New York MC Phresher being the only exception. Most of the songs with features are also garbage, leading me to wonder why Em bothered to collaborate with Ed Sheeran and P!nk in the first place. Secondly, Eminem is a great lyricist when it comes to his rhyming patterns, but the verses he puts on songs like “Untouchable” and “Remind Me” have horrible transitions in between them. Lastly, the album has the least replay value out of any album I’ve listened to this year. At least I still listen to a few songs on “More Life” and “Luv Is Rage 2,” but I will never bother listening to any song on “Revival” ever again. I will always root for Eminem, but “Revival” disappointed me more than I ever thought an Eminem album would.

While 2017 was an awesome year for hip-hop overall, there were also plenty of bad and disappointing albums released this year. I’m excited to see, however, what 2018 has to offer in terms of music. Without a doubt, some albums will be good and others bad, but hopefully hip-hop continues to progress and not get bogged down by culture vultures and lazy trap beats.