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Post by Paul on Mar 9, 2006 10:35:08 GMT -5
I just now was thinking about this, and don't have a full list together; but I'm curious to see what some of the responses are....
One from me....
Preservation Act 2 -- the Kinks
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Post by Kensterberg on Mar 9, 2006 10:52:17 GMT -5
Hmm, let me see how many I can think of, just off the top of my head ... in no order of course:
1. David Bowie: David Live; Never Let Me Down
2. Bob Dylan: Live at Budokan; Self-Portrait; Dylan; everything betwen Infidels and Oh Mercy ... I'm sure there are more.
3. U2: Rattle and Hum.
4. Bruce Springsteen: The Ghost of Tom Joad (there are three really good songs on this, but the rest is borderline unlistenable, IMHO, sorry JAC).
5. The Clash: Cut the Crap.
6. The Style Council: Confessions of a Pop Group (I'm pretty sure this was the name of their last LP, which was simply horrible).
7. The Rolling Stones: Dirty Work; Bridges to Babylon; Goats Head Soup; anything after Tatoo You, really (except maybe the new one, which I haven't heard much of).
8. Paul McCartney: McCartney II; Press to Play; Red Rose Speedway (when the ultra-sugary "My Love" is the best track on the album, you're in big trouble).
9. John Lennon: Some Time in New York City; Walls and Bridges; Mind Games.
10. John Fogerty: Eye of the Zombie.
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Post by Paul on Mar 9, 2006 10:55:46 GMT -5
I've never heard 'Cut the Crap'; I've been told to not even bother.
Perhaps if there are enough responces, we can have a solid list of 10 terrible albums by really good bands.
So you don't like Goat Heads? I kinda dig that one; I think there are a few gems. It's not Sticky Fingers, Exile, Between the Buttons, Let It Bleed, or Beggars, but I think is pretty good.
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Post by Galactus on Mar 9, 2006 11:24:49 GMT -5
Ken has a good list there...except I actually like Goat Heads Soup.
Cut The Crap is terrible. Joe Strummer even said he'd like to pretend it doesn't exist.
I'll add:
Neil Young- Everybody's Rockin' & Are You Passionate? (both are almost completely unlistenable)
and The New Flaming Lips is terrible.
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Post by ScottsyII on Mar 9, 2006 13:05:14 GMT -5
What a highly interesting topic! Of course i have a few in mind i can add to this!
10. Rattle and Hum - U2:What can i say, in the words of myself and Maarten... a dogs breakfast, an album that doesn't really know what it wants to be...
9. Birds of Pray - Live: On a steady downward Spiral since V, this came across as just tripe - wasn't even sounding like the same band that gave us Throwing Copper. Curse Christian rcok!
8. Animal Rights - Moby: Actually, the music on this disc is quite interesting, if a little generic industrial / punk, and you had to admire Moby's attempts at genre hopping - but GOD! What fucking TERRIBLE vocals - and when he tries to scream and be tough it's excruciating!
7. Emotive - A Perfect Circle: How do we say "missed the mark"? I was initially intrigued by the idea of a covers album by these guys, and the tracklist even held a promise - but ughh, it fell just flat, and did quite a bit to burst my "A Perfect Circle" bubble...
6. Ovo - Peter Gabriel: Look it absolutely PAINS me to say this because I really WANT to like this album, its concept and songs like "Downside Up" and "Father, Son" are amongst my favourite Peter Gabriel tunes - but man, it just doesn't work, having all these other vocalists on the tracks, and there are some of Gabriel's biggest songwriting hiccups (sounding like a little too much of a Phil Collins album in places.... nooooooooooooooooo!)
5. Beautiful Garbage - Garbage: How exactly is this different to any pop album that was around at the time? After the highs of Version 2.0 and their debut album, such a disappointment... have they split up now?
4. Eels - Shootenanny!: Just seemed like bland and generic rock to me... much improved upon by their most recent release... aside from a few fun little ditties (Saturday Morning in particular...) its largely forgettable and middle of the road - ish in my opinion.
3. The Manic Street Preachers - This is my Truth, Tell Me Yours: snooooooooore fest.
2. Blowback - Tricky: This isn't the same person as the one who made his debut album... did he die and some studio boffin took on making albums under his name...
But by far the worst and biggest travesty of my listening time has to be...
1. Genesis - Calling All Stations GUYS GUYS GUYS! Ray Wilson was NOT a good choice for a Genesis lead vocalist! NOOOOOOOO! He sounds somewhere between Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams, and the songs they provided him with didn't help - middle of the road rock balladry and some wasted instrumental sections on songs that just didn't work with Wilson's voice...
They hoped it would reignite feelings and sentiments of the Gabriel days, with raspy vocals - but in actual fact it was a middle of the road play it safe bummer. Even We Can't Dance showed flair, pizzaz and was still full of their magic as a band but this - this was just forgettable, and a poor way to end their recording career - lets hope something happens to make us all forget about this chapter one day...
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Post by ScottsyII on Mar 9, 2006 13:07:00 GMT -5
Oh I should mention that with regards to my comments on Rattle and Hum, I don't know Maarten's actual opinions on the album, i was just stealing one of his favourite phrases... "a dogs breakfast"... he might actually love Rattle and Hum for all I know...
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Post by Ayinger on Mar 9, 2006 16:25:52 GMT -5
hmmmm,,,,I've always had a soft spot for "Rattle".....must be a soft spot in me head...
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Post by Thorngrub on Mar 9, 2006 17:10:11 GMT -5
all great suggestions (w/the single exception of Bruce Springsteen's "Ghost Of Tom Joad"). You'll have to add me to your apology list, Ken! I think that album is really good. Very mellow, on a par w/the Pumpkins "Adore" and now, w/Gilmour's "On An Island": all 3 albums are very subdued, mellow works of calm transcendence. Good stuff The rest of your list I thought was spot-on, Holzman. And Scottsy too ! You hit the nail on the head w/those (the ones I've heard). That "Ovo" . . . what was pete thinking?! But I have to mention this Scottsy: @ 1st, I, too, was underwhelmed and not a bit impressed with my initial listens to "Emotive". But upon further listenings - -at my own insistence, I found myself quite literally making a breakthrough in understanding. I think it was their cover of Zep's massive "When The Levee Breaks": man, first time I heard that, I was actually furious! "What Shit" I thought, and tossed it off as a bad mistake on their behalf. I don't know if its cuz I got stoned, or what, but I swear to god, one time suddenly while I was listening to that, the piano notes struck me as so achingly, hauntingly beautiful . . . I kinda forgot the ol' original heavy blues rocker, and instead lavished in the gorgeous, ambient -jazz rendition, and a light bulb went off in my head  I realized, man, APC has put out an album of covers deconstructing these classics~! And upon a renewed listen to their cover of Lennon's *untouchable* original of "Imagine", I was struck again by its undeniable brilliance, their having changed it to a minor key, hence evolving it into a freakin funeral dirge, struck me as the most sublime thing . . . it caused my eyes to star up w/tears . . . I know in my soul that if John could hear this re-imagining of his precious song, he'd smile from ear to ear from the sheer genius of it, and its quite palpable haunting quality. Yes, I did a 180 on "Emotive" at that point, and wouldn't you know - - but all the rest of the tracks fell right into place while I listened to them in a new light. The only song that kinda bothers me is that final one, that "fiddle and the drum" song . . . I could do w/out that one, for sure. I don't know. . . maybe give it another chance ? "Emotive" is another pretty mellow album, you could practically add it to those other three I mentioned, Adore, Tom Joad, and On An Island. All 4 vintage recordings, imo. |
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Post by Kensterberg on Mar 9, 2006 17:13:50 GMT -5
Great list, Scottsy! And I have to agree about Shootenanny! I have E's debut cd, and then didn't pick up anything else by him until I grabbed this on a whim ... and it is absolutely abysmal. I thought it was just me (those critical blind spots, ya know), so I'm really happy to see someone else calling this one a dud.
Paul -- There is a total of one good track on Cut the Crap: the magnificent This is England (though even this is marred by god-awful background vocals). Spend a buck to download that track, or steal it off the internet (I don't think anyone associated with the band will really mind) and then just pretend it doesn't exist. The last Clash album was Combat Rock.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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Post by Kensterberg on Mar 9, 2006 17:41:36 GMT -5
OK, I'm gonna talk some more about Tom Joad, and I'm gonna do it here b/c the album came up in this conversation ...
There are three really good/borderline great songs on this record: the title cut, Youngstown, and My Best Was Never Good Enough. On these tracks, Springsteen deals out some of the best and most pointed lyrics of his career, and weds them to vocals worthy of the words. Moreover, in each case the arrangements are nearly perfect, providing appropriate settings and bringing out the melodies of the tunes. If this had been an EP of those three tracks it would have been a five star release; add in any other two tracks and it would still be a solid four star release. But as it stands, those are the only listenable songs on a twelve track album.
It's obvious that Bruce spent a lot of time on the lyrics to this record, and the lyrics throughout are thoughtful and full of evocative details and haunting lines. However, they are delivered in nearly a hushed monotone throughout, and wind up losing their power as they fall well shy of the emotional bullseye hit by that near-perfect trio mentioned above. The almost total lack of melody ruins Sinoloa Cowboys (also the incongruity of Springsteen singing as an illegal alien doesn't help the track), and holds back pretty much every cut on the record. Only Straight Time comes close to that mark, and it is also the track that sounds the most like a simple outtake from Nebraska.
Also, there was a tremendous disappointment attached to this record. Coming a few years after the servicable, but certainly not brilliant, duel release of Human Touch and Lucky Town, and with (as always) a fair degree of media hype, The Ghost of Tom Joad had a lot to live up to. When it arrived, despite my putting it into near continual rotation for well over a month, it just completely failed to connect with me. It didn't chart any new territory for the Boss (even the lyrics were merely a refinement of his earlier work), and it didn't even allow for the cathartic rush of tracks like Lucky Town and Living Proof, the defiance of The Big Muddy, or even the hard-won sentiment of My Beautiful Reward or If I Should Fall Behind. Instead, the record just kind of sat there, like a Nebraska wannabee, with the surface sound but none of the emotional depth of its predecessor. Measured against the two albums it most closely resembles (Nebraska and Tunnel of Love), Tom Joad is a hugely inferior work.
Largely because of its amelodic nature (IMHO anyway) it lacks the human core at the heart of those earlier masterpieces. If one of the failings of Human Touch and Lucky Town is the distance between Bruce and his backing band, then Tom Joad further alienates the Boss from his subjects. Bruce observes the details of these sketches brilliantly, but there's always a distance between Bruce Springsteen, singer/songwriter, and the characters. The total demolition of that kind of distance was what made the younger (and older) Springsteen so compelling. Tom Joad marked the first time that Bruce had ever put that sort of distance between himself and his characters, the first time it was patently obvious that their stories weren't his.
While that wouldn't matter with many other performers (David Bowie, for example), it is a central part of what makes Springsteen a great (and important) rocker. Few others can match Springsteen in the art of making it appear that he is totally committed to what he's doing, of completely immersing himself in the rock and roll fire and showing us the burns. When Springsteen is at his best, the words and music appear to come from nowhere, to just appear fully formed for everyone, including the performer, to take in. I've heard a bootleg of Springsteen singing And Then She Kissed Me where he sounded so completely caught up in the moment, it was like the song was being written right there on the spot. To his credit, Bruce is able to pull three (near) great moments out of the disaster of Tom Joad, but compared to his best work, this is so far behind as to scarcely merit attention. Just compare the version of Youngstown on the LP to the far superior live performance from the 2000 NYC concert: there is no doubt which is more immediate, which belongs in the Springsteen canon and which could have remained a demo tape.
And that's why I rate The Ghost of Tom Joad as one of the ten worst albums by good bands. Coming from someone else, it might have gotten off with a kinder word from me. Most artists are lucky to come up with a track as powerful as the title cut even once or twice in their careers, and Billy Joel (among many others) would sell his soul to the devil (again) to write just one track like Youngstown. But this isn't someone else, this is Bruce Springsteen. And for someone so talented, so gifted, and so damnably slow to release new material, there is a higher standard. This is what happens when you've earned a spot at the table with the big boys, and when you slip up here, it's a long way to fall.
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Post by Galactus on Mar 9, 2006 18:17:28 GMT -5
Ok while I don't think it's as bad as Ken does, I agree with most everything he said. The biggest problem for me is the lack of melody on most of the songs and the mastering is so low it's literaly hard to listen to. The handfull of tracks that work are gold but much of the rest of it just sounds like strum strum mumble mumble strum which is sad knowing how much work he put into the album.
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Post by frag on Mar 9, 2006 19:43:00 GMT -5
I think Ken nailed most of the obvious ones. Except for Goat's Head, which I too, like.
I'd have Ten and VS on my list. I think I'm the only Pearl Jam fan on the planet who doesn't like those two albums.
Pablo Honey - radiohead
Second Coming - Stone Roses (it should count, right?)
Kill Uncle - Morrissey
plus many more...
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Post by ScottsyII on Mar 9, 2006 20:48:58 GMT -5
Thorny, on your recommendation alone, I'll give Emotive another shot tomorrow... you have a way of putting things that completely makes me wanna look again at it - will give it a new go!
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Post by Paul on Mar 9, 2006 20:54:19 GMT -5
I think Ken nailed most of the obvious ones. Except for Goat's Head, which I too, like. I'd have Ten and VS on my list. I think I'm the only Pearl Jam fan on the planet who doesn't like those two albums. Pablo Honey - radiohead Second Coming - Stone Roses (it should count, right?) Kill Uncle - Morrissey plus many more... Great post everyone! I like the way this thread is coming around....I was curious to see who thought what was bad from their favorite bands, and this is nice. This thread can even morph into a bitch about your favorite artist thread.... Well, I love AC/DC, and believe you me, they put some absolute crap out. Fly On the Wall is pure shite! Watered down, half-ass, going through the motions, crap version of Back In Black. From 1973 to 1980 AC/DC was near flawless, and full of energy; and they embodied rock. No frill, no opera (Kinks at this time), no glam, no make-up, just bash your fist into something, straight forward blue collar rock. Fly on the Wall was pure complacency, and just a bore to listen to. This album easily makes my list of bad album by a good band. Frag, you are indeed one of the few people who are into PJ and not like 10 and Vs.....Holzman may be w/ you though... While I wouldn't go as far to say I hate 10, it is near the bottom of the pile for me in the PJ catalog. It's not the songs that bother me so much, but the production. Vs. on the other hand was much more aggressive and loose, and I instantly connected to it. Rockers like "Go" "Animal", and "Blood" are some of PJ's best IMO, "Rear view Mirror" was a giant leap forward for the band, and the soft and touching sign off "Indifference" is a great album closer. I was actually considering putting Riot Act up here. Now that one, I've had a very difficult time accepting. |
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Post by Kensterberg on Mar 9, 2006 21:33:21 GMT -5
I really don't like 10. Vs. is muuuuuuch better, but some of the record is only half realized (i.e. Daughter, Elderly Woman ...). A solid four star LP, IMHO, but not nearly as good as Vitalogy and No Code.
Riot Act really was disappointing ... may have to give it another listen soon just to see if I unfairly dismissed it, or if it really is that slight.
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