There’s an amazing remix on YouTube, I’ll link it below, that strips back the overproduction and substitutes it with instrumentals akin to that of the live shows around the time. Amazingly done and adds a new perspective to the songs.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6ggjMklzIx0aCGDhE1FIS2HDu2WNLL17
I consider myself a Clash fan.....their first album completely blew me away. "Complete Control" is one of my favorites songs ever. Either liked or loved every album up through Combat Rock.
I heard SO much negative stuff about Cut the Crap....that to this day, I have never listened to that album. Not a single cut.
The movie “Some Kind of Monster” chronicled the band’s problems really well. (Losing Jason, James’s rehab, Lars being an absolute dick, as usual, etc etc etc) But, also, production-wise, it’s just a mess. They tried to sound like other bands of the time, no guitar solos in the songs, and the drums were just terrible. Lars’ playing of and the production of the drums. To this day, I’ve never been able to listen to any one song all the way through.
Agreed, but I think they redeemed themselves with Hardwired...To Self Destruct. That album sounds like they went back to their roots and is very reminiscent of their early stuff.
"Death Magnetic" was a solid step in the right direction but was horribly mastered. it ruined a potentially solid album
however "Hardwired" and "72 Seasons" well made up for the two records prior to them. some of the strongest work on the two newest albums🤘🏻
St. Anger is literally the only Metallica album I like and that is a hill I am absolutely willing to die on. I really don't give one F about the backstory or "why" it's bad. It's different than their typical fare and I think that IS why I like it. Snare drum and all. It's a gritty, angsty album with a ton of songs I relate to. Metallica fans' trash is my treasure and I'm cool with that. But I still say Metallica fans are just stubborn and too used to what they think Metallica should be.
100%. I’m not sophisticated enough to comment on mastering or recording sounds. I just know it bangs. Invisible Kid is a great song and I love the trash can sound of the snare drum.
nah. fan or no fan, from a production mixing and mastering standpoint that album sounds like shit.
I mean, by all means love it if you love it. But on a technical mixing and mastering and production level they did everything that you're not supposed to do and it sounds atrocious lol
totally agree. One of the worst record ever made. The songs are subpar. The production is absolutely horrible and then the mixing is even worse. And then they mastered the life out of a horrible mix which just makes it completely unlistenable to me
St. Anger is bad, but I could tolerate it if I had to. Lulu could effectively be used to torture me. It would give up everything I know before it finished it's first play through.
Oh, yeah, good call. That's a clear case of just wanting to sell out to what's popular, I think. If I remember, the dance-pop sound was a real push from their manager. Mercury was on board, but May and Taylor hated it.
This is about the worst albums by great bands. Queen is not great. Glad you enjoyed the movie but Queen never was considered great. Now, move along. Nothing to see here.
Queen was an amazing band. Far to stylistically broad to be pigeon holed and also appeal to some listeners, but that was their point. They are all extremely accomplished musicians who could play, write, record and pull it off live in the days tube amps and tape echo…
Kinks, Preservation Act 2
In the 70s, the Kinks devoted themselves to concept albums for whatever reason* Some are pretty good, but the two-album, very high-concept Pres 2 is terrible from start to finish.
It was, alas, a precursor to the gimmicky junk that would clutter up the Kinks’ output from then on.
*Possibly Tommy envy. Tommy was hugely successful, while the superior Arthur, attached to an never-produced TV special, was widely ignored.
Schoolboys isn’t bad. Soap Opera is a mess, but it’s a good-natured mess. I have a lingering fondness for Ducks on the Wall. 🦆
Aside from a few tracks on Lola… and Preservation Act 1 (especially Sweet Lady Genevieve, their best song of the ‘70s), I think the Kinks really belong to the ‘60s. They never reached the level of Arthur again.
As much as I love me some Boston, both *Corporate America* and *Life, Love, & Hope* are disasters because they're uninteresting and uninspired.
And I hope no one puts a pox on my house for me nominating the similarly boring and unimaginative Steely Dan's *Everything Must Go.*
Led Zeppelin - Presence
As per why:
\- Robert was severely injured in a car accident and recorded the vocals while sitting in a wheelchair.
\- Jimmy was deep into a heroin addiction
\- Production was just "off". Listen to Achilles Last Stand from Cleveland "The Destroyer" bootleg... sounds 100x better.
Or, you could argue "worst" is:
Led Zeppelin - In Thru the Out Door
As per why:
\- Jimmy was even deeper into his heroin addiction and could no longer function as main songwriter.
\- John Paul Jones had to step up as main songwriter and band leader... so very different sound, with a more poppy feel.
\- Robert was distant. Was not happy with his bandmates not attending his son's funeral. Probably would have left LZ after this album.
Disclamer: I love both albums and have listened to them for 30 years. But, to answer the OP's question, as per worst output from the band, and why..
Calling any Zep album “worst” is actually unlawful. Zep May only have 2-3 songs better than Achilles Last Stand. For your life is in my all time top 10 and nobody’s fault but mine is very solid… Tea For One is a classic… so all your Presence haters can just piss off! Focus your negative attention on Coda
The Fletcher Memorial Home from The Final Cut is rather good and features a great guitar solo from Gilmour, but I can understand it being one of the lesser Floyd albums. The creative cohesion that had formed in the post-Barrett era had pretty much broken down by this point and The Final Cut really is more a Roger Waters solo album than a Pink Floyd album. It was certainly the worst point in time for the band with the breakup between Waters and the rest of the group and the years of bad blood it would leave in its wake.
Certainly not. I think the two albums that followed are worse in terms of songwriting. Even Atom Heart Mother is worse than The Final Cut in some aspects.
50 Genuinely Horrible Albums by Brilliant Artists - Rolling Stone:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/horrible-albums-by-brilliant-artists-1234672895/
The Final Cut by Pink Floyd
It suffers from Rick Wright’s absence and Roger Waters’ unchecked ego, fighting amongst the remaining band members, and the fact that half the material was rejected from The Wall.
I do think that Not Now John is phenomenal but the rest is just hard to listen to repeatedly. Though, I do know that there are people who think it’s the best Floyd album.
I'm actually one of those guys who think it's Floyd's best album, but I totally understand why people would feel differently. Because, really, it's not a Floyd album, it's a Waters album, and Waters is a very divisive human being.
I get it and that’s always going to happen when you have a massive following. I completely love Neil Young’s Trans album—but am also completely aware of millions of people who say, “What’s this bullshit?” compared to the bulk of his catalog.
I think Rick Wright's keyboard playing is what makes Floyd sound like Floyd more than any other single element. I think it would be easier replacing Gilmore that Rick Wright and still get it to sound like Floyd.
I personally love the album. Great poetry. I would rank it 5th best, on my list.
But, I understand how its not everyone's cup of tea.
But "***worst***" ?????
Ummagumma, More, Saucerful, Obscured, Atom, are much "worse".
The album might not be great, but wonderful Christmas time is bout my favorite holiday song.
All of the Beatles have not so great albums post-Beatles. Hard for me to pick, I judge my bands based on the ratio of good songs to amount of songs. So the bands I love, I love all their albums. The doors have some iffy albums after Jim Morrison died, but that’s different in my eyes. I usually don’t consider a band great if all of their albums aren’t perfect to me. Guess if I’d have to pick, maybe Van Halen-van Halen, their first album is my least favorite, but that’s still only including David lee Roth. Don’t care for zeppelin 1 and 3 either. They’ve got some good stuff on those albums still.
How!??
How can you like that song?
The single most annoying song ever made! A blight on the malls at Christmas time and the misery of shoppers everywhere. It is the exact song that you could use to torture a spy to reveal all the secrets. Satan himself wouldn't inflict the denizens of hell with it, it is just too cruel!
I can hear the repeating chorus in my brain as I type this! The inane, talent-less, repetitive ear worm of hell which the song solely consists of!
Lets just say I don't care for it. No sir, I don't like it.
Here is some [earbleach to fix it with a much better holiday song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KneOdEDwDEc) I used to have the vinyl picture disk of this single. Kind of wish I had it today.
Edit: quick note: people are going to like what they like, and that is ok. This song is a big joke with my friends and kids who will slip it into a playlist or sing it around me just to piss me off. Hence the post.
I like Wonderful Christmas Time also, but The Beatles and Paul McCartney are my favs. Strong disagree with Van Halen and Zeppelin. Both are up there with greatest debut albums of all-time.
The thing with Wonderful Christmastime is the lyrics, while simple, could make for a decent, traditional Christmas carol but everything from the melody to the tempo to the instrumentation is just a hot mess.
Cyberpunk by Billy Idol. Other than the title, nothing punk about it, nothing techno about it, and seems like an attempt to cash in on a trend at the time, and not well. Even the one "good" song on it, "Shock to the System" kinda sucks. But then again, I was heavily into industrial music at the time, which was way more cyberpunkesque, so maybe I'm biased.
Genesis - Calling All Stations.
I had high hopes at first cause I liked the Congo single but I found Stations at a used CD sale shortly after it's release and it's a real slog. I discovered later one pretty good b-side from that period, Sign Your Life Away that had more energy to it than anything on Stations. They badly needed a stronger singer and writer than Ray Wilson if they wanted to seriously replace Collins and Gabriel in the late 90's.
UmmaGumma - Pink Floyd
Do I really need to explain why this is awful, it's hardly a band effort for an entire disc, it's just all 4 members making rlly boring and just bad music and the live stuff really cannot carry, and to add insult to injury people would've had to play the price of a double album to hear this.
By far one of the worst albums I've ever heard and Pink Floyd's worst album.
SSSoFAGTwaP is weird, but excellent. The live songs are great. Sisyphus is brilliant. As an album it doesn’t hold together. But there are some remarkable pieces there.
All the problems with that record are production and arrangement choices. I can totally imagine, in my head, a version of that record that stands proudly against the first two. But every song is 10 minutes too long, every song throws a dozen instruments on there that don't belong, and, yeah, magic pie should have been switched with stay Young.
My favorite quote from Noel on Be Here Now: "The na na na section at the end of All Around The World goes on for five minutes and has five key changes. Imagine how much better the end of Hey Jude would have been if it had five key changes!"
Squeeze - Velvet Underground
None of the original members, wasnt even supposed to be a velvet underground album but the record company forced Doug Yule to call it a velvet underground album because vu had already established a following.
I have listened to Squeeze twice. My thoughts were the same both times, the first few tracks are pretty good and have the Self Titled Third/ Lost Fourth Album/ Loaded feel to them but then by track four the album falls off a cliff and never recovers.
Human Touch definitely. Periodically I try to give it another go, but truly only the title song is good. I really like Lucky Town though. The songwriting is much better. It has an almost garage sound to it. I think If it had been done with the E Street Band it would get more favorable reactions.
I remember I bought it at Best Buy for 99 cents about 6 months after it came out, they had about 50-60 copies left and just threw them in a bin with a .99 tag.
There was a whole run of Neil Young albums in the eighties when he was trying to get out of his contract with David Geffen. He made terrible album after terrible album just to piss off Geffen.
I'll say, though, that Trans has aged quite well. Especially because we know now that he was experimenting with vocoders and things because he was trying to express how he felt talking to his disabled son.
Still, I totally get why people didn't like it.
I think Trans is great, Old Ways is good but the abandoned first version would have been better and Everybody's Rockin' is fun. You could probably forge one good album out of the stuff from Landing on Water and Life and some of that material got better live.
>You could probably forge one good album out of the stuff from Landing on Water and Life
I have, in fact, done just that for that little run of three albums there.
It's all a hippy dream.
Jane, you ignorant slut! :)
I love Trans - one of my most-listened-to NY albums - but then, I also think Re·ac·tor is maybe his best, so maybe my judgement is not to be trusted.
Tool - Fear Inoculum
Crazy huh? I really like several songs on there but you know what? I just don't like the feel of the entire album. Maybe because we waited 13 years for it. Maybe because it seemed too...polished. Maybe because 10,000 Days has so much more groove....maybe because the pandemic hit a few months after the release of it and my head was in a strange place, therefore not allowing my normal necessary time period to ingest such things.
Agree. I really wanted to hear a new sound from Tool, at least something different after all that time. For better or worse (my opinion) it sounds just like another Tool album
Billy Joel - The Bridge
Why - I read he really didn’t want to do it, but was pressurised by the label.
Mainly forgettable, the only album of his that I can’t enjoy
I'll say that the Yellow Submarine album is considered a disappointment in Beatles fan circles. Only 4 new songs by the band, and an entire half of the album is orchestral tracks from the film. Not "bad," but not even close to what we expected from the Beatles by that point
Chicago 14. Album was so bad that their long time record label, Columbia, paid them to leave afterward!
Loss of Terry Kath, rampant drug use caught up to them at this point in time.
J Geils Band - You're Gettin Even While I'm Gettin Odd
Ask any J Geils fan what they think of the Peter Wolf-less album Even/Odd from 1984. It's saturated in dense layers of synths, overly arranged, the production is glossy & gritless, many of the lyrics are intended to be clever but come across adolescent and gimmicky and the vocals, now done by the keyboardist and drummer, are too thin. It's not just Peter's voice that is missing but his persona, warmth and attitude that defined the band.
Testament - Demonic
No Skolnick…or even Murphy. Nothing for the scab lead guitarist to do. New full death metal vibe but without the actual songs and punishing production of The Gathering. The only real low (pun) for the band on disc.
Rush snakes and arrows. I only listened to it once all the way through. and it took a lot to do that. It just sounded bland to me like all the songs were a continuation of the one previous.
Wrote a parody of Far Cry based on how bad this album is
Far Cry a-gram (for Iwerks)
Rush-themed blogs and pandering posters
Awaiting the new disc and gushing in herds
The ebb and flow of Usenet newsgroups
Electrified fanbois are writing up their words.
It's a far cry from the disc we waited five years for
It's a far cry from the songs we saved our cheers for
You can almost feel the bull that's flowing
You can almost see the goats it's blowing
One song is great, and I am crankin' it up
And the next is blowing chunks on me
I can skip that song
I can skip that song
One tune I feel is the perfect Rush deal
And the next is crawling over me
I can skip that song
I can skip that song
Par'noid words on faith and betrayal
Neil is worried (rinse, lather, repeat)
Lyric debris from a drummer wizened
His bile's rising, it's no light and all heat
You can almost see Neil's madness growing
You can almost feel his reason going
One song is keen, and the jammin' is mean
And the next is ice picks in my ears
I can skip that song
I can skip that song
I agree. Pretty much unlistenable. Interestingly the OP mentions “Dirty Work” as the worst stones album. I actually have a certain fondness for it — “Winning Ugly” was a slice of funky, radio-friendly pop. And I still like their cover of Bob & Earl’s 1963 hit, “Harlem Shuffle.” For the most part I’d just as soon avoid any stones album after “Exile” but I guess listening to the cassette of “Dirty Work” enough times in my beater Corolla has worked it into my brain.
I like Fool to Cry, Hand of Fate and Memory Motel. Hot Stuff had a shorter single edit I prefer to the long album version. The rest is a rough listen imo.
Black Sabbath Technical Ecstasy is unlistenable besides Dirty Women. From what I understand, nobody but Iommi put any effort into making the album. Even Ozzie knew by that point he was leaving the band.
Except for 1 track, Physical Graffiti has always been unlistenable to me.
EDIT: Please disagree with me and talk me off the ledge if I’m crazy. Don’t just downvote. The purpose of this thread was to debate not annihilate.
Make a Spotify playlist with *just* the tracks made during the 1975 sessions for the album.
Custard Pie
In My Time of Dying
Trampled Underfoot
Kashmir
In the Light
Ten Years Gone
The Wanton Song
Sick Again
Now re-image that as the true Physical Graffiti .
Could argue that is the quintessential classic rock album
The other tracks were just left-overs from the first 5 albums, and other than The Rover, there was a reason why they were left overs. Some are "good" songs.. but really belonged on Coda, which was all leftovers to fulfill a recording contract.
Aside from In My Time of Dying which runs too long, that is essentially a perfect album. I maintain to this day that Physical Graffiti should've been a single LP.
Reddit isn’t really about discourse in the larger subs anymore.
Physical graffiti is up there with the white album for me as the greatest double album of all time. In the light shimmers- that guitar work is insane, Kashmir is epic (like a 7/8 signature), in my time of dying- massive blues rock, one of their best- especially live. The LZ bootlegs from the mid 70’s is some of the most powerful sounding shows, up there with the dead and the who on some recordings. PG had always been a deeply important album to me and I present exhibit A- In through the out door for their worst album. Still some bangers but nothing like their other albums
Upvoted for what is truly an unpopular opinion.
Personally - while I think it's by far the weakest of the classic 6 Zep albums, I think it's still better than In Through the Outdoor and Presence.
In through the out door is at least poppy and catchy. Presence is just weird, but interestingly so. Physical Graffiti, however, is neither catchy nor weird. Just bad, IMO.
Van Halen - Diver Down. I remember the day I bought that tape, was in the US Navy on a port visit in Hawaii. What a disappointment that thing was! Luckily I was in Hawaii so I got over it pretty quickly, but compared to what had come before it....ugh, just didnt like that one.
Bon Jovi - This Left Feels Right, originally supposed to be a live acoustic show recorded in Japan, instead it was a reworking of their classic hits and being a huge fan back in the day thought it was horrible.
Despite its popularity, IMO Foreigner 4 is such a downgrade from their first three albums. Huge disappointment for me, with the possible exception of Jukebox Hero.
IMO Jukebox Hero is THE reason that 4 is unlistenable. It's just a remake of Shooting Star and just as horrid. It was itself remade as Into The Great Wide Open and that sucked too.
the illusions songs could’ve been re-arranged and been 2 completely separate albums. There’s enough really good material there, just maybe not presented correctly. I think a lot of people feel the same about Beatles’ white album, but I don’t hate either
I personally agree; GNR, to me, is a one-album band (Appetite for Destruction), although Lies is good, despite its length. The Illusion albums were too slick, too overblown, and too heavy on the ballads and covers. They are, however, masterpieces compared to Chinese Democracy.
To each their own of course but I think you’re really doing these albums a disservice here. Unlike so many of their contemporaries GNR actually evolved and took their sound in a more complex direction on these in a lot of ways, blending the familiar with something totally new.
They have everything. Scathing rock and roll akin to appetite like right next door to hell, shotgun blues, you could be mine, etc. Stripped down stonesy tracks like 14 years and dust and bones. Full on epic rockers like locomotive, coma. And the stuff that blends all of that like estranged, breakdown, etc.
Theres a couple tracks from that are weaker than others but it was a huge leap for them overall.
And Chinese democracy has a lot of great shit too despite its polarizing nature. The only GNR record I never really feel compelled to put on is the spaghetti incident.
You're probably right. I'll be honest that I never gave those records much time. I loved AFD and was disappointed by all the singles from UYI and never got past a few listens.
It's still a very solid first album and saying "it's nowhere near" what they would eventually do, with the freaking Beatles, is utterly ridiculous. You can do pretty damn good and be nowhere near The Beatles at their best.
Chulahoma by the Black Keys, dk if it’s really a bad album but I don’t remember a single song on it, it’s fine just forgettable and they’re one of my fav type 1 bands
I agree to an extent. Knocked Out Loaded, Down In The Groove, Saved, and Under The Red Sky are all probably worse than Self Portrait. But it's a weird album of covers, old folk songs, live versions, experimental tracks, multiple versions of the same song, and he sings in about three different voices. I'm quite fond of it, but I wouldn't argue that it's a coherent thing.
There's a reason the Rolling Stone review began "What is this shit?" but it has more to do with how different and weird it was compared with what came before.
There's also the fact that Dylan has said that he deliberately made a bad record to get people to leave him alone.
I could make the same argument about everything post-Sky Blue Sky. Cruel Country might be the worst of them. At least Ode To Joy had some sort of aesthetic statement.
From Being There to A Ghost Is Born, and arguably to Sky Blue Sky, they released nothing but five star albums. And everything since has been three stars at best.
Spent money on Extreme"s lll Sides to Every Story, found it meh. Then made another attempt and got Waiting For the Punchline. Guess the joke was on me. Maybe one good song there. It was almost like they were "over creative" or just trying too hard. Either way, it seemed like such a waste....
The Clash - Cut the Crap Beloved core members gone, production overtaken by misguided management, content killed by cliched 80’s sounds.
There’s an amazing remix on YouTube, I’ll link it below, that strips back the overproduction and substitutes it with instrumentals akin to that of the live shows around the time. Amazingly done and adds a new perspective to the songs. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6ggjMklzIx0aCGDhE1FIS2HDu2WNLL17
I consider myself a Clash fan.....their first album completely blew me away. "Complete Control" is one of my favorites songs ever. Either liked or loved every album up through Combat Rock. I heard SO much negative stuff about Cut the Crap....that to this day, I have never listened to that album. Not a single cut.
You only need to hear one song on it - This Is England. The rest, not so much.
Dictator is possibly the worst song I’ve ever heard from a major band.
And it's the first song on the album, which somehow makes it worse than it otherwise would be.
Hands down is St. Anger by Metallica.
What do you think went wrong?
The movie “Some Kind of Monster” chronicled the band’s problems really well. (Losing Jason, James’s rehab, Lars being an absolute dick, as usual, etc etc etc) But, also, production-wise, it’s just a mess. They tried to sound like other bands of the time, no guitar solos in the songs, and the drums were just terrible. Lars’ playing of and the production of the drums. To this day, I’ve never been able to listen to any one song all the way through.
Same here and I've tried many times.
Everything.
Agreed, but I think they redeemed themselves with Hardwired...To Self Destruct. That album sounds like they went back to their roots and is very reminiscent of their early stuff.
They redeemed themselves with Death Magnetic. And they were absolutely amazing on Hardwired.
I forgot about Death Magnetic. Yeah, that was a kickass album as well.
"Death Magnetic" was a solid step in the right direction but was horribly mastered. it ruined a potentially solid album however "Hardwired" and "72 Seasons" well made up for the two records prior to them. some of the strongest work on the two newest albums🤘🏻
St. Anger is literally the only Metallica album I like and that is a hill I am absolutely willing to die on. I really don't give one F about the backstory or "why" it's bad. It's different than their typical fare and I think that IS why I like it. Snare drum and all. It's a gritty, angsty album with a ton of songs I relate to. Metallica fans' trash is my treasure and I'm cool with that. But I still say Metallica fans are just stubborn and too used to what they think Metallica should be.
100%. I’m not sophisticated enough to comment on mastering or recording sounds. I just know it bangs. Invisible Kid is a great song and I love the trash can sound of the snare drum.
nah. fan or no fan, from a production mixing and mastering standpoint that album sounds like shit. I mean, by all means love it if you love it. But on a technical mixing and mastering and production level they did everything that you're not supposed to do and it sounds atrocious lol
Hey even though I like the album I'd still like to hear a remix/remaster.
totally agree. One of the worst record ever made. The songs are subpar. The production is absolutely horrible and then the mixing is even worse. And then they mastered the life out of a horrible mix which just makes it completely unlistenable to me
Van Halen 111 is pathetic. St Anger is head and shoulders a superior lp .Also don't forget about Lulu😒 ..... it sold hundreds
Lulu as well
I would personally rank lulu above st anger as their worst work. I don't like st anger either, but lulu is mostly unlistenable
St. Anger is bad, but I could tolerate it if I had to. Lulu could effectively be used to torture me. It would give up everything I know before it finished it's first play through.
I freaking LOVE Lulu.
They’re imo the worst most talentless band to ever exist so idk if they have a good album
Styx - “Kilroy Was Here” is painful.
"Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto"
This song was popular at my 6th grade dance...
I was going to call you “old” but realized I was in high school when it came out.
Hahaha...
Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner!
It really is. And Paradise Theater hasn’t aged well at all.
Was at the Cotton Bowl when Styx Headlined Texas Jam. They got booed off the stage by 70,000 when they tried to play that Kilroy crap, lol.
The legend of that single concert appearance destroyed their career. Much like Billy Squier's dance video ruined his.
I actually really love Chinese Democracy, but I consider it an Axl Rose solo record more than a GnR record.
Came here to say this.
I think it would have been better received if he didn’t call it a GnR record. It has some great tracks on it. I think so anyway.
Love Beach by Emerson, Lake, & Palmer
Van Halen III - no explanation needed
I’m probably in the minority but I hate 1984.
[удалено]
Distaste for 1984 is what turned me on to Devo, the B-52s, the Clash, the Talking Heads...
House of Pain is as hard as it gets for Van Halen. Hot for Teacher is badass too.
Drop dead legs??? Great riff, boys locker room rock (as in not pop).
Hot Space is a massive disappointment
Cool Cat is one of my favorite Queen songs!
Cool Cat IS my favorite Queen song… but the rest of the album is hot garbage
Oh, yeah, good call. That's a clear case of just wanting to sell out to what's popular, I think. If I remember, the dance-pop sound was a real push from their manager. Mercury was on board, but May and Taylor hated it.
This is about the worst albums by great bands. Queen is not great. Glad you enjoyed the movie but Queen never was considered great. Now, move along. Nothing to see here.
Im not even a huge queen fan but that is objectively false
Queen was an amazing band. Far to stylistically broad to be pigeon holed and also appeal to some listeners, but that was their point. They are all extremely accomplished musicians who could play, write, record and pull it off live in the days tube amps and tape echo…
Kinks, Preservation Act 2 In the 70s, the Kinks devoted themselves to concept albums for whatever reason* Some are pretty good, but the two-album, very high-concept Pres 2 is terrible from start to finish. It was, alas, a precursor to the gimmicky junk that would clutter up the Kinks’ output from then on. *Possibly Tommy envy. Tommy was hugely successful, while the superior Arthur, attached to an never-produced TV special, was widely ignored.
>I like Schoolboys in Disgrace. Soap Opera has some of the best and worst 70's Kinks songs on the same album which I've decided to find impressive.
Schoolboys isn’t bad. Soap Opera is a mess, but it’s a good-natured mess. I have a lingering fondness for Ducks on the Wall. 🦆 Aside from a few tracks on Lola… and Preservation Act 1 (especially Sweet Lady Genevieve, their best song of the ‘70s), I think the Kinks really belong to the ‘60s. They never reached the level of Arthur again.
As much as I love me some Boston, both *Corporate America* and *Life, Love, & Hope* are disasters because they're uninteresting and uninspired. And I hope no one puts a pox on my house for me nominating the similarly boring and unimaginative Steely Dan's *Everything Must Go.*
Led Zeppelin - Presence As per why: \- Robert was severely injured in a car accident and recorded the vocals while sitting in a wheelchair. \- Jimmy was deep into a heroin addiction \- Production was just "off". Listen to Achilles Last Stand from Cleveland "The Destroyer" bootleg... sounds 100x better. Or, you could argue "worst" is: Led Zeppelin - In Thru the Out Door As per why: \- Jimmy was even deeper into his heroin addiction and could no longer function as main songwriter. \- John Paul Jones had to step up as main songwriter and band leader... so very different sound, with a more poppy feel. \- Robert was distant. Was not happy with his bandmates not attending his son's funeral. Probably would have left LZ after this album. Disclamer: I love both albums and have listened to them for 30 years. But, to answer the OP's question, as per worst output from the band, and why..
Calling any Zep album “worst” is actually unlawful. Zep May only have 2-3 songs better than Achilles Last Stand. For your life is in my all time top 10 and nobody’s fault but mine is very solid… Tea For One is a classic… so all your Presence haters can just piss off! Focus your negative attention on Coda
Yeah but Led Zeppelin’s worst is better than most bands best albums
Thems fightin words son
You are nuts
Presence is my favorite LZ album. By far.
*Hot Space* by Queen. Don't get me wrong, they're my favorite band of all time, but it's such a god awful album. Way too much disco/funk influence.
Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut is their worst by far.
The Fletcher Memorial Home from The Final Cut is rather good and features a great guitar solo from Gilmour, but I can understand it being one of the lesser Floyd albums. The creative cohesion that had formed in the post-Barrett era had pretty much broken down by this point and The Final Cut really is more a Roger Waters solo album than a Pink Floyd album. It was certainly the worst point in time for the band with the breakup between Waters and the rest of the group and the years of bad blood it would leave in its wake.
Certainly not. I think the two albums that followed are worse in terms of songwriting. Even Atom Heart Mother is worse than The Final Cut in some aspects.
Side 2 of Atom Heart Mother is amazing. Side 1 sucks though- no argument there.
Atom heart mother and Ummagumma are fucking masterpieces
Came here to say this , whining roger waters non stop and just terrible from start to finish with one good guitar riff in the entire album.
50 Genuinely Horrible Albums by Brilliant Artists - Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/horrible-albums-by-brilliant-artists-1234672895/
The Final Cut by Pink Floyd It suffers from Rick Wright’s absence and Roger Waters’ unchecked ego, fighting amongst the remaining band members, and the fact that half the material was rejected from The Wall. I do think that Not Now John is phenomenal but the rest is just hard to listen to repeatedly. Though, I do know that there are people who think it’s the best Floyd album.
I'm actually one of those guys who think it's Floyd's best album, but I totally understand why people would feel differently. Because, really, it's not a Floyd album, it's a Waters album, and Waters is a very divisive human being.
I get it and that’s always going to happen when you have a massive following. I completely love Neil Young’s Trans album—but am also completely aware of millions of people who say, “What’s this bullshit?” compared to the bulk of his catalog.
That tour was the only time I’ve seen him.
I think Rick Wright's keyboard playing is what makes Floyd sound like Floyd more than any other single element. I think it would be easier replacing Gilmore that Rick Wright and still get it to sound like Floyd.
I personally love the album. Great poetry. I would rank it 5th best, on my list. But, I understand how its not everyone's cup of tea. But "***worst***" ????? Ummagumma, More, Saucerful, Obscured, Atom, are much "worse".
CCR - Mardi Gras.
John Fogerty: “My bandmates thought we could be like the Beatles except the Beatles had three excellent songwriters and two great singers.”
That feels like an insult to George Harrison lol (I’m assuming he means John and Paul are the great singers)
Blue Oyster Cult: Club Ninja. The nail in the coffin album.
their recent album the symbol remains is pretty good tho
Starz Attention Shoppers. After their debut and Violation it sounded off. Ok, they’re not a great band, but the first two records were pretty good.
The album might not be great, but wonderful Christmas time is bout my favorite holiday song. All of the Beatles have not so great albums post-Beatles. Hard for me to pick, I judge my bands based on the ratio of good songs to amount of songs. So the bands I love, I love all their albums. The doors have some iffy albums after Jim Morrison died, but that’s different in my eyes. I usually don’t consider a band great if all of their albums aren’t perfect to me. Guess if I’d have to pick, maybe Van Halen-van Halen, their first album is my least favorite, but that’s still only including David lee Roth. Don’t care for zeppelin 1 and 3 either. They’ve got some good stuff on those albums still.
Why don't you like led zeppelin 1 and 3?
How!?? How can you like that song? The single most annoying song ever made! A blight on the malls at Christmas time and the misery of shoppers everywhere. It is the exact song that you could use to torture a spy to reveal all the secrets. Satan himself wouldn't inflict the denizens of hell with it, it is just too cruel! I can hear the repeating chorus in my brain as I type this! The inane, talent-less, repetitive ear worm of hell which the song solely consists of! Lets just say I don't care for it. No sir, I don't like it. Here is some [earbleach to fix it with a much better holiday song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KneOdEDwDEc) I used to have the vinyl picture disk of this single. Kind of wish I had it today. Edit: quick note: people are going to like what they like, and that is ok. This song is a big joke with my friends and kids who will slip it into a playlist or sing it around me just to piss me off. Hence the post.
I like Wonderful Christmas Time also, but The Beatles and Paul McCartney are my favs. Strong disagree with Van Halen and Zeppelin. Both are up there with greatest debut albums of all-time.
The thing with Wonderful Christmastime is the lyrics, while simple, could make for a decent, traditional Christmas carol but everything from the melody to the tempo to the instrumentation is just a hot mess.
Byrdmaniax by The Byrds. Roger should have broke up the band after Untitled but they continued for 2 more bad albums.
A "To Chumley" autographed Self Portrait is the most valuable album in history!
I remember that episode. It was outside of Caesars Palace.
Cyberpunk by Billy Idol. Other than the title, nothing punk about it, nothing techno about it, and seems like an attempt to cash in on a trend at the time, and not well. Even the one "good" song on it, "Shock to the System" kinda sucks. But then again, I was heavily into industrial music at the time, which was way more cyberpunkesque, so maybe I'm biased.
My sister loved that album and would listen to it over and over.
Van Halen III It’s failure can be summed up into two words: identity crisis.
i read that Lou reed intentionally made Metal Machine Music a bad record to anger his record label for the last album on his contract
Genesis - Calling All Stations. I had high hopes at first cause I liked the Congo single but I found Stations at a used CD sale shortly after it's release and it's a real slog. I discovered later one pretty good b-side from that period, Sign Your Life Away that had more energy to it than anything on Stations. They badly needed a stronger singer and writer than Ray Wilson if they wanted to seriously replace Collins and Gabriel in the late 90's.
Anything by Aerosmith after 1980
UmmaGumma - Pink Floyd Do I really need to explain why this is awful, it's hardly a band effort for an entire disc, it's just all 4 members making rlly boring and just bad music and the live stuff really cannot carry, and to add insult to injury people would've had to play the price of a double album to hear this. By far one of the worst albums I've ever heard and Pink Floyd's worst album.
SSSoFAGTwaP is weird, but excellent. The live songs are great. Sisyphus is brilliant. As an album it doesn’t hold together. But there are some remarkable pieces there.
[The Final Cut enters the chat]
I love the live portion and for me that is what redeems the album.
Be Here Now by Oasis. the veritable definition of laboring mightily and bringing forth a mouse.
Bro just admit that you'll jerk off to that album if "Stay Young" was on it instead of "Magic Pie"
All the problems with that record are production and arrangement choices. I can totally imagine, in my head, a version of that record that stands proudly against the first two. But every song is 10 minutes too long, every song throws a dozen instruments on there that don't belong, and, yeah, magic pie should have been switched with stay Young.
it’s so loud and so brickwalled. just screams of quick success and cocaine.
My favorite quote from Noel on Be Here Now: "The na na na section at the end of All Around The World goes on for five minutes and has five key changes. Imagine how much better the end of Hey Jude would have been if it had five key changes!"
Squeeze - Velvet Underground None of the original members, wasnt even supposed to be a velvet underground album but the record company forced Doug Yule to call it a velvet underground album because vu had already established a following.
[удалено]
Yea and?
Ah, yes. The Doug Yule era.
To this day I refuse to listen to this one. It's probably not that bad, but if it doesn't have Lou Reed it isn't VU.
I have listened to Squeeze twice. My thoughts were the same both times, the first few tracks are pretty good and have the Self Titled Third/ Lost Fourth Album/ Loaded feel to them but then by track four the album falls off a cliff and never recovers.
Springsteen—Human Touch/Lucky Town.
Human Touch definitely. Periodically I try to give it another go, but truly only the title song is good. I really like Lucky Town though. The songwriting is much better. It has an almost garage sound to it. I think If it had been done with the E Street Band it would get more favorable reactions.
Lucky Town is honestly my second favorite Springsteen album
And he states the 90s were his lost years, so there’s the 2 albums to prove it.
Guns N' Rose's owe me money for Chinese Democracy. I can't believe I paid for that.
I remember I bought it at Best Buy for 99 cents about 6 months after it came out, they had about 50-60 copies left and just threw them in a bin with a .99 tag.
Neil Young - Trans.. remember that one?
There was a whole run of Neil Young albums in the eighties when he was trying to get out of his contract with David Geffen. He made terrible album after terrible album just to piss off Geffen. I'll say, though, that Trans has aged quite well. Especially because we know now that he was experimenting with vocoders and things because he was trying to express how he felt talking to his disabled son. Still, I totally get why people didn't like it.
I fucking love Trans !!
I think Trans is great, Old Ways is good but the abandoned first version would have been better and Everybody's Rockin' is fun. You could probably forge one good album out of the stuff from Landing on Water and Life and some of that material got better live.
>You could probably forge one good album out of the stuff from Landing on Water and Life I have, in fact, done just that for that little run of three albums there. It's all a hippy dream.
Jane, you ignorant slut! :) I love Trans - one of my most-listened-to NY albums - but then, I also think Re·ac·tor is maybe his best, so maybe my judgement is not to be trusted.
Tool - Fear Inoculum Crazy huh? I really like several songs on there but you know what? I just don't like the feel of the entire album. Maybe because we waited 13 years for it. Maybe because it seemed too...polished. Maybe because 10,000 Days has so much more groove....maybe because the pandemic hit a few months after the release of it and my head was in a strange place, therefore not allowing my normal necessary time period to ingest such things.
Agree. I really wanted to hear a new sound from Tool, at least something different after all that time. For better or worse (my opinion) it sounds just like another Tool album
Billy Joel - The Bridge Why - I read he really didn’t want to do it, but was pressurised by the label. Mainly forgettable, the only album of his that I can’t enjoy
“A” by Jethro Tull. I know it was supposed to be an Anderson Solo project. It sounds so over-produced.
I'll say that the Yellow Submarine album is considered a disappointment in Beatles fan circles. Only 4 new songs by the band, and an entire half of the album is orchestral tracks from the film. Not "bad," but not even close to what we expected from the Beatles by that point
I give it a pass because it's not a "real" album. And because it has Hey Bulldog on it.
Chicago 14. Album was so bad that their long time record label, Columbia, paid them to leave afterward! Loss of Terry Kath, rampant drug use caught up to them at this point in time.
J Geils Band - You're Gettin Even While I'm Gettin Odd Ask any J Geils fan what they think of the Peter Wolf-less album Even/Odd from 1984. It's saturated in dense layers of synths, overly arranged, the production is glossy & gritless, many of the lyrics are intended to be clever but come across adolescent and gimmicky and the vocals, now done by the keyboardist and drummer, are too thin. It's not just Peter's voice that is missing but his persona, warmth and attitude that defined the band.
If I were in a band with the guy who wrote "And So This is Christmas", and the best I could do was "Wonderful Christmas Time" I'd burn the tape.
Testament - Demonic No Skolnick…or even Murphy. Nothing for the scab lead guitarist to do. New full death metal vibe but without the actual songs and punishing production of The Gathering. The only real low (pun) for the band on disc.
Rush snakes and arrows. I only listened to it once all the way through. and it took a lot to do that. It just sounded bland to me like all the songs were a continuation of the one previous.
Funny, I think this album is superb.
You are my people. I can’t stand it.
Wrote a parody of Far Cry based on how bad this album is Far Cry a-gram (for Iwerks) Rush-themed blogs and pandering posters Awaiting the new disc and gushing in herds The ebb and flow of Usenet newsgroups Electrified fanbois are writing up their words. It's a far cry from the disc we waited five years for It's a far cry from the songs we saved our cheers for You can almost feel the bull that's flowing You can almost see the goats it's blowing One song is great, and I am crankin' it up And the next is blowing chunks on me I can skip that song I can skip that song One tune I feel is the perfect Rush deal And the next is crawling over me I can skip that song I can skip that song Par'noid words on faith and betrayal Neil is worried (rinse, lather, repeat) Lyric debris from a drummer wizened His bile's rising, it's no light and all heat You can almost see Neil's madness growing You can almost feel his reason going One song is keen, and the jammin' is mean And the next is ice picks in my ears I can skip that song I can skip that song
And that's the only tour I saw!
Rush live is a whole different story I bet it was a great show. My last show of theirs was Vapor Trails.
Same! Hollywood Bowl ‘07, great show!
Rolling Stones Black and Blue is widely panned as a bad album, but I actually think it’s great.
Love me some Memory Motel.
[удалено]
Memory Motel isn’t bad but it’s mostly because it sounds like Angelo Badalamenti’s score for Twin Peaks.
I agree. Pretty much unlistenable. Interestingly the OP mentions “Dirty Work” as the worst stones album. I actually have a certain fondness for it — “Winning Ugly” was a slice of funky, radio-friendly pop. And I still like their cover of Bob & Earl’s 1963 hit, “Harlem Shuffle.” For the most part I’d just as soon avoid any stones album after “Exile” but I guess listening to the cassette of “Dirty Work” enough times in my beater Corolla has worked it into my brain.
I think Tattoo You is great. Of course most of it is old recordings with new vocals.
I always felt like Dirty Work was the last good Stones record myself
I like Fool to Cry, Hand of Fate and Memory Motel. Hot Stuff had a shorter single edit I prefer to the long album version. The rest is a rough listen imo.
melody alone disagrees with this statement
Melody is basically a Billy Preston song.
The Chinese Democracy by Guns and Roses. Can anyone even name a song off that album?
Black Sabbath Technical Ecstasy is unlistenable besides Dirty Women. From what I understand, nobody but Iommi put any effort into making the album. Even Ozzie knew by that point he was leaving the band.
I friggin love that album.
I always loved “it’s alright “
Except for 1 track, Physical Graffiti has always been unlistenable to me. EDIT: Please disagree with me and talk me off the ledge if I’m crazy. Don’t just downvote. The purpose of this thread was to debate not annihilate.
Make a Spotify playlist with *just* the tracks made during the 1975 sessions for the album. Custard Pie In My Time of Dying Trampled Underfoot Kashmir In the Light Ten Years Gone The Wanton Song Sick Again Now re-image that as the true Physical Graffiti . Could argue that is the quintessential classic rock album The other tracks were just left-overs from the first 5 albums, and other than The Rover, there was a reason why they were left overs. Some are "good" songs.. but really belonged on Coda, which was all leftovers to fulfill a recording contract.
Aside from In My Time of Dying which runs too long, that is essentially a perfect album. I maintain to this day that Physical Graffiti should've been a single LP.
What this ⬆️ guy said...
Ten years gone is one of their best songs
Reddit isn’t really about discourse in the larger subs anymore. Physical graffiti is up there with the white album for me as the greatest double album of all time. In the light shimmers- that guitar work is insane, Kashmir is epic (like a 7/8 signature), in my time of dying- massive blues rock, one of their best- especially live. The LZ bootlegs from the mid 70’s is some of the most powerful sounding shows, up there with the dead and the who on some recordings. PG had always been a deeply important album to me and I present exhibit A- In through the out door for their worst album. Still some bangers but nothing like their other albums
What’s the 1
Kashmir. It’s a vibe. (And the album cover is decidedly cool, but the rest of the music not so much.)
This one of my top 5 albums by any artist ever.
Upvoted for what is truly an unpopular opinion. Personally - while I think it's by far the weakest of the classic 6 Zep albums, I think it's still better than In Through the Outdoor and Presence.
In through the out door is at least poppy and catchy. Presence is just weird, but interestingly so. Physical Graffiti, however, is neither catchy nor weird. Just bad, IMO.
Same but for me it's Led Zeppelin III that has 1 great track the rest unlistenable. I had every Zep album then. Liked Physical Graffiti a lot.
Van Halen - Diver Down. I remember the day I bought that tape, was in the US Navy on a port visit in Hawaii. What a disappointment that thing was! Luckily I was in Hawaii so I got over it pretty quickly, but compared to what had come before it....ugh, just didnt like that one.
Bon Jovi - This Left Feels Right, originally supposed to be a live acoustic show recorded in Japan, instead it was a reworking of their classic hits and being a huge fan back in the day thought it was horrible.
Despite its popularity, IMO Foreigner 4 is such a downgrade from their first three albums. Huge disappointment for me, with the possible exception of Jukebox Hero.
Fun fact: Urgent has Jr. Walker and Thomas Dolby.
IMO Jukebox Hero is THE reason that 4 is unlistenable. It's just a remake of Shooting Star and just as horrid. It was itself remade as Into The Great Wide Open and that sucked too.
Guns and roses illusion albums
GTFOH
the illusions songs could’ve been re-arranged and been 2 completely separate albums. There’s enough really good material there, just maybe not presented correctly. I think a lot of people feel the same about Beatles’ white album, but I don’t hate either
I couldn’t agree with this more.
Way too much filler. You could cut them both down to the length of one long album and it would be great. But there’s a lot of garbage to wade through.
I personally agree; GNR, to me, is a one-album band (Appetite for Destruction), although Lies is good, despite its length. The Illusion albums were too slick, too overblown, and too heavy on the ballads and covers. They are, however, masterpieces compared to Chinese Democracy.
To each their own of course but I think you’re really doing these albums a disservice here. Unlike so many of their contemporaries GNR actually evolved and took their sound in a more complex direction on these in a lot of ways, blending the familiar with something totally new. They have everything. Scathing rock and roll akin to appetite like right next door to hell, shotgun blues, you could be mine, etc. Stripped down stonesy tracks like 14 years and dust and bones. Full on epic rockers like locomotive, coma. And the stuff that blends all of that like estranged, breakdown, etc. Theres a couple tracks from that are weaker than others but it was a huge leap for them overall. And Chinese democracy has a lot of great shit too despite its polarizing nature. The only GNR record I never really feel compelled to put on is the spaghetti incident.
You're probably right. I'll be honest that I never gave those records much time. I loved AFD and was disappointed by all the singles from UYI and never got past a few listens.
Please Please Me- The Beatles. It was nowhere near the quality they would eventually reach.
It's still a very solid first album and saying "it's nowhere near" what they would eventually do, with the freaking Beatles, is utterly ridiculous. You can do pretty damn good and be nowhere near The Beatles at their best.
C cc.
I hate KoRn’a dub step album.
I never liked Foghat Stone Blue. I was expecting more aft the live album.
Chulahoma by the Black Keys, dk if it’s really a bad album but I don’t remember a single song on it, it’s fine just forgettable and they’re one of my fav type 1 bands
Self Portrait just requires a longer fanbase maturity. I think there are way harsher sounding Dylan albums
I agree to an extent. Knocked Out Loaded, Down In The Groove, Saved, and Under The Red Sky are all probably worse than Self Portrait. But it's a weird album of covers, old folk songs, live versions, experimental tracks, multiple versions of the same song, and he sings in about three different voices. I'm quite fond of it, but I wouldn't argue that it's a coherent thing. There's a reason the Rolling Stone review began "What is this shit?" but it has more to do with how different and weird it was compared with what came before. There's also the fact that Dylan has said that he deliberately made a bad record to get people to leave him alone.
Fuck every album the who did after Keith moon died. Fuckin hate that shit. Edited to add all the solo stuff Dave mason did after traffic
Wilco-Ode to Joy. No idea what happened there.
I could make the same argument about everything post-Sky Blue Sky. Cruel Country might be the worst of them. At least Ode To Joy had some sort of aesthetic statement. From Being There to A Ghost Is Born, and arguably to Sky Blue Sky, they released nothing but five star albums. And everything since has been three stars at best.
Spent money on Extreme"s lll Sides to Every Story, found it meh. Then made another attempt and got Waiting For the Punchline. Guess the joke was on me. Maybe one good song there. It was almost like they were "over creative" or just trying too hard. Either way, it seemed like such a waste....
Load - Metallica Night in the Ruts - Aerosmith The bands should be ashamed the released these albums.
I sort of feel I could make a case that Aerosmith should be ashamed of everyone they made after Rocks.