Worst albums by your favourite artists!

[ladyislingering]

It's happened to all of us. (And this echoes back to my "disappointing albums" thread, but this is a different concept.) You find yourself REALLY really digging a band, so you go through their catalogue and purchase/listen to their records.

Or you've been aching and anticipating for the new album from your favourite artist(s).

So this album comes out and you prep it.

And then you lock yourself in the bedroom and cry for the duration. Not because it was beautiful, but because you would have went on a homicidal rampage had it been any other way.

Let's try to limit this to your TOP 5 favourite musical artists (or artists of equal personal importance with a larger catalogue). For instance, if you've been a Beatles fan for the past 30 years but still can't get past your distaste for Sgt. Pepper's, let it be known.

My top 5 records that made me want to slaughter your mama:

05. Made in America - Carpenters
04. The Lace - Benjamin Orr
03. Get Nervous - Pat Benatar
02. Door to Door - The Cars
01. Interior Design - Sparks

disclaimer: the only 'serious' element of this post is that list. the rest is pomp, without room for discussion.

 

[joe]

Tormato - Yes
Sufficiently Breathless - Captain Beyond
Mundanzas - Stray
Pieces - Juicy Lucy
King's X - King's X
Down On The Upside - Soundgarden

 

[aeroplane]

Hell, I will not only name albums, I'll try and give a reason or two why. I'm not "ranking" these, though.


1. Guns N' Roses: Spaghetti Incident
-An album of covers in which GNR covers a shitload of punk songs that I didn't even like in the first place.

2. Skid Row: Subhuman Race
-The band decides to get heavier, which isn't necessarily bad, but then they proceed to write an album full of songs lacking any hooks or melody.

3. Quiet Riot: Guilty Pleasures
-An attempt to rewrite the Metal Health album in which they do a lot of generic, uninspired songs.

4. Ratt: Collage
-It was billed as a reunion album but it turns out Ratt simply recorded songs that were either written or demo'd waaaaaay back when they first formed. Just stuff that one member or another had written/recorded and kept laying around. The result is a bunch of lazy late-70's classic rock style songs that aren't particularly well-written because again a lot of the songs (save the alternate versions of "hits") were written very early in Ratt's career.

5. David Lee Roth: Diamond Dave
-Shockingly bad, even for Dave solo. The album sounds lazy, half-finished and cheaply recorded. Most of it is covers and for some idiotic reason, Dave chooses to retitle one or two of the songs he covers (WTF?). There is arguably NO good song on here, though I do like a Hendrix cover Dave does. He also chooses to remake Ice Cream Man, which had already been covered by Van Halen. This remake sounds awful with Dave missing a lot of notes on the song.

 

[ladyislingering]

3. Quiet Riot: Guilty Pleasures
-An attempt to rewrite the Metal Health album in which they do a lot of generic, uninspired songs.

Ugh, that sounds nauseating.

 

[The Beatles]

5. GNR- Chinese Democracy
4. Beatles For Sale- The Beatles
3. Black Rain- Ozzy Osbourne
2. UK Jive- The Kinks
1. Black Ice- AC/DC

 

[FretBuzz]

^^^ you don't like the Beatles For Sale? That's a great album!

'Zombie Birdhouse' by Iggy Pop -lacks the punch of most of his stuff, and he tries to croon like Sinatra on some songs, and fails horribly.

The last two Talking Heads albums, 'True Stories' & 'Naked' - This band started out great, and just kept getting better and better until peaking with "Remain in Light". 'Speaking in Tongues' followed 'Remain in Light' and was a big disappointment since it lacked Eno's production,and the African-influenced polyrhythmic beat of 'Remain in Light' (not to mention Adrian Belew's wailing guitar solos). Its still an okay album though, it had some good, very pleasant pop songs on it - as does their following album, 'Little Creatures' (I saw them on those two tours). Their last two albums though were much blander, and the songs much less memorable. I guess they just ran out of steam.

Drama & 90125 by Yes. I was a big fan of Yes up until Drama (they were my favorite band for a while, just prior to this album coming out). I saw them on 1979's Tormatu tour...great show (Joe said that was one of his least favorite Yes albums...it's not one of their best, but I still like it a lot better than Drama or 90125). There were line-up changes with both albums....and a more commercial direction musically. There was a huge buzz for 90125 since the two 'Buggles' had left the band, and with the return of Jon Anderson and Tony Kaye...but the music on 90125 was even more commercial and slick than Drama.

 

[Travelin' Man]

I'll go with Diver Down from Van Halen. I loved it when it first released (in those days, if Van Halen had farted, I'd have thought it should be on the Billboard Top Ten), but it just didn't hold up with me. The only songs from that album that still get any airplay are remakes. Oh Pretty Woman (and I'll take Roy's version any day of the week) and Dancin' In The Streets.

Van Halen was already a musical force to be reckoned with at the time of DD's release and the fact that the rest of the album has fallen into musical oblivion speaks, I think, for itself.

 

[OzzyVanHalen]

Van Halen lll By Van Halen and Diver Down was also my least favorite from the Roth Era.
Coda - Led Zeppelin
Ozmosis - Ozzy Osbourne
Animalize - KISS
Fly On The Wall - AC/DC

 

[Cosmic Harmony]

3. Quiet Riot: Guilty Pleasures
-An attempt to rewrite the Metal Health album in which they do a lot of generic, uninspired songs.

If there were a Quiet Riot album that I'd slam as their worst it would be their second self titled album (which would be the first one outside of just Japan) released in 1988. It has none of the original members in the lineup and is a snorefest of wannabe anthems.

5. GNR- Chinese Democracy
4. Beatles For Sale- The Beatles
3. Black Rain- Ozzy Osbourne
2. UK Jive- The Kinks
1. Black Ice- AC/DC

Mmm....well I'm going to just forgo "Chinese Democracy"'s inclusion on there as I'm sure everyone already knows my sentiments on it (though I will comment that both "G N' R Lies" and ""The Spaghetti Incident?"" are much weaker albums). I do very much agree with numbers 1 and 3 though.




My picks would be:

Victim of Love- Elton John

* This is a disco album released right after the fall of disco.​

* It has no musicians that Elton had previously worked with.​

* Elton does not play keyboard or piano on this album (the ONLY album that he doesn't).​

* Elton did not even write or help write any of the songs on this album.​

Falling into Infinity- Dream Theater

* Dream Theater was on a roll with the release of "Images and Words" and "Awake" (their two highest selling albums) and yet the record company decided to take away much of their creative control.​

* The record company pushed the band into becoming more commercial, even forcing them to rework several songs on the album.
​

* The band was very unhappy with the record company's interference and often cite this as their least favorite album they've done together.​

* James LaBrie's vocal range is significantly lower following a incident in 1994 where he ruptured his vocal chords and went against doctors order and went on the "Awake Tour" anyway, which only made it worse.​

Cyberpunk- Billy Idol

* This album was good in theory with Billy using the internet, e-mails, and multimedia software to promote the album (in which he was the first person ever to do so) as well as introducing people to the use of technology as a form of promotion and way to influence music. However the album itself is just absolutely awful.​

* The hard hitting rock song that Billy was known for went out the window and he instead decide for a digital sound that drew heavily from techno and early industrial music, which were executed horrendously.​

* Aside from the music and songwriting being awful this album is in a lot of way the soundtrack to my worst nightmare which is when technology goes too far and things get far too digital.​

St. Anger- Metallica

* It's "St. Anger". Do I really need to list the reasons why it's awful or does everyone know already?​

Midnight at the Lost and Found- Meat Loaf

* As a big time Meat Loaf fan it must be obvious that this album is pretty terrible.​

* Originally the songs "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Making Love (Out of Nothing at All)" were suppose to appear on this album (instead they were recorded by Bonnie Tyler and Air Supply) but Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman got into a huge argument which resulting in Jim not being involved with this album.​

* With Steinman out of the picture and with Meat Loaf under pressure from a contractual agreement to release an album within an increasingly small time frame he had to find songwriters where ever he could (including himself writing songs ((which he later said he hated because he knows he can't write songs)) and even his wife contributing).​

* The struggle to find songwriters resulted in the album sounding forced, incomplete, and overall very bare compared to the extravagant style Meat's albums are known for.​

* The album cover was even rushed with no grand visual spectacle being prepared like with it's two preceded albums "Bat out of Hell" and "Dead Ringer". Instead there is a bland, black and white picture of Meat Loaf's face where even have of his head is cut off out of frame.​

 

[Soot and Stars]

^^^^^^^^^^^

Yes, please go into detail about St. Anger!