Not long after Sinéad O’Connor died this year, I was in a used CD store and picked up a copy of a two-disc compilation of hers, that was half B-sides, half a live show. Really loved it. I dug a bit deeper and realized she’d released a bunch of albums that I’d never heard of, as they all came out in the decades after she’d had her massive first hit, then her various controversies, then kind of faded from mainstream press coverage. I checked out most of these albums, and I really like them a lot. Like her album of roots reggae covers (Throw Down Your Arms, produced by Sly and Robbie) and her double album of religious songs (Theology). And I realized that I kind of prefer these albums to I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which is a solid record but suffers from “Nothing Compares 2 U” being just so overplayed. That album sold like seven million copies around the world; her later discs would sell in the tens of thousands.
So my question is, are there artists whose odder, less-known works, appeal to you much more than their hits? Or are at the very least interesting but much less known by the music-buying public?
A couple of others sprang to mind. Everyone knows the classic songs by the Beach Boys from their debut singles up through Pet Sounds. But you’ve gotta be a real fan to sing the praises of Holland, which is still a fascinating listen. Or the Kinks: most best-of collections jump straight from “Lola” to “Come Dancing” and I imagine a lot of casual listeners skipped past (or were unaware of) Ray Davies’ various rock operas in the interim, some of which were quite lame, but none were uninteresting.
What other major artists had a bizarrely intriguing wilderness period? What do you recommend?
I concur, almost of the post Pet Songs albums up to Holland are interesting, some even great. Brian Wilson’s impact waned, and there are always some strange songs on them, but also three or four gems that only the Beach Boys could do.
As for other examples, there are a handful of favorite artists with large discographies I have almost completely, including the outliers I sometimes enjoy, for instance Neil Young’s “Trans” and “Re-Creator”. Then there’s Beck, whose big label albums are always carefully and imaginatively produced, while he also released acoustic lo-fi psych-folk albums on indie labels like “One Foot In The Grave” and “Stereopathetic Soulmanure” which I also like very much. But I like other stuff that’s almost always weird, like Zappa and Beefheart, so it’s no great stretch for me to accept outsider stuff from usually more mainstream acts.
ETA: I think I have another good example: “Nebraska”, which Bruce recorded solo acoustic in his kitchen on a four-track tape recorder and has his bleakest songs, is my favorite Springsteen album.
Same. That album can bring me to tears in several spots.
I wore out that tape as it was my introduction to grunge and was a natural transition from a lot of the music I had previously been listening to. Some albums can transport me back to an exact period of my life and this is one of them.
For my contribution, I’ll throw out The Strokes First Impressions of Earth. I think most people view it as their worst album, but I think it’s a fairly solid outing with some standouts. The group I play with cover four songs off this album: YOLO, Juicebox, Heart in a Cage, and Ize of the World.
While not that big of an artist, Andrew Bird became most popular in the 2003 with the beginning of his “regular indie rock” albums and solo career. But before that he put out 3 absolutely amazing swing/hot jazz fiddle-driven albums with his band Bowl Of Fire (as well as a 4th album as a member of Kevin O’Donnel’s Quality Six) and they rock my world.
I don’t really care for his “modern” work (erm, some now 20 years old) even though I recognize he’s still a very talented guy. I have a couple friends who love “regular” Andrew Bird and can’t get in to his jazz stuff.
Thought I’d add Lou Reed as well, for his stint on Arista Records in the late 70s, between RCA contracts. Growing Up In Public and The Bells are two of my favorite Lou albums, but they aren’t nearly as well known as Transformer/Berlin/Coney Island Baby before them and The Blue Mask and New Sensations afterwards. The Bells was mixed in some weird technique called Binaural Sound (3-D music or some such), and has a lot more great sax on it than any of his other records; I don’t know if it was ever even properly released on CD in the U.S. Strangely, every one of my Lou Reed CDs from Rock and Roll Heart through Growing Up In Public, most of which I found in used CD shops over several years, are German pressings.
I recently listened to Tim Machine, which is a group featuring David Bowie on vocals (and sax). It’s much more alt rock oriented than his other ‘80s work. Plus, he sings the line “they’re just a bunch of assholes with buttholes for their brains.”
And Kyushu is my favorite band, but Josh Homme is much better known for Queens of the Stone Age.
Oh well, yeah, that too. I better shut up now in this thread…
ETA: I just went back to my first post and saw that I called it “Re-Creator”. This was a total brainfart… And I don’t have autocorrect as my excuse, it’s my poor brain that fucked up.
I have a soft spot for David Bowie’s later Drum and Bass influenced stuff, which has not been treated kindly by critics either at the time or subsequent years:
Some stuff on 1. Outside is great. “Strangers When We Meet” is probably in my top ten Bowie tracks. And there are two versions of it, the other one being on the Buddha in Suburbia album, another gem of his that deserved a bigger audience than it got.
The Four Seasons are, of course, are known for the hits, but their concept album, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette, is surprisingly good – socially conscious and psychedelic.
There’s also The Four Seasons Entertain You, a contract obligation album. It’s purportedly a live album, but it’s clearly recorded in a studio with crowd noises added in between songs. The don’t do any of their hits and also contains showtunes and jazz songs. It seems to document the type of song they did before they started doing rock.
The last three Pet Shop Boys albums had the same producer and I thought were really good.
I planned on seeing them when they were in town this year with New Order but saw the setlist was a collection of their popular stuff from the 80s-90s so I skipped it.
Sorry, couldn’t resist, but yes, you’re right, Kyuss are better than QOTSA.
