Funny - I feel almost the complete opposite! I love “Fables” for its dark soutern gothicism - really, the thing that “Murmur” is always praised for but really doesn’t achieve other than the cover art!
Kate Bush:
Best: The Kick Inside (it’s on my Top Ten All Time list)
Worst: The Red Shoes
studio albums only…
King Crimson
Best: In the Court of the Crimson King (or Lark’s Tongue in Aspic or Discipline)
Worst: The ConstruKction of Light (or Lizard)
Frank Zappa
Best: We’re Only In It For The Money
Worst: The Man From Utopia
Los Lobos
Best-- Kiko. This is where they synthesized everything they knew about rock & roll, Norteño, blues, folk and country music and turned it into some of the most amazing music on the planet.
Worst-- This Time. Which is not a bad album, but it never really captivated me the way their other albums have.
Fishbicycle & VCO3, do you realize how hard it was to choose a bad R.E.M. album? 
I stayed away from “Dead Letter Office”, and went with their releases of new material, plus I focused in on their IRS label days. To me, “Fables” just wasn’t their best overall package. What would be your choices for Best/Worst R.E.M?
Maybe I’ll put “Fables” in my CD player once I get back to the States and re-evaluate my decision.
The Tragically Hip, of course.
Best? Probably “Road Apples.” Rock music at its very best. “Cordelia” is among the finest rock songs ever written, a near-perfect composition. Terrific guitar work on “Three Pistols,” and “The Luxury” is, well, damn near genius.
Worst? Oh, shit, that’s easy; “In Violet Light.” I couldn’t believe it was the same band; I bet they hold the all time record for the biggest delta in quality between two albums from the same band. An absolute peice of shit. I use the CD as a drink coaster.
Have you heard Reveal? It’s not nearly as hard as it used to be (yeah, yeah, I know you said you were focusing on the IRS days, but there’s so much more selection nowadays).
U2
Best - The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby (tie)
Worst - Pop - did like a few songs though
Green Day
Best - Dookie (American Idiot is pretty decent)
Worst - Shenanigans
Nirvana
Best - Unplugged in New York
Worst - Bleach (I really hate picking a worst Nirvana CD, it’s like asking my worst flavour of popsicle - I’d still eat the worst flavour any day of the week. Bleach is my least favorite though)
Gawd, after Reveal and Around the Sun, it’s not that hard. Though even Reveal had the gorgeous “Beachball” (though not much else)…
My picks for REM would look something like -
Best - Reckoning, Automatic for the people
Worst - Around the Sun, Reveal
I have to agree with you for the best, but for me the worst album is far and away Rattle and Hum. Of course, I actually like 90s U2 and I wasn’t overly impressed with All That You Can’t Leave Behind either - it has some good songs, but overall it’s too safe.
Alice Cooper-
Best - Billion Dollar Babies (Alice Cooper Group), Hey Stoopid! (Alice solo)
Honourable mention - Dirty Diamonds (the current album)
Worst - Freak Out (Alice Cooper Group - semi-bootleg, also known as Snorting Anthrax, Nobody likes Me, etc.)
You have a point with Rattle and Hum. I don’t like many of the songs on it but I do like All I want is you (and to a lesser extent, Pride). All I want is you is one of my favorites so it gets a pass.
I do like All that you can’t leave behind. I disliked it for a couple of months then Elevation and Beautiful day really grew on me (I instantly liked Stuck in a moment). I became fond of a number of the other songs as well.
Yeah, All I Want Is You is definitely one of the classics, but it’s just not enough to save the album for me. None of their albums are completely without merit though, as far as I’m concerned, and really, aside from the best and worst, if anyone asked me to rank all of U2’s albums in my order of preference, the list would change drastically from day to day depending on my mood.
I agree with you there, there are some days I even really like the album Pop. The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby would pretty much always take up the 1 and 2 spots though (the particular spots they take up would change though).
Regarding the best R.E.M. album, I am hard-pressed to select a favorite – I usually go with Lifes Rich Pageant.
Up is the album that I loathe beyond all other R.E.M. albums. I’ve seen Reveal mentioned a couple of times in this thread, but at least by then they had learned to use the drum machines and whatnot. On Up, they were still figuring out which buttons to press. Around The Sun gets second place because it simply doesn’t inspire any feelings in me at all, and I never thought an R.E.M. album would sink to that point. I listened all the way through it once and have scarcely ever touched it since.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Best: Emerson Lake & Palmer (their first album) or Brain Salad Surgery
Worst: In the Hot Seat (granted, I don’t own Love Beach, so that may win out)
As much as I love ELP, their lyrics (even on their good albums) rarely seem to rise above the level of overwrought teenage poetry. ELP and BSS are very heavy on the long, meandering instrumentals, while their post-reunion albums were mostly standard-length, lyric-centered songs with only brief instrumental parts. Plus, they started getting more political, and overwrought teenage political poetry just wasn’t a step up.
That’s funny, because “Up” is one of my favorite albums by the band. It really sounds like the type of record that they’d wanted to make for years but were still doing tpp well commercially to have the guts to do. And even at “Up’s” tickiest and droniest and weirdest, they still pretty much pandered with the single, “Daysleeper,” a nonthreatening pastiche of every R.E.M. single since '91.
This is not an angry or defensive challenge, but a curious one - what do you mean by the comment about the drum machines? Could you clarify what you mean by the statement? I thought the use of super-primitive drum machines, farfisa organ, vibraphones, and other very un-R.E.M. sounds really made that record.
Dave Matthews Band was a big fave of mine in college, though I’ve cooled on them quite a lot over the years.
Best: Under The Table And Dreaming
Worst: Before These Crowded Streets
I do confess to not having heard the newst album Stand Up all the way through, so perhaps it would fall at one extreme (well, no way it’s better than UTTAD but you know ;)) or the other. Some Devil made a pretty good push to take the prize for worst, but in the end the festering pile of overbearing crap that was Don’t Drink the Water won the day.
I’d have to agree with you, except I’d put Duke ahead of Wind and Wuthering…
Elton John
Best: Madman Across the Water
Worst: Blue Moves