Prince
Best: Sign O’ The Times
Worst: Chaos & Disorder
Agreed and agreed.
Discounting Yellow Submarine (only 4 new songs), I would say that “Let It Be” is the worst. Lennon was in a slump, and his two good songs “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Across The Universe” were never given a serious production attempt. In fact, the original LIB omitted DLMD and included the Phil Spector versions of the song LIB and “The Long And Winding Road” with full orchestra and heavenly choir.
The best is the White Album.
Styx
Best: Paradise Theater (I think it’s the most balanced of all the albums between the pop & rock sides of the group.)
Worst: Cornerstone (It was hard to pick one…and I haven’t heard a lot of the more recent stuff so I can’t speak to it. A lot of people might say Kilroy is the worst, but I have a special fondness in my heart for it.)
For whatever reasons, critics never liked Styx. One reviewer said that Paradise Theater was a concept album without a concept while Kilroy Was Here was a concept album with too much concept!
[QUOTE=Art Vandelay, Architect]
Grateful Dead
best: Skullfuck (1971 LP - officially titled ‘Grateful Dead’)
worst: Shakedown Street
While I would have picked either American Beauty or Workingman’s Dead as the dead’s best albums, I can’t really argue to hard with your choice of Skull Fuck.
I am totally mystified by your choice of *Shakedown Street * as their worst. The Dead were almost never at their best in the studio but S.S. is an epic compared to the travesty that is Go To Heaven. Even the cover art is wretched.
I think Stand Up may take the “Worst” title. I only listened to it once and realized, “this must be what all those people hear when they complain about the Dave Matthews Band.”
The Pogues
Best: If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Worst: Poguemahone
Pixies
Best: Surfer Rosa
Worst: Trompe le Monde
Art of Noise
Best: In No Sense? Nonsense!
Worst: Below the Waist
No one’s taken on The Rolling Stones yet, eh? Leaving the live albums aside…
Best: Beggars Banquet
Worst: Dirty Work
The Beatles:
Best: Revolver
Worst: Let It Be
The Replacements
Best: Let It Be
Worst: Don’t Tell A Soul
The Kinks: Leaving aside compilations and live albums…
Best: I’m gonna go with Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire. But if you wanted to argue for Village Green Preservation Society or Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround I wouldn’t think you were nuts.
Worst: One of the early ones, with “Bald Headed Woman” and such filler. Of the later ones, I’d go with the studio half of Everybody’s In Showbiz.
This might have been the album they had always wanted to make … years later. But the unexpected loss of Bill Berry pushed that timetable up. It doesn’t sound to me like they were ready to tackle electronica yet. They didn’t sound comfortable with the drum machines and sequencers and whatever else they were using. It appears that you found their lack of comfort and/or experience a positive thing, that it inspired them to create interesting music. That’s fine. I like Reveal better because they were already an album into their new style. I mean, I don’t have much interest in electronica at all, but I think Reveal is a decent little album.
Bob Dylan
Best – Blood on the Tracks, Blonde on Blond
Worst – Dylan http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:rmfozfgheh5k
Art, I came to post a Police one as well:
best: Reggatta de Blanc
worst: probably Outlandos D’Amour. Very difficult decision - the worst Police record is better than 90% of the albums out there. But “Hole In My Life” and “Masoko Tango” are clunkers. In truth, however, I listen to Synchronicity the least… so maybe you’re right…
The Smiths
best: Meat Is Murder
worst: Strangeways, Here We Come. Again, we’re comparing relative perfection here. I could do without most of side 2 of this album.
R.E.M.
best: Reckoning
worst: Up. In fairness I’ve only listened to this once all the way through.
INXS
best: Welcome To Wherever You Are
worst: X
XTC
best: Black Sea
worst: Go2
What, the disc with “Sitting in My Hotel” and “Celluloid Heroes”? Blasphemy!
Okay, point taken. I had forgotten those were on there. Thing is, I acquired Everybody’s in Showbiz only after I had their “Best Of” collection that covered that era, so I already had those two songs and I was (perhaps unconcsciously) judging Showbiz based only on its “new” songs that I didn’t have yet.
Radiohead
Best: OK Computer
Worst: Pablo Honey (Though I do like more than a lot of people)
**
Weezer**
Best: Pinkerton
Worst: Make Believe