# Great albums ruined by one bad song **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [April 28, 2023, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329 "2023-04-28T23:08:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/21 "2023-04-29T12:42:21Z")
“Girls” on the Beastie Boys’ **Licensed to Ill**. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/22 "2023-04-29T13:52:39Z")
My bad. I guess it’s mostly instrumental, but even worse for the vocal content. Haven’t listened to the song in about 20 years, for good reason. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/23 "2023-04-29T14:38:51Z")
Drive-By Truckers album “Decoration Day” starts off with a creepy sibling incest number called “The Deeper In”. Luckily I can just skip the first track and enjoy the rest of the album without any further messing around. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/24 "2023-04-29T14:43:31Z")
No worries. I thought maybe you meant “La Villa Strangiato”, which is the last track on “Hemispheres”, is an instrumental, and is all over the place. But LVS is an awesome track. As far as the Signals album goes, I don’t mind “Countdown”, but the track before it, “Losing It”, with the screechy violin, is the one I usually skip. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/25 "2023-04-29T14:46:39Z")
La Villa Strangiato is a great track, as are most Rush instrumentals. Losing It is a mixed bag, given the poignant melody and lyrics, but the dated production and maybe just a little too much sentimentality. ---
**Author:** ![TimfromNapa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TimfromNapa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimfromNapa)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/26 "2023-04-29T15:02:49Z")
While I would not call the Grateful Dead’s Aoxomoxoa a great album, it is brought down several notches for the 8-minutes plus “What’s Become of the Baby”. It seems to drag on forever and sounds like it was sung into a toilet bowl. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/27 "2023-04-29T15:47:30Z")
I don’t think one song can ruin an album. _Revolver_ is one of the top five albums ever recorded and would probably be indisputably my personal number one, if not for the childish “Yellow Submarine”. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/28 "2023-04-29T15:59:25Z")
Funny, I really like “Yellow Submarine” exactly for the fact that it’s such a charming children’s song. The low point of “Revolver” IMHO is “Dr. Roberts”, but it’s not bad enough by any stretch to ruin a fantastic album. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/29 "2023-04-29T18:13:33Z")
“Cancer” on My Chemical Romance’s Black Parade album. Many people disagree with this opinion. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/30 "2023-04-29T18:54:34Z")
The recently released deluxe edition of _Revolver_ has an interesting recording of an early version of the song, in fact I’m not even sure if it would have been called _Yellow Submarine_ at the time. John laments: _In the place where I was born, no one cared, no one cared_. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/31 "2023-04-29T18:55:46Z")
Am I allowed albums with _two_ bummers? **Ziggy Stardust** was an album I didn’t listen to for decades, having decided it just wasn’t any good. Not so long ago I decided I would work my way through Bowie’s early albums, and I came to the conclusion that actually, the album’s fine - except it’s dragged right down by two dreadful songs, _Suffragette City_ (which just has nothing to recommend it - the song, incidentally, that Mott The Hoople turned down; good call) and _Five Years_ (a dirge with a laughably bad, sub-undergraduate level lyric). And the other thus afflicted album that springs to mind (a “Difficult Second Album”) is **For Your Pleasure** , by Roxy Music. There are songs on that which are simply breathtaking, and then there’s _In Every Dreamhome A Heartache_ - another dirge, and this one with a lyric even worse than _Five Years_, like a twelve-year-old trying to do grown up writing; and _The Bogus Man_, which seems to be _Heartache_’s partner piece, every bit as gauche and tuneless, and slightly enlivened by Ferry’s awful vocal performance. Plus it’s over nine minutes long. j ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/32 "2023-04-29T19:22:54Z")
Yeah, Rumours kind of meanders off for the last two tracks, “Oh Daddy” and “Gold Dust Woman”. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/33 "2023-04-29T19:24:52Z")
“Mamunia” is a very weak track on a very strong album: “Band on the Run” ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/34 "2023-04-29T19:30:17Z")
Alice in Chains have Dirt, a nearly perfect album. It does have this weird “Iron Gland” intro song thing that I thought was actually saying “Iron Man” until now. It is out of place and has no need. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/GUFf_DRCpkE/maxresdefault.jpg "Alice in Chains - Iron Gland") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUFf_DRCpkE) ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/35 "2023-04-30T02:34:57Z")
Sspringsteen’s Candy’s Room wrecks the otherwise great Darkness on the Edge of Town (though to be fair, Factory is also a pretty sub-par Springsteen song. I skip them both). ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/36 "2023-04-30T02:52:00Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > **Ziggy Stardust** was an album I didn’t listen to for decades, having decided it just wasn’t any good. Not so long ago I decided I would work my way through Bowie’s early albums, and I came to the conclusion that actually, the album’s fine - except it’s dragged right down by two dreadful songs, _Suffragette City_ (which just has nothing to recommend it - the song, incidentally, that Mott The Hoople turned down; good call) and _Five Years_ (a dirge with a laughably bad, sub-undergraduate level lyric). > [@Eonwe](#): > > Sspringsteen’s Candy’s Room wrecks the otherwise great Darkness on the Edge of Town (though to be fair, Factory is also a pretty sub-par Springsteen song. I skip them both). Odd how someone thinks songs are horrible and others think they are great. I like all four examples from these two posts. I love both of those albums, front to back. My contribution: The first song, Exp, from Jimi’s _Axis: Bold as Love_. I listened to the album a gazillion times, in tape format and always fast-forwarded past that first mess. Not even a couple bong rips could help with it. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/37 "2023-04-30T03:19:55Z")
Well, if we are doing beloved songs, I could sure get on just fine without the piece of commercial doggerel _Light My Fire_. The album would flow much better without it. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/38 "2023-04-30T07:30:09Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > and then there’s _In Every Dreamhome A Heartache_ - another dirge, and this one with a lyric even worse than _Five Years_, like a twelve-year-old trying to do grown up writing; and _The Bogus Man_, which seems to be _Heartache_’s partner piece, every bit as gauche and tuneless, and slightly enlivened by Ferry’s awful vocal performance. Funny. “In Every Dream Home…” and “Bogus Man” were the two songs I listened to the most from For Your Pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/39 "2023-04-30T09:30:40Z")
An album my mother used to play when I was little, [_Velvet Gloves and Spit_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Gloves_and_Spit), by Neil Diamond, has lots of catchy tunes, specially for a small boy who did not understand the lyrics. Only the _Pot Smoker’s Song_ is awful. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329/40 "2023-04-30T13:13:08Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > My contribution: The first song, Exp, from Jimi’s _Axis: Bold as Love_. I listened to the album a gazillion times, in tape format and always fast-forwarded past that first mess. Not even a couple bong rips could help with it. The Noel Redding song is no great shakes either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-albums-ruined-by-one-bad-song/983329.md?page=3)