Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights, the other ones are merely okay
Weezer - the first album, I more dislike newer ones
Foo Fighters - agreed, first two albums
Similar stance. The “blue” album was overall really good. I still get Undone - The Sweater Song as an earbud to this day. But the other albums are overall weak with an odd good tune here and there.
(Of course it’s so easy to “date” when this album came out since Buddy Holly was on the Windows 95 CD as demo media. And so that was at least mumble years ago. Jeez, even Pork And Beans was over 12 years ago. Memes be old.)
Quebec by Ween is a great album. Everything else I’ve listened to by them has been mediocre at best.
Aww, not even the Mollusk?
I’d give you a 75% on this. The second Boston album is not very good, but the third album is IMHO every bit as good as the first album.
Every following Boston album makes me curl up and cry a little bit.
Same for me, I really like The Joshua Tree. I bought the CD almost immediately. I’m very meh on the rest of the catalogue.
Oh! That’s a good one. I remember listening the hell out of that album when it came out, but the rest, not so much.
I’m no Pearl Jam fan, but Vitalogy had lots of very good songs: Not For You, Nothingman, Betterman, Spin the Black Circle, Corduroy, Immortality. I would say it’s ay least as good an album as Vs. After that, though, I lost track of them. My brother – who is a Ten Club member – would be a better source for the quality of their whole catalog. Oh, yeah, “Given To Fly” was awesome, too.
Oh, and I realized my comment about “Rats” above was confused. “Rats” is fine. It was “Bugs” that I was thinking of that I could do without.
I have a couple weird ones: the debut Pretenders album is the only one I listen to repeatedly. II is good, and Learning to Crawl is arguably as good as the first one, but, for whatever reason, the debut album is the only one I keep coming back to.
Similarly, Gang of Four’s debut album, Entertainment I could listen to all day and night, but Solid Gold, which is critically and fan-wise almost as much a favorite as the debut, I find myself skipping through songs left and right. I tried listening to it in the car yesterday, and while I can recognize its more “mature” and has a fuller sound than the first album, none of the songs really click with me except for “Outside the Trains Don’t Run On Time.” I really don’t get it. But that’s how my ears are.
I must admit, I’m having a hard time coming up with examples here - maybe Nirvana’s Nevermind? I don’t really care for Bleach or In Utero. But is a three-album career sufficient to qualify for this thread?
What about if you still love singles off other albums, but only love the one full album? I love Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness completely, but not so much all the other Smashing Pumpkins’ albums. But their earlier and later singles, I do like.
How can you call other people’s opinions wrong with a straight face when you’re wallowing in wrongness right there?
I thought about that one, but for In Utero instead of Nevermind. But I like Nevermind well enough – my only complaint is that I’ve heard the songs way too many times and don’t really need to hear them again. So it doesn’t really fit for me.
For Smashing Pumpkins, mine would be Siamese Dream - the album is perfect from start to finish with no filler (unlike Mellon Collie), but the sheer depth and breadth of Mellon Collie makes up for it. An insane double album, even if I don’t listen to it much because I just don’t have the patience for it. Plus I love the rawness of Gish, my second most-listened to Pumpkins album. And I’m one of the weirdos who likes Adore, except for the almost-title-track Ava Adore. After that, though, forget it. I adore the Pumpkins – probably my favorite band – but just could not get into any of their work after that. Maybe Machina II.
I was thinking Queensryche might be an example but realized I don’t like any of their albums but love Silent Lucidity.
Oh, I thought of another one. Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville. While I like some songs off her next two albums, nothing comes close to her first. I love the vulnerable, raw, stripped-down sound and lyrical content of it. One of my favorite 90s albums. I got to see a semi-acoustic show with her at the local opera house about eight or so years ago when she opened up for the Smashing Pumpkins. It was an odd venue to see my favorite artists of the 90s performing two decades on, but a thoroughly enjoyable show. Not as good as a Pumpkins show I saw a few years later at a medium-sized (5000 person total, 3000 on the floor) venue (The Aragon Ballroom). I don’t like stadium concerts, and I missed seeing the Pumpkins the first time around mainly because that’s all they played when I became really interested in them. Now that show was awesome.
Interesting. As a youngster I found the second Boston album disappointing as well, and I don’t think I even knew there was a third album. Will have to seek that out and listen sometime.
Sure, both those scenarios qualify.
It was legendary in how long it took Tom Scholz to make it. Don’t Look Back came out in 1978 (and Scholz apparently felt “rushed”, in having to record a second album in just two years), and it took him eight years to finish Third Stage – though, to be fair, there were also some extensive legal battles between the band and their record label during that time.
A tape of a song from the third album, “Amanda,” got leaked to some radio stations in 1984, but it took two more years before its official release (as well as the rest of the album) in '86.
[Brian Johnson] AC/DC: Back in Black
Very prolific band. Distinctive style. It doesn’t take that long for all of the songs to start sounding the same. This was their first album with Brian Johnson and remains their best (with Brian Johnson).
I like the singles from all of those, plus a couple of album tracks off each, but … not all of them. Like, I don’t have time for Silverfuck or Geek USA for some reason.
Whereas I don’t think of any of the atmospherics on MC&TIS as “filler”. I can listen to the whole double through and through, and do. Which is weird, because usually I hate excessive guitar noodling. But not for that.
Haha. Those are among my favorite tracks, so I understand if Siamese Dream doesn’t click for you. (Had to listen to “Silverfuck” on the way home today, and it still gives me chills. My favorites on Mellon Collie are “Porcelina,” “Galapagos,” and “X.Y.U.” The only track on Siamese Dream I’m ho-hum about is “Disarm,” but it doesn’t keep it from being a perfect album. I just don’t like that song. )
Exactly. Don’t Look Back felt rushed and didn’t have the sonic quality of Boston. Scholz took his time and returned to his “creative process” for Third Stage. (Of course, he was a little distracted during those 8 years, but that’s another story.) I’ve always felt that Third Stage was much, much better than the credit given to it by critics. It has several excellent songs and great sound. Delp’s vocals aren’t quite as impressive as those on Boston (probably because they were no longer striking to us), but they are still great.
The later Boston albums were half-hearted attempts to prop up their tours.
Thanks guys, I like ‘behind the music’ info like this. Was there an actual ‘Behind the Music’ episode on Scholz and Boston, I wonder? [ETA: yes, apparently.] If not, sounds like maybe there should have been. I had heard that Scholz was a ‘mad wizard’ perfectionist type in the studio, but didn’t know much beyond that.
The album Ring by The Connells is one of my all-time favorites. Even as it nears the 30th anniversary of its release, I still enjoy listening to virtually every song on it. And one would think that enjoying the album as much as I do would have prompted me to have worked my way through the rest of the band’s discography at some point … but I just didn’t. Outside of plucking a couple of good singles off one other album, I never even bothered to find out what else they had to offer. I don’t know why.
The only Who album I like is The Who Sell Out. That was when they had a sense of humor.