I stopped with Up 
. Just about everyone is on the same general page though - somewhere post-Bill Berry it stops working. Though as I’ve argued before I don’t think it is entirely because of the loss of Berry.
I’m another one that is a fan of that album. Likely top 5.
Green for me. But I’m no IRS purist, I agree with a couple of the band members that Automatic for the People was probably their best.
@Guest-starring_Id that’s gotta be the first time I’ve ever heard Hüsker Dü referred to as “watered-down.” Agreed on Zen Arcade; that cassette practically lived in my walkman for a year or two. I really like their last two SST albums, but Warehouse was the first record of their I owned and it hooked me pretty hard, so I don’t mind some sheen on the sound.
It’s my disinterest in Land Speed Record era stuff that kept me from picking up that box set that came out a couple of years ago, because I gather it all came from the early years. I’m dying for a proper rarities collection from the Hüskers…all those Beatles covers and live track b-sides. I used to have the 12" of “I Don’t Want To Know If You’re Lonely” and on the flip was an incendiary live “Helter Skelter” and an eight-minute version of a non-LP track called “All Work and No Play.” I’d love to have good digital copies of those, and there’s no doubt a whack of other good stuff in the vault from 1985 onwards.
67, according to Wiki. Plus 7 with Buffalo Springfield, CSN&Y, etc.
Fuckin’ Slacker!
Neil Young has, I’ve never counted, about 50 solo and collaborate … studio albums… so you can forgive him for four or five stinkers. Same for Zappa. Or for Dylan.
Neil and Bob are two of my favorites, but man, they never once said “Well, that is not good. I’d better not record it. Hmm, maybe I should stop and write some better songs.”
(I started listing Dylan albums and gave up, there were too many…)
notice tho a lot of these albums are made by gods of their respective genres who decided "well i’m tired of the same old shit so im gonna do this and no fucks are given if you like or don’t like …i’m having fun "
You can add Prince and Billy Corgan to that list. “It popped into my head? Regardless of quality, I’m going to share it with you.”
I’m going to throw Elvis Costello in the mix as well.
He’s been my guy since that night in 1977 when I first saw him on SNL.
But I don’t think I’ve ever made it to the end of The Juliet Letters or North.
mmm
I know it wasn’t so much an “album” as a random assembling of tracks by Capital(ist) Records, but The Beatles’ “Second Album” was the one I never bothered to buy when I was buying them all (in their American versions). I’ll agree “Yellow Submarine” would have been as worthy of a place in my non-collection.
“Revolver” of course was great, but the American version contained just eleven tracks (the other three were put on “Yesterday and Today”), and less than half an hour of music. It has, though, the distinction of being the only thing I ever bought at the overpriced Sam Goody chain because, for whatever reason, it wasn’t much in stock around 1984, at least on cassette (hey, shouldn’t it be “Unspooler”?). The store used to display cassettes in these dirty white plastic “inventory control devices”, which rendered the buying experience even more unpleasant.
ETA–I just realized that it was “Capitol”, not “Capital” Records, so my joke doesn’t work. I’ll work on another one but I wanted to be first to correct myself.
Phrasing!
I will say that IMO “For Other Eyes” is a great song (and certainly the best song to ever feature the words “dentist receptionist”). But agree that most of the rest of the album is pretty patchy.
One of my favorite albums. Great tune on there that many wouldn’t know unless they have the album:
Tidbit: They turned Keith’s chair around because in an earlier shoot, they noticed he had a slight paunch, reshot it.
What did Pete do with the time sig? 38 seconds in…a measure of 3/4, 3/4, 2/4, 2/4…?
And the lyrics? Slap yo mama!
The weakest song on the album was “Love is Coming Down.” It wasn’t a terrible song, but the rest are very good.
Who By Numbers is much weaker IMO.
Back in the day, I had limited funds. I’d debate whether or not to buy an album. What if the hit was the one decent song on it? But that means too that it’s hard to totally condemn an album because for me, it had at least one song I really really liked on it.
Turning to Fleetwood Mac: Tusk=nah! Tusk was good and they might have avoided my scorn if they had released a single disc. Someone wants to chime in with “But it had Sara,” but I hate that song so it works against the total effect.
Joe Jackson: Mike’s Murder soundtrack. Maybe not fair, but his earlier stuff was so good…
Peter Gabriel: Up
Kate Bush: Aerial
I loved Peter and Kate but these albums…whisky tango foxtrot?
Billy Joel: An Innocent Man. He lost me here…later albums may have been worse. I thought it was too kitschy and cutesy. I know he put out hits and hummable tunes but he had some great stuff too. He’s no PG or KB but for instance:
ive been listening to him off and on since the mid-80s and while there are several songs on "mighty like a rose "I love
I’ve only listened to the whole thing twice… after that I just programmed my disc player to just play what I liked … and even tho I own"all this useless beauty " I don’t remember a damn thing about it other than it might have been a contract album he had to do …
Last Exit by Traffic. It was a contractual obligation album, made up of older unreleased material plus a couple of long live cuts. While there are a couple of good songs on the first side (“Medicated Goo” and “Shanghai Noodle Factory”), the rest is undistinguished.
To me that’s my second best album, after Broadsword (then Aqualung). Crest of Knave, and Under Wraps, now they were stinkers.
Worse than “Welcome to the Canteen”?
Technically, not a Traffic album. But it was just a live greatest hits album. Not great, but far more listenablen than “Last Exit.”
I agree with these except for the version of Mr. Soul on Trans.
I came in to say that R.E.M.’s last album for me is “New Adventures in Hi-Fi” (they simply sucked after that).
My least favorite album of theirs, then, is “Document,” though it has some good moments.
used to think “Fables of the reconstruction”’as more meh than “Document” but I’ve gained new appreciation for “”Fables” over the years.
“Monster” is tough to listen to all the way through, but I think it was a fun experiment with a few great moments. I
The Zep album I recall most people panning when I was in high school was Houses of the Holy, which also doesn’t appear to have received a mention here yet. Although I shouldn’t nominate it myself, not having heard it often enough to formulate a real opinion. The fact that I didn’t rush out to get a copy is probably somewhat relevant though — that’s certainly how I reacted after hearing Physical Graffiti played a couple times at parties.