Van Morrison’s contractual obligation album. Morrison owed his record company an album, so he went into the studio and recorded 31 songs, all in a day. They were improvised in the spot, with simple chords and free associated lyrics, each running around a minute. He didn’t even bother to tune his guitar as it got out of tune.
I think most Metallica fans pretend St. Anger didn’t happen.
Does Metallica play any St. Anger songs in concert now?
I had a friend from Michigan threaten to rip my cassette of Against The Wind out of my car’s player and spool the tape out the window.
And I can see where he was coming from. Every song on that disc is a Bob Seger song, but it’s not a Bob Seger album - the song or two that just grabs you by the gut isn’t there.
(He was fine when I turned the tape over to the “Stranger in Town” side.)
U2’s second album October fell into this category when it came out, owing mostly to Bonovox’s briefcase with all of his song notes being stolen in Portland on the Boy tour (it was recently discovered). Fortunately their label Island Records decided to give them one more chance.
I think the Nilsson/Lennon album Pussycats might qualify, mostly because Harry damaged his voice beyond repair in a screaming contest with John while recording it.
I agree on both points; I know we’re in the minority. Sandinista was kind of a mess.
I believe the KISS album Music from “The Elder” is generally considered this by their fans…
For me, PInk Floyd’s The Final Cut.
First time I ever discarded a PF album. I might not have played More, Relics or Obscured by Clouds quite as often as the others, but there’d never been an out and out loser among their albums before.
After the first week of ownership, I pretty much just played the one short track titled “One of the Few”. Nothing else on there worth listening to twice.
IIRC this was the album that broke the band up (well…saw Waters leave). Waters wanted another theme album akin to The Wall and the rest did not. Waters got his way but that was the end of the band we knew. That is all based on a vague memory though of something I read decades ago.
I didn’t hate it…not sure it belongs as Highlander 2 equivalent…but not a fan either.
Seger isn’t a hill worth dying on for me but the numbers bear me out. That album was an immediate success, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart in its third week and remaining there for five weeks behind Pink Floyd’s The Wall before knocking it off it’s spot and reaching No. 1 - holding that top position for six more weeks.
A year later it had sold more than three and a half million copies in the US alone. By 2003 it was certified 5x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It won 2 Grammys, including one for Bob Seger, himself, for Best Rock Performance.
Though he’d did say the things you quoted, Marsh did concede that on the album “Seger sings fantastically well” and called it a “carefully constructed album.” Of course he’s just one critic, others praised it. John Rockwell of The New York Times called it an “honest, attractive album” and a "nice return to his Night Moves form.
I honestly don’t understand the criticism that it was just a collection Bob Seger songs. Most all rock albums are.
Like Pete Opel who wrote that Van Halen would never be a commercial success or the fans who boo’d Bob Dylan’s electric work, criticism of this album is unwarranted - your one friend aside.
Throw in Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and I consider this a solid effort. Maybe not his best but certainly shouldn’t be ranked along side Dee Dee King. Seger fans loved it and demonstrated that fact at the cash register.
Longtime Youtube music critic Todd in the Shadows has done an entire series on these type of fandom-breaking albums, which he calls “Trainwreckords”.
A couple of the albums named above are on his list.
When I read the title I thought the OP subject would be about strictly ‘Sophomore slump’ albums, but it looks like it’s much more wide-ranging-- a Sophomore slump example or two (U2’s October), but also weird experimental efforts (Neil Young’s Trans), contractual obligation albums (Van Morrison), corporate overproduced written-by-committee albums (Seger’s Against the Wind), and ‘odds and sods’ type albums (Led Zeppelin’s CODA).
The Sophomore slump album might make an interesting post on its own. A band struggles for years, with a handful of original songs that have been carefully honed and crafted, and when they get an album deal it’s a labor of love, with that first set of well-crafted songs. Then when album one is a hit, the record company pressures the band to come up with another album right away, and the result is often rushed and inferior. U2’s October, as mentioned, or The Knack’s “…But the Little Girls Understand”. Some bands make a comeback afterward, like U2 (I think they did pretty well after October). Others, like The Knack, fade into obscurity.
The follow-up album to a massive hit album that fails to match the former’s success is also considered by some to be a Sophomore slump album, even though the band may have put out several albums by then. A prime example would be the Eagles’ follow-up to Hotel California, ‘The Long Run’, which wasn’t terrible, but reeked of try-hard ‘like these songs!’ desperation.
In addition to the above, bands are strongly encouraged to write the same kind of songs (some do it on their own - Boston). And experimentation is discouraged. I think all bands on major labels fight this.
Jethro Tull jumped on the 80s synth and drum machine bandwagon with “Under Wraps”, which sounded like a clumsy fumble of trends of the time rather than their progressive art rock.
I actually like some of these albums, Sandinista is pretty amazing, even if it goes off on weird tangents and is too long by at least half an hour. Agreed though, Cut The Crap is terrible, except for “This is England.” I also appreciate Metal Machine Music for what it was; Neil Young’s been brought up a few tiems, and it should be noted that he did something similar with Arc, the companion disc to the two-disc Weld live album (you could get ‘em in a set called Arc/Weld) that was just onstage crashing guitars and feedback stitched together into a formless half hour mass. If memory serves, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth also had a solo album in the same vein. I also love The Final Cut but it should have been Waters’ first solo record.
I know Queen fans probably try to block out the Paul Rogers album, but if I could chisel one of their discs from my memory, it would be Hot Space, their cruddy thuddy disco album. “Under Pressure” was tacked onto the end, which was the only saving grace but since that’s on every Queen compilation in existence, I can pretend the rest of the album was a bad dream.
Well, as long as we’re peeing on Jethro Tull, I’ll nominate the entirely forgettable album “A”.
Blue Oyster Cult “Club Ninja”
My second concert ever was this tour, and they gave that album a lot of coverage, including one repeated song (wait, I think that ties into a different thread here). It was great to hear a lot of their songs, but man does this album suck.
Just what audience was this supposed to appeal to?
Talking about “sophomore slump” albums, it really is funny how many rock bands make their big debut album, and then the second is a rehash of the first one. Look at Van Halen and Van Halen 2. Guitar virtuoso solo song? Check. Cover of old song? Check. Fortunately, they did a good job of it.
Boston and Don’t Look Back are the same way, but with Boston, I’m thinking that’s “a feature, not a bug”.