They were one of my favourite bands for a while, seen them live a couple of times. But Kid A just felt like self indulgent nonsense. I’ll dig out the CD and give it another go!
I think a lot of people wish U2’s Songs of Innocence never existed.
Or they wish it never existed in their iTunes library, at any rate.
Dream Theater has been one of my favorite bands for more than 30 years. They started going downhill after Mike Portnoy left the band. The first two albums after he left were ok, but nowhere near the level of their previous stuff. But those albums aren’t my nominations.
When they started working on their third post-Portnoy album, word came out that it would be a concept album, and a double album to boot. How exciting! They are finally returning to form!
Nope. The Astonishing was utter dreck. I tried to like it, but sometime during my third listen I stopped and never tried again.
I think they’ve put out two albums since then. I’ve never bothered to check them out.
Oh man, how did I forget this one? After the Velvet Underground disintegrated, one member was left standing. Was it Lou Reed? No, it was Doug Yule, and he made one last VU album.
This album is still widely hated by VU fans, though it did later lead to the naming of a great band.
That album is extremely out of print, and it may have even only been issued in the U.K. As a Velvets fan (not fanatic, but still serious) I looked for it for years, and finally found the CD while on a trip to London. I got it home and…it wasn’t awful. Not a patch on Loaded, doesn’t sound at all like the VU, but a passable if unmemorable piece of plastic.
“Squeeze” is a great example. I’ve known about this album long before I even had the regular VU albums, but I never bothered to look for it, and also never saw it in the old days of record stores when browsing for records was one of my favorite pleasures. So I’ve never listened to it, but I just checked if it’s on the streaming service I’ve subscribed to (Deezer), and indeed they have it. Must give it a try some time when I’m really bored.
And this album reminded me of the two post-Morrison Doors albums with Ray Manzarek on lead vocals. I never cared much for the Doors, but has any Doors fan even bothered to listen to them?
ETA: and I just learned that the band Squeeze named themselves after that obscure VU album. Thanks, @Maserschmidt, for this nice piece of trivia!
In the same category are the records Big Brother and the Holding Company made after Janis left.
There are probably many examples of lousy records being made after some of the original members left, like Cut The Crap, mentioned above.
Also, don’t forget Mardi Gras by Creedence.
Raises hand - I am a die-hard VH fan and I deride this effort.
I’m just listening to it, and actually it’s quite cool. Of course it was ridiculous to release it as a Velvet Underground album, but if it had been promoted as a Doug Yule solo album, I think it would have a much better reputation today. It’s really not a bad album.
After reading the rest of the thread, this is now my vote. Many of the others are intentionally poor contractual-obligation or label-defiance albums. VHIII was genuinely intended to be great, by a band with a terrific winning streak–4 number 1 US albums in a row prior to this.
I skip the entire fourth side. It’s become obvious over time that “fascist Pink” is actually Waters’ idea of the hero.
As for The Final Cut, I think The Gunner’s Dream and the title track are some of “Floyd’s” best songs. Despite ol Rog’s best efforts to make a political screed album.
It’s the big introduction of long-form process music dressed up as rock music. I have big ears for that sort of music, and I would think of this as easy listening as I do the Beatles “Revolution 9.” This is not a spritzo. I mean that 100%. I heard all the hype and halfway through the second side i thought, okay, this is not going to get nearly as ugly as people think it is, and it never did. It just sounds like processed tapes of a funny noise a guitar makes to me. When “Revolution 9” hit, those who were familiar with process music shrugged and said “oh the Beatles are doing it now.” Those who hadn’t wrote an awful lot of bullshit about it. Same thing with Reed, except it was an entire album.