There is/was a performance art group from Germany called Laibach. In 1988 they put out an album that was a complete cover of “Let It Be”, except for the song “Let It Be.” I first heard of it when I saw a video for their version of “Across the Universe,” which was beautiful. Orchestral with a choir and a female lead singer. So I bought the album. I listened to the album. I got rid of the album.
Worst. Album. Ever.
Every other song was either interpreted as a march or just somebody screaming. Talk about bait and switch.
A curse on you Astorian, I had supressed my memory of buying Love Beach used for $1.99. So I got ripped off twice as much as you did. Keith, Greg, and Carl: I want my two bucks back!
I honestly stopped the record and checked to make sure that they didn’t have the wrong record in the sleeve when I bought it. “This can’t be ELP,” I said. But it was, oh the horror. They went from Knife-Edge and Karn Evil 9 to this shit.
A note of explanation: I think what did me in on Joe’s Garage was trying to listen to all three acts back to back to back in one sitting. After that, I did listen to Act I quite often, but later attempts at trying Acts II & III again still made me queasy.
This is depressing. I have more albums from this brief list than I had on all those “Name Your Favorite Album” list.
Joe’s Garage? Check. Agree that Vol. 1 was excellent (except for the last track), and that the quality dropped off dramatically after that. Album 3 is unlistenable.
Sandanista? Check (the first track was good, however, but man! What a comedown from “London Calling.” This was one of the few album this cheapskate bought sight unseen.)
The Shaggs? Well, a few tracks pirated, but I can vouch that they worked hard to sound this bad. Their father should have been convicted of child abuse for making them practice and perform.
Love Beach? Pirated from MOR FM station way back when they played the whole album. Jeezus, they must have played drunk to get through those sessions.
Laibach? Check. Can’t believe how you can turn Beatles tunes into industrial-grade sludge, but they Bosche Boys did it. And I had something to compare it with: the complete soundtrack album to “All This And World War II” with a version of “When I’m 64” as sung by Keith Moon. The outtakes from this session will be buried in Nevada along with radioactive waste in the hopes that humanity may yet be saved.
Nebraska? Bought the album. Worse, it’s only one of two Springsteen albums I own (the other’s “Tunnel of Love”). Had the money, so why did I get this music to kill yourself by instead of, say, ANYTHING ELSE IN HIS CATALOG? :smack:
Does anyone remember Gino Vanelli? I had one of his albums back in the late 70s. Instrumental music that left no memory on the brain. I think aliens produced his music to leave sleeper codes in our heads so we’ll surrender when the invasion comes.
Excuse me, I gotta go check out the Lou Reed bin at Schoolkids. Might as well complete my collection.
Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Legend has it that Reed was contractually obligated to deliver two more albums to RCA, who had been refusing to up his royalties, citing a five-year-old contract.
Reed then produced a double-album of grating amp noise and feedback. When RCA said the album was unreleasable reed said "Hey, that contract your so fond of quoting says I have ‘artistic control’.
Um, Cholo, one good song does not a great album make. I agree that "All Moving Parts (Stand Still) is a helluva good song, but I can’t even remember the titles of any other songs on the album, and don’t really care to. (Oh, God, that piece of drek called “Gypsy” Arrgh!)
As for “Rock and Roll Doctor”, I automatically hate any song with the words “Rock and Roll” in the title that isn’t by Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, which is the only band in the history of the universe to record a song with the words “Rock and Roll” in the title that didn’t felch roadkill.
BTW, any insight on what the cover art is? I still say it’s a dirty picture…
Thea, I’d say you’re dead on with your take on the Technical Ecstasy cover. My uncle had the album, and put “Rock ‘N’ Roll Doctor” on a mix tape we were making for me at the time even though I didn’t want it. It was supposed to be a literal take on the album title. One robot was rounded and feminine looking (with a very suggestive mouth/vagina opening where the face would have been, IIRC), the other was bulkier, squared off, and definitely masculine with that phallus/face projection. The beam shooting from the male 'bot to the female one, guess what that was supposed to be. The black liquid splattering on the head of the male: oil/lubrication/female body fluids.
I think you were looking for too deep a meaning. Such hamhanded symbolism didn’t make it past my uncle, who that kind of stuff is usually wasted on.
I’ll quote him directly: “Check it out! It’s two robots fucking!”
Sebastian Cabot, Actor; Bob Dylan, Poet: A Dramatic Reading with Music
Yep, it’s Mr. French reciting Dylan lyrics to Musak in the background. Often the music bears absolutely no relation to the song be interpreted.
This one is so bad, I made a tape of it for a friend who owned a bar. When it was closing time, he’s pop this into the machine and the place would clear out in two minutes flat!
This appears on Golden Throats Vol. 1, a compilation of celebrities singing badly. It includes Shatner’s Lucy In The Sky and Tambourine Man (which makes his Lucy In The Sky sound really good) and Mae West singing Twist and Shout. It’s one of those albums that’s so incredibly bad that it’s incredibly good.
The Mae West version of Twist and Shout is one of the funniest (and most fun) pieces of music I’ve ever heard. She wails on the song - and the mental image you get when you picture her belting it out can’t help but put a grin on your face.
“Steal Your Face,” a double record of the Grateful Dead’s 1974 shows at Winterland before their 19 month hiatus is atrocious. Robert Christgau derisively remarked in his review, " Steal Your Face? Hah, more like Steal Your Money." Phil Lesh, bassist for the Dead and the person who produced the album, described the process of trying to save the tapes (which had been recorded using defective equipment, by an engineer that had a long standing grudge with the band) as “trying to get shit out of a jar of peanut butter.”
Ah, but as I recall, Golden Throats only has two cuts by Mr. French on it. You cannot possibly appreciate the sheer badness of this endeavor until you’ve heard the entire thing! I wonder what record executive actually thought this was a good idea?
Here is a list of some incredibly bad celebrity albums - including the Cabot/Dylan train wreck. You can hear a portion of Cabot’s take on “The Times They Are A-Changing.”
I’m sure Crispin Glover would be at #1 if The Onion had done The Least Essential Album of the 80s. The actor is heard reciting bad poetry and singing “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” as if he is in dire need of a laxative.
Since we’re dealing with legit bands and not the unheard of’s…
Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother. Reading about this album I found out it was a relative success at least in Europe. But I could never make myself listen to the whole thing in one sitting. Not even sure I’ve ever made it through a whole song. Granted, I was always sober during each attempt, but even good psychedelic will please a clear headed MachV. A guy named Alan cooking breakfast just doesn’t strike me as good psychedelia. This takes a lot for me to post, since I view my favorite band with rose colored glasses. Nowadays, I can see using parts of the record as samples in a DJ set. As a stand-alone work, however, it just “wooshes” me.
Front 242- Geography Another one that always escaped me. I feel like my Dad going, “Them’s jest noises they’re makin’ there!” Great outfit. Bad album.
hate to dig up this thread - but I just uncovered a sinatra gem. It’s his stab at racial equality called “We Shall Overcome, Baby” the cover art is two black dice with white “numbers” rolling a 7
Well, what do you expect, I was sixteen when I bought it, and not really up on the latest technical developments, but…
ROTFLMFAO
BTW, I finally unpacked all my vinyl discs, five years after moving to Vegas, and Technical Ecstasy is missing. On the upside, I’ve got a David Bowie, a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and a copy of Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album I don’t remember ever owning.
When I first moved out here, I was missing a couple of extremely hard to find out of print books- the box, which I had singlehandedly carried from my apartment to my mom’s house in preparation for the two of us moving out here together, had been repacked on the grounds that it was too heavy for the big strong moving men. I have a feeling they just sort of went through people’s stuff, took what they wanted, and repacked, not being real careful to make sure everybody’s stuff got back into the same boxes.
Technical Ecstasy is a bad album, but it is far from the worst ever, and it’s got several very good songs. “Dirty Women” is a certified Sabbath classic, “It’s Alright” is really quite cool (hey, Axl Rose used to play it as a warm-up for “November Rain” back when Guns 'n Roses was a legitimate band), and “All Moving Parts” ain’t bad either. If you get rid of the abysmal lyrics, some of the other songs (“I’m just another back street kid/Rock and roll music is the only thing I really dig” :rolleyes: )would be quite passable. I think they actually let Ozzy write some of the lyrics on that one, and it shows.
Quite possibly the worst live album ever created by humanoids. If I had the money, I’d buy every single copy, put them in a rocket, and launch them into the sun.
Also, Blondie’s The Hunter. Hard to believe that this was the same group who gave us Plastic Letters.
I think it’s important to define your terms here. Not liking N’Sync’s music doesn’t make their albums the worst of all time. I think the criteria here should be that even fans of the band can’t abide the album. No one bought William Shatner’s album and said, “You know, this is really sub-par.”
And I’d name that as their best. The title track is ambitious and succeeds as sort of a classical soundtrack for an epic film. “Summer '68” is one of their best shorter tracks, and the rest of the work is first class.
This was before they began to dumb themselves down, and it was exciting music that holds up very well today.