Albums with fantastic songs, that suffer from poor sequencing

I maintain Van Halen II is sequenced wrong. I especially hate how it ends with Beautiful Girls, after the clear album closer Women In Love . . .


Somebody Get Me a Doctor
D.O.A.
Beautiful Girls
Bottoms Up!
Outta Love Again

Dance the Night Away
Light Up the Sky"
Spanish Fly"
You're No Good"
Women in Love...

 

I almost always end up re-sequencing albums to some extent. Many times I wonder what the heck they were thinking. Particularly when multiple songs at slow tempos are all bunched up. They tend to just mush together and lose individual impact that way.

 

Glad I could turn someone else on to the great songs buried on My Cherie Amour. In my original post, I should have suggested an alternate playlist. It's as follows:

Side 1:
1. My Cherie Amour
2. You And Me
3. Angie Girl
4. Light My Fire
5. Pearl
6. Hello, Young Lovers

Side 2:
1. Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday
2. Somebody Knows, Somebody Cares
3. The Shadow Of Your Smile
4. I Got You
5. At Last
6. Give Your Love

Beyond my earlier complaints about the four cover songs being bunched together on side 1, I always thought "Give Your Love" (which was the second to last song) sounded like the ultimate album closer. So, in my version it wraps things up!

 

Here's a recent example-- Sorceress, Opeth. Stylistically, it's all over the map, but it still seems like the decided the running order by throwing darts at the wall.

 

I think Kate Bush's The Red Shoes might be more satisfying with a re-sequencing (and possibly some tracks left off). Opening with "Rubberband Girl" seems to announce an album that is disposable and dated, and closing with "You're the Only One" is just plain dreary and hopeless (which, coming from someone whose favorite song is King Crimson's "Starless," is really saying something!). Assuming they still belong on the album somewhere, I'd try something like this:

1. The Red Shoes
2. Lily
3. Song of Solomon
4. Rubberband Girl
5. Eat the Music
6. Moments of Pleasure

6. And So Is Love
7. Top of the City
8. Big Stripey Lie
9. You're the Only One
10. Why Should I Love You?

I deliberately left out "Constellations of the Heart," and could probably leave out "Rubberband Girl" as well. This sequence puts my favorite songs as the first and last on each album side. Opening with the title track gives the album a more adventurous feel, and the first three songs continue with the somewhat exotic feel. "Rubberband Girl" then functions as a more overtly poppy palate cleanser at the center of the side, much as "The Big Sky" functioned on Hounds of Love. "Eat the Music" returns somewhat to the exotic feel, and the side closes with the lush centerpiece of "Moments of Pleasure."

Side 2 opens somewhat unconventionally with the bluesy but very catchy "And So Is Love," and continues throughout in a slightly more subdued, heartbroken manner, interrupted by the angry experimentation of "Big Stripey Lie." The almost desperate ending of "You're the Only One" just calls out for some kind of more hopeful coda, which is now provided by the bittersweet but catchy "Why Should I Love You?" (and its opening line, "This chapter says, put him out of your mind...and give it time" almost seems like a direct response to the previous song's anguish).

Not sure it would make the album a masterpiece on the level of her previous three albums, but I would probably enjoy it more than the current version, which sometimes feels to me like a completely random collection of songs.

 

"The River" seemingly had its sequencing done with a dartboard except for the opening "The Ties That Bind" and the closers "Drive All Night" and "Wreck on the Highway." Everything in between seems random.

 

not a case of bad sequencing, but poor choice of tracks: (outtakes and singles b-sides are better then some of the album tracks)

dylan: infidels + oh mercy
the cure: wish
the smiths

 

This is such a great thread topic! As a passionate music lover I own many great albums that are meticulously crafted and have beautifully blended track sequencing [Carol King's 'Tapestry' is definitely on that list] whilst on the other side of that coin there are certain other albums with tracks that just feel a little bit thrown together somehow. Kate Bush's 'The Red Shoes' is one of those albums, I feel. And I've always felt that Led Zeppelin's 'Houses of the Holy' was one of those cases as well. I mean, why the hell does 'The Rain Song' just slot in as an uneventful second track after the album jettison's into such super-sonic force with 'The Song Remains The Same'?. It just doesn't fit, not for me. 'The Rain Song' is arguably one of Led Zeppelin's most beautifully written and exquisitely crafted songs of all time with such a divine build to it that it surely would of been more fitting as the closing track of that album or at least the second last track. Apart from that I think it's a brilliant album, my favorite Led Zeppelin album of all time. I guess this is why they call us "Fans", because we can get quite FANatical about our music!

 

100% agree. My sequence runs
1: Bad / The Unforgettable Fire / Wire / A Sort Of Homecoming / Pride
2: Promenade / Indian Summer Sky / Elvis Presley And America / MLK / 4th Of July

It breaks the album into two clear moods.

 

I think U2's Pop should have opened as the Popmart tour did with "Mofo"

 

I agree. There are a strong 10-12 track album in there, but the odd sequencing and a couple of b-side worthy tracks, made it too long and unfocused.

 

I don't have any as I always have control of how I listen to my favorite albums...; )

 

The Bee Gees' 2 Years On has good sequencing overall, and they usually came up with good closing songs for their albums, but closing this one with the slight "I'm Weeping" results in the album petering out at the end rather than having a strong climactic ending. "The First Mistake I Made" would have been a stronger closing song.

 

The problem with "Picasso's Last Words" coming just before "Jet" is that "PLW" contains a "reprise" of "Jet". That bit coming before the actual song wouldn't quite work for me.

 

Genesis - Nursery Cryme (placing The Musical Box upfront makes the rest of the album sound like an anticlimax)
Genesis - Duke (the suite as it was perfomed on tour should have been an album side, with the pop songs moved to the other)
Van Morrison - Hymns To The Silence (apart from the fact that it would have been better as a single album, placing the 6 best songs at the end of CD 2 makes it a very tough listen)

 

The sequencing on Summer Days (and Summer Nights!) is pretty questionable and I think that a little rejiggering can help to turn a good album into a great one. How can you not start the album with one of the most sublime intros that Brian ever came up with? I'm going a step further by nixing the throwaway (IMO) "I'm Bugged at My Old Man" and bringing in two additional tracks: "Guess I'm Dumb" (including a guest vocal spot from honorary Beach Boy Glen Campbell) and "The Little Girl I Once Knew".

California Girls
Then I Kissed Her
You're So Good To Me
Salt Lake City
And Your Dreams Come True
The Girl From New York City
Guess I'm Dumb

Help Me, Rhonda
Girl Don't Tell Me
Amusement Parks USA
The Little Girl I Once Knew (alternate stereo from Hawthorne, CA)
Summer Means New Love
Let Him Run Wild

 

American Beauty by the Grateful Dead. It could be fixed pretty easily by shifting “Truckin” to the opener and “Box of Rain” or “Ripple” to the closer.

 

STREET LEGAL
Bob Dylan (1978)

If you switch the original side openers, then flip the sides, it front-loads the good stuff & puts unredeemable crap like "New Pony" and "Baby, Stop Crying" toward the end. If this had been the original sequence, SL would rank closer to BIALBH/H61/BoB/BotT, rather than middle-tier Dylan.

Do this with the 1999 remix & you've got a much better listening experience than the original LP gave us back in '78. (The '99 remix/remaster is light-years better than any previous version, including the original vinyl, IMHO. Our gracious host notably disagrees, however.)

1. "Changing of the Guards"
2. "Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)"
3. "True Love Tends to Forget"
4. "We Better Talk This Over"
5. "Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)"
6. "Is Your Love in Vain?"
7. "New Pony"
8. "No Time to Think"
9. "Baby, Stop Crying"
You're welcome.

 

It's been many a year since I've heard ' Twilley Don't Mind ' but didn't it start off with a song called ' Out of My Hands ' or something similar to that? Or am I thinking of some other album entirely? Because that' s always possible.

 

"Out of My Hands" leads off Dwight Twilley's solo album Twilley, which was the next to be released after Twilley Don't Mind.

 

Right !
And to honour my failing memory , I' m about to play the great , and I do mean great , 'Sincerely ' album.

 

Yes - I 100% agree, although I had never thought about it before reading your post.

 

Stevie Wonder's 'Talking Book' and 'Innervisions', 2 fantastic albums, begin with 'You are the Sunshine of my life' and 'Too High' respectively, both of which I find completely underwhelming and give little indication of the brilliance to follow.

 

The Beatles - Help! (U.K. version)

Thin Lizzy - Bad Reputation; having three soft songs ("Downtown Sundown", "That Woman's Gonna Break Your Heart", "Dear Lord") close the album wasn't the smartest idea. Then again, Thin Lizzy weren't the greatest decision makers.

 

A VH record needs to end on a upbeat song, IMO.