Another "list" article -- 40 Terrible Albums by Great Artists

Even if you disagree with the list (and I certainly don't agree that all of these artists are great!), the comments about each album are frequently amusing:

 

I have a feeling that 90% of the "how could they include ____ " posts will whine about Back to the Egg being listed.

But here's mine: Elvis Costello's Brutal Youth????????????????????? Not even close to a terrible album

 

Technical Ecstasy is a fantastic, underappreciated record, must like Never Say Die

REM's Monster is a solid effort

Pablo Honey gets ripped on primarily by people who've never heard it

 

Surprised that the Costello album they chose was Brutal Youth. I thought everybody loved that one?

 

Wow, way to pick a bunch of easy targets for ridicule there, SFGate. This is about as thought-free an example of this sort of list as I've seen for awhile, with a few real head-scratchers here and there: Self-Portrait and not Dylan?

 

lol Lou Reed with two albums

 

I can see excluding "Dylan" as he really had nothing to do with the album, whereas the rest of the albums on the list were actually put out intentionally by the acts involved (well, with the possible exception of Elvis' "Having Fun On Stage" I guess)

Not a bad list, mostly the usual suspects, and of course one or two I disagreed with (The Final Cut, Back to the Egg)

 

Love the FINAL CUT and It's HARD, not their best but not bad albums. Good list though. Not sure I would of included live albums. Where is Presence?

 

Whoever came up with the list was whining.

Back Top The Egg is a very good album. No whining here.

 

Bob Dylan, "Self Portrait" (1970): He would later belch up monstrosities like "Saved" and "Empire Burlesque," but this double album of comical studio outtakes was a poor way to close out his 1960s imperial phase.

But that's not actually true - Dylan was the one consisting of outtakes from SP and New Morning.

I remember making a half-decent album out of SP a few months back.

 

"Pet Sounds" by the Beach Boys. What a miserable clunker. Right up there with that other 1966 monstrosity "Blonde On Blonde".

 

I always thought R.E.M.'s Monster was a good album. I thought they rocked after two mellower (but great) albums.

 

Monster is a very unfairly maligned album. It's got some great stuff on it.

Also, as has been pointed out, including "Brutal Youth" in the list is ridiculous. It's a very good record, and was well-received when it came out.

 

Those are all terrible, terrible records. One or two good cuts but come on. Nobody can defend any of those three with a straight face.

 

Some of these I called before opening it (Cut The Crap, Metal Machine Music, Having Fun With Elvis On Stage...)

Totally agree with "Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic". The second half of the 90s was not kind to Prince (or "The Artist" as he was called then) and that blatant attempt at a comeback was so calculated and uninspired that it made the Batman soundtrack look like Dirty Mind in its raw uncompromising integrity LOL.

Bruce's "Working On A Dream" while not a masterpiece was nowhere near terrible too. "Outlaw Pete" along salvages the album.

Madonna's "American Life"? I'd say that album was vastly superior to the desperate Hard Candy.

"Keepin' The Summer Alive"? I thought "Summer In Paradise" was universally regarded as the album not worth the paper used to print it. Or because there was 0% Brian on that one they didn't bother.

I don't think "Mylo Xyloto" is a total bust but I agree that it's Coldplay's weakest to this point.

I will always defend "Hot Space" that I think suffers from hard rock snobs whining because Queen did an album with a handful of dance tracks... never mind that the second half is still good rock Queen. I enjoy the album and will never agree with the hate it gets.

"Raditude" is total Weezer by numbers, but if anything, The Red Album was where the rot began to set in.

"Back To The Egg" is one of my fave Macca albums. It might've not moved as many units as say Speed Of Sound but I don't see how it's worse.

 

Even funnier, I would love to see "40 Great Albums By Terrible Artists", would be a more interesting list to make

 

I wouldn't call "Never Let Me Down" a highlight by any means, but I would actually argue that "Loving The Alien" and "Blue Jean" notwithstanding, it was actually a step up from the Vegas embarrassment of Tonight.

 

I could easily -- "Final Cut" is one of my favorite Floyd records, and "It's Hard" is tremendously underrated.

 

I agree with all of this, especially the bit about Hot Space. It is totally anti-electronic snobbery that keeps it from being properly rated.

 

Thank you, good to know I'm not the only one who liked Hot Space.

I know the anti-electronic crowd wouldn't care about the "endorsement" anyways, but I think the story about Michael Jackson being obsessed with the album and listening to it every day in the studio working on Thriller and citing "Staying Power" as an influence on "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" should bring some people around to give it another shot. But most of the same people who hate Hot Space hate MJ too

 

I count a good 16-17 albums I like on there.
Why is "Thank You" always so hated? I love cover version albums and they really took some chances and I like it a lot.

 

+1

 

I tend to agree. At least with NLMD, he was making an effort, although the results were uneven. With Tonight, it felt like he was just going through the motions, very uninspired for Bowie. I like "Loving The Alien" well enough, but even that was recycling old themes (a move that he'd already played with the vastly superior "Ashes to Ashes").

 

I would have to argue back. You can't take the 2 best songs off an album and then claim the album isn't that good. Never Let Me Down stinks because it didn't have any songs as strong as those two. It is of note to me personally because Never Let Me Down is the first cd I ever bought that I immediately traded back in for something else. The Glass Spider Tour was even worse.

 

I also meant to mention Songs from the Capeman. Am I the only one who likes that album? The musical may have been a bomb (don't know, never saw it) but there isn't anything wrong with the songs!