What Mega-selling Album Leaves You Wondering Why it Sold So Much?

I'm glad I'm not alone.
Thriller is just over produced corporate ear candy pop.

 

Even though I do very much get the Tubular Bells thing, it leaves me absolutely amazed at its success... I mean, it's much too complex and ambitious for genuine mass appeal!

 

The Wall has nothing to do with Syd Barret - not one iota... thanks for playing though.

 

Thriller. - billy jean was the only song I remotely liked
The other Michael and Janet mega million selling duds
Saturday night fever
Born in the USA
The wall
Blizzard of oz
Breakfast in america is a radical down hill pop depature for Supertramp
Guns and roses Appetite for Destruction
No jacket required

 

The troubled guy Waters is on about with the "staring eyes" & "Hendrix perm" is rather likely to be Barrett, going by the evidence of Waters' thoughts & themes in the mid to late 1970s: obsessed by writing about Floyd itself and/or Barrett.

 

Faith by George Michael. Not so much because it's bad as because it's a very disjointed album, and some of the hit singles sound like they should have come from almost any decade except the eighties. (Oh, and some of the songs are pretty bad. I always thought "Father Figure" was about as appealing as chanting the phone book out loud.)

 

I'm not posh, I don't own a suit, I have 1 Phil Collins album that was bought for me, I have no Tina Turner LPs. I bought The Wall when it came out and it spoke to me. Obviously it meant something to the millions of people who bought it then and who are attending Waters' current production of it now. And it's NOT just older guys like me. There were LOTS of young people at the show I attended. It is long, bleak and confrontational. That's a good thing once in a while. Something to think about once in a while. (Not a steady diet of it of course.....!)

 

Well said

That's kind of what I meant, SO many different "types" of people were/are into it & bought it, that's what's always surprised me. It's an easy album to be sarcastic about, like I am sometimes, but I do think it's a work of art, & I'm a huge admirer of Waters' difficult integrity & stubborness through a lot of his career. It's just so weird to me that something as tough, nasty & bizarre as The Wall is so popular with the masses. Waters must be some kind of true genius.

 

Don't want to offend anybody but in this situation I have to say the first thing that came to my mind; Born In The USA.
The 80s drums and synths were just such a come down from the previously rich and glorious sounds of the E Street Band.

 

Meat Loaf "Bat out of Hell".. High Drama Glam rock I can cope with but was everyone tone death or do they like the fact it sounds like it was recorded in a bathtub.

 

He needed to reach mediocrity to be understood by the masses.

 

Isn't that just the way?

 

I think you just coined a phrase!! "tone death"

 

Don't want to appear snob, but if you want to be world famous I think you gotta have a mix of quality and gross material. It's difficult to do, anyway.

 

Agreed. Also I think sometimes by the time the public catches on to a great artist they have just peaked and it is often the slightly inferior follow up that is the monster seller. And quite often said album DEFINES said artist and the public is largely unaware of the artistic peak. Thank God for History allowing us to pick and choose.

 

Yes, Springsteen was waiting to happen. There was a certain buzz at the time, I mean among the less informed listeners. Who is this guy Bruce Springfield? Then, here comes Big Jim with his butt in those jeans and the american flag and fists raised in the air. Wow! We can understand that! Try to sell them Wild Billy Circus Story, in a stadium. And those were the days when EVERYBODY wanted to buy the SAME record all over the world, Thriller or True Blue or BITUSA.

 

My wife always says the 80s were when the alien's came and zapped everybody's brains and made everybody stupid

I certainly felt like an alien in that climate. Feel right at home here discussing the history of music on the internet though.

 

Ive seen tons of this record, at every yard sale, garage sale, salvation army, and 2nd hand record store since even way back in the 70s....


Honestly I think every guy back in the 60s, that was white and between 30-55 years old bought this mainly for the picture of a women with a sheet wrapped around her and some silly whip cream smathered to cover up most of what matters ....

If the album was SOOO loved, why are there multiple copies around since even back in the day?

I get the feeling everyone played it a few times, realized ya its passable elevator music with a trumpet, but got tired of the cover and got rid of it after about 10-15 years, as its not really nude or that great, it just appears that way in a record store at first glance...

 

We've lost syd....we caused his world to end

We lost our songwriter, singer and guitarist, and the only one with charisma at all, and we dont know what to do

Ive lost my dad, back in 42', and hes been on my mind all this decade.

I joined a rock group and its paying really well, but im not happy and Want to go to hell.

Stadiums suck, money sucks, and so does our record company. I guess its time to get in my Rolls and be driven to my mansion on the hill.........

 

So the 15 million-plus Americans who bought "Metallica" all thought it sucked?

 

I stand corrected

 

30 pgs. is too much to sift through to see if it was already mentioned, but wonder what happened to all the millions of Billy Ray Cyrus - Some Gave All that got sold during the early 90's...

 

Anything from Garth Brooks

 

The Eagles Greatest Hits

 

Funny,but the one album by them that was truly the Head-Scratcher was "The Final Cut",another Best Seller that I'd always thought should've NEVER been called a Pink Floyd Album,since it's,more or less,a Roger Waters solo more....I believe,by that time,Roger's antics had grown much worse by then,alienating the rest of PF,and shutting them out of the studio didn't help,either...What a Damned shame Roger did this ...He'd could've handled the situation way better than he'd did!