One of their Best Albums But It was their Worst Selling

Watertown was Frank Sinatra's only "proper" album to miss the top 100 in the US, and was widely viewed on release in 1970 as a major misstep. Around forty years later, critical and fan opinion turned around in its favor, and now it's seen as a late career classic. (I know I'm reaching into hyperbole, but I'll go as far as asserting it's one of the best albums released by anyone, anywhere, at any time, in any genre).

 

Can't agree that this is their best album. In fact the title says exactly where I think it ranks as a Big Star album.
Of course none of their albums sold much anyway!

 

I don't know if it's his worst selling album, but I seem to be a member of a very small club who thinks Tom Verlaine's "The Wonder" is a really great album.

 

Mr. Natural is a great album indeed, an important transitional link into the brilliant Main Course and a stylistic shift that resulted in the Bee Gees virtutally owning the last half of the
70s. I heard the title song once on the radio and never quite understood why it wasn't a big hit. One important lesson they learned: Most of their albums up until Main Course had started with songs that were either slow and mellow or grandiose and string-laden. Even Mr. Natural begins with the lush and lovely "Charade." On Main Course, it's like something clicked. "Let's kick off the album with a rocking uptempo song", and "Nights On Broadway" was the perfect way to kick off the album. Perhaps it was Arif Mardin's idea, but it worked marvelously and probably went a long way toward making the album a big seller.

 

Heart: passionworks

 

Any album cover that makes Karen Carpenter look ugly is a blight on humanity. Richard just looked like a dork as usual.

 

Yes and no. It was actually their best-selling album in the UK (where it made it to #24).

In the US, it was indeed the lowest-charting of their first four.

A similar situation to the Byrds' Notorious Byrd Brothers. It was by quite a margin the lowest-charting of their first five albums in the US, but in the UK it made it to #12 and outsold the previous two. Of course the real disaster in terms of US chart position would be Dr Byrds and Mr Hyde, which made it to only #153 (just edging out Farther Along's #152), but I don't know how many people would consider that one of their best albums. Strangely, it too charted healthily in the UK, at #15.

 

I had never seen this version of their debut until about a year ago. I’ve found three of them in the wild since.

 

I’ve read the same about whoever saw the Sex Pistols. And maybe The Ramones. I wonder who saw all three.

 

jackson browne - the naked ride home.....didn't even go gold.

 

I think it finally went gold in the UK when the sde box was released.
Still a no show in the US I believe.

Possibly the most brilliant underselling album in the history of popular music.

In fact the Kinks may well be the most crazily low selling band of such high quality in the history of music.

 

You said it!

 

INXS: Welcome to Wherever You Are

 

George Micheal: Listening without Prejudice. Compared to Faith it did fairly poorly and it’s one of my desert island discs.

 

"LWP" is George's 2nd best selling album. Sure, it sold less than "Faith", but that doesn't make it his "worst selling"...

 

IMO, Grand Funk Railroad's Good Singin' Good Playin' was their best album, but it was a commercial disaster and signaled the final decline of the band.

 

Considering Miles has more than 100 albums in his discography (I assume), On The Corner probably isn't the absolute "worst selling" of all of them. But it was one of his lowest sellers at the time (#156!!), barely 3 years after Bitches Brew sold millions. Plus, the critics hated it too!

Top 5 Miles album for me, all day every day.

 

Dazzle Ships by OMD

 

Bruce Springsteen: The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle.

It barely sold upon release and one of the greatest albums in the history of rock and roll.

 

The Fall - The Unutterable

 

Jackson Browne - Hold Out is my fav of his.

 

Well, according to Chart-masters: Deep Purple's Rapture of the Deep (2005) is their poorest selling album.

I sure enjoyed it.

 

Not sure about sales figures, but I'd describe Elton John's The Fox (1981), which is my second-favorite album of his entire catalogue, as one of his least-known original studio albums.

 

Seven the Hard Way (1985) has always been my favourite Pat Benatar album. I own all her records and I reckon it's one of the best. She released some albums afterwards that must've sold less, but this was her first album not to go platinum in the US.