What are the darkest albums of all time?

this one ... had to sell it. Too grim for me.

 

I dunno, for me the only really dark tunes on On The Beach for me are perhaps the title track and Revolution Blues. The others are more cynical or wistful. Walk On is really hopeful.

 

the UK psychedelic scene tended towards childhood recapture, it wasn't as dark at the US competition, fortunately

 

The Smiths were dark early, grateful i started with the sunny and glib Louder Than Bombs compilation exercise for vinyl collecting at the time...

 

Here's one that doesn't come up much: "Crow Sit On Blood Tree" by Graham Coxon. That's an album torn from a particularly dark night of the soul.

 

OS they just tell me I have too many words!

 

Springsteen, New York
Neil Young, Time Fades Away (barely nudges out Tonights The Night for me)
Lou Reed, Berlin
Lennon, Plastic Ono

 

So many great replies

 

What's to not understand about Blue, with its stripped down instrumentation, bleak imagery, and songs of depression, unrequited and failing love? Do we need to take it song by song? All I Want is about being in a mutually empty, if not abusive, relationship where the singer is only experiencing love when she forgets about herself and starts out by admitting she feels like she's on a lonely road. My Old Man, similarly, about a boyfriend she is not serious about enough to marry (possibly Graham Nash) with a devastating bridge about again loneliness. Little Green has a similar subject about unrequited love with haunting images of coldness. Carey seems more upbeat until you get to the last verse when the singer acknowledges she's living a lie as a foreigner and needs to go home. In Blue, Joni is directing the lyrics to her own sadness and it was chosen as the title song because the entire record is a tribute to her depression--she closes the song on the theme that she's a hollow shell. It's devastating. California is about facing the failed ideals of the '60s in terms of things like the Vietnam war and Kent state. The whole thing is very dark and depressing.

 

I find Jandek pretty dark. Also Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel though there is humor in there as well. Cargo of Despair is very dark, as their name implies.

 

Sisters Of Mercy; Floodland.

 

Pink Floyd - The Final Cut

 

Maybe not the darkest of all time, but Depeche Mode's Black Celebration deserves a mention.



If you have the US CD release, the upbeat bonus track/B-side "But Not Tonight" should be skipped for full effect.

 

Well explained. Let's just say that I do not find it depressing. I find John Martyn depressing, I find Nick Drake utterly depressing, I find Beck's Sea Changes quite a bit miserable and that other singer-songwriter bloke mentioned here - Skip Spence - he's a misery goat too. In comparison I find Blue pretty uplifting stuff! It's in her delivery and musical sensibility, I guess – and her guitar sound. It's so pretty.

Anyway for me darkness is another thing entirely. It's not just about sounding depressed or telling everyone how depressed you are for 40 minutes.

 

Haven't seen this one mentioned ... Honey's Dead by Jesus and Mary Chain. Munki is pretty dark as well. All JAMC records are going to have some foreboding.

 

This one, by Prince.

 

Black Sabbath

 

Maybe this? Has to have the film clip with it though

 

Do you mean Springsteen's Nebraska?? I'm confused, or I want to hear this dark, unknown masterpiece New York.

 

*rimshot* Good one.

 

Demon - The Plague

 

It's a remarkable film, albeit one I never plan on watching again.