Bad Albums by your favorite artists

[El Hombre Nuclear]

Celtic Frost's "Cold Lake" album was not well received at all when it first came out, as the avant-garde black metal band inexplicably released what was more of a glam metal album (complete with glam image as shown by the band's photo on the back cover). It was a very jarring follow up to their "Into the Pandemonium" LP. It got universally bad reviews and the band has since disowned it, it's been out of print for years. I still have my vinyl copy that I bought when it was released, I actually liked it because I liked glam metal as well as extreme metal, so I thought it was an interesting combination. I was definitely in the minority though!

Oh man, what a debacle that was in the underground scene at the time! We were all dumbfounded when we first saw that video with Tom G. Warrior prancing around with teased up hair, etc. Their cover of "Mexican Radio" had been hard enough to swallow, but "Into the Pandemonium" was full of dark, weird material, so we let it pass. "Cherry Orchards" was really a bridge too far, though...

It's funny, because despite my particular metalhead crew being very underground-oriented (I used to walk around with an Infernal Majesty "None Shall Defy" back-patch on my black denim jacket, for crying out loud), one of my best friends was a total glam metal fanatic, and even he didn't like Cold Lake. Many of the glam guys, despite our constant taunting, were very talented musicians, could actually sing, etc. But good 'ol Tom seemed to think he could get by in that scene just grunting along like he was still doing "Circle of the Tyrants" or something. So, I don't think the people who were into stuff like Winger were really buying it either.

[cjefferys]

Celtic Frost's "Cold Lake" album was not well received at all when it first came out, as the avant-garde black metal band inexplicably released what was more of a glam metal album (complete with glam image as shown by the band's photo on the back cover). It was a very jarring follow up to their "Into the Pandemonium" LP. It got universally bad reviews and the band has since disowned it, it's been out of print for years. I still have my vinyl copy that I bought when it was released, I actually liked it because I liked glam metal as well as extreme metal, so I thought it was an interesting combination. I was definitely in the minority though!

[Mr.Marion]

More unhonorable mentions
Metallica - St. Anger
Certain Ratio-Good Together
Van Halen- vh III
Radiohead-Pablo Honey
RHCP-one hot minute
Chris Cornell-stream
Interpol -interpol

[Spawn67]

Oh and good call on that last Morbid Angel album, that was just awful. Cryptopsy also put out an awful record several years back that made my jaw drop when I first heard it, unbelievably a mess!

I was gonna say that Cryptopsy album but I didn't think anyone on this board would know who they were. Yea that was awful. One of the members told a friend of mine that they were trying to bring in a mainstream audience with that one. I mean yea the average mainstream fan would think cryptosy hmmm I gotta check them out.

[palitoy]

This is probably a Canadian thing but TPOH's "Love Junk" was one of my favourite albums of the 1980s, when One Sided Story came out and the first single sounded good, I was all over it. It's really forgettable and in one song (Food) Moe Berg sounds like Weird Al. I haven't listened to it since 1991.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^ In The City and Sad Cafe are really good songs from that album, in my opinion...beside The Long Run, Heartache Tonight and I Can't Tell You Why. That's five out of ten songs. That's just half bad.

Yeah, the hits are really great, but the rest is just...weird. "Greeks Don't Want No Freaks"? Were the Eagles watching Animal House or something? It's the one album I'll skip around on. Most of the Eagles albums I always just played through.

And yes, the band was crumbling at this point. Poor Timothy B. Schmidt. He came in as the wheels were coming off.

Chris

[Mikey]

Any Badfinger album without Pete Ham

[rykerw1701]

"Kilroy was Here" by Styx. I remembered not liking it when it came out, but then a couple of years ago I found the CD in a yard sale for 50 cents, and I thought it had to be better than I remembered. It was overpriced. And I really like Styx but I hate that album. No wonder it killed the band.

[El Hombre Nuclear]

Well, as someone who's favorite genres are progressive/psychedelic rock, jazz-rock/fusion and heavy metal, all from the late '60s to early '90s timeframe, the evaluation of when a band jumped the shark usually coincides with when they attempted to get too poppy/mainstream, which is not something musicians from these scenes often excelled at, nor were their core fanbases looking for. Unfortunately, as time went on and the youthful creative energy inevitably dissipated, this tended to happen to many of the "big name" groups. As such, there are really too many examples to name here.

For my metalhead peeps who mentioned Morbid Angel earlier in the thread, I can only say that I can't even imagine how bad they must be at this point. Frankly, I didn't even like their '90s stuff. The "Thy Kingdom Come" demo/single and "Altars of Madness" were all I really needed to hear from them.

[EmergencyIan]

^ In The City and Sad Cafe are really good songs from that album, in my opinion...beside The Long Run, Heartache Tonight and I Can't Tell You Why. That's five out of ten songs. That's just half bad.

- Ian

[megoapesnut]

Other than the tracks that were hits, The Long Run by the Eagles is my least favorite of their original albums.

Chris

By that point they all hated each other so no surprise that their music suffered. Although "I Can't Tell You Why" is one of my favorites.

[CrimsonGhost]

I'm gonna hijack it a bit more.

I think I read somewhere that of all the albums Alice recorded in this era (he doesn't even remember most of it), "Scarlet and Sheba" is the song he'd most want to revisit. Great song! I think it's funny that Warner Brothers gave Alice and Bob Ezrin money to record the album just out of obligation, it was the last one on his contract with them, and thought they would just go away. They were surprised when Cooper and Ezrin actually recorded and delivered an album. They weren't expecting to get one, so that's why Warner did zero promotion for it, and also since Alice was too sick to do a tour to support it (he has never performed any songs from it live), it just kind of died and was forgotten.

I would love to see him dig up an obscure song or two to play live. Scarlet and Sheba would fit right in with what he's doing now.

And I think I Love America is just begging for a video... a little too late now, I suppose! HAHA!

[Earth 2 Chris]

I'm a HUGE Bob Seger fan, but his latest, "Ride Out", isn't very good. Bob comes across as an angry old guy screaming off of his porch. A major disappointment to me, as his previous one, "Face the Promise" was his best work in decades.

Chris

[Nostalgiabuff]

"New" by Paul McCartney. IMHO it is the worst album he's put out in his career. Yes, even worse than Wings' "Wild Life" and "McCartney 2". Played the album once and just couldn't see myself listening to it again it was that bad. I usually give albums at least 3 listens to see if it's a good one or has potential to grow on me. Zip...Nada....Nothing interested me on the album at all. I have everything he's ever done, solo and Wings, and my collection is huge with singles from all over the world. That's how much of a fan I am of McCartney...but "New" was a complete waste of $13 in my opinion. I don't understand how it got great reviews and got him a grammy nomination.

really? I like that album a lot. I thought it was the best album he has put out in years, even though his voice is really showing his age these days

[daz71]

That's why I'm glad the UK versions are available: Both are all Beatles music, no film instrumentals...

glad you cleared that up I was thinking what instrumentals.