the most depressing album in the world ever

My vote goes to The Dead C's "Baseheart." Something about that song...brrr...I dunno why, but those leaden chords just leave me unnerved and miserable for hours.

Most brilliantly depressing album = Slint's _Spiderland_. And it covers all shades of depression - the suffering of a social pariah, mortality, existential confusion, gothic horror. It always struck me as being dramatic without being theatrical (unlike stuff like Arab Strap, which is great, in moderation).

Mark Eitzel's _Caught in a Trap..._ is pretty good in this regard, too. "XMas Lights Spin" never fails to make me sigh and fall into a considered stupor.

I think I would nominate 'Unknown Pleasures' over 'Closer' actually. The lyrics - "I guess that dreams always end / they don't rise up, just descend" - are about as low and bereft of hope as you can get. The sound of a defeated soul.

I like it, it's good.

Is there any record of Ian Cutis explaining the pronounciation of Closer? I mean, 'clozer' = not actually a word and sounds silly. And the term 'closure' is an Americanism with which the band were probably not familiar with in 1980.

Plus, 'Closer' does make more sense. It evokes a feeling of claustrophobia and suffocation - "I feel it closing in" - of the walls, the world closing in and around. Closer to the grave.

I love this song but if there is a depressive song it is this one. And it was only consequent that he killed himself. Otherwise this song would have been rubbish. Similar with Ian Curtis. I think if you listen carefully and let the music come close to you you feel that this guy is not joking. Both of them were dead serious and their suicides were no accident. And the music does not become less (or more) convincing just because they killed themselves.

As Mark suggests, context is important. But a record which fills a room with sad sounds whatever you the listener put in is still surely more 'depressing' than a record where you have to be listening attentively to the lyrics to get the misery.

FWIW: There's an interview online somewhere with Bernard Sumner that I listened to a while back and he mentions the album in passing - and pronounces it Closer (as in nearer).

Just for less overlap I'll say Tonight's The Night.

I just wanted to point out that "closer" pronounced with a "z" is too a real word - anyone who works in sales or real estate can tell you that :)

1 Stop the closer/clozer discussion and answer the questn if you will.
2 I love music and art really do. And art says to fuck boundaries. I love drinking too and you know what. That fucks the walls too. Ladies and gentlemen be universal o.k. dont get stucked at one band and one sort. I have spent quite a time noting the songs i didn't know and will spend more to download them and all but do you know why all that is for.. to find a piece music floating in the air cutting through the silhoutte of my heart without bleeding or noise.
3 Finally...

Not all of them but I think one of the greatest music ever made and depressing too:

1 BEETHOVEN-MOONLIGHT SYMPH.
2 SEZEN AKSU-HERSEYI YAK,BELALIM,VAZGECTIM (sure most of you don't know it. that is why i wrote them.go on. check them and find the lyrics if you can and try to understand. ý call these three songs the three full stops ...)
3 PORTISHEAD-ROADS,SOUR TIMES, ONLY YOU (what an 'ohhh' she says.could be the best female singer too.)
4 MASSIVE ATTACK-TEARDROP,ANGEL (teardrop on the fire)
5 RADIOHEAD-KARMA POLICE
6 NIGHTWISH-WALKING IN THE AIR
7 MY DYING BRIDE-FOR MY FALLEN ANGEL
8 DEEP PURPLE-SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
9 THE GODFATHER THEME
10 DREAM THEATER-SPACE DYE VEST

not all, not the very best but try the first five. trust,try...
now please write some good stuff that i wouldn't want to listen three million times of three million times so that it loses its tunes.i would like to keep it.

sorry and thanxsssssssszszs. """"""""""""

Wichita Lineman-Glenn Campbell
Johnny Cash-Sunday Morning Comin' Down
Stevie Wonder-You and I
James Taylor-Fire and Rain
Glenn Campbell-Gentle on My Mind

However, you really should read his personal commentary here to get the full flavor.

I guess it's a single, not an album, but it's most depressing.

The Karl Hendricks Trio have a disc called Some Girls Like Cigarettes which is as close to recorded suicide as it gets.

...also, seriously, anything by Bob Dylan (is he the most overrated musician ever? I think so), anything by Leonard Cohen....

...but for GREAT albums that happen to be depressing:
Nick Drake (can't think of the title but it's brilliant)
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen...
The Smiths - The Smiths
Sinead O'Connor - Universal Mother
Portishead - Dummy

Really? I find most of the album heeeelarious; it's hard to take seriously what's so absurd. The very concept of a Kylie Minogue duet with Cave overshadows whatever emotional baggage the song would contain; the only really upsetting songs on the album, I think, are "Song of Joy" and "Henry Lee."

Most depressing? I suppose one could say UNKNOWN PLEASURES or something, but I find that too intriguing to be depressing.

I find desperate albums depressing, i.e. albums made by folks whose time has clearly come and gone, yet they keep struggling in abject futility against the cruel tides of time, fashion and changing tastes -- like Motley Crue's GENERATION SWINE or MC Hammer's FUNKY HEADHUNTER. You just want to sit them down and tell them to give it up.

first, I thought "author",
just personae--then it's clear
that he's just LIKE that

None of Joy Division's output ever reached the depressing depths of "Cruise", and Mr. E, of The Eels, even on Electro Shock Blues, didn't touch "Meat Means Murder" and Arab Strap is sunshine and flowers next to the emotional sandpaper of "Vietnam Serenade".

Part one. FUCK YOU and the bow-legged, oft-felched, syphillitic donkey you call "Mama" that you limped in on.

Part two. Killing Joke's 2003 album had no business being as good as it turned out to be (thanks in great part to the production of Andy Gill, the reintroduction of Raven to the fold, some dicey world events and the injection of youthful energy that was Dave Grohl), thus it bucked the odds and does not adhere to the stipulations of desperation I layed out in the quote of mine you cited.

I find desperate albums depressing, i.e. albums made by folks whose time has clearly come and gone, yet they keep struggling in abject futility against the cruel tides of time, fashion and changing tastes -- like Motley Crue's GENERATION SWINE or MC Hammer's FUNKY HEADHUNTER. You just want to sit them down and tell them to give it up.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, January 16, 2003 7:11 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
OH MY GOD ALEX THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THE NAME OF THAT HAMMER ALBUM.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, January 16, 2003 7:34 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark

this exchange ALONE made this thread classic :-)

There was a compilation album out recently of songs from adverts. I've not listened to it, but I can't conceive conceptually a more depressing album.

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i128/garzweiler2/R-562902-1139674160.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Part-Summa/dp/B00005MNCL/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1229201465&sr=1-2

Arvo Pärt - Part: Summa

All of it is really sad and depressing. Of course, it's probably my favorite classical release ever.

http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2002/Dec02/Part_Summa_Jarvi_45501.jpg

Paavo Järvi is a master on this.

http://www.ecmrecords.com/Images/cover/New_Series/1500/N1591g.gif

Xiu Xiu depresses me, but I think that's intentionally on Jamie Stewart's part. Also for some reason Return To Cookie Mountain never fails to put me in a foul mood. The first Sunset Rubdown album has a similar effect. There is a line in a song on the new Department of Eagles album that goes "Those nights you wandered online/You'll never get to relive them" or something like that, which gets to me. Also, hip hop songs about how good it used to be back in the day.

http://www.mixmatters.com/hot/images/mobb_deep_blood_money.jpg

Which album is that, Siegbran?

I sold Broken By Whispers by Trembling Blue Stars partly because I found it so depressing.

What, no one has ever sat through 'The Hunter' by Blondie?

dave bixby. ultimate downer record

No mention of GY!BE, 'F# A# ∞', yet, eh?

I've felt that the first few tracks on Gang of Four's 'Solid Gold' were unrelentingly depressing, in that listless, defeated sort of way.

loveless- My Bloddy Valentine.

― tom, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (7 years ago) Bookmark

trolling ain't what it used to be

I'm surprised no one mentioned Joni's Blue.

Well, let me respond to this in two parts.

Part one. FUCK YOU and the bow-legged, oft-felched, syphillitic donkey you call "Mama" that you limped in on.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, February 21, 2004 2:29 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

brooklyn we go hard

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/qwerty/wire/images/itllendintears.jpg

red apple falls