What are those albums that are so off-course even the hardcore fans needn't bother

I don't mean the bad albums, since I assume most fans will at least want to hear bad versions of their favorite artists (especially since you don't actually have to pay anything to do so these days), I mean the ones which just have nothing to do with the artist's classic style and are just roundly ignored in the larger context of their discography. The fans never mention them, the songs don't appear on any comps, and the band never plays them live, outside of maybe that one tour.

For example ELP's Love Beach, as bad as it is, still has some of the hallmarks of the classic band. It's a bad record but if you're a fan you might get some amusement out of it. On the other hand In The Hot Seat just sounds like a different band entirely - many of the songs were written by the producer, Lake sounds nothing like he used to, and Emerson can't really play anymore. If you heard it in the wild you'd never identify it as ELP. That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

Those two Devo albums on Enigma also count (Total Devo and Smooth Noodle Maps), I actually think the latter one is okay but I pretty much never think of them. The songs don't fit into their catalogue and they punt a lot of their unique signifiers to fit in with crappy late 80's FM radio. I was a fan for a decade before I even knew they existed (unlike say, Shout, which sold decently and still sounds like Devo, even if it kinda sucks).

For whatever reason I've become a little fascinated with these sorts of albums lately so I'm curious what y'all come up with

Like the time Goblin made a pop album with very little of its original members?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQY6WTT7bzo

exactly

also wanna clarify I'm not looking for soundtracks, oddball collabs, or weird cover albums - I want stuff that goes in the main discography

So not those instance where someone like Paul McCartney or Billy Joel decides to record a Classical album?

yeah I'd say probably not since they're marketed specifically as such

Train Above the City?

I'd imagine there is a strong correlation here with 'albums / singles that were hurriedly knocked out in order to fulfill contractual obligations' eg;

Mamas & Papas - People Like Us
Rolling Stones - Schoolboy Blues
Van Morrison - Payin' Dues (so bad it wasn't released until the 90's)
Prince - Chaos & Disorder
Ben Folds - One Down
Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music (sort of?)

Cut the crap, right?

ccr's mardis gras. what an unfortunate son of a gun.

Velvets' Squeeze obviously

Cut the crap, right?

― campreverb, Tuesday, September 10, 2019 11:27 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

That was the first one that sprung to mind for me. Only one original member (Strummer); a manager who took on co-writing, producing, and arranging (said arrangements and production not heard by Strummer until the record was out); and it's not even mentioned in passing in their official documentaries, or included in boxed sets (though I think there's one singles comp that has "This Is England").

Neil Young fans are pretty nuts about his work but i feel like at least one of his LPs could fit in this category maybe?

Celtic Frost's Cold Lake

lil wayne - rebirth

w/Neil I think the generally accepted entry is probably Everybody's Rockin

Neil Young fans are pretty nuts about his work but i feel like at least one of his LPs could fit in this category maybe?
― omar little, Tuesday, September 10, 2019 8:36 AM

a decade ago, i can see a lot of mentions for his 80s geffen era, but even those records have their defenders now. i like trans, but i think most of those albums are more boring than anything else. kind of in the devo 'shout' category that frogs mentioned.

Not that I've even heard any of these (fitting I suppose) but the first two pre-Debut Bjork albums and the Underworld Mk1 albums

w/Neil I think the generally accepted entry is probably Everybody's Rockin
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, September 10, 2019 8:38 AM

no way, that album's so much better than life or landing on water.

like i said though: all that geffen stuff is just third and fourth tier neil. inessential, sure. but definitely has gotten reevaluated more recently.

xp Re: Neil Young, its got to be 'Everybodys Rockin' aka the 25 minute album he released on Geffen directly after they sued him for 'making music that didn't sound like Neil Young'

Van Morrison - Payin' Dues (so bad it wasn't released until the 90's)

This contains the only good work Van Morrison has ever done.

xp beaten to it ;)

i think the younger neil fans will stan for Trans but would dump Everybodys Rockin, but maybe its the opposite for his older fans?

Actually there's a lot of early disowned records like the ones I mentioned. Alanis has a couple and maybe Y Kant Tori Read counts, except I think she has re-owned that one

Landing On Water has a great vibe but not many great songs. Life is.... well yeah its really pretty bad.

absolute jam from Landing -
https://youtu.be/kdxZAvP9t7A?t=68

Big fan of "Trans", I've never heard "Everybody's Rockin'" <------- old bastard

Landing on Water is better than people say it is!

these Tim Pope landing on water videos are great actually!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXmiwjKx_Cs

"Life" is kinda not that bad?

xp Re: Neil Young, its got to be 'Everybodys Rockin' aka the 25 minute album he released on Geffen directly after they sued him for 'making music that didn't sound like Neil Young'

― help yourself to another slice of apple ... crumble (Willl), Tuesday, September 10, 2019 11:42 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

The lawsuit was a response to Everybody's Rockin. Geffen initially rejected Old Ways and told Neil to make a "rock 'n' roll" album, so Neil happily obliged. Geffen was pissed at what Neil was recording and cancelled the sessions before the album was done, which is one reason it's so short. Then they sued him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcHeOg3pHhk

I'm a huge fan of "Trans". "Everybody's Rockin'" less so. I consider myself an "old" Neil fan, although I am not as old as my dad.

totally derailing with more Neil here - but one of my time travel wishlist tours would definitely have been the Trans one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oMTwfq_jI8

Lana Del Rey's Lana Del Ray ?

that concert video is amazing

features quality interpretative dancing from Nils Lofgren

xp

I've got it!

xp Cheers MBJ, I knew it was something like that

On my last BH kick, I found it very hard to listen to Butthole Surfers' Weird Revolution

Also, its hard to totally dismiss the Smooth Noodle Maps era of Devo because this is such a jam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCJoe_4eYU4

i did have an image in my head of UMS seeing Neil on the street and yelling, "Neil! Landing on Water! I liked it!"

Bad Religion - Into the Unknown

Mott the Hoople released a couple of stinky stinkers after Ian Hunter split. They shortened the name to Mott, but it was basically the same band, sans their guiding light and anything in the way of listenable material.

I actually kinda like CCR's Mardi Gras, but it would have been better for the other guys to write their songs and have John sing them. (I'm aware of the history, and that this was not likely to happen.) Most of the songs aren't that bad, but virtually no band needs three lead singers.

Blue Oyster Cult had FOUR singers, and they needed them all, if only to assure that Eric Bloom didn't get any more time behind the mic.

Calling All Stations

Also, its hard to totally dismiss the Smooth Noodle Maps era of Devo because this is such a jam

can't believe I've never seen the video, that's such a perfect ending for the group. still every time I hear that song I can't help but think it was written specifically to get radio play which is something they hadn't really done before. of course their comeback album in 2011 was pretty much all about that and it turned out pretty good

Music From 'The Elder' by Kiss used to be in this category I guess? Nowadays it sounds like the album that kicked off the epic fantasy metal genre so probably ripe for reassessment.

Jean-Michel Jarre made several of these in the 00's, he pretty much traded in his entire set up for Pro Tools/Fruity Loops type software and put out some pretty bland downtempo/trance stuff that sounds like royalty-free background music to me. Maybe Metamorphosis doesn't count (because it's actually kinda good) but the other ones - Sessions 2000, Geometry of Love, Teo & Tea - all seem to have been written out of his history already.

I actually kinda like CCR's Mardi Gras, but it would have been better for the other guys to write their songs and have John sing them

i feel like mardi gras definitely fits the thread but ^^this otm

"Someday.." and "Sweet Hitchhiker" pretty top tier CCR for me

According to Wikipedia, Fogerty refused to sing on Doug's and Stu's songs. I bet those were fun sessions.

yeah him refusing to sing was a total dick move. otoh the other guys really didn't seem to have a clue about how much Fogerty was carrying the band. So he opted to show them in the most publicly humiliating way possible.

omar little at 11:19 10 Sep 19

i did have an image in my head of UMS seeing Neil on the street and yelling, "Neil! Landing on Water! I liked it!"

I WON'T BE SILENCED BY THE MAN!!!

Not that I've even heard any of these (fitting I suppose) but the first two pre-Debut Bjork albums and the Underworld Mk1 albums

this should apply to most of weezer's discography, but doesn't

Dunno if it’s “off course” but I never hear much talk about the very first Sleater-Kinney record

Iggy Pop has several of these - Avenue B, Aprés, Preliminaires, and apparently his new one Free is another.

That 90's YMO reunion album called Technodon fits; sounds nothing like their previous stuff and you get the impression none of them really wanted to make it. Alfa went bankrupt but still had the rights to the YMO name so it came out as "Not YMO". Apparently it was supposed to be sample-heavy but the fallout from Paul's Boutique made that impossible. Even though YMO's stuff gets reappraised and compiled all the time these days you pretty much never hear about this album. I kinda forgot it exists. It's not that bad, but the songwriting isn't really there and it sounds dated in a way their classic stuff doesn't.

The first Ministry album

'No Talking, Just Head', perhaps?

Moby “Animal Rights”. the old ipod it’s on that’s constantly on shuffle tries to play something from it each time we sit down for breakfast. i totally forgot it had some great ambient tracks until it played one recently - was so disappointed in spending my limited budget on it back when it came out i don’t think i ever listened to it all the way through since then.

yeah that's a good one especially since it comes in the midst of his 'classic period'

Yes arguably have a bunch of these...first one that comes to mind is Open Your Eyes but I think the new one (Heaven & Earth) is even more useless

Do most Blondie fans think this about The Hunter? I think it has a number of good songs, and a number that, uh, aren't good.

Discharge's Grave New World, their infamous foray into something vaguely resembling hair metal, might be an example of this. I think that album is due for critical reappraisal, though. Not because it's all that good, but just because that seems like something that would happen.

there's a couple of Discharge clone bands that have sort of taken Grave New World as inspiration, but not quite - Thisclose is the main one, but they just sing like Cal on that album, the music is more like trad Discharge

the first Ministry album is different to their other stuff, but is actually good not bad

was going to say Genesis' Calling All Stations but someone beat me to it. Also Yes's last one, Heaven and Earth; that has fewer defenders than CAS.

Michael Jackson's Invincible fits even though it would be by far the highest selling album in this thread. even after he died and all his music was playing everywhere all the time you never heard anything from this besides maybe "You Rock My World" once in a blue moon. I don't remember if it's bad or good, in fact I don't remember anything about it

you could probably include all his pre-Off the Wall solo albums too but that's an entirely different situation

I don't mean the bad albums, since I assume most fans will at least want to hear bad versions of their favorite artists (especially since you don't actually have to pay anything to do so these days), I mean the ones which just have nothing to do with the artist's classic style

invincible would not fit

yeah you're right, I wasn't thinking in terms of sound (again, I can't remember a damn thing about it outside of the single even though I'm sure I've heard it a dozen times) but rather the impact. it was kind of weird that this goliath of pop died which prompted a huge reappraisal of all his work, except for the one album he'd actually put out in the last 15 years

instead let me offer the 80's albums from the fairly successful progressive symphonic rock group Renaissance (Camera Camera & Time Line), in which the group (now a trio) tries their hand at ABBA-style synthpop. I actually thought both albums were okay but I will probably never listen to them again.

final two Gentle Giant albums are in the same boat. Civilian is actually quite decent...as a Cars album. Missing Piece at least had some proggy stuff on it.

Starcastle's Real to Reel, basically a bad Styx album, but even less proggy than that. Basically killed the band.

Triumvirat's final two also seem to fit though I haven't heard them

A bunch of those were discussed in a 'prog dinos go wave' thread. ELP, Gentle Giant, Renaissance et al disappointed quite a few hippies with their commercial attempts.

1981 = year of 70s dino rockers w modren/wavo comeback LPs

1981 = year of 70s dino rockers w modren/wavo comeback LPs

Train Above the City?

Scott Walker's phoned a couple in, Stretch and We Had It All for example. They're blandly pleasant-enough country and western, but given what he's capable of they may as well be screeching white noise. I've tried and failed to find a way into them.

Behind the Mask

Time

oops meant to italicize

Pat Boone "In a Metal Mood"

gtfo, that's his one totally essential lp.

I was going to say Jewel's 0304, the album where she went dance pop, but apparently it wasn't received badly enough by the fans or public to be outright forgotten.

Do most Blondie fans think this about The Hunter? I think it has a number of good songs, and a number that, uh, aren't good.

First one that came to mind, though it should be noted they've been playing the first track "Orchid Club" at most of their shows this year. As a Blondie fan I have to admit I don't often think about The Hunter at all.

That’s cool! I’ve put “Orchid Club” on a couple mixtapes.

So, there’s a number of ways this seems to happen:

Artist moves on rapidly from early work (Ministry)

Artist makes a late period artistic shift (Love Beach)

Band continues without guiding force (Mott)

Are there examples where the artist/band, at the height of their fame, just releases a completely different product that totally backfires?

Garth Brooks in ... The Life of Chris Gaines

Metal Machine Music too

Fourth option to add to above: Band is simply out of gas, releases crap record. Examples too numerous to list.

Black Sabbath’s ‘Seventh Star’?

Chris Gaines OTM, I thought of that one as I was typing.

Goodbye Cruel World?

What about when Sinatra had a hit with "My Way" and then came back with an album where half of it was him reciting tone poems by Rod McKuen

Are there examples where the artist/band, at the height of their fame, just releases a completely different product that totally backfires?

This is the most interesting category I think. Animal Rights does seem like the closest fit that comes to mind. Obviously Moby would become more famous later, but circa Everything Is Wrong he was about as well-known as it was possible for a dance music producer to be in the US, then Animal Rights killed any momentum completely.

In Australia it was released with a bonus disc of instrumentals called Little Idiot that I remember being quite good.

Oh, City Raga by Popol Vuh! I actually like that one, though I think it’s dismissed/hated.

Speaking of Sinatra, Tone Poems of Color (his effort conducting specially commissioned instrumentals from '56) probably fits here.

Todd Terry releasing a drum & bass album in 1999 as his big and heavily promoted post-"Missing" splash might fit, except i've never heard it so maybe it's amazing.

Black Sabbath’s ‘Seventh Star’?

This was supposed to be Tony Iommi's solo album, but the label demanded he slap the BS name on it.

The jazz album Björk made with a piano trio is well liked by many of her fans, I think?

Interesting, I've never seen anyone rep for it. Maybe I'll check it out then

There was also Barbra Streisand...and other musical instruments, her weird "world music" album from 1973, a total sales dud in the middle of a hugely successful phase in her career

http://i.imgur.com/jhKgR.png

Frank Zappa: Francesco Zappa (Synclavier record of Classical works by Zappa's maybe/maybe not ancestor).

The same year Peggy Lee hit big with "Fever" she had an album out called Sea Shells on which she was accompanied solely by harp and harpsichord, much of the material being translations of Chinese poetry which she speak-sings. It did not chart.

That Peggy Lee record could just as easily go in a thread for "Left-field records worth checking out by musicians you wouldn't expect!" Along with, say, the early career of Gene Autry when he was doing socialist Jimmie Rodgers knockoff tunes, Chubby Checker's Hendrix knockoff LP, and a bunch of records already mentioned in this thread honestly. Feel like that would be a more interesting thread than "ill-fated reunion albums/lineup changes/'how do you like our new sound' albums". I don't really want to complain about how crappy Heldon's "Only Chaos Is Real" is, dunk on "Summer in Paradise" again, or God forbid bring up the two post-Jim Morrison Doors albums. If it's not worth listening to, why is it worth talking about?

ccr's mardis gras. what an unfortunate son of a gun.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin)

nobody ever says this about "nite flights"

The first three Kraftwerk albums seem to fit the OP's criteria pretty solidly, since they've never been reissued and are never played live. Indeed Hütter seems to have ruthlessly expunged them from the band's discography, which is fine by me – an artist is entitled to establish their own canon. I'd count myself as a hardcore Kraftwerk fan and I've certainly no interest in hearing them again.

Hard disagree on that, anagram.

Reminds me of a variation on the joke about vegans.

How can you tell someone's heard the first two Kraftwerk albums?
Don't worry, they'll tell you.

There is a subset of tracks from those early Kraftwerk albums that have high replayability:
Ruckzuck (Kraftwerk)
Megaherz (Kraftwerk)
Klingklang (Kraftwerk)
Strom (Kraftwerk 2)
Tongebirge (Kraftwerk 2)
Heimatklänge (R&F)
Tanzmuzik (R&F)

I was just answering the OP ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, Death of a Ladies' Man would seem to fit.

xp

I'll own that. This culture of silence and secrecy shit Hütter has been pulling for decades with the first three Kraftwerk albums pushes my buttons. I know a lot of people think that artists should have unlimited moral rights over their own work, and I don't agree. I think that, having opened the barn door by releasing them in a mass edition, he doesn't have the right to throw those first three albums into the memory hole.

Wasn’t Death of a Ladies’ Man the challops hipster fave for a minute about 15 years ago?

Death of a Ladies' Man is an essential Cohen album.

To return briefly to yesterday's conversation: Neil Young has recorded more aimless and inconsequential albums in the last decade than Landing on Water and Life ever were.

had a feeling Neil Young would dominate this thread

The answer that best addresses the original question: most acts' late-period albums.

There is a subset of tracks from those early Kraftwerk albums that have high replayability:
Ruckzuck (Kraftwerk)
Megaherz (Kraftwerk)
Klingklang (Kraftwerk)
Strom (Kraftwerk 2)
Tongebirge (Kraftwerk 2)
Heimatklänge (R&F)
Tanzmuzik (R&F)

Must be some mistake you've left off Ananas Symphonie.

first two Kraftwerk lps = best two Kraftwerk LPs (after Autobahn)

Can's Out of Reach is one that barely seems to get a nod these days - the band doesn't like it and it wasn't available on CD for a long time. Their next album Inner Space & the comeback Rite Time are also sort of ignored, but there's usually a token track from those on the compilations. Out of Reach might as well not exist at all.

i think out of reach is just a bad album rather than being especially off-course.

I quite like some of it anyway.

and yeah those early kraftwerk albums have many fans among the hardcore.

(xp) It is kind of off course because there are two songs not credited collectively and Holger Czukay has no involvement in the album whatsoever.

I’m not sure how many hardcore Dylan fans have been bothering with the Sinatra-stan albums he’s been releasing of late (I know I haven’t).

of the three "Cantana" albums it's the one with basically no connection whatsoever to the band's past. like, even on Inner Space you can hear Karoli's guitar tone and some of Schmidt's signature synth tones. and I think Karoli does sing some. Out of Reach doesn't really have any of that. not only that but some of the tracks are just wildly uncharacteristic of the band. it's actually not too bad an album (or at least, it wouldn't be if it was actually produced properly) but it really does seem like an entirely different group.

Wasn’t Death of a Ladies’ Man the challops hipster fave for a minute about 15 years ago?

― Una Palooka Dronka (hardcore dilettante), Wednesday, 11 September 2019 15:18 (one hour ago) bookmark flag link

Death of a Ladies' Man is an essential Cohen album.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 11 September 2019 15:54 (forty-six minutes ago) bookmark flag link

Alfred usefully answering the previous question right there.

I do always forget about Out of Reach! It's the one I don't recall seeing in shops back in the day. Was it released in the US at the time? (And lol at "Cantana," I've never seen that before.)

I'd call Inner Space one of those ignored low-key post-"peak" classics, alongside Gentle Giant's "Civilian" and Scott Walker's "Til The Band Comes In". There's some truly bad stuff on the record, including their awful novelty cover of "Can Can", and that's the stuff that everybody remembers rather than the first 32 minutes, which consists of great tunes on par with side 2 of "Soon Over Babaluma". Which is just part of the problem, because "Their best since 'Soon Over Babaluma'!" comes off as some truly weaksauce faint praise, the sort of thing one says about every past-their-prime band that still gets five star reviews in Rolling Stone. Most people haven't even fucking heard Soon Over Babaluma because Damo isn't on it. I could tell people that Can's peak as a live band was their early 1974 UK tour just after Damo's departure, but who would care?

I would! I love Soon Over Babaluma.

The first three Kraftwerk albums seem to fit the OP's criteria pretty solidly

this is so laughably wrong, just gonna point and laugh. nothing "off course" abt those at all.

Are there examples where the artist/band, at the height of their fame, just releases a completely different product that totally backfires?

― confusementalism (Dan Peterson)

arguably Bad Religion with "Into The Unknown"?

I think that, having opened the barn door by releasing them in a mass edition, he doesn't have the right to throw those first three albums into the memory hole.

I personally think the first three Kraftwerk albums should be remasterised and box-set-ified alongside high-quality live recordings of the period. But to apply the above principle, you would be requiring each member of every band that ever released three EPs and an album in the 90s, and has been working in HR or repairing bicycles since, to keep all of their music in print and available to distributors in every country around the world.

It’s silly & finicky & needlessly idiosyncratic for Ralf to not like those records, and think they’re not proper Kraftwerk. But silly & finicky & needlessly idiosyncratic also p much defines Kraftwerk, so

I wasn't thinking about the thread header so much as the bit about "nothing to do with the artist's classic style"

xp

I personally think the first three Kraftwerk albums should be remasterised and box-set-ified alongside high-quality live recordings of the period. But to apply the above principle, you would be requiring each member of every band that ever released three EPs and an album in the 90s, and has been working in HR or repairing bicycles since, to keep all of their music in print and available to distributors in every country around the world.

― now let's play big lunch take little lunch (sic)

No I wouldn't. Being forgotten isn't a "right", it's a historical inevitability, and I'm perfectly fine submitting to that inevitability. My understanding is that what Hütter is doing is actively attempting (unsuccessfully; see also Streisand, Barbra) to keep people from hearing or knowing about those first three Kraftwerk records. I don't know why - his reasons are his own. Maybe he's ashamed by them, maybe he just regrets them. Whatever those feelings are he has an absolute right to them, but as I have heard those records, and the bootleg live recordings, and I love them, I will keep loudly and rudely disagreeing with him and telling everybody that those records, at least the first and third ones, are great and are nothing to regret or be ashamed of.

Soon Over Babaluma = best Can album.

My understanding is that what Hütter is doing is actively attempting (unsuccessfully; see also Streisand, Barbra) to keep people from hearing or knowing about those first three Kraftwerk records. I don't know why - his reasons are his own. Maybe he's ashamed by them, maybe he just regrets them

i think it's because he really, REALLY is into the idea of Kraftwerk as a full-fledged Man-Machine, in methodology and in musical output, and that vision didn't really fully cohere until Autobahn. not everyone would agree with that, and there are of course pre-Autobahn tracks that directly pave the way to the full man-machine experience. but from what i've read, that seems to be his perspective.

i was lucky enough to score nice, relatively affordable copies of the first three albums, but imo they should just re-release them under a different name (Organisation? wouldn't be strictly accurate though)

but yeah, in reference to this thread, the first 3 Kraftwerk albums are the exact opposite of the premise - they are the ones that hardcore fans should DEFINITELY seek out, no matter what hutter wants them to do. they are essential to understanding the rest of Kraftwerk's music

xp That would make Tone Float a Kraftwerk album, and even with the content of 1 and 2 it isn't really.

Yes arguably have a bunch of these...first one that comes to mind is Open Your Eyes but I think the new one (Heaven & Earth) is even more useless

i'd say 90125 (and big generator)

i think it's a great album, but it (and big generator) has almost nothing to do with the records before and after

My understanding is that what Hütter is doing is actively attempting (unsuccessfully; see also Streisand, Barbra) to keep people from hearing or knowing about those first three Kraftwerk records.

how on earth is he taking any action toward this end, if “not reissuing them” doesn’t even count

don't know why - his reasons are his own

as KM said, it’s very clear that he & Florian thought they’d finally gotten it right on Autobahn & happily went forward (there is only forward! no reverse on a racing bike) in that human / electronic mode from there.

"Soon Over Babaluma = best Can album." it's my favorite by some distance.

i think it's a great album, but it (and big generator) has almost nothing to do with the records before and after

that's true but it does have a #1 hit on it (which they still perform live) and several of the anthologies feature multiple cuts from that record. there is in fact a whole generation whose first exposure to Yes was that album. Big Generator I'd agree with. though Yes is sort of an odd example cuz that 80's band really should have been called something else.

amusingly King Crimson don't really have an album like this, despite shifting direction and personnel many times. I think their current live repertoire contains songs from all 13 of their studio albums.

Earthbound, but that's live. But generally overlooked.

Magma's Merci probably fits into this, a poor attempt at crossover pop-funk that pleased no-one and fell awkwardly between their previous album (from some 5 years before) and Vander's soon-to-follow project Offering.

yeah that's a good example though it's probably the album in this thread I dig the most. Side 2 is very nice.

you could almost argue that Attahk belongs here as well although that album's fucking great. they haven't referenced that era of the band in a long, long time have they?

Agree with Rushomancy that "Left-field records worth checking out by musicians you wouldn't expect!" would be a more worthwhile thread, but I'm glad this exists for tipping me off to the existence of Peggy Lee's Sea Shells, which is gently blowing my mind at the moment. Thanks for that, Josefa.

xpost I get why Merci is so divisive and reviled by many Magma fans, but I can’t comprehend writing it off entirely; “Eliphas Levi” is one of the most beautiful pieces of music in the world imo

i think they were doing "maahnt" live a couple years back, I haven't kept up with them because fascism.

Merci is a shitty crossover sell-out album but this being Magma it's a shitty crossover sellout album that includes a 12 minute piece dedicated to the 19th century occult mystic Eliphas Levi which contains a note for note rendition of McCoy Tyner's piano solo on "My Favorite Things".

Maybe 'The Sin of Pride' by the Undertones? They'd certainly moved away from where they started, seemingly without taking too many fans with them. When they made a couple of new albums in the mid-2000s they looped back to a more straight-up rock sound. Have to admit I've not listened to 'TSOP' for quite a while.

This thread has reminded me that I have Kraftwerk 2 on one of the Italian "reissue" CDs (not listened to it since buying it in the Virgin Megastore I worked in).

It's also made me realise that I don't have a copy of 'Soon Over Babaluma' despite thinking I did. I like 'Flow Motion', does it have its fans? Of the last three, I don't have 'Out of Reach' but did pick up 'Inner Space' and 'Rite Time' recently. I didn't mind 'Inner Space' on its own terms, but didn't think much of 'Rite Time'.

I enjoy it occasionally but one could say Ciccone Youth "The Whitey Album."

I really like "I Must Return", it's like Magma doing a musical. and "The Night We Died" too. something about that one melody is just golden.

I like 'Flow Motion', does it have its fans?

I think it does! I got to talk with James Murphy once and he went on a bunch about how much he loved the tune "I Want More"

Yeah, it was probably a bit daft of me to suggest 'Flow Motion' considering it contains one of their best-know songs!

Teenage Fanclub - The King. Is almost never mentioned and seems barely regarded as canon, even when it gets an RSD reissue

Was it even "canon" at the time of release?

I've never actually heard it, and it got a retrospective Pitchfork appreciation recently, but perhaps The Secret Life of Plants?

Nah its got its charms

i'd say it fits the 'nothing to do with their classic style' and 'roundly ignored in the context of their larger discography' well enough even if it's not terrible in the way most of the stuff here is?

80s Pantera

i don’t think it’s required that the albums be *bad*, just that they throw off fans of the others

Maybe a bit strange to file a band’s entire discography into this category but I think it makes sense for Tin Machine

how about

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/Rolling_Stones_-_Their_Satanic_Majesties_Request_-_1967_Decca_Album_cover.jpg

Sun Dial's drum machine records (Reflecter, Libertine) would fit in here.

How is Suzanne Vega's 99.9F° received these days?

Iggy Pop's Zombie Birdhouse?

I enjoy it occasionally but one could say Ciccone Youth "The Whitey Album."

I'd go with Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star over that, but arguing over which SY album fits here is like arguing over Neil Young.

^uh wut, that’s totally a core SY album

(like even if you don’t care for it, there’s nothing off-course about it)

Primal Scream - Sonic Flower Groove

Yes, but even more so This Is Your Bloody Valentine

As a huge Smog/Bill Callahan fan, it took me a while to track down his first couple of albums: Sewn to The Sky and Forgotten Foundation. Both out of print and fairly expensive. I've only listened to each once and quickly realized why he's let them languish. They're definitely part of a progression, but they're not very good.

I'm not sure that an artist's earliest albums should count, since no course had been established.

Every Michael Bolton album pre-1987 (incl the Bolotin albums)

There are a number of Mark E Smith side-projects not worth your time, mostly with Ed Blaney.

Frank Zappa: Francesco Zappa (Synclavier record of Classical works by Zappa's maybe/maybe not ancestor).

― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain),

Good one. I'd also say the entire Flo & Eddie period, when FZ seemed to put more time and energy into being a Johnny Otis-style impresario and A&R guy than into his own music.

They're not stylistically off-course, as far as I know, but the Small Faces two late-'70s "reunion" (no Ronnie Lane, who quit after the first rehearsal) albums are largely ignored by their fans, and never represented in any Small Faces compilations.

In fairness, he was attempting to make a film and get a major symphony orchestra to record his orchestral music while being the leader of a touring rock band at the same time!

xp

Go-Betweens / Send Me a Lullaby?

I'm not sure that an artist's earliest albums should count, since no course had been established.

OTM

sock fingering, baby (rushomancy) at 9:02 12 Sep 19

In fairness, he was attempting to make a film and get a major symphony orchestra to record his orchestral music while being the leader of a touring rock band at the same time!

xp

Zappa can't he can only be failed by the listener

plz allow me to register my vehement disagreement over Satanic Majesty's Request being considered here

xp I was thinking of Send Me A Lullaby, and also The Restless Stranger by American Music Club. Not off-course compared with the rest of their output, but skeletal and demo-y. Pretty much ignored by the fans, who more or less see Before Hollywood and Engine as Year Zero for these bands.

well I mean it has Room Above The Club, and a bad take on I'm in Heaven Now, so there is a flicker.
Big Top Halloween by Afghan Whigs is what comes to mind as a particularly lacking any hint of what was to come.

Horace Silver's "The United States of Mind" trilogy are afaict unlike anything else in his discography. they are also just godawful.

I'd love someone to bat for Liz Phair "Funhouse."

Curious if Sarah Vaughan fans rep for this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6e/Sassplan.jpg

AMC's Restless Stranger also has "When Your Love is Gone" which I LOVE.

Robert Miles - Organik

gone are the cheese filled dance/trance/pop anthems, in comes Nitin Sawhney/Bill Laswell/downtempo cinematic excess, and very few beats.
needless to say, its the only album of his i have ever been interested in listening to.

was thinking about "Funhouse" for this thread earlier. think it probably counts.

plz allow me to register my vehement disagreement over Satanic Majesty's Request being considered here

― sleeve, Thursday, September 12, 2019 10:41 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

seconded

Kreator's "Endorama"

A couple of those Felt albums that Lawrence did nothing but contribute titles.

VU’s Squeeze is way worse than I expected. The opening track is horrifying.

would Elton John's Victim of Love count? even among "pop-rock artist goes disco" moves, i feel like it stands out for total commitment to the bit and total musical mediocrity such that you could be a "hardcore" fan and still not need to hear it, and get nothing out of it if you did.

REM's Around the Sun also might squeak in here? dunno how wild of a sonic departure it has to be to be "off-course."

maybe Paul Simon's Capeman? sort of in the Joel/McCartney classical-album zone maybe...

tbf there i might be reacting to the rarity of albums so offcourse that even hardcore fans needn't bother, by trying to fudge it into "albums that pretty-big fans quickly learn aren't essential," which is a different animal

That Liz Phair album is called Funstyle, you guys

ATS is completely unnecessary.

I agree with Victim of Love, it's wretched. Total stylistic shift (and not a good one) with songs he neither wrote nor played piano on.

I'm sure i'd get pushback from prince nerds here but most of the madhouse stuff is entirely unnecessary.

Prince’s N.E.W.S.

yeah his jazz fusion records all work here i think

i will say that i think his ballet has some worth!

Haha, i immediately saw that I called it Funhouse and not Funstyle. Wish ILX had an edit option. I'll double down though and say Stooges "Funhouse."

There's dismissal of Lindstrom's Six Cups of Rebel, but I love it, and hear it staying the course with his kraut/italio stuff, towards 80s Eno/Conny Plank productions. But his collab with Todd Rundgren just doesn't work at all, drives into a ditch.

Robert Miles - Organik

gone are the cheese filled dance/trance/pop anthems, in comes Nitin Sawhney/Bill Laswell/downtempo cinematic excess, and very few beats.
needless to say, its the only album of his i have ever been interested in listening to.

― mark e

His Miles-Gurtu album with jazz drummer Trilok Gurtu is excellent, and he did a psych/prog record with Robert Fripp too.

Keith Jarrett, 'Restoration Ruin'

haha someone gave me that album as a gift once. It's terrible. and definitely what this thread is about

Jarrett got the idea to make a one-man-band record by reading about how Pete Townshend recorded his demos. Prior to recording it, he tried to contact Pete for advice on how to approach the project; Pete refused to speak with him (but later admitted to being a big fan).

Wow, good story!

idk if Townsend would have been helpful, the album's problems are not technical in nature, it's that the songs suck

And as for his voice...

I have tried and tried with The Age of Adz but for me it belongs in this list.

Echo & The Bunnymen recording an entire album sans McCulloch? This happened, amazingly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ldwwRldTS8

Kylie's "indie" album Impossible Princess has been pretty much been scrubbed off her discography, which I think now goes "Confide In Me" --> Unusually long break --> "Can't Get You Out Of My Head"

James Dean Bradfield & Nicky Wire co-wrote the single IIRC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBSg4_WStsU

His Miles-Gurtu album with jazz drummer Trilok Gurtu is excellent, and he did a psych/prog record with Robert Fripp too.
― Siegbran,

well i never.
had no idea re such things.
added to my list should i ever chance upon them round these parts (highly unlikely, but still)

xpost : i love the indie album by kylie.
release timing was f*cked due to the death of the death of diana.

Depends on how 'hardcore fan' is defined, but a lot of hardcore Who fans don't bother with 'Endless Wire', any of individual solo albums, or even 'It's Hard' or 'By Numbers'.

Zappa can't he can only be failed by the listener

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

zappa failed, by his own standards, on december 4, 1993, and any time people have spent listening to his music since then has been time wasted

The two Supertramp albums before Crime of the Century

Joe Jackson has done so many one-offs that even the hardcoriest fan can find something to hate.

Liz Phair's "Funstyle" has some fun stuff on it

"Train Above The City" is pure garbage but I actually really like "Let The Snakes...", as its own thing. I was extremely disappointed when I found it and paid full-price for it. It should be EP priced.

Brian Eno's "The Drop" is my pick, here

Also "The Beekeeper" is so bad that I'd pick it, too; "Y Kant Tori Read" is weird and awful at times but is a far more compelling album

Ctrl+F "The Red Shoes" *no results* thank God I'm sick of that album getting the hate it doesn't deserve it is really wonderful, but "Lionheart" is not even fans-only as far as I'm concerned

I like the first three Kraftwerk albums fine but find the first two Popol Vuh albums unlistenably bad-- including "In Den Garten Pharaohs" which I know a lot of people rate highly-- I'm sure that people only like that album to be oblique

"Soon Over Babaluma" has "Come Sta, La Luna" which is one of Can's best songs

there are a fair few Sufjan albums that fit this well enough but The Age of Adz is absolutely not one of them, despite being a left-turn, and is his best work. Enjoy Your Rabbit fits in every way except it dates back to before his breakthrough with Michigan, but it's roundly ignored in his discography for more reasons than that, being an instrumental electronic album that bears no resemblance to the rest of his work and isn't that good. there's also The BQE, which is also very ignored as it's the instrumental score to a film he made. it's not as much of a departure as Enjoy Your Rabbit is and the combination of electronics and orchestration did signal the direction he went in with Age of Adz, but it still doesn't really resemble his song-based work that much.

Scrolling through this:

https://the-niche.blog/2018/10/23/all-293-sufjan-stevens-songs-ranked/

It's pretty clear that 75% or more of Sufjan's released material is inessential-- this is not a comment on his capabilities as a creator but a comment on the volume of his released material. (One of my favourite Sufjan songs is "In The Words Of The Governor", a weird track he recorded for The Believer and he is rambling like a gay Mark E Smith and I enjoy to see it, it's a pretty perfect song)

Anyway what is great about BQE is its economy and concision and so I like it. He's not the best composer but he's capable and he worked hard and it is an excellent piece and I listen to it once a year, probably. I like a lot of Adz, too, "I Want To Be Well" is a legitimately terrific song. With Sufjan though (as far as I'm concerned) he's been a "one song on an album" kind of artist ("Flint", "Dress", "Wasp") until "Carrie And Lowell" which just flattened the American Songbook so it's kind of impossible to really understand or parse what is even going on with him

I like the first three Kraftwerk albums fine but find the first two Popol Vuh albums unlistenably bad-- including "In Den Garten Pharaohs" which I know a lot of people rate highly-- I'm sure that people only like that album to be oblique

Are you serious?

Extremely! It's a marvellously terrible record!! And I love all the stuff that comes next

No, I meant about people only liking it to be 'oblique'.

My least favourite record of all time is The Goslings "The Grandeur Of Hair". Songs that a songwriter could write in less time it took to perform them; run the mix through a Big Muff. I love rigor but I cannot abide laziness. "In Den Garten Pharaohs" is a collection of the most poorly formed noodles I can imagine. God. I am listening to "The Grandeur Of Hair" right now just to remind myself. Wow. It is the worst. This is Bruckner, except from Alabama. Or Florida? Let's go with Florida.

And yeah, "liking things just to be oblique" it is a thing. Have you heard of a band called Royal Trux? They are terrible. I adore them. Sometimes I shit sesame seeds and I find them on my ass and I eat them in the shower. I macerate these digested sesame seeds in my front teeth and I think "this tastes like Twin Infinitives sounds" and I enjoy it, similarly.

Uh, OK...

xps yeah it's not really surprising that most of Sufjan's output is inessential when a significant portion of it on a song-by-song basis includes his Christmas boxsets, outtakes collections, and other diversions such as The BQE and Planetarium. i think the core of his discography from Michigan onward has a solid enough through-line though, with some of those diversions helping to fill in the gaps a little, and he's only improved with time really as Adz and C&L are near-perfect to me.

Interesting! I have to revisit Adz, clearly. The heaps of praise pushed on "Impossible Soul" frustrated me around that record when "I Want To Be Well" was such an underremarked achievement

Kylie's "indie" album Impossible Princess has been pretty much been scrubbed off her discography, which I think now goes "Confide In Me" --> Unusually long break --> "Can't Get You Out Of My Head"

James Dean Bradfield & Nicky Wire co-wrote the single IIRC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBSg4_WStsU

― Brainless Addlepated Timid Muddleheaded Awful No-Account (Pheeel), Thursday, 12 September 2019 20:32 (yesterday) link

I don't know if this is true elsewhere but it's definitely not true in Australia:

- firstly because songs like "Did It Again" and "Breathe" did pretty well as singles and she still plays them.

- secondly because MSP only played on two tracks and the balance of the album was more in a Sneaker Pimps first album vein.

- thirdly because the above mixture of styles basically anticipated Natalie Imbruglia's debut album about a month later and it didn't feel "off course" at the time even if kylie subsequently opted for course correction (my theory on this: because Impossible Princess under-performed commercially, the subsequent 'Intimate and Live' tour leaned quite strongly into kylie's most reliable audience sub-component, being her gay fans; her subsequent recognition that they form her base has since shaped all her subsequent aesthetic choices).

- fourthly because outside of the UK (where the critical reception was predominantly "lol, kylie is not shifting units anymore, sux to be u") the critical reaction to the album was mostly positive.

- fourthly because the album in between impossible princess and "can't get you out of my head" (2000's light years) was massively successful here, going four times platinum. Although the following album Fever is a big improvement on the same basic idea.

- fifthly and most importantly, because Impossible Princess is precisely the kind of album that trv kvlt fans like to say is their favourite (and indeed this tends to be the default stance adopted by kylie stans). It's more akin to, say, Smashing Pumpkins Adore in that regard.

What I think is interesting about the album is that kylie has said she will avoid making an album like it again (basically, an album so personal) because she was too hurt by the gleeful savaging it met in the UK. An interesting separate thread would be listing albums that the artists have said they can never repeat because to do so would be too painful (for whatever reason) (as opposed to because it was bad or a mistake).

Great post Tim

Can somebody confirm or deny that Big Star's "In Space" belongs in this thread, I've never listened to it, I can't bear to, I love that band so much and can't deal with a sad ending.

I feel like i'd maybe save Lionheart just for "In Search of Peter Pan" but given I haven't listened to the album in more than 20 years I really can't complain about its inclusion here.

xps "Impossible Soul" is tremendous and i love it but "I Want to Be Well" is possibly my favourite song he's ever done

is Impossible Princess really the trv kvlt Kylie stan album these days? i thought it was a fan-favourite, sure but i thought it was more of the old-school rockist's pick for her best because she wrote her own songs! and worked with MSP! or at least that's how i've seen it advocated for lol

Tim I guess we would include Blood on the Tracks in that list - "A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It’s hard for me to relate to that. I mean, you know, people enjoying that kind of pain?" He sure never went there again.

As a byproduct of their intense identification with and/or fetishism of the artist-qua-artist, pop stans tend to hold a lot of values we might otherwise associate with rockism: an emphasis on how personally meaningful or deeply felt the artistic product is, whether it is "brave" or "bold" or autobiographical. In particular, they tend to be attracted to the fetishism of "difficult" works that only the fans can truly understand.

With Madonna, for example, this manifests not just in a lot of consensus-conforming stanning for Like A Prayer and Ray of Light, but also contra-stanning for Erotica and (perhaps more surprisingly) American Life.

But it's fair to say that the pop stan appreciation of Impossible Princess is definitely not premised on her working with the Manic Street Preachers (I'd actually be surprised if there were many people at all who held that position: "Where The Wild Roses Grow" seems like the more obvious candidate for kylie-but-credible).

xpost - yeah that's a good one. I feel like i've read Robert Smith say similar things about Pornography, although that may be more "you're only that young and self-absorbed once".

I don’t have particularly fond memories of Pornography, but I think it’s one of the best things we’ve ever done, and it would have never got made if we hadn’t taken things to excess. People have often said, “Nothing you’ve done has had the same kind of intensity or passion.” But I don’t think you can make too many albums like that, because you wouldn’t be alive.

sorry for the derail

actually thanks a lot for that link! One of the best RS retrospective interviews I've read (although it's always puzzling to see his self-awareness and critical sense dissolve after Wish)

Can somebody confirm or deny that Big Star's "In Space" belongs in this thread, I've never listened to it, I can't bear to, I love that band so much and can't deal with a sad ending.

― flamboyant goon tie included

i like the first song "dony"! i don't know who wrote it. the rest is your standard alex chilton self-sabotage thing as far as i remember. i get it, i've done the self-sabotage thing and i don't have nearly as much to sabotage as chilton did, but it's still painful.

regarding my only liking music to be "oblique", i've had plenty of people accuse me of that, but i don't think it's true! like you i will listen to music that i openly admit to be terrible, but i don't really ever choose listen to music i don't enjoy. even if other people are repulsed by it, even if _i'm_ repulsed by what i'm listening to, doesn't mean i don't also like it on its own merits, whether that's "metal machine music" or 1980s aor.

Depends on how 'hardcore fan' is defined, but a lot of hardcore Who fans don't bother with 'Endless Wire', any of individual solo albums, or even 'It's Hard' or 'By Numbers'.

― just another country (snoball), Thursday, September 12, 2019 4:56 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Who fans are all over the place. I know Who fanatics who will seek out every pressing variation of the Lisztomania soundtrack, and others who hate everything after Tommy.

I've never known any Who fans to ignore By Numbers, but there seems to be consensus on It's Hard being awful and Endless Wire not "really" being the Who.

For me, there's maybe two near-brilliant things on It's Hard, alongside their worst-ever songs. And Endless Wire is mostly wonderful ("Mike Post Theme" and "Tea and Theatre" are two of the best things they've ever done), though the production isn't great.

fgti for the record you are 100% wrong about Royal Trux, The Goslings and Popol Vuh. just letting you know.

and yeah also absurdly judgemental and wrong with the whole "liking it just to be oblique angle" - you don't get to tell me why I like things

I wasn’t accusing you of liking things only to be “oblique”! It was a general comment, an acknowledgement that I do it, myself, sometimes— not “listening to music to be oblique” but “claiming to rate albums highly that aren’t very good”— and it’s less about being “oblique” I suppose as it is about doing so to appear “interesting” I guess

wrong again, but whatever. I guess you can't actually envision someone appreciating Twin infinitives as a great album, your loss imo

I suppose if the track "Vuh" doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up then it doesn't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't think I'm making myself clear, I like Twin Infinitives; also, I eat my own boogers sometimes. (The Emperor Wears No Clothes album with that band is "Cats And Dogs".)

I don't think it's a particularly ground-breaking or revolutionary idea that "some of the albums you love? you love them not because you enjoy them, but because you want to be a person who enjoys that album". Like... isn't this oftentimes how we're all talking about music?"

I listened again to "Pharaos" last night (and I'm listening to "Hossianna Mantra" right now! it is so nice) and "Vuh" is pretty but a slog, it's really the A-side that bothers me, and even then, it's impossible for me to extricate the content from the reputation.

I've always found the idea of Popol Vuh more compelling than their actual discography, with the notable exception of 'Vuh'.

fgti for the record you are 100% wrong about Royal Trux

yeah I'm baffled at any RTX fan who thinks they aren't technically "good" - for one thing Neil is a *really* fucking good guitar player, def in my top 10.

and I mean that just on a technical level, he is a very fleet-fingered and versatile player.

I said "Royal Trux are a terrible band" and also "I love them", I at no point cast aspersions on Neil's guitar capabilities (and I wouldn't see why his capabilities on the guitar would have any bearing on whether his band is terrible or not, and whether or not I love them)

I do not understand why you cannot comprehend that somebody might have a more complicated relationship to a piece of music than simply "I love this, and thus the band is good, and thus Neil Hagerty is a really fucking good guitar player". There is stuff that exists that is not good, and I love it, and it is not good for reasons that are more complicated than Neil Hagerty's guitar chops, and I love it for more complicated reasons than x-y-z, possibly because I enjoy being the sort of person who listens to Twin Infinitives once a year at the very least as an ear-cleaning exercise.

And I am extremely not wrong about The Goslings. That is some goddamn terrible music, the worst I've ever heard, maybe and probably.

The literal only way I could communicate my love for Twin Infinitives was a very candid admission that I chew undigested sesame seeds that I find on my buttocks in the shower and I enjoy it

I do not understand at which point in the creation of this metaphor that I might have suggested that Neil Hagerty's fingers were not fleet

I guess I don't understand what you think is "not good" about something you love. that division between quality and appreciation doesn't make any sense to me.

Really? Music that I really love, like, say, Tori Amos or David Bowie, I have a far deeper understanding about what is good and what is bad about it. One might perceive that I'm actually not-a-fan of Amos or Bowie because I might speak about them so critically, but it's not the case at all-- the engagement I have with their work is far deeper, and I'm better able to analyze and understand and so on

I mean, case in point, I'm a huge fan of Sufjan, but that fandom only happened with Adz, and with C&L he's like... one of the greatest living songwriters. I say this as somebody who would roll their eyes when Chicago started playing on the cafe speakers when I was trying to enjoy some brunch. Critical engagement is a sign of respect, as far as I'm concerned

you're really wrong on Vuh. you may not like it but most people do and it's not an album that in any way shape or form fits this thread.

Well

That was one of like seven albums I posited as fitting this thread. Eno's "The Drop" is surely the cake

I don't imagine many here have heard it, but I dragged out Steve Harley's Hobo with a Grin because of this thread, and it still sucks. I love all the early Cockney Rebel stuff, but this is so stuffed with LA session hacks, uninspired songwriting and bad singing, it's just ghastly. And Steve agreed:

"I looked at that LP the other day – looking is enough. I can't bear to listen to it. It's the worst thing I've ever done. I just want to forget about it. Trash. In fact, I'm getting the old Cockney Rebel band together for a concert in London at the end of this month. And there won't be one song from the "Hobo with a Grin" LP in the set."[11]

xxp I actually get what you are saying about Royal Trux, think you make a good point, and personally interact the same way with Bob Drake's music.

The Drop doesn't really fix this either. It's not that left-field. It's not super memorable but it's hardly way way way out of the ordinary weird and bad for him.

Modulate by Bob Mould might fit though. I don't like it. I dont' know anyone who does. Maybe someone does.

The Wedding Present's Ukranian album probably qualifies.

Really wish I could un-read fgti's little yarn

Might be some Piano Magic and I'd be surprised if Kozelek doesn't have something that would fit someday.

I guess this kind of doesn't count, but it's not far away. As much as I adored Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the 00's - they made 3 fucking great albums, the reviews (and cover, g'damn) of Mosquito made it so I've never actually heard it.

Maybe that's off course? They didn't come back from it. Is it worth hearing?

^Albums you have spurned

Still not sure if albums from bands that have had a significant membership change should count here. Nevertheless, the J Geils Band released an album without Peter Wolf and the results were this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=289lzL6Eit8

xp I spurned yes. Is it worth my time going there? I've literally not heard good word of it.

Really wish I could un-read fgti's little yarn

― #YABASIC (morrisp), Friday, September 13, 2019 1:33 PM (one hour ago)

rude

Nevertheless, the J Geils Band released an album without Peter Wolf and the results were this:

I remember that getting some FM airplay when it came out, for about a week. And iirc, Rolling Stone gave the album four stars, for some reason.

Piano Magic choice would probably be ‘Writers Without Homes’, except (a) i don’t really get why it is *so* bad and hated; (b) to the extent that I do get it, the complaint seems to be ‘it’s too Piano Magic’; and (c) I have no idea where its rep now sits vis a vis all the post-Disaffected albums that hardly anyone heard.

OTOH it’s a good choice in that they then rebounded with perhaps their best album in The Troubled Sleep Of..., give or take Low Birth Weight.

re: Kozelek i've gotten the impression that everything he's done after Benji has been too off course for me to bother with and the little i have heard of those records has been truly baffling

Writers is an amazing album and I think everyone likes it except Glen and that’s mostly to donate 4ad

I remember that getting some FM airplay when it came out, for about a week. And iirc, Rolling Stone gave the album four stars, for some reason.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat)

because they never give four or five star reviews to shitty records by "classic rock" bands obviously past their sell-by date..

Rude

Lol no it’s fine, I’ve replaced booze with weed in my life and I’m enjoying some giggly stoned late night moments

there are a fair few Sufjan albums that fit this well enough but The Age of Adz is absolutely not one of them, despite being a left-turn, and is his best work. Enjoy Your Rabbit fits in every way except it dates back to before his breakthrough with Michigan, but it's roundly ignored in his discography for more reasons than that, being an instrumental electronic album that bears no resemblance to the rest of his work and isn't that good. there's also The BQE, which is also very ignored as it's the instrumental score to a film he made. it's not as much of a departure as Enjoy Your Rabbit is and the combination of electronics and orchestration did signal the direction he went in with Age of Adz, but it still doesn't really resemble his song-based work that much.

― ufo, Thursday, September 12, 2019 10:23 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I have tried and tried with The Age of Adz but for me it belongs in this list.

― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Thursday, September 12, 2019 1:17 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Age of Adz is my favorite Sufjan record by a longshot. It's his true masterpiece (to date) in my opinion, and it feels more fitting for these times than it did when it was initially released, not to mention having aged beautifully. For an album to begin with a song like "Futile Devices" that explodes into this fantastic odyssey, and then to not just close with a song like "Impossible Soul," but to end with album with that final movement that brings you back down to earth and closes the capsule. Beautiful stuff.

I may have scrolled too fast, but Madonna I'm Breathless fits the bill (though I'll always rep for "Hanky Panky").

Also Kevin Ayers As Close As You Think. Never reissued, hard to find, never referenced even by diehard fans, and a terrible album that sounds foisted upon him during the nadir of his addiction.

I don't know what it means that I'm Breathless is my most-listened to Madonna album (also Ciccone Youth along with the s/t EP for Sonic Youth)

Tangerine Dream's Cyclone (1978) is unusual in that it has rock drums and a vocalist. It's odd - the basic sound is similar to the band's late-70s analogue records, but the sequencers are in the background more and there are lengthy flute solos. Unfortunately the vocalist sounds like a drunk man who broke into the studio and shouted over the backing tapes.

I've always wondered how fans of Lush think of the band. They started off as a shoegazing band, but for their one big commercial success they became cheeky cockney Britpop kids, and then they broke up, and when they came back in 2016 - "Out of Control" is really good! - they were shoegazing again. I assume they switched back to their former sound because Slowdive demonstrated that shoegaze was hip once more. Do Lush fans ignore Lovelife? When I was a kid Lush was the band that did "Single Girl" and the one about the Fiat 500 and the other one, but I realise now that Britpop Lush was an aberration.

What does "Out of Control" remind me of? It sounds like something else.

In the Lush thread there was a linked piece by Miki and it suggested to me that the "cheeky" approach was at least in part a reaction to how some critics were treating their more vulnerable songs.

Also on that thread I said "Out Of Control" reminded me of some Ween songs but I don't expect anyone else to agree.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Santa_Monica#/media/File%3AEverclear_Return_to_Santa_Monica_(album)_2011.jpg

Everclear - Return to Santa Monica

ufo and Josh I will give it more time then, because when Sufjan hits he hits hard

Killing Joke's 'Outside the Gate' album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDnKEk8byiY

That house album which the Style Council made just before the end. The record company refused to release it. I think it eventually turned up in the box set of their complete works some time in the late 1990s.

Morrissey's recent covers album.

The Beach Boys - s/t album from 1985 and everything thereafter

Anything from Cabaret Voltaire post-1990.

The Beach Boys - s/t album from 1985 and everything thereafter

nah there is absolutely good stuff on the last one

Frank Sinatra’s Trilogy: Past, Present, Future, but especially the “Future” disc.

That house album which the Style Council made just before the end. The record company refused to release it. I think it eventually turned up in the box set of their complete works some time in the late 1990s.
― does it look like i'm here (jon123), Friday, October 11, 2019 7:09 AM

modernism: a new decade is actually really good, for what it is. sounds nothing like tsc before they made it, but that was kind of the point.

I guess some might say that even "hardcore" fans needn't bother with the last few Black Flag albums.

Frank Sinatra’s Trilogy does have his "Theme for New York New York", which is one of those songs one forgets was recorded in the 80s.

But yes, The "Future" part is pretty wild.

Celtic Frost: Cold Lake.

How do people feel about The Burning World?

I've always thought it was perfectly fine and not the aberration that it's kinda painted as, 'Saved' is a beautiful track as is the cover of 'Can't Find My Way Home', I don't really think it's *too* overproduced.

It's one of my favorite Swans albums.

I feel like most of Lovelife could’ve easily fit on Split, obv not Ciao or 500.

Would Mott The Hoople's "Wild Life" count?

It's not a bad album, but imagine if thin lizzys third album sounded more like The Eagles. You wouldn't prefer that if you liked the other albums..

I think The Burning World is the best Swans album. That might make me a pussy, whatever.

Never heard the whole record, but that synth pop record that Jack Bruce made that was only released in Germany is definitely an outlier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-siie-F4DY&list=OLAK5uy_my9jydYfDlS8BGpdfs7dQTwaEiW1hXA9c

Anything from Cabaret Voltaire post-1990.