Albums you have spurned

Occasioned by reading the REM Out of Time thread - I like earlier REM, and later REM, but that is the one album I will neither buy nor listen to of theirs, on principle. Other examples - in the late 80s I liked U2 but on hearing Rattle and Hum I not only refused to listen to it, I sold the U2 albums I had. And Nevermind was so ubiquitous that even after being won over by In Utero I still won't have any truck with the big-hit album. The Cure's Wish is another. Dead Can Dance Toward the Within. Often (but not always) when an artist "breaks covenant" and becomes something which taints even their previous work in my mind.
Am I the only uptight perpetual adolescent, or do you have line-in-the-sand albums you will not engage with?

What’s the covenant?

I guess the trust you have in them as an artist - like I was proud to be a diehard Cure fan and then when Wish came out I no longer was.

I guess I’ve gotten off the train with certain artists after bad releases; but I haven’t ditched their earlier stuff (or refused to buy/listen to particular albums on principle).

Automatic For The People for me. It definitely tainted the whole idea for good. In a more profound way than a dopey track or two on OOT. Luckily I was almost still an actual adolescent in 1992 as it was a big year for spurning. Sonic Youth's Dirty was expunged from the household within a few months too. And Wish: I avoided even hearing it in full for at all for at least a decade. I've since conceded that these records each include several excellent tracks and that each act was sporadically interesting later on (obviously), but that's what Spotify's for.

I can't think of a time I've actively decided not to listen to a particular album by a band I like but I was think the other day how I've never made any effort to hear those first two Afghan Whigs albums.

*thinking

No offence, but what on earth is wrong with Automatic For The People? Did it sell too many copies or something?

Ignoreland is what is wrong with Automatic.

Other than that, it's great.

Agree on Dirty. I loved them from Confusion Is Sex through Goo but skipped over Dirty and came back for Experimental Jet Set.

I'm a huge Kraftwerk fan but I'll never listen to their first three albums. Hütter has effectively written them out of KW history and that's fine with me, an artist is entitled to establish their own canon.

I hate most of Automatic For The People and Out Of Time. but I'm not a huge REM fan. I like a lot of their songs but I wouldn't want to listen to a whole album of them, and certainly not either of those 2

but I don't really know what people's problem is with Dirty, never have.

xpost I don't go much past the first three Kraftwerk albums - I have the later albums on CD, play them and they are fine, but.

I loved Funeral by Arcade Fire. I bought Neon Bible, listened to it once, thought "fuck this" and never listened to anything by them ever again.

^ same

Bloc Party, too

Re: AFTP, "Ignoreland" is OTM. I've said this before and know by now that virtually no one heard it in the same way, but those thin arpeggios on "Drive" and "Everybody Hurts" (for instance) just sitting there doing nothing for endless minutes signalled that this was no longer the band I signed up for. It finishes well though: the final two tracks manage to be hugely affecting.

As was the occasional later single, like "Daysleeper".

Funny that this thread seems to revolve around REM because that's one that immediately springs to mind for me. I was all in until Reveal, which I thought really stunk, and I never intentionally heard a note they recorded afterwardz.

I keep seeing your username as "Nagl Nagl Nagl" xpost

Ohhhhhhh yeah: Liz Phair's fourth album. Her first two are among my all-time faves, the third is fine, and to this day I've never heard anything from the subsequent album but 'Extraordinary' which was extraordinarily dismaying. And again, just got completely off the boat at that point.

Harvest. just all a bit dull and sappy compared to what came before and after.

Leonard Cohen, Death of a Ladies' Man. Bought it at the height of my Cohen fandom, played it once, no interest in hearing it ever again.

I will happily listen to everything by Pulp/Relaxed Muscle/Jarvis except Further Complications

I don’t listen to Document through AFTP because I don’t think they’re good albums

Out of Time is R.E.M.'s best album

While Out of Time and AFTP are uneven albums with some disposable tracks, y'all are missing out on some magnificent songs if you spurn the albums on the whole. Your non-spurning friends should be able to compile a 'best of' for you.

The King Of Limbs had me ready to hand in my lifelong Radiohead fanship card. Luckily A Moon Shaped Pool revived my interest

Country Feedback for the win, R.E.M.-wise

OK, I did think of an example: I’m a huge Dylan fan, but his one album of original material I’ve never even listened to (let alone owned) is Time Out of Mind. Nothing about it appeals to me, from the title to the cover art to the producer.

Country Feedback is REM's best song

I’m so tired of people’s backwards opinions about Felt that I only listen to the first three albums and Denim

I am very solidly in the group of people that wtf? the people who love AFTP way too much.

I’m an active and passionate fan of James and regularly listen to One Man Clapping and will DJ “Hymn From A Village” on any occasion but I think Gold Mother is one of the worst albums and I haven’t listened to it more than twice

I Wanna say Merriweather Post Pavilion, which kind of sealed my fandom of Animal Collective off almost entirely, but there are still maybe 1-2 songs I revisit off that (No More Running and sometimes Bluish)

And, like, I think their best album is Pleased To Meet You

Idk, I think my fandom of that band is more a result of me being confounded as to why I like them

xp to self

Most of the examples I'm coming up with are more "off the bus" than "spurning," but as a massive B-52s fan I've never had a desire to own Just Fred. Heard part of it one time, couldn't even finish it. I guess maybe that one "breaks covenant," said covenant being fun.

I feel like there are probably a few Beatles records that even fans of the band probably dgaf about.

First Bowie album is hot trash that I never need to hear more than the one time.

Blur's The Magic Whip is utter cack and a very disappointing comeback. Similarly, I have no time at all for any other non-Blur Damon projects, or much of Coxon's solo stuff either (although I did like his first one with the elephant on the front)

I will happily listen to everything by Pulp/Relaxed Muscle/Jarvis except Further Complications

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

Ha, I got bored enough to finally give Further Complications a listen a couple of years ago. It really was not worth my time in the slightest.

I like nearly everything by Tom Waits except Heartattack & Vine (just lousy, sweaty blues-rock pastiche) or Mule Variations (again, too many uninspired bluesy rootsy dirges). The latter has maybe 3 songs on it.

I consider myself a big Magnetic Fields fan. I love everything Stephen Merritt put out in the 90s with 69 Love Songs being one of my favourite albums of all time. Despite diminishing returns, I stuck with his output since then, until he put out 50 Song Memoir. I really thought I would find the time to sit down and give it a listen, but now two years have passed and it's not exactly at the top the list of albums I want to invest the time in. Not even the positive reviews have persuaded me to dive in.

I can happily listen to any Mott The Hoople album except Mad Shadows. So sludgy, and not in a good way.

I was big into Radiohead as a teenager and when OK Computer came out I absolutely loved it and played it every day for months. After a while I just got fed up with it and barely listened to any of their music ever again. This is the only time that that's happened for me.

ooh, I know: Aphex, 'Syro'. I know it has its advocators but it contains few of the elements I originally enjoyed about Aphex and I can't tell one tune from another. Wonderful depth of production but a disappointing lack of, for want of a better word, 'content'

Yeah I can't really listen to OKC any more. I almost always reach for the Easy Star Allstars version now

big floyd fan as a teenager, still dig them, have never heard a note of 'the division bell' let alone 'the endless river'

OK Computer has four/five indelibly perfect songs including “Paranoid Android” which is peerless, that said, the rest of the record (including fan favourites “Let Down” and “Lucky”) does nothing for me

Oh and despite being a big Bowie fan I do not fuck with Young Americans or Space Oddity

I wonder what you will think of “Love and Theft” when you get around to it - a real peak for me.

oh i love that, and onward, it's 'time out of mind' i have not yet gotten to.

i know the pre-electric albums but don't give them much time, so i wonder how much my reaction to 'blood on the tracks' has to do with a noticeable shift in the songwriter-oerformer persona. my impression is that on the electricish albums up through even 'new morning' and 'self-portrait', the songs work territory that is never really centered around the conventions of the drama of self-expression (even if that's in there), regardless of how pensive and ruminative they might sound. perhaps what seems true of 'blood' to me is also true of some older ones, i haven't bothered checking. perhaps of 'time out of mind', too, from what i've read about it.

in terms of mathewk's original question, i would say that for me this is not so much a 'break with covenant' thing as it is a sensitivity to what i conceive of as the audiences intended in a record or actually found by it. more often i will find that i'm discouraged when something that i like gets 'taken over' by too much of a certain kind of audience too quickly, so that it's like i have to fight against their opinions to win some space for my own. i like to feel like i have a space for myself where the music means what i feel like it does, not to the exclusion of what anyone else feels like it does, but without that holding so much sway that i feel isolated for not agreeing, either. for dylan albums that dynamic is obviously messed up to the nth power which is generally a saving grace, but 'blood on the tracks' is that rare album that combines in-the-know dylan aficionado-dom with in-the-know best-of-list-following with in-the-know deep-songwriting-appreciation and it's just not worth it to try to hold the ground.

^ I got into BOTT in high school, via my mom’s LP collection, and didn’t really know anything about its reception or rep. It was... interesting to get to college and hear frat guys blaring the album as they prepped the grill on a Saturday morning.

great, great post j, thank you

Yeah, I have somehow avoided that problem with that particular album but am otherwise quite familiar with it.

I stopped listening to Therapy? when they released Infernal Love.

It took this deep into the thread for someone (me) to say Metallica's s/t ("black") album??

Infernal Love was so lousy.. But it was kind of their commercial peak - I remember it getting a lot of press at the time. But it was a very serious, broody record compared to everything they'd done before and I'm not sure they pulled it off.

Crikey, I'm just rooting through Therapy's Wikipedia entries. So many albums! And each entry says something like 'the album was seen as a return to their punk-metal roots as heard on Troublegum'

I really like most YLT albums after "Summer Sun" but that album felt like a huge letdown at the time and I never have the slightest urge to listen to it.

Yeah summer sun is a good example of this kind of album for me - a record that causes me to think "I'm going to have to rethink how I follow this band and what I expect from them."

(Although tbh that changed with their last record, their first once since And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out that I actually find exciting and interesting all the way through - feels like the album that Summer Sun wanted to be or should have been, shame it took them 15 years to get it right.)

Speaking of spurning, I didn't bother listening to Therapy? when they appeared because they were (initial consensus opinion) "a poor Big Black rip off".

I actually find this kind of ridiculous but I'm an early SY guy and they really lost me with the Geffen records. I'm sure I'm missing out.
Kind of.

Crikey, I'm just rooting through Therapy's Wikipedia entries. So many albums! And each entry says something like 'the album was seen as a return to their punk-metal roots as heard on Troublegum'

"Their best since Some Girls"

I’m not sure I became aware of the name Therapy? until the late 90s, and for a while I thought they were a nu-metal group? Their name just seemed right at home on the back of a Family Values tour T-shirt for some reason.

I was a huge Pixies fan, but Bossanova was a big letdown for me. Weirdly though, I've listened to it a ton, and still do. But I have never, ever listened to Trompe Le Monde and don't ever intend to, no matter how good or bad it may be.

I didn't bother listening to Therapy? when they appeared

i never even considered listening to therapy? because what the fuck is that, a question mark in a band name, that's irregular, likely a sign of poor musical sense

otm

except Neu!

that's exciting

so new it had to be in german

I was a huge Pixies fan, but Bossanova was a big letdown for me. Weirdly though, I've listened to it a ton, and still do. But I have never, ever listened to Trompe Le Monde and don't ever intend to, no matter how good or bad it may be.

I am a huge Pixies fan, love Bossanova and Trompe le Monde, could not give one shit about Surfer Rosa.

I'm with Moodles, sort of. Bossa Nova was patchy and Tromphe le Monde seemed like a mess at the time. I vowed not to squander any more of my pocket money on them and it seemed entirely appropriate that they broke up! (This thread is reminding me that 1991-92 was an big era for disappointment with US indie rock stalwarts for schoolkid me. I turned to the UK for solace.)

Er, Trompe, obv.

I well remember the realisation that “less Kim, more UFOs” was actually where they were headed, rather than a one-album glitch. It was years before I bought a (used) copy of Trompe and I reckon I’ve listened to it a dozen times in three decades.

I love all the original Pixies albums but I like to forget that those Kim-less reunion records exist, even though I have listened to them once each (see also: the '00s Big Star and Stooges albums).

I also love the original Pixies albums, and had pretended the reunion albums didn't exist until now, but I just bought tickets to see them in September, so I'm going to give them both a listen before then. wish me luck

Hello Nasty basically changed me from a Beastie Boys superfan to never wanting to hear then again.

I’ve definitely spurned the modern-day Stooges albums.

pre-cats and dogs royal trux albums. i have lots of love for this band but zero interest in ever listening to their early stuff.

why? it’s great

what i've heard was just more shambolic than i enjoy.

fair enuff

If a band splits then reforms I'm not interested in anything they subsequently release, even if I really loved them before and they weren't split for long (eg Go-Betweens).

I'm pretty fickle with bands generally - they're not sports teams, you don't have to support them for life. One dud album and I'm moving on.

Yeah I used to be really loyal with bands up to my early twenties but I got burned too many times and eventually realised there was no point. On the other hand Spotify has made it really easy to catch up on things I skipped and I've found myself listening to a lot of records that way just out of curiosity.

If a band splits then reforms I'm not interested in anything they subsequently release

Agree with this generally. The only exception is King Crimson, who have always been Robert Fripp + whoever can stand to be around him, so in that case there are just particular eras of the band I choose to ignore (everything involving Adrian Belew).

I think this happened to me with Death Cab For Cutie who I went off 100% with Transatlanticism which I thought was just terrible and it made it hard for me to like their first two / three records after that.

weirdly I loved Transatlanticism but went off them big style with the next one

along same indie lines, Picaresque is where I left the Decemberists train and never got back on. And I'd loved their first album (and liked the second one too) at the time. I still think if they'd just broken up after the debut it'd be held in higher esteem.

I'm a big Jefferson Airplane fan, but never listened to their 1989 reunion album until today... and, well...

But have you listened to Sweeping Up the Spotlight - Live At the Fillmore East 1969?

No, is it a good one?

If you like their psychedelic blues jams it certainly is.

Some discussion here: Favorite member of Jefferson Airplane (Main lineup)

sweeping up the spotlight is absolutely top-notch stuff, i don't know why the airplane don't have more of a reputation as a live band, they could completely kill it. casady in particular is super underrated as a bassist

I first became hip to Jack Casady because another bassist, Anthony Jackson, was such a huge fan.

huh, one of his two main influences, along with messiaen... didn't realize all that went into "for the love of money"!

my one complaint about "sweeping up the spotlight" is that they did this absolutely killer version of "fat angel" and left it off!

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

best airplane gigs ever?

Many xps, but I feel the same about Trompe Le Monde-- that is, fuck it-- but conversely I have always enjoyed Frank's first two solo albums

Metallica put out an album called Load, and I was too grossed out to bother. Their desperate attempt to look more grunge didn't help.

I still haven't listened to the Danger Mouse produced Parquet Courts album.

thought Sonic Youth reached an amazing second peak with Murray St. and Sonic Nurse, their collaborations with Jim O'Rourke - they felt like the equals of Evol/Sister/Daydream Nation - but I was disappointed by their final two albums

xp

It's really good!