Worst Album By Your Favorite Band

2) LMC: There's a live album with Alan Licht (Live in NYC, I think? Can't located it right now) that has a horribly noisy pressing that I've been meaning to sell. My least favorite for musical reasons is probably Hell! (x5), but I haven't listened to some of these in a long while, I realize looking at them. I'm slowly listening to my CDs in alpha. order, so on some week I'll be hearing a lot of LMC ...

SY: NYC Ghosts and Flowers, easily. Just inexcusable ramblings and self-plagiarism. And this is coming from someone who really liked A Thousand Leaves and EJSANS.

TMG: I can't say that here! I'll get in trouble ... though, honestly, there's nothing I consider to be truly dire at anywhere near the same level NYC Ghosts and Flowers is.

2) That would have to be _Merry Christmas for the Millennium and Forever_, with a close runner-up being _Hooked on Brown_.

2. It may be that I'll eventually say 'Tutu', but since that's the only 80s album of his I own I'm too inclined to be swayed slightly by its differences. That means I choose 'Live-Evil' just because it's the one from before the 80s I like listening to the least.

(I must be getting close to having more Coltrane albums, and if I answered for him I'd probably have to say... 'Impressions', and only because I felt hosed when buying it because it's a comp and has songs I owned from elsewhere.)

GbV: Do The Collapse. it's the most unsatisfying of all their albums IMO. Followed by Alien Lanes.

Least favorite is hard to say. I'll just put a tie between Transition, Impressions, Kulu se Mama, Meditations, because I guess I haven't fully embraced the later stuff. (Although I have been wanting to get Sun Ship.)

Runner up: Herbie Hancock 23 albums (not incl. 3xMaiden Voyage, 2x Death Wish OST, 2xHead Hunters, worst: Sound System.

2. The worst album by any of these folks is clearly Burning World, but luckily I don't own it. I'd say Washing Machine is the worst album, although an argument could be made for Dots and Loops as well. A great question would have to be why I still own these two albums.

Kinks - 10. Worst, but still ace = Lola vs Powerman + Money-Go-Round.

Byrds - 10. Worst = Ballad of The Easy Rider.

I don't like the very early recordings much, but I'm unwilling to say they are the worst, since I don't really follow what is going on. I'd say "Fat el Mead" (from the 60's) since the tension created by the more dramatic passages seems to simply keep evaporating as the same light melody comes through. She repeats herself more than usual. I do like the way the saxophone is used, but that's not enough to carry the recording for me. But overall, this (album length) song is just kind of blah.

I got rid of NYC G&F, A Thousand Leaves, and Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star but at least those actually piss me off rather than bore me to death. Silver Sessions, Made In USA, and the first two SYR releases would have been stiffer competition but I don't have those around anymore either. We've been over this a few times but it's just so half-assed. Nearly the entire album sounds like it was made up that day in the studio. I'm assuming they weren't even trying to make an avant-guitar record since it has almost nothing at all to recommend it in that regard, especially considering what they'd done on the four previous albums. (The guitar noise bits mostly sound like some high school garage band.) If it's supposed to be an epic rock-anthem album, the songwriting just isn't there. The tunes, insofar as they exist, are pretty forgettable and weakly constructed and the lyrics are pretty empty and poorly suited to the music. Bon Jovi's "Livin' On a Prayer" is a better 80s rock anthem than "Teenage Riot," which sounds sort of like Pavement playing the same song three times in a row. "Trilogy" is the exception. It has its moments but "Starship Trooper" by Yes or "Natural Science" by Rush blow it away. "Candle" is kinda OK too. I know the album by heart though so it must have something to recommend it, though I'm damned if I can put my finger on it now. I've played it lots of times but not so much in a while. I listened to it once when I was quite high though and it was amazing.

"Gawd knows" is the reflex answer, but for argument's sake I'd say Derek Bailey as he is GOD and I must have going on 200 albums with him on it, be it under his own name, in partnership with others or as a sideman. The worst I would say, controversially, is "Guitar Drums 'N' Bass" with DJ Ninja (1995) which everyone (including me) loved at the time but which now sounds horribly like a dated novelty. Best Bailey-as-Bailey album; undefeated champion for 20 years "Aida." Although I have a soft spot for "Company 4" (duet album with Steve Lacy, 1977) as it's rather melancholy.

2) Bloodflowers - Why? The Cure's *Greatest Hits* was released 4 months ago and not one track from Bloodflowers graced the tracklisting. (and for GOOD REASON) I think they recognized the weak effort.

3) Finest Cure Album - Head on the Door.

.mCr.

I agree...somewhat. The A-side of Never Let Me Down sounds like a competent Bowie cover band, and the B-side is horrendous. But the album he did right before that was horrifically, unendurably crapilicious from beginning to end.
It's acutally Tonight which takes the booby prize for absolute worst Bowie record.*

* Note: I haven't bought any Bowie record after Never Let Me Down so I don't know if his post-Tincan Machine records are worse than Tonight or not.

- _Bloodflowers_ is brilliant.
The _Greatest Hits_ was an amalgamation of singles with two new songs, and there weren't really any singles released from _Bloodflowers_. ("Maybe Someday" and "Out Of This World" got some limited radio play, but to my knowledge they were not official singles.)

More like me with a big knife. *kills Lord Custos bloodily*

Moving on! Most releases, all formats...*thinks*...what *is* my answer? Bowie I have the most discrete albums by, Depeche the most individual releases counting all the singles, Pumpkins thanks to the eight million bootlegs and burned mp3 discs and all. So in order:

Bowie -- yeah, Never Let Me Down is up there, but I'm thinking both Tin Machine efforts take the cake ultimately -- no wait, the live album! They didn't even include the best song by default, namely the cover of "Debaser." Nonsense for the most part.

Depeche -- mmmm...tough. *Very* tough. I even like the live Songs of Faith and Devotion quite a lot. Every studio album has at least four songs on it I couldn't live without, and in many cases they're all great. Nope, no choice.

Pumpkins -- similarly. I guess Gish is the most monochromatic in comparison, and falls apart a touch near the end, but not by much.

Personally, I would like to visit the parallel universe where "The Blood" is on _The Top_.
Ah-ha. Dan Perry has a point. "The Blood" is on Head on The Door (Remember: I said I was invincible, not infallible.)
Well, considering that "The Blood" was a cool song, isn't on The Top then it only has "The Caterpillar" to save it from complete uselessness. (and if doesn't have "The Caterpillar" then it *IS* doomed.)

Gish is the most monochromatic in comparison Gish is my favourite of Corgan and his fellow vegetables. Great drumming in the intros, the interplay of guitar, bass and drums is wonderfully hypnotic. Even Billy's voice was still bearable as it was young and new. Gish was still indie rock, their next "Siamese Dream" was already boring mainstream.
Here here. I second that proposal.

r.e.m. - 12/13 - worst - monster. obviously. a cliche but *boy* is it true.

Glad I'm not that guy! Pity about the one 't' in his name, otherwise he could claim to be me.

Let it be known that I don't hate Gish by any means. It is the album I listen to the least out of them all, though.

UNTRUE. _The Top_ has "Shake Dog Shake", "Birdmad Girl", "Wailing Wall", "Give Me It", "Piggy In The Mirror" and "Bananafishbones" on it. It's not a coherent album by any stretch of the imagination, but it's certainly a great one.

REVIVE!

i dont have *exact* album counts in front of me, but pretty sure i have 30+ releases from David Bowie, Sonic Youth, The Cure (Jandek and The Fall are getting up there, but are probably in the 25-30 range right now)... surely others i'm forgetting as well

Bowie: Black Tie White Noise (granted i haven't picked up Tonight or Never Let Me Down yet, but can't imagine them being worse)
SY: Made in USA (zzzzzzzzzzz... at least NYCG&F was interestingly bad)
The Cure: Hypnagogic States EP (songs from 4:13 Dream remixed by Fall Out Boy, MCR, 30STM... fucking horrible)

MBV having been my prime obsession for the past couple years, I guess I'd say anything Conway era to be passable. But, in an attempt to challenge myself, I guess I'd say Feed Me With Your Kiss is my least-listened to EP. I even think Strawberry Wine has its merits... FMWYK truly feels like a number of B-sides... something I near consider to be hearsay coming from myself when I consider the band to not ever have released any.

Echo & the Bunnymen: Reverberation (huh???? worthless)
The Fall: Cerebral Caustic (zzzzz)
Jandek: Put My Dream on This Planet (unique? yes. do i listen to it ever? nahhh)

The Velvet Underground - Loaded (not including Squeeze, live & comp. records)
Stereolab - Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night

Prob List:

The Velvets - Squeeze
The Fall - Fall heads roll
Beatles - Let it be

Robyn Hitchcock - Luxor

Sparks - Terminal Jive. Humorless and flat (songwriting, performance and production-wise) followup to No. 1 In Heaven.

Sparks for me too I think. I haven't heard the two late 80's albums but Pulling Rabbits Out Of Hats is the worst one I own. Terminal Jive isn't great but I love When I'm With You and like The Greatest Show On Earth and Stereo. Rabbits has only A Song That Sings Itself that is worth keeping and suffers from really awful production.

Prince would be next and Come gets my vote as the worst album I've heard of his.

Come is fantastic!!

Any AC/DC record done after Fly on the WAll... most would put Fly on the Wall on that list too, but I like that record..

Even Ballbreaker?

For me, def the second record that the Melvins did with Jello Biafra

unless you count the Joe Preston solo album, that is really irredeemable

Napalm Death: Harmony Corruption, their flailing attempt to be a Florida death metal band, is definitely their worst.
Motörhead: March or Die, their attempt at a commercial breakthrough following the surprisingly well-received 1916 (another one I don't really like).
Slayer: It feels like cheating to pick this one, but Undisputed Attitude really, really sucks.

Sparks for me too I think. I haven't heard the two late 80's albums

Music That You Can Dance To and Interior Design? Both pretty weak, but by that time my expectations were not high at all. I've learned to like "When I'm With You" out of context on the Profile comp; can't even recall those other songs, though. I like the title track of Pulling Rabbits, but yeah, mid to late 80s was a rough patch for them (when they should have been doing great amongst all the synth pop they inspired.)

unless you count the Joe Preston solo album, that is really irredeemable

whoa whoa hold the fuck up, "Hands First Flower" is like my favorite thing on any of those solo EPs

Slayer-Divine Intervention
Neurosis-Souls At Zero

I love these records, they're just my least favorite out of the lot of my two top favorite bands

Count me in as another for Sparks - but the worst for me is Big Beat. I just can't get into it. I know the production is flat on Terminal Jive, but I enjoy it that way. Makes it seem like it's meant to be played over mono ceiling speakers in a department store or airport waiting lounge.

Music That You Can Dance To and Interior Design? Both pretty weak, but by that time my expectations were not high at all. I've learned to like "When I'm With You" out of context on the Profile comp; can't even recall those other songs, though. I like the title track of Pulling Rabbits, but yeah, mid to late 80s was a rough patch for them (when they should have been doing great amongst all the synth pop they inspired.)

― Hodge Podge Bodge, Peo-PLE! (Dan Peterson)

Yeah those are the two I've not got round to hearing and I'm in no rush. The tracks I mentioned are the only songs on Terminal Jive produced by Giorgio Moroder before they fell out, they are nowhere near as great as anything on Number One In Heaven but they are both nice enough. I seem to remember reading that the brothers both think Terminal Jive is their worst album.

I do really like a couple of the 80's albums especially Angst In My Pants but it really does seem like they lost their way which makes their recent comeback all the more impressive.

One of the problems with Big Beat is that it followed such an incredible run of albums. It's very forgettable and probably my least favourite after Pulling Rabbits, Terminal Jive and maybe Whomp That Sucker.

We should probably move this to a Sparks-centric thread, but man those guys have one of most erratic catalogs, the way they could follow up a really great album with two or three mediocre to poor ones, and then rebound again. Honestly haven't been following the most recent few, the last one flew completely under my radar, but sounds really interesting.

Even the weak ones have two or three tracks that make you glad to own it. eg. Whomp That Sucker has Tips for Teens and That's Not Nastasia.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vSztHDUjWGk/SUAgd5HwdvI/AAAAAAAAB9U/Hsf3r9C6PyA/s400/Pet-Shop-Boys-Release---Set-of-371982.jpg

it came in 4 limited edition sleeves. it was heartbreakingly shit in all of them.

This is impossible for me to take part in, because most of my favorite bands had some great early years, then shat themselves later.

Three examples: Tyr, Club Ninja, and the unbelivably bad The Battle Rages On...

John Coltrane - of 40 albums it's a tie between one of his earliest, like Bahia, and last, Stellar Regions.
James Brown - 36 albums - Black Caesar?
Miles Davis - 36 albums - The Seven Steps To Heaven?
Fela Kuti - 33 albums - Yellow Fever maybe?

It's hard to call these worst albums. More like least great.

Slayer

Worst album: God hates Us All. Lots of people stan for this album as some amazingly heavy 'return to form' in a new nu-metally context. I call it, outside of "Disciple", pretty much boring crap.

Neil Young, with 24 albums and 3 CDs. (Which means I'm still missing lots from the '90s and '00s.) Worst by far is Landing on Water, which I remember as unremittingly awful--haven't played it once in 25 years.

Talking Heads - True Stories

love the movie though. and would love the album were it an actual soundtrack album.

Elvis Costello - I own everything from My Aim is True through to All This Useless Beauty and then select albums afterwards. Almost Blue is absolutely deadly.

John Coltrane - of 40 albums it's a tie between one of his earliest, like Bahia, and last, Stellar Regions.

sad, so sad... of all the albums i've discovered in my "ilxor listens to jazz" thread, the one that's blown me furthest into high fucking space and back is Stellar Regions, just a phenomenal album. if it's among his worst, i guess i need more Coltrane...

The Cure: Hypnagogic States EP (songs from 4:13 Dream remixed by Fall Out Boy, MCR, 30STM... fucking horrible)

doesn't count. man up and say 'wild mood swings' ffs

The Fall: Cerebral Caustic (zzzzz)

has my favourite fall song (and one of my favourite songs OAT) but i gather the rest is a bit underdone so i guess

entirely self-aware use of 'man up' before yall get political on me

doesn't count. man up and say 'wild mood swings' ffs

honestly... i'd take wild mood swings over 4:13 dream, which on revisitation is really really bad, 3-4 tunes aside

tbf I didn't really give 4:13 Dream much of a listen because the first one left me v underwhelmed, but it doesn't feel as heinous as the worst moments of WMS

highs aren;t as high either tho

well it didn't have a 'want'

precisely

http://www.chartstats.com/images/artwork/32699.jpg

Some interesting ideas here, but they only coalesce into proper songs a couple of times. I like other experimental things done by Prince, but the sounds he's experimenting with here better used by many other 90s dance music acts.

somehow my play count got really skewed - i must have left one playlist of 90's rap playing on repeat for 7 days when i was out of town, cause as much as i like the wu tang clan no way did i play incarcerated scarfaces 36 times. an honest assessment would have to be jay-z: kingdom come.

Peter Hammill – Spur of the Moment. Uninspired ambient-type noodlings from my favourite artist (of whom I have every one of his 40-odd albums – and that's not including VdGG).

I call it, outside of "Disciple", pretty much boring crap.

― Corbin Bernsen Overdrive (San Te), Thursday, March 10, 2011 11:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^Goddam, Disciple rocks, especially live.

4:13 Dream ends with "The Scream" and "Over", both of which are better than "Want"

Frank Zappa - Just Another Band from L.A.

Aw man, y u hate Billy The Mountain? (Yeah, I know the Flo and Eddie years have a lot of detractors.)

4:13 Dream ends with "The Scream" and "Over", both of which are better than "Want"

i actually played both last night after skimming the 4:13 track listing and going, "hmmmm, weren't those two good?" and they kinda come off as sub-p0rn0graphy level "angsty" cure, didn't feel 'em at all.

Cocteau Twins - think I'm leaning Four-Calendar Cafe over Garlands, tho I'll take "Evangeline" by a fair margin over any track on Garlands.

i loooove the Cocteaus but haven't listen to 4CC more than once all the way through-- and that was generous

Aw man, y u hate Billy The Mountain? (Yeah, I know the Flo and Eddie years have a lot of detractors.)

― Hodge Podge Bodge, Peo-PLE! (Dan Peterson),

Yeah, I just think the Flo & Eddie period is by far his low-water mark. FZ shifted his focus away from his own music towards A&R work and being an impresario for a dozen other artists (GTOs, Alice Cooper, Jeff Simmons, etc). His comedy music wasn't funny, and it was very poorly recorded -- the live Fillmore album, JABFLA and Playground Psychotics are some of the worst sounding records I own. Even in the studio this was the case: Chunga's Revenge sounds like crap compared to studio albums before and after Flo & Eddie. He had his eye way off the ball and it took a few months of enforced stillness in a wheelchair for him to refocus.