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

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