"Classic" albums you cannot enjoy

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

I dunno, I've seen it interpreted both ways I guess. I still think it's overrated.

 

I struggle to enjoy Steely Dan for any period of time also. And London Calling is slightly too long, but still great.

[B. Brian Brunzell 0]

Dark Side of the Moon. But most people know I'm not a huge fan of that album.

 

Led Zeppelin IV. Classic rock radio has ruined this album for me. The only tracks I find even listenable these days are "Four Sticks" and "The Battle of Evermore", with the latter being possibly the second-best Zeppelin track ever, behind "Achille's Last Stand."

[Murmuring Beast 0]

The Who Sell Out is ruined by the idiotic adverts that are slotted in throughout. Sure, cute and daring at the time; idiotic now. 'I Can See For Miles' is one of the best songs ever though.

 

Live At Leeds has to be the most over-rated live album ever. Again, it's good, but considering The Who were one of the better bands to get their energy across in the studio, I really don't see how this is 'essential'. The covers are dumb.

 

Tommy is - in patches - absolutely incredible, but there's too much without a vocal and it's generally far too long to hold up to repeat listenings.

 

I love the Who's singles, but I'm not as hooked on their albums. Maybe in time.

[Gary Floyd 0]

U2-The Joshua Tree. I just can't get into it, no matter how hard I try.

 

Same with the Sex Pistols "Never Mind The Bullocks" Sure, it's got a few good songs on it, but for the most part, it's a lousy album, IMO, from a band mostly remembered for their antics instead of their music.

 

Nirvana's "Nevermind". MBV's "Loveless" kicks that albums ass six ways to Sunday.

[godthedog 0]

speaking of which...

 

my bloody valentine's 'loveless'. i kinda like it, but it just doesn't grab me. the hazy sea of distortion is cool in a 'siamese dream' kind of way, but it lacks bite, and the songs and melodies and such don't seem that strong. it's especially hard to get into with the vocals so far back in the mix.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I was just gonna say that I tried listening to "Loveless" over the weekend and I wasn't feeling it. At all. "I Only Said" especially made me want to kill babies or something because they repeat the same lick like forty-seven times. You could hack two minutes off the end of that. Also, the vocals are way too buried in the mix. I don't care for My Bloody Valentine.

[The Czech Republic 0]

The only tracks I find even listenable these days are "Four Sticks" and "The Battle of Evermore", with the latter being possibly the second-best Zeppelin track ever, behind "Achille's Last Stand."

"No Quarter" says hello.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Loveless is alright, but I never feel like listening to it. I prefer Ride's Nowhere, as far as the whole shoegaze thing goes.

[The Czech Republic 0]

CWM calls it showgazing.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I really like "Only Shallow," "When You Sleep" and "Soon," though. There's just the problem of everything else on the album.

[godthedog 0]

i will say for 'loveless' that it has the most appropriate cover-to-album-content relationship ever. the color, the blurriness, & what the picture is actually of, do really sum their sound up in a picture.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Loveless is top-5 stuff for me, and it's precisely the sea of sound that gets me, and digging the melodies out of said sea. Rarely do 3 weeks go by that I don't listen to it, actually. Love that album, particularly on headphones.

 

Nowhere is also really good, especially the edition with the bonus tracks.

 

I don't like Dark Side of the Moon that much, but I get the feeling that's up there with Led Zeppelin IV in terms of "classics" commonly disliked.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I did like the Loveless cover I'll admit that much.

 

Yeah it's so hip to reject DSotM

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I tend to like most "classic" albums, I think. The best one I can come up with is the Stones' Beggars Banquet, which I find okay but largely uninteresting as compared to the rest of their catalog.

[godthedog 0]

i looooooooooove me some 'beggars banquet'. sound- and texture-wise, it's the most cohesive album by them i've ever heard, and i love that edgy dirty gritty blues sound. i heard 'let it bleed' a good 4 years earlier and the parts of that i most latched on to were the gritty numbers like "country honk" and "you got the silver," and i'd always wondered why they didn't go further in that direction instead of switching to a more straight beefy rock sound by 'sticky fingers'. this record was kind of an answer to that (i.e., they'd already DONE that sound before for an entire album), and it was like a wet dream when i first heard it.

 

the tracks aren't so worried about distinguishing themselves (unlike 'let it bleed', where they tend to build each song around one key exotic instrument in a weird kind of beatles trick to separate the songs from each other), and for some reason it just works really well. mick gives probably his best set of performances on any album, and makes a great case for being one of the best vocalists ever. fuck being sonorous, he's ALL attitude (especially on "stray cat blues" where he cares a lot more about being thickly tongue-in-cheek seductive than staying on key), and that's what sells the sound. "jigsaw puzzle" is an incoherent, shitty dylan ripoff, but mick puts everything he has into it and almost makes it work (especially when he sings "what the HELLLLLLLL is going on").

 

on top of that, it's one of the funniest "classic" records ever. on top of being great songs, "dear doctor" and "factory girl" are hysterical. that kind of tongue-in-cheek sensibility is there in more subtle form for the whole album, except during "salt of the earth" when they try to play it straight and it doesn't work. but i have that problem with a lot of stones records, where they're evil and sarcastic for a whole album and then suddenly beg to be taken WAY too seriously at the end. here it's especially a problem, just because they're so much funnier before it.

 

i might like it better than 'sticky fingers', i haven't made up my mind yet. 'sticky fingers' rocks more and has better songs, but it doesn't have that same unity that 'beggars banquet' has.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

i will say for 'loveless' that it has the most appropriate cover-to-album-content relationship ever. the color, the blurriness, & what the picture is actually of, do really sum their sound up in a picture.

Glad someone feels the same way about it that I do.

 

And I agree with everything Edwin said, though I can understand why a lot of people wouldn't like it.

 

I don't really like the "White Album" much. I haven't tried listening to it again in a long time, but I just don't feel it. I don't really like much Beatles stuff so I'm probably biased in that regard.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Oh, and "Slanted and Enchanted". I don't 'get' it.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I probably like Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain more than Slanted and Enchanted, though I'm fond of both. Malkmus and Kannberg take all the fuzzy screamness and skew it towards the best pop hooks of their careers on that one. S&E is an interesting case because of how quickly it alternates between jagged bits of noise and poppier numbers. The juxtaposition of "Conduit for Sale!" with "Zurich is Stained" is one example. On first listen I found it frustrating, then I progressed to thinking it brilliant, and now I'm back in the middle. "Summer Babe" remains one of my favorite opening tracks ever.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I haven't blathered on about Tindersticks in awhile, so I'll just add that their version of "Here" is far better than the original, which is saying a lot.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

And Wowee Zowee is the best Pavement album. It took me eight years to realize it, but realize I did.

[5_moves_of_doom 0]

And Wowee Zowee is the best Pavement album. It took me eight years to realize it, but realize I did.

I'd agree with that, and it only took me one year.

 

But yes, Inc, I agree with IDRM -- you'll have to defend your position on hating Horses.

 

 

I dislike pretty much every Rolling Stones album I've ever heard all the way through, save Exile and maybe one other. I enjoy individual songs but I don't know, the albums just... I just always want to be listening to something else.

 

Most Radiohead I just don't get along with. They're awesome, and I know that. I just don't like them. Don't know how that works, but it does.

 

The Wall is not even in my top five or six Floyd albums.

 

Fragile, and many, many other cornerstone prog rock albums are just downright not too good.

 

Mellow Gold is much better than Odelay! in my eyes.

 

And finally -- Trout Mask Replica. I love the album to death, but I hate how it's reputation overshadows the rest of Beefheart's catalogue so damn much. I know just way too many people who ONLY own TMR with no attempt to get into any other Beefheart at all. Most haven't even heard of any of his other albums aside from maybe Safe As Milk. I find this ridiculous, as there are at least three different albums that I feel are equal or nearly equal to Beefheart's "masterpiece." I especially find his underrated later-day stuff intriguing.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Smith's "Beat" lyrics are eye-rolling at best, insufferable and grating at worst. Also, her backing band is shamelessly crude; quality chops were never a requirement for this type of music, of course, but those dorks have none of the panache to pull off being so sloppy. That this is widely considered one of the great rock records of the 70s baffles me to no end.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Oh, it wasn't on Horses, but "Rock n Roll Nigger" is one of the most painful, embarassing odes to outsiders I think I've ever heard.

[godthedog 0]

what would you consider to be the difference between good instrumental sloppiness (i.e., velvet underground) and bad instrumental sloppiness (i.e., 'horses' apparently)?

 

cause i have no idea. i mean, i think there IS a difference somewhere, but i've never been able to define it.

 

nothing to do with anything, but i really dig marilyn manson's guilty-pleasure cover of "rock n roll nigger."

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

It's charisma, I think. VU had it in spades.

[Nighthawk 0]

"Rock n Roll Nigger" makes me cover my eyes and shake my head, but I also enjoy Manson's version.

[Nighthawk 0]

Some say Heartattack and Vine is a milestone work for Tom Waits as well, and it's probably one of my least favourites of all his full lengths.

See now in my experience most people consider that a throwaway at best and actively dislike it at worst. I think it's better than that, I've called it under rated before. It's probably in my third tier of Waits albums (there are around five total).

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I know a lot of people, particularly the music press, blow their load over Revolver, but I don't really enjoy it and think it's nothing special. Eleanor Rigby is a good song, but the rest of it does nothing for me. There are several Beatles albums I like better.

The first few times I listened to Revolver I didn't see the big deal. The more I listened to it though, the more I seemed to dig it. Maybe it's an aquired taste.

[Special K 0]

The Wall

The White Album

Never Mind the Bollocks

Any Guns 'n Roses or Van Halen.

[Guest croweater]

I know a lot of people, particularly the music press, blow their load over Revolver, but I don't really enjoy it and think it's nothing special. Eleanor Rigby is a good song, but the rest of it does nothing for me. There are several Beatles albums I like better.

The first few times I listened to Revolver I didn't see the big deal. The more I listened to it though, the more I seemed to dig it. Maybe it's an aquired taste.

I love Revolver, but it really doesn't hold a candal to SPLHCB or Abbey Road. It just doesn't have the same musical continuity that the latter two have. The White Album, I believe, is one of the worse Beatles albums, especially disc one, which is only saved by Blackbird and While my guitar gently weeps.

 

With Revolver and SP's it takes a fair few listens to comprehend the music (Especially Pepper's, which, having no stand alone tracks, only works if you listen to it straight through)

 

I spose I'm bias though, as I think they're the three greatest Albums of all time.

 

Never Mind the Bollocks seemed to start the whole mock-punk era, from which has spawned Blink 182, Good Charlotte, Sum 41 and a bunch of terrible terrible terrible bands. So, in itself it's a pretty average album, but what it has created is far far worse.