Unfairly maligned albums

[andymcc]

I think people have warmed up to it over the years, but the chorus of "Kid B-Sides" comments when it released was resounding. Which is odd to me since it sounds nothing like Kid A at all.

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I remember when it came out and that sentiment was definitely there simply because it released six months after Kid A and was recorded during the same studio sessions. Some of the songs had been heard during the Kid A release. Pitchfork's review of the record even claimed the b-sides thing... while giving it a 9/10. The album objectively reviews better than a good deal of their releases.

i wouldn't say it was maligned for it, it simply was a great album that was a victim of its own circumstances of being released so close to a record that was both a radical departure and beloved.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

I think I'm the only one on planet earth who likes Green Day's Father of All Motherfuckers.

It's the best GD album since 21CB imo. But nobody will ever be on board with that. I guess the really gross album art didn't help.

So maybe it's not that unfairly maligned bc it sure is ugly.

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As a huge Green Day fan, this album is awful.

 

[CandySTX]

One for the metal heads.

I thought this album was pretty rad, honestly.

 

[Vourlis]

Honestly I think Bowie's farewell Blackstar album is fucking great and severely misunderstood / underappreciated...it kind of just came and went in the market, but some of his songs on there, especially Lazarus, is just as good as some of his other best songs.

 

[Rangerx]

St Anger isn't as bad as everyone says it. I actually like the drum sound and Sweet Amber, The Unnamed Feeling, Dirty Window and Invisible Kid are cracking tunes.

 

[Cipher Peon]

As a huge Green Day fan, this album is awful.

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Unfairly maligned 😭

 

[poptire]

This is like... Weezer: The Thread for me. I've enjoyed 90% of their output in some way and I think they're unfairly hated on by people who only listened to their first two albums and then heard Beverly Hills on the radio.

 

[AgeEighty]

Amnesiac is maligned? By whom?

[citation needed]

 

[HK-48]

Metallica Load and Reload - great albums. Heravy bluesy rock things, if overlong. Not on the same level as their early 4 albums or black album buit still great. They have such a swing and a groove to them

Lulu (Lou Reed/Metallica) has some amazing moments, just trapped within a pretty bloated package of an avant-garde album.


I feel that way about The X Factor. It's the most depressingly down-to-earth Maiden album.

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Yesss it's such a dark, moody and brooding album. Really underrated. Very refreshing compared to the previous 2 albums before it

 

[HK-48]

edit: double post

 

[Tomasoares]

 

[dphrygian]

Absolutely agreed on Load/Reload, Artpop, and Crash Love.

For some reason, I've always remembered Modest Mouse's "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" as being generally poorly regarded, but the Wikipedia reception section says otherwise. Anyway, it's a great album.

I also liked Coheed & Cambria's "non-canon" album "The Color Before the Sun" more than most; I don't really care about the band's sci-fi concept, I just like their songs and it had some good songs.

 

[Aaron D.]

Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals

Going from Beautiful People to Dope Show threw many for a loop. Following up smash-hit industrial/goth with Bowieque space-glam/concept was a hell of a choice.

But I contest that this is the absolute best Manson album of all time. Certainly the most listenable from front to back.

The flow from one song into the next like for example Rock Is Dead into Disassociative is akin to Pink Floyd at the top of their game.

The industrial kids felt abandoned by Animals (who Manson quickly ran back to with Antichrist), but I'll always remember it as his creative & talent peak.

 

[TrashyPanda]

I think I'm the only one on planet earth who likes Green Day's Father of All Motherfuckers.

It's the best GD album since 21CB imo. But nobody will ever be on board with that. I guess the really gross album art didn't help.

So maybe it's not that unfairly maligned bc it sure is ugly.

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Green Day is my favorite band, and I listened to this album a few times as a result. I think the best thing I have to say about it is that it's only 26 minutes. The only song that I found to be genuinely good is Graffitia.

 

[Serule]

Was poorly received at release, although I think opinions improved over time

 

[skeezx]

You have my sword, Machina is amazing, and their last great album!

I keep checking the Smashing Pumpkins subreddit from time to time just in case a miracle happens and a solid release date for the Machina 1 & 2 reissue is announced, I just want that one final thing so I can finally stop caring about that shithead Billy Corgan and the terrible music he puts out nowadays.

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it's crazy now I think of it... the last i heard of the reissue/remaster was on a vlog from billy himself about how he was right in the middle of remixing it.

was the same vlog he announced Oceania so that had to be... about 2011 or 2012? yikes

 

[D O T]

not expecting Amnesiac, thought it was gonna be King of Limbs.

 

[Stibbs]

IDK if this can counts cause its just personal opinion and such and its more of a "so bad its good", But i'll admit it

I actually really like Billy Idol and Cyberpunk, its such a weird fucking album considering his usual work, but I unironically really love tracks like Wasteland and Concrete Kingdom. He's so sincere about everything even if its so silly and stupid

 

[Darren Lamb]

Zwan - Mary Star of the Sea didn't have all the best Zwan songs on it, but I always thought it was an underrated record. Shame that we'll probably never get anything else from those sessions since Billy hates Pajo/Paz/Sweeney

 

[Lydecker]

* ahem *

Machine Messiah and Tempus Fugit are great songs though

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Tales is my favorite Yes album but it is always ridiculed. Also because Rick Wakeman kept telling he ate sandwiches while playing it live because he felt it was so boring.

I would kill for a good Tales Tour live recording.

About Drama, it is great and it features some of Squires best bass work. Howe and White are also on fire. I love (the intro of) Does it really happen?


View: https://youtu.be/GL68VE-Qi7Y?feature=shared

Apparently, as read on the Yes website of Harry Potts Steven Wilson was keen on remastering Drama also because he loves it but Geoff Downes would not allow it:

In a Jul 2018 interview, asked how the albums in The Steven Wilson Remixes were chosen, Downes replied, "Those were chosen, I think, because they're the only ones that could be found. [...] I don't know if he'll do any more, though, since he tends to look at the defining albums from a band's history."
In his Dec 2015 newsletter, Wilson said:

There was talk about me doing "Drama", an album I really love and that would sound great in 5.1, but not all the members of that line up are keen for the album to be remixed—which is totally understandable—and I wouldn't want to do something without the band being behind it.

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The one band member opposed to Wilson doing Drama could have been Downes judging by this Sep 2015 tweet: asked if Wilson would be doing a Drama remix, Downes replied, "I bloody well hope not!" Although in a Jul 2014 interview, Downes said, "I would like to hear Drama in 5.1, the album was heavily overdubbed at the time, and so it would reveal a lot of detail". But, in an Aug 2016 interview, he said the multitracks for Drama couldn't be found, also saying, "I know Steven Wilson does a very good job" of the 5.1 mixes

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[krazen]

Amnesiac is maligned? By whom?

[citation needed]

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Amnesiac by Radiohead

Amnesiac by Radiohead album reviews & Metacritic score: These eleven tracks were recorded during the same sessions that produced 2000's 'Kid A,' but are a bit more song-like and a bit less electronic....

www.metacritic.com

Look at some of the ho-hum reviews towards the bottom, particularly from Rollingstone and The Wire. Look at the section of the wiki

Some dismissed Amnesiac as a collection of Kid A outtakes.[71] The Pitchfork critic Ryan Schreiber wrote that its "questionable sequencing ... does little to hush the argument that the record is merely a thinly veiled B-sides compilation".[64] Another Pitchfork writer, Scott Plagenhoef, felt the sequencing worked by creating tension, heightening the power of the more experimental tracks.[71] However, he felt the more conventional marketing created a sense of "ordinariness" compared to Kid A and the impression that Radiohead had bowed to pressure from their record label.[71]

Some critics felt Amnesiac was less cohesive than Kid A. The AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that it "often plays as a hodgepodge", and that both albums "clearly derive from the same source and have the same flaws ... The division only makes the two records seem unfocused, even if the best of both records is quite stunning."[59] Another AllMusic critic, Sam Samuelson, said Amnesiac was a "thrown-together" release that might have been better packaged with the live album I Might Be Wrong as a "complete Kid A sessions package".[72]

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[Jetsun Mila]

DJ Shadow - The Outsider

Dude put together one of the best Hyphy albums of the 2000s and, like all his records as he explores new styles, so many folks looked past the insane number of collabs and amazing lyrical work and complained that it wasn't another Entroducing.

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For me it's actually The Less You Know, the Better. There are some absolutely strong tracks on that album, and I feel like it's a great 35 minute album, only that it is actually an hour long.

THAT SAID:

In the music circles I'm in the consensus is somewhat "It's the right direction but the next albums are better" but I think this is their best one.

Yes, it's not as good as the albums from the Peter Gabriel phase, but this is still really strong Progressive Rock. Same with Trick of the Trail and Wind and Wuthering. I don't understand these who make a hard cut between the two phases.

 

[geardo]

Sepultura Against. The first post Max album. I always thought it was good. Not on Roots or Chaos AD level but still good. In fact all those post Max albums are Ok. But it took them until about A-Lex to really find their own sound without him.

 

[AgeEighty]

Amnesiac by Radiohead

Amnesiac by Radiohead album reviews & Metacritic score: These eleven tracks were recorded during the same sessions that produced 2000's 'Kid A,' but are a bit more song-like and a bit less electronic....

www.metacritic.com

Look at some of the ho-hum reviews towards the bottom, particularly from Rollingstone and The Wire. Look at the section of the wiki

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Every piece of creative work has its critics, though. You can find middling or bad contemporary reviews for just about anything thought of as a classic.

 

[Stuntman]

Chris Cornell's Scream received savage reviews upon release, but I really think it's a really interesting album.

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Was going to post this, the record as a whole just flows (every track is connected), sounds amazing and is catchy as fuck.

Great album imo i usually crank it up at home when listening to it.

 

[Feign]

Donkey by CSS. I know it's not as irreverent as their debut, but I've listened to it just as much.

Was poorly received at release, although I think opinions improved over time

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It had the worst timing. She kept talking about working with indie bands like Ladytron at the same time iamamiwhoami was posting videos that people thought might be her. Then the album comes out and it's pop accused of chasing Lady Gaga at the height of her fame with all the indie produced songs relegated to the bonus tracks.

I think it's a fun album, but that was a rough time to be a Christina fan lmao.

 

[krazen]

Every piece of creative work has its critics, though. You can find middling or bad contemporary reviews for just about anything thought of as a classic.

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Of course. But that pulls the fun out of this post, lol. Its all subjective, but just wanted to point out Amnesiac wasn't always highly acclaimed even though it was effectively the same album as Kid A just split apart by the bands own admission.

 

[andymcc]

Amnesiac by Radiohead

Amnesiac by Radiohead album reviews & Metacritic score: These eleven tracks were recorded during the same sessions that produced 2000's 'Kid A,' but are a bit more song-like and a bit less electronic....

www.metacritic.com

Look at some of the ho-hum reviews towards the bottom, particularly from Rollingstone and The Wire. Look at the section of the wiki

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i mean if Kid A is a stone cold classic, look at the Metacritic average:

Kid A by Radiohead

Kid A by Radiohead album reviews & Metacritic score: Seemingly unwilling to stick to a successful formula, Radiohead follow their breakthrough album 'OK Computer' with this much more experimental work (recorded du...

www.metacritic.com

The ho-hum reviews are even more scathing.

The internet music press was a much smaller pool and usually resulted in lower review averages than what we get nowadays. probably a topic for a different thread through.

 

[bawjaws]

Honestly I think Bowie's farewell Blackstar album is fucking great and severely misunderstood / underappreciated...it kind of just came and went in the market, but some of his songs on there, especially Lazarus, is just as good as some of his other best songs.

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God yeah, Blackstar is amazing. And it hits real hard given the timing of its release. Not sure I've seen many people who don't rate it, though, but if those people exist then they are fools!

 

[J-Skee]

The Love Movement

The Love Movement is the fifth studio album by American hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, and their last album released during group member Phife Dawg's lifetime. Released on September 29, 1998, by Jive Records, it is a concept album, exploring the lyrical theme of love. Musically, it is a...

music.youtube.com

I love this album, despite it mostly being radio jams. Find my way lives rent free in my brain even today. But surprisingly, apparently people fucking hate this album.

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People hated Nas' It Was Written when it first came out because it's nothing like Illmatic. Now I see people debating that it's better than that.

 

[Dogstar]

That U2 album that appeared on everyone's iPhone. I'm not saying it was a great album or anything, although I enjoyed some of it, but feel the backlash and hate was out of proportion to the fact you were given something for free.

Funny how this particular bit of marketing, that someone obviously thought was a masterstroke, went so comically wrong.

 

[bawjaws]

The Smashing Pumpkins already came up here but I'd maybe add Adore to the list. The people that like that album like it a lot, but the people who came in expecting another Mellon Collie were mostly scratching their heads. With the distance of time I think it's much more roundly appreciated, though.

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Good shout. I think Adore is fantastic, but it's such a departure from Mellon Collie that it definitely caught a lot of people out.

 

[DeepStateUniversity]

Recent revelations aside...

 

[HouseDragon]

Amazing to see so much Amputechture love in here, it was definitely the first one on my mind! It's a challenging, incredible album for sure and stands out in TMV's catalogue. That album run from Deloused to Bedlam is still unmatched in my eyes, they're the GOAT.

As for another pick, I love The King Of Limbs , I think it's in the top 5 Radiohead albums. I really enjoy the afrobeat inspired, frantic electronic beats they've got in there, and the From The Basement session they did? Great stuff.

 

[oasis007]

Chris Cornell's Scream received savage reviews upon release, but I really think it's a really interesting album.

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I can't believe someone else mentioned this one. I actually like it quite a bit, but yeah it was destroyed by critics and fans in general

 

[Fallout-NL]

Load and Reload by Metallica are pretty good albums. They're a little hit or miss, but I think if you took the best songs from both albums and condensed them into one, it would be a killer album.

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Yeah, it's a shame they didn't do that.

 

[ClassAndFear]

Zwan - Mary Star of the Sea didn't have all the best Zwan songs on it, but I always thought it was an underrated record. Shame that we'll probably never get anything else from those sessions since Billy hates Pajo/Paz/Sweeney

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Billy's got the rights back and says he's working on the box set with another 70 or something recorded songs on it…

 

[Fallout-NL]

and lot of of their post 2000 stuff is underrated too. unfortunately the last album (the "sequel" to Melon Collie and Machina) was pretty mid though

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You have my sword, Machina is amazing, and their last great album!

I keep checking the Smashing Pumpkins subreddit from time to time just in case a miracle happens and a solid release date for the Machina 1 & 2 reissue is announced, I just want that one final thing so I can finally stop caring about that shithead Billy Corgan and the terrible music he puts out nowadays.

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Fuck yeah. Even though there's one or two 'skips' on it, I still adore that album. Too bad they didn't condense it just a little bit, because it could have been an all killer no filler album like SD or MATIS (how insane is it that they managed to do a double album that is all killer no filler? Still blows my mind thirty years later.).

 

[Leona Lewis]

Was poorly received at release, although I think opinions improved over time

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Sex for Breakfast is still a jam.

"When the morning comes, I know that I will tooooOOOOoooOoo"

It takes a lot for a lyric to scandalize me, but she managed it XD

 

[LetsEatSnacks]

This is the opposite of what I remember… but then again it was 24 years ago :P


Come to think of it HTTT might have been the better album to highlight. It's not as good as Amnesiac but I really love it. HTTT is better than The Bends and In Rainbows for sure imo.

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Better than In Rainbows!?!?... You have officially lost your Radiohead fan license.

 

[Macam]

and lot of of their post 2000 stuff is underrated too. unfortunately the last album (the "sequel" to Melon Collie and Machina) was pretty mid though

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I agree though I get the complaints about production. I was going to list Adore, but don't recall if that was actually maligned or just not liked by people wanting more MCIS. Their post Oceania work is awful though.

DJ Shadow - The Outsider

Dude put together one of the best Hyphy albums of the 2000s and, like all his records as he explores new styles, so many folks looked past the insane number of collabs and amazing lyrical work and complained that it wasn't another Entroducing.

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I still hate this album (beyond This Time) but maybe I just hate hyphy or whatever. It's such a jarring, chaotic sound and it's never clicked even when I try to revisit it.

 

[quietstorm1215]

Surprised to see Green Day talk and nothing about Warning. I got into the band in 01 and everyone told me to ignore that album because it's terrible. I ignored them and loved it.

I'd also throw Weezer Green on here because it was well received at the time but now I hear a lot of hate. It's a great power pop record.

 

[ceej]

Love this album.

Bob Dylan- New Morning

Google Image Result for https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/Bob_Dylan_-_New_Morning.jpg

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yeah, this album is amazing

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

U2's post Achtung Baby output.

If God Will Send His Angels from POP is one of my favorite songs from them.

U2 - If God Will Send His Angels (Official Music Video)

REMASTERED IN HD!Directed by Phil Joanou, and filmed in a restaurant in Detroit in late 1997 for the release of the single 'If God Will Send His Angels' from...

www.youtube.com

 

[ultraluna]

Donkey by CSS. I know it's not as irreverent as their debut, but I've listened to it just as much.

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i love it waaaaaay more than their debut, it's a shame they probably won't play a song from it live this next tour cause of their fallout with cintra

 

[NESpowerhouse]

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I was also going to post 80s Rush, but also add Grace Under Pressure, which is my personal favorite work of theirs. People like to bemoan Getty Lee getting too much into synths like many other rock artists at the time, but as someone who's a big fan of the sound of that era in general, I feel it's a great blend that compliments the rest of their sound.

 

[Servbot24]

As for another pick, I love The King Of Limbs , I think it's in the top 5 Radiohead albums. I really enjoy the afrobeat inspired, frantic electronic beats they've got in there, and the From The Basement session they did? Great stuff.

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The first half of TKOL is legitimately great. Then the second half it feels like they just got bored, abandoned the theme and gave up.

 

[Mamoniadas]

devo synthpop album "shout", hated for being not devo and being an excuse to leave a label but side two is just a streak of hits: here to go, jurisdiction of love, puppet boy, and please please.

 

[Superpupperbabysassy]

DJ Shadow - The Outsider

Dude put together one of the best Hyphy albums of the 2000s and, like all his records as he explores new styles, so many folks looked past the insane number of collabs and amazing lyrical work and complained that it wasn't another Entroducing.

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3 Freaks and 4 freaks are the hardest!

 

[Eamon]

That U2 album that appeared on everyone's iPhone. I'm not saying it was a great album or anything, although I enjoyed some of it, but feel the backlash and hate was out of proportion to the fact you were given something for free.

Funny how this particular bit of marketing, that someone obviously thought was a masterstroke, went so comically wrong.

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If you're not going to say it, I will.

Songs of Innocence is a great album, and stands up there with U2's second tier albums (beneath TJT and AB.) The songs range from fun and light, to deeply moving and beautiful. Iris (Hold Me Close) is literally one of their best songs.

Honestly, U2's post AB (or post 90s) output in general is unfairly maligned. The critical and commercial success they have found decades after the founding of their band and their TJT/AB peak is nearly unparalleled.