For lots of R.E.M. fans, "Up" seems to be the point at which they lost it. For others, it's the point just BEFORE they lost it, and is their last great album.

(For DogFacedBoy it's a great album that precedes other great albums, but he's wrong.)

;-)

Often derided as one of their weakest albums, I will stand up for it in court, your honour. Smack-addled rockabilly from Venus... what's not to like?!

which is, to me, the album which marked their turning point from better-than-average indie rock band to ball-bouncingly-interesting glitch-rock pioneers for the 21st century.

Or, alternatively, it's when they went shit & weird.

But 'King Of Limbs' has really grown on me, particularly 'Codex' & 'Little By Little'.

Still feels like an EP though.

Am likely to get a severe ribbing for this, but I genuinely feel that SOTSOG (TMFTL) is Oasis' best album. In the New Moronic Express last week, there was part of the letters page devoted to how Noel is ashamed of it. For the life of me I cann't fathom why.

It was a weird time for Oasis. After the cocaine euphoria of Be Here Now, and the era-ending Masterplan compilation, two members left, and Noel essentially recorded a solo album with Liam singing on 7 songs. There's standout faux-Eastern psychadelia ("Who Feels Love?"), hallucinogenic drones ("Gas Panic!"), acoustic introspection ("Where Did It All Go Wrong?"), stereotypical Oasis ("Go Let It Out", "I Can See A Liar" and "Put Yer Money Where Your Mouth Is") and the set closer to end all set closers in "Roll It Over", except they basically never played it ever again. More fool them. Its a fantastic song with an absolutely stratospheric chorus.

Even some of the B-sides from that time were up there with their best songs too. "Cigarettes In Hell", "Let's All Make Believe" and "One Way Road" are classic songwriting. Simple as that, but Noel bored of them and so bunged them out of the way. Oh well, at least they got released.

But yes, "Little James" is awful. But each of their albums had at least one. "Digsy's Dinner" anyone?

"give out but don't give up" - streets ahead of the over-praised Screamadelica.

And I agree that "Second Coming" is ace.

There are several lacklustre efforts dotted around their career (as well as some inspirational moments) but the latest Yes album Fly From Here is about as duff as duff gets

The Metallica fans seem to hate it and the band hardly ever play any of the songs from it live, but I quite like it.

Still not too keen on Re-Load though.

is better than Imagine. Nobody else likes it.

My favourite Kraftwerk album is Radioactivity.

I've always liked to think I'm special because I've always vastly preferred Strangeways to The Queen is Dead. Please don't dash my dreams.

I've commented elsewhere about Second Coming: opinions are divided, I've got a theory that those who like it tend to be the ones who came to it "fresh" (because they're younger - grrrrr) and those who don't, like me, had waited four plus years for the bastard and therefore associate it with the bitter taste of disappointment.

Surely the ultimate is Sandinista! I've grown to love it over the years but for a long time it elicited a furrowed brow.

by the "better than The Beatles" band. I can hardly listen to most of it, others have claimed it as their greatest. I can only sum it up by saying it's The Smiths but not as we know it, in my opinion.

here is a band that started out as a death metal outfit, gradually became more prog metal, then embraced Porcupine Tree type soundscapes and now they have released a record which contains all sorts of jazz rock meanderings and pixies in the forest type prog straight out of the mid 70s. It has divided the Opeth faithful right down the middle.

... was almost impossible to HEAR on release due to the shrill media coverage, which was 99% negative. And that stupid "bonus" track at the end left you with a horrible feeling the critics were right. I liked some of it (the airwaves-friendly pop songs), dismissed the rest, and shelved it for many years. Then I played it with no preconceptions or expectations, and I heard a fine album for the first time. It even seems a logical move after their first - what did we want back then? More of the same?

It's a bloody good rock album, from an era when they just weren't being made any more. If you haven't heard it for a long time, give it a spin now and be (I hope!) pleasantly surprised.

Compare and contrast, if you will, with Television's fine second album, which was similarly given such a kicking by the critics the band broke up. A shame that the Stonies didn't reform for that superb "under the radar" third album, as Television did.

(John Leckie's sound collage which opens the album owes a lot to Shawn Phillips' "Parisien Plight", and the entire first album was inspired by Earle Mankey's sparkling production for The Three O'Clock's debut - I pass this on for what it's worth)

The fan reaction is either
"The original songs were fine, why did she have to mess with them and not do a very good job of it to boot. Make a new record already!"
or
"How wonderful that she has the courage and insight to go back and rework material that she thinks could be done better now, and I am just happy to have her release *seomthing*".

I don't know if this is the album that will permanently divide the fan base, but people seem to feel very strongly one way or the other about it. Not a lot of in-between.

This has come up in a thread before, but the second MGMT album where they abruptly swerved from synth-based nu-rave numbers to Anglophile pysch-pop, was a big creative re-boot. I think fans of that genre loved it, but many dance music listeners were disappointed. I admire them for their artistic risk taking.

"Love You"

It's got loads of Synths on it, and Brian Wilson's voice..so swoonsome and yearning on Pet Sounds..is now gruff and scary...scarred by ten years of fast food, fags and bad drugs. It's got terrible lyrics like "If Mars had life on it..I might find my Wife on it".

It was, for some years..a bargain bin staple.

It's the most fucked up thing Brian and the Beach Boys ever made but it's also kind of cool. ..and it's probably the last time Wilson made a record he truly believed in (and he still occasionally claims it's his favourite)

is the best Pink Floyd album.
'Memory Almost Full' is McCartney's best album since 'Ram'. ( And the rustic, bitter, alcohol-fuelled charm of 'McCartney' knocks spots off the widdly-widdly wanky spoodlings of 'McCartney II'- 'Temporary Secretary' indeed...)
'Room to Roam' features The Waterboys at their best.
'Back In the USA' is miles better than the useless pseudo-revolutionary racket that is 'Kick Out the Jams'.
'Mott the Hoople Live' is the best Mott album.
'Give Out But Don't Give Up' has always been Primal Scream's finest moment.
'The Smiths' was their peak. Production sounds fine to me.
'Leave Home' was the Ramones.
'Aladdin Sane' may not be the best Bowie album. And yet, it is.
'Robin Trower Live' is truly excellent. No, really.

"Tilt" and "The Drift" by Scott Walker

Either they are albums of interesting, challenging and occasionally quite scary music (my view)

Or pretentious avant-garde rubbish - why doesn't he go back to doing proper songs?

Absolutely slated at the time. I think the story goes that after finishing the admittedly risible Human Touch, Bruce went back, as is his way to the finished record thinking it needed maybe one more tune. So he wrote 10 more and decided to put them out on another record (this being the early nineties fashion with GnR etc) on the same day - Lucky Town.

Lumped in with Human Touch and automatically derided as it wasn't an "E Street" record and was part of the "LA Bruce" phase; Lucky Town has some magical tracks "If I Should Fall Behind", "The Big Muddy", "My Beautiful Reward" and "Souls of the Departed". This is Bruce writing for his new wife and young children and is as touching as it is excellent.

Live version of "If I Should Fall Behind" from the E Street Reunion tour - everyone sings. Spine tingling.

I give you "On Every Street" by Dire Straits. I think the songs are far better than those on Brothers In Arms. Planet Of New Orleans is a classic and the album has a muck more organic feel than Brothers In Arms.

Fisherman's Blues, my favourite Waterboys album.

It was like Dylan's 'Judas' moment. In reverse.

After the coffee table ubiquity of Moon Safari, they brought out 10,000 Hz Legend which is dark, strange, and in my book an absolute masterpiece. Their sales were never the same though.

I'd also say DJ Shadow - The Outsider, but I don't actually know anyone who thinks that's good.

Everybody seems to love it except me!

Ditto Elvis Costello - King Of America.

Never really vilified, never really loved (actually maybe it's the opposite of this thread's theme!) and always gets a derisory 3/5 when judged in all those Dylan Mojo/Uncut Specials.
('Oh Mercy'/'Time Out Of Mind'/'Desire'/'Love And Theft' 5/5. Huh?)

The only Dylan LP I'd listen to for, gasp, 'pleasure' and, as such, the only Dylan LP I've listened to in the past two years.

My favourite Blur album is 13.

I may be alone in that.

No?

was the last great REM album but nothing they did surpassed Lifes Rich Pageant and Murmur.

Steely Dan are the ones that challenged me. I think if memory serves me right Aja is their biggest selling album but is the one where their excellence waned. Still very good but not a patch on their earlier albums and to my mind it launched their jazz lite period which continues today.
Give me the first 5 albums anyday.

This seems to get a right shellacing these days - the 'oh, Revolver is their best album ' brigade. For those of us around at the time, this actually saved them when they were (now forgotten) deeply unfashionable. This album blasted out of every window in 1967 for the simple reason it is their masterpiece (puts on tin helmet).

How do you follow a mega selling album like Rumours? By making a double album of something completely different. I think it's superb. And as for the PG blues Mac versus the Nicks/Buckingham LA Mac - well I love both.

Incidentally I have often wondered whether there is another band with such a lineup - two female and 1 male songwriters/lead vocalists. It shouldn't be that unusual but just is.

I've always rather liked it. (I may be alone)

Tin Machine best Tin Machine LP, Second Coming second best Roses one.

I've always liked the first Tin Machine album(apart from the awful Working Class Hero) I thought it a lot beter than some of Bowies previous output.. Tonight etc..

Was I think from 82 just before they split and I was still a big fan at the time. I thought this was a great album though rarely mentioned since.

Ghosts particularly is touching and beautifully melodic.