Entertainment For Lively Minds
Albums That Shouldn't Have Been Made
I enjoyed The Word's recent Queen Podcast and share similar views to Kate Mossman, over the whole Queen and Paul Rodgers project. I'm sure they put on a good show and their Cosmos Rock album is probably okay, but with just two members of Queen and Paul Rodgers, I wish they'd never released it. Kind of ruins the Queen legacy for myself a bit and I admit, I've never heard it and have no wish to listen to it either. Although maybe I should really give it a litte try one day, I think I'd find it hard, without hearing Mercury on vocals. Personally speaking, I regard it as an album that didn't really need to be made. An other albums, you wish had never been made? Pink Floyd's, The Final Cut, or lets just... Cut The Crap, by The Clash.
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Cosmos Rocks is a bog standard hard rock album
Doesn't offend but I agree adds nothing of any value.
The Final Cut however is my second favourite Pink Floyd album after The Wall. Not to be dismissed and top drawer music.
Rather than compromising the memory of......
.....erm, Queen, surely the worry is that it might have compromised the memory of Free.
I mean, playing with Brian May when you used to be in the same group as Andy Fraser in 1969.
Yikes!
The Final Cut? What?! Are you *mad*, sir?!
I'm with Uncle Wheaty on this. The Final Cut is the most moving record Pink Floyd ever made and contains Roger Waters' greatest and most affecting lyrics. A fabulous LP which only improves with age.
I wouldn't go that far
...but then I don't like The Wall much.....but it's not so bad it shouldn't have been made.
For the Floyd "A momentery lapse of reason" or "the division bell" would be my choices.
You are being provocative I assume?
If not, then enjoy those albums and miss out on their greatest bits IMHO.
No
those are the bottom 2 on my list of Floyd albums.
Mainly because they only sound like Pink Floyd, they lack heart. And by heart I suppose I really mean a decent lyricist.
After 'Piper'
I lost a lot of interest. Although bits of 'Meddle' and 'Moon' have troubled my CD player every now and again over the years.
The answer is...
...nearly all of them. Albums, I mean. Nearly all albums shouldn't have been made. The overwhelming majority are entirely worthless, pointless and represent a tragic waste of effort so vast it would, if all stockpiled together, derange the orbit of the Earth. WALL-E would still be clearing it up thousands of years from now.
Bob, that's a little concerning
Because I had the very same thought this very morning. I have bought hundreds of albums in my time and very few of them will ever be played again.
The songs I remember with affection are almost always singles. The best albums I have are singles compilations. Having bought a single, tradition dictated that you must buy the album - which I tended to do. I now feel exploited because 99% of the time the album doesn't contain anything different or better. Worse, the artist themselves will sometimes describe tracks as "filler". I mean, don't do me any favours!
Downloading favours the single format, I think. I would like a prompt every now and then telling me that Band X have released a new song for me to enjoy. Even if it's just the one.
Agreed
The song is the thing that lives on. Most ordinary folk (not us) don't give a shit where a song comes from. If they like it, they like it. They play it. They sing it. Other people sing it. Bands play it at social events. It's the modern day folk process.
Don't get me wrong...
...I love albums, when they're good. It's just that well over 99% of everything that's released, singles and albums both, is gack.
But yeah, I totally agree that hundreds of great singles have been smothered in unnecessary album filler. I sympathise, you know? If you're in a band, how exciting to be given the opportunity to do a whole album!
And when you're in a band, it's far too easy to suspend your critical faculties when it comes to your own work, and start believing that every song that's made it onto your regular setlist is a proper belter.
It's like being a parent: you love every detail, and you see details that no-one else can. You love that little bit of guitar work just THERE, that drum fill thrills you while passing everyone else by. You hear it all with a sympathetic ear, and you overlook its faults or its mediocrity.
Imagine the extent to which that's amplified after an A&R man has been buttering you up! And imagine how it feels when the single - which, in truth, is the one moment of randomly-assigned real excellence you will ever achieve - is picked up by radio and does well. You'd feel like the public NEEDED to hear the rest, wouldn't you? Because, truth be told, you probably couldn't hear that the single even *was* the single before the A&R man told you it was. It all sounds that good to you!
The result: floods of gack. Just floods of it. It's not the artists' fault. It's not anyone's fault, really. It's just that most art is shit. Most of everything is shit. But the tiny, tiny, vanishingly minute amount of good stuff makes it all worthwhile.
Blimey Bob
"most art is shit. Most of everything is shit."
I'm worried about you.
Haha, nothing to be worried about.
Most of everything *is* shit, by which I mean products, or art, or things that people do and make. It just, statistically, is! Focus on my last sentence, not the one before!
The things I love bring me immense joy, and I'm a happy happy joy joy sort of person the vast majority of the time. But that doesn't mean that most attempts at art or commerce aren't shit. Two things that are true:
"The last thing the world needs is another quite good song." That was David Hepworth, presumably before he decided he liked the Silver Seas.
And secondly, Sick Boy from Trainspotting: "No, it's not bad [Lou Reed's solo work] but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just... shite."
That's true of a lot of stuff.
I could only give one up arrow
I wanted to click 100 times. Very well put, Bob.
Water's First Solo Album
Sorry to say, but I just can't get on with The Final Cut. Gilmour once said it contained tracks which weren't good enough to be included on The Wall album and I have to agree. The one track I do like however is The Fletcher Memorial Home, but it's not really a Floyd album is it, more of a Water's solo album surely? It had the Pink Floyd name on the album, but I don't think Mason or Gilmour really consider it as a Floyd album these days.
I don't think Nick Mason does that much drumming on it and I think Gilmour just came into the studio to do the odd guitar part. Mind you, I don't think A Momentary Lapse Of Reason contains that much drumming from Mason either and Waters I believe, called it "A great work of forgery" or something along those lines. I'll get my coat..
And it's back to the pub conversation that never ends
Here I go again...
Which is a truer Floyd record? The Final Cut - Waters written, does have DG and NM on it, has coherent them and view. Or A Momentary Lapse... Numerous outside writers and musicians, no coherent theme.
Interestingly, while recording TFC Waters offered to buy it back off DG & NM and he'd finish it as a RW solo rexord, but they declined the offer. AMLOR began as a DG solo record but commercial concerns motives it into a Floyd record.
Squeeze
The fifth Velvet Underground album that got airbrushed out of history. It's really a Doug Yule solo album; neither Cale, Reed, Morrison or Tucker are present.
It's not a particularly bad album, but it certainly ain't a VU album.
I think the record buying public were in agreement with you...
I've got a feeling
that the chart would look pretty similar for all of their releases.
Probably
It's a bit of a myth that the VU never sold any records. But they were selling maybe 10,000, when the big acts of the day were selling hundreds of thousands.
But of the five albums, I'd imagine Squeeze sold the fewest.
The other releases have exactly the same...
chart positions ( -) apart from some stunning success in the USA - 212, 187, 154, those kinds of numbers.
I've just realized - I think I hate Lou Reed more than any other rock star. Made a couple of good records, but what an arsehole.
The second Haircut 100 album
was made without Nick Heyward, an idea that should have remained just an idea. Like Queen without Freddie.......oh right.
Blimey!
I didn't even know there was a second Haircut 100 album!
A second H100 album _was_ recorded with Nick Heyward...
... called "Blue Hat For A Blue Day", scheduled for release at the end of 1982, which had even gotten to the point of having the sleeve designed and adverts run in long-lead publications, but Nick left the band suddenly, and the album was pulled at the last minute (most of it ended up as Nick's solo album "North of a Miracle".) "Paint And Paint" was the label's attempt to see if a Nick-less H100 might have any legs... they didn't.
Whoever decided upon the lettering for that...
was an idiot.
Indeed
it suggests they had re-branded themselves as
Haircu Toneh Undred
which, if said in the voice of Andy Kershaw could be an undiscovered World Music act from Senegal...
Topical rock trivia...
Just seen that Blair Cunningham, Haircut 100 drummer, was behind the kit for the one-off Sharks reunion in 1995. Sharks of course featuring Chris Spedding who's in the latest issue of The Word.
Urban Renewal - The Songs Of Phil Collins
As if the originals weren't hideous enough, around 10 years ago someone at Warners thought it'd be a good idea to have them "re-interpreted" in an R&B/Hip Hop style.
The Wikipedia entry is beautiful -
"...the album itself was not a worldwide success, only charting in Germany at number three..."
Second Coming
All that time, and that's what you made?
Damn right
I'm still fuming about that, what, 17 years later. Ian Brown was banged up for the wrong thing. Thanks for wasting my life, guys.
Hand raised tentatively at the back of the hall ...
I like Second Coming. Good album.
(There - I said it, and I'm glad, I tell you! GLAD!)
It's ace
It's what I want Led Zeppelin to sound like. Much better singer too. And I love Zep.
Plus one...
It's the sound of The Stone Roses doing Led Zep better than Led Zep did Led Zep after 1973.
This is just ACE
HJHs - Hollywood Bowl
which almost dashed George Martin's reputation on the rocks.
The Doors - Other Voices. Makes "Squeeze" look like a good idea.
All of those silly American Stones albums that we're now stuck with forever thanks to the ABCO CDs.
The innumerable Pistols b**tl*gs that came out in the mid-80s with the connivance of McLaren - I bought one called The Best of the Sex Pistols Live which featured some tracks not even by the Sex Pistols.
I was twelve. For shame.
Tony Iommi and a thousand hairdressers
Every single Black Sabbath album without either Ozzy or Ronnie James Dio warbling are travesties. Prior to their seemingly endless reunions with either Ozzy or Dio (before he died), it was basically Tony Iommi and some bloke he met down at a heavy metal hairdressers. Despite the odd star name (such as Glenn Hughes, Cozy Powell and *shudder* Deep Purple's Ian Gillan) each album should have stayed on the floor...
Bev Bevan joined Sabbath briefly
I'm trying to imagine what Sabbath would be like with the Jeff Lynne drum sound
Brian Wilson in the Key of Disney
(Beany..look away now!)
I'm sure it will be very tastefully done, and yes there has always been a Disney element to his music (listen to SMiLE) but this a rotten and unimaginative idea, apparently part of his contractural obligations for signing with Disney's own Record Label. Hmmm.
I will not buy it and I hope to die at a ripe old age having never heard the wretched thing, oddly timed to coincide with the release of the SMiLE tapes. The best and worst of Wilson.
I did not support Brian Wilson through the 90s bad times only for him to do a cover version of Elton's mawkish 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight'. Brian, or at least 'his people' seem determined to wipe out every last shred of credibility the poor old boy ever had. I fully expect his next project to be a set of Lighthouse Family covers or Brian's "Songs in the Key of N-Dubz".
A blog I read points out that the cover looks like a Disney shaped apocalyptic nuclear accident. A fairly apt description of what it will sound like?
With that in mind
surely Brian Wilson must be the most abused, ripped off, put upon musician in modern music?
I can't think of anyone more financially screwed than he was in relation to his talent and influence!
I'd put Brian second on that score.....
......behind Gene Vincent.
Third behind
John Foggerty.
I think that Pete Ham
and Tommy Evans of Badfinger probably "deserve" this particularly tragic accolade.
Tom Waits Sings Disney
Reminded me about an album produced by Hal Wlllner of Disney cover versions - had it once on cassette -
Oh yes, I remember that.
It had Bonnie Raitt doing a rather nice "Baby Mine" and Los Lobos charging through "I Wanna Be Like You".
Almost all of those tribute albums...
... are worthless. There's a good Leonard Cohen one called I'm You're Fan, with REM, Nick Cave, John Cale, The Pixies and quite a few cut above acts, but aside from that I'm struggling to think of one worth owning.
Duran Duran's Decade is surely a serious candidate for "should never have been released?" Simon Le Bon doing 911 Is A Joke goes beyond tragic.
Tribute Albums
Agreed most are crap but another exception to the rule is Por Vida a tribute to the work of Aleajandro Escovedo.
Contributions from the likes of Ian Hunter, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams and the Jayhawks this was recorded a few years ago to help Escovedo pay his medical bills when he was seriously ill with Hepatitis C and brought his work to a much larger audience.Well worth investigation.
Duran Duran's "Decade" is their first singles compilation...
... their appalling covers album you're thinking of is called "Thank You", though "Thanks For Nothing" might be a more appropriate title...
Tribute albums
I implore you to listen to "johnny boy would have loved this" the songs of John Martyn done by others.....it's wonderful
I stand corrected.
...said the man in the orthopaedic shoe...
...I'll get me coat.
Taxi!
Echo and the Bunnymen - Reverberation
Without Mac and with, um, Noel Burke on vocals. Truly awful.
And I bought it. God what WAS I thinking?
Still, the Gone, Gone, Gone song was kinda ok in a rubbish sort of way.
Not as bad as all that, really
IF you put aside the fact that it's supposed to be the Bunnies, it's a fairly tuneful if average disc of it's type. Two or three songs that are quite pleasant in a mix, but over an album the singing does grate somewhat. 'Enlighten Me' has a cool Indian vibe to it.
I think generally low expectations
for "Reverberation" actually saved ETBM from some of the approbrium they rightly received for album no.5, which is a coke-drenched label-pleasing stinker without parallel.
Nothing good.........
......especially in the orbit of popular music, has ever come out of the phrase 'coke-drenched'.
Station To Station?
Low? Heroes? Lodger?
The albums of Chic?
Not a large list, but a pretty good one.
Rumours
Be Here Now?
Arf
Rumours is amazing.
That is all.
And Tusk
TUSK! etc
Bunnymen doing "Ocean Rain" in Glasgow last week
Were any of the Massive at this?
An absolute train smash of a gig apparently, and I'd like to hear more about it!
I wasn't there
I saw them a couple of years ago before they had gone nostalgia-tastic and they were tremendous.
I take it you've read this re: Glasgow
http://thequietus.com/articles/07092-echo-and-the-bunnymen-drunk-live
Thanks Doc
I hadn't read that. Sounds like it was a shocker, with Mac out of his box due to whatever the "bad news" was.
Very sad all round.
That's shocking
Bono would never have done that - someone should tell IanMcC that.
Does the entire recorded works of Westlife count?
More crimes against humanity than the list of accusations at Nuremburg.
Consider Godwin's Law truly invoked.
Lou Reed / Metallica
Worse than it sounds, if that's possible.
Peter Parton
Heard this on 6 music last night, it's really bad. On the subject of collaborations, heard Peter Gabriel interviewed on 6 music yesterday and he remarked that Dolly Parton and not Kate Bush, was his original choice of female singer for his song, Don't Give Up.
Jesus
that's awful, only lasted 2 minutes into it. Lou Reed is useless. How could anyone sit through a playback of that and then sanction it's release. Come back SuperHeavy, all is forgiven.*
*No, it isn't.
Haha
No, it really isn't, is it?
That Metallica/Lou Reed thing is unbelievably shit, though. I might even go so far as to say it's worse than SuperHeavy.
it's
neck and neck
Beatles Anthologies
Don't get me wrong, I was as happy as anyone to get the Fab's barrel scrapings, but the packaging and marketing was all wrong in my book! These weren't 'Anthologies', which implies a collection of the best work of an artist, and confused the casual buyer who thought they were getting the real stuff. However, hats off for not burying these amongst already released tracks and making them 'standalone' though....as well as reasonably priced at the time.
But don't me started on Let It Be ...Naked. Who thought of that title??