Entertainment For Lively Minds
What *were* you thinking?
To while away the odd half hour, my son, my mate Simon and myself have recently been issuing each other the odd 'challenge' to list certain things - top ten albums, favourite 20 songs and the like.
The last challenge, flung down by Simon, was to name ten albums from our collections that we can't believe we bought - the 'what possessed me?' albums that we've never been able to get to grips with since the day we handed over the readies - or really understand what caused us to hand over the readies in the first place.
Believe me, listing (and justifying) ten such albums was a lot harder than I thought it would be - much harder than listing your favourites.
Solely to avoid a long cut 'n' paste, and at the risk of incurring Fraser's wrath, my list is here if you are interested.
But what I'm interested in are the deep secrets the Massive have lurking in their record collections - what did you buy and then think "why?"
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Beefheart
You're right on the money about there, I also fell for the bullshit surrounding this record and bought it. It's toilet of the highest order.
"... a sprawling mess of
"... a sprawling mess of discordant, arrhythmic nonsense .." - what's not to like?
The FPO's out this evening, might stick TMR on the turntable & follow it up with some more easy listening, like "Tago Mago" by Can.
One man's meat etc.
Wu Tang Forever springs to mind with me.
Features a song called Dog Sh*t and goes on forever. Truly I fell for the hype.
I don't have it anymore but I do recall buying Simple Minds Live In The City Of Light on the day it came out. Even my fifteen year old self was horrified after about a week...
That Simple Minds album proves...
that you can't
a
Dust
a croissant?
That really made me laugh...
in fact it made me LOL. OMG!
Thanks.
Cider
a cumberland sausage?
The Safety Dance
By Men Without Hats.
Men without fucking talent, more like.
I realised after about 3 plays that the £1.05 would have been better spent on fags. I didn't smoke.
The Pro's and Cons of Hitchiking by Roger Waters
Surprisingly, for me, I didn't buy it for the cover which featured a young lady sans kit.
I wasn't sure why I'd done it though, even at that moment. I remember sitting on the bus home looking at it thinking 'I'm going to fucking hate this'
I was right. I can't explain it.
Once is an error
but when you have two or three albums by the same artist, the question changes to: What *were* you thinking? And why didn't you f*****g learn first time?
From my Metal Period:
3 x King Diamond Albums
2 x Kreator
2 x Celtic Frost
2 x Sacred Reich
The List goes on (sadly)
only 2 Kreator albums?
I've got 4!
I also own Reverend and the Makers - The State of Things
er, well they are local...
Sting
10 Sumoners Tales. Dreadful.
Isn't that the one
with Fields of Gold on it? Probably his best solo song, imho. Still a twunt otherwise...
Beefheart here too
also a Steely Dan compilation (but that's just me).
LA Woman by the Doors - hated it.
A Wu Tang Album - I forget which one though, don't remember a track called dogshit tho.
Way to Blue - Nick Drake isn't for me.
Incidentally, I love Paul's number 1 choice - it's a great album.
Here's a few, but there must be more!
Rick Wakeman - Rhapsodies - even had trouble palming this stinker off in a charity shop!
Peter Hamill - Black Box
Ry Cooder - My Name is Buddy - Ry's voice is shot and it isn't a patch on his other stuff.
Oh, I can work up a top ten, no problem...
Here are ten records I bought, despite a suspicion that they'd be dog tod. I wanted them to be good. They weren't.
Devandra Banhart - Cripple Crow. Look, it's just not any good. Fey, irritating, whimsical bollocks.
Engineers - Engineers. A epically uninteresting snoozefest.
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes. Sounds nice on the surface. Is in fact deeply uninspired. A shame. That'll teach me to believe the hype.
Gogol Bordello: Gypsy Punks. They looked and sounded ace on Jools. They were complete arse grapes on record.
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest. Slappable.
The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia. I SO wanted this to be good. I love Greg Dulli, I love Mark Lanegan. This just sounds dated and half-hearted. If it sounds too good to be true, it's likely not to sound good. See also Them Crooked Vultures.
Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime. Again, I wanted to love this record. I just don't. It gets on my tits. I should have known it would.
The Polyphonic Spree - The Beginning Stages Of... Again, on paper, a good idea. In practice, shit. If they could have avoided the meandering and tightened up the hooks, it had potential. Compare the album and single versions of "Soldier Girl". The latter is infinitely superior for being tighter and pacier.
R.E.M. - Accelerate. I knew it. I bloody knew it. I loved this band, and then Reveal and Around The Sun slithered their grey, insulting way out of the studio. I vowed never to buy a new R.E.M. record, and then people started talking about a return to form. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND COULD CALL THIS A RETURN TO FORM? R.E.M.'s good form was stratospherically, majestically, gibberingly good. Accelerate sounds like The Seahorses on their best day. Pretty fucking uninspired, in other words.
The Verve - Urban Hymns. Just FUCK OFF, Ashcroft. Two decent tunes do not a good album make. The lyrics are fist-bitingly godawful.
There are many more, but these are big offenders. What, indeed, was I thinking?
I am not worthy
Idiotbear - I bow down to your vitriol and loathing. You do it so much better than I did.
Top dissing big man.
Oh, and 'dog tod'. I will use that and claim it as my own.
Oh, the same to you!
Trout Mask Replica would've been close to the top of my list too, but you already said everything that needed saying on that one.
I managed to bypass Razorlight's sophomore effort, and I say "effort" in the very loosest sense. The first one was bloody annoying, and Borrell's Mir-sized ego meant I was never going within pissing distance of the second. What an absolute cockspanner that man is.
ha ha
spot on. The Minutemen album has its moments mind.
Managed to avoid a few on this list that I could easily have bought thanks to the joy of internet try before you buy (Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear in particular)
It's getting to the point where
I recognise an Idiotbear post before I get to the byline. Great stuff, as ever.
My name is gunsofbrixton
and I once downloaded a Nickleback album. God it was shite, deleted it soon after.
Really
Every single track?
Dyan and the Dead...
Well, there was 75p from the clearance bin in Debenhams record department (that dates it!) wasted.
No, no
I guess it grates with the purists but if you take it for what it is etc. OK, I know I'm fighting a losing battle here.
One parting shot, to my ears the version of All Along the Watchtower is THE definitive one, Bobness vocals, chugging rhythm section and playful Garcia guitar over the top. Wonderful!
Give it one more go.
Ah... if only I was a purist...
Not a huge Bob fan and in fact (ignoring the Wilburys), that's the only Bob album I've shelled out money for, plus a couple or three individual track downloads. I've always maintained that his Bobness is a singer best listened to in cover version form (vis the Fairports, the Byrds et al).
Nope, just thought that the album was a bit (lot) flabby and rubbish!
Oh, and it's the only Dead album I own as well!
Surely the cover was a clue:
That is magnificent
I would frame that
Empire of the Sun
Sometimes I just do not have a fucking clue what comes over me.
The same goes for Rufus Wainwright. My one dabble with metrosexuality began and ended with "Want One".
Snow Patrol!
Yes I bought Empire of the Sun too, much to my bafflement upon actually listening to it the next day. Blame iTunes. The record sounds great in 30 second bites, but I don't think i've made it to the end of that one.
'Want One' was Ok in that it has some memorable tunes and some decent changes in it, 'Want Two' went to Oxfam.
I've been fairly savvy with most of my purchases and usually the records I don't care for after a few plays I know will creep up on me. But sometimes you can tell a record is a stinker right away.
There is a Razorlight CD in my collection but someone gave me that,
and I did once buy a Snow Patrol CD. I had seen them in a club when they were signed to Jeepster and recall thinking they were good. I lasted two tracks of 'Final Straw' and as soon as that horrid breathy vocal started up with all those Bono-esque ticks I realised I'd made an error and gave the CD away to someone....the person who gave me the Razorlight CD! Touche!
Empire of the Sun
took 80s revivalism to its logical conclusion and adopted Duran Duran's tactic of dressing up a single very short memorable hook in a load of overblown gubbins and thinking that this would blind people to the fact there was no actual song around it.
Dakota Suite
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
some stinkers man
allman brothers ..just shit, really, shit.
luke haines is dead... neither the master of wit nor repartie... just a bit smart arse
clap your hands say yeah ..... no i fuckin won't thanks
U2 Joshua Tree.... the most sincere incinserity I've ever heard...
showaddywaddy - greatest hits... they never got better than the moon of love and this collection proves that.
more to follow
Hip-hop
I Keep trying
But to be honest I have never really heard a hip-hop/rap album that actually warranted purchasing the whole thing - but i have a fair few
Dont know why I keep trying - last attempt KidCudi - kind of like some tracks but don't really feel motivated to listen to the whole thing - and so it sits, dusty, with all the others over the last 20 years
Six words:
A Tribe Called Quest 'Midnight Marauders'.
Try that and come back to me and say you still think hip hop albums don't work.
rufus's WANT ONE is easily in my Top 10
albums of all time list.
i'm amazed anyone could listen to 'pretty things' for example and thing 'christ WHAT was i thinking?!'. it just doesn't seem to be a 'what was i thinking' sort of album.
horses for courses i guess.
Fleet Foxes...
...Brian Wilson without the genius or tunes. Meandering drivel.
Soho...The one with Hippy Chick on it.
Girls Aloud 'Out of Control'..Well, some of you liked it. I didn't
Bowie's 'Hours'. This wasn't, surprisingly, his "best album since 'Hunky Dory'"
Anything by Tori Amos after 'To Venus and Back' - Sorry, Tori, I have a deep love for your first four LPs, but after that...
...but the winner is...
Alanis Morisette 'Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie" - Jesus, man, the clue's in the title. Why did I buy this!??!?
Neil Young's Landing on Water
and then sinking straight to the bottom which it shall remain.
Hawksley Workman ( who ?, I thought the name was curious )
The Delicious Wolves, crap title, crap album
and so many many more
I saw Hawksley Workman
supporting the Tindersticks at Somerset House. Rubbish sub-Jeff Buckley stage school posing about. The one bonus was that I therefore recognised the signs when Rufus Wainwright came to the fore and steered well clear.
Too Many to Mention
Though many have been mentioned above.
A friend of mine had his music collection stolen in a burglary - he said that in the long run, they'd done him a big favour, allowing him to start again with a clean slate.
I forgot
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Although I do know what I was thinking:
They had the name.
They had the look.
They had the glowing reviews that implied a rock 'n' roll monster.
They had a debut album full of dreary, anaemic rehashes of Can the Can.
Believing the hype
1. Polyphonic Spree
2. Fleet Foxes
3. The Streets A Grand Don't Come For Free
Non-hype
Haysi Fantayzee/Battle Hymns For Children Singing. I've still got it. I really like John Wayne Is Big Leggy (and, Shiny Shiny *blushes*) but an album was a step too far.
Does anyone like Fleet Foxes then?
I'm glad there's plenty of sceptics around.
To be fair to the Polyphonic Spree, they were bloody great live, it's just the record that was a let down.
And The Streets' Original Pirate Material was a corker and did exactly what was claimed for it didn't bother buying any of the follo ups though.
Steve Turner
of this parish and myself had the misfortune to go and see the Fleet Foxes last year and were substantially underwhelmed. Total charisma bypass across the whole band.
A bit worried that he and I are off th see Grizzly Bear tonight, based on the panning they got above. Hopefully they will rise above such criticism.
Glad it's not just me
I was led to believe it was gorgeous, harmonic folk and being a folkie I thought I was bound to love it. It was more like Marmalade in their Rainbow period.
Only Marmalade did it a whole lot better.
superb video
- a beautifully artistic represenation of the song's central themes and motifs.
To wit - a lady of not insubstantial charms ("dolly bird" q.v, "70s" q.v) in a Wonder Woman bikini and a multi-hued flag frightening some cows while the band try not to laugh and/or freeze theirs tits off in a sun-forsaken meadow.
Quite made my day 5-C
On the other hand
I think A Grand Dont Come For Free is pretty good, not as good as OPM but good nonetheless.
"Torment" by Zoogz Rift (and
"Torment" by Zoogz Rift (and His Amazing Shitheads)
Fat, misanthropic madman on SSt records - sub-Beefheart without an ounce of wit, charm or style. Repulsive lyrics. Not even the fading twilight shadow of a tune. The album title was all too apt.
Why? To this day, I have no idea whatsoever. I'm not sure I even understood then.
There were quite a few
NME "payola-mendations" I snapped up in the 1990's which were so woeful that I keep expecting them to show up on my CRB check.
I'm thinking of YOU, Power of Dreams, The High, Terris, etc etc etc.
Ha. Terris.
I'll see your peroxide-twat-fronted Welsh PR exercise and raise you a no-mark herd of Brummie arsebiscuits named The Twang. Good job on both, NME!
Power of Dreams!
Falls in to the "believed the album review" category. Thanks Q magazine! I think I managed two plays. Ironically, the, ahem, standout track was called"The Jokes On Me". Well, you can't say they didn't warn me..........
And more...
...Ultrasound anyone?
Stay Young
is a great song and that album has yet to be fully appreciated..give it another 5 years...
Superb album
Aire And Calder, Floodlit World... I still play it.
The High! Box Set Go.
Yes...bought the record for my brother's birthday. He takes it back to HMV Manchester:
"What's wrong with it"
"I want my money back.It's shite"
Assitant sighs and scratches record thens hands my brother £7 of gift tokens.
"Yep, it is isn't it?" he says, tossing it into the returns bin
Don't believe the hype.
Too many purchased because of reviews in the broadsheets. And they sounded obscure so I could go on about them to mates.
Neutral Milk Hotel. Arnold. The Young Fresh Fellows. Arab Strap. Polyphonic Spree. And probably lots more if I could be arsed to go look. I won't bother with telling you about them in detail. Take it from me that they're all arse.
No argument...
... except Neutral Milk Hotel. "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" is one of my favourite records.
Arab Strap were great
The first two albums could be a bit hard going, granted ( though one of the songs got used on a Guinness ad so not that hard). The later stuff is just fab though as are the respective solo careers.
You think those are bad?
damm, cant get picture to work
Why Oh Why Oh Why?
Spooky Tooth : Ceremony.
By the cringe, it's dreary.
I thought it was going to be some kind of breakthrough.
Actually..
I've always liked that one
Rattle and Hum
It sure does.Threw it for the dog to fetch,he refused.
Danseparc
By the schizophrenic M+M / Martha and the Muffins.
I loved Metro Music. I liked a couple of their later dance tracks but Danseparc - insipid elevator music that the BBC would reject for the background to a Grandstand video of highlights from a European figure skating chamionships.
I am almost too embarrassed to say
But the first Katie Melua album. I called the samaritans but they were too shocked so I am spilling the beans on here.
Also Rufus Wainwright - his dad and his sister are talented to buggery but he is obviously the runt of the litter.
And being Topical the last Joanna Newsom album - what a pile of manure. She isn't a Marmite artist - Marmite surely isn't that bad.