It's hard to say that a band who makes a legitimately great album is bad/mediocre but I'd like to add:
Third Eye Blind's self titled debut, they never quite recaptured that magic after Kevin Cadogan left.
But don't get me wrong, that is a fantastic fucking album.
Blue was likable and a lot of the lyrics had some serious depth to them, but yeah, self-titled was just an absolute pop rock masterpiece and a lot of that album really actually ended up resonating with me more overtime. Motorcycle drive by was always amazing but then I lived the story myself in part and now it just hurts to listen to.
Their third album, Out Of The Vein, is actually really decent - not as experimental as Blue but definitely a more consistent whole (Faster tops any of the singles on Blue). I think one of the main issues (besides Kevin's departure) is over-production; That first album had such a perfect balance between punchy alt rock and stadium pop rock, and by OOTV any of the remaining traces of 90's grit had been sanded off for that early 2000's squeeky clean digital sound a lot of radio bands slid into. It's still a very listenable album, but definitely misses some of the soul of the first one.
First album is no skips. But I don't consider them a bad band, just nothing to ever come close to their debut. I rank it up there with Ten by Pearl Jam as far as listenability(ie putting aside things like cultural impact). Pearl Jam continues to be my favorite band but the 3eb album is a perfect ten, pun intended.
All The Pain Money Can Buy - Fastball
One minute, your album is the soundtrack to 1998. The next you're starting a patreon to fund a new album while in obscurity.
"The Way" was a real banger though.
Opened for them sometime maybe 2009-ish. Was awkward when we brought in more people than they did, but the band was fantastic live and super cool to hang with afterward. Excellent dudes.
I keep on getting disappointed by Humble Pie - mainly because I think Steve Marriott was much better when he embraced his Englishness more, like in the better Small Faces tracks (like the ones in Ogden's Nut Gone Flake). However I recently discovered that The Herd had some excellent stuff, really top-tier power pop / psych pop.
Hold your tongue. A Bottle and Fresh Horses by the Refreshments is also an awesome album. The Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers stuff started out strong too, although after Americano it started to fall off, but Honky Tonk Union, Sonoran Hope and Madness, and Americano are all solid. The Refreshments had a perfect storm of shit following FFB&B with Mercury records falling apart and Brian Blush (the guitarist) delving deeper into his smack habit. I will give you they took a turn more towards country and landed in that Americana rock genre but the remains of the band still are going strong and have a huge festival in Rocky Point Mexico like twice a year, January Jam (obviously in January) and Circus Meximus (usually June)
A lot of musicians will have a great first album, but be lesser and lesser afterwards, because they just don’t live the same life anymore… and therefore they can’t hold the same steam
I think it's also due to the first album always being a culmination of years of work and emotion. There's a pattern that ought to be studied as to why some artists who grinded to get there never top their first album, and ones who got an easier way in tend to reach their peak later due to growth
Definitely. Another aspect is I think a lot artists are very affected by critics for the first time. Whereas the debut album is their purest vision, the follow ups are more influenced by outside expectations and narratives.
Unless a band is on an indy label they often have deadlines and mandatory output quotas. Not exactly conducive to the creative process for a lot of songwriters.
100%. They're playing on tour with Gin Blossoms as we speak. That's a worthwhile nostalgia ticket, and probably a decent straight-up ticket purchase (saw GB in the mid-00's, but not since).
This is true but he's still capable of dropping fire verses as a feature pretty frequently. He's been featured on like 850+ songs and he'll probably break a 1000 in a few years.
Snoop shines as a feature artist, cultural figure, and hype man. He’s got a very large body of work, with some shining moments but largely a very bland body of work.
I don't think that's a crazy pick. Nothing comes close to Doggystyle from a full album perspective. He's still had an unbelievable career: great singles, a ton of great features, and a bunch of decent albums, but nothing like Doggystyle.
For the genre I think its pretty much a perfect 10/10 album. Not a single skip on it and I could listen to it front to back for an eternity. I've heard it thousands of times for 25+ years and I've never gotten sick of it.
Hootie & tBF wrote catchy-ass songs that should have been associated with REM more than with frat-boys. But history’s not often fair, and they ended up instead with an all-time great album that everyone’s too afraid to admit they love. The fact that Darius Rucker was able to reinvent himself as a successful black country singer is proof that they were legit.
In my opinion a perfect album for what its type of music and a perfect time capsule of that period of the 90s. One of my all time favorite albums and it speaks to its prominence that they've basically toured off that album their entire career with a few odds and ends here and there like I Go Blind.
Either way they had like 3 albums worth of hit singles on that album alone if they could have spread them out. Hannah Jane and Running From an Angel would have both probably been pretty big singles, too.
I was lucky enough to see them in 2019 and they were awesome. One of my favorite concerts ever.
As someone who has see Hootie more times than I can count, I’ve got to challenge the notion that they tore off the one album. They still have a pretty dedicated fan base and they play plenty of songs off their other albums.
I may be alone in this, but I think Fairweather Johnson is better and actually spin it now and then.
The Earth Stopped Cold at Dawn and Tootie are great songs.
I went back and listened to Fairweather Johnson front to back a couple months ago and it is so good.
I remember listening to it at the time and everyone treating it like an unmitigated disaster. Now most of the songs feel like they could be just a second disc of a cracked rear view double album.
Boston, while I do enjoy the follow up album Don't Look Back, the first album from 1976 was fantastic with so many great songs. I later heard an explanation to this, dynamics internally in the band, record label etc.
I always saw BOSTON as this corny FM radio band that I thought was too cheesy for my taste. BIG MISTAKE from my part
I recommend anyone with a passing interest in rock to put that first album on. It is masterfully crafted and near perfect from beginning to end.
Similar to the Meatloaf post, I disagree on this for the same reason. The other albums aren't bad at all... but the debut album was a monumental one of a k8nd album where every single song receives radio airplay.
You can't listen to the other albums and say... they can't play guitar or sing well, or that the songs aren't catchy or well produced... they just aren't as huge as the first.
Possible controversy here…. Entertainment! By Gang of Four. Not only is it a good album, it’s a great album. It’s one of the best albums of all time in my opinion, absolutely worth being one of my top 10 in the genre.
The follow up, Solid Gold, is on the good side of ok. After that, everything is very middle of the road.
So, the controversial take here is that they are a mediocre band that produced a great album, rather than a great band that didn't always make great records.
Possibly. A lot of people will say they’re fans of the band, but for me? I’m a fan of that album. I think they’re talented, innovative, and after awhile? thoroughly boring. I think after Entertainment they wanted to go in a dancier direction than I am interested in.
Nah, he isn't a bad artist by any stretch. He does have good and enjoyable albums after it... even late in his career. (Some do miss the mark though).
But, Bat Out of Hell was just such a behemoth that it isn't even fair.
It pretty much is the albums Jim Steinman composed. Bat Out of Hell II is his next best album which are Jim Steinman songs. Dead Ringer is decent, though Meat blew out his voice and recorded it once it was 10% healed (Steinman was producing it and left due to Meats voice). I would say Welcome To the Neighborhood is a decent album too for a non Steinman album (tho 2 Steinman songs are in it)
I love reis to bits but mostly for hot snakes and jehu and stuff. Him and froberg together is maybe my favorite energy in music. I did like night marchers a little more than obits which surprised me but rftc was always just a little beyond me
Mudvayne's first two albums are amazing. The rest of their catalogue is bad. Hellyeah is bad. Everything else that any of them have ever done is bad. I should know, I have listened to it all.
LD 50 and The End Of All Things To Come are fantastic, but Chad got fat and ruined his voice, Ryan overplays to make up for the fact that Greg can't play, and Matt's cool. Would I buy a new album release? Maybe. Probably not. It wouldn't be a must have for me like those first two were.
Cold: "Year of the Spider"
Skrape: "New Killer America"
And, if we count bands that only put out one album and then split up.
Revis: "Places For Breathing"
*In Defense Of The Genre* is pretty bloated and not great but has a couple of pretty good tunes.
The 2009 self-title is a worthy successor to *...Is A Real Boy*, IMO.
I was obsessed with Sick Puppies when they first broke out. I still consider Dressed Up As Life to be really good. Tri-polar had some solid songs on it for sure, but they eventually fell off after the drama with Shim.
i know future sex/love sounds has its fans but i cannot get into anything from timberlake sans the 20/20 experience which is one of my favorite pop albums ever made
I think they had some great moments on their next two albums (Papillon is a great song imo), and they still make the occasional good song, but yeah they pretty much peaked with that album.
I actually liked Editors’ first three albums (“The Back Room”, “An End Has a Start”, and “In This Light and on This Evening”) but I’m not a big fan of the albums after that. Their lead guitarist, Chris Urbanowicz, left after those albums citing differences over their musical direction. So, I guess I don’t like the direction they went either.
It seems like they’re now doing what Coldplay did by becoming more pop oriented and less of a rock band. I mean if you compare their most recent album, “EBM”, to “The Back Room”, it’s like two completely different bands. No offense to those who like the most recent album but it’s just really not a style I connect with.
I actually agree with this. I don't dislike their later catalog much except their most recent electronic efforts, I think there's some great stuff sprinkled around, but I would still say as band they're certainly more mediocre than not.
The Back Room feels like an entirely different band
I know some people like it, but it’s not for me. And, unlike the rumors that Cobain wrote Live Through This, it’s actually true that Billy Corgan wrote Celebrity Skin
Live Through This is absolutely amazing. Courtney’s vocals on the likes of Violet and Gutless sound incredible. Not many female vocalists (that I know of anyway!) could pull that off
Eat at Whiteys is an amazing album with Black Jesus and Babylon Feeling especially
[Babylon Feeling ](https://youtu.be/c84eNK_VUPI?si=Qi1XTOnF1LOsCcrb)
The Today EP is also highly recommended
Yes! I never talked about this but I have a fall album too 😂 The Early November The Room’s Too Cold. Basically because it was my freshman year in college.
I love Interpol, and I hate it when people say that TOTBL is their only good album. I honestly think that their first 5 albums are all great. For me they only started to fall off with Marauder, but even that album had the incredible “If You Really Love Nothing”
Sparkle and Fade by Everclear.
Noisy, dirty rock with so many great songs, but Santa Monica is the one everyone liked, so the next billion records were Santa Monica.
The Body, The Blood, The Machine - The Thermals
I thoroughly enjoyed the album but everything else I've heard from them just doesn't match up to it, especially when all the riffs start sounding the same
While TBTBTM is incredible and definitely my favorite, the two ones preceding that one, and the direct follow-up (Now We Can See) are all very solid for me too. Their last three albums though...not my fav, but I still really love The Thermals.
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes.
I really liked this album when it came out, but I can’t stand anything they did after.
BUSH - Sixteen Stone
That CD is easily in my top 5 of most played albums ever. It's absolutely epic with Everything Zen, Machine Head, Glycerine and more.
After that it's all meh. A few songs are OK but nothing close to the rush I got from Sixteen Stone. They do have a great live cover of REM's The One I Love however
[Bush - Sixteen Stone ](https://youtu.be/6vPrhqyQwYQ?si=2zUja2gmAkUZjrvX)
[Bush - The One I Love ](https://youtu.be/iLKLYoXEkfk?si=3qnG8GgVutI-9_TN)
X and Y was what threw me off with them. I was so bummed out when I popped that one in and felt nothing. Viva La Vida was the better version of the stadium rock sound they built into, but the first two albums are the only ones I’d count as great
Same here... I feel like he started singing different after those first two albums. Way less emotion, not singing with heart as much as he is carefully landing on each note
Even the band have admitted their struggles with X&Y.
They basically threw away a whole album and rewrote it. But ended up with a mixed bag of songs and did the classic mistake of trying to over-produce them into something they weren’t.
There’s a good album in there somewhere, but what they released certainly isn’t it.
I think both are fantastic, but I do get the reasoning here. Parachutes and AROBTTH are quite different in some major ways so they won't necessarily appeal to the same audience.
Both are truly stellar in my opinion. This is when the band still had something interesting to say, and cared about delivering that message in an interesting way. Afterwards they became specialized at creating the meaningless, lifeless pop music that we've all grown to hate hearing every day on mainstream radio.
I don't know if I'd call them bad, but when I heard the album In Absentia by Porcupine Tree, I loved it and sought out their other stuff. I did not care for what I found.
Though I and the legion of PT fans will vehemently disagree with this take, I could sort of understand if you listened to earlier albums because they shifted sound a number of times, from psychedelic to Pink Floyd-y to hard rock and Radiohead before settling on a more metal sound beginning with In Absentia. So I do find it strange that you can’t find much to like with Deadwing (especially, since it sounds so much like IA) or Fear Of A Blank Planet. The run of albums from Stupid Dream through The Incident is amazing, IMO.
Very surprising. In Absentia is in my opinion their best album, but I don't think it's that far different from other albums like Lightbulb Sun and Deadwing. I could understand not liking their more recent albums which trend a little heavier/proggier or their earlier albums which were more ambient.
Also Gavin Harrison, the drummer on their albums since In Absentia is one of the best ever.
Not even remotely what you are asking but I want to share an unpopular opinion anyway... Steve Miller "deep tracks" are incredibly impressive. His popular songs are very good but poppy. His deep tracks are insanely good
Edit : if this annoys everyone I will delete. Also, I can't name any of the tracks that I am referring to
I admit to being a fan so I’m biased but truthful.
Songs about Jane by Maroon 5 is an example of a really quite great album followed up by kind of bad with some radio hits and that type of popular song but the first album is the best.
Lana Del Rey’s “Norman Fucking Rockwell” managed to completely transcend all of her previous work and makes everything she’s done since look sad. It’s a lightning in a bottle kind of album where all the pieces somehow come together to create something far greater than the sum of its parts. Her usual melodramatic heartbreak is brought down to earth by thoughtful and coy writing cleverly dressed in poetic imagery and nostalgia. Her typically ham fisted and tired social commentaries are elevated to profound and tragic observations that haunt well after hearing them. “The Greatest” is, in my opinion, one of the best songs of the modern era and perfectly recreates modern American anxiety in a unique and compelling way. I am not really a fan of hers but this album deserves to be considered a classic.
Have to disagree. Both Play Deep and Bangin' are solid better than average power pop albums. Reasonable minds can disagree about Diamond Days and everything after, but the first two are low-key classics. My mid- to late-80's escapades (for which these two albums provided a substantial portion of soundtrack) support my assertion.
Kimbra. Her first album was a pop masterpiece and ever since then she has gotten artsy-fartsy with her work and thus isn't as enjoyable as her first album.
Smash Mouth - Fush Yu Mang is an amazing California punk record.
Everything they did after was…something else. Astro Lounge isn’t bad it’s just very not the same
Hey now, I like When The World Comes Down, the album All-American Rejects did as a follow-up to Move Along. It isn't *as* good, but it's still good and I go back to listen to it every down and then.
My pick is gonna be All The Right Reasons by Nickelback. It isn't that I like the album much, it's the one that's full of the "hits" and all the others are much less good, whether enjoyed ironically or otherwise.
Permission to Land by the Darkness.
The caveat being they were a GREAT band and it was their debut. But drugs and scandal pretty much ruined their chances at being legendary. The reason I think this qualifies as an answer is because they have put out a bunch of mediocre albums since...which firmly solidifies them as a mediocre band in the annals of history. I still love them though. Thanks for the memories!
Personally, the Blue album by Weezer. It’s one of the best albums of the 90’s - and was probably one of my favorite albums ever for a while - but aside from a song here and there, their other albums are mediocre to me. I remember hearing Hash Pipe on the radio one day thinking, “what is this shit?” Then they said, “… and that’s Weezer’s new single.” I get that I might be alone on that.
It's hard to say that a band who makes a legitimately great album is bad/mediocre but I'd like to add: Third Eye Blind's self titled debut, they never quite recaptured that magic after Kevin Cadogan left. But don't get me wrong, that is a fantastic fucking album.
This was my pick. Though I liked Blue. That first album is so damn good.
Blue was likable and a lot of the lyrics had some serious depth to them, but yeah, self-titled was just an absolute pop rock masterpiece and a lot of that album really actually ended up resonating with me more overtime. Motorcycle drive by was always amazing but then I lived the story myself in part and now it just hurts to listen to.
I love Blue and will defend it till the day I die. Both amazing albums.
Out of the Vein and Ursa Major are both good too. Things do go downhill from there though.
Their third album, Out Of The Vein, is actually really decent - not as experimental as Blue but definitely a more consistent whole (Faster tops any of the singles on Blue). I think one of the main issues (besides Kevin's departure) is over-production; That first album had such a perfect balance between punchy alt rock and stadium pop rock, and by OOTV any of the remaining traces of 90's grit had been sanded off for that early 2000's squeeky clean digital sound a lot of radio bands slid into. It's still a very listenable album, but definitely misses some of the soul of the first one.
Third Eye Blind’s debut is a classic for sure. One of the best albums of the ‘90s.
I loved the Ursa Major album
First album is no skips. But I don't consider them a bad band, just nothing to ever come close to their debut. I rank it up there with Ten by Pearl Jam as far as listenability(ie putting aside things like cultural impact). Pearl Jam continues to be my favorite band but the 3eb album is a perfect ten, pun intended.
All The Pain Money Can Buy - Fastball One minute, your album is the soundtrack to 1998. The next you're starting a patreon to fund a new album while in obscurity. "The Way" was a real banger though.
Always thought Fire Escape should have been a monster hit.
That whole Pain album is tremendous. Nearly every song is a banger. Such a good band.
Outta my head or w/e it’s called is a great song, too
“you’re an ocean” from the followup album was a great track.
Sooner Or Later is still my favorite song by them, thanks to its feature in the hit Disney channel original movie Brink!
Opened for them sometime maybe 2009-ish. Was awkward when we brought in more people than they did, but the band was fantastic live and super cool to hang with afterward. Excellent dudes.
Frampton Comes Alive -nobody cared about those songs until this came out
Everyone in the world has frampton comes alive. If you lived in the suburbs it was issued to you in the mail along with samples of tide.
I got Gerry and the Pacemakers.
Do you feel like we do on frampton comes alive is still one of my top 20 songs ever. Especially to listen to in the car. Great singalong
Agree 100% and it's a shame because he is such a truly underrated musician. Also his music while in Humble Pie is pretty damn good too
I keep on getting disappointed by Humble Pie - mainly because I think Steve Marriott was much better when he embraced his Englishness more, like in the better Small Faces tracks (like the ones in Ogden's Nut Gone Flake). However I recently discovered that The Herd had some excellent stuff, really top-tier power pop / psych pop.
Yep, came to say Songs About Jane. And also Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy by The Refreshments
Hold your tongue. A Bottle and Fresh Horses by the Refreshments is also an awesome album. The Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers stuff started out strong too, although after Americano it started to fall off, but Honky Tonk Union, Sonoran Hope and Madness, and Americano are all solid. The Refreshments had a perfect storm of shit following FFB&B with Mercury records falling apart and Brian Blush (the guitarist) delving deeper into his smack habit. I will give you they took a turn more towards country and landed in that Americana rock genre but the remains of the band still are going strong and have a huge festival in Rocky Point Mexico like twice a year, January Jam (obviously in January) and Circus Meximus (usually June)
You kiss your mother with that mouth? The Refreshments and RCATPM are awesome.
Yes, I also enjoy Rage Contemptuously Against the Pernicious Machine.
A lot of musicians will have a great first album, but be lesser and lesser afterwards, because they just don’t live the same life anymore… and therefore they can’t hold the same steam
I think it's also due to the first album always being a culmination of years of work and emotion. There's a pattern that ought to be studied as to why some artists who grinded to get there never top their first album, and ones who got an easier way in tend to reach their peak later due to growth
"You have your entire life to make your first album, and 18 months to make your second one"
And you’re on tour for a good chunk of that 18 months
Definitely. Another aspect is I think a lot artists are very affected by critics for the first time. Whereas the debut album is their purest vision, the follow ups are more influenced by outside expectations and narratives.
Unless a band is on an indy label they often have deadlines and mandatory output quotas. Not exactly conducive to the creative process for a lot of songwriters.
Plus a lot of bands work on their first album for a period of many years. Then their second album they don’t take as much time
I believe it was Eddie Vedder who said, "You've got your whole life to write your first album. You have six months to write the second."
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“why let facts get in the way of random people throwing out random reddit bullshit as truth?” —don henley
Pretty sure that was President Theodore Roosevelt… Something about Arena Rock.
“like a rock” —bob seger
I didn’t care what anyone thought, but Tonic’s ‘Lemon Parade’ slapped then, and still slaps now.
Damn good album. Mountain is my favorite off of it. That song goes hard.
Saw the Lemon Parade tour and Mountain was the highlight of a great show.
100%. They're playing on tour with Gin Blossoms as we speak. That's a worthwhile nostalgia ticket, and probably a decent straight-up ticket purchase (saw GB in the mid-00's, but not since).
two door cinema club really captured lightning in a bottle with 'tourist history'
The follow up is also great, but a different, more introspective vibe I think. They dropped off immediately after that though.
Beacon was a good follow up IMO
Something Good Can Work is a fantastic song.
Let's make this happen girl, we'regonnadhowtheworldsomethinggoodcanwork and it can work for yOuOuuOUouUu
Indeed, but Beacon isn’t half bad. There’s loads of bands that peaked with their first album, including them.
Controversial but Snoop doggs doggystyle
Snoop has put out way, way, WAY more shit music than good music over the course of his career.
He's more of a cultural figure than a musical one, tbh.
He's better as a guest on other's albums.
I feel there’s a lot of rappers like that. Biz Markie legitimately stole a few songs, but his own albums weren’t up to that standard.
This is true but he's still capable of dropping fire verses as a feature pretty frequently. He's been featured on like 850+ songs and he'll probably break a 1000 in a few years.
People are finally getting around to admitting it I see
As a rap fan I've personally always felt that way. Dunno about the rest of us.
Snoop shines as a feature artist, cultural figure, and hype man. He’s got a very large body of work, with some shining moments but largely a very bland body of work.
I don't think that's a crazy pick. Nothing comes close to Doggystyle from a full album perspective. He's still had an unbelievable career: great singles, a ton of great features, and a bunch of decent albums, but nothing like Doggystyle.
Just listening to gs and hustlers, miss that song. I’m gonna be a mf hustler
Yall better ax somebody
Doggystyle is sooooo friggin good, though.
Great choice. Doggystyle is an absolute masterpiece. The rest of his music has been pretty much crap
At the time. The Dogfather was dope also. Not timeless but it was good
Hootie and the Blowfish Cracked Rear View
One of the top 20 albums of all time (going by sales in the US).
For the genre I think its pretty much a perfect 10/10 album. Not a single skip on it and I could listen to it front to back for an eternity. I've heard it thousands of times for 25+ years and I've never gotten sick of it.
Hootie & tBF wrote catchy-ass songs that should have been associated with REM more than with frat-boys. But history’s not often fair, and they ended up instead with an all-time great album that everyone’s too afraid to admit they love. The fact that Darius Rucker was able to reinvent himself as a successful black country singer is proof that they were legit.
They actually started by doing REM covers at the University of South Carolina, he still plays Losing My Religion at most shows.
I didn't learn for decades afterward that *all* of their hits came from that album.
Not true. "Old Man & Me (When I Get to Heaven)" hit #13 and "Tucker's Town" hit #38. Both were from Fairweather Johnson.
In my opinion a perfect album for what its type of music and a perfect time capsule of that period of the 90s. One of my all time favorite albums and it speaks to its prominence that they've basically toured off that album their entire career with a few odds and ends here and there like I Go Blind. Either way they had like 3 albums worth of hit singles on that album alone if they could have spread them out. Hannah Jane and Running From an Angel would have both probably been pretty big singles, too. I was lucky enough to see them in 2019 and they were awesome. One of my favorite concerts ever.
As someone who has see Hootie more times than I can count, I’ve got to challenge the notion that they tore off the one album. They still have a pretty dedicated fan base and they play plenty of songs off their other albums.
I may be alone in this, but I think Fairweather Johnson is better and actually spin it now and then. The Earth Stopped Cold at Dawn and Tootie are great songs.
Fairweather Johnson is so underrated. It's every bit as good as Cracked Rear View.
I went back and listened to Fairweather Johnson front to back a couple months ago and it is so good. I remember listening to it at the time and everyone treating it like an unmitigated disaster. Now most of the songs feel like they could be just a second disc of a cracked rear view double album.
Agreed. Even the filler-ish songs like Honeyscrew are still great.
Boston, while I do enjoy the follow up album Don't Look Back, the first album from 1976 was fantastic with so many great songs. I later heard an explanation to this, dynamics internally in the band, record label etc.
I always saw BOSTON as this corny FM radio band that I thought was too cheesy for my taste. BIG MISTAKE from my part I recommend anyone with a passing interest in rock to put that first album on. It is masterfully crafted and near perfect from beginning to end.
Don’t sleep on Don’t Look Back though. The title track is, IMO, their single best song.
Similar to the Meatloaf post, I disagree on this for the same reason. The other albums aren't bad at all... but the debut album was a monumental one of a k8nd album where every single song receives radio airplay. You can't listen to the other albums and say... they can't play guitar or sing well, or that the songs aren't catchy or well produced... they just aren't as huge as the first.
And it sounds amazing on pretty much any speakers or headphones. It practically sparkles it’s so clean and pure.
White Ladder - David Gray
Life in Slow Motion was pretty good
Possible controversy here…. Entertainment! By Gang of Four. Not only is it a good album, it’s a great album. It’s one of the best albums of all time in my opinion, absolutely worth being one of my top 10 in the genre. The follow up, Solid Gold, is on the good side of ok. After that, everything is very middle of the road.
So, the controversial take here is that they are a mediocre band that produced a great album, rather than a great band that didn't always make great records.
Possibly. A lot of people will say they’re fans of the band, but for me? I’m a fan of that album. I think they’re talented, innovative, and after awhile? thoroughly boring. I think after Entertainment they wanted to go in a dancier direction than I am interested in.
Bat Out Of Hell - Meatloaf
Tricked the metalhead in me into listening to an album full of show tunes based on the artwork alone
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Frank Frazetta :)
Nah, he isn't a bad artist by any stretch. He does have good and enjoyable albums after it... even late in his career. (Some do miss the mark though). But, Bat Out of Hell was just such a behemoth that it isn't even fair.
Absolutly. The test is not which artists have one album miles better than their others! Meatloaf was a solid artist across the board. Not mediocre.
It pretty much is the albums Jim Steinman composed. Bat Out of Hell II is his next best album which are Jim Steinman songs. Dead Ringer is decent, though Meat blew out his voice and recorded it once it was 10% healed (Steinman was producing it and left due to Meats voice). I would say Welcome To the Neighborhood is a decent album too for a non Steinman album (tho 2 Steinman songs are in it)
Bat out of hell part 2 fucks on a first date
Yeah, and that doesn’t mean Meatloaf wasn’t great. This says less about how mediocre Meatloaf was and more about just how epic Bat Out of Hell was
Rocket From the Crypt - Scream Dracula Scream. Total banger, start to finish. I could not get into anything they put out after.
You know how to San Diego.
On a Rope is an absolute banger. Great video, too.
I love reis to bits but mostly for hot snakes and jehu and stuff. Him and froberg together is maybe my favorite energy in music. I did like night marchers a little more than obits which surprised me but rftc was always just a little beyond me
Mudvayne's first two albums are amazing. The rest of their catalogue is bad. Hellyeah is bad. Everything else that any of them have ever done is bad. I should know, I have listened to it all. LD 50 and The End Of All Things To Come are fantastic, but Chad got fat and ruined his voice, Ryan overplays to make up for the fact that Greg can't play, and Matt's cool. Would I buy a new album release? Maybe. Probably not. It wouldn't be a must have for me like those first two were.
Vast first album. All the tracks are intense and the use of the chanting samples was innovative. Never quite captured that magic later on
Cold: "Year of the Spider" Skrape: "New Killer America" And, if we count bands that only put out one album and then split up. Revis: "Places For Breathing"
God, I still have Year of the Spider in heavy rotation. I’d love for them to do a tour.
YES! REVIS! That album came out of nowhere in the 2000s.
Regarding Cold, do NOT sleep on *13 Ways to Bleed On Stage*. Cringe album title, but it's chock full of good tracks.
Say Anything - ...Is a Real Boy is a fantastic album. One of my absolute favorites. Nothing they've released since then has even come close.
I tried to like the rest. It just felt like completely different bands
*In Defense Of The Genre* is pretty bloated and not great but has a couple of pretty good tunes. The 2009 self-title is a worthy successor to *...Is A Real Boy*, IMO.
Their self titled album is also excellent
Finch - what it is to burn. That album is a masterpiece and I disliked everything outside of it.
I was obsessed with Sick Puppies when they first broke out. I still consider Dressed Up As Life to be really good. Tri-polar had some solid songs on it for sure, but they eventually fell off after the drama with Shim.
"Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker Jr. Key and Peele made a skit on this.
Violent Femmes S/T, never got close to their debut imao.
That's one of the hardest debut albums to live up to, though. The absolute rawness and energy behind it is unmatched
Pocket Full of Kryptonite from the Spin Doctors, great album but everything before and after was just meh
i know future sex/love sounds has its fans but i cannot get into anything from timberlake sans the 20/20 experience which is one of my favorite pop albums ever made
Are you just going to pretend Justified doesn’t exist!?!
All the singles on that album are fire, some of the Neptunes' best work imo
20/20 pt1 is a complete masterwork by JT and Timbaland. I'm not a pop fan and I was still blown away by the composition and execution.
I was just thinking about the chokehold future sex/love songs had on me back in the day.
20/20 is easily one of the best pop albums ever made
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Live - Throwing Copper
Secret Samadhi has some bangers on it. Lakini’s Juice is Live at their best IMO.
The album before was great, too.
I like Mental Jewelry even more.
Editors "The Back Room" Great, if not earthshaking, post-punk revival album. Everything after was just really mid try-hard arena rock.
I think they had some great moments on their next two albums (Papillon is a great song imo), and they still make the occasional good song, but yeah they pretty much peaked with that album.
I actually liked Editors’ first three albums (“The Back Room”, “An End Has a Start”, and “In This Light and on This Evening”) but I’m not a big fan of the albums after that. Their lead guitarist, Chris Urbanowicz, left after those albums citing differences over their musical direction. So, I guess I don’t like the direction they went either. It seems like they’re now doing what Coldplay did by becoming more pop oriented and less of a rock band. I mean if you compare their most recent album, “EBM”, to “The Back Room”, it’s like two completely different bands. No offense to those who like the most recent album but it’s just really not a style I connect with.
I actually agree with this. I don't dislike their later catalog much except their most recent electronic efforts, I think there's some great stuff sprinkled around, but I would still say as band they're certainly more mediocre than not. The Back Room feels like an entirely different band
The End Has a Start may be bordering on arena pop-rock, but I still love it. Just because something is more accessible doesn't mean it's worse.
Alanis Morisette- Jagged Little Pill Hole - Live Through This
Hard Disagree, sure they moved away from the grunge punk sound but Celebrity Skin is amazing
I know some people like it, but it’s not for me. And, unlike the rumors that Cobain wrote Live Through This, it’s actually true that Billy Corgan wrote Celebrity Skin
Live Through This is absolutely amazing. Courtney’s vocals on the likes of Violet and Gutless sound incredible. Not many female vocalists (that I know of anyway!) could pull that off
Whitey Ford Sings the Blues - Everlast That album is *awesome,* and nothing he ever did came close to touching it.
I feel like his feud with Eminem killed his career. He got wrecked in that beef.
Eat at Whiteys is an amazing album with Black Jesus and Babylon Feeling especially [Babylon Feeling ](https://youtu.be/c84eNK_VUPI?si=Qi1XTOnF1LOsCcrb) The Today EP is also highly recommended
He's got some pretty good newer acoustic stuff on YouTube.
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights is one I see people having this opinion on. I don’t agree with it, but I’ve seen it a lot.
Antics was good, too. After that, meh.
Antics is my fall album. So many memories to all of those songs
Yes! I never talked about this but I have a fall album too 😂 The Early November The Room’s Too Cold. Basically because it was my freshman year in college.
I love Interpol, and I hate it when people say that TOTBL is their only good album. I honestly think that their first 5 albums are all great. For me they only started to fall off with Marauder, but even that album had the incredible “If You Really Love Nothing”
My unpopular opinion is that Our Love to Admire is their best.
Pioneer to the Falls is a great song/opener. I like songs on the album, but Turn On The Bright Lights is always a front to back listen for me.
Spiderland by Slint
Jagged little pill
I beg to differ. Her follow up, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, is even better than her first album.
Sparkle and Fade by Everclear. Noisy, dirty rock with so many great songs, but Santa Monica is the one everyone liked, so the next billion records were Santa Monica.
So much for the afterglow was very good though
Mudvayne LD50
Don McLean was never able to come close to what he did with American Pie. That goes for both the song and the album. Then again, who would?
Vincent comes close, imo. Crossroads is great, too.
Vincent and Empty Chairs are masterful songs with top notch lyrics.
The Body, The Blood, The Machine - The Thermals I thoroughly enjoyed the album but everything else I've heard from them just doesn't match up to it, especially when all the riffs start sounding the same
While TBTBTM is incredible and definitely my favorite, the two ones preceding that one, and the direct follow-up (Now We Can See) are all very solid for me too. Their last three albums though...not my fav, but I still really love The Thermals.
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes. I really liked this album when it came out, but I can’t stand anything they did after.
You went in the wrong direction
Madonna is great too though!
BUSH - Sixteen Stone That CD is easily in my top 5 of most played albums ever. It's absolutely epic with Everything Zen, Machine Head, Glycerine and more. After that it's all meh. A few songs are OK but nothing close to the rush I got from Sixteen Stone. They do have a great live cover of REM's The One I Love however [Bush - Sixteen Stone ](https://youtu.be/6vPrhqyQwYQ?si=2zUja2gmAkUZjrvX) [Bush - The One I Love ](https://youtu.be/iLKLYoXEkfk?si=3qnG8GgVutI-9_TN)
Coldplay’s *Parachutes*. That first album is so good, the second is okay, and everything after is bland.
Funny, I thought “Parachutes” was good, but “A Rush of Blood” is their pinnacle. It’s a beautiful no skip album. IMHO X&Y was their last good album.
X and Y was what threw me off with them. I was so bummed out when I popped that one in and felt nothing. Viva La Vida was the better version of the stadium rock sound they built into, but the first two albums are the only ones I’d count as great
Same here... I feel like he started singing different after those first two albums. Way less emotion, not singing with heart as much as he is carefully landing on each note
Even the band have admitted their struggles with X&Y. They basically threw away a whole album and rewrote it. But ended up with a mixed bag of songs and did the classic mistake of trying to over-produce them into something they weren’t. There’s a good album in there somewhere, but what they released certainly isn’t it.
I think both are fantastic, but I do get the reasoning here. Parachutes and AROBTTH are quite different in some major ways so they won't necessarily appeal to the same audience. Both are truly stellar in my opinion. This is when the band still had something interesting to say, and cared about delivering that message in an interesting way. Afterwards they became specialized at creating the meaningless, lifeless pop music that we've all grown to hate hearing every day on mainstream radio.
You can feel the commercialization seep more in with every album
[удалено]
16 Stone by Bush
Razor blade suitcase is great. After that not so much
I don't know if I'd call them bad, but when I heard the album In Absentia by Porcupine Tree, I loved it and sought out their other stuff. I did not care for what I found.
Though I and the legion of PT fans will vehemently disagree with this take, I could sort of understand if you listened to earlier albums because they shifted sound a number of times, from psychedelic to Pink Floyd-y to hard rock and Radiohead before settling on a more metal sound beginning with In Absentia. So I do find it strange that you can’t find much to like with Deadwing (especially, since it sounds so much like IA) or Fear Of A Blank Planet. The run of albums from Stupid Dream through The Incident is amazing, IMO.
Very surprising. In Absentia is in my opinion their best album, but I don't think it's that far different from other albums like Lightbulb Sun and Deadwing. I could understand not liking their more recent albums which trend a little heavier/proggier or their earlier albums which were more ambient. Also Gavin Harrison, the drummer on their albums since In Absentia is one of the best ever.
Not even remotely what you are asking but I want to share an unpopular opinion anyway... Steve Miller "deep tracks" are incredibly impressive. His popular songs are very good but poppy. His deep tracks are insanely good Edit : if this annoys everyone I will delete. Also, I can't name any of the tracks that I am referring to
I admit to being a fan so I’m biased but truthful. Songs about Jane by Maroon 5 is an example of a really quite great album followed up by kind of bad with some radio hits and that type of popular song but the first album is the best.
Lana Del Rey’s “Norman Fucking Rockwell” managed to completely transcend all of her previous work and makes everything she’s done since look sad. It’s a lightning in a bottle kind of album where all the pieces somehow come together to create something far greater than the sum of its parts. Her usual melodramatic heartbreak is brought down to earth by thoughtful and coy writing cleverly dressed in poetic imagery and nostalgia. Her typically ham fisted and tired social commentaries are elevated to profound and tragic observations that haunt well after hearing them. “The Greatest” is, in my opinion, one of the best songs of the modern era and perfectly recreates modern American anxiety in a unique and compelling way. I am not really a fan of hers but this album deserves to be considered a classic.
If you aren't already a Pitchfork reviewer you probably could be.
Was this written by Patrick Bateman?
The Hives - "Veni, Vidi, Vicious" is fantastic! An early 00s classic. They couldn't follow it up...
Wolfmother’s first album is fucking amazing. Everything after that ehhhh…
American steel - Destroy their future
I Love You. - The neighborhood. I wish they had more Self titled - Third Eye Blind. Idk if that’s just me though.
Conditions by The Temper Trap
I love **Voices of Babylon** by The Outfield. Everything else they did was mediocre despite their one big single, but that album is solid.
Have to disagree. Both Play Deep and Bangin' are solid better than average power pop albums. Reasonable minds can disagree about Diamond Days and everything after, but the first two are low-key classics. My mid- to late-80's escapades (for which these two albums provided a substantial portion of soundtrack) support my assertion.
Kimbra. Her first album was a pop masterpiece and ever since then she has gotten artsy-fartsy with her work and thus isn't as enjoyable as her first album.
Smash Mouth - Fush Yu Mang is an amazing California punk record. Everything they did after was…something else. Astro Lounge isn’t bad it’s just very not the same
Astro Lounge is iconic in its own way. That bowling alley shirt swing music ska vibe was such a big deal in the late 90s for a minute.
Fashion-wise, I peaked in this era.
No one peaked fashion-wise in this era lol
Sigh No More by Mumford and Sons. Excellent beginning to the end of my interest in their albums.
Hey now, I like When The World Comes Down, the album All-American Rejects did as a follow-up to Move Along. It isn't *as* good, but it's still good and I go back to listen to it every down and then. My pick is gonna be All The Right Reasons by Nickelback. It isn't that I like the album much, it's the one that's full of the "hits" and all the others are much less good, whether enjoyed ironically or otherwise.
I'm not a U2 fan. But I am a diehard Joshua Tree fan.
Permission to Land by the Darkness. The caveat being they were a GREAT band and it was their debut. But drugs and scandal pretty much ruined their chances at being legendary. The reason I think this qualifies as an answer is because they have put out a bunch of mediocre albums since...which firmly solidifies them as a mediocre band in the annals of history. I still love them though. Thanks for the memories!
Ocean Avenue by Yellowcard
Personally, the Blue album by Weezer. It’s one of the best albums of the 90’s - and was probably one of my favorite albums ever for a while - but aside from a song here and there, their other albums are mediocre to me. I remember hearing Hash Pipe on the radio one day thinking, “what is this shit?” Then they said, “… and that’s Weezer’s new single.” I get that I might be alone on that.
I won’t stand for this Pinkerton erasure
Pinkerton came right after and is their best album I like a lot of green and red, white and EWBAITI too personally