Favorite Worst Albums

[kaldaniels]

Wait.... There is Nothing Left to Lose is considered the worst Foo album? always thought it was the best and One By One was the universally hated one.

I was gonna mention that about TINLTL but the post was so great I let it go. Great and beloved album.

[Ky Fried Redleg]

It took serious guts to start a double album follow up to Rumours with such a mid-tempo moody opener like “Over and Over.” Gorgeous song. Beautiful song. Just not what you expect for an opener.

I agree. Hauntingly beautiful song. McVie can sing me to sleep any night. My first introduction to her voice was from the LP "Bare Trees." So, her voice has always kinda been the signature sound of Mac for me.

[Larry Schuler]

I think, artistically, it’s their most mature and best. But it didn’t have the same energy as the debut or 4-5 singles like the sophomore record. And it predates the band becoming the ‘roided out version of themselves that can crank out content for their label and the music company known as Foo Fighters in its sleep.

[kaldaniels]

Rock (as we all knew it) is dead. I hope it comes back around but I give credit to the Foos for hanging around like they have.

Corporate? Of course. But I still tip my hat to them and don’t hold it against them.

Can’t say I’ve listened to their last two albums though. At least the 2 prior to that had a bit of a story behind them (one recorded in Grohl’s garage and the other inspired by traveling across America).

I just don’t think TINLTL should be the album “picked on” in the “worst album” thread.

[The Operator]

In Utero by Nirvana - Was a huge disappointment commercially speaking after the smash success of Nevermind but it’s really a great album. Steve Albini did a great job capturing the raw sounds of the band and you can really hear how tortured Kurt was on his screams in “Milk It” and “Scentless Apprentice”. I don’t think that would have come across the same way in a slick, highly compressed format like Andy Wallace did for Nevermind.

..And The Circus Leaves Town by Kyuss is another one - regarded as a pretty big flop (or at least far inferior to Blues for The Red Sun and/or Welcome To Sky Valley) by most fans and generally as the beginning of the end for the band, but there’s some great songs on this album. “One Inch Man” is a fantastic song that gives me this tripped out feeling whenever I hear it. “El Rodeo” is another really strong track.

[M2]

I'll go with Jesus and Mary Chain Munki. The Reid brothers had stopped talking to each other, so of course they made a double album. I mean, that's what you do. I think it's glorious self-indulgence.

[Betterread]

I'm the same way. Creatively, I think it's some of their best stuff. There's something for every Mac fan among those twenty tracks. NR, what are your favorite tracks from Tusk ?

Uh. The Fleetwood Mac album (#10) BEFORE rumors was their breakthrough and had just as good songs as Rumors - over my head, Rhiannon and Landslide, etc. never gets played anymore. Only Rumors tunes for a long time.
I mean good in an A n’ R 1970s definition. It’s good enough music for good times, but not exactly soul melting in its emotion or innovation. In other words, good radio while driving music.

[The Operator]

I’m gonna nominate Down On The Upside by Soundgarden as well. There were heavy tensions in the band by this point and many fans thought they had abandoned their original heavy sound as Chris Cornell assumed an ever-growing role as the chief songwriter over the years, but I love it. “Pretty Noose” gave me the feels from the first time I ever heard it. “Rhinosaur” is an incredibly underrated song in their catalog. “Never The Machine Forever” is a classic example of the Soundgarden way of making an odd time signature somehow still seem like you can dance to it. Matt Cameron was a genius at putting together drum parts that made those crazy riffs feel way more normal than they were. “Burden in My Hand” is just a beautiful song.

[Betterread]

Faith (1981) by the Cure is a stone cold goth pop classic and should be just after Disintegration as the best recordings the Cure ever made. Charlotte Sometimes, Faith and Drowning man are some of the top six cure songs (along with boys don’t cry, just like heaven and pictures of you).

[NebraskaRed]

People mostly pretend that The National's first two albums don't exist, but I think Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers is fantastic.

[Dom Heffner]

Wait.... There is Nothing Left to Lose is considered the worst Foo album? always thought it was the best and One By One was the universally hated one.

Both those albums to me are great examples of what nobody ever mentions when they talk about the Foos: they make great singles but most of the albums after The Colour and the Shape are very uneven, with the exception of Wasting Light, which is just track by track a goldmine.

Im a fan of In Your Honor, for the most part, it has some valleys like they all seem to have.

- - - Updated - - -

I’m gonna nominate Down On The Upside by Soundgarden as well. There were heavy tensions in the band by this point and many fans thought they had abandoned their original heavy sound as Chris Cornell assumed an ever-growing role as the chief songwriter over the years, but I love it. “Pretty Noose” gave me the feels from the first time I ever heard it. “Rhinosaur” is an incredibly underrated song in their catalog. “Never The Machine Forever” is a classic example of the Soundgarden way of making an odd time signature somehow still seem like you can dance to it. Matt Cameron was a genius at putting together drum parts that made those crazy riffs feel way more normal than they were. “Burden in My Hand” is just a beautiful song.

It is always funny to think that Chris Cornell started as their drummer. Wasnt even the lead singer. Early, early.

[The Operator]

It is always funny to think that Chris Cornell started as their drummer. Wasnt even the lead singer. Early, early.

Isn’t that funny? One of the greatest voices of a generation and started out as the drummer.

Soundgarden was always important to me. Being a teenager is always hard and even though I hit my teens in the early 2000’s those bands that were popular at the time, other than the Foo’s, really didn’t do much for me. So the grunge bands of the early 90’s carried the majority of the load for where I went for musical relief and Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, etc played a huge role in that.

I finally got to catch them on tour in 2017 in Indiapolis and I’m so glad I did. We had tickets to see them again at Rock on The Range in Columbus but Chris passed away 2 nights before then. If I hadn’t bought the tickets to that Indy show on a whim we never would have seen them.


Edit to add: Queens of The Stone Age have always been huge for me too but I didn’t really lump them in with the grunge bands or the “popular” bands because I didn’t really consider them to have broken solidly into the mainstream until quite a while after that. But yea, didn’t wanna not mention them.

[redsfan9988]

Isn’t that funny? One of the greatest voices of a generation and started out as the drummer.

Soundgarden was always important to me. Being a teenager is always hard and even though I hit my teens in the early 2000’s those bands that were popular at the time, other than the Foo’s, really didn’t do much for me. So the grunge bands of the early 90’s carried the majority of the load for where I went for musical relief and Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, etc played a huge role in that.

I finally got to catch them on tour in 2017 in Indiapolis and I’m so glad I did. We had tickets to see them again at Rock on The Range in Columbus but Chris passed away 2 nights before then. If I hadn’t bought the tickets to that Indy show on a whim we never would have seen them.


Edit to add: Queens of The Stone Age have always been huge for me too but I didn’t really lump them in with the grunge bands or the “popular” bands because I didn’t really consider them to have broken solidly into the mainstream until quite a while after that. But yea, didn’t wanna not mention them.

I live in Houston and occasionally go to Louisiana to gamble. The night Chris Cornell died, I picked up a rock station driving back in to Houston and they were playing wall to wall Soundgarden and Audioslave. It took me about three or four songs to piece together what happened. I always felt like he was under-appreciated. Eddie Veddar is a great songwriter with tremendous mainstream appeal. Cobain died at the height of his popularity. Layne Staley died just after the peak of his popularity. Cornell was great though, truly. Amazing range and musical acumen. Low-key solid guitar player too. His lyrics were a little stream-of-consciousness and maybe didn’t resonate quite to extent of some of these other dudes.

Speaking of Layne Staley, does anyone remember Mad Season? River of Deceit is one of my favorite songs from the 90’s.

[redsfan9988]

I was 7 in 1994 when Green Day released Dookie. It wasn’t until my 20’s that I really gave Kerplunk a listen. It’s cliche to say this - but they were better (and trying harder) before their mainstream breakthrough.

[Dom Heffner]

I live in Houston and occasionally go to Louisiana to gamble. The night Chris Cornell died, I picked up a rock station driving back in to Houston and they were playing wall to wall Soundgarden and Audioslave. It took me about three or four songs to piece together what happened. I always felt like he was under-appreciated. Eddie Veddar is a great songwriter with tremendous mainstream appeal. Cobain died at the height of his popularity. Layne Staley died just after the peak of his popularity. Cornell was great though, truly. Amazing range and musical acumen. Low-key solid guitar player too. His lyrics were a little stream-of-consciousness and maybe didn’t resonate quite to extent of some of these other dudes.

Speaking of Layne Staley, does anyone remember Mad Season? River of Deceit is one of my favorite songs from the 90’s.

River of Deceit is amazing. That scene is my favorite- it isnt even close.

I go back to The Wipers, Malfunkshun, U-Men, The Gits.

Oh, Andy Wood. What I'd give to hear something more.