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Re: Songs too good for their albums

I think You Really Got Me is a slightly better song than My Generation, but that The Who Sings My Generation is a whole lot better than the Kinks first album, so I could pick YRGM, except for the fact that it really should be judges as a single (the album is just filler).

How about "American Pie"? That song is almost too good for Don McClean's entire career, let alone whatever album it's on.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

You just listed 4 of my favorite albums and 2 bubbling under Andre.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

These are very personal tastes

Guns n Roses : Sweet Child Of Mine (sorry Neo)
U2 : One
Alain Bashung : La Nuit Je Mens (for the French)

Re: Songs too good for their albums

Down Under is a great song Andre !
Good memory

Re: Songs too good for their albums

dire straits - sultans of swing
jefferson airplane - white rabbit
queen - bohemian rhapsody
queens of the stone age - everybody knows that you're insane
radiohead - creep
simon and garfunkel - bridge over troubled water (i know people will disagree here)
slayer - angel of death

Re: Songs too good for their albums

by the way, spot on linesome panda with frontier psychiatrist. since i left you is also an excellent song though... i think those two songs are too good for that album.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

Down Under is a great song Andre !
Good memory


Ah, that reminds me - Men At Work's Cargo has 2 BRILLIANT tracks, and the rest is mediocre to awful. "It's a Mistake" and "Overkill" are great '80s pop.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

You don't like The Only Living Boy in New York, Moebid? I can understand the rest even though it's the only S+G album that I really like but Only Living Boy is just as much a masterpiece as Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

Radiohead's "Creep" is a good one. For some reason the two that really come to my mind are Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" and Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now."

Re: Songs too good for their albums

"Brownsville Girl" may be the most obvious Dylan pick.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

sonofsamian

that's memory lane ...
Must be 20 years since I haven't listened to "Cargo"
used to own it. I remember "Overkill" but not "it's a mistake"
the singer had a great voice

Re: Songs too good for their albums

Beatles, "Please Please Me"
ABC, "The Look of Love"
Madonna, "Ray of Light"
Husker Du, "Could You Be the One"
Eurythmics...basically, the first single from every album

Re: Songs too good for their albums

That Men At Work singer, Colin Hay, was playing at my student union a few weeks ago. The student newspaper i write for published a very positive review of it.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

I Like Chopin from Gazebo's I Like Chopin. That's a horrible record, except for that beautiful song.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

Here's some

1. Smashing Pumpkins - For Martha
2. Arctic Monkeys – A Certain Romance
3. Neutral Milk Hotel – Song Against Sex
4. Frank Zappa / Mothers of Invention – Brown Shoes Don’t Make It
5. The Strokes – You Only Live Once
6. Dismemberment Plan – Sentimental Man

I’m an album guy so this was a little difficult.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

I think Only Living Boy in New York is way better than Bridge. Too me it stands above everything in the S&G catalog.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

What, Jonah?!?

On Avery Island has a lot of wonderful songs. Song Against Sex isn't even the best one. Three Peaches, Naomi and Where You'll Find Me Now are even better. It's a great album.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

well Rune, like with any album, I can always revisit it, but I've given Avery Island quite a few extra chances, and except for the first song it just sounds tinny and indistinct.

Maybe my listening of Aeroplane before finding a copy of Avery Island shapes how I hear it, since that album has a clear forceful sound.

Has anyone taken a look at Musichound’s Rock N’ Roll Guide entry for Neutral Milk Hotel? They give On Avery Island the perfect score of 5 bones while Aeroplane was given either a “WOOF!” or 1.5 bones, claiming the songs on that record sounded “half-written”. I have to find that book again, because their short review was really bizarre. Aeroplane is DEFINITELY not a horrendous sophomore slump.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

Jonah – I actually enjoy Adore quite a bit; it’s chock full of gems (Ava Adore, Perfect, Crestfallen, etc.), but I will admit that “For Martha” is something special. (I recently found a live version of it that’s 18+ minutes long!) You’re dead on about The Strokes though.

And I haven’t read that particular review of “In The Aeroplane…”, but I wonder if the writer feels like a idiot for his ridiculous claim. Half-written? He probably stopped the disc after “King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1” and drew the conclusion based on that.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

OK, it turns out that I am organized enough to have put the MusicHound Rock Essential Album Guide on an actual bookshelf, as opposed to a stack in my closet or an unlabeled box.

And it turns out the reviewer did not say that Aeroplane had "half-written" songs. Must have been another outrageous review I remembered.

The reviewer gave two bones (out of 5) to Aeroplane, saying that it:

"lacks its predecessor's quirky richness and ear-opening arrangements. It's suprisingly stripped down, with Magnum howling -- often tunelessly -- over the vigorous strum of his acoustic guitar."

I guess the reviewer (Greg Kot, who I think is one of the cohosts of the radio show Sound Opinions) was polishing his music journalism trophies while Ghost and its euphoric coda were playing. Stripped down? WTF? Even if some songs are accompanied by just a guitar, Jeff Magnum's voice has the power of a whole backing orchestra.

But it isn't as scathing a review as I remembered, but if On Avery Island is a album with a perfect score (very rare in this book if you don't look at the entry for the Beatles), Aeroplane does not deserve that bad a review. The book was published in 1998, so maybe the star had not quite risen on that record.

Another review in this book that I remember was pretty shocking was for Tool's Aenima. I'm not as devoted to this album as others, but here's what the reviewer said.

"The long wait for Tool's sophomore full-length culminated with the dismal, unfocused Aenima, a dense, dour and pondeorous disc that lacks the best qualities of Undertow"

Ouch! They give it 1.5 bones after giving Undertow 4.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

"The long wait for Tool's sophomore full-length culminated with the dismal, unfocused Aenima, a dense, dour and pondeorous disc that lacks the best qualities of Undertow"

Omg, that's my all time favorite album. What an idiot reviwer, who probably doesnt listen to an album twice before judging.

Re: Songs too good for their albums

The View - Same Jeans
British Sea Power - Please Stand Up