List any albums you do not like/ do not feel live up to the standards of some of your favorite artists; because of course nobody can make a masterpiece album every time (unless you're the sex pistols ). Some explanation would be nice.

the Beatles- tie between beatles for sale and with the beatles.
beatles for sale i think is more consistently worse but the other i like the first half then it drops off big time for me.

Radiohead- Amnesiac
Kid A is in my top 20 but this album frightens me. It's so dark and menacing it's ridiculous. Not to say there aren't glimmers of genius here and there but it does not take you to the same heights that Kid A did a year earlier.

The Clash- Combat Rock
I was supremely disappointed after buying this album. i bought this riding the crest of recently getting London Calling. It's a real shame because Rock the Casbah might be my favorite Clash song and is definitely one of my all-time favorite songs.

Bruce Springsteen- Darkness on the Edge of Town
I'm not really sure why I don't care much for this, and i also don't have anything of his past Born in the USA. But this just seems too dramatically weary and angry for me.

interesting thread

Bruce Springsteen - Human Touch
Michael, my opinion on BS is the exact negative of yours . I love evreything before Born to Run and my fav is Darkness..
Human Touch is the only Springsteen album that I have sold !

Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
And it is still good. (But I haven't heard the first 2)

Neil Young - Landing On Water
At least Trans was a bit different

Tom Waits - One From The Heart

OK, so let's focus on my top 3 artists

Elliott Smith - Figure 8
Even if there are some great songs, Elliott maybe tried to do too much, too complicated. A piano, a drum and his guitar, that's all Elliott needed.

Queens of the Stone Age - Self Titled
Let's call it a draft. Josh Homme tried than to move from the heavy stoner sound of Kyuss to something new, this album might be a link between Kyuss and the great albums of QOTSA but lacks the consistency of Kyuss and the melodies of QOTSA.

Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (and the mix up)
Licensed to Ill was fun, Paul's Boutique brilliant, Hello Nasty and Ill Communication are incredibly versatile... maybe versatility is the key absent of Check Your Head and explains why I don't like it much, I like when those 3 guys focuses a bit on their instruments but here it is too much and the album seems quite repetitive to me.
To the Five Borroughs is weaker than their best but with good songs anyway, the mix-up plain sucks.

Nicolas, It's funny, but I was just thinking that Hard Day's Night is one of my favorite Beatles albums. It's very happy. And the song itself is a masterpiece. Listen to the first chord.

But I'm with you on Springsteen. I guess I only like the "weary and angry" Springsteen, though I would never use those words to describe his first three albums (or The River). Darkness is a bit angry, I guess, and Nebraska is a tad weary.

My top favorite rock artists (The Kinks and The Beach Boys) have too many bad albums to pick from, so I will say IT'S HARD by The Who.

That's why I said that I love Hard Day's Night still
It's the one I love the less maybe...

For my top 3 artists:

The Beatles - Let it Be is a mess. There are 4-5 good songs (the singles/B-sides) and the rest is nonsense. I never a listen to it in order because I hate the first two songs on the album.

Led Zeppelin - In Through The Out Door. The songs are too long and they lack the punch of earlier works.

The Who - Don't have a least favorite. But generally, the further you go back from The Who Sell Out and the further you go past Quadrophenia the worse they get.

OK, I'll take on the Beach Boys (my favorite band):

SUMMER IN PARADISE.

I really don't think there's anything I listen to ever on here. (I own ALL the Beach Boys studio efforts, most of the solo CDs and some bootlegs). The title track is an excruciating attempt at a "green" anthem, the covers are all bland. At least on 16 BIG ONES "Had to Phone Ya" was catchy if insubstantial.

Beatles: BEATLES FOR SALE

This is as close to doing a "bad" album as the Fabs ever got thanks to garbage like "Mr. Moonlight" and tired covers. "Baby's in Black" and "I'm a Loser" redeem it somewhat.

Steely Dan: TWO AGAINST NATURE

So far it's the only album by the Dan I don't own. Have tried it a couple times and each time I think "Why isn't there ANYthing uptempo on here?". Only track I really like is "Cousin Dupree".

OK…

R.E.M.: AROUND THE SUN. And no contest. This is a complete load of crap, with only two or three barely-acceptable songs; their second-worst (which is probably REVEAL) is a masterpiece by comparison. If I’m feeling generous that day, I might argue that the songs are sound but got mangled in the studio…but I’d be trying to convince myself. At least we know now that they did much better the next time out.

BLUR: LEISURE. An easy one. Their first album showed unquestionably that they didn’t have a full albums’ worth of songs and didn’t yet really know who they were. The learning curve evident between this and their second, MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH, is jaw-dropping.

THE CLASH: COMBAT ROCK, which Michael covered admirably above. To be fair, CUT THE CRAP is worse, but then that’s not really the Clash, is it?

X: HEY ZEUS! They were totally out of gas, and anyway it’s not really X without Billy Zoom.

THE BEATLES: LET IT BE. Yep, their first two were better. Blame Phil.

Sticking with albums in the AM top 3000

Husker Du: "Warehouse: Songs and Stories" Compared to the four albums before it, it lacks killer songs and goes on way too long.

Pixies: "Bossanova" This one is too dense for my tastes, no discernible melodies and the distinct guitar that I love in "Doolittle" and "Trompe Le Monde" is missing.

Bruce Springsteen: "Darkness on the Edge of Town" It bores me to be honest. I like a couple of songs and the rest I couldn't care less about. On either side, "Born to Run" and "The River" are much better.

Does "Cut the Crap" not count as a Clash album?

Anyway, I don't care much for the early Beatles albums and as mentioned, The Who's later work after Keith Moon wasn't too great. "Pop" was also not one of U2's finer efforts.

Beatles- Please Please Me: Easily my least favorite, I don't even own it and I have all the rest most on both vinyl and cd.

Elliott Smith- From a Basement On a Hill: The only Elliott Smith album I haven't listened to three times (well, all of the rest I've listened to way more than three). I gave it a second shot and it sounds like stuff Elliott would have never allowed to get to an album or at least in that form. I'm so thankful that New Moon came out and erased FABOAH from my memory.

Pavement- Wowee Zowee (kind of) and Brighten the Corners: To be honest, I've never given Wowee Zowee a complete listen. Brighten the Corners is not very good though outside of Stereo. The rest lacks the hooks that made Pavement so awesome. It sounds like Pavement Lite.

Oh, let's tackle my top bands:

Blur: Lesiure - The common sense answer since everything else was great (okay, Great Escape was only good)

Bruce Springsteen: Human Touch - Haven't actually been able to do a full listen.

New Order: Waiting for the Siren's Call - I actually haven't heard all their albums, but from what I've heard, this is the weakest, but only because it's very much a retread of Get Ready, just without an songs as exceptional as "Crystal" or "60 Miles an Hour," etc.

The Rolling Stones: The Collected Works, 1982-2005 - Yeah, I made that up, but seriously, how can you choose with them.

The Hold Steady: Almost Killed Me - The hints of what was to come were there, but the album is uneven...but thank goodness for "Killer Parties."

RADIOHEAD - HAIL TO THE THIEF: It's Radiohead, which means it's brilliant as hell, or at the very least better than a lot of albums of the '00s. But it suffers from being long-winded; despite being only eight minutes longer than Kid A, listening to it from start to finish feels like an eternity. Two, it's a complacent middle ground between the guitar-driven dystopia of OK Computer and the life-ruining IDM of Kid A -- not that Hail was Yorke and Co.'s attempt at trying to please everyone; I think they just didn't know where to go after those two (hell, three!) hugely acclaimed albums. (Not that you can blame them; I guess after a string of classics, a bit of scatter and unfocusedness can be expected.) Lastly, and most importantly, most of the songs are forgettable. Even the lowlights of The Bends (eg. "Nice Dream") are arguably better than the paint-by-numbers tracks like "Go to Sleep" and the uninspired dirge "We Suck Young Blood" (which is ridiculously boring). And what's with the unnecessary alternate titles for each song? Also, someone mentioned Amnesiac, but really, isn't this one a lot worse? (At least Amnesiac had "Pyramid Song".)

PEARL JAM - BINAURAL: For as bad as Yield was, even it had at least a couple good songs -- "Given to Fly" and "Do the Evolution". There's nothing good about Binaural.

THE BEATLES - BEATLES FOR SALE: Earghh. I really like "What You're Doing" and "Eight Days a Week" (guilty); "Loser" is alright, but as a whole, I think the album is the weakest of the early Beatles lot. But again, it's the Beatles, which means it's f$cking genius; I'm sure McCartney was cranking out gems like "I'll Follow the Sun" in his sleep, and "No Reply" is a deadly opener. Ok, maybe this one's not as bad as I thought...

SIGUR ROS - VON: Hard to believe this is the same band that made ( ) and Ágætis Byrjun.

Oh, and AROUND THE SUN... schleuse, is this what you meant by "complete load of crap"? The chorus of "The Ascent of Man":

"Yeah-ah-uh yeah-ah-uh yeah-ah-uh yeah-ah-uh yeah yeah...
Yeah-ah-uh yeah-ah-uh yeah-ah-uh yeah-ah-uh yeah yeah...

I try to walk like a big wham bam
I try to float like a telegram sam"


Wow, that's bad.

Er...thanks?

Actually, Anthony, I think the lyrics have almost nothing to do with why that's an awful song.

Sometimes, the secret to making a good album is the same as it is for making good scrambled eggs--don't fuss with it too much. Get in, make it, get out. I think the fatal error with ATS is they just took way too much time. They overwrote and overproduced it to death and blandness.

The Beatles : (Me too!) Tie between For Sale and Meet the Beatles

-I like No Reply and All My Loving but the rest of both records kinda suck, lol.
-There are too much "non-original-and-some-very-bad" songs on both albums.
-Still, I would not call those "bad albums"

The Velvet Underground : The Velvet Underground

-Again, still not a bad album at all. But it dosen't make me vibe like VU&Nico or Loaded or the title song of White Light/White Heat (badass song!).
-I didn't listened to Squeeze yet (but I guess I would have selected it instead if I did ;) )

Radiohead : Pablo Honey

-Except for Creep, of course, maybe no explanation is needed :)

I really agree with Anthony about Hail to the Thief and pretty much everyone on Human Touch by Bruce Springsteen.

I'm with Schleuse on LET IT BE. The early Beatles are fresh and new and bright. Not Revolver/White Album/Abbey Road, but always a good listen. Let It Be is weary and, as alluded, overproduced.

(Of course, it's light years better than Dylan's worst album. )

The Cure - The Cure (2004)

For my money, this is the least inspired and most inconsistant Cure album ever. Keep in mind, though, that I actually like Wild Mood Swings.

Sonic Youth - Bad Moon Rising

I just have never been able to get into this album. It sounds amateurish to me. It's noise, but not much else to go along with it. They grew leaps and bounds with their next album, EVOL, and never looked back.

Elliott Smith - From a Basement on a Hill

I agree with everything someone above me said about this album. New Moon is light years ahead of this.

"From a Basement on a Hill" is my favourite Elliott Smith record.

Paul, I think maybe my reasoning on the Beatles has to do with this strange fact: I happened to get into the Beatles seriously for the first time by buying their stuff as it came out, in chronological order, on CD. Sure, Please Please Me and With the Beatles aren't great albums, and both have plenty of clunkers--but if you approach them fresh, as I did, they do seem incredibly bright and energetic.

Let It Be, coming at the end of the same sequence, suffers badly by comparison with the five or six albums that came before it. I do keep meaning to get Let It Be Naked, which allegedly strips off most of Spector's fluff.

I think a lot of people assume Let It Be Naked is better because of the mastering. It's an unfair comparison IMO because the Beatles CD's that came out in the 80's are so poorly mastered. A lot of people most likely would even prefer LBN on CD over Let It Be on the original vinyl because they are used to today's mastering. So in any case, a fair comparison can't be made until The Beatles catalog gets a long overdue remaster.

I guess you could make a comparison on Long and Winding Road since that is so different. I think I prefer the Spector version since that's what I'm used to but the Naked version is pretty good too.

Yeah, I really like From A Basement On A Hill. Figure 8 is probably my least favorite of the Elliott Smith albums that I have heard.

Other picks:

Beck - Stereopathic Soul Manure -- Fun when one of the numbers on this lark of an album comes up on shuffle, but not worth listening to all the way through.

Pavement (Excluding EP's and collections) - Wowee Zowee -- I still like it, and there are some really nice moments, but it can be a bit of a slog compared to how effortlessly fun the rest of their output is. I love Brighten the Corners by the way... better than Slanted & Enchanted.

Bjork - Vespertine -- I've explained why elsewhere on these boards. I know there are a number of you out there (e.g., Moonbeam) that consider this her masterpiece. I disagree.

White Stripes -- Get Behind Me Satan -- Haven't listened to it recently enough to remember why it bored me so much when it came out.

okay, i have no idea why the hell i disliked darkness on the edge of town. i just listened to it a second ago and i love it. bruce springsteen might win the award from me for the most consistent single artist. albums 1-7 are so good it's obscene.

Okay, my turn. I'll go with a few artists that no one's gone with.

ELTON JOHN - Victim of Love. This one is no contest. Elton himself has disowned this album. I rated every song on this album a one-star except for one, which got two. But "Victim of Love" is an easy choice. If we're going for non-obvious picks, I gotta go with "Empty Sky," "Leather Jackets," or "The Fox." Never been a big fan of "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player" either, but that's because I don't like the two singles from that album.

BILLY JOEL - Cold Spring Harbor. Again, an easy and safe choice. Billy has also disowned this one to a certain degree. But if we aren't going with the easy choice, I'm gonna go with "An Innocent Man." Never liked the retro sound Billy was trying to go with on this album.

PETER GABRIEL - Peter Gabriel 2 (Scratch). A couple good songs early, two more sprinkled in the middle, and the rest is just dreck.

RADIOHEAD - Amnesiac. I'm a little surprised that no one went with the obvious choice of Pablo Honey, but I guess we're all ignoring that that album even exists! Anyway, I remember reading a review that said that Amnesiac feels like songs that didn't make the cut for Kid A, and I totally agree. It's just not that good.

Paul Simon - Songs From The Capeman
His attempt for a broadway musical was an absolute disaster.

Beck - Midnight Vultures
I can't stand anything on this album besides Sexx Laws.

Coldplay - X/Y
Their try at an electronic-tinged album was a step in the wrong direction with their sound.

For a lot of artists my answer would be "Everything after X". Like, Neil Young - Everything after Ragged Glory. The Who - Everything after Quadrophenia. Led Zeppelin - Everything after Physical Graffiti.

So, for this post I'll stick only to things that contradict the AM ratings.

Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic

A few months ago I was very anti-Steely Dan. Now I like Can't Buy A Thrill and Aja. Pretzel Logic comes off to me as having overwrought melodies, and songs like 'Rikki don't lose that number' seem paternalistic to me. Like "Hey, I know what you're feeling better than you do!"

(Not that the songs on Can't Buy A Thrill aren't equally know-it-all.)