Monday, June 11, 2007

Albums that should have stayed on the shelf

One of the explanations offered for Prince's 1987 shelving of his Black Album project was that he felt it was of inferior quality and didn't want to release it. Considering that he released Lovesexy instead might be a good reason to doubt the rumour (along with the other, more interesting explanation that he had a religious experience related to it), but true or not, it does bring up the topic of albums that should have remained on the shelf. The list is endless, I'm sure, but I'd like to know what albums by bands that should have known better saw the light of day when they should have remained on the tapes. Here's a few I could think of off the top of my head, but the list is probably endless:
  • The Clash - Cut the Crap: This wasn't even a real Clash album and it certainly sounds it. It has none of the passion that made the Clash "the only band that matters."
  • U2 - Zooropa: It's okay to experiment, but when the experiment goes awry, it's a bad solution to unleash it on an unsuspecting public.
  • The Police - Every Breath You Take - The Singles: Aside from the fact that everyone should own all of the regular studio albums, the only new song here is a putrid remix of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" that makes me dislike Sting more than usual just thinking about it.
  • Mudhoney - Piece of Cake: I remember talking to someone at Sub Pop Records about this one and their name for it was a piece of something other than cake. It lacks all the bizarre, psychotic energy of both their earlier and later releases.
  • Nirvana - In Utero: I think this album would get the beating it deserves had Kurt Cobain not been murdered by his wife.
  • Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Love Beach: What's worse than mixing prog rock and palm trees? Mixing bad commercial rock and palm trees.
  • COC - Deliverance: Why would a great hardcore band want to become a bad stoner rock band? Ask Pepper Keenan.
  • Pink Floyd - The Final Cut: Roger Waters' self-indulgence had gone too far with The Wall, but at least it had a few good songs and worked with the movie. The Final Cut's only saving grace is that it's shorter.
  • Joy Division - Still: I don't know if Joy Division was a bad live band or if their show just didn't translate well to record, but Still is a terrible live album.
  • Guns n Roses - The Spaghetti Incident - Throwing in a cover here and there is one thing, but I think we all could deal without a whole album of GnR trying to show the world that they liked some real bands. They didn't trust that we could hear their influences.
  • Judas Priest - Turbo - Why would a band who had done so much to define heavy metal choose to embrace such a watered-down version of it here?
  • Kiss - The Elder - There are a number of Kiss albums one could make a case for nixing, but this one is clearly at the top of that list. At very least, it would have saved us from seeing Gene, in makeup, with tears streaming down his cheek in the "A World Without Heroes" video.
  • Rolling Stones - just about everything after Exile on Main Street: With few exceptions, the Stones didn't do anyone any favors over the last 30-some years. They're now the world's greatest Stones cover band and that's pretty sad. If I had to single out one of their albums to be removed from circulation, I think it'd be Steel Wheels, but there's a lot of competition.

What albums would you add to the list?

8 Comments:

Blogger Metal Mark said...

I agree with all of the ones I know of. Except with COC, why choose Deliverance when Blind was three years earlier and far more boring?
Turbo was a real head scratcher because Priest had been ona roll before that. The Spaghetti album irked me too. Now it's likely to be the last new studio album to have ever come from this band.

Celtic Frost's Cold Lake would top my list. Followed by Lizzy Borden's Visual Lies, Alice Cooper's Trash, Black Sabbath's Born again and Ted Nugent's Nugent album.

4:52 PM  
Blogger Jeff said...

Wow, I can't believe you would rather "In Utero" never seen the light of day. Personally it is my favorite Nirvana album by far and not only that but probably ranks amongst my top ten favorite albums of all time. I love how raw it is, it sounds like I'm sitting in the recording studio with the band. It also feels more like what Kurt would have wanted to release, songs with edge to them like "Tourettes" and "Scentless Apprentice" take them back to their original sound of the "Bleach" days. If anything I think the album doesn't get the credit it deserves, I think it is overshadowed by "Nevermind" unfortunately. I remember around five years back a magazine, I believe "Guitar World" or one of those Guitar magazines' cover story was about how "In Utero" is supperior to "Nevermind", I was personally really happy to read that.

7:29 PM  
Blogger BeckEye said...

Thank God someone else has the balls to say anything negative about Nirvana. Every time I do, I get ripped for it, but I really don't care. I have "In Utero" and I've probably listened to it 5 times, and have never been able to get through the whole thing start to finish. There are a few good songs on it, but most of it is garbage.

I also own "Zooropa," and again, thank you for having the balls to say anything negative about U2 and Saint Bono. I really angered some people when I wrote a piece about how his ego has become bigger than the band (although he has done some great charitable work) and how they are now just slick, corporate, complacent shells of their former greatness. I also believe that their decline started around the time of "Zooropa," although I have to say that "Stay (Faraway So Close)" is a beautiful song and the title track is kind of cool.

3:22 AM  
Blogger bob_vinyl said...

Mark - I thought about Born Again after I posted and it definitely should have been shelved. The others are great suggestions that I forgot.

Jeff - I completely disagree about In Utero. I think it shows Cobain's shortcomings as a songwriter. The songs are disjointed and largely pretentious. Cobain wanted to pretend that he wasn't a big corporate artist, but he was stuck in that world and didn't know what to do about it. Nevermind is also overrated, but it's appeal lies in it's ability to mix more punk (and therefore pop) into the sound which made it more accessible than what Mudhoney, Soundgarden, etc were doing at the time. More than anything, it was the right album at the right time. In Utero didn't even have that benefit, because he tried to be "different" and failed to anything worthwhile in my opinion. I have never been able to listen to the whole thing in one sitting.

Beckeye - I too have struggled to listen to In Utero in a single sitting. I've even tried again recently and I just don't buy it.

As far as Zooropa is concerned, I think it is U2's only misfire. While Pop wasn't one of their great albums, it's still fairly good and I love the last two more rock-oriented albums.

1:45 PM  
Blogger bob_vinyl said...

Mark - I forgot to reply about COC. I actually struggled between the two albums and decided Deliverence was the complete departure. Really, you could make a case for any of the crap they released after Technocracy.

9:27 PM  
Blogger Ray Van Horn, Jr. said...

I'm glad I borrowed In Uterus instead of bought it or I would've smashed the damned thing to bits. No disrespect, Jeff, but it's crap.

Cold Lake for sure, and on the Kiss tip, Unmasked and three of the four solo albums....guess who gets to stay? It's so easy.

7:17 PM  
Blogger bob_vinyl said...

Ray - Like the Stones, Kiss definitely had more than one to choose from. I think you could make a great case for holding both Gene's and Peter's solo albums. Paul's might be on the bubble for me, like Unmasked.

4:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah, I see we definitely agree on ELP. I take exception with two of your choices, though: The Final Cut, which isn't as bad as everyone says; and Deliverance, which I feel has a few decent songs -- although I still pine for the days of Animosity myself and do think all of their albums (post-Technocracy) can be condensed to just one album's worth of material.

2:12 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home