Albums seen as ‘classics’ that you think are rubbish.

darthed1981

I think the harsh fact we all probably secretly realise is that most classic albums are really albums with 4-5 "great" songs on them, and then "the rest" - if you love the band you will spend more time on the rest than others do, but thirty years later...?

For most bands, a "greatest hits" easily covers everything you "need" to hear - even the Beatles Red/Blue albums together have most of their best songs.

boogieman

english_bob said

But yeah, Innervisions is fucking brilliant.

Yup. When you think he made that when he was around 21, played virtually every instrument on it, was using totally innovative instruments like the Moog and inventing new sounds as he went along, then add in the fact he’s blind, it’s a stunning achievement. Not a duff track on it. Jesus Children is my favourite but they’re all classics. I don’t think he ever bettered that album. 

ICBM

darthed1981 said:

I think the harsh fact we all probably secretly realise is that most classic albums are really albums with 4-5 "great" songs on them, and then "the rest" - if you love the band you will spend more time on the rest than others do, but thirty years later...?

To me this is something of a test of a properly classic album - something like Fleetwood Mac's Rumours... not a single duff or even below-par track on it, they're all stand-outs in their own right.

darthed1981 said:

For most bands, a "greatest hits" easily covers everything you "need" to hear - even the Beatles Red/Blue albums together have most of their best songs.

And more importantly, they have some of the best tracks that aren't on any of the studio albums, so you still need them even if you've got all the others.

Nitefly

Haych said:

I find it difficult to listen to Mick Hucknall any more, since my guitar teacher pointed out that he always 'slides' up to the note.  

Since knowing that I cannot unhear it and I just find it annoying now.  Had he said nothing I would probably have never noticed.

That's a trick he learned from Shirley Bassey 

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

darthed1981 said:

For most bands, a "greatest hits" easily covers everything you "need" to hear - even the Beatles Red/Blue albums together have most of their best songs.

And more importantly, they have some of the best tracks that aren't on any of the studio albums, so you still need them even if you've got all the others.

They're the only Beatles albums I've got, apart from Revolver.

I was just looking at the track listings, I never actually realised how many of those songs were non-album singles.

When you think about it, they're brilliantly put together - not just the music, but the simple, memorable Red and Blue concept and the corresponding cover pictures.  Bloody genius.

JAYJO

Haych said:

I find it difficult to listen to Mick Hucknall any more, since my guitar teacher pointed out that he always 'slides' up to the note.  

Since knowing that I cannot unhear it and I just find it annoying now.  Had he said nothing I would probably have never noticed.

Thanks for that... I used to love the Picture Book album.

Neill

Haych said:

I find it difficult to listen to Mick Hucknall any more, since my guitar teacher pointed out that he always 'slides' up to the note.  

Since knowing that I cannot unhear it and I just find it annoying now.  Had he said nothing I would probably have never noticed.

The words "annoying" and "Mick Hucknall" seem to occur quite often in the same sentence.

My mum was a good singer, a "proper" singer, in fact she was related to the great contralto Kathleen Ferrier.  I remember watching OGWT with her once and Hucknall was praising himself as usual, saying that his ambition was to be the greatest white soul singer ever.   My mum went hmmm, you've got a long way to go young man.  

Sesh

Neill said:

The words "annoying" and "Mick Hucknall" seem to occur quite often in the same sentence.

I find they sandwich the word gobshite rather well. 

Philly_Q

Sesh said:

Neill said:

The words "annoying" and "Mick Hucknall" seem to occur quite often in the same sentence.

I find they sandwich the word gobshite rather well. 

I love that story about Martine McCutcheon throwing up in his hair, although disappointingly it may not be true.

Grampa

Anything that starts 'Now That's What I Call Music....' Future classics, mostly shite.

ICBM

Grampa said:

Anything that starts 'Now That's What I Call Music....' Future classics, mostly shite.

They're great... I've got almost all of them, although I stopped buying the new ones recently. I started getting them about ten years ago because my kids wanted them, and then started collecting the older ones, mostly from charity shops... how far wrong can you go at £1 for 30-40 songs? I've now got all bar about ten from the late 80s - they've started reissuing the very early ones now, so I have 1-7. Originals in the under-20 numbers are now worth quite a lot.

They're an interesting snapshot of mainstream popular music at the time - there are almost always a couple of classics on each one, a fair number of songs that are likeable enough but you probably wouldn't buy otherwise, and a sizeable amount of crap. The relative proportion doesn't actually change that much over the years - although having nearly completed the set now it's noticeable that the early 90s were a particularly poor era.

I've stopped getting the new ones now though - the kids aren't interested any more because they stream everything, and I just don't recognise enough of the songs... not so much because they're no good. I decided not to bother any more when I looked at the track list for Now 106 and realised that the only songs I actually knew on it were by Harry Styles and Paul Weller. End of an era... I'm now officially old .

scrumhalf

Philly_Q said:

Sesh said:

Neill said:

The words "annoying" and "Mick Hucknall" seem to occur quite often in the same sentence.

I find they sandwich the word gobshite rather well. 

I love that story about Martine McCutcheon throwing up in his hair, although disappointingly it may not be true.

Now that's a programme featuring Hucknall that I'd watch. 

EricTheWeary

Sesh said:

Neill said:

The words "annoying" and "Mick Hucknall" seem to occur quite often in the same sentence.

I find they sandwich the word gobshite rather well. 

My Mick Hucknall collection extends to him guesting on a track on a BB King album and his solo tribute to Bobby Bland album. I always thought the Bland album was pretty good although not really for Hucknall's voice, it's just nice to hear a modern take on blues which isn't based around instrumental wankery or trying too hard for 'authenticity.'

 


He said, or at least heavily implied at the time, that Simply red was over and classic soul and blues was his new direction. Obviously Tribute to Bobby didn't sell well enough for that to last .

Jalapeno

Miles Davis fanboi here, but Bitches Brew (record 1) leaves me stone cold.  Record 2 is listenable at least.

Pink Floyd after DSOTM (probably diss DSOTM too, but it did suffer from chronic overexposure in the 1970s).  Echoes is my fave.

Any decriers of The Beano album should listen to the sequel - Hard Road with Peter Green on guitar duites.  (I find The Beano one pretty good, quite fresh for the time and set the model for Blues Rock for a generation).

Beatles were over before I really go into music, so hard to view objectively.

Philly_Q

Jalapeno said:

Any decriers of The Beano album should listen to the sequel - Hard Road with Peter Green on guitar duites.  (I find The Beano one pretty good, quite fresh for the time and set the model for Blues Rock for a generation).

Are you saying A Hard Road is worse than the Beano album, or better?  (I'm not arguing either way, I've never heard it)

Blueingreen

darthed1981 said:

I think the harsh fact we all probably secretly realise is that most classic albums are really albums with 4-5 "great" songs on them, and then "the rest" - if you love the band you will spend more time on the rest than others do, but thirty years later...?

For most bands, a "greatest hits" easily covers everything you "need" to hear - even the Beatles Red/Blue albums together have most of their best songs.

I broadly agree with this. I think it’s a good criterion for measuring an artist (or at least how much I like them personally). Could everything I really value by them be fitted on a single CD greatest hits? The list of artists that didn’t apply to would be short. It would definitely include The Beatles though.

This only applies to pop music though. Classical and jazz operate under completely different rules.

Philly_Q

Blueingreen said:

darthed1981 said:

I think the harsh fact we all probably secretly realise is that most classic albums are really albums with 4-5 "great" songs on them, and then "the rest" - if you love the band you will spend more time on the rest than others do, but thirty years later...?

For most bands, a "greatest hits" easily covers everything you "need" to hear - even the Beatles Red/Blue albums together have most of their best songs.

I broadly agree with this. I think it’s a good criterion for measuring an artist (or at least how much I like them personally). Could everything I really value by them be fitted on a single CD greatest hits? The list of artists that didn’t apply to would be short. It would definitely include The Beatles though.

This only applies to pop music though. Classical and jazz operate under completely different rules.

I think it's different for rock and metal too.  The "greatest hits" - if there ever were any hits - tended to be the most throwaway tracks on the albums, often put there to try to please the record company by getting some airplay and mainstream exposure.

Of course you could do a "best of" rather than a "greatest hits" as such, but even then I don't think the fans would universally agree on the track listings.  And if you're talking prog, the "best of" might have to be a triple album... with only six tracks.

Blueingreen

Philly_Q said:

Blueingreen said:

darthed1981 said:

I think the harsh fact we all probably secretly realise is that most classic albums are really albums with 4-5 "great" songs on them, and then "the rest" - if you love the band you will spend more time on the rest than others do, but thirty years later...?

For most bands, a "greatest hits" easily covers everything you "need" to hear - even the Beatles Red/Blue albums together have most of their best songs.

I broadly agree with this. I think it’s a good criterion for measuring an artist (or at least how much I like them personally). Could everything I really value by them be fitted on a single CD greatest hits? The list of artists that didn’t apply to would be short. It would definitely include The Beatles though.

This only applies to pop music though. Classical and jazz operate under completely different rules.

I think it's different for rock and metal too.  The "greatest hits" - if there ever were any hits - tended to be the most throwaway tracks on the albums, often put there to try to please the record company by getting some airplay and mainstream exposure.

Of course you could do a "best of" rather than a "greatest hits" as such, but even then I don't think the fans would universally agree on the track listings.  And if you're talking prog, the "best of" might have to be a triple album... with only six tracks.

By Greatest Hits I really just meant a collection of their best stuff - not necessarily actual hits. 

Otherwise I think it depends how you define those genres.  I'm not a fan of heavy rock or metal or prog so can't really comment.  But for the rock I actually do like (small sample, Beatles, Stones, Steely Dan, Santana) I think the rules would apply in much the same way as for pop. But maybe that's because the stuff I like tends to be song based and at the poppier end of the rock spectrum.

Neill

Jalapeno said:

Miles Davis fanboi here, but Bitches Brew (record 1) leaves me stone cold.  Record 2 is listenable at least.

Pink Floyd after DSOTM (probably diss DSOTM too, but it did suffer from chronic overexposure in the 1970s).  Echoes is my fave.

Any decriers of The Beano album should listen to the sequel - Hard Road with Peter Green on guitar duites.  (I find The Beano one pretty good, quite fresh for the time and set the model for Blues Rock for a generation).

Beatles were over before I really go into music, so hard to view objectively.

The Beano album possibly falls into the "you had to be there" category.  There are a lot of albums that at the time were a wow but haven't aged that well.  I wouldn't call it rubbish, but for example I can still listen to BB King's Live at the Regal which IMHO is a true classic, whereas the Bluesbreakers album does feel a little dated and cliched these days.  Peter Green's playing stands the test of time better because there's just more to it.  With Clapton it was the Les Paul into the Marshall cranked and that sound.  

I can see why someone listening now to Clapton in his heyday might wonder what all the fuss is about, but to be fair he really did set the bar.  And I still think Slowhand sounds best when he's playing a Les Paul or a 335, he's not a Strat player to my mind.   

horse

I'd never says it's rubbish, but Kid A was the first Radiohead album I didn't connect with, having loved the ones before. I know many rate it as one of their best though.