Generally “discredited” albums you like

I love Mink Car and The Else as well, particularly the latter (Mink Car was a bit inconsistent, IMO).

I dunno, I've seen people—to this day!—acting like John Henry is a mediocre album at best. And they only have a few songs from it that they play live, which sucks.

While I prefer Hold Your Colour, I can't really hate Pendulum's In Silico and Immersion as much as I'm supposed to.

edited 23rd Nov '13 6:02:16 AM by RooTheRipper

Hell, when I went to see them, the only song from it they played was "The End of the Tour", and probably only because it makes a good closer (before the encore at least) I feel like it's just people being bitter about the shift from "two guys and a drum machine" to "full band", plus the fact that that album has a more heterogeneous sound than a lot of their others. *shrug* I dunno, I feel like the album is all the more strong because of it. Hell, I've always felt that Flood, their most well-regarded and popular album, is a very inconsistent album (though I feel this way about a lot of their albums), possibly their most inconsistent one in their catalogue.

Actually, on this TMBG tangent, I will say that I do at least somewhat agree with the consensus that The Spine isn't exactly the greatest album they've put out, though I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as people make it out to be. It's just a bit...awkward, I suppose? I dunno. It's probably their lyrically weakest effort.

I'd probably rank their latest release Nanobots close to it as well. From what I understand, a lot of people feel like the album is a return to form for them, but I feel like it also has a whole lot of mediocre to bad lyrics on it, the best example I can think of being "Stone Cold Coup d'Etat", which even the music couldn't save for me. It has a lot of songs on it I like, though, like "Nanobots", "You're On Fire" (probably one of their catchiest album openers to date), "Black Ops" (though I do prefer the punk-ified live version they do of it—which they actually premiered at the show I attended!), and "Tesla", and I did like the Apollo 18-esque "nanobots" (if that's what we'd call them, given the album title) on it. This song now has an irreplaceable position in my heart:

I actually liked a lot of the lyrics on both The Spine and Nanobots. (I even got my Tumblr username from one of the short songs on Nanobots, so...)

I do agree about Flood, though—I think it's horrendously overrated. It has some gems, but it's not the flawless album the fandom makes it out to be.

Also, am I the only one who has a huge amount of love for Join Us?

EDIT: Oh, and regarding Black Ops...I actually usually skip the studio recording, but I ADORE the live version. They played it at my most recent show and I kind of groaned when they announced they were about to play it, but I liked the live version an awful lot.

edited 24th Nov '13 3:44:44 PM by AceyEnn

Yeah, I do still like a bunch of tracks on Flood—"Lucky Ball and Chain" might be one of the most underrated songs on the album—but some are just...why. Like, say, "Your Racist Friend" (never in my life would I ever think TMBG would write such an obvious, on-the-nose song; I do like the line "Can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding," though), "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" (I cannot listen to this song), and "Road Movie to Berlin" (which is just a really underwhelming album closer). And a lot of other songs on it, while not necessarily bad, just don't really jibe well with creating any real feel to the album, and some are just really forgettable. "Hot Cha", while I do enjoy it, is a song that could probably compete with "The White Album Why Don't We Do it in the Road?]]"^note though I admit, I still love this song in terms of filler-ness.

I adore Join Us, actually. (I meant to mention that in my previous post, but I forgot to.) I think it's one of their best albums in a long time. That might be why Nanobots felt so underwhelming, since I felt like Join Us was perhaps one of their most cohesive (while still being diverse in its style experimentation from song to song), lyrically deft, musically amazing albums period. Even the lesser songs on the album still stand up pretty well (e.g. while I don't necessarily like "The Lady and the Tiger", I can't deny that it's at least catchy and interesting lyrically; I don't think the song reaches its full potential, but it's still not bad, just seemingly incomplete). Hell, I feel like the album has some songs that I'd probably rank as some of the best in TMBG's catalogue—"When Will You Die" might just be among the best songs ever. I'm leaving out a lot about how much I love this album in this post, but I gotta keep it at least somewhat laconic, I suppose.

Is Join Us discredited by the fans? I thought people liked it.

It's not discredited to quite the same extent as John Henry, but a lot of the fans I've seen (at least on Tumblr) seemed underwhelmed. It sucks—Join Us might be my favorite album by Them, and Canajoharie is up there as one of my all-time favorite songs. My only complaint is that I might have switched the last two songs on the album—Three Might Be Duende seems like it would've made a better closer than You Don't Like Me—but it's still excellent and doesn't get the love it deserves.

(Also, I didn't care much for Apollo 18, either, even though it seems to be really popular among fans...)

Pink Floyd-The Final Cut. The key is to think of it as a Waters solo album not as a Floyd album.

Yes-Tales From Topographic Oceans. I have to be in the right mood for it, but it's really good.

Black Sabbath - Born Again (1983)

The Album with Ian Gillian, possibly a seven on the Mohs Scale Of Rock And Metal Hardness and an amazing album. Gillian screams like a banshee and lacks the wailing (which I don't like of Ozzy.)

edited 2nd Dec '13 1:26:05 PM by ZestierThanThou

It was mentioned on the first page, but agreeing with NYC Ghosts & Flowers by Sonic Youth. It's not my favorite album by them, but they've put out worse. I personally don't take Pitchfork ratings seriously, but even the guy who gave it the infamous 0/10 review says he likes it now. Granted, I don't think I'll ever forgive Kim Gordon for "Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider / Girls to to Mars, become rock stars," but it's not like I listen to Sonic Youth for lyrics anyway.

Also just about every critic I've seen review Come On Die Young by Mogwai gives it either an average or below rating but I like it. I'll admit some of the tracks sound a bit samey, but for the most part it's not bad and I think "Cody," "Ex-Cowboy," and "Christmas Steps" are up there with some of the best tracks they've written.

edited 18th Dec '13 4:05:56 AM by FingerPuppet

"Christmas Steps" has one of the single most memorable opening riffs in instrumental rock. It's only a few stray notes, but it just oozes melancholy.

It's not hated by any means, but I think Judas Priest's Rocka Rolla is one of their best albums. A great 70s hard rock album that most Priest fans ignore.

I've never understood why Meat Loaf's '80s albums, particularly Midnight at the Lost and Found, were met with such ire. Some of his best songs were released in the eighties; Bad Attitude, Sailor to a Siren, Keep Driving, Rock 'n' Roll Mercenaries, If You Really Want To, Blind Before I Stop...

I'm not sure if it's been said, but I really liked Rush's Roll the Bones even if there was that weird rap/spoken bit in the title track. I've seen nearly nothing but dislike for it and I'm not sure why. I adore Face Up and the oddly titled "Where's My Thing? Pt. 4, Gangster of Boats Trilogy" (there was no Gangster of Boats trilogy, never got that one...)

I also liked bits of Soilwork's Sworn to A Great Divide, including the guitar tone everyone seems to hate.

To me Roll the Bones is a good, but not great album overall. Face Up is indeed a great song and Dreamline is one of their best songs from that era. The title track is also a really good song despite the weird rap section. Problem is, the songs on the second half of the album are kind of boring and not very memorable, and I feel that Bravado is too slow and somber-sounding given what it's about.

However, this album isn't really any different quality-wise from their other albums in that era, which all have a mix of standout tracks and tracks that sound like Rush on autopilot, and I don't get why Roll the Bones would get more scorn than the others.

Phil Collins' Face Value gets a lot of slack for being, y'know, from Phil Collins, but outside of an inferior version of a Genesis song, it's a real solid album.

The only song I didn't like on that one was the last one and that's cause of the weird mumbling in the background

edited 11th Jan '14 1:01:20 AM by iamathousandapples

Hey - could we expand the topic to include discredited eras of music, for those of us who prefer music from the days before albums were a big thing?

I don't think that era is really "discredited" (which suggests active dislike), just ignored.

Oh, there are things treated with dislike: the dance band era of the 20s, music from after swing and before rock, the era between Buddy Holly's death and the Beatles...

I like Hot Space.

It's true!

The Kovenant - "In Times Before the Light". A lot of metalheads hated this remake of their debut album for adding synths, but I actually like both versions in different ways. On that note, their last album to date, SETI, was hit and miss in my opinion, not wholly bad as many say.