R.O.P. wrote:Pussy Galore.

And which would their terrible album be?
Seriously, which one?

Motorhead's March Or Die is correctly regarded as their nadir by fans and the band themselves. Their next record, Bastards, I think is the high-water mark of post 1990 Motorhead.

Unsane's Occupational Hazard isn't bad per se, but in retrospect, it's seems slightly boring and safe. Most of the blues and noise influences were stripped away, and all the songs clocked in neatly between 2:30 and 4:00. I think the Cutthroats 9 records and the post-reunion Unsane records have been a lot more interesting.

I dig The Fall's Grotesque a lot more than Dragnet.

There are tons of bands who released a weak first album, whose subsequent releases were all better.

That's all I got.

MrFood wrote:1000 Hurts.

I mean, come on. Couple good songs. But it doesn't kick your arse does it.

I don't think it's a bad album at all - but I can see what you mean. I think it's in the recording. Live versions of stuff like The Squirrel Song are fucking fantastic, but the impact just isn't the same on record.


Maybe they sabotaged the CD version that I listen to...?

[/derail]

For somebody who has lived on the west coast their whole life, I have to say Shellac's been rather generous in their touring schedule. I've seen them eight times since 1996 or so. Three times in Portland, once in Seattle, twice in Vancouver B.C. and twice in San Francisco.
Their live material is consistantly unique from the recorded material, and I'm not bothered by it one bit. In fact, it exactly why I continue to see them.

Aside from that, I cannot listen to Last Splash, yet I yearn for another Breeders album as strong as Title T/K. Cheers.

Julian Cope...his first solo record I just find unlistenable. And then...the genius of Fried! &then My Nation Underground is really quite pap-y, but then....Skellington (and then FOUR great double LPs in a row). He's king of the comebacks.
Pentangle - their first album is jazzy wank. But then they got going.
Someone else mentioned Neil Young. Landing On Water was probably really hard to recover from, too.
Olivelawn's first record is really boring. But their second is real exciting!
Jethro Tull recovered from A Passion Play, which is one of the most unlistenable pieces of dreck ever.

sphincter wrote:The trilogy was awful, apart from the new album I think everything they've done on Ipecac has been hash. Colossus is a slightly different subject-I don't think it's a good record, even within it's respective genre, but it is interesting and I do think it serves some sort of purpose. I don't view them as the untouchable band that a lot of people do. I do love them though, Bullhead is one of my favourite albums of all time, and the three major label albums are all amazing as well as most of their work.

The new album is the best thing they've done for maybe 10 years.

Man, I totally agree. There were bits of "they still got it" spread here and there, but just did nothing to me like the old stuff. But the new record is great. The combination of 3 part vocals and a second drummer was just the kick in the ass they needed. Buzz is an awesome, amazing, godlike songwriter but I think when you have such an original style you can tend to get directionless after you've made your main points.

The Stranglers. They've been through some stupendous highs and devastatingly embarrassing lows.

Their first four albums were almost uncontestable excellent. Their fifth, Gospel According to the Men in Black, almost bankrupted them, although diehard fans sometimes liked it.

After that defeat, they came back with La Folie, a mostly good album which featured Golden Brown.

Then, they started doing increasingly MOR adult oriented 80s music for a few albums, when their head songwriter quit.

The 90's was hard for the Stranglers, with their Billy Idol-like new frontman, Paul Roberts, but they still managed to pull out a couple great albums: About Time from '96 and Norfolk Coast from '04.

Then they booted the Idol man and put out a so-so album with a few good songs last year.

It's hard to say if they've ever pulled off a complete and enduring recovery since their golden years '77-'81, but they have managed to put out the occasional good album in the face of overwhelming odds against them.

M_a_x wrote:

sphincter wrote:The trilogy was awful, apart from the new album I think everything they've done on Ipecac has been hash. Colossus is a slightly different subject-I don't think it's a good record, even within it's respective genre, but it is interesting and I do think it serves some sort of purpose. I don't view them as the untouchable band that a lot of people do. I do love them though, Bullhead is one of my favourite albums of all time, and the three major label albums are all amazing as well as most of their work.

The new album is the best thing they've done for maybe 10 years.

Man, I totally agree. There were bits of "they still got it" spread here and there, but just did nothing to me like the old stuff. But the new record is great. The combination of 3 part vocals and a second drummer was just the kick in the ass they needed. Buzz is an awesome, amazing, godlike songwriter but I think when you have such an original style you can tend to get directionless after you've made your main points.

I couldn't disagree more. Senile Animal is perhaps the most accessible and poppy thing they've done in years, but in terms of listener reward it doesn't hold a candle to Hostile Ambient Takeover. If songs like The The Brain Center at Whipples or the Anti Vermin Seed don't do it for you I have no idea why you are even into the Melvins.

I said there's great stuff from the last 10 years, and certainly those couple songs are among them. There's also a few great tracks from the AmRep era. They're still the Melvins, after all. I could easily make a solid, amazing one hour comp of post-Honky Melvins but classic Melvins to me, there's no bad songs at all, or ideas that went nowhere.

alex maiolo wrote:I'm not much of a Wilco fan, but Being There was a piece of doo doo. YHF, and A Ghost Is Born, while overhyped, were good records.

This is how I feel...I keep whining about this topic in inappropriate threads (see: Arcade Fire thread).