Since we have been listing “best debut albums”, I thought I might ask which albums members purchased, based upon one song, and with the expectation that other songs on the album would be good, but that album was a big disappointment.
I will start with the album by the group, Six Pence None The Richer, that had their big hit “Kiss Me”. The rest of that album was trash! Nothing I wanted to listen to and I found it hard to believe the same group had done the hit song.
This question might seem similar to “One Hit Wonders”, but I think it is different, as usually those groups made other music that was at least listenable. My question refers to albums that had one listenable song, period!
Late Coltrane is difficult, no doubt about it, and I can see how "The Major Works" would be a disappointing purchase.
By the end of his career (and life) Coltrane was something of a spiritual ecstatic--and most of us aren't! Plus, he was such a nice guy that he gave lots of space to his fellow players. (Witness "Blue Trane.") "Ascension" is tough going until you get to him--and McCoy Tyner plays a killer solo if anyone makes it that far into the album.
But I've spent plenty of real listening time on "Live in Seattle," "Kulu Sé Mama," and "First Meditations (for quartet)."
I have just about all of Joan Osborne's albums, and they're all great. I hesitated getting her Dylan tribute album, and there have been better ones, but I've come to like it. I've seen her live twice, and the power of her voice is not captured on her albums. A great singer and artist.
Chris Cornell's collaboration album with Timbaland titled "Scream", after what he gifted to this world with Soundgarden, is one of the worst disappointments in my life, music or otherwise.
My darling wife introduced me to “It’s a Beautiful Day” artists and Lp in 1970. Studio version of White Bird is the only version worth appreciating. Agreed! Their album “Marrying Maiden” was good too. From there on they lost their way. 🇦🇺
The Major Works of John Coltrane. I thought it was a compilation album. Instead it was his later experimental stuff. I only had Giant Steps at the time and was trying to broaden my collection on a budget. I'm getting a headache just typing about it. I was a good customer at the record store; the owner gave me store credit and I walked out with Blue Train and some other LP.
Coltrane is one of my favorite musicians. But I just don't get his last 2 years or so. I've tried a couple of times over the last 35 years but it's always the same result.
I had one of the first LP pressings of In the Court of the King. The guitar distortion levels and recording were hard to listen on the 1970's equiptment. Very poorly recorded with massive overload. Gaucho, my musician friends love listening and wandering through the instruments in the soundstage. Superb production and recording. UmmaGumma was a display of stereo effects, woven into music. Need to see if I still have the English Import in my vinyl section. Sorry if my contribution failed to mention one hit wonders.
@wturkey, Totally agree with you regarding those two Paula Cole albums.
One of the old records I was cleaning and listening to today was, “Its a Beautiful Day, Live at Carnegie Hall.” I could blame it on the recording, because the sound was weak. Even on their hit, “White Bird”, it was bad. Of course, maybe they were just one of many acts that sounded a lot better in the studio than live.
"Primitive Cool" by Mick Jagger. Taste is subjective, but I thought it was terrible. I took it back, and I almost never take anything back. I can't remember if there was a listenable song.
Every album by Tool. Not a metal band. Some songs are average at best. a very disappointing band.
1-2 albums by Kreator, 1 Celtic frost album 1 album by D.A.M.
Too,many to list
worst is Tool albums. They are mediocre at best, o thing stands out from them. Have since sold all my CDs. Was Paid a very good amount for the first 2 Tool albums on LP.
The Who - Live at Leeds. Just a terrible production. Maybe the actual show sounded better but the LP is just awful. I feel bad because my wife is from Leeds and I want to like it but just can't.
The "celestial music" of Ostad Elahi was my first Persian-iranian cd....At first listening I was not enthralled to say the least...I have known nothing about this instrument and music...And the sound is stolen from the master who pray with his hands and never gives concert, the sound is not very good and dont comes from sound engineer but from hidden recorder by his astonished disciples...He was a well known sufi mystic and come from a family of musician and sufi mystic...He was master of his tanbur at 9 years old and play it ambidextrously with the same ease impressing all his natal countrymen....He go to the city because at 20 years old he said that it was too easy to pray God in a desert and fasting almost all times and wanted spiritual challenge.... He want to turn his spirit to God in the real world....I will spare to you the story....
But after my initial deception coming from an unknown world to me and a bad sound quality, this cd will become one of my best ever spiritual music album of all times and played by the greatest virtuoso on a strummed string instrument I ever heard.... Jimi Hendrix sound like kindergarten music near this master....He play the tanbur with more power than a metal orchestra and Bach himself will be envious of his improvisation.... His rhythmic sense is too complex to be analyzed....And the spiritual power of his music is without competition, except Hildegarde of Bingen or Josquin Des Pres and some of the greatest spiritual masters or composers...
If you think I was exaggerating, the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin said after a listening session of prayers with this mystic master of tanbur that it was one of the greatest musical experience of his life.... Then I am not the only fool.... :)
This is how the worst purchase ever become the most precious one....
@slaw, Joan Osborne hasn’t come close to the quality of her debut album with her subsequent releases. I want to say that she needs to stop doing cover songs and put out some original music. But maybe that would require her putting the reefer down and recovering some ambition. I have also considered that the magic of “Relish” might have had as much, or more, to do with Eric Bazilian than Joan.
I Bought Ummagumma cassette #2 (they were sold separately) because I liked the name. It started as something unlistenable, not even one song was passable, but nowadays I truly enjoy it.
There is something to be said about tastes. Unlike pjr801, I have been enjoying Emotional Rescue by the Rolling Stones ever since. It may still be the only album I ever put on "repeat". Not a bad song on it. Go figure.
I bought a Lindsay Buckingham album a few years ago after a solo concert. He was telling the audience he felt it was his best work yet. I now can't remember the name as it is to my ears completely unlistenable. I gave it a few goes over the years, just can't do it.
So many... King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King Purchased at a booth at a T.H.E. show in 'Vegas. Sounded like a static generating machine. Really F--- Up.
Jimi Hendrix - Are you experienced. One of the endless reissues. Has an impassible vinyl bridge in one of the cuts. May be able to remove with a microscope.
Oh, just thought of another one . . Shania’s album “Up”. It came in two versions, pop and country, but there was one one good track on the entire album . . Gonna Getcha Good”. I don’t think Mutt Lange’s heart was in that one. It wasn’t even as good as Shania’s self-titled debut album from before she met Mutt, IMHO
@jsd52756, haha haha . . . now that’s a bad album!
I love Steely Dan, and I have read that some members here even like this one, but their album Gaucho is a snorefest. Sounds like very depressing funeral music to me.
A friend had Billy Ray Cyrus’ album with Achy Breaky Heart. Even she admitted that the rest of the album was meh . . she would play the hit track on repeat and I tell you it doesn’t get better with repetition. smh
Come Clean by Puddle of Mud. Honestly the song Blurry is fantastic but as you say Bob, the rest of the album sounds like it was recorded by a totally different artist... A pretty poor artist!
Nice one bob.I've got to say my purchase of Emotional Rescue by the Stones really let me down. At the time I'd even grown to accept the highly Discofied Miss You.
It was a precursor of things to come as most releases after Tattoo You let the side down.
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