...and the one, single, stand-alone post-Elvis pop/rock/folk/country/r&b/jazz album you dislike (okay, hate) most intensely compared to all others and have since its original release and it's your story and you're sticking with it is...???
Discuss.
Wow -- peace on earth, good will to men, and all that stuff, right? 😎
Long time readers (by which I mean folks who've been around here since 2009, when I originally published the screed excerpted and slightly rewritten in the following paragraphs) will doubtless be able to guess my candidate.
But don't mince words, Steve -- tell us what you really think (thought).
I should add that, believe it or not, I've actually kinda mellowed on Bowie, generally, in my old age. I still can't think of another single album I dislike as much, however. 😎😎
It's official -- I consider David Bowie's Pin Ups to be not only one of the Three All-Time Worst Albums of Rock Cover Versions Ever Made, but also to be among the worst sets of interpretations of any kind of music -- including classical -- in the history of recorded sound.
Okay, that last may be an overstatement, but I stand by the Three Worst Covers Album thing.
(In case you're wondering, the other two are Bryan Ferry's 1973 These Foolish Things and Duran Duran's 1995 Thank You. The former, I think, is an utterly appalling concept record in which Ferry, nitwit that he was, advances the idea that Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" has something in common artistically with Lesley Gore's "It's My Party" other than the fact that both were originally recorded by sentient mammals. The latter, on the other hand, is merely a sloppy mess in which one of the world's most useless bands pays tribute to its non-roots and tries, unsuccessfully, to convince the world that Simon Le Bon has any business performing a Public Enemy song.)
Anyway, the main reason I so utterly loathe the Bowie album is that the entire attitude it exudes (reeks of, might be a more accurate phrase) is a "Look at Me I'm Wonderful!!!" contempt for the source material. The album, IMHO, is the work of a guy who's convinced that these silly little songs, AND the people who recorded them, are ever so trivial and ridiculous, so thank god that he -- The Greatest Star -- is deigning to give them a little undeserved, reflected, acclaim in his trademark bullshit campy ironic way. Not to mention that the singing is flatout awful; the affectless, emotionless, pretentious pseudo-operatic croon Bowie subjects the songs to is light years removed from the punkish snarl and passion that most of them (with the possible exception of The Mersey's "Sorrow") require.
And just to spread the blame around, let us not forget (actually PLEASE let us forget) Aynsley Dunbar's drumming. Everything he does on the record is overplayed, underlined, and generally reduces the songs to sludge.
Have I mentioned that I hate the goddamn album?
But okay then -- what would YOUR choice be?
And have a great weekend, everybody!!!
24 comments:
Billy Joel “Glass Houses”. I traded it for The Rolling Stones’ “Some Girls”. Greatest trade ever.
You don't like "Glass Houses" ?😎
'Pin Ups" is where my long-time favorite Rock writer and I diverge. I find the aforementioned 'Sorrow' is excellent and the Kinks, Who and Mojos songs are quite good as well. Yes, Davey lays his Bowie-ness on too thickly on the Yardbirds, Easybeats and Pink Floyd numbers. Bowie's Aladdin Sane-era artificiality colors much of the record, but Mick Ronson's musicianship keeps the ship upright and I LIKE Aysley Dunbar's drumming.
The record I have always found regrettable was the Kinks' 'Preservation Act 2.' It marked the end of a great winning streak.
I've got "Pin Ups" on deck and I'm gonna crank it up. What would be the point of recording note perfect replicas of Brit beat pop and R&B tunes while on top of your game as a bisexual, glam super star? It's as over the top as it should be. You may hate it, but it far from sucks. And as Alzo said, both Mick and Aynsley are in fine form.
Okay, but if I hear the slightest defense of “These Foolish Things” I’m gonna take a hostage.😎. But seriously — isn’t there some album somebody here hates?
Talking Heads- True Stories is pretty god awful.
And hate may be too strong, but the Stone Roses debut is one of the single most overrated pieces of mediocrity I have ever heard.
This is hard because to develop a true hatred of some music (and I agree that hate is too strong a word) you need more than brief exposure. So this can't be some awful thing you heard once and discarded, like, oh, The Shaggs (I did not find it funny). And the requirement of an album means it can't be one of many gag-inducing singles. I had a buddy who loved Journey. Every time you went over to hang at his place, he played Escape. You'd have to tie me down to make me to listen to that again.
Preservation Act 2 is a good choice, and for a good reason.
It's hard to for me to we explain but I had a dear friend who actually liked ELO,s "Out of the Blue" album. When he put that on, it was my cue to leave the room.
Still have nothing but disdain for it.
David meet Jeff...
Any Van Halen album qualifies, but “1984”, with the cheesiest synths ever, is the loser. Runner-up: The Schlong Remains Insane from the Greta Van Fleet tribute band Led Zeppelin.
John Lennon: Rock and Roll - where the greatest voice in rock becomes its worst, all thanks to cocaine. And BTW. All those sniggering hipsters notwithstanding, when you listen to the Shaggs you're listening to child abuse, quite literally.
Rob, I hear you. The whole point of ELO was merging the primitive with the sophisticated. By this point, Jeff had polished all the rough edges off the thing- making it all more commercial and less compelling. Xanadu was not far away.
That Shaggs thing hadn't ever specifically occurred to me, but yeah -- you're kinda right. Wow.
But I gotta make an exception for the Lennon album -- his version of "Stand By Me" is just gorgeous.
A wasteland of a double-LP. The only highlight for me is 'Scrapheap City' with its Andrews Sisters vocals.
"Stand By Me" and "Just Because" are both fantastic. There is a fairly recent remaster of this record that brings the reverb down a bit and it sounds terrific. It made me appreciate the album more than I ever did. By no means does it make this record good. It is still pretty awful, just not as awful as I thought it was for 50 years.
Could not come to "hate" Pin Ups as I didn't know any of the songs before listening to the record, made me track down the originals and be forever grateful to be sent on this mission. It seems to me to truly hate an album, one had to have liked it at first. I would like to volunteer Rattle and Hum and Use Your Illusion as Godawful.
Sorry Steve, but I love Ferry's Hard Rain. The rest of the album is pretty pointless. No reason for any of those covers to exist.
But Hard Rain is great. Brilliant re-imagining, performance and production. The original (an all-time favourite) still exists. so why not have some fun with it? (and it is FUN) It's not scripture. Lighten up.
As for Pin-ups, I remember being shocked at how bloody awful it was on my first listen. Tried again 20 yrs later... still bad. Haven't tried again.
This is the album I hate the most. Not because of the music (some of which is quite good!) but because it was such a wasted opportunity to release a great album.
"The Who on Tour - Magic Bus".
Talk about dropping the ball when a really great Who compilation could have been created.
Still bitter to this day:
Captain Al :-)
I can’t say that I hate it, because I don’t remember a thing about it, but I remember having extreme dislike for The Residents “Duck Stab”. I think I bought it because Trouser Press was pushing them as surrealist geniuses, so I thought I’d take a… stab… at one album. All I remember is that it was a huge disappointment, and I thought that the ecstatic critic who pushed them was a friend of the band and trying to help them out. I still have it, probably because I thought that maybe I’d like it when my musical appreciation was more developed, but it isn’t, and I don’t feel like giving it another spin.
I bought “Aladdin Sane” despite the cover, didn’t like it much, and the “Pin Ups” cover is even worse, so I wasn’t about to buy that thing. You’re an androgenous starman? Good luck with that. “Let’s Spend The Night Together” on “Aladdin” sucked, I didn’t want an entire album of that.
And that's exactly what PIN UPS was. 😎
Luckily they followed it up in '71 with "Meaty,Beauty..."
My only qualm is that they excluded "Call Me Lightning"
F' spell check
A record that I've been non-plussed over all these years is the Who's "Quadrophenia." I simply don't get it. Doesn't mean I hate it or that it isn't good. Just not, nor ever has been, my jam...
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