Master Index of Archived Threads


Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

kcmets Jun 04 2020 07:00 PM

I'll take some early Aerosmith because, uh, it's starts with an A... Dream On from Dream On - I know it's epic and all but worst song on album. Seasons of Wither from Get Your Wing - Dreadful song. You See Me Crying from Toys In The Attic - OMG, has anyone listened to the entire song? Home Tonight from Rocks - see previous comment. Kings and Queens from Draw The Line - Ruined a perfectly fine Side B

Fman99 Jun 04 2020 07:03 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

You don't like "Kings and Queens?" It might be my favorite Aerosmith song. That's madness.

kcmets Jun 04 2020 07:09 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

His voice is like nails on a chalk board to me in that song lol.

41Forever Jun 04 2020 08:05 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

I'm with you on "Kings and Queens." I don't think that album has aged well, save for the title cut. But must disagree on "You See Me Crying." Tyler likes it, too. Funny story, if true. While Aerosmith were planning the "Back in the Saddle" concert tour and recording the Done with Mirrors album during 1984, a radio DJ played the song. Tyler, who was suffering memory loss at the time from years of drug use, liked "You See Me Crying" so much, he suggested his group record a cover version, only to be told by his bandmate Perry, "It's us, fuckhead."

Frayed Knot Jun 04 2020 08:11 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

I always kind of kept Aerosmith at arms length because they generally struck me as the Rolling Stones for 15 year-olds. Not that there's anything wrong with that exactly -- especially seeing as how I was around 15 when they came out -- but I guess that just kept me from taking them too seriously as a band and their re-emergence, following Run-DMC's cover of WALK THIS WAY, took me totally by surprise because I just figured they had already run their course. So I just liked what I liked (and I still like DREAM ON) but never dug too deep into the back tracks.

Edgy MD Jun 04 2020 09:09 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

You say "bad song on a good album," and I say "Les Boys" from Dire Straits Making Movies. It isn't particularly terrible, but it's so out of character with the rest of the record, and as the last track, it totally robs you of the catharsis they achieved (and it is a cathartic record). If it was only short coda, like "Her Majesty," it wouldn't be so jarring. But it lasts long enough that it undermines what had come before.

Edgy MD Jun 04 2020 09:24 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

B? Bouncing Off the Satellites was the last album by B-52s with their original lineup. Like a lot of bands around their fourth full-length LP, it was the coming-together-after-some-time-apart album. These albums frequently feature band members arriving in the studio with songs they wrote on their own, that haven't been road-tested or helped along by other band members. While this situation has worked for some bands more than others. It worked surprisingly well for the B's, considering that they were a band you'd think was a better whole than they were as the sum of their parts. But Kate Pierson's songs were typically fun and funny, and Ricky and Cindy Wilson's were just terrific. But then there was Fred, who tried to write an eco anthem called "Juicy Jungle" with an outside songwriter helping him, and it was stinky. The band did little promotion and no touring for the record after Ricky Wilson died, but it's a lost classick, and far more tasty and durable than the breakthrough comeback Cosmic Thing a few years later. Except that Fred song.

LWFS Jun 05 2020 12:17 AM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

Revolution #9 or Wild Honey Pie on the White Album. I think it's telling-- in a Beatles-or-Stones kinda way, which is to say a shallow, not SO telling way-- which one you think is worse.

batmagadanleadoff Jun 05 2020 02:19 AM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

I love Wild Honey Pie and I'll take it over the regular ol' Honey Pie every time. So what does that tell?

Fman99 Jun 05 2020 08:31 AM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=37948 time=1591345153 user_id=68] I love Wild Honey Pie and I'll take it over the regular ol' Honey Pie every time. So what does that tell?

Seconded

Johnny Lunchbucket Jun 05 2020 08:45 AM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

C: The Cars. However one would rank the songs on either of the first two albums, I don't think its even fair to say there's a "bad one" on either platter. Maybe we'd all agree that "Double Life" or "Night Spots" are weaker than most of the material on Candy-O but they're not dragging the thing down. Then came PANORAMA. The title track, and Side A lead song at 5 minutes and 45 seconds, is a full minute-plus longer than anything they';d ever done. You could say its avant-garde and an "exploration" of the possibilities of the sounds the Cars could make, and I guess it succeeds on that front, but it's really not a great song on its own. It leaves too many of the good things did off (not punchy, it doesn't pay a lot of respect to the classic sensibilities, it's not... fun), and an especially bad idea to lead things off. "You Wear Those Eyes" on the same record has some of the same problems. Experimentation gone wrong.

41Forever Jun 05 2020 09:26 AM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: C: The Cars. However one would rank the songs on either of the first two albums, I don't think its even fair to say there's a "bad one" on either platter. Maybe we'd all agree that "Double Life" or "Night Spots" are weaker than most of the material on Candy-O but they're not dragging the thing down. Then came PANORAMA. The title track, and Side A lead song at 5 minutes and 45 seconds, is a full minute-plus longer than anything they';d ever done. You could say its avant-garde and an "exploration" of the possibilities of the sounds the Cars could make, and I guess it succeeds on that front, but it's really not a great song on its own. It leaves too many of the good things did off (not punchy, it doesn't pay a lot of respect to the classic sensibilities, it's not... fun), and an especially bad idea to lead things off. "You Wear Those Eyes" on the same record has some of the same problems. Experimentation gone wrong. Was thinking about that debut album last night. I think "I'm In Touch With Your World" is a clunker and brings things to a halt. Especially considering it's placement behind the "big three" of "Good Times Roll," "Best Friend's Girl" and "Just What I Needed." Otherwise, that's a flawless album! Agree about "Panorama" being too long. A good song, otherwise!

Johnny Lunchbucket Jun 05 2020 10:13 AM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

you're a flick fandango phony if you don't dig I'm In Touch With Your World

41Forever Jun 05 2020 10:21 AM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: you're a flick fandango phony if you don't dig I'm In Touch With Your World Been called worse around these parts... :) There's a live album from 1978 that was released not along ago, with songs from the first two albums. "Touch" was in the set.

Johnny Lunchbucket Jun 05 2020 10:53 AM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

The surviving Cars played that in their concert I saw

Edgy MD Jun 05 2020 04:13 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

D: Dire Straits Making Movies is a heartstopping romantic journey. With the imagery of amusement parks and streetscapes on one hand, and end-to-end Roy Bittan on piano on the other, it may well be the best album Bruce Springsteen never made. It's only got seven songs, but none of them feel too long, because each one transports you to a swelling youthful summer scene you'd forgotten about but now never want to leave. And then the seventh of the seven songs lands like a thud. "Les Boys" a song about the London Leatherboys scene that's been better covered by Squeeze, Pete Townsend, and Judas Priest. It's not awful or anything, but it's not good, and it's so out of character with the album, in an indifferent New Orleans-y 2/4 and underarranged to sound like a demo, it's a total kick in the nuts after the cosmic journey you've been on. If it was really short like "Her Majesty," you'd treat it as a palate-cleansing epilogue. But it's over four boring minutes long, and the overall effect is like spending a wonderful weekend falling in love with a chestnut-haired girl and it ending with her saying, "Actually I hate you. Now fuck off. My boyfriend is coming over and he's going to kick your ass so bad."

LWFS Jun 05 2020 06:34 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

I love Wild Honey Pie and I'll take it over the regular ol' Honey Pie every time. So what does that tell? Seconded That you prefer incomplete musical thoughts (at best) to pastiche? Unrelatedly, "Meat is Murder" is pretty unlistenable. (Probably why they buried it on the album, right?)

Edgy MD Jun 05 2020 07:36 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

Wait, we got to the Smitz?

The Hot Corner Jun 06 2020 07:35 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

Edgy, I agree with you the Les Boys isn't all that bad, but it just isn't all that good either. It just seems weak after all that preceded it on the Making Movies disc. It just doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the album.

batmagadanleadoff Jun 07 2020 09:59 AM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

I love Wild Honey Pie and I'll take it over the regular ol' Honey Pie every time. So what does that tell? Seconded That you prefer incomplete musical thoughts (at best) to pastiche? With Wild Honey Pie, I'm digging the sonic experience, not the lyrics. I love the melody and that strange guitar sound McCartney gets, which he achieves by plucking the strings like a madman and simultaneously applying as much heavy-handed vibrato as he possibly can. But yeah, I'm totally aware of where this song stands, historically and critically. In fact, it's said that the only reason WHP even made the final White Album cut is because George Harrison's wife, Patty Boyd, was crazy about the song and campaigned heavily for its inclusion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-ekNlk5VDM

Edgy MD Jun 07 2020 02:34 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

"Honey Pie" would have been better as a Ringo song. In fact, I'd think it'd be a lot easier to be charitable to Paul's 2/4 music hall derivations (John called them Paul's "granny music"), if Ringo became their default singer. It'd've been a better world if Ringo song "When I'm 64" and Paul kept "A Little Help from My Friends" for himself.

Edgy MD Jun 08 2020 04:28 PM Re: Bad Songs on Otherwise Good Albums A-to-Z

So, no sublime packages of music ruined by one stinkeroonie from ... Elton John, EPMD, Edie Brickell, Easy-E, Eddie Cochrane, Edie Gourmet, or Eddie Money? Hasn't Erykah Badu, Elvis Costello, Earth Wind & Fire, Steve Earle, Eagles Of Death Metal, or Echo & the Bunnydudes put out ONE fucking transcendent collection with a big, fat, impassable clogging up the whole works?