The Classic Album I Can't Stand
Published April 04, 2007
Writer’s block is a frustrating thing, even for someone like me who manages to produce approximately one piece of writing every two months, give or a take a few weeks. So, in an attempt to defog my brain, I spent that last six months listening to every album in my collection.
The results of this often-harrowing, sometimes-rewarding, and borderline-psychotic undertaking? A deeper understanding of the threads that connect all music from one era to the next? An epiphany of epic proportions that revealed a universal truth that could unite humankind through music?
Not quite.
The one discovery I made is this: There is one classic album that I really, really cannot stand. Now before I explain my reasons and infuriate at least a few readers, several disclaimers:
- What is considered a “classic” album was left entirely to my choosing. It’s my mediocre article, dammit.
- I only listened to albums when I was in either in a good mood (best case) or neutral mood (usual case). My opinions of these albums were not framed by me being pissed off, angry, or pop-a-pill depressed.
- Anything Dylan-related was excluded from consideration, not because I think everything Dylan did was great (Empire Burlesque dispels that belief), but because I am not willing to subject myself to email floods from Dylanphiles across the globe telling me to do things to myself that are physically impossible. Like real floods, email floods from Dylanphiles often contain garbage, filth, dead animals, and a fair amount of smelly shit.
- “Untouchable” classic albums were also excluded, as I am not willing to argue that London Calling sucks just to be a bastard. What are “untouchable” albums? Basically they are albums that I consider to be as nearly perfect as possible. This means that In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Marquee Moon, This Year’s Model, Murmur, Swordfishtrombones, The Modern Dance, and Born Sandy Devotional were excluded, among others.
- Any classic album that has historically either been greatly loved or adamantly despised was taken out of consideration. Those albums have already been both praised and condemned enough. This essentially means anything by 1970s Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, or King Crimson.
- Recent albums that are highly praised right now (like The Arcade Fire’s Funeral) or that critics and fans are currently busy jizzing themselves over (like The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls In America) were excluded. Not because these albums are not classic albums (I love both of them), but because not enough time has passed to give such albums a fair (or brutal) assessment.
- I’ve assigned an arbitrary cutoff date of 1999 for this article. Why 1999? Because I’m keeping open the possibility of writing another article about the classic album from this century that I can’t stand.
So without further invective, here are the finalists:
- The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds. Just kidding. Let’s move on.
- The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s generally considered the first concept album (which isn’t correct, but anyway), a sub-genre that has given the world the good (Berlin), the bad (parts of The Wall), and the abysmal (the remaining parts of The Wall). For that reason alone, it merits inclusion in this list.
- Black Flag - Damaged. What seemed like righteous adolescent anger and frustration years ago now seems like whining, petty adolescent anger and frustration. Or maybe Henry Rollins’ descent into the spoken word circuit has soured me on this album.
- David Bowie - Low. Despite pitchforkmedia.com’s gushing praise of this album (it even topped that website’s list of the best 100 albums of the 1970s), too much of this album’s synth tones sound dated to me.
- The Fall - This Nation’s Saving Grace. I am told that I cannot like Slanted and Enchanted if I don’t like this album. Well, I have listened to this album a dozen times, and I still think it sucks. And I still think Pavement ruled.
- MC5 - Kick Out The Jams. Bombastic crotch-rock and simplistic, naïve political statements. I still do not understand why this group has been canonized as crucial precursors of punk.
- T Rex - Electric Warrior. I know the album’s supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but I can’t listen to this album without getting bored or most definitely wanting to avoid banging a gong (and getting it on, unfortunately).
- XTC - Skylarking. Maybe the album is too British for me. Or maybe the album sounds too much like a bunch of mediocre Talking Heads’ outtakes.
- The Classic Album I Can't Stand
- Published: April 04, 2007
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Lists, Music: Pop, Music: Rock
- Writer: Eric Whelchel
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- Eric Whelchel's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
I do that already about American Idiot. I enjoy it as a piece of music, but the politics are laughably naive. Might as well be John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change" for all the gravitas in it.
Much of the time, fanboy types talk themselves into gushing over certain groups because of all kinds of ideological nonsense that has nothing to do with MUSIC. Note Mr Whelchel's friend explaining about this "great" Marc Bolan album "According to him, the album challenged gender roles in the early 1970s, questioned standards of both male and female sexual expression, and served as an important link to such gender-bending groups as the New York Dolls."
That's not even a little bit of saying anything about, you know, songs, or guitar playing or anything. And if you think that you're getting some kind of intellectual statement about the age old questions of gender and sexuality from the lyrics of a frickin' pop record, then you just badly lack an education. Ol' boy might want to put down the crappy glam rock and crack a book.
But on that basis of music, including Sgt Pepper's on a BAD album list is just silly. There might be a bunch of crappy groups that would wish to claim some influence from the Beatles - but that's hardly their fault. Song by song, Pepper is one of the best slabs of vinyl ever put out, regardless of the popularity or good or bad influence. I mean, damn man, it's got "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
"And if you think that you're getting some kind of intellectual statement about the age old questions of gender and sexuality from the lyrics of a frickin' pop record, then you just badly lack an education. Ol' boy might want to put down the crappy glam rock and crack a book."
You're right, but art affects culture. Art shouldn't be the prime source of information/education, but it does help give perspective and insight reflection.
So with all the shots taken at The Wall, why not include The Wall on your list?
pet sounds is at the top of my list... not kidding. followed by anything from the flaming lips.
Eric - you nailed the TRex album to the wall where it belongs! I thought maybe I just missed the TRex thing thr first time around (you can't hear everything all the time), so I bought the deluxe reissue last year - what a mistake. Bang a Gong and maybe one or two other just OK songs and that was it. Terribly overrated...
... as is Sgt. Pepper. Letsee... good songs would be Lucy in the Sky, Day in the Life... and that's about it All the rest are simply again just OK songs, but they survive on great playing, clever arrangements and 1967 studio wizardry. But they're pretty darn average songs. If you take Lucy & Day In the Life, the Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane single, and the best of the other 1967 sessions that ended up on Magical Mystery Tour, then you'd have a great album.
By the way, I know what you mean about T-Tex. Collectively the songs are ok if not solid but it never quite takes off. Phillip, I agree. when I read the lyrics I thought this would have been so cool....when I was 15. Now, Randy Newman he makes me think when it comes to politics. Heck, he even wrote a song called 'Political Science.' Incidentally, I agree. I'm Canadain but I say tear down the world and build an amusement park. Coney Island style!
I never got a damn thing by the Grateful Dead or Jackson Browne. But that's just me...
-Glen
beatles fan's make it sound like without st. pepper music would have just stopped because musicians couldn't have any original ideas.
otoh, i'm a big fan of T.REX i happen to think "electic warrior" is probably the best album i've heard. but then again i listen to it for what it is.
personally i think anybody who doesn't like the first track "mambo sun" has lost their musical taste buds.
my picks for worst songs. "peg" by steely dan, "paperback writer" whiniest song every written by anybody. any rap "song" ever written.
How can you listen to Cosmic Dancer on T.Rex's Electric Warrior and not be moved to a different dimension. Who needs drugs when we've got T.Rex?
marc rocks, you're wrong. and his lyrics ARE deep, he's just not afraid to be juevenile and silly. and SLEAZY is always a compliment.
green day are a fraud, i agree with above also shitty...
U2 will never be heard again except on elevators at non-profits run by trust fund kids
COLDPLAY will be remixed as bossa nova, new age, into eternity, but will still be organic tea shopping music. blech
actually, anybody being promoted right now sucks.
thank you
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Radiohead, Dire Straits, Queen, Aerosmith: Never could get into them. So true about the angst thing. You listen to it 15 years later and you laugh at how stupid the political statements are. I suspect we'll be doing the same for American Idiot. Nothing like listening to millionaire socialists babbling about politics.