What albums that you do like that critics and fans hate? -

[Idiot Asshole]

KISS - Music From "The Elder"
This was actually my first KISS album, I heard it was an all-time bomb and checked it out, turns out it was a pretty solid hard rock/prog metal album. I ended up getting into them and learning all their albums afterwards. Honestly fans probably hated it because you're not looking for substance in KISS.

Spoiler: Under the Rose

Kamelot - Eternity/Dominion
The first two Kamelot albums get shit for the admittedly bad singer on them before Roy Khan joined but they're pretty good USPM-tinged Euro power metal before Europower (and Kamelot) got unbearably overproduced.

Spoiler: Rise Again

The Clash - Cut the Crap
I feel like I'm the only person on Earth who actually likes the thing, and I'll go further and say it's the best album Joe Strummer and the hired guns they made after London Calling.

Spoiler: North and South

 

[Regenbogen]

David Bowie's "HOURS" has some really comfy late 90s futuristic globalism vibes on certain songs. The weird, morbidly soft production gives it a unique sound that only patricians and fans of the WTO riots can relate to

 

[Van Darkholme]

Judas Priest's Turbo. A very controversial album in the bands history ever since.

 

[HighwayStar]

I can't be the only one who thinks Electric Light Orchestra's Time is an incredible album.

Metallica's Load. Yea it's not metal but its good hard rock.

Agree. I think the biggest mistake Metallica made with the two Load records was promoting them as heavy metal albums when they've should've been hyped as alternative rock or even hard rock. When I decided to put Load and Reload on my portable device, the first thing I did was edit their genres into alternative rock instead of heavy metal. Listening them this way really caused me to change my opinion on these albums a lot. If you go into this expecting a Master of Puppets or even a Black Album, you will dislike these records, but if you approach Load or Reload like they were made by Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pantera and White Zombie, the albums become a lot easier to stomach.

I give Metallica a lot of credit of taking a different approach with these records. It pissed off a lot of their fans, but it showed they were willing to take chances and try new things. Not all the songs work, but some of the Load and Reload tracks ("The Outlaw Torn", "The Fixer", "Fuel", "The Memory Remains", "King Nothing", "Until It Sleeps", "Hero of the Day", "Where the Wild Things Are", "Slither") rank as amongst their best work.

 

[CWC-in-the-minds]

Muse - The 2nd Law (perhaps one of my most favorite albums ever)
Titus Andronicus - The Most Lamentable Tragedy
The Darkness - Last Of Our Kind (Not sure about its reception, never hear about them anywhere)
Michael Jackson - HIStory
U2 - No Line on the Horizon
RHCP - One Hot Minute
GnR - Chinese Democracy

 

[Thotalicious Chris]

Hurts - Happiness Album
John Mayer- Born and Raised

People call them overrated in music circles when in reality anyone outside of them barely remembers who these people are. Also, just shilling for John Mayer. He’s good rainy day music.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Kate Bush - Lionheart

People always say it feels like The Kick Inside Part 2. Personally I do not see it that way. But I also think The Dreaming sucks

 

[Not Prower]

Kid Cudi - Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven
I honestly think that its Kudi's best work, you can tell that he made it out of an adoration and passion for Alt-rock from the 90's.
Never understood why it became the "Worst Album Ever"

 

[Weeb Slinger]

We all have our personal favorites and our personal quirks. The things we cherish and adore can sometimes be the same things others will despise with a passion. It's no different in the world of music, especially pop and rock music, so it's inevitable that we will like and even love albums that the rest of the world don't like. So this thread is dedicated to music albums that we all like, love and hold a soft spot for, even if the majority of critics and music fans reviled and disliked them immensely to this day.

Here are my personal favorites:

• Flipper - Album: Generic Flipper
• Michael Jackson - History (Disc 2)
• Oasis - Be Here Now
• Moby - Animal Rights (US Ver.)
• Pink Floyd - The Final Cut
• Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
• Black Flag - My War
• Def Leppard - Slang
• T. Rex - Bolan's Zip Gun
• The Wildhearts - Endless, Nameless
• Manic Street Preachers - Know Your Enemy
• Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy
• The Beatles - Let It Be (Phil Spector Ver.)
• Aerosmith - Night in the Ruts
• Primal Scream - Give Out But Don't Give Up
• The Smashing Pumpkins - MACHINA/The Machines of God
• The Who - Face Dances
• Prince - Around the World in a Day
• Hanoi Rocks - Oriental Beat
• Suede - A New Morning
• Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy

Pissjoy from The Wildhearts' Endless Nameless is the greatest song Oasis never wrote. I'm not a fan of the Gallagher brothers in any of their incarnations, but I would have been if they had put out mid-tempo songs with this air of stadium-shaking menace. The song earns points for the best use of children on a record - a ragged chorus of urchins screaming "Pissjoy!" at the top of their lungs.

Give Out But Don't Give Up: The Original Memphis Recordings puts a new face on Primal Scream's unloved follow-up to Screamadelica. I don't know why they didn't just release these mixes the first time around. My favourite PS album is More Light - another record lost down the memory hole.

Brett Anderson claims that he can use graphs to prove that A New Morning is Suede's worst album. My opinion is that it's a more consistent record than its predecessor - Head Music - which has higher highs and lower lows. If A New Morning has a flaw it's that a lot of the songs sound like faint echoes of early superior efforts (Beautiful Loser, for example, inhabits roughly the same sonic territory as Metal Mickey, but is significantly less urgent). I quite enjoy the record but they were right to go on hiatus afterwards.

New Order's Republic isn't exactly hated, however many people hold it in low regard when compared to the band's other records. I think that it's superb - both the singles and album tracks like Everyone Everywhere and Times Change. It's my go-to New Order album.

 

[KillThemCrackasBabies]

• Korn - The Paradigm Shift

I was going to say Untouchables by Korn but Wikipedia says it received positive reviews. Actually when I check Wikipedia most albums mentioned so far apparently had "generally positive" reviews. Perhaps what we're looking for is more so albums that didn't meet fan expectations?

Untouchables has too many Live-favorite songs (Alone I Break, Thoughtless, Here To Stay) to be their worst material. It's probably their last good album while in the mainstream.

Untouchables was a weird one because it was probably their most critically acclaimed album at the time, but did have a bizarrely poor fan response when it dropped. So much so that they shat out 'Take A Look In The Mirror" -one of the actual worst efforts of their entire career- barely a year later as a panicked response to the reception to it at the time. It has since been looked back on far more generously, though.

 

[L50LasPak]

Curse of The Hidden Mirror by Blue Oyster Cult is widely considered to be one of their weakest albums, if not their worst. It underperformed painfully and was apparently a reason they stopped recording albums altogether, making 2001 the last year they released an album. This held true for almost twenty fucking years until The Symbol Remains came out last year.

To this day I have no idea why even the fans seem to dislike the album so much. I honestly love the first five or so tracks, Pocket is probably one of their best songs, and the rest of the album is about as good as their regular fare.

Privately I assume 9/11 happening very shortly after the album came out might have had an effect on the album's success. I bet a lot of people had other things to worry about. Pocket also might have not gotten the air time it deserved because it has a very ominous lyric ("Overhead a rumble, its not thunder, its a 747") that might have been interpreted as "insensitive" in the aftermath. Considering they did stupid shit like restrict the Jerry Lee Lewis song "Great Balls of Fire" from the airwaves for like a year afterwards this is well within the realm of possibility.

 

[Ita Mori]

Untouchables was a weird one because it was probably their most critically acclaimed album at the time, but did have a bizarrely poor fan response when it dropped. So much so that they shat out 'Take A Look In The Mirror" -one of the actual worst efforts of their entire career- barely a year later as a panicked response to the reception to it at the time. It has since been looked back on far more generously, though.

I think the fan reception was lukewarm because the album had been leaked in like April and killed all the hype.
To this day a lot of P2P torrents seed the album by their original names/order before Korn renamed/reshuffled them in an effort to downplay the leak as illegitimate or simple "B" tracks.

The production values on that album were amazing though. If you can get your hands on a high-res 24-bit/92khz copy, it's quite the experience. JD himself says it's his second favorite album precisely due to it's sound and design but was a bitch and a half to make, which is why the band was admittedly very pissed off at the torrent leaks when they happened early 2002.

TALitM was also shit because they felt Untouchables under-performing + Fieldy's solo effort tanking and JD's gig with the Queen of the Damned soundtrack being plagued with issues (heh) might leave permanent damage to the band and it's rep, so they shat out that turd under the banner of being "a renewed passion for their early sound". I do like some tracks, but most of it is very samey-sounding and Jesus H, what a waste of a Nas feature. The production is also shit and is badly mixed and edited, to the point you can hear pops and outside noise on tracks like "Alive" multiple times. Just a very shit album overall when compared to their previous two mainstream albums or their defining album "Follow The Leader".

Still... I'll take TALitM over Untitled and The Path of Totality any day,

 

[StevieLasVegas]

Judas Priest's Turbo. A very controversial album in the bands history ever since.

While I don't like the album overall myself, I still respect yours and anyone's ability to enjoy it. Turbo Lover is still one of their best songs, which helps.

 

[KillThemCrackasBabies]

The production is also shit and is badly mixed and edited, to the point you can hear pops and outside noise on tracks like "Alive" multiple times.

It's one of the few albums that legitimately caused me physical pain listening to.

 

[Van Darkholme]

While I don't like the album overall myself, I still respect yours and anyone's ability to enjoy it. Turbo Lover is still one of their best songs, which helps.

Turbo Lover, Locked In and Reckless are my favorite tracks off that album.

New Order's Republic isn't exactly hated, however many people hold it in low regard when compared to the band's other records. I think that it's superb - both the singles and album tracks like Everyone Everywhere and Times Change. It's my go-to New Order album.

Just couldn't get into it, dunno, it just doesn't resonate with me. I'd rather go with Technique or Power, Corruption & Lies.

​

 

[Ron Jeremy Stan Account]

I'll add another vote for Pink Floyd's The Final Cut. It's the album by them I always come back to, some of Roger's most emotional writing.

The trick with enjoying The Final Cut is to pretend it's a Roger Waters solo album featuring David Gilmour on guitar – rather than thinking of it as a regular Pink Floyd album.

 

[StutterBox]

The trick with enjoying The Final Cut is to pretend it's a Roger Waters solo album featuring David Gilmour on guitar – rather than thinking of it as a regular Pink Floyd album.

It's good irregardless of how it's labeled.

 

[tehpope]

I'll throw my lot in for Chinese Democracy. It should have been released in 1999 or 2003, not 2008. Apparently would have been ready for release during those dates, but Axl being a perfectionist caused the album not to be released then. Better, IRS, Madagascar, and Streets of Dreams (aka The Blues) are very nice tracks. The rough mixes are really interesting too. And I'll give Axl props for mastering it very quiet and not loud.

 

[albert chan]

For me, it would have to be I Am... by Nas

Some might say that this album is on par with Nastradamus, which was considered to be one of his worst albums in his discography, but I personally found this album to be better than it.

Plus, the story as to how Nas almost died while being suffocated wearing the King Tut mask in the cover art is a funny read.

 

[Dysnomia]

Anthrax's Stomp 442. I don't get the hate at all. I think it's awesome.