The Top Ten Unessential Albums of My Collection (in no particular order) (721 hits)
Category: Sound & MusicRating: 0.75 on 26 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Drone of Industry (View user info) at 2005-10-21 11:52:57 EDT
If you dust off that old high school yearbook, you'll see how awkward we all truly were. Even the girls you had a crush on were pretty gnarly back in the day. It was a self conscious period of jarring development, experimentation, and stupidity.
I recently tried to sell a butt load of my old CDs at the local record store, but there are some albums that money just can't buy any more. And listening to them after 10 years or so, I understand why.
*****
Bush - Sixteen Stone
With the mainstream's discovery and exploitation of the 90's grunge bands came such bullshit artists as Bush. Where initial and more sincere bands of that genre such as Nirvana and whatnot were putting up a fight with the establishment, bands like Bush were quickly hired to bear the grunge façade yet still support the mainstream's doctrine.
They were sexy and their lyrics were stupid, dropping such quasi philosophical terms as skin, zen, naked, kill, sex, and violence, they suggested that they had some sort of deeper meaning. But listen with half a brain and realize that the lyrics were only an ambiguous vehicle to hitch up to the 90's teen bandwagon. With trendy, one-word song titles such as Bomb, Body, Machinehead, Testosterone, Monkey, Alien, and X Girlfriend, the jocko (yet poetic) male penetrated through. Face it. They were just another good-looking boy band fooling around with a four chord man shtick.
*****
Weezer - Green Album
I wasn't obsessed with Weezer by any means. I didn't subscribe to any dorky fan club, I didn't stalk emo girls on Weezerchat, or jerk off to black frame glasses porn. But looking back now, I'm astounded by how often their songs worked through me. Weezer songs were always a hit at the party, no matter how snobby the hipsters were. Nearly every white person my age has invested a little piece of his heart to that Blue Album. And when I would play those songs on the street, children would dance, girls would talk to me, and stoners would give me fat nuggets!
If you look beyond nostalgia, the Pinkerton songs were even better! I used to scream along with this album at the top of my lungs in rush hour traffic. The recording was lush, layered, and overdriven, and the lyrics are blunt, belted with true aggression by a Rivers Cuomo spoiled rotten with fame and all of its temptation. Even the few live recordings of Rivers circulating during Weezer's four year hiatus were excellent. I expected the best yet to unfold.
But then the Green Album... oh no, they all look so stylish on the cover. I'm skeptical, but I buy it anyway.
Hmmm... I guess the songs are pretty catchy, but did I accidentally get the karaoke sing-a-long version? Where is their personality? It's gone! It sounds like the whole band was arranged a lobotomy and recorded by a robot. Yes. It appears the very fame that Rivers was relentlessly purging against in Pinkerton had finally swallowed him whole.
RIP Weezer. You suck now.
P.S. If you get the Green Album on LP, and speed it up to 45rpm, it sounds a lot better!
*****
Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hot!
The revival of the big bands lasted about fifteen minutes, and somehow, in that short span of time, I managed to fork over 15 dollars for this goddamn CD!
It's not a crime to alter old songs into a new vision, but Squirrel Nut Zippers lacked the innovation or imagination to be granted authorization to do this. They are the Big Band stereotype strategically pawned into the 90's alternative. Yes kids, you can trace all of these melodies and song structures verbatim to, at very least, a former pop song that you probably don't like very much. Put a lid on It equals Hit the road Jack. Prince Nez equals some other dumb song. Just a few days ago I so naively thought that perhaps their hit single Hell was actually a work of authenticity. That is, until yesterday, when I heard Wilmoth Houdini and His Calypso Parliament sing Bobby Sox Idol. I'm sure with even minimal research you could track all of their songs to the olden days. I don't know, maybe that's ok, but I recommend you just go out and buy the aged 78s. This way, your swing dancing, yuppie friends will have much more respect for you than even if you owned the entire Squirrel Nut Zipper catalog.
*****
Pearl Jam - Ten
I am convinced that this band was conceived by a round table of suited, white haired men on the top floor of Seattle's presidential tower. Pearl Jam is the glamorized epitome of grunge, with alumni assembled from northwest veterans Green River, Mother Love Bone... and I think Eddie Vedder was some surfer dude or something.
With all that reverb and chorus, Ten sounds like a crew of guitar techies wanking off in the Grand Canyon. And I rumor had it that every song was about teen suicide, AIDs, abortion, child molestation or some other ambiguous political statement. I don't buy it. Well, actually, I did. But how could I have ever expected THAT VOICE to create a whole new musical genre of shit to come!
The insert tells all. Unfold it to reveal a mini Pearl Jam poster with all of the players setting the fashion statement of a 20-something grunge rocker. Or at least how a grunge rocker is supposed to look through the eyes of a drooling, industry salesperson (or the 14 year old pubert they are fucking). The band is posed in a confusing act as to what the hell they are doing. Unified together as one, I assume they are pleading mercy from the market that made and broke them.
I like this sentence... jeff ament PLAYS hamer 12 STRING, 8 STRING, and FRETLESS BASSES; stone gossard PLAYS gibson GUITARS; mike mccready PLAYS fender GUITARS; dave krusen PLAYS vic firth STICKS and sabian CYMBALS... although I don't understand the capitalization of it.
Speaking of capitalization, soon following the release of Ten was the executive produced movie Singles based in Pearl Jam World. Look for the hottest in grunge garb, spot the cameo of all your favorite grunge superstars, and identify with the commodity that was the Seattle scene.
*****
Stone Temple Pilots - Core
Pearl Jam or STP... the chicken or the egg, right? I don't really care who came first, but there IS a definite difference between these two raucous debuts. I had to check the STP liner notes to validate whether Weiland was mumbling "Here I come" or "Here I cum".
Yeah, most of these songs illustrate how the female sex cannot refuse to swallow Scott Weiland's load. Let's give Eddie Vedder a break. STP's Core is, without a doubt, the REAL father to the post grunge strain of misogynistic bullshit. Bands like Nickelback, Stained, Default, Shinedown, 3 Doors Down, and whatever other nameless copycat, are pushing harder and faster for male domination by simultaneously playing the 'sensitivity' card, declaring that THEY THEMSELVES are the sorry victims to their overpowering urge to rape everything in sight.
The album artwork resembles something similar to the rest of those corporate funded alternative bands at the time... computer generated, pseudo-weird bullshit.
"Holmes! Check out this album cover! It's like a naked witch lady levitating an orb beneath a flaming tree! That's just the kind of totally wicked shit I dream about, man!"
"Duuuuuude! YOU ARE FUCKING OFF THE WALL INSANE!"
And I can't understand why it's necessary for there to be a lyric sheet in Core. If you're not talking about the girl you sedated, seduced, and screwed the night before, just kind of grunt off some ordinary objects that you can see in the room. If you can do that, then you've reached the depth of STP. What a crock.
*****
Cake - Prolonging the Magic
MORE LIKE... "Prolonging the Torment of Withstanding Another Redundant Cake Album!"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
This is the third album by Cake and the last one that I purchased. Their first album was a breath of fresh air in the 90's sprawl of watered down alternative, but they never made much of a splash after their debut.
I suppose I like Cake ok though, kind of, in a way, sometimes, I guess.
AT LEAST I WANT TO LIKE CAKE! They look like such nice guys! But I just can't do it anymore! I suppose if I was a friend to the band, and we were all clapping our hands, and singing these songs in my dorm room apartment, while kicking the ol' hacky sack around, high, it would be a fucking hoot! But I can't stand that goddamned trumpet player! Rock bands with solo trumpet irk me! What's his name anyway? Vincent? Yeah, Vincent, that son of a bitch! What a fucking jerk! He always bogarts the pipe! Fuck Vincent! Fuck Vincent AND his stupid band!
*****
Alice and Chains - Facelift
When Layne Staley died, nobody cared.
I always liked Alice in Chains, and I even gave Staley a little radio tribute that fateful day, but I wasn't about to crown him poster boy of all heroin rockers. Heroin doesn't make someone a genius. STP's Scott Weiland was a heroin addict, and he is a piece of shit! What about that Jim Carroll Band from The Basketball Diaries. That was absolute garbage!
Ok, maybe you think AIC is brilliant beyond Staley's addiction. There are a lot of peak moments in those albums. I'll even admit that Facelift is incredibly catchy, but somehow at the same time, it is also not very interesting at all. The crests and troughs are too weak to generate any polar stimulation. Each song seems just as dispensable as the next, as each track bleeds into one, long, buzzing ohm of apathy. It gets in my head like a brain parasite and devours it from the inside out. The album goes on and on, and I completely lose consciousness before I realize that the infection has taken hold, and will continue to resonate for days after, driving me genuinely irritable. When Staley was nodding out at the live shows, was he high or just extremely bored with his own incessant mantra?
Ok. I'm sorry. I know I have offended some people. Alice and Chains and I had some really intense times, but I just got to put that part of my life behind me now. The time has come to move on, junk free.
*****
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
I was raring to give Trent Reznor the third degree. I was especially geared up to stress how utterly despicable his lyrics were.
But this album is actually really good! The production and instrumentation is meticulously crafted, effectively overdriven, and the lyrics somehow seem earnest! And reminiscing of all those videos, I don't think he was fucking around. (I was also recently rest assured that Johnny Cash altered "I wear my crown of shit" into "I wear my crown of thorns", thank goodness!)
But then came the Hot Topic generation: a steadfast of blind followers that suckled on the superficiality of being "unusual" and the power of being isolated because of their differences. I remember senior year when the principal made an announcement on our homeroom TV that there was a 'vampire club' currently reigning corruption on our small town high school. In actuality, I think this 'vampire club' was just a few goth girls sporting black nail polish and Marilyn Manson tee shirts.
Unfortunately after Further down the Spiral, Reznor was consumed by the very cliché that he so sloppily bred. He transformed into some sort of hip vampire himself, doing photo shoots in post apocalyptic looking junkyards. I don't buy his darkness shtick anymore, as he continues to wallow in emptiness, he truly is becoming devoid of any sincerity at all.
*****
Guns and Roses - Use Your Illusion I and II
Good God these albums were more horrible than I had ever imagined! I still have subliminals of Converse, Pepsi, and Calvin Klein branded into my brain from that pointless video trilogy.
I discovered that the Use Your Illusion concept is nothing more than a shit-pile of generic rock songs, embellished with excessive profanity to account for Axl's small penis. Reading its liner notes, I was also quick to realize, that what was once an impressive orchestral arrangement for the video of November Rain is really just a couple of dumb synthesizers. This truly is the pompous double album of a band that thought way too highly of themselves. But the last song on both albums is where Axl's million dollar ego really shines!
My World is a raunchy, minute long, keyboard beat, dirtied up by a woman grunting with uncontrollable pleasure and Axl role playing the sex crazed sociopath that is fucking her. "Can you guess what I'm doing now?" he says maliciously.
Whereas Coma is a "winding, whirling, slashing adventure into the mind of an overdose victim, telling the true story of Axl's past overindulgence"! Feel the heart pumping intensity of the chattering doctors as they scramble to cart our hero to the emergency room, anticipate each deep breath of our hero through the tubes of the respirator as he obliviously floats in a sea of nothingness, experience the spine crackling adrenaline rush of the electroshock zapping our hero back to consciousness, and the bitching cacophony of one night stands, haunting our hero, as he plummets back to the earthly realm by way of a twisted freakish nightmare! Clocking in at 10 minutes, Coma is a journey of ridiculously epic and arrogant proportion! And in the end when Slash's guitar climaxes into a screeching flat line of unparalleled horror, all that will remain thereafter is the sound of your own irrepressible laughter.
Oh well, at least it was better than The Spaghetti Incident.
The Spaghetti "what", you ask?
*****
Guns and Roses - The Spaghetti Incident
Somehow I didn't learn my lesson with the fore mentioned Use Your Illusion double album, and oddly enough, I bought this the same day I purchased Nirvana's Bleach. Thank God I didn't follow in the footsteps of the latter.
Tribute album my ass! The Spaghetti Incident is blasphemy! The integrity of a handful of shoddy old school punk bands is slandered by these 12 stadium sized recordings from the most voracious band of the early 90's. The reverb is perfect, the solos are abundant, and Axl STILL caterwauls like a screaming two year old with his balls cut off. I can't believe any of those bands would ever want to be associated with likes of Guns and Roses! Luckily I only paid 12 dollars on The Spaghetti Incident, if for any reason, to finally confirm that my taste for Guns and Roses was a complete delusion. And coincidentally, when I abandoned G n' R, Axl also disappeared off the face of the earth! Thank you Spaghetti Incident, thank you for ridding this humanity of those insidious corporate whores.
Ugh... That is, until the rise of Velvet Revolver.
Fuck AXL
Fuck SLASH
Fuck DUFF
Fuck IZZY
Fuck DIZZY
AND matt!
User Reviews
Submitted by the_lone_stranger (user info) at 2006-03-03 17:25:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I don't own a single one of those albums, but I concur with the sentiment.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2005-10-21 17:37:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I can't argue with any of this.
Submitted by prettyvacant (user info) at 2005-10-21 17:24:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have all those CDs and feel the same way. I cringe when someone tells me they still listen to Weezer. "black glasses porn" fuck that was funny. I'll never understand why some guys find that hot.
Submitted by Drone_of_Industry (user info) at 2005-10-21 16:06:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
yeh and music today sucks
Submitted by Hucklebery8 (user info) at 2005-10-21 15:24:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Pearl Jam, AIC, Soundgarden, and Nirvana all set the stage for most of the music we have today. Bugger Off.
Submitted by CoreaPeekay (user info) at 2005-10-21 14:32:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Dead_0hi0_Sky (user info) at 2005-10-21 13:14:51 (#)
Ranking: 1
glad you didnt blast tool.
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Tool is just as easy to blast on any one of the bands on this list, if not easier.. Due to their following of 'intellectuals' and fanboys.
Submitted by johnhutch (user info) at 2005-10-21 14:28:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Right on, man. VS. was a brilliant fucking album, through and through. NOT ONE BAD SONG on it.
Ten, on the other hand.... ONLY ONE GOOD SONG ON IT. SO BAD.
Submitted by Drone_of_Industry (user info) at 2005-10-21 14:14:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I was soaring the first 3 songs of Core, I remembered every lyric, but it just got repetetive after that, and I didn't recall a single word (except for Creep and Plush of coarse). But I like Purple, and even some of Vatican Gift Shop, but this album created a monster to come.
Also for Pearl Jam I love Versus. And I love getting 20 drunk people together to sing the mouthing outro of Jeremy!
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-10-21 13:47:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
oops
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-10-21 13:47:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by HillBoyJr (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:59:12 (#)
Ranking: 0
wait, i forgot this is the internet.....
screw you asshat, i'll kill you if you talk abotu Pearl Jam or Alicein Chains again. stop or i'm coming after you.
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I think a lot of what he's getting at here is the whole 'sell out' factor. While you can make a case for them not being sell outs, it's hard to get past the throngs of bands that came out after Pearl Jam and tried to sound just like Eddie Vedder. It kinda made you listen again to the Pearl Jam and think: "damn I didn't notice how bad this was till now". I still like AIC though. I think they had a unique sound. Not saying I like all their songs, but they were definitely doing their own thing. Drone is right, though, about the glorification of heroin...it's just another reason for these kids who want to be different to force themselves to get all pale and skinny.
It's unfortunate that music is often judged more on how people react to it than for what it actually is, but it's the same on uber. And it's the same with everything really.
And in all cases, I really don't think there is any escaping being a hypocrite.
Submitted by smoke_in_my_lungs (user info) at 2005-10-21 13:16:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I pretty much agree with everything you said. Especially about GnR. I fucking hate those guys so much.
Submitted by Dead_0hi0_Sky (user info) at 2005-10-21 13:14:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
glad you didnt blast tool.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2005-10-21 13:02:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"The reverb is perfect, the solos are abundant, and Axl STILL caterwauls like a screaming two year old with his balls cut off."
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A HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Submitted by HillBoyJr (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:59:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
wait, i forgot this is the internet.....
screw you asshat, i'll kill you if you talk abotu Pearl Jam or Alicein Chains again. stop or i'm coming after you.
Submitted by HillBoyJr (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:58:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
wow, after you blasted SNZ i was with you, the it's like you said "hey hill, open up you CD case.....F**K YOU"
damnit
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:55:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I think albums are like little capsules that contain whatever magic or lack of magic was in the artist at the time it was recorded.
There is such a thing as 'too perfect'. An album is too perfect when the production steals away the soul of the artist. There has to be balance in that.
I think that main ingredient in a good album is having fun. If the artist is not having fun doing what he's doing, even if goes through all the right motions, there will still be something missing you just can't quite put your finger on.
Submitted by Drone_of_Industry (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:46:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I did say The Downward Spiral was brilliant. I guess it's only on here cause I was soooo ready to BURN it, but it was a great. I totally jerked off in rush hour traffic to it!
Submitted by johnhutch (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:43:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm with you 90% of the way. Your picks are awesome and your reasons are perfect. Are you sure you're not someone I know and hang out
with?
I gotta disgree with you on the downward spiral, though, and your reasons seem to agree with me. Basically, you claim you hate the
album because you don't like his fans and where he went AFTER it. Now, I LOVE all NIN's albums. The new one I'm a bit iffy on, but I
still dig it. But I'd understand if you considered Further Down the Spiral or The Fragile throwaways. They weren't that appealing to
non-fans.
Admit it -- The Downward Spiral was a brilliant, innovative, hell, REVOLUTIONARY pop album (yes, it's a pop album) that would still
soudn fresh and awesome if it came out today.
Everything else man, A+. You're dead on.
Submitted by Drone_of_Industry (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:43:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeh Appetite for Destruction is flippin' fantastic! I'm judging solely the albums, not the artists in general, and only the crap albums I possess and can't get rid of!
Submitted by jmgand01 (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:42:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Opinion with no good fact.
Eddie Vedder was a surfer. Jack Johnson and Ben Harper have bothe been known to appear live with Pearl Jam. Core and Ten are two of the best albums of rock.
Submitted by Drone_of_Industry (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:40:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
HAHA! AIDs is the plural of a single AID!
"Even if you get just one AID it's gonna turn into a buncha AIDs and kill ya!"
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:38:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was hilarious. And for the most part, spot on.
I agree with nearly all of it.
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:17:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
...this needs more Ween.
Submitted by ozzy (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:03:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Sorry. I hereby vow from this day forward that I will rate opinionated bullshit posts like this how they should be rated.
"Um, I don't like X-band so I will make a post saying I don't like them".
-2
Submitted by badassmofo (user info) at 2005-10-21 12:00:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
YOu have good picks but way to one minded (or 2 minded as it is)
But Use Your Illusion over Appetite are you fucking kidding me.
Appetite for Destruction is only the greatest Debut album ever.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2005-10-21 11:57:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Right on.
Why have I been seeing the word AIDS spelled "AIDs" so often lately?