[Music] Most over-rated albums

[Flounce]

There's a good reason Dylan got the Nobel Prize for Literature. Dylan's lyrics can be sublime, existential and provoking 60 years later. So many of his songs are poetry to me, eg Gates of Eden, It's alright Ma, Fourth Time Around, Sad Eyed Lady of the Low Lands, Ballad of Thin Man, Desolation Row, etc, imagery, power and meaning - the man is a genius and his musicians exceptional. Lines like "money doesn't talk, it swears; obscenity who really cares; proganda, all is phoney" are timeless. Each to their own I guess.

Totally agree, the lyrics of Desolation Row are mind blowing to me

My favourite Dylan phrase is possibly

Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is to see you

Put downs don’t come better than that

 

[Bodian]

Well I agree with you. I can remember the first time I heard DSOTM. Sometime around 1976/77 ish, I was round a mates house listening to music (we'd have been maybe 15/16). My mate was a big Ritchie Blackmore fan and that style of music ... so we'd have probably been listening to Rainbow or Deep Purple on the lounge record player. But I could also hear something else playing from his older sister's bedroom. Asked what it was and it was DSOTM ... which I went out and bought the following week. I need to listen to the whole thing from start to finish. It's not an album where I'd put individual tracks into a playlist ... same with Wish You Were Here ... Animals ...The Wall.

It was a bit later when I first heard it - and because I was listening in the only warm room in the house, with the rest of the family, I put it through my Dad's headphones. Probably the best introduction to it you could have had really. And I remember thinking 'Wow - why have I not heard this before??'

Although I have probably listened to Wish You Were Here more since.

 

[Bodian]

How?

Easy really - I've heard individual Beach Boys tracks on the radio, never liked the voice - so never bothered listening to an album or finding anything out about them!

 

[bhafc99]

I once bought a CD by a band called Moonshake, called The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow.

Not sure why, maybe it was recommended to me.

Anyway, I found it unlistenable. Tried a few times, but really couldn’t bear it, at all.

Yesterday I sold a load of old CDs to one of those apps, and it offered me £2:19 for it. Absolute result. I’d happily have paid someone to take it off me.

 

[Ooh it’s a corner]

Innervisions?
I'm not convinced a better albums been made

I was similarly perplexed about how anyone could cite that album as one of their top three in this thread - it was just into his very best run of albums

 

[Flounce]

I was similarly perplexed about how anyone could cite that album as one of their top three in this thread - it was just into his very best run of albums

Not top three but one of the three that popped into my head. Never been much of a fan in truth though

I’ll replace it with any album by Roberta Flack if you like

 

[Pevenseagull]

Totally agree, the lyrics of Desolation Row are mind blowing to me

My favourite Dylan phrase is possibly

Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is to see you

Put downs don’t come better than that

They say In shot a man named Gray
And took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks
And when she died, it came to me
I can't help it if I'm lucky.

Under 20 seconds of peak Bob Dylan has more going on, and more going for it, than some perfectly acceptable artist's entire careers.

 

[Pevenseagull]

I once bought a CD by a band called Moonshake, called The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow.

Not sure why, maybe it was recommended to me.

Anyway, I found it unlistenable. Tried a few times, but really couldn’t bear it, at all.

Yesterday I sold a load of old CDs to one of those apps, and it offered me £2:19 for it. Absolute result. I’d happily have paid someone to take it off me.

"Gravity" by Moonshake is a cracking tune. My Bloody Valentine esque


It's not on that album though.

Fun fact... I've seen Margaret Fielder of Moonshake playing guitar, cello and other bits and bobs for Wire and P.J. Harvey.

 

[chip]

Totally agree, the lyrics of Desolation Row are mind blowing to me

My favourite Dylan phrase is possibly

Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is to see you

Put downs don’t come better than that

There are too many to choose from, but at least one for any mood or situation. To me he is a modern version of William Blake. As @Pevenseagull says, he can do it all in 20 seconds. Alternatively he can also draw it out and call us out like The Lonsemone Death of Hatty Carroll in 1964. Too many qualities in his albums for me to understand how they could ever be over-rated even the ones I'm not so keen on. People need educating

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Trout Mask Replica - massively over rated by those who love it, and similarly massively under rated by those who don't.

I love it but I think I know it's nowhere near as good as it (or me) thinks it is.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

p.s. otherwise its DSOTM and Astral Weeks

 

[Cheggers]

The Lexicon of Love, how he keeps touring on the back of that is beyond me.

ABC are shit

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Easy really - I've heard individual Beach Boys tracks on the radio, never liked the voice - so never bothered listening to an album or finding anything out about them!

I can easily imagine somebody never listening to it, I just struggle to imagine how you've got through your whole life without hearing of it at all.

I don't even like it or know anybody who particularly likes it.

Anyway, fair enough.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

All of Radiohead's miserable, up itself, atonal shite.

 

[Kit Napper]

Is This It? by The Strokes. It's not terrible to my ears just mediocre and yet many consider it a classic.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

I don't think that's bizarre at all, and I agree with your top three. Hard Day's Night and With The Beatles are also up there for me. And even Let It Be and Abbey Road each have at least one great track on them (Get Back and Here Comes The Sun). Sgt Pepper is the most over-rated for me. Has anyone actually listened to it recently? Novelty tracks and stuff that sounded clever at the time but don't stand up.

Here's a thought - the White Album boiled down to 45 minutes would be a contender for greatest album of all time.

While you could definitely make an album with a greater concentration of great songs by cutting the White Album down, I think you'd lose something by doing it.

Personally I love that one of the "all time great albums" has nonsense like Why Don't We Do It In The Road on it. It's fun.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Is This It? by The Strokes. It's not terrible to my ears just mediocre and yet many consider it a classic.

It was certainly an important album which heralded a new era of guitar based music.

 

[Binney on acid]

Anything by Pink Floyd or Queen.

 

[stewart12]

Abbey Road, both Harrison songs are excellent, the rest Meh

Wonder if, and I think this about Sgt Pepper as well, because it has quite an iconic album cover people think it's better than it actually is ?

I'd agree in that George's two songs are the strongest. He was absolutely on fire at that point and had loads of great songs ready to go

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I once bought a CD by a band called Moonshake, called The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow.

Not sure why, maybe it was recommended to me.

Anyway, I found it unlistenable. Tried a few times, but really couldn’t bear it, at all.

Yesterday I sold a load of old CDs to one of those apps, and it offered me £2:19 for it. Absolute result. I’d happily have paid someone to take it off me.

"Gravity" by Moonshake is a cracking tune. My Bloody Valentine esque


It's not on that album though.

Fun fact... I've seen Margaret Fielder of Moonshake playing guitar, cello and other bits and bobs for Wire and P.J. Harvey.

These posts intrigued me, so I looked up this band and read “The band was notable for its extensive use of textures and sampler technology in a rock context. In his 1996 article on Krautrock and its influences, Simon Reynolds described Moonshake as being among the "post-rock groove collectives".

I am now listening to the album you mentioned, I like it.

 

[keaton]

Wonder if, and I think this about Sgt Pepper as well, because it has quite an iconic album cover people think it's better than it actually is ?

I'd agree in that George's two songs are the strongest. He was absolutely on fire at that point and had loads of great songs ready to go

Abbey Road has always been my favourite Beatles album