Your Biggest Musical Disappointment.......

Weezer green album.

Mouse on Mars - Idiology

MoM was my favourite contemporary act, until this album came out with its awful indie vocals and pointless string interludes. A lot of electronic acts have gone to the shitter when they all of sudden they decide they want to be rockers (see: The Prodigy, 2 Lone Swordsmen, the aforementioned Goldie, etc), but with MoM the disappointment was huge, because they had such an unique and attractive electronic sound before this. TBH the bits from later MoM albums that I've heard have been even worse (the nadir being their collaboration with the mumbling rock band "singer"), but by then I'd already accepted they'd become crap, which wasn't yet the case with this album.

count me in the 'not getting the Velvets or the Stones' club too.

An Aphex Twin album that was supposedly the greatest innovation ever but sounded like stuff I was listening to in 1983. Not a crushing disappointment though tbh.

AR Kane '69' (is that what it's called?) and Arthur Russell's 'World of Echo', both of which I bought when they were released and both of which sailed in one ear and out the other.

Years ago I was just starting to get into reggae music and I found myself rifling around in one of those Our Price racks with CDs that had lost their sleeves. I came across an album called 'Dub Housing' by a guy called Pere Ubu and thought 'that should do'.

Getting back to my uni halls, I was disappointed to find that instead of the bassy Jamaican extravaganza I'd been hoping for, it turned out to be badly-played surf music with a guy singing like someone slowly letting the air out of a balloon.

Nearly threw it in the bin right then and there. So glad I didn't.

An Aphex Twin album that was supposedly the greatest innovation ever but sounded like stuff I was listening to in 1983. Not a crushing disappointment though tbh.

― Letsby Avenue (Tom D.), Friday, November 28, 2014 11:20 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Syro isn't that bad, Tom.

I don't even know what that means.

It Was Written

So glad I didn't.

Happy Ending!

(you heard my "Modern Dance" story?)

no?

OK...

Radio 210 football match, promises local celebs, actually a whole bunch of people that work for the studio, their team. Steve Wright reports back to studio, occasionally chucks out a bunch of singles to keep people interested.

There was a post-match disco, working mens club type of thing, they do a spot-prize for free albums, so loads are doing the rock and roll Grease stuff, or being in the mood for dancing, my lot weren't bothered only there for the beer.

Anyway, the family next to me, their daughter gets a freebie from Stevie, whoa it's "The Modern Dance" Pere Ubu. She rushes back to Granma, who says "Ooo lovely, I like Disco music"

There's a record destined to be unappreciated. What could I tell them? (I didn't even have one myself. Ever wished you did the hucklebuck when you had the chance?)

Actually, that'd be my biggest disappointment: Not getting that, then.

(fwiw, I did get the Max Wall single on Stiff records, that day)

i can just imagine: 'Ermm, actually i think you'll find, ladies, that this is not 'disco' music in the traditional sense of the word, rather Dada-esque proto-post punk from the late seventies. May I suggest that in order to avoid further disappointment you hand over the item to yours truly'.

Would have ended messily..

The 3rd Le Tigre album really crushed me, but I think it was my expectations that were too high. I was a huge fan of the first 2 albums. I'm one of only a few people I know that loves and respects the second as much as the first. The 3rd just felt flat and paint-by-numbers.

actually, my biggest disappoinment as a kid was seeing all the Grateful Dead t-shirts and posters and envisioning the most psyched-out, balls tripping, mind-bending music of all time and then finding out they were a jug band with long solos.

^
That.

t-bomb

One of mine would have been the realization that most "supergroups" suck

post-Eno Talking Heads

R.E.M.'s Green

Going Blank Again

actually, my biggest disappoinment as a kid was seeing all the Grateful Dead t-shirts and posters and envisioning the most psyched-out, balls tripping, mind-bending music of all time and then finding out they were a jug band with long solos.

― ancient texts, things that can't be pre-dated (President Keyes), Sunday, November 30, 2014 1:30 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^
That.

― Hideous Lump, Sunday, November 30, 2014 2:04 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I figured they would be like Iron Maiden.

These are all albums that I remember rushing out to buy and being totally crushed after I first listened to them.

Antony & The Johnsons - The Crying Light (This has grown on me but I thought it was a massive step down after the previous album which was perfect)

Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars (Supposed to be his big pop moment but ended up being incredible bland apart from Going to a Town which is the only keeper)

Divine Comedy - Bang Goes the Knighthood (One of my favourite bands ever. After four years away this is just such a half arsed record. Stop making songs that are just you listing things Neil!)

Magnetic Fields - I (How does this album manage to have more filler on it than 69 Love Songs? It does contain three of his best songs with I Don't Believe You, I Thought You Were my Boyfriend and It's Only Time)

Morrissey - You Are the Quarry (Like many others I was so excited for his return but I remember hearing this on my way home from work and my heart sank a little as every badly produced plodding song went by. The two singles sound great but can't remember much else about it now)

The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make a Living (Had to look up what this was called. Looking at the track list I don't remember a single song on it now)

Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis (Thought this was just such a boring album that made Jarvis sound like he was 100 years old. Could not understand the hype it got at all)

Johnny Boy - Johnny Boy (You are the Generation is one of my favourite singles ever but the album was just so weak all the way through)

Being a teenager in the 70s when Rod Stewart was amazing and so rock and then seeing what he became.

Also, Pearl Jam, Binaural, god do I hate that album (so do they, pretty much).

St. Etienne - Good Humour

The first time I saw that beautiful cover on the insanely priced import my heart skipped a beat. Still, I was broke and the price really was insulting. About a month after, when i had finally managed to save the cash, I grabbed a copy off the shelves and asked to listen to it before buying. I'm glad I did. To this day I can't understand why it is so highly rated by some people.

R.E.M.'s Green

― Brad C., Sunday, November 30, 2014 1:18 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too, at the time, but then I came to like it a lot! Maybe we should also do "Your biggest musical reappraisal."

Built To Spill - Ancient Melodies Of the Future

A quintessential momentum killing album.

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

Don't think I ever lost interest in a band so quickly. I haven't bothered with them since it came out and don't really care to revisit their past.

Yeah, I only 'got on' with Kid A, Amnesiac I liked as well, but that was it.

The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make a Living (Had to look up what this was called. Looking at the track list I don't remember a single song on it now)

Yes - this album was analogous to the third series of Mighty Boosh in my mind. Too much fame, drugs and egotism stifling all the original charm and creativity that should have been present on the third offering.

I don't understand how anyone could be disappointed by HTTT if they liked Kid A / Amnesiac - it's not a huge qualitative step down or change in style from those records. Maybe a little more rock-y but...?

eephus, i think "biggest reassessment" would be interesting as well....
probly lotsa "loved 'em when i was fourteen" type bands, but curious to see how many "acquired tastes" pop up too.....

i was pretty let down by the Red Shoes (Kate Bush). This was the first album I ever got as a pre-release, a tape via someone who worked in radio months before it came out, and it kind of killed me I was so let down by it. It's grown on me in recent years but I still think it's her worst record.

Funny, you said Good Humor by St. Etienne. I feel the same way. I was very disappointed by it when it came out. Put it on last week to see if I like it better and picked the needle up halfway through track 3, side 1. The first three SE albums are classics though.

I've been thinking on this for a while, still tough, but I think it's gotta be:

Talking Heads - True Stories

or else PIL's This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get

Funny, you said Good Humor by St. Etienne. I feel the same way. I was very disappointed by it when it came out. Put it on last week to see if I like it better and picked the needle up halfway through track 3, side 1. The first three SE albums are classics though.

brotherlovesdub

I was doing my work experience at a record shop when this came out and the guy I was working with had to turn it off half way through he was so disappointed with it. I remember him saying "Nothing Can Stop Can Stop Us is one of my favourite singles ever. How have they gone so downhill?" as he turned it off. It actually ended up growing on me a lot thanks to songs like Split Screen, Lose That Girl and Woodcabin but I can understand why people didn't like it. Sound of Water was their big disappointment for me. Especially as Heart Failed was such a great lead single.

Mule Variations by Tom Waits - not that I got it when it came out but I'd heard it was one of his best and it really really wasn't

most post bone machine waits albums are all interchangeable for me. they are good but i never go "oh i want to hear THIS one but not THAT one:

Real Gone is very good, and Alice/Blood Money are not at all in the same vein

i don't know if i'm that disappointed any more. i barely listen to new music tbh, or rather my tastes are never driven by what is coming out in a calendar year. if somebody i like has a new album out i probably won't rush to buy it until i feel a strong need to. by coincidence i was really really into bill callahan last year and he happened to come out with a new album, so that was rad. but this year it's basically been 70s reggae and dub, 70s electric miles, palace music, and joni mitchell for me, that is what i am feeling, and some new album is probably not going to break me out of what i am feeling and what i have a strong need to listen to.

xp oh yea i guess i just meant that for me they are interchangeable, they mostly satisfy the same need for me, not that they are all basically the same works

probably The Eminem Show

when i was a kid i think my tastes were more driven by new releases, i read a lot of spin and shit and then pitchfork in college and kept up with BNM, this is like early 00s, and levez vos skinny fists comme antennaes to heaven was really fucking good but then yanqui uxo came out and was really boring. imo when you follow the calendar year instead of your own inclinations then you will be disappointed. bad shit comes out every year and it's hyped and looked forward to and you spend money on it and then people forget it because it's terrible and boring.

also how many of us spent a lot of time handwringing and listening over and over to see if some new bullshit that we dropped $15 on was actually good, to try to convince ourselves that we weren't duped?

I still vividly remember running to the library to get an album by this amazing Fleetwood Mac band that I was hearing on the radio somewhere around 1978, finding "In Chicago" and...

Oh, yeah, that's another thread altogether, too! Back when you didn't know which album was 'canonical,' so you bought the one you found, usually in the cheapo bin. This is why Trompe le Monde remains the only Pixies album I really like.

Back in my teen prog days, The Sentinel by Pallas was my big event album of 1984. Concept album about Atlantis - check. Produced by Eddie Offord - check. Gatefold sleeve with ridiculous Patrick Woodroffe artwork - check. Songs I'd seen them develop live over the last couple of years - check.
Bought it from Harum Records in Crouch End, almost ran home with the excitement (peeking in the bag a couple of times), reverently took the record out of the inner sleeve and put it on the turntable. And - oh. Piss-weak production, half the songs sounded like an attempt to emulate Magnum and it wasn't even a proper concept album.
Poor 16 year old me was crushed.
I miss getting excited about new releases though, now I'm old and jaded I don't even care when my own records come out let alone anyone elses.

I think you are right with the FCA popularity-to-influence level. Although the career winner has to be John Denver. He was inescapable. Now quite escapable.

Richard Simmons always reminded me of Leo Sayer. Sayer though had this oddball appearing in mime makeup thing going on for a while that isn't very Frampton like.

The (fake) rock critic writing the liner notes to Aja mentions at the start he has just completed a "lukewarm review" of a Leo Sayer live concert. Those notes are hysterical, for years I thought they were real.

The albums made possible by In a Silent Way are much better than IASW itself.

which albums do you have in mind?

The Necks discography, for one.

the necks was a big disappointment indeed. everything i heard from them was so bloody repetitive. a positive surprise in this kind of instrumental, calm & slow music was bohren und der club of gore. really sublime night music with a dark undertone.

sorry i think i got it wrong, you didn't cite the necks as disappointment. still i didn't get them.

I have a Necks' album and to compare in any way to 'In a Silent Way' would be laughable.

I have a lot of disappointments about genres not being what I expected or not having enough of the elements I liked best or bands going in a direction I wasn't as fond of, but generally in both cases I don't think I can blame them for not creating the sort of music I want to hear.

xp: About 8,540 results for "the necks" "in a silent way"

It isn't a novel comparison. One could also look at Hassell or late Talk Talk for other interesting directions taken from IASW. It's certainly a great album, but like many great albums, I find its influence to be much greater than the actual sound, in hindsight.

I love the Necks (and have been lucky enough to see them live) and love IASW and am glad I don't have to choose, but if I did have to choose only one to ever hear again, I'd pick that 39 minutes of magic over the Necks entire discog.

I feel sorry for anyone who finds disappointment in the wondrous beauty of The Necks.

never heard of Hassell and have avoided Necks because of the name, but may investigate.....
yeah, bohren & der club of gore are excellent ....
Sanpaku, did you hear IASW after having already heard Necks, Hassell, Talk Talk, etc?

Jon Hassell, in case of confusion.

I don't think I can blame them for not creating the sort of music I want to hear.

Which reminds me, when I finally got a copy of "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts", having heard bits and pieces of it over the years, I found it to be pretty disappointing.(xp)

Yeah, me too but again I think its because its influence has permeated a lot of things, it seems less, um, original now.

@MostlyClean

I'm only slowly getting to classic jazz (besides the Davis/Mingus/Coltrane canonical picks). I'd heard modal Miles and electric Miles, but despite having the album and seeing it namechecked for years, hadn't gotten around to hearing In a Silent Way until only a few months ago. I've had everything by Hassell for decades due to the Eno association, late Talk Talk due to Ned (I think), and The Necks (especially Hanging Gardens, Drive By, Quay, and Raab) are my most exciting musical discoveries of 2014.

So while I hear IASW, or some hypothetical album very much like IASW, as a neccessary antecedent for many musics I love, the experience of listening to it was a bit underwhelming, possibly because it was Teo Macero's first complete reedit of Miles sessions. Good selections, but disjointed. Macero perhaps hadn't quite perfected his editing technique with the thematic progression of his electric Miles constructions.

Yeah, me too but again I think its because its influence has permeated a lot of things, it seems less, um, original now.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

Never watched it, but yeah.

I see Big Star get a mention there, much what I said upthread.

"Eiffel 65 sounds a lot less fresh today after thousands of rappers ran the Autotune gimmick into the ground."

A ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa..

Oh dear.

the new Run The Jewels. College kid music, total turnoff.

Shudder To Think - 50,000 BC

Where do you go after making an incredible math-glam masterpiece?

You make a record that even members of The Rheostatics or The Caulfields would probably dismiss as boring college rock.

I bought a cd of "A minute to pray a second to die" by the Flesh Eaters on the basis of their unassailable singles ("Sleeping Sickness" & "Pony Dress") and decided on first hearing that I had unfortunately bought a goth record. I returned it to Tower and got the Rhino collection of Link Wray, which of course.

But I bet that Flesh Eaters album is pretty good right? If I weren't so in need of getting real musical value out of my $17 or whatever it was, it would have grown on me like some kind of graveyard mold, yes?

MaresNest are you as entrenched in 90s acts as I am, at least when it comes to pop/rock?

Vic, have a listen again and decide!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9hbLzz2OXk

I've never gotten deeply into this album, even though it should be right up my alley. Feel like it's got all the right attitude, but not enough hooks.

Thanks! I will.

Pony Express Record has waned in my esteem over the years while 50,000 BC has grown (shrugs).

But like, how do they compare in the end? Are you saying 50,000 has surpassed Pony for you?

Evan, if I knew more about your posting habits beyond our shared love of the Lilys I could comment, but I do like a good LOL 90's rabbit hole, Arcwelder being my most recent.

xpost Maybe? It feels like a stronger synthesis of their ethos, somehow.

Mare- That's all I was really going by myself, that and having opinions about Shudder to Think. I've been revisiting a lot of Poole myself.

Wait I want to revise that to better match the Arcwelder sound/vibe. I've been revisiting a lot of Ultra Cindy myself. There.

XP - 50,000 BC ain't all bad, Call Of The Playground is ace and Red House dates back to before PER, but Pony was singular and rarefied and I had high expectations.

I know nothing about Ultra Cindy, will investigate!

They're great! Not much discography at all but their one LP is very nice.

I love the Flesh Eaters but I am pretty goth so ymmv