Great, underappreciated albums

The "We Are The World" single

You = insane

First three Pas/Cal EPs (adding up to a solid album) make up some of my favorite indie pop of this decade. Was always mystified that they didn't get more hype.

The Steppes: Drop Of The Creature

A full-on classic rock album, released in 1987 during the height of hair metal. Completely obscure, out of print and awesome. This is perhaps their best song, Make Us Bleed. If you like great music you are in for a treat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ELG3hH5oG4&feature=related

Wendy & Lisa's turn as the Girl Bros. Fine, heartfelt tribute to Wendy's late brother.

idaho - year after year
swell - 41
giant sand - center of the universe

just to name three mind-blowing albums which come to mind immediately. that gil scott-heron upthread is absolutely fabulous btw.

I found Swell - 41 in the dollar bin a month ago. Its great! But I still think Too Many Days Without Thinking was their peak.

"First three Pas/Cal EPs (adding up to a solid album) make up some of my favorite indie pop of this decade. Was always mystified that they didn't get more hype."

Living in Metro Detroit when those were coming out, they got overhyped. They were fucking everywhere for a little while, and sucked ass live.

I wonder if I should revisit 'em now, now that I'm past the heady days of "garage rock." I just remember seeing them preening at some bar after getting blown away by both the opening acts (Saturday Looks Good To Me and Nomo, if I recall correctly, which was a total mismatch bill), and thinking, "Fuck these twee dipshits."

haha maybe so! Outside of Detroit, no one's really ever heard of them, at least as far as I can tell. I dunno, they seem pretty glorious on record to me.

too many days without thinking is pretty good but 41 is so much better it hurts. try again, evan. and have a smoke. it won't hurt.

Presenting Larry Marshall

The Swedish thread reminded me, The Division of Laura Lee - Black City.

The Beach Boys' Friends always stuck me as an under-appreciated gem; a great pop album buried amidst their more well-known albums.

shalamar - disco gardens

Cannanes and Steward ‎– Communicating At An Unknown Rate

Calexico - Hot Rail

Seriously great records!

Cannanes and Steward ‎– Communicating At An Unknown Rate

^So bittersweet wistful and beautiful.

JUst discovered Art Blakey's The African Beat, not sure how regarded that is but I don't think I'd heard about it before it turned up on a torrent site.
It hails from '62 and sounds like it could have been very influential on Afrodelia of a decade later.
But Blakey was amazing most of the time anyway.

What else??

http://www.oxbridge.org.hk/photo-gallery/category/54-underappreciated-wine-tasting-and-dinner

thanks Vic Perry

appreciating the underappreciated albums y'know

'vocalcity' by luomo, great early 2000s deep house album that always gets neglected when people are namechecking the usual luminaries like kev campbell-behrens, terre thaemlitz, lamar woodcroft, efe ambrose etc

Electro shock blues by Eels - possibly fairly rated, but a classic IMO

We Love - We Love

Ned turned me onto this album and every time I go back to it, I get more out of it. Really, really, really great BPitch Control moody dance music with more than a touch of goth iciness.

Relatively Clean Rivers s/t
Padang Food Tigers - Ready Country Nimbus
Rob St John - Weald
Sunhouse - Crazy on the Weekend
The Lowland Hundred - Under Cambrian Sky
M'Bilia Bel -Phenomene
George Faith - Super Eight

Anything by Fear of Men, this band is way too underrated.

Smackwater Jack by Quincy Jones. A 1971 mix of great jams of soul/pop numbers and orchestrated TV theme type stuff that is very entertaining.

"Memphis" is Petula Clark's best album. An attempt to emulate Dusty Springfield's album from the same year (I guess) and executed in the same manner - ie. in Memphis with Tennessee session guys & producer. Not as good as Dusty obviously but very, very good other than one-or-two clunky 1930s throwbacks ala "Honey Pie" (these basically marr what would otherwise be a perfect album.)

I think absolutely scores of albums spanning over 5 decades by Mal Waldron are great and underappreciated. But his only excursion on an electric piano on the album The Call (w/Eberhard Weber in the band) is the sort of jazz-quartet guitarless Krautrock album that only Mal Waldron could make. It was ILX poster J who alerted me to it's brilliance.

Caspar Brotzmann Massaker Home live in the studio best of and farewell to the original trio. Very visceral heavy psychedelic stuff, essential but I'm not sure how well known it is.

Fat Hit most songlike set by Canadian Free Improvisation trio. Pretty deeply psychy too.

Room oF Lights Crime & The City Solution The one lp by the Howard Brothers line up of the band. Cd came with a lot of bonus stuff from earlier singles and eps.

Eurythmics In The Garden I think this is the only record the band made in this direction. Backing band here are half Blondie and half Can and the direction is psychedelic Brit folk with some contemporary touches. I'm assuming this is still not very well known and not going to be something people will really think of when they think of the band. has English Summer on as well as Take Me To Your heart.

John Renbourn Group A Maid In Bedlam
could be totally wrong about this not being well known. I have it on as I type. BUt sublime.

Roberta Flack First take
it has First Time Ever I saw Your Face on so may be better known but has a pretty unique folk jazz soul quality to it that is different to the later material I think is much better known.

Great Society Live at The Matrix, the combination of the 2 sets released in the late 60s as Conspicous Only In ITs Absence and How It Was.
Grace Slick's first band put together with her then husband Jerry and his brother Darby. Darby Slick plays a great raga guitar style that I wish had been recorded a lot more. But when Grace left for jefferson Airplane right at the point the band was about to be signed he took off for India to further study music. He did release an lp as Saddhu Brand in 1970 but i Think that's a lot more traditional Indian stuff.

Sylvia Moore Jungle Magic
Northern English accented singer plays with a load of exotic instrumentation. Tracklisting seems to be half Northern English folk and half more exotic stuff all played in a similar way plus the poignant original You made Yourself Clear
I picked this up from a miscellaneous section in the local 2nd hand record shop back in the mid 80s. It has a cartoony pre photoshop cover with her playing Kora against a painted jungle with an appreciative crocodile.

Herman's Hermits Blaze
their psychedelic lp. I've loved tis since I picked it up for 60p from a different 2nd hand record shop back in the early 80s.
Probably gets dismissed by some after them being better known for their novelty teenybopper songs.

Off the top of my head:

A Tribo - Great psych MPB project with Joyce and Nelson Angelo, never released an album proper but recorded 35 minutes worth of material that are super top notch.

Sathima Bea Benjamin - A Morning in Paris: From around the time of Dollar Brand's first recordings; trios with Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Dollar Brand on piano. Benjamin's voice is splendid on these standards.

On - Shifting Skin: Electronic rock by Ken Andrews post-Failure. Quality stuff.

Gary Numan - Dance
Soft Cell - This Last Night in Sodom
Heaven 17 - How Men Are
Alice Cooper - DaDa
Visage - The Anvil

The Glands

Clock DVA Thirst
Noir influenced jazz industrial stuff. Pretty dark, pretty unique.
The band the Box who were the other players than Adi Newton here are very undersung too.

D.A.F Die Kleinen Und Die Bosen
I think the 1st 2lps by these are both pretty undersung. Think that most attention is spent on the bodybeat duo stuff isn't it?
Die Kleinen Und Die Bosen is like a hardcore lp with electronics or something. Always had me thinkking of driving around a town like Berlin at night too.

Gun Club Miami
my favourite of their lps. I think most attention with these is given to the 1st lp which I think is widely cited as influential on various psychobilly and garagey bands.
Miami is the next lp, features the same line up as the first one, though Rob Ritter the bassist is uncredited because he left before it was released. He was replaced in the live line up by Patricia Morrison though she doesn't get into the studio asa band memeber until Las Vegas Story.
lp is more country and more psychedelic than the debut. I think the cover image is very evocative.

Savage Republic Jamahiriya
One of my favourite lps to listen to while tripping. Seems quasi cinematic in its depiction of driving through deserts etc.
Penultimate lp by the 80s line up since they cut Customs on some time off in Greece during a European tour. I like that lp too.

John Martyn Inside Out
lp improvised wjhile Martyn was seriously drunk I think. Think it tends to be eclipsed by the previous lp Solid Air.

A one-off band from ten years ago I still listen to, and I may be the only one, is Michael Dracula

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP_tRVZLu10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP8uPyigiD0

3AM nightmare disco rock, like early Chromatics, HTRK, Celebration and the also excellent and forgotten Veronica Lipgloss and the Evil Eyes. Rowland S. Howard couldn't produce everyone like this, but I love that basic sound, and Michael Dracula are my favorite execution of the style. Looks like the principal Emily MacLaren is still doing good stuff as an engineer and producer:

http://www.m-magazine.co.uk/features/interviews/interview-emily-maclaren-green-door-studio/

Casket Girls debut is pretty underrated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI0KNAYeKgw