Great albums with terrible last songs

Lilys - A Brief History Of Amazing Letdowns

Daydream Nation. I hate 'Eliminator Jr.'

The Soft Machine (first LP) is the closest thing I can think of to a perfect album, but the last track "Box 25/4 Lid" is just 49 seconds of nothing much going on, it doesn't ruin it but if they deleted it nobody would care.

Damn, Vital Signs, Countdown, and Bike are all jams. Y'all cray.

Noodle Vague, how is RiL not a party album when it's got Crosseyed & Painless on it?

Three comments against mine, but I don't know, when I listen to Piper I'm really eager to hear all of that psychedelic wonderful greatness of Interstellar Overdrive, Astronomy Domine, Flaming, Lucifer Sam... anything really, but Bike sounds so different to me. Do people really think of it as just as good as all those other album tracks/a standout/a Pink Floyd classic/fitting in well with the album?

Yes. You actually think "Take Up They Stethoscope" is better?

how is RiL not a party album when it's got Crosseyed & Painless on it?

well for one thing David Byrne is singing on it

put listening wind on and dance to it. feels slinky, right? then dance to the overload. Now you're doing the zombie shuffle. Thats why it doesn't work.

THREAD WINNER.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iisYw0epV_Q

yes Joni, definitely end your best album and one of the best albums of all time with a guest spot from Cheech & Chong

weirdly, that was the first song i got into the first time i heard Court & Spark (and Joni in general) but the joke wore thin by like the second go round

i hear RiL as paranoid and twitchy and bummed and "The Overload" as its logical conclusion, the overload, the comedown

"Soul Survivor" feels sort of like an afterthought at the end of Exile On Main Street

I used to think so too, but the drumming! the riff!

yeah no way, "soul survivor rips," less afterthought than condensed culmination. "it's gonna be the death of me" always gives me chills

shift quotation mark one word to the left

New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down

"Compton" is the only song I don't like on Good Kid Maad City, sticks out like a sore thumb

Yes. You actually think "Take Up They Stethoscope" is better?

Um... no, indeed, that one isn't great. I do notice more of a contrast with Bike in regards to the rest of the album though (Stethoscope is also shorter and sounds more like a filler to me). And I definitely wouldn't rank it alongside all those tracks that truly stand out to me. Do you?

Aladdin Sane ends with Lady Grinning Soul, which is not a good song.

And maybe the quintessential example, Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s excellent, overlooked album Broken Arrow ends with a pointless cover of Baby What You Want Me To Do that sounds like it was recorded on a Walkman from the back of a tiny club.

REM’s Document ends with Oddfellows Local 151 which is nobody’s idea of a good song.

"Lady Grinning Soul" is not a good song, it's a great song

you're also fairly wrong about "Oddfellows"

i know ILM is the wrong place to say this but what a wonderful thing consciousness is that it can diverge so wildly between essentially similar creatures

After "Bike" I'm expecting someone to come along and post "After Hours" from The Velvet Underground.

yeah but this is still the wrongest thing in the thread

how is RiL not a party album when it's got Crosseyed & Painless on it?

well for one thing David Byrne is singing on it

― vermicious kid (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, April 10, 2018 7:29 AM (forty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'Soul Survivor' makes perfect sense as a closer. It's a new beginning after an hour spent wading in delicious muck. Whether it's believable or not is another matter.

I was almost going to include Court and Spark too, but didn't because while I don't find the lightweight, jokey, "Twisted" to be an appropriate album closer, it's not *that* awful a song; it may have gone unnoticed if the other tracks weren't so great. I disqualified The Beach Boys Today because "Bull Session with the Big Daddy" isn't a song, and "In the Back of my Mind" is an excellent album closer. Ending Friends with "Transcendental Meditation" is a headscratcher though given that "I Went to Sleep" was recorded during the same sessions and would have closed the album perfectly.

"Bike" is a fine closer for Piper IMO.

As for 'Bike', I hated it at first but I was still wrapping my mind around Barrett-era Floyd at the time. Can't imagine the album without it at this point, thanks to the tape loop in particular.

dunno if I'd call it terrible but I've always found "Equator" on Kimono My House to be pretty obnoxious

Sunset is by far my least favorite song on Stranded by Roxy Music, not sure if I would call it a bad song though.

The first one I thought of when I saw the thread title was 'Engineers' from Gary Numan's The Pleasure Principle which isn't terrible, but unremarkable in comparison to the previous 9 tracks. I don't think Numan ever played it live either, at the time or since.

'(Exchange)' from Mezzanine is one I could do without.

what no it's a lovely balm after group four

Electric Warrior would be better ending with Life's a Gas rather than Rip Off

Exchange isn't terrible, it's just pointless, especially coming after Group Four.

Massive Attack never quite worked out closing tracks in general, although I do like Hymn of the Big Wheel.

Um... no, indeed, that one isn't great. I do notice more of a contrast with Bike in regards to the rest of the album though (Stethoscope is also shorter and sounds more like a filler to me). And I definitely wouldn't rank it alongside all those tracks that truly stand out to me. Do you?

Probably not, nonetheless I find the idea that it doesn't fit on an album that ranges from The Gnome to Interstellar Overdrive an odd one. Also Take Thy Stethoscope is longer, isn't it?

I may be crazy for nominating Bike, but Sunset has always been one of my favourite Roxy Music songs & part of why Stranded is my favourite album of theirs.
I also think Lady Grinning Soul is amazing.

I would have preferred a track that evokes 'Exchange's mood without being a half-assed reprise.

The first one I thought of when I saw the thread title was 'Engineers' from Gary Numan's The Pleasure Principle which isn't terrible, but unremarkable in comparison to the previous 9 tracks. I don't think Numan ever played it live either, at the time or since.

he's done TPP live so I'm sure he's played it a few times. for me the record is basically one tune in 10 parts. if we're doing Numan I'd rather mention "Zero Bars" - such an odd, wanky closer after the relatively brilliant "Jo the Waiter"

Probably not, nonetheless I find the idea that it doesn't fit on an album that ranges from The Gnome to Interstellar Overdrive an odd one. Also Take Thy Stethoscope is longer, isn't it?

Bike's longer (not by much), it is true that there's a lot of variation and weirdness on that album which is part of why it's such a wonderful record.

As for 'Bike', I hated it at first but I was still wrapping my mind around Barrett-era Floyd at the time. Can't imagine the album without it at this point, thanks to the tape loop in particular.

Could be that I still haven't listened to it enough.

Since we're all here, that thing at the end of "We're Only In It For the Money".

No one metioned Rubber Soul yet?

thomas dolby - the flat earth

the whole album is this gorgeous, beautifully produced atmospheric wonder.
then they put hyperactive on at the end as there was the need for a radio hit.

The inclusion of "Nothing Like You" on Miles Davis' Sorcerer is pretty baffling. It's five years older than everything else on the record, not even needed as filler (the album would be 38 minutes without it), and comes from a session Miles hated so much (with "that silly-ass singer Bob Dorough") that he refused to work with Teo Macero for years afterward.

Downtown on the first B-52's album is an obvious one for me. The album is still a classic despite this one misfire.

Closing tracks that overstay their welcome:
* Zen Arcade - Reoccurring Dreams
* The College Dropout - Last Call
* They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top - This Dust Makes That Mud

come on, last call is fantastic. i could listen to that loop for hours.

No one metioned Rubber Soul yet?

― chap, Tuesday, April 10, 2018 8:51 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Run For Your Life is a good enough rocker, tho obviously not up to the standard of the rest of the album. I think Dizzy Miss Lizzie is my Beatles pick for this category.

"and this day" on hex enduction hour.

There are worse tracks on it for other reasons, but nothing bores the shit out of me like 'Going Home' at the end of Aftermath

* Zen Arcade - Reoccurring Dreams

This is a highlight -- maybe the highlight -- of Zen Arcade for me. I always wished they released more stuff like this.

nah he loves rock n roll. listen to Crusin With Ruben and the Jets.

I'm 2/3 into this, and not hating it! He clearly does have a real affinity for '50s R'n'R and doo-wop.

I feel like I'd rather listen to "the real thing" -- or the Lou Reed songs where he goes deep into those styles and creates something new -- than this album, which feels like sort of a "genre exercise"; but I concede it's my first time thru and I'm just listening on the computer.

Cruising is such an anomaly in his catalogue - it's weirdly earnest, you don't get the sense he's just mocking it the way you do with all those hard-rock 70s records. He never did another record quite like it.

Weasels ripped my flesh is wonderful morris

Check out directly from my heart to you

Thanks, will dial that up next!

Why are you bothering with Zappa, so much better stuff to listen to out there? There is quite a bit of mocking going on on "Cruising With Ruben & the Jets" btw.

Though the main problem with "Cruising With Ruben & the Jets" is it sounds like Zappa spent about 5 minutes on the arrangements and 30 minutes on the recording.

Eh, I've got Spotify and nothing but time while I work...

There is quite a bit of mocking going on on "Cruising With Ruben & the Jets" btw

it was made when all the serious rock bands were doing "back to the basics" and ripping off blues records. those are the targets of the mockery, not the doo wop itself (which is a style he has played his entire career)

anyways theres a lot of mockery in rock. Bob Dylan's entire career is built on sneering at conventions.

it was made when all the serious rock bands were doing "back to the basics" and ripping off blues records. those are the targets of the mockery, not the doo wop itself (which is a style he has played his entire career)

That's a bizarre theory, I must say. The lyrics of doo wop songs are definitely mocked and played for laughs by Zappa. Not all of the album is even doo wop anyway!

sure like usual there are many layers to the satire. but i don't think "doo wop music/50s rock is stupid" itself was one of the intend takes. like he hates lovey dovey lyrics but loves the music.

well yeah

the fact that you have to unwrap it a bit to figure out what he's making fun is what makes it unique. usually Frank ain't so subtle. (though lol @ Cruising with Ruben & the Jets being "subtle")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv6AiaaOOnY

i like "Charva", an early one he did in 1963. same wheelhouse but more Ramones (via singing about sniffing glue)

you can mock something that you like, even have affection for. see also MST3K

Well, I listened to Weasels... I dug the track "Get a Little" (it's too short, in fact!) -- both the lead gtr and bassline are very to my taste. The rest of the LP seems too noodly / chord-changey / listener-antagonistic to jell w/me.

"Get a Little" reminds me of the stuff on Plays That Good Old Rock And Roll, the 2002 album my main man Neil Hagerty (& crew)...

Weasels gets pretty skronky. It has some good stuff tho.

I tried and tried with Zappa but he's just fucking terrible

otm

decided to relisten to "Jumbo Go Away" just to see if it's as vile as I remember. it's actually much worse, though there is a crazy and brilliant middle section that sounds like the Residents on steroids. then afterwards "Jumbo better get back, or your eye will get black, once I give you a smack", filled by a minute of crying noises. anyway, long story short, I hate Frank Zappa now

Hard to think of a major figure who had such little sense of taste as to how to present his talent attractively

There's legends who alienate and rub fans the wrong way but it's hardly ever done as cheaply and as pointlessly

A Ghost is Born shouldn't end with the Late Greats right after the great Less Than You Think, which was the perfect ending.

BIKE IS FUCKING DOPE

I thought I was going to have to vouch hard for “Cassandra Gemini”, but as it is I just want to make the case that an 8-minute funereal jam session is a great final indulgence for a song that’s managed to maintain its energy so well for so long, esp. (as mentioned) when the chorus comes soaring back one last time at the end.

"shut up and play your guitar" is the other zappa album i like, just 3 CDs of guitar solos

Yeah that's one of the ones I owned once. Thought I would dig it! Maybe I'll try dipping back in.

probably doesn't count as it's a hidden track but "Hit to Death in the Future Head" has a nearly 30 minute harsh noise loop as a final track. i've never been able to listen to this great album all the way through.

my patience with songwriters who are either unable or unwilling to write a love song grows shorter as i grow older