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Underrated albums?


RPS

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What are the some of the albums you think are underrated? 

I get why Lady Gaga's Born this Way album was sort of received at the time (because she went from the Fame to that), but it is a) a really great album and b) totally out there. I mean, there is probably 5 songs that could be cut (Hair, Bloody Mary, Black Jesus could all be cut), but it is actually a fun and really risky venture. Scheibe is probably the most out there song ever released by a pop star at the height of their popularity- those pounding synths and techno beat, a not really explained fixation on Germany, and the very direct feminist lyrics. Art Pop sucked, but Born This Way was great. 

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Sing to God by Cardiacs

Granted, if you're aware of the Cardiacs this probably isn't underrated, but this album is far too interesting and bizarre to go under the radar without at least one listen.

Every time I go to describe it I end up going into long paragraphs because it's absolutely insane so instead here's a track from the album about being romantically attracted to Lassie the dog so the protagonist decides to roll around in the mud like a horse until insects start appearing on his hands and Lassie notices him through the TV screen.

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"Warning" by Green Day. Dookie and American Idiot tend to be the big albums, but I find Warning hasn't aged unlike the other two, and all the songs are catchy whilst not being samey.

Warning came out when I was in high school, so even though Dookie was a better album, I listened to Warning way more. I agree it is better than most give it credit for. 

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I never really got into Born This Way as I did with the Fame Monster. Still had a few really good songs though.

The other day I was chatting about David Bowie, namely that Young Americans is his best album but general critical opinion would suggest otherwise. Young Americans is amazing.

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Young Americans is a good shout. Has two of my favorite Bowie songs on it, Fame and the title track. John, I'm Only Dancing is a great track too.

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I think lost in the hoopla of how amazing the Stooges albums were, is that Iggy Pop had a really good solo career. The Idiot and Lust For Life are incredible albums that have a slew of great tracks. It's a nice change of pace from Iggy, and I of course love the Stooges, but The Idiot is a legitimate masterpiece.

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Main one for me is 'Lifeblood' by Manic Street Preachers, an album even they hate now (harshly claiming they tried to sound like The Pet Shop Boys but wound up more like Westlife). The album eschewed their rock-y approach for something more synth-pop, and it's lovely - one of my favourite albums, in fact.

I'm sure I've said this somewhere recently, but 'Load' and 'Reload' by Metallica are great. I prefer Metallica the Hard Rock Band to Metallica the Thrash Metal Band. 

'Adore' and 'Machina' by Smashing Pumpkins are great. The former is let down critically by being more electronic, and latter is let down by some weird-arse mixing in which the guitar is more processed than a Big Mac.

 

Also, the entire discography of The Lightning Seeds bar that fucking 'Three Lions' song. They should have been a lot bigger than there were; sadly their main bulk of work happened during Britpop when their sound was a bit unfashionable.

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I think a hell of a lot people underrate Fall Out Boy albums and the reason is two-fold.

a) Their earlier content which was so angry white teenager that it's funny.

b) Their single choices that get the most power behind them are generally the worst songs on the albums - stuff like My Song Know What You Did In The Dark and I Don't Care don't even come close to showing how catchy and clever they can be.

In particular I think that Folie A Deux and American Beauty/American Psycho deserve a ton of credit for being fucking awesome albums.

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I just think they get dismissed because they are a popular genre band. I've heard a few of their albums and they are good, but I think most people just hear 'Fall Out Boy are a really popular emo band...' and stop listening.

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I was thinking about this because I was listening to Marilyn Manson while I was getting ready earlier, but Golden Age of Grotesque seems pretty underrated to me. Mostly when people mention Manson they think of Mechanical Animals, Holy Wood etc. and fair play, those are great albums for the most part, but GAOG was good too. Granted, yeah, it sort of marks his descent into shitty albums (Born Villain, Eat Me Drink Me rubbish stuff) but it had some great tunes on there. mOBSCENE, Use Your Fist And Not Your Mouth, (s)AINT, etc.

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I think GAOG probably suffers because it came at a time when the censorship lobby was dying down, and the hysteria about Manson/Eminem/GTA was finally dying as conservatives interest in fighting for censorship and against creative freedom of speech died out, whereas MA and Holy Wood were at the height of the hype.

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I think this gets a lot of credit but maybe less so than a lot of the releases of similar ilk by bands at the time - Pulp 'Different Class'.

People talk about Oasis and Blur and who was best - whilst Pulp really were a fair step away from them both in terms of output, 'Different Class' is easily the best UK Indie (if that's what we want to call it) album of that time period. Just brilliant.

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I think this gets a lot of credit but maybe less so than a lot of the releases of similar ilk by bands at the time - Pulp 'Different Class'.

People talk about Oasis and Blur and who was best - whilst Pulp really were a fair step away from them both in terms of output, 'Different Class' is easily the best UK Indie (if that's what we want to call it) album of that time period. Just brilliant.

I love all three, but the correct answer to "Who's better, Blur or Oasis" was "Pulp". Or "Supergrass". 

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