Overlooked and underappreciated albums

[RPS]

Some artists/bands have large bodies of work and there is bound to be a few albums that fall between the cracks. Maybe people don't give it enough love, it was a flop commercially, or maybe the critics just shit all over it.

I always found Michael Jackson's albums between 1991 and 1997 - Dangerous, HIStory, and Blood on the Dance Floor - don't get enough love. Dangerous, in particular, is really good. I find his lyrics on the album the most interesting and the first eight songs on the album would rank amongst my favorite MJ songs. With Bad, I always felt MJ was trying desperately to replicate the success of Thriller. On Dangerous, I think he felt he deviated from the formula a lot more and it sounds great. It got a little cheesy near the end with the overload of ballads, but the first 8 tracks are extraordinary.

People crapped all over Daft Punk's Human After All when it came out, but I thought it was on par with their two previous albums. They weren't trying to repeat the success of Discovery and they made a pretty interesting concept album.

[Katsuya]

Probably not applicable to most people, but Britney's "Blackout" album is brilliant. It was overshadowed by the mess of the crazyness she was going through, but it's one of those albums I can enjoy listening to from start to finish.

Also, "I'm Not Dead" by Pink fits in the same category.

[GA!]

"Lifeblood" by Manic Street Preachers. Even the band hate the album these days but it is so lush and, as far as 'whole albums' go, their most consistent.

I also maintain "Load" and "Reload" are Metallica's best albums.

[RPS]

Probably not applicable to most people, but Britney's "Blackout" album is brilliant. It was overshadowed by the mess of the crazyness she was going through, but it's one of those albums I can enjoy listening to from start to finish.

Also, "I'm Not Dead" by Pink fits in the same category.

Agreed on the Britney front. All the singles off that album were super strong and the filler tracks were actually fairly strong for a Britney album.

I can cosign on Load being a pretty good album, but I never liked Reload.

[Skummy]

Trans by Neil Young.

His record label sued him for intentionally releasing music that "didn't sound like Neil Young", in an apparent attempt to screw them over and get out of his contract. It got terrible reviews, and has never been reissued on CD.

Thirty years later, it sounds fucking incredible. I play this track all the time when I'm DJing;

If that song was released in the last couple of years, it would have been a hit.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Muse's first album "Showbiz" and their third album "Absolution" are definitely their best two.

People seem to have a downer on "Kid A" from Radiohead's discography but I really liked that period of their music. Second only to "OK Computer" as far as I'm concerned.

Feeder's best album is either their first full album "Polythene" or their second "Yesterday Came Too Soon". Of course they broke through with their next album (which had Buck Rogers and Seven Days in the Sun) an made more of a name for themselves after that, but that earlier work was far preferable to me.

[METALMAN]

Speaking of Neil Young, Le Noise and Psychedelic Pill are both really good but are perhaps a bit overlooked because they are more recent..

I think Street Legal is a really good Bob Dylan album that isn't mentioned too often.

The Byrds self-titled album they released after reformation is really nice, but not in the classic 60s period.

I've meniioned before that Young Americans is my favourite David Bowie album. It's also one of my favourite albums ever.

I posted a topic about Watertown by Francis Albert before. It's amazing. A wonderful concept.

Paul McCartney made three albums that are the best solo work by any Beatles alumnus but are rarely recognised as being so. Ram gets a little bit of attention to be fair, but 2005's Chaos And Creation In The Backyard is largely ignored, as is McCartney II. Oh, and The Fireman actually.

I quite like Musicology by Prince.

The Rolling Stones are really good for this. as much of their stuff from outside of 1968-1972 is overlooked. I think Black and Blue and Aftermath are really good albums.

Serge Gainsbourg's first two albums never get any attention, but those are my favourites. They are a bit more Jacques Brelsy.

Steely Dan made a couple of good albums in the last ten years after they reunited which are just as slick and catchy as their 70s music.

Angles is the best Strokes album.

That was fun. I enjoyed that.

I actually think Paul McCartney and Prince are the best for this. Both are widely acknowledged to have turned shit at a particular time, but they actually didn;t.

[Adam]

"Lifeblood" by Manic Street Preachers. Even the band hate the album these days but it is so lush and, as far as 'whole albums' go, their most consistent.

I also maintain "Load" and "Reload" are Metallica's best albums.

I came in here to post the same thing. They're so underappreciated by Metallica fans and especially metal fans in general. I think three of my favourite Metallica songs are from Load.

[Mancuerda]

Load and ReLoad aren't Metallica's best albums but they aren't the pieces of shit most Metallica fans claim they are. I can enjoy them for sure, and they have a few good singles . Most are from ReLoad, but Fuel, The Unforgiven II, Devil's Dance, King Nothing, Attitude, Better Than You, the Memory Remains, and Ain't My Bitch are all solid songs. Metallica's best albums are the Black Album, Ride The Lightning, and Master of Puppets, IMO.

EDIT: That said, I think St. Anger is the least-appreciated album of Metallica's, and it was pretty bad... but I still listened to it lol.

But yeah, I would say going along with metal, Megadeth had several unappreciated albums. Risk, Cryptic Writings, The World Needs a Hero, The System Has Failed... basically anything from '97 to '04 seems to get ignored, but there was a LOT of good stuff in there. Trust, Prince of Darkness, Crush 'Em, The Doctor Is Calling, The World Needs a Hero, Return to Hangar, The Scorpion, Kick The Chair, Of Mice and Men, Die Dead Enough.... a lot of great songs in that 7 year span.

[Adam]

I looked at my Megadeth collection to see if any stood out that I felt were underappreciated but more I could only think of a couple that had excellent songs on them rather than the album on the whole ("Trust" on Cryptic Writings, "Prince of Darkness" on Risk). And no, I don't think Load/Reload were Metallica's best albums but they are a lot higher than most people put them. Load is probably only behind The Black Album and maybe Master of Puppets too. "Bleeding Me" is one of my favourite ever songs.

[Matt]

I find it odd that so many prefer load to reload, is agree that reload is under appreciated, but not so much load, it probably doesn't deserve the shit it gets but I don't think it's great. I don't think death magnetic got the praise it deserved either, it's no master of puppets but if it didn't have the Metallica name attached to it I think people wouldn't have criticised it so much.

The first that came to my mind was American idiot though. As mainstream rock goes, that album for the most part is pretty good, sure it isn't Dookie or Nimrod but one or two songs aside it's a decent listen.

[tristy]

All three of Jens Lekman's albums, but in particular, "Night Falls Over Kortedala". Just a really damn good album, I can't say enough about it.

On the Nine Inch Nails front, the "Broken" EP never gets enough love. It's always "blah blah The Downward Spiral is so aggressive" or some wankery about "The Fragile". But, without TVT Records bullshitting Reznor and the Broken EP, you wouldn't have any of that. We'd still have Nine Inch Nails performing shit like Maybe Just Once.

[SRN]

I am gonna do this metalman style.

I have always found that The Drab Four's debut doesn't get enough praise from today's metal fans. It is in fact one of my favorite albums.

Tutu by Miles Dewey III unfaiirly gets put aside in favor of some of his older work.

Atom Heart Mother by Pink Floyd is much the same.

As is the Jazz at Oberlin recording from David Warren and his quartet.

Bowery Electric, the band, is sorely overlooked today by fans of trip-hop and its pains me that all the praise goes to Portishead.

Ride the Lightning is the best Metallica album.

The Man Who Sold The World and Aladdin Sane are much better glam rock albums than Ziggy Stardust.

This was not fun at all, I will never post like metalman again, it makes me feel pretentious and weird. And Scottish.

[deli]

I think White Light/White Heat is the best Velvet Underground record, so underrated.

Yoshimi Battle the Pink Robots is a good Flaming Lips album, but The Soft Bulletin is a masterpiece.

I agree with metalman that Angles is the best strokes album.

Likewise, I always thought that Humbug was the best Arctic Monkeys album, never was a fan of the first two.

When you mention Talk Talk, people always talk about their new wave stuff (It's My Life etc.), but overlook their fantastic Post Rock records (Spirit of Eden/ Laughing Stock)

I'm a massive QOTSA fan, but I feel like not enough people appropriated stuff like their debut self-titled album at all.

[supergrass]

The first QOTSA album is very good, although I don't know any people who the band at all.

And my first thought when I read the title was Humbug by Arctic Monkeys, especially when it's disregarded by those who are otherwise Arctic Monkeys fans. They've never sounded as good as they did on that album. After hating the first and liking most but not all of Favourite Worst Nightmare, it was the one that really turned me around and is still one of my go-to albums when I'm not sure what to put on next.

I was disappointed they took a little bit of a step back on Suck It and See, although I liked the album overall. R U Mine was an encouraging return, looking forward to their next album.

In terms of overlooked albums, the Girls In The Garage compilation series is great. There are about 10 volumes - some harder to find than others, a lot of it is on Youtube. The first and tenth are my favourites and well worth a listen I think. Not all gold, but it's worth a sift through to find the tracks that really stand out - if you like 60s, girl led, garage bands.

[VerbalPuke]

I'd first go with X's Under The Big Black Sun. The album seems to be overlooked because most critics are touting Los Angeles and Wild Gift as punk classics. I happen to think Under the Big Black Sun is X at their absolute best. The song writing is superb, much more polished and refined from their first two efforts. The album keeps some of their rockabilly roots intact while offering a more melodic sound. It just seems as if the band evolved a bit beyond hard rocking punk tunes and composed a well rounded album.

[Colly]

I loved Humbug and it was my favourite Arctic Monkeys album at the time, I do prefer Suck it and See though. Not a duff song, and there's more of them. Plus the last few songs sound a bit Teenage Fanclub.

[Nick Adams]

Jason Mraz's Mr. A-Z. So many magazines called it a sophomore slump, and it is somewhat deserved, since the one single that the producers tried to get airplay really didn't catch on. More to the point, the album itself wasn't a huge seller. I don't even think it hit gold status. However, that was just really bad luck. Taken as an album as opposed to just looking at a few tracks and judging it, I find it to be good. He may not have been as lyrically clever as in his first or third albums, but there's still some fun to it.

It might just be that he actually wrote a song about going to a laundromat, accidentally washing his whites with a red article of clothing that somebody else left in the washer, and dealing with women laughing at him for wearing pink clothes. Somehow, making something mundane sound relatively entertaining strikes me as requiring more skill than one would normally think.