Amph Cease That Infernal Tootling:A Thread About Bad Music Disc. Tiffany's Tiffany

Okay, yeah, it?s me again. Bear with me in my foolishness, as the apostle Paul once wrote, as I start yet another hosted discussion/review thread. This one follows along nicely with my Bad Movies thread. That?s right, it?s a thread dedicated to bad albums. I managed to find a few lists of bad albums on the internet and compiled them. From that list, I will choose one at random every now and again and give it a listen.

Being compiled from the internet, this list contains some oddities. Legends like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, U2 and Elvis show up occasionally. There?s plenty of Beatles covers, a couple of spoken word classics, some experimental classical post-modernism, some big hit albums that have faded since their debut and, yes, an album by a guy who farts the classics.

First up, it?s an album that was something of a big hit when it was first released peaking at number one on the albums chart, driven there by its epic, titular single, which also peaked at number one. How has time treated Don McLean? Let?s find out; next time, it?s track by track through Don McLean?s 1971 opus American Pie.

American Pie (1971) ? Don McLean

<img src="http://www.amiright.com/album-covers/images/album-Don-McLean-American-Pie.jpg">

*Okay, so, I confess that to this point my exposure to Don McLean has been the standard one. I heard American Pie on the radio, enjoyed it quite a bit the first hundred times, cooled significantly over the next fifty-thousand times I heard it, and have spent the last six or seven years of my life trying desperately to avoid it at all costs, so great is my desire to not be subjected to McLean?s warbly, half hour, pretentious ramblings about the state of rock?n?roll in the sixties.

*Beyond that lies nothin?. I?ve never, as far as I know, heard another song by the guy.

*So, let?s jump in with both feet. Looking at that cover, it?s obvious he?s not going to try to be pretentious or anything.

*Hilariously, in the title song, McLean muses on deciding he wanted to be a musician because his dream was to make people dance. Because, yeah, there is perhaps one song on this album that it would even be possible to dance too. That worked out well.

*You know, after my father died when I was fifteen, I went through a pretty grim period where I was sort of afraid that I was going to die as well. I mean, pretty haunted really. I?d take my pulse and such at random moments to assure myself that my heart was still working right.

*Anyway, during that period, I sort of grew a real hatred for this song because it?s so catchy that, if you hear it once, you?ll be singing it for the rest of the day. And I was actually, quite literally afraid that if I sang the line, ?This?ll be the day that I die,? that I would actually die that day.

*God, grief messes you up bad. I mean, it sends your head over the deep end. I can?t even fathom it now, but I remember it so vividly, that song going over and over in my head and I was afraid to even hum it because of that one line. I don?t mean, superstition; I mean, I literally believed it.

*Admittedly, that one line that is repeated about fifty billion times during the song.

*I really can?t decide if ?broncin? buck? is terrible or brilliant. I have the same problem with that Piano Man song where Billy Joel flips ?gin and tonic? into ?tonic and gin.? I can?t quite decide if they?re being really creative or just being lazy to get an easy rhyme.

*Okay, the Jester is Dylan, right? And Elvis is the King? And now the ?dirges in the dark? refers to S&G, right? But who are ?the birds??

*You know, I really, really hate that ?eight miles high and falling faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast.? But it reminds me, have you all heard the Brady Bunch kids version of this song. Oy, is it terrible. That moment is like the pinnacle of the song?s horribleness. I literally could not force myself to listen past that moment.

*The Sergeants played a marching tune. Now that?s a reference to SSgt. Barry Sadler, right?

*Right, right, Altamont, your

 

the birds are The Byrds, who had a hit with "Eight Miles High"

I agree this song is hideously over-exposed.

(I trust you are going to do "MacArthur Park"? Please?)

 

I quite like this song. Why does everything have to be like "Quinn the Eskimo"? Wouldn't you say more songs are like that than this one?

"MacAthur Park" though, is terrible. Definately agreed.

 

Pretty astounding, though, how much worse Madonna's remake of it is.

 

Great, now I've got the song stuck in my head.

I like the song, but I haven't been way overexposed to it as other have (probably only heard it half a dozen times at most). And trying to figure out what the lyrics mean is half the fun.

 

That's fair enough. But I think McLean probably thinks he's doing a Dylan-esque song, when he isn't. And a ton of critics say American Pie is Dylan-esque, when I don't think it is. That's all I meant. Certainly, I wouldn't ever song to be like Quinn the Eskimo. God, what a horrible fate that would be.

 

You know, I had no idea this was an entire album - I'm not terribly keen on American Pie, so sitting through an LP of this guy is a rather scary prospect.

 

It's an awfully catchy song, I'd rather try to not think about it.

 

Great. Now it's stuck in my head.

The first time the song is okay. The 178,000 time, it makes ears bleed.

 

Stuck in my brain, too.

Curse you, Red Baron.

 

Days of Future Passed (1967) ? The Moody Blues, or Setting the Bar Somewhere Below Duck Sex

<img src="http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/224/cover_28391121102008.jpg">

*First off, some housecleaning. Last time, you may recall, I promised a review of Wheels of Fire, with hopefully some understanding eventually dawning as to how anyone could put that on a ?worst albums? list. But the library has been typically contrary and so I received the album I intended to review after Wheels of Fire before Wheels of Fire. So, I?m skipping to that one, since it needs to go back now.

*I mean it really, really, really needs to go back and just get out of my house. Soon.

*I recall reading one of the myriad books about bad albums that helped me create the master list I?m using a couple of years ago and being just absolutely gratified to see Days of Future Passed on their list of the 50 worst albums of all time.

*My initial exposure to this album was not one designed to give me a deep and abiding affection for the album, I grant you, and so hopefully, I?ll start with a clean slate here.

*Anyway, at a job that I used to have, working the night shift in a hospital, one of my co-workers had burned a mixtape, or rather had a friend do it for him, since he didn?t even own a CD player.

*On this mixtape were a couple of things; I recall there being an absolutely obscene track featuring Donald Duck getting a handjob or something.

*There was also on the CD, and absolutely unquibblable with, In a Gadda Da Vida, which got no arguments from me.

*However, there was also the entirety of Days of Future Passed as a single track (the better to skip you, my dear!). This guy, he liked this mixtape. And, you know, I?ve made mixtapes almost that bizarre, so I don?t blame him.

*But did I mention that he didn?t own a CD player? So, where do you suppose he listened to this charming little artifact? At work, you suppose? You suppose correctly. Every night, at work, to be more specific. Occasionally, twice a night, once before lunch and once after.

*I disliked the Days of Future Passed section of the CD before I even knew what it was. I rightly pegged it as a sort of mid-sixties British psychedelic album and, as some may know, I don?t even particularly care for the Beatles when they do psychedelic. So, from sort of finding it annoyingly twee the first time I heard it to eventually loathing it I moved with some rapidity, over the two or three months that the guy was playing the CD.

*I will just say, as evidence of how much disdain I have for this album, that it had about the most hilarious test study of all time: I literally listened to Days of Future Passed and Donald Duck having an orgasm at least five times a week for some twelve weeks. And the Donald Duck orgasm track held up better. And still, if asked to choose today, I would rather hear that little gasp of delight Donald gives out with at the climax than listen to even one track of Days of Future Passed again. Hence the title, which you should now glance at again, nod in understanding of and chuckle slightly at.

*So, in case you don?t know the story behind this album, allow me to briefly sketch it for you.

*A bunch of pretentious idiots . . .

*Well, wait, I suppose I should maintain journalistic integrity for a while longer. The Moody Blues . . .

*CAN one retain journalistic integrity after talking about Donald Duck?s sex noises?

*Anyway, The Moody Blues had been a Brit R&B outfit, but some manpower shakeups had left them unsure of how to continue. Decca then came to them and requested that they create a rock version of Dvorak?s New World Symphony. The company wanted to put out a demonstration disc featuring both an orchestra and a pop band in order to demonstrate the incredible range of the company?s new recording technology.

*At some point, the Moody Blues convinced the executives to let them record their own songs; the Blues then recorded their songs, sending the recordings

 

I vote for Donald's orgasm, too.

The Stones also did a psychedelic album as well, I might point out. I can't remember it's crappy name...oh yeah, "Their Satanic Majesties Request".

 

No joke, thinking back, I'm pretty sure the Donald Duck guy is the same comedian they got to perform for us during my university orientation week. Unless there are two of them running around, which I don't really like to think about too much.

 

Wheels of Fire (1968) ? Cream or You CAN Walk Out

<img src="http://musicalstewdaily.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/wheelsoffire2a9d7cqm9.jpg">

*Well, as promised before, we?ve finally gotten to Wheels of Fire and what a long strange trip it?s been. I started this thread hoping to get to hear some of the worst music ever and, out of my first three reviews, only one is a truly bad album, that being Days of Future Passed.

*But imagine my absolute consternation when I realized that here was Wheels of Fire popping up on my randomizer as one of the worst albums ever, when almost everyone recognizes it as an absolute masterpiece. What to make of this? Well, we?ll find out.

*The first thing to get out of the way seems to be ?How did this end up on your list in the first place, dude?? Well, as previously stated, I scoured the internet for various lists of the worst albums and then compiled them all, deleted the repetitions and came up with a list of nearly two hundred albums.

*So, this one comes from a book published back during the early nineties, compiled by Dave Marsh. Wheels of Fire shows up on a list in the book titled ?Worst Live Albums.?

*So, one mystery solved right away. It is the second disc, Live at the Fillmore, that comes in for the real hatred by the list makers. Anyway, no breaking albums up; either it?s a good album or it?s not. I?ll be looking at the entire album.

*So, let?s get started, shall we? And for once I actually look forward to it.

*First song, White Room.

*Oh, yeah, this album really sucks.

*So, obviously, White Room is a great song. Surely no one will dispute that. Surely.

*Next up, it?s Sitting On Top of the World and while this isn?t one I had particularly remembered, it?s pretty great. It?s a slow, bluesy number and, of course, Clapton could play slow, bluesy lines in his sleep and still be brilliant. His guitar lines are really great in this one.

*Third song on disc one is Passing the Time which I admit I am not in love with. It has a weird structure whereby it opens with a sort of grinding guitar/pounding drum figure and then it slowly fades out and we get a celesta or organ or something mournfully chording and then it happens again for the rest of the song.

*The lyrics are the kind of cheap poetry you really only get from Brit psychedelica at this point in time. Like I say, this is a weak song; not particularly a bad one and not at all annoying.

*As You Said, the fourth song, is, I think, just a little annoying. I mean, for all the wonderful things about Cream, Jack Bruce was not exactly a voice one would listen to all day, if you know what I mean, and when he?s expected to actually sell a mellow ballad, there was generally trouble.

*It is with the fifth track that the album goes rather off the deep end into legitimately horrible territory.

*Name of the song? Pressed Rat & Warthog.

*Lyrical content? The titular characters are forced to close down a shop where they sold dog legs and feet; they walk away wearing red jodhpurs, carrying a three legged sack. There?s more, but I?ll stop there.

*Musical style? A winking Sgt. Pepper orchestra tootles over a pounding drum beat while Ginger Baker recites the lyrics in a flat monotone.

*You need more than that? I thought not. I mean, yes, this is part of the problem with this period of the Brit group. We talked about it plenty last time with Days of Future Passed, but around this period it seemed that a tremendous amount of British groups suddenly decided they wanted to create ?art,? and thus they spoiled the music they?d been creating which was, whether they knew it or not, already ?art.?

*So, this shows up a lot, this weird pretension to making something obtuse and artistic. I don?t know, maybe Dylan had a little to do with it too, but, as we talked about back during my review of American Pie, there is an entire universe between the kind of poetic absurdity and brilliance of Dylan and the stupid, purposeful obscurity of these kind of son

 

I gave a copy of Robert Johnson?s Complete Recordings to one of my bros, the musical one of the family. He loved it.

 

Rogue1.5, very entertaining and comprehensive review, as usual. As a Cream fan who recognizes a few clunkers in their otherwise masterful oeuvre, I read most of your review and agreed with all of it.

I especially like your summary: "In short, there are missteps, like the idiotic Pressed Rat & Warthog and Toad that probably ascend to the level of really bad and even annoying. But that is not enough to keep this album from being what it is, which is a masterpiece and an essential album."

 

So there!

 

Does this have "Wrapping Paper" on it? That's the only Cream song I can remember that I can't stand.

 

Pretty sure that one's from Fresh Cream.

Solid review of a good album that got horribly misplaced. With any luck the rest of these will turn out as equally unfounded - but then, I've heard some truly abysmal albums in my day. Granted, I don't think too many of these lists would go out of their way to review the likes of Ken By Request Only.

 

Escape (1981) ? Journey

Or I May, In Fact, Have Horrible Taste

<img src="http://journeyloaded.com/words/covers/escape.jpg">

*So, Journey. They?d been around for a while when this album came out in 1981, but it was this album that cemented their status as, well, as laughingstocks for hipsters everywhere.

*Basically, this album went to number one on the album charts and has gone an astonishing 9x Platinum in the intervening years. Four of its songs made the Pop Singles top twenty, with three of them, Open Arms, Don?t Stop Believin? and Who?s Crying Now, cracking the top ten. Open Arms peaked at #2 and stayed at that height for six weeks.

*So, just from a cursory glance at the list of albums I?m using for this thread, I think I can safely say: this is by far the most popular album I will review in this thread.

*And the album begins with what I have always thought of as the quintessential Journey song, Don?t Stop Believin?. And, now, a confession. While I have heard a tremendous amount of Journey bashing, I honestly don?t remember ever hearing this song before.

*Now, I think I probably have heard it before. I don?t listen to the radio very much at all and never have, but I?m pretty sure that even I could not have lived to the age of 27 without hearing this song. Doubtless I?ve heard it countless times, piped over a PA system in a grocery store or something, and just never really paid attention enough to realize what song it was.

*This is partly because the phrase ?don?t stop believin?? barely appears in the song at all, probably.

*Well, anyway, let?s correct a cultural blindspot; my first Journey album. Let?s spin!

*So, anyway, Don?t Stop Believin?. Totally serviceable ballad as long as you don?t mind the fact that, oddly enough for a ballad, it actually is completely confusing in terms of the story it?s telling. And I?m sure you don?t.

*So, of course, this song is like part of the cultural DNA of the post-modern individual. We?ve grown up with it (quite literally; it was released the year before I was born); we?ve seen Tony Soprano get whacked or maybe not maybe he was just sitting there and I totally didn?t get that ending to it; we?ve seen the kids on Glee belt it out. It is the most downloaded song of the 20th century on iTunes; it cracked the 100 most downloaded songs on iTunes in 2008, TWENTY-SEVEN years after its release. There are surely only a very few songs that can boast of being more popular than this one.

*So . . . why? Because to me it just sounds like . . . a generic power ballad. I?ve heard about a thousand songs that sound exactly like this one and I could not give you one reason why this one is better than any of the others. This is every song you?ve ever heard at a wedding, a prom, etc; they all sound the same to me and I can?t explain why this one was picked out of the millions of other songs in this genre, to be the runaway hit. I don?t have one clue. Help me out here.

*It?s not that this is a terrible song. It?s that it?s such an absurdly generic one. I think that, six months down the road, should this song pipe over a PA or something in the grocery store, I won?t notice it, I won?t recognize it, I won?t remember it. I barely remember it now and I?m listening to it as we speak! Why is this song so popular? You could pick any random power ballad of the past thirty years and play it next to this song and I wouldn?t be able to come up with a single reason why Don?t Stop Believin? is better than Generic Power Ballad # 45,267. Do you get what I?m saying?

*So, Stone in Love, the next track, at least tries to rock. But all I can really say is that I don?t know what ?stone in love? even means. Is this a bowderlized ?stoned in love?? Because, if so, that?s really lame.

*Speaking of which, was that Gladys Knight that did Stoned Love? I think so. Now, that?s a great song.

*I can already tell what the bugaboo of this album is: generic sound. This is like what you would g

 

I listen to Pandora Radio quite a bit, and Don't Stop Believin' will sometimes come on my light rock station, much as I wish it wouldn't. I never, ever, ever notice that I'm actually listening to it until it's almost over. Most songs, I'm paying attention to and will pick up on as soon as they start. This one, I'm lucky if I even know it played. It's almost aggressively forgettable.




Also, I really, really hope that Journey tours in an actual Journey Escape Vehicle.

 

I'll just come out and say it: Don't Stop Believing is the ultimate guilty pleasure. I love it, have ever since I first heard it when it came out: listening to WPLJ in New York before they switched formats from AOR to Top40. Was thrilled when it was used in the final Sopranos scene, forced alot of my generation to come out of the closet and admit they've always liked the song.

Why do I like it so much, when I normally aspire to somewhat ore selective tastes? God only knows. I guess it's not that it's a generic power ballad, as R1.5 put it, but it's THE GENERIC POWER BALLAD. They should probably be executed for what followed in that genre. But still, I sing along every time I hear it. What can I say.

 

I used to go to a karaoke night where this one guy would do an epic version of the song. He was something of a celebrity on those nights. Him, and the guy who would do Piano Man.

 

That makes sense, as "Piano Man" is the other Ultimate Singalong.

If the Axis of Awesome is to be believed, "Don't Stop Believing" is a hit because it uses the magic four chords.*


*some disallowed profanity blah blah blah

 

This thread continues to confuse me. Why, exactly, is this a bad album by any stretch of the imagination? I'll admit it's not great (Journey, IMO, is best listened to on a best of album rather than on an actual LP), but not great =/= bad. What gives?