Confessions on a Dance Floor by Madonna is a superb album, fantastic from start to finish, timeless, one of my favorite albums. It also has some real sick burns in a couple of the songs:
Don’t explain yourself 'cause talk is cheap
There’s more important things than hearing you speak
But then smack dab in the middle is the song I Love New York which sounds terrible and has the worst lyrics ever put in any song
I don’t like cities
But I like New York
Other places make me feel like a dork
Los Angeles is for people who sleep
Paris and London, baby you can keep
…
If you don’t like my attitude
Then you can F off
Just go to Texas
Isn’t that where they golf?
This is truly baffling to me, because it feels like a song from a different album written by a different person who has never tried to write anything poignant or rhyming.
that’s a fun one because that album is full of questionable political metaphors and borderline cornball lyrics and eclectic production choices and they all somehow work on every other track apart from this one where they just break down completely
Diet Mountain Dew on Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die stands out as such a song, somehow doesn’t fit on that album.
It’s not a bad song either, since she does have some that are way worse, hands down. Still, that song just didn’t fit on that album and removing it makes it better… so I guess that’s what you were looking for?
I was going to say Genesis’ GENESIS but then I reviewed the track list and Illegal Alien is not the only bad one on there.
Also: hi, hey, this is the thread where I admit to mostly liking Genesis’ self-titled crossover hit longplay album. It’s me, the one who like GENESIS by Genesis!
Define “good”!
Confession time, I also like Genesis, and can 1up you with sincerely liking “Calling All Stations”. Nobody ever is allowed to like that, so if I’m already lost by adoring SQEX games, might as well add insult to injury and like that.
And, of course I also do have the Stiltskin album that has the levis ad song.
So, that’s Lana, Genesis and… well, before I go down that rabbit hole, I’ll better add another example for the list here:
Depeche Mode, Violator, “Blue Dress”. Again, same thing, band has worse songs, but on this album, it just doesn’t stand a chance against the other songs.
… yes, Lana, DM, Genesis, korean pop/rap + oddball german pop songs, this is all over the place, and I am not going to apologize!
The unreleased Beach Boys album “Adult/Child” is fantastic, and is probably my favorite Beach Boys album, but the second track (well, depending on your bootleg’s tracklist) is this:
The worst part is, aside from the lyrics being awful in every single way, and the bridge being creepy… it’s STILL an insanely catchy and beautifully written/performed song. If they like, replaced all the lyrics and made the song about something completely different, it’d be a perfect album.
The King Crimson album Islands is half abrasive free jazz rock and half moving soft jazz ballads. I like it a lot! EXCEPT: The song Ladies of the Road manages to be both disgustingly misogynistic and an obvious fake brag – they sing about all of their groupies but their concerts always have been and still are total sausage fests. King Crimson has just about the least sex appeal of any band this side of Van der Graaf Generator.
There should be a separate thread devoted to late-era Beach Boys madness. “Love You” in particular is my favorite album because Brian’s voice was just ravaged by cocaine at that point. From start to finish, it’s an unsettling record but one track in particular stands out. It’s not “bad” in the sense that it isn’t quality but it’s a weird ballad he wrote at the time with his wife while they were on the verge of divorce and it’s a difficult listen for a variety of reasons.
For some reason when he sings
“take your time, don’t worry how you feel because you know we’ve got forever…
maybe I’ll come up with some idea and you’d think that I was clever”
I definitely feel the same way about that album and song. Well, I agree that it’s difficult for the reasons you mentioned, but I also do think it’s the worst song on the album… all the songs on that album are cheesy, but that one’s cheesy in a different way (and his wife’s performance is dull).
Oh well, they can’t all be “Mona.”
EDIT: ok i listened to it again and those synth chooms are just, so good, and most of Brian’s lines really are fantastic. the way he kinda yelps “Don’t worry 'bout your past loves” is
Automatic for the People is probably my favorite REM album, it has such a consistent and beautiful mood, Stipe’s heady yet strangely uplifting ruminations on life and death, really interesting sonic textures in stuff like “Star Me Kitten” and “Sweetness Follows,” some of their best and prettiest tracks (“Man on the Moon” rules and it’s my favorite REM song and their best song, fight me), deservedly their best selling and most critically acclaimed album in a career that’s full of all-time bangers
And then there’s this goddamn horseshit
Guess it wouldn’t be an REM album without a well-intentioned yet clunky political song but, eesh. i don’t even hate it in isolation, really, it’s just such a mood-killer on the album proper and sounds so dated
I somehow wound up talking about Blue Dress during one of our D&D games. I hand’t thought about Blue Dress since I was a teenager, probably! It’s kind of gross when you break it down.
Megadeth’s Peace Sells is an unassailable slab of mid eighties speed metal but that terrible ass cover of Willie Dixon/Howlin’ Wolf’s “I Ain’t Superstitious” stops everything cold. They could’ve at least stuck it on the end of the record because the actual closer is quite good.
