Eraser
No, not those things that you used to take outside and beat the chalk dust out of to clean them. I am not even referring to the mid-90's film where Arnold Schwarzenegger blew up half a city while trying to "secretly" protect witness Vanessa Williams. Instead I offering you a chance to erase a bad album off of a band's record. So let's say you have this eraser and you can do away with one album by any band of your choice. So if one of your favorite bands had a great career except for one release then now would be your chance to make their career spotless. So if you could remove one album and the memory of it from existence then what would it be?
Queen—Hot Space
ReplyDeleteKilled their career in North America stone dead.
I agree with Mule. That album came out when I was a kid but I was enough of a Queen fan back that to know something went horribly wrong.
ReplyDeleteAnd so..
Iron Maiden: Tough choice here but I would have to go with Virtual XI although No Prayer and X Factor are contenders. The latter two albums do have a few good songs but VXI is worthless.
And let's not forget...
Celtic Frost - Cold Lake
I would pick Celtic Frost's Cold Lake. They were on a roll until then and it killed them. I think they had in them to progress into a great band, but they went for a quick sell-out and it turned people off.
ReplyDeleteFred-I must have been posting the same time as you because I didn't see that you had mentioned Cold Lake until I'd posted my comment. Sometimes a band bounces back from one bad album, but in a few cases it can be a career killer.
ReplyDeleteI might also ad Alice Cooper's Trash, Black Sabbath's Born again and Anthrax's State of Euphoria.
Mark - I know it's not metal related but I had to take the opportunity as you kindly handed me the eraser.
ReplyDeleteRub out The Clash - Cut The Crap.
The Clash have always been my favourite band and this final album was quite honestly one of the worst albums in music history.
Ben- I have a couple of Clash albums, but I have never gotten around to listening to them.
ReplyDeleteSteve- I agree about Unmasked and The Elder. I remember Change of address being poor. Come out and play had some good songs, but I think it was killed by a poor choice of singles.
I will also add:
Dio-Angry Machines
Just a very dull album. I own it and still have not been able to listen to the whole thing.
Faster Pussycat-Whipped
Overall maybe average, but a real letdown from the previous two albums which were very good. There are maybe three good songs and the rest is laregley filler.
Flotsam and Jetsam-When the storm comes down.
The previous two albums were great and this was pure crap. I don't think they ever fully recovered from it.
Helloween-Chameleon
Awful doesn't begin to describe this album. After this the band knew they had to make changes because one more album like this would have sunk them for good.
King Kobra-Thrill of a lifetime. Their debut was really solid hard rock. Then their record label had them do this mediocre AOR album. A really talented band was wasted because three of the five members would leave within a year after this was released.
Steve: I like the way you think about Nevermind. I just mentioned a similar idea when I suggested that Nirvana be prosecuted for what they did to rock music.
ReplyDeleteMy candidates:
Led Zep: In Through the Out Door
Sabbath: Technical Ecstacy and Never Say Die
Rush: Power Windows
Metallica: I can stomach the black album, but Load and Re-Load really, really have to go.
Juda Priest: Turbo
-- david
celtic frost's 'cold lake', no hesitations there.
ReplyDeleteFrost has more than redeemed themselves with this year's Monotheist. I already have my tickets to see them in November. Next up is to get tickets for Maiden on October 7th!
ReplyDeleteOzzy's last cover fiasco. That thing chewed.
ReplyDeleteFuzz-Amen. It was horrible.
ReplyDeleteCold Lake is such a worthy pick, friends. When I interviewed Tom Warrior a couple of months before Monotheist came out, he himself called Cold Lake "an abomination" and he took full accountability for it. Hails to that...
ReplyDeleteMark, I agree with Alice Cooper's Trash. I was offended by that album and its immediate success since Raise Your Fist and Yell was such an ass-kicker.
Others I would take are unfortunately the bands' biggest commercial successes:
Motley Crue - Girls Girls Girls
Judas Priest - Turbo
Def Leppard - Hysteria
Then I could also certainly do without Rush - Hold Your Fire, even if I like two songs from it.
Ray-I seem to remember talking to you on the phone in 1989 and you had just bought Trash. You said something about it being a fitting title because it was so bad. You were right.
ReplyDeleteGirls, girls, girls was such a letdown for me because I bought into their talk that it was going to be a return to their early sound. I remember having enough money to buy just one tape and I foolishly bought this stinkbomb. However, I was able to trade it the next week for WASP's The last command and a Judas Priest button.
Oh, man, I remember my Alice phone call and yours when you got Girls Girls Girls...I remember not wanting to listen to it until it got forced on me by my neighbor. I think I liked "Wild Side" enough to ride the rest and was quickly repulsed. I forget how long I held onto the vinyl of that since I got for next to nothing, but you'll see there's only one Crue studio album missing in my collection and it shall stay thus!
ReplyDelete