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A Modest Guide To Really Good Bad Albums




















I am putting on my boxing gloves and dare anyone to challenge me on the musical merit of Oasis's Be Here Now or U2's Pop. Round One—let’s go.

It happens every time: the conversations halts, a sudden hush descends upon the room, the stares, the uncomfortably long silences, the "you-know-I-think-I-left-a-burner-on-at-home"s. Some people tell me straight up I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't know good from bad and have no business being a music reviewer. Others just scurry away from me, meanwhile throwing me awkward glances over their retreating shoulders.

Mentioning that you like an album that the rest of the world hates can make you a freak in a room full of strangers or even among your best friends.

Now let me make clear that I appreciate and even love the beauty of Houses of the Holy (appreciate) and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (love) and Disintegration (fair to midland in a grandiose sort of way). But I also happen to think that some of the albums you have to fight the hardest for to actually like and understand are the ones with which you can develop the most satisfactory, long-lasting relationships. I'm willing to take crap for admitting that Street Legal is my favorite Bob Dylan album. Not that I think "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Queen Jane Approximately" aren't great songs (they are), but I've always felt more of an emotional connection to the human sentiments expressed on Street Legal than to the intricate wordplay of, say, Bringing It All Back Home, even though the latter album is clearly genius (as is much of His Bobness's output).

So below is a sampling of albums that are mostly viewed as low points in the artists' careers, that, in fact, are really not that bad. Let me get one disclaimer out of the way, though: I'm sure that some of the bands listed here have released worse albums than the ones I've singled out. The goal is really to select a handful of records that are very likable if you give them a chance but that are too easily overlooked because of their bad reputations.

Now then, I am putting on my boxing gloves and dare anyone to challenge me on the musical merit of these albums. Round One—let's go.

1. Oasis – Be Here Now

If you take a moment to remember what Oasis was all about during their three-year heyday (1995-1997), you might begin to appreciate Be Here Now: it's seeped in the Gallaghers brothers' arrogance, bombast, idolization of The Beatles, drugs, fistfights and watery English beer. Be Here Now stands not as a statement of musical cunning but of ego and arrogance. The fingerprints of the Gallagher brothers—mainly Noel's—are all over every screeching guitar lick and seven-minute epic. The average song length is 6 minutes, which is an awfully long time for a band that is not known for its lyrical astuteness or sonic genius. The album offers everything that is quintessentially Oasis, but with the amps turned up to 11. It unashamedly rips off not just British rock heritage but also the Gallaghers' own back catalogue: the chord progressions of "D'You Know…" and "Be Here Now" mirror those of "Wonderwall" and "Columbia" respectively. And hey, Johnny Depp makes an appearance too! You have to learn to appreciate the pompousness of "D'You Know What I Mean" with its multiple layers of guitars and vocals, some of them in reverse, warbling what sounds like "F*ck me," to understand and value this album. When you do, you might even come to see it as Oasis's Last Great Album. They sure haven't written anything as rocking as "My Big Mouth," as menacing as "Fade In-Out," or as touching as "Don't Go Away" since.


2. U2 – Pop

It's hard defending an album that even its creators are reportedly discontent with. U2 has always said they didn't have enough time to mix and finalize Pop due to their upcoming world tour. After ordering tailored-to-fit muscle shirts and constructing a giant lemon, the band apparently had a hard time justifying postpone the whole ordeal in order to fine-tune the album they would spend the next year or so supporting. I remember Pop being sold at a local store in my hometown that was basically a downgraded Walgreens. The disc was priced at only $5 and I was actually nauseated at the sight of the hopeful, undiminishing stacks of CDs. Nevertheless, despite lacking in sonic refinement, Pop offers plenty of gems. Even U2 seemed to think so, for they redid three songs for The Best of 1990-2000 (naturally, after polishing them up a bit). Pop's key track, "If God Will Send His Angels," matches the band's best work. It is a spiritual journey and moving as such, and it completes the fine trilogy started with "One" and continued with "Stay (Faraway So Close!)". The problem with U2 is that after Achtung Baby every album has been slightly disappointing, even their majestic claim for world domination, Everything You Can't Leave Behind. Pop, however, is unique: it is quirky ("Discotheque" gave us what is perhaps the funniest video in the U2 catalogue), it is downright sexual rather than merely sensual ("Miami," "If You Wear that Velvet Dress"), and, ultimately, it's redeeming, offering Bono's finest exploration to date of faith and spirituality ("Wake Up, Dead Man").

3. David Bowie – Outside

The title of this record is actually 1. Outside. It was initially going to be the first installment of a series of albums that would relate the sinister adventures of detective Nathan Adler. After the less-than-lukewarm reception of the album, however, plans for a follow-up were shelved. True enough, the album isn't entirely successful, but overall it's a reprieve, a desert oasis, after the barrenness of Bowie's output in the Eighties. Skip the segues, the cameos of suspects and witnesses in a mostly incomprehensible bizarre murder story, forget the Nathan Adler character altogether, and you're left with a solid album. Bowie is on a journey here. He experiments with song structure and sonic themes. Most of these songs sound unlike anything else in the Bowie catalogue. Take the brooding shuffle of "The Heart's Filthy Lesson," or the explosive "Hallo Spaceboy," which spawned a minor hit in Europe in the version remixed by the Pet Shop Boys. It's surprising that Outside was met with so much derision, especially since throughout his career Bowie has displayed a chameleon-like ability to reinvent himself, always traveling down new, surprising (okay, with a few missteps here and there) avenues. Outside is a fascinating record. It's dark and twisted: witness the silent despair of "The Motel" or the disorienting "I'm Deranged" (which was included on the soundtrack of the equally disorienting David Lynch movie Lost Highway). It's a hard pill to swallow whole, but some of the songs on the record scale those lonely heights of his last real masterpiece, Scary Monsters.

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Source: www.411mania.com

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