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Albums you love but everybody else hates

K

Knotted

Bet the horse knew his name
Imagine you came up with a list of your 50 (say) favourite albums. Which are the ones which are generally hated/unknown/hated by the few that know them?

Looking at Rate Your Music scores I have

Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation - 3.23 stars 2,372 ratings. One of their worst ratings for my favourite album by them. My excuse for this one is that it's a bit of shocker for fans of synth odysseys. Still not too bad.
Kraftwerk 2 - 3.1 stars 3,137 ratings. Not terrible but easily the lowest rated Kraftwerk album, but also may absolute favourite.
ZNR - Barricade 3 3.31 stars 221 ratings. This really is an absolute joy to listen to by anybody's standards IMO, but it remains largely unknown and underappreciated by those who know it.
L Voag - The Way Out - 3.35 stars 390 ratings. Not many people have heard this album and that star rating suggests something mid to interesting not the work of genius that it is.
Negativland - Points - 2.93 stars 290 ratings. This is the second worst rating for a Negativland album. Not a band I am particularly fond of but Points is a psychedelic/noise masterpiece. Horrific rating.
Marc Ribot/Fred Frith - Subsonic 1 Sounds of a Distant Episode - 2.83 stars 33 ratings. Not too surprising nobody knows this one, but you would think the few who do would give it at least something of reasonable score. Even worse than Points!

All the above (except probably the Tangerine Dream) would be in my top 50 albums of all time.

Can you do better/worse than that?
 
marshall said:
The Sound, Jeopardy. Friends and family gave me so much gip for repeatedly playing this as a kid, checking out that link above, no one else rated it either :(
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Well on RYM it has 3.85 stars 7,717 ratings and ranked 12th best album of the year 1980. Ranked above Motörhead's Ace of Spades. That's a great rating.
 
Ok, sorry, not really au fait with the site and whether it’s a good ranking or not; just remember no one else liking it and being mocked as a teen.
 
danny la rouge said:
Yeah, I can’t use it either. And I don’t have the beans to learn.

But nice idea for a thread.
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It's a wiki so democratic, although it certainly has its biases. But go by whatever standards you have or want to go by.

I am really keen to listen to people's albums. There's something going on if what you love is genuinely broadly disliked.
 
IMG_0751.jpeg


I was playing this last night, and I was informed this morning that this week is the 35th anniversary of the release of this LP.

I do know a few people who like it, but I know more who don’t.
For me, it’s a mainstay and I go back to it over and over again.


In fact it’s playing on my internal jukebox as I type, and I think I’ll play it again right now.
 
story said:
View attachment 443229


I was playing this last night, and I was informed this morning that this week is the 35th anniversary of the release of this LP.

I do know a few people who like it, but I know more who don’t.
For me, it’s a mainstay and I go back to it over and over again.


In fact it’s playing on my internal jukebox as I type, and I think I’ll play it again right now.
Click to expand...

Not heard of this before but it's fantastic. Certainly not for everyone but I think it has an audience.
 
Knotted said:
Not heard of this before but it's fantastic. Certainly not for everyone but I think it has an audience.
Click to expand...


Exactly. If you’re into that kind of stuff it’s obviously just fucking brilliant.

If you’re not into that stuff it’s just like “ …nah….”

But even people I know who are into music seem to have a bit of a blind spot about Bitch Magnet. I’m not sure if that’s because of their name (a couple of women have told me they can’t get past that, which is fair enough) or because they came out of that very particular East Coast US scene that blipped but didn’t gain much traction over here, so there’s not much of the context and ripple effect around them, or what.
 
story said:
Exactly. If you’re into that kind of stuff it’s obviously just fucking brilliant.

If you’re not into that stuff it’s just like “ …nah….”

But even people I know who are into music seem to have a bit of a blind spot about Bitch Magnet. I’m not sure if that’s because of their name (a couple of women have told me they can’t get past that, which is fair enough) or because they came out of that very particular East Coast US scene that blipped but didn’t gain much traction over here, so there’s not much of the context and ripple effect around them, or what.
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I find it a very interesting listen, it's like a missing link. Post rock before post rock was a thing. Tortoise must have totally thieved from the bassist on this.
 
Another low rated proggy effort (1.5 on AMG!!) is the debut Godley and Creme LP - Consequences.

This is a new one for my ears, only heard it for the first time this year, and it reminded me a little of one of those concept albums like War of the Worlds (but less portentous and stuffy). Admittedly, it goes on a bit and not entirely convinced by the Peter Cook stuff, but would happily give it the thumbs up, overall.
 
AMG = All Music Group?

I'm very familiar with Crises. The side long title track is definitely an aggressive outing for Oldfield. I do feel it tends towards brash but I get why you might like that. On the other side it has his best known song Moonlight Shadows and also that one he did with Jon Anderson In High Places which are definitely top 80's Mike Oldfield songs.

To be honest if I were to pick one underrated Mike Oldfield album it would QE2 which is really my favourite of those synthy 80's albums.

I've not heard Consequences and it has an underwhelming rating on RYM as well. I feel I need to listen to this now.
 
I notice that the Slaggs Philosophy of the World has a horrible rating on RYM. I guess there are 4 reactions
  1. This is awful/amateurish/out of tune etc. and those re-evaluating it are being pretentious.
  2. This is awful/amateurish/out of tune etc. but it is sort of amusing/curious given the back story
  3. This is really interesting but it doesn't always work
  4. This is brilliant outsider art
So there are a range of views on it from terrible to brilliant. I'm in the third camp really, but fair play to those in the 4th camp.
 
Knotted said:
AMG = All Music Group?

I'm very familiar with Crises. The side long title track is definitely an aggressive outing for Oldfield. I do feel it tends towards brash but I get why you might like that. On the other side it has his best known song Moonlight Shadows and also that one he did with Jon Anderson In High Places which are definitely top 80's Mike Oldfield songs.

To be honest if I were to pick one underrated Mike Oldfield album it would QE2 which is really my favourite of those synthy 80's albums.

I've not heard Consequences and it has an underwhelming rating on RYM as well. I feel I need to listen to this now.
Click to expand...
It's also got "Shadow on the Wall" with Roger Chapman of Family on vocals, which is great fun.

Haven't heard QE2 since 40 years ago, and then probably only once so will give it a listen soon.

AMG is the All Music Guide.
 
Knotted said:
I notice that the Slaggs Philosophy of the World has a horrible rating on RYM. I guess there are 4 reactions
  1. This is awful/amateurish/out of tune etc. and those re-evaluating it are being pretentious.
  2. This is awful/amateurish/out of tune etc. but it is sort of amusing/curious given the back story
  3. This is really interesting but it doesn't always work
  4. This is brilliant outsider art
So there are a range of views on it from terrible to brilliant. I'm in the third camp really, but fair play to those in the 4th camp.
Click to expand...
I'd say it was none of those things.
It is brilliant though.
It's just not 'outsider art'. It wasn't done with any artistic intent. The girls didn't want to be there. Dot has since gone on to embrace the process and now sees value in her naive art as other have. I like how the Dot Wiggin band are obviously very talented musicians, but don't interfere with the seemingly childlike spontaneity of her songs.
 
Big Audio Dynamite - Tighten Up Volume 88 may not be as immediate as the first two B.A.D. releases, but I feel it deserves a bit better than the two star rating on AMG.

And the Paul Simonon artwork is fab.
 
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