More Useless Opinions on Music

Once on my old blog, I wrote a fairly long-winded post on the "Five albums I'd take with me on a deserted island." After listening to some older tunes recently, here comes the follow up; "Five worst albums by otherwise good bands."

Radiohead: Pablo Honey

- "Anyone can play Guitar", "You", and "Stop Whispering" notwithstanding, their debut effort was full of sophomoric lyrics, muddled string arrangements (with the exception of the boring, any-garage-band-can-cover "Creep"), and Thom Yorke's near Rivers Cuomo-like tendency of including some real embarrassing shit about himself that no one needed to hear. Luckily, I was already really into The Bends before I really gave this album a good listen the first time around, and knew that these boys were actually capable of writing intelligent songs about politics, the age of technology, and...well, more than teenage angst (even though they were already in their mid-20's when it came out) riddled with "look at me!!!" grunge/Pixies wannabe drivel. It's not a bad album, really, but only average at best standing on its own, and more importantly just fucking awful when compared to the rest of their catalogue.

Pearl Jam: Binaural

-This album failed for me for a completely different reason; it was too political for its own good. Vedder and co put so much effort into preaching social and political commentary (okay, I get it, the US really sucked at dropping bombs in Eastern Europe) that finding a coherent melody in any track is futile. If they just scrapped all instruments and turned this into a spoken word album, then perhaps I'd dig it while sipping a vanilla latte at Tully's.

Blur: Think Tank

- Actually, not a terrible album at all. I even choose to listen to it on occasion.

Slight problem. A jarring lack of Graham Coxon. Meh. Anything else by them is better

Boards of Canada: The Campfire Headphase

- Their first two major releases were awesome. This is just decent...ly boring. Maybe it's the more prevalent use of guitars. Perhaps Geogaddi and Music has the Right to Children were just 12 kinds of better. Either way, major letdown.

The Pixies: Doolittle

- Perhaps a shocker, but I never understood this album. At all. "Hey", "Here Comes Your Man" and others I find to be very good songs. One problem; they're kind of...well...dare I say radio-friendlyish.

Now, before someone attacks me with a sledgehammer, a more "pop" sounding song doesn't automatically mean I assume someone is selling out, in fact, I doubt this was their intention. But, in case you haven't noticed, Frank Black absolutely fucking sucks as a singer, and is, surprisingly, at his best blaring out-of-tune wails with his jerky lyrics.

Call me a retard, but I enjoy those moments on Surfer Rosa where Frank trails off randomly into improper spanish for no good fucking reason. The straight-ahead rock sound (for the most part) on this particular album just sounds like your run-of-the-mill good alternative music, and the Pixies are not run-of-the-mill; they're one of the most influential bands in recent memory for good reason.