Listmania continued: ten albums that bummed me out in 2008
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Ugh. This past week has been no fun at all. Thanks once again to enterprising hackers or sloppy code writers at Microsoft (or both), I was once again thrust into the position of having to spend long hours applying patches to the Windoze servers in our data center.
Adding to the fun is the thrill of training new syadmins from India on our patching process, so they can take over. Yeah, nothing better than being asked to train your cheap replacements. Their troubleshooting acumen is also nil, so if there's a bump in the patch process they look for me to clean up the mess.
So, the times I went to sleep the last six days look like this: 2AM, 3AM, 8:30AM, 2AM, 6AM and midnight. Only the last one was not work-related; that was just me goofing off. :)
This has left me feeling slightly irritable, needless to say. And it is in that spirit that I give you this word of warning before you blow your Christmas cash:
The Ten Albums That Bummed Me Out This Year
Note: These are not the ten worst albums. I really have no drive to torture my ears by listening to garbage, and I'd rather not review that which I have not heard. These are albums for which I had high hopes, that left me feeling disappointed and, well, bummed out.
Let's begin, shall we?
10. Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell
Not a bad album, but the Internet buzz was so huge that I felt that I would hear choirs of angels. Nope, didn't hear 'em. Maybe in a hype-free world...
9. The Long Blondes - Couples
This one hurts, since they've disbanded due to guitarist Dorian Cox's stroke, so I fear I'm kicking a horse while prone. And first song "Century", while sounding nothing like their debut, is a fantastic slice of neo-new wave. The rest of the album though ... meh. Not engaging at all. If you want to buy a Long Blondes album this year, get Singles, which releases all their pre-debut singles in one neat and tidy package. It's excellent.
8. The Black Keys - Attack And Release
Proof positive that not everything Danger Mouse touches turns to gold.
7. REM - Accelerate
Sometimes, it's okay to stop. Really. You can't force good music out. REM, you've not released anything worth celebrating since New Adventures In Hi-Fi. That's almost 12 years now. Let. It. Go.
6. Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
Just like album #10, but more so, since their hype was omnipresent and overpowering. Again, not a bad album, just ... meh.
5. Shiny Toy Guns - Season of Poison
Oh gosh, please no, not the screaming rapping female vocals. It hurts, it hurts! All the wannabe emo drama, none of the fun of the debut. Sigh.
4. Eagles of Death Metal - Heart On
Somewhere in Houston Viva La Brtt is crying. Oh Jesse Hughes, how could you have done this to her? MEAN!
3. Louis XIV - Slick Dogs and Ponies
Where did all the sexiness go? Do we need Justin Timberlake to bring sexy back, guys? (Please say no!) This is the sad result of a band going PC when they needed to stay un-PC. And no, I don't mean Mac!
2. Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads
Alas, a sure sign that sometimes it's not just a sophomore slump, it's a complete dearth of tunes. Sad sad sad.
1. We Are Scientists - Brain Thrust Mastery
What the heck? What is this middling, plodding lame-o music? Where's the fire, the bile? This isn't a stylistic change, it's a disaster. I was shocked and appalled at each and every track, because their previous album is so good, and this is so bad.
Not the lack of The Killers' album. At this point, I expected it to be bad, so I was not disappointed in that sense.
And August, if you decide to use this as a perverse shopping list, please remember, caveat emptor. ;)
I'll get back to happier fare shortly, after a nice long nap. :)
Locating MOG account...
Comments (14)
I soooo agree with We Are Scientists. The first one was nice and fun, this was really, really bad. Just everything about it.
Wow. I felt the same way w/ the 2 that I own off the list - Tokyo Police Club & Black Kids. I previewed Kaiser Cheifs and didn't like it. Also, after seeing Louis XIV play their new material live earlier this year (w/ headliners The Editors), I chose to not take a risk w/ Louis XIV.
Also, although I don't own either, I'm surprised that REM and Black Keys disappointed - both lead singles are great, guess the rest is just filler.
Stef, that's why it got #1. Thank goodness it didn't ruin the first album for me.
Eric, I've seen both REM and Black Keys albums on other Top XX lists as well, so this really is just one man's opinion. As always, your mileage may vary.
'And August, if you decide to use this as a perverse shopping list, please remember, caveat emptor. ;)' Most of these artists I'd have no interest in anyway, but thanks for the warning neph!
Just think of how you latched onto The Killers after a number of posts, mine included, dumped onto them. :)
I didn't hear the REM, but I thought that the Black Keys record was not bad. It wasn't great, just OK, but not bad. I don't think it's their weakest, FWIW.
No interest in TPC, STG, Black Kids, or WAS. I always thought Louis XIV were untalented and empty, but I did seem them open up for Editors and they really did blow. Not much of a Killers fan, either, but I listened to the new one a couple of times and I'm not "dancer" enough to suffer that crap gladly.
Records that I cared enough about in advance to actually count them as disappointments include Long Blondes, Kaiser Chiefs, and Eagles of Death Metal. These all were pretty big disappointments. I will, nonetheless, go and see EODM in concert.
My biggest disappointment this year were Ladytron in concert. Velocifero wasn't a bad record, but their live show just wasn't good at all.
Yeah, I'm shocked and appalled at Anna's account of how much Ladytron stunk live. That disappoints me, as I adore their albums. And who knows, maybe EoDM can inject some energy into their songs live that they failed to do with this record.
I'm glad to see Britney is not on that list. :)
I agree on Black Kids (too much nu-rave bandwagon jumping, v annoying since they'd had the best demos I'd ever heard), REM, and Black Keys. I haven't heard the others... and won't be rushing out to hear them now. On my list would be lots of stuff I sampled but didn't like, plus the big Brit indie bands Razorlight and Oasis, although I didn't hold out much hope for those in the first place. The biggest disappointment, though, was The Streets failing for the second time running. Bah, humbug.
Yeah, Im with you, especially on REM. For years now, I've been hoping against hope that each new album would have something to hold onto. I think my therapist calls it positive regressiveness or something benign like that.....But......this one completely missed the mark for me. Yeah, I know they wanted to say something political, and I'm cool with that. But the relevence factor for them has dipped. Which is not to say they can't redeem themselves!!!! Maybe just write better songs. Seriously, isn't one Coldplay enough? Or one too many!
The only one I've heard is REM, and I'm not a big fan anyway. And that Black Kids record was supposed to be huge....so much for the hype!!
Aw, i really liked Tokyo Police Club.
I'd heard only good things about the Black Keys, but maybe I won't be buying this as soon as I was planning...as for the Black Kids, well, I was never a fan from the beginning.
I have yet to give the Kaisers a decent spin. But We Are Scientists was....bad, just all around bad, I agree.
Now Julia, like I wrote, it's not bad, it's just not quite as good as I had hoped. I still kinda like "Tessellate".
Definitely buy some Black Keys; Magic Potion is fantastic.
We are sharing a lot of the same disappointments dale. Lets see, on that list I would have to agree with 2,7,8 and 10. Number 3, Louis XIV, well that was the number one on my list
Yeah, I loved "Finding Out True Love Is Blind" but there's no dirtiness, no sex whatsoever this go-around.