Just Because It's A Classic Album, Doesn't Mean It's Good!!!

MutleyRules · **Posted:** Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:28 pm

Just found this on Virginmedia....what do you lot think????

The Doors: The Doors

What the critics said: "Though great albums followed, The Doors stands as the L.A. foursome's most successful marriage of rock poetics with classically tempered hard rock - a stoned, immaculate classic." - Rolling Stone

When the LA band’s debut album appeared in 1967, Jim Morrison was hailed as a poet and a prophet. Four decades on, his self-aggrandising lyrics sound like galeforce gibberish and Ray Manzarek’s organ clearly belonged on the end of Blackpool Pier.

Van Morrison: Astral Weeks

What the critics said: "Morrison's first full-fledged solo album sounded like nothing else in the pop-music world of 1968: soft, reflective, hypnotic, haunted by the ghosts of old blues singers and ancient Celts and performed by a group of extraordinary jazz musicians." - Rolling Stone

Fat Van has been living off past glories for years and even this supposed masterpiece, greeted as a mercurial miracle in 1968, now sounds windy and flatulent. Fact: its sales were so slow it didn’t even go gold for 33 years.

Prince: Sign 'O' The Times

What the critics said: "When you listen again to Sign 'O' The Times, you realise why Prince was routinely labelled a genius in the late 80s." - BBC Music

Only a fool or a deaf man would deny the genius of songs like U Got The Look or If I Was Your Girlfriend, but cack-handed production and risibly tinny synths mean Prince’s 1987 magnum opus now sounds as hopelessly dated as Dallas and mullets.

Dire Straits: Brothers In Arms

What the critics said: "First album to succeed in the CD market, Grammy winning, earner of enough Platinum to build a house: Brothers In Arms is a phenomenon on every level. Its production raised the bar for all music to come." - BBC Music

MTV played this to death in 1985, leading more than 30 million credulous souls to snap up a copy. Nearly a quarter of a century on, it sounds like the smug, anaesthetised, utterly superficial load of tosh it always was.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood: Welcome To The Pleasuredome

What the critics said: "Welcome to the Pleasuredome is a kind of Bright Side of the Moon, an ingenious application by producer Trevor Horn of new dance-remix techniques and overhauled art-rock maneuvers." - Rolling Stone

Back in 1984, Frankie were greeted as the very acme of the New Pop that was to sweep aside the rock dinosaurs. How ludicrous those claims now seem – can anyone seriously imagine playing this again before they die?

Simply Red: Picture Book

What the critics said: "A new, very accessible band that doesn't quite sound like anyone else." - Rolling Stone

It sold by the lorry-load, Holding Back The Years hit number one in the US and Mick Hucknall was lauded as the carrot-topped heir to Marvin and Smokey. In truth, his voice still sounds great, but how did anyone ever pretend to like that ridiculous supper-club backing band?

Sigue Sigue Sputnik: Flaunt It

What the critics said: "Sigue Sigue Sputnik succeeded in their attempt to create the ultimate rock and roll fantasy, one full of violent, futuristic imagery that was cartoonish, yet often if you listened close enough, had something to say." - Allmusic

Love Missile F1-11 soared to number one in 1986 and the music press plastered them all over their covers and called them The Future of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Sadly, even a cursory listen today reveals that they were a bunch of fancy-dress chancers with only one song.

Goldie: Timeless

What the critics said: "Goldie's debut album, Timeless (1995), revealed far more about Britain than Brit-pop, humanising computer-constructed music and distilling the hope, paranoia, frustration and intensity of inner-city life hurtling into the 21st century." - The Independent

As techno begat drum ‘n’ bass, Goldie solemnly declared that he was taking music to the fourth dimension. Sadly, his album sounded like a tumble dryer full of tambourines and promptly took a quantum leap straight into the sale bins.

The Eagles: Hotel California

What the critics said: "The casually beautiful, quietly intense, multileveled vocal harmonies and brilliant original songs that meld solid emotional words with lovely melody lines are all back in full force, keeping the Eagles at the acme of acoustic-electric soft rock." - Billboard

“You can check out but you can never leave!” Wow! 16 million Americans bought into this self-important, bloated soft-rock monstrosity. Later that year, punk rock sprang up as a reaction to such tripe, and you can see its point entirely.

The Libertines: Up The Bracket

What the critics said: "Sneering recklessness gives way to gentle beauty; drunken slobbery interrupts deliberately crisp syllables; loverly harmonies break down into epileptic seizures." - Hybrid Magazine

Pete Doherty and Carl Barat were hailed as the new Rimbaud and Baudelaire and the Libertines as indie rock’s last gang in town. Yet Up The Bracket was fatally flawed by Mick Jones’s production “technique”, which appeared to consist of pressing Record on the mixing desk and knobbing off down the pub.

Yubep · **Joined:** Wed Jan 31, 2007 6:35 pm **Posts:** 25266

can't comment on the rest but agree with the libertines, drunken music for fashion rock wannabe posers, about 2 months ago after a drunken night out a bird from work came over for a drink,she put that on, i had actually forgotten i had it, i quickly sobered up and got shot, of the cd of course

WestParkPoolie · **Posted:** Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:08 pm

Thing is, music evolves and what may have been cutting edge or innovative at the time will obviously lose it's lustre over the years. Seems like it's a journalist trying to be smug more than any real critical analysis.

The Doors album is a good album, Frankie Goes To Hollywood's album is still a good album - as is Goldie's.

The Libertines album was always shit, mind...

BillinghamPoolie · **Posted:** Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:13 pm

Isn't the quality of all music just a matter of opinion anyway?

Yubep · **Joined:** Wed Jan 31, 2007 6:35 pm **Posts:** 25266

it is... Unless you put fact on the end

WestParkPoolie · **Posted:** Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:21 pm

BillinghamPoolie wrote:

Isn't the quality of all music just a matter of opinion anyway?

To a point, yes. I can see why the Prince album is highly regarded - but it's not really my cup of tea. The only track on The Libertines album I can abide is the title track - but I cannot see the fuss over the rest. They play all the right notes, just not necessarily in the right order.

BillinghamPoolie · **Posted:** Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:23 pm

Classic Eric Morecambe. rolfl

thereverand · **Joined:** Sun Aug 09, 2009 12:47 pm **Posts:** 99

the libertines album wasnt bad at all, if u purchased it yuby, it cant have been that bad can it. Only music 'snubs' would now shun it because dohcerty has since became a point of ridicule an uncool, fact.

WestParkPoolie · **Posted:** Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:31 pm

thereverand wrote:

the libertines album wasnt bad at all, if u purchased it yuby, it cant have been that bad can it. Only music 'snubs' would now shun it because dohcerty has since became a point of ridicule an uncool, fact.

I bought it

a) because it was recommended to me, and
b) it was going for a fiver

I listened to it, and realised it was awful. I've occasionally come across songs from it now and again, and it still sounds just as bad as I thought.

Yubep · **Joined:** Wed Jan 31, 2007 6:35 pm **Posts:** 25266

thereverand wrote:

the libertines album wasnt bad at all, if u purchased it yuby, it cant have been that bad can it. Only music 'snubs' would now shun it because dohcerty has since became a point of ridicule an uncool, fact.

same as west park here, i'd just read it about it being good and trusted the review, not really my style but thought what the hell, still don't get it now

GroovyCrimes · **Posted:** Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:00 pm

The Libertines has its moments,but the one from that lot that I still listen to regular & really enjoy is Sigue Sigue Sputnik :grin:

Just Because It's A Classic Album, Doesn't Mean It's Good!!!

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