
What Are the Most Disappointing Albums? - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/what-are-the-most-disappointing-albums/
======
Shivetya
I would prefer charts based solely on album sales, metascore while interesting
is full of bias. There are some artists who cannot be scored below certain
thresholds either because of likability or political correctness. However
total sales is usually a better indicator and longevity of sales, as in how
long after initial debut did sales stay good.

~~~
amelius
But what if there are people who buy the album, only to find out later that it
was disappointing? Or fans, who buy the album regardless of quality.

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Steko
_Idlewild_ scores 72 which is pretty solid but makes the 'top 20
disappointing' because the previous two Outkast albums averaged 90+ and a
straight arithmetic difference is used (with percentage of previous two it
would rank somewhat lower).

~~~
protomyth
A bit of New York Yankees or Jimmie Johnson (NASCAR) syndrome. If you don't
win the championship then it is a disappointment.

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devin
You get 24 years to make your first album, and 24 months to make your second.

~~~
mzs
Sadly no, you get 18 months to make what your label wants your first album to
be, then if you're lucky you get 35 years to make what you wanted your first
album to be. This was starting to change, but the gaming is starting a new.

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leoc
For a band member or solo performer, it must be grim to sit contemplating an
album which you yourself know is no good, and is likely to be career-wounding,
but which you'll more or less have to release anyway for contractual reasons
or for the money.

~~~
72deluxe
I suppose the thing to ensure is that you don't get into a contract where you
have to do that. If you are releasing bottom-of-the-barrel tat for money just
to be popular and sell albums, does that mean that the first release you put
out was drivel just to be popular? Thought-provoking eh?

They could just put out an album that's completely different, like Tom Jones
did when he didn't want to release another Sex Bomb...

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gerty
Metallica should be an honorary member in any such grouping.

~~~
phatbyte
In the inconsistent group for sure

~~~
33degrees
I'd say they've been consistently mediocre for the last while

~~~
marcinx27
They have the consistently great part up to (and possibly including) the black
album. Then they start to fall into the disappointing category.

~~~
at-fates-hands
I'm still trying to figure out what happened to them. I guess a multitude of
bad things happening all the same time?

After Jason left, and St. Anger came out, I just checked out. At the time
there were so many other great metal bands to see and hear which completely
eclipsed them.

~~~
pageld
Death Magnetic isn't too bad. Not Puppets good. But I listen to it every once
in a while, where St. Anger was the most disappointing thing I ever
experienced musically.

You have to remember St. Anger was a full 6 years after they put out anything
original. They were trying to rekindle the old stuff, but it's hard to
remember how it was to be hungry after being on top for so long.

If you ever saw the making of St. Anger documentary, you knew there was no way
it was going to be good. James went into rehab 1/2 way through production out
of nowhere. Everyone was angry with each other. Krik just wanted to play and
then hang out with his horses on his ranch. Lars forgot how to drum. It was
really bad.

Then all of a sudden they finally adjusted to being sober and hey, look at
that. Something pretty good.

~~~
at-fates-hands
I saw the documentary and it was pretty eye opening. It was a complete train
wreck, and Bob Rock and everybody else around them telling them St. Anger was
going to be as good as the black album was pretty cringe inducing. The Crazy
Cabby scene I thought to myself, "Jesus man, just tell them it sucks, just be
honest. Someone has to have the balls to tell them this is horrible."

My favorite part of the documentary was when Jason quit and was playing with
Echobrain and James and Lars went to go see him. He totally fled the scene and
wouldn't talk to them. Even years later, he's still bitter about what James
did:

[http://loudwire.com/jason-newsted-why-he-left-
metallica/](http://loudwire.com/jason-newsted-why-he-left-metallica/)

Death Magnetic is pretty decent. After hearing interviews with James saying it
was a return to the thrash metal of Master and Ride the Lightening saying they
were going back to their roots, I was pretty disappointed.

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jleyank
Granted it's not all that new, but Calling All Stations by Genesis was
probably the worst I've ever heard. It did so poorly it killed the tour and
put the band into hiatus. Pretty impressive results for a band that had been
on top for decades.

Yeah, they lost Phil Collins, but forgetting how to write music or lyrics was
a real surprise. George Starostin's review nailed it...

~~~
72deluxe
I've never heard that album but looking it up, I never realised that Spock's
Beard's drummer had a hand in it, and Ray Wilson. Wow, never knew that thanks!

I think I have a couple of Ray Wilson albums he brought out on the Inside Out
label before it went bust in Germany - there was a rerecording of "Inside" on
it but I can't remember any of the other songs because they start, introduce a
verse and then end without any instrumental breaks, which I was hoping for...

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wodenokoto
Shouldn't they count the 4 albums with the largest variance in the average
between the four albums?

> We determined the overall average score for all of these > artists and then
> looked at how much an individual artist’s > average album deviated from this
> score.

Wouldn't this make a consistently below average artist count as an
inconsistent?

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fredley
Took me a while to process the graph, since Random Access Memories was not
where I expected it to be - based on my own experience, I expected it to be
strongly _disappointing_.

~~~
jasode
_> was not where I expected it to be - based on my own experience, _

The disconnect happens because you're comparing your individual taste to a
_meta_ score -- an _aggregation_ of other critics' reviews.

Everybody will dislike or be disappointed in something that the majority will
like.

~~~
baldfat
I find critic reviews to be of minimal value. My personal likes and dislikes
are not correlated to critics ratings.

Music reviews can be very political or based on popularity of the artist(s).
In gaming a very low score can almost always mean a very flawed game. In music
a low score can just mean that artist didn't progress enough or wasn't what is
in fashion right now.

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VeejayRampay
Mos Def's (Yasiin Bey's) The Ecstatic is a classic, not surprised to see as an
unexpected success.

~~~
Expeditus419
Agreed great album. Not surprised to see Lupe's LASERS on most the
disappointing list.

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mzs
I wish The Ventures made the list somewhere, maybe in most consistent, but I
would guess they do not have enough reviews to fit the criteria of the
article.

[http://www.markprindle.com/ventures.htm](http://www.markprindle.com/ventures.htm)

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Spearchucker
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from this article that I didn't
know before reading it. I know that some albums are disappointing. That
sometimes successful albums from an artist are followed by unsuccessful ones.
This is a bit like saying that the sky is blue, water is wet... Unless of
course I'm missing the point, which is entirely possible.

~~~
ctdonath
There's a difference between the vague "yeah, some albums are subjectively
disappointing" vs " _these_ albums are disappointing for _these_ objective
criteria".

Yes, the sky is blue. What shade? what's the gradient? what factors affect it?
what causes a staggeringly "sky blue" color as opposed to blue-tinted
overcast? how does looking thru a projected shadow affect what's seen? I had
an art teacher point out that the lesson on painting landscapes included
explaining to kids that the sky comes all the way down to the horizon,
something that startled most of them.

Yes, you know. How well?

~~~
cag_ii
> "these albums are disappointing for these objective criteria".

Except that the actual scores used to make this "objective" analysis are
largely subjective.

