10 albums that were sabotaged by the record label
Any musician will tell you that the hardest part of their job is pleasing the record label. No matter how hard someone tries to put their heart and soul into whatever song they’re working on, it’s all at the mercy of a bunch of suits that often wouldn’t know good music if it punched them in the mouth. The label is always looking for the bottom line single in every scenario, and that led to acts like George Harrison releasing some of their most complicated projects to date.
That’s not to say that some studio meddling can’t work in some scenarios. Every now and again, the suits tend to call it right and suggest that a song or two be shuffled around in the track list, but when looking at how every one of these records shaped up, they seemed to actively undermine what the artist was trying to do.
Whether it’s because of wanting that one more single or trying to get a little more bang for their buck, the label’s suggestions often led to compromises here so wrong that they may as well have sabotaged the project on their own. It’s one thing to have the audience’s best interest at heart, but it’s clear that all the label saw were dollar signs and could care less whether someone actually connected with the music on a deep level.
While some of their excuses were more practical than others, they don’t excuse the records from sounding like cash-grabs compared to an actual artistic statement. Music has always been about getting someone’s raw feelings down on tape, but this was the first time it actually sounded like artists were being held against their will in the studio trying to work together.
10 records sabotaged by the label:
10. The Whole Story – Kate Bush
A greatest hits album always comes with much more baggage for the artist than it should. For all of the great tunes they have put out during their time in the limelight, there’s always a hint of desperation in releasing a best-of collection, especially when an artist is still at the top of their game. This should be reserved for someone over the hill, but The Whole Story was a shining example of everything Kate Bush didn’t enjoy about working with EMI.
It’s not like she didn’t have enough strong material to back up that claim, though. Many of the tunes found on The Whole Story are among the best pop hits created by any artist, but while the idea of having ‘Running Up That Hill’ and ‘The Dreaming’ together on one album is fun, it’s about more than just a few good tunes. Bush always sculpted her albums to be listening experiences, so having all of those musical puzzle pieces thrown together haphazardly just feels wrong.
And it’s not like Bush hadn’t earned her chops as a veteran of the music scene, either, with The Sensual World coming out just a year later and bringing in even greater hits like ‘This Woman’s Work’. Bush was interested in a far more expansive catalogue to her name, but pre-emptively releasing a greatest hits record felt like the label was trying to get rid of her right as she started to change the course of pop music.
9. Cold Spring Harbor – Billy Joel
Most artists aren’t really able to argue with the label on their debut release. They haven’t necessarily had the same amount of experience as some seasoned pro has, and it’s better for them to do their jobs as A&R men and pick out a song, single, or recording that they think would test well with listeners. The artist should know more about their music than anyone else, though, and when Billy Joel heard what they had done to the mix of Cold Spring Harbor, he was infuriated by what he heard.
It would take time for Joel to truly settle into his songwriting voice, but he probably didn’t expect the borderline ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ voice that he got on the final version. Instead of recording it at the proper speed, everything on the first edition of his album is running a bit faster than it should, which makes his voice sound midway between the soulful tenor of Jon Anderson of Yes and Tiny Tim strumming on his ukulele.
Although Piano Man at least made Joel sound like himself, there’s a reason why people only bring up the tune ‘She’s Got A Way’ from his first album these days. Because if the universe had been a lot kinder, ‘Piano Man’ is the kind of song that should have introduced him to the world properly.
8. White Pony – Deftones
For years, the corporate world seemed to have no idea what to do with heavy metal. The genre had already been considered to be tainted by most mainstream listeners, but once people like Metallica and Megadeth started selling by the bucketloads in the 1990s, they realised there was some money to be made in metal that wasn’t just based around spandex and teased hair. Although nu-metal was a much different genre flavour, the label somehow couldn’t see the difference when Deftones put out White Pony.
Because, really, this is Deftones’ magnum opus. Every piece of their sound is firmly intact, and few artists have been able to make such a stark contrast in tunes across one project like ‘Elite’, ‘Digital Bath’ and ‘Change (In the House of Flies)’. But no one heard a single in it until the final track, ‘Pink Maggit’, and to get called back into the studio to work was the last thing Chino Moreno had in mind when putting together ‘Back to School’.
Since they hated the idea of writing another song, Moreno used that animosity as fuel, eventually making the equivalent of what he thought was an angry nu-metal song that could compete with the likes of Korn. For as much of a joke as the band took it, no one at the label did, eventually releasing it tacked onto the beginning or end of the album, depending on which version you got. Deftones have always been about working on the fringes of mainstream metal, but it’s really disheartening to think that one of their biggest hits came from them Limp Bizkit-ifying their song.
7. The Last DJ – Tom Petty
For anyone just breaking into the industry as a label executive, Tom Petty was the definition of their worst nightmare. The heartland rocker played by no one else’s rules but his own, and when he decided to file for bankruptcy midway through the recording of Damn the Torpedoes, most people knew enough to know that he wasn’t going to back down to anybody. No label could argue with him sticking to his guns, but they could limit the amount of exposure that one of his albums got.
Granted, if someone made an album about how evil you were, you’d probably want as few people as possible to hear it, too. Throughout The Last DJ, Petty holds nothing back about how much he hates the corporate side of the business, showcasing his higher-ups as nothing but greedy pigs looking to prostitute their favourite artists and get rich off the backs of a few good songs with as little quality as possible.
The label was already sheepish when Petty brought it in, but by the time he started putting out singles, half of them either sunk without a trace or got ignored entirely, with some radio stations refusing to play the tunes because they were too insulting. Then again, if someone creates an album that gets ridiculed from rock and roll’s manufactured side, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, wear that like a badge of honour.
6. The La’s – The La’s
Any label usually claims to have their fans’ best interest at heart. They may be lying through their teeth half the time, but good music gets asses in seats on tour for a good reason, and that means at least having some kind of product to push. So, after taking far too long to release anything decent, the label intervened and put out The La’s without informing any member of the band.
Going into the studio, though, Lee Mavers started to crack up just a bit. Looking through the different sessions the group did, Mavers was absolutely determined to get the most magical take that he could possibly deliver, which meant doing everything from tuning to feedback coming from the amps to making sure that the guitars had the right amount of dust on them to sound right. When you’re on a label that expects an album and all they get is two singles, though, they will work with whatever they have, which means releasing the ramshackle ideas as an album.
And while The La’s has gone down as a classic indie rock masterpiece and a precursor to the Britpop movement, Mavers disowned it almost as it got released, thinking that it was a far cry from what the group was capable of. Still, if this is what they are like only at 50%, who knows if they could have competed with the likes of Oasis if they had stayed the course for the rest of the decade.
5. Chinese Democracy – Guns N’ Roses
There’s always a certain power dynamic whenever the label starts asking questions about a certain album. The minute that they start sticking their fingers into the creative process, the alarm bells should be going off so that the band can either switch up their style or follow their heart instead of cowering to what a couple of “musical insiders” think. It does work in reverse, though, and after being signed to Geffen Records for years, no one managed to actually tell Axl Rose ‘no’.
The entire road to making a new Guns N’ Roses album was bound to be messy when they started working without Slash or Duff McKagan, but having no limits on the album ended up throwing a wrench into everything. Outside of taking 14 years to complete and being one of the most expensive rock albums ever made, giving Rose complete freedom led to him running rampant in the studio, leading to ‘This I Love’ sounding like a messier version of ‘November Rain’.
What’s even funnier is the idea that if it weren’t for the leaks of several songs coming to light in the months leading up to the album’s release, there’s a good chance that Chinese Democracy would still be in creative purgatory to this day. The worst thing that any label can do is let an artist do whatever they want because, without any parameters, all Rose did was sound like a musical madman trying to sculpt a masterpiece out of nothing.
4. Everybody’s Rockin’ – Neil Young
Most artists knew how to play the game with their label by the mid-1970s. Unless they were musical gods like Led Zeppelin or The Rolling Stones, no one was safe from their higher-ups having a few notes on what their latest albums were, and that normally meant going back to the drawing board to get something new. Neil Young was never remotely interested in playing that game, but when his label insisted, he figured that he make an entire record to spite them.
As good as the more rustic version of Young that he was delivering on albums like Comes a Time, it wasn’t necessarily what the label wanted. He was still known as a titan of rock and roll, and what they were looking for was the same rocker who gave us ‘Cinnamon Girl’ and ‘Hey Hey My My’, so if they wanted some rock and roll, that’s exactly what Young was going to deliver.
Clad in a rockabilly hairdo and some of the cheesiest backing musicians he could find, Everybody’s Rockin’ is one of the most unintentionally hilarious releases from a mainstream artist, but it did send just the right message that Young wanted to. Some people may try to put him in a box, but if you start pushing too hard on any artist, don’t be surprised when they start biting back.
3. Ride the Lightning – Metallica
Metallica were never the best-suited band for the mainstream. They were proud to be a part of the underground, and even if they didn’t rack up the same numbers as Poison or Warrant, it didn’t matter as long as they still had a devoted following. Once they jumped to Elektra Records for Ride the Lightning, the label at least wanted to have one song that resembled something like a single.
Since Kill Em All was incredibly rough around the edges, hearing ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ and ‘Fade to Black’ at least put them on firm ground with other metal legends from around the same time. Right as the album picks up steam, ‘Escape’ became the albatross around everyone’s neck, only being recorded because the label thought that they needed one more song for the album to feel complete.
So, outside of the epic moments on the record, ‘Escape’ is the first real case of filler in any Metallica project, and while there are decent moments, it’s hard not to see the cynicism in making a track like this. If they had just rolled over and included their immortal cover of ‘Am I Evil’ in its place, their sophomore release may have been on the same level as Master of Puppets.
2. Diver Down – Van Halen
By the start of the 1980s, all Van Halen needed was some time to rest. They were still among one of the most consistent rock bands on record, but there’s only so many times you can expect someone to put out a classic before they start to get burnt out. So when David Lee Roth suggested covering the Roy Orbison song ‘(Oh) Pretty Woman’ as a single while they chilled out, the label thought that it was too good to just be a one-off.
Despite earning a vacation, Diver Down became the album that was never supposed to exist, with everyone throwing all of their lacklustre ideas into the project to assemble what looks like an album. It’s already criminally short by Van Halen standards, but because half of the album comprises covers and other tracks are comprised of instrumental interludes, this was the first time it actively sounded like the band ran out of ideas.
There are still the makings of Van Halen classics on here, like Little Guitars and Secrets, but it just feels tainted to know that the group never really wanted to make them to begin with. And since 1984 was just around the corner, it’s hard not to imagine some of the highlights of Diver Down sounding better if they had been used on the next project.
1. Somewhere in England – George Harrison
George Harrison was never looking to have a solo career in the traditional sense. He had started off incredibly strong by releasing All Things Must Pass, but after being torn through the mud during the tour for Dark Horse, he tended to fade into the background and make the kind of music he wanted, even if it wasn’t strictly rock and roll. But after entering the age of MTV, Harrison’s attempt to get back into the world on Somewhere in England was rejected by the label.
Aside from the sheer audacity at telling a Beatle that his work wasn’t good enough, the label had specific notes for Harrison, telling him to write the kind of love song that kids would be into. While the label did get their wish by having Harrison release the song ‘Teardrops’, the fact that it’s a borderline novelty song these days just speaks to how little Harrison cared about what any of the suits wanted.
If anything, the fact that he added a tune like ‘Blood From a Clone’ to the record afterwards tells you all you need to know about Harrison’s perspective. It was completely fine for him to release something that his label might have preferred, but that didn’t stop him from having a bit of fun at their expense along the way.
