10 classic albums with terrible endings
The best albums of all time always sound like they’re telling a story. It’s important to start things off strong and keep the audience engaged over the record’s runtime before finally closing everything. The final track may as well be the closing statement that the audience should be thinking about long after they’ve left, but songs by legends like Rush and The Beatles also had more than a few duds in their catalogue.
For all of the great music happening on every record, these ending tracks leave the listener hanging, waiting for a resolution that will never come. Although some artists might take pride in organising their album to tell a story, these closing tracks were picked randomly without any rhyme or reason for the album’s flow.
Granted, not every bad ending comes from a bad song. Sometimes the tune might be fine to close things out, but the buildup of the rest of the album made people’s expectations too high for what the ending had to offer. Instead of having one last phenomenal song to close things out, fans are just left with the sound of their favourite band jamming for a little bit.
While songs like this might be frustrating when listening to the album in full, none of it takes away from the tracks that came before it, some of which would have made much better closers than what they ended up with. These records might be classic, but the final moments before the music stops could have used some work.
10 classic albums with terrible endings:
10. ‘The Struggle Within’ – Metallica
In James Hetfield’s words, no Metallica album was dictated by the flow of the songs. Every release by the thrash titans was about writing the best songs they could think of and putting them out. While Bob Rock gave them a sense of direction and an ebb and flow on The Black Album, ‘The Struggle Within’ doesn’t measure up to any of its promises in the first few seconds.
As soon as the song starts, the huge guitar harmonies and bombastic drums set things up to be one of the heaviest moments on the album. Once the song kicks in, though, that anticipation isn’t remotely paid off, as Hetfield spits out some of the most generic lyrics on the record and sings like he wants to quickly be done with this song so he can catch a football game.
Turns out, the attitude behind the song’s writing wasn’t too far removed from that either. When the band came up short on material, this was one of the last tracks to make the record after they spent a few hours working up some new material. This is a pretty decent Metallica track, all things considered, but putting it up next to tracks like ‘Sad But True’ and ‘Nothing Else Matters’ does it no favours.
9. ‘Stupid Mop’ – Pearl Jam
Towards the mid-1990s, Pearl Jam had gotten everything a struggling band could want… and they were pissed. After trying to outrun his celebrity, Eddie Vedder was getting frustrated with the media, always wanting a piece of them and struggling to find his humanity in between people’s perceptions of him. Vedder was convinced they needed to lose some fans, and the end of Vitalogy probably did the trick.
Although there are more than a few moments on their third outing where things get weird, ‘Stupid Mop’ is one of the most unlistenable pieces of their catalogue, being a spiritual homage to The Beatles’ ‘Revolution 9’. Recorded with new drummer Jack Irons, this track is eight minutes of ambient noise in the studio and chaos, all while a recording Vedder made from his TV continues to play in the background.
If this were used in the background of a horror movie, it would work wonders, but that’s not what the fans are here for, is it? Vedder had a vision for Pearl Jam outside of the mainstream, but if any other professional band put this down as the final track, most fans would demand their money back.
8. ‘Walking The Dog’ – Aerosmith
Over time, Aerosmith developed a knack for writing phenomenal ending tracks. After becoming one of the biggest American acts of the early ‘70s, their signature stomping boogie rock would usually go out on a bombastic moment, either a ballad or one final rocker to serve as the closing credits to the album. When the band were still figuring it out, though, they would have thrown anything onto vinyl and prayed that it would stick.
Though ‘The Bad Boys From Boston’s eponymous debut did boast their classic ‘Dream On’, the rest of the project feels like them trying to work out the bugs of their sound, being a little too much like The Yardbirds in some spots. As if the bluesy influence wasn’t strong enough across the runtime, here comes the most lacklustre version of ‘Walkin The Dog’ that has ever been pressed to plastic.
While ‘Dog’ has been a blues rock staple ever since The British Blues Boom, there isn’t much to work with outside of a decent riff and no guitar solo from Joe Perry. Since Tyler hasn’t settled into his screaming register, most of the track sounds like he’s trying to do a bad Keith Relf impression in the hopes that that’ll be enough. For young artists, it might be about getting their foot in the door, but if ‘Dream On’ and ‘Dog’ were swapped in the track list, that would have the dramatic note fans would remember.
7. ‘1984’ – Tina Turner
By the mid-1980s, Tina Turner didn’t have to answer to anyone ever again. Finally free from the shackles of her husband Ike, Private Dancer was the album that put her a cut above any other female performer, still bringing the thunder after a decade of hard work. Though the title track brings things to a close as a tale of survival, that’s not what most people got on the international version.
Although the US version closed with a bittersweet ending, the rest of the world got some of the wildest cover songs that Turner would ever release. Despite her version of The Beatles’ ‘Help’ going over well with a gospel influence, taking on David Bowie’s ‘1984’ sounded strange for strange’s sake, complete with a painfully low backup singer on the chorus lines.
This might have been a bid to tie Turner back to her rock and roll roots, but by the mid-80s, Bowie had even moved on from the glam days, adopting his plastic sheen for his commercial albums like Let’s Dance. For an album about Turner breaking free from the men who have controlled her for years, she shouldn’t have had to compromise her tale of redemption like this.
6. ‘Prosthetic Head’ – Green Day
99% of Green Day’s back catalogue is about putting someone in their place. In between all of the supposed whining from Billie Joe Armstrong, there are more than a few assholes that have done him wrong that he takes to task in his songs. Things were different on Nimrod, so why did we have to endure yet another one of these tracks before the credits rolled?
That’s not to say that ‘Prosthetic Head’ is a bad song at all…quite the opposite. Out of their ‘90s heyday, this way of telling off a phoney person who never realises how pathetic they are is admirable if no one paid attention to the song that played right before this one. After testing the boundaries of pop-punk, the penultimate track on Nimrod was ‘Good Riddance’, which goes over much better as a closer than anything else would have.
Granted, maybe this was all logical on Green Day’s part, wanting to remind some of their punk faithful that they could still bring the heat despite having a song with a string section. Then again, putting a song like this at the end feels like cowardice on their part. ‘Prosthetic Head’ might bring the album to where things got started, but there’s a good chance that most people buying the CD back in the day stopped listening after the fading sounds of ‘Good Riddance’ left their eardrums.
5. ‘Married With Children’ – Oasis
As far as debut records go, Definitely Maybe made one of the best first impressions ever. After the ‘90s lost morale in the wake of grunge dying, a couple of lads from Manchester made fans feel like everything was going to be alright again on tracks like ‘Live Forever’ and ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’. While we ascended to the highest point on the song ‘Slide Away’, tacking on ‘Married With Children’ almost feels like a half-hearted joke.
Though there were some tongue-in-cheek songs across Oasis’s debut, like ‘Digsy’s Dinner’, this recording of Noel and Liam sitting on a bed feels more like a demo than a proper song. Liam’s voice sounds much better when it’s exposed like this, but the message behind this song just doesn’t cut it, going from poetic songs about living on forever to Noel being pissed at his girlfriend and wanting to clear his head and go home.
The production also doesn’t help its case, sounding like a home demo that some indie artists would make in their basement when they are just figuring out how to operate the equipment. Noel may have been drunk on every word of hype that fell out of his mouth, but there’s a good chance that most fans were just waiting for this song to end when they bought their original copy of the record.
4. ‘Zombie Zoo’ – Tom Petty
Tom Petty mentioned numerous times the liberating feeling of recording Full Moon Fever. Having complete freedom from the rest of The Heartbreakers, Petty could write any song he wanted with Jeff Lynne, turning simple strumming songs into pure magic with his fellow Traveling Wilbury. The album might not have cut it for his record label, though, and ‘Zombie Zoo’ might have had something to do with it.
Compared to the airy classics like ‘Free Fallin’ and ‘I Won’t Back Down’, this song is Petty biding time until the record runs out, with some of the biggest clunky lyrics he’s ever put to tape. Although the idea of a herd of people looking like zombies invite a cool visual, Petty’s attempts at humour fall on deaf ears, especially when he insinuates that his girlfriend bears an uncanny resemblance to Boris Karloff.
The only saving grace on this track is Roy Orbison’s beautiful voice singing backup vocals, but even some of them are too quiet to even make out half the time. Petty mentions dancing more than a few times in this song, but the actual music makes fans want to find a firm place against the wall.
3. ‘Cygnus X1’ – Rush
In their prog rock prime, Rush became legendary for their closing tracks. After having to fight for their freedom, their creative golden ticket from their label gave them the freedom to write whatever they wanted without any pop-friendly interference. Although some Rush albums have great ending tracks, A Farewell to Kings is one of the few classic albums that doesn’t actually have an ending.
For most of the runtime, fans have grown accustomed to Neil Peart’s flowery language about mythic beings and the unstoppable force behind the power trio’s music. As fans enter the song ‘Cygnus X1’, it sounds like it will be more of that until the song fades away without any clear resolution. After droning on about a man succumbing to the force of a black hole, the record never resolves that storyline as Geddy Lee screams about being pulled further into the deep depths of space.
The only reason why this song is unfinished is because of what happened next for Rush. On the following album, Hemispheres, fans are treated to the second chapter of ‘Cygnus’ on the first side, where they see where this space traveller has been after going into the black hole. While this was a cool idea in the era of vinyl, no one should have to buy two separate albums to listen to one song.
2. ‘They’re Red Hot’ – Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Red Hot Chili Peppers had always been proud of their melting pot of different influences. Their strengths may have always been in funk music, but their flirtations with punk, metal, and balladry made Blood Sugar Sex Magik appeal to so many alternative kids back in the day. After finally working through the main track listing, ‘Sir Psycho Sexy’ is one last epic track to close everything out on… well, kinda.
After the smooth sounds of ‘Sexy’ fades away, the Chili Peppers launch into a frantic version of the Robert Johnson blues song ‘They’re Red Hot’, which comes off like a joke. Although every member of the band most likely had a respect for the blues, this is the equivalent of taking a treasured piece of art and spraying graffiti all over it, sounding like they started playing this song after ingesting 30 Red Bulls.
It would be one thing if this were a decent cover, but the instruments almost seem out of sync with each other in spots as well. Anthony Kiedis practically speed-runs his way through the song just to keep up. Compared to the open-hearted songs like ‘Under The Bridge’ from the same record, this feels like the band raising a middle finger to their audience in the last minute and a half of the project.
1. ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ – The Beatles
The Beatles may be one of the few bands that had a perfect career from back to front. While there might be songs that haven’t aged as well as others, the reason why albums like A Hard Day’s Night and Abbey Road hold up is that the band sounds like they’re having fun delivering the music to the fans. As they embarked on their second feature film, the ending of the soundtrack album Help! sounds like they are insecure about their status as a rock band.
While most of the album has some of the great tunes that are expected from them, their version of Larry Williams’ ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ feels overdone and tired at this point. The Beatles no longer needed to fill out the rest of their album with boring cover songs, and this is their most uninspired choice, featuring a persistent guitar line that never changes throughout the whole song.
While the song itself is inoffensive enough to deserve its spot on a Beatles record, the real tragedy is what got pushed to make this song the closer. After making letter perfect rock and roll, Paul McCartney’s classic tune ‘Yesterday’ would have been the phenomenal closer were it not for this song being pushed to the end. The fading sounds of strings on McCartney’s perfect song give fans closure, and this song feels like the band switched back to their old habits like a security blanket.
