The 10 most unnecessary albums by iconic artists
Every artist tries to change things up whenever they go into the studio. Even if fans are used to their sound, there’s that desire to create something that no one has ever heard before and make every single album like another chapter of the creative process. However, no band is safe from a lacklustre project, and creating these albums looks like a massive waste of time for artists like George Harrison in retrospect.
That said, not every album wants to change the world upon release. Bands like AC/DC have made a mint out of writing similar tunes repeatedly, but they still know how to take that formula and twist it on its head occasionally. When talking about albums like this, though, there’s hardly any real audience asking for them.
Considering how little heart was put into some of them, many of these projects reek of record company desperation, as if they needed to fulfil a quota and needed one more record in the can before they could say they were truly done. Even when it was a genuine detour for an artist to go down, though, some of them either feel incredibly rushed for a deadline or have too little material to count as a mainline album in their discography.
Although most fans can get mad at some albums that aren’t up to par, it’s hard to think of anything bad to say about any projects greater than a casual shoulder shrug. Then again, it’s a lot more excruciating to make it through an album that’s boring than one that’s offensive, and while there might be some shining moments here, these should be the last albums listeners come to after the classics.
10 most unnecessary albums by huge artists:
10. Alive Symphony – Kiss
Kiss isn’t a band that requires a master’s degree in music theory to understand. As much as people like to acknowledge them as the reigning kings of all things rock, even they would claim not to be the greatest musicians in the world, so there’s no point in them trying to make a prog song on a whim. If there’s one thing they know how to do, though, it’s how to take themselves too seriously, and Alive Symphony may be one of the more questionable releases made by a band that made one of the worst concept albums ever.
It’s not that hard to see where their heads were, though. Alive was the album that put them on the map, so it’s only natural for them to spice it up by bringing in an orchestra. Although some songs on here benefit from having musical accompaniment behind them, like ‘God of Thunder’, many of them sound like the muzak version of their classic hits, which isn’t something you should be looking for in a song called ‘Lick It Up’.
And since half of the concert doesn’t even have the symphony on the track, it almost sounds like an act of desperation to ensure that people are still satisfied with a live record of the group. Metallica may have proved that symphonies and hard rock could be awesome, but listening to ‘Great Expectations’ without wanting to vomit is something only the true Kiss fans are capable of doing.
9. Chinese Democracy – Guns N’ Roses
It would have been poetic justice if Chinese Democracy had never seen the light of day. The entire basis of the album was centred around the fact that Axl Rose could never get the right lineup of Guns N’ Roses, so to have it in this release purgatory would have been a perfect way to keep an audience in limbo for eternity. Once we did hear it, the fact that it was one person in over their head was a bit disheartening.
While there are the makings of a decent Guns N’ Roses record here, a lot of the material sounds like it had been slaved over for over a decade. A lot of Rose’s vocal takes do sound good, but it’s anyone’s guess whether some of them were remnants of the first version of the band or assembled piecemeal through the years before he decided on something that could be considered finished.
While we are seeing a lot of that messiness playing out in real-time, even today with Kanye West’s latest hateful bile, Rose could at least say he was ahead of the curve in keeping audiences waiting to see what he has to say. If audiences do get their headphones around it, though, the surprise is usually far from what anyone could have expected.
8. Metal Machine Music – Lou Reed
All of Lou Reed’s albums seemed to come from the heart before anything else. Ever since leaving The Velvet Underground, Reed was an artist in the truest sense of the word, whether that meant getting the one lyric exactly right or turning in the kind of song that works better as an emotional release rather than having a stellar chord progression. But there are limits, and it’s not usually anyone’s first choice to make an album that actively forces the headphones off of you.
Granted, it’s not like Metal Machine Music isn’t somewhat interesting. There are pieces of Reed’s music that always bled towards the avant-garde, but while ‘Sister Ray’ still had a point behind it, making a double album that’s nothing but guitar feedback feels more like a punishment to his fans after a while rather than a bold new artistic journey for him.
Still, Reed did stick by it, calling the album one of his finest moments for how relentless it could be. He does have a point in that it doesn’t hold back, but whereas his other records were relentlessly honest, even the most diehard Lou Reed fans aren’t going to question anyone who listens to this album for less than a minute, never mind over an hour of it.
7. Choba B CCCP – Paul McCartney
There was never that much off the table for Paul McCartney to try whenever he went in to make a record. Although Wings gave him the stadium rock status that he had back in the days of The Beatles, he was always more interested in taking his music further than the simple pop songs people loved. And while looking backwards is hardly ever a bad thing, seeing him make an album exclusively for the Russian market feels a little bit hollow, considering how world events played out.
Since this was an opportunity for Macca to extend a hand of friendship to Russian listeners with a few covers of old-time rock and roll, this is more ramshackle than what John Lennon did on Rock ‘n’ Roll, especially towards the end where he ends up covering the same tunes as his former partner like ‘Just Because’. Despite having his chops down, this was the first time that Macca felt like he was going through the motions whenever he played.
And now that the West’s relationship with Russia has been rocky, to say the least, knowing that this album was a peace offering almost seems sad to look back on. It’s at least interesting to hear McCartney play the song that got him in The Beatles with ‘Twenty Flight Rock’, but everything would be drastically improved when he turned in Run Devil Run a couple of years down the road.
6. Songs of Surrender – U2
U2 have been in danger of swallowing their own tail since reaching their 40s. Although they have taken new directions every time they’ve made a record and have tried to switch things up, there are many times when that enthusiasm feels more pretentious than anything else. And while the Songs of series of albums started with a thud, hearing them have the gall to cover themselves is miserable to listen to.
Whereas most of U2’s goodwill was shaky after their controversy with iTunes, hearing them water down every one of their classic songs is excruciating to look back on. While it gives off the feeling of a particularly bad episode of Unplugged, some songs don’t even reach those heights, especially hearing ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ stripped down to its bare essence and sounding especially hollow.
Despite being a tie-in to the sense of innocence, Bono tried to capture in his book of the same name, Songs of Surrender is the kind of hollow music that feels like watching paint dry throughout its duration. Congratulations, lads, you’ve finally made the kind of album that captures what you sound like for people who hate U2.
5. Father of All Motherfuckers – Green Day
Green Day doesn’t need to rely on the big hits anymore to get fans on their side. It was clear that their trilogy of albums was where they collectively hit a brick wall, and it was time for them to make something true to themselves rather than trying to go as grandiose as possible on every release. Then again, there’s a way to go too far in the opposite direction as well.
Even though Revolution Radio could be slightly lethargic at points, it still felt like a decent way forward after the band spent their last few years going downward. By the time they recharged their batteries, though, those old habits had died hard on this record, especially considering how little is on the album and the amount of trend-chasing that they’re doing, whether that’s hopping back on a Black Keys-style backing track on the title song or recycling their old riffs like repackaging ‘Fuck Time’ for ‘Stab You in the Heart’.
Then again, considering that Green Day hyped this album up as one of the last albums that they needed to make while under contract for Warner Bros, it makes a lot of these tracks feel less like a proper album. Since they went through the trouble of making that statement, Father of All Motherfuckers reads like the kind of album that is meant to fulfil a contract before letting them do what they really want to do.
4. The Blacklist – Metallica
Metallica may be one of the few metal bands on Earth that have become far bigger than anyone expected. Although Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield knew that they could conquer the world, having The Black Album put up all-star numbers on the same level as the Eagles and Pink Floyd was enough for the entire world to turn their heads and start banging them to ‘Enter Sandman’. While reissues shouldn’t count for this list, The Blacklist earns its title by being one of the most elongated pieces anyone has ever released.
Most people can expect a bit of filler on reissues that give fans extra material, but hearing everyone and their mother take a swing at some of the band’s best songs feels incredibly odd. While some of them do work like Miley Cyrus doing ‘Nothing Else Matters’, hearing the same 12 songs being played multiple times is one of the most unnecessary exercises Metallica have to go through, especially since they aren’t even playing them.
It’s nice to hear all the different arrangements, but never before has anyone so nakedly made a tribute album to themselves. Any Metallica fan would have been able to get some extra material, but hearing them suffer through multiple versions of ‘Holier Than Thou’ or ‘The Struggle Within’ is downright insufferable for songs that have already been overplayed into the ground by rock radio.
3. Dark Side of the Moon Redux – Pink Floyd
Most of the best albums of all time get that way for being in the right place at the right time. Even though Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon still sounds as fresh today as it was back in 1973, the magic behind it is the band’s ability to use the tools they had and make something that sounded like the future. So, naturally, that means that a timeless record needed to be updated by the guy who wrote it.
Although everyone would argue that the album is perfect the way it is, Roger Waters felt that it needed to be tweaked a little bit when making his latest version of the album. Despite staying pretty faithful to the versions on the original album, hearing him adding extra verses of spoken word over where David Gilmour’s guitar solo should be is downright sacrilege for fans of the classics.
While Waters has admitted that this isn’t meant to be a substitute for the proper album, it definitely changes how some people look at the record. Because even if it’s one of the most enduring albums of all time, what good is it if it’s the same album cheap enough for Waters to play glorified Tom Waits karaoke over?
2. Pin Ups – David Bowie
By the time the 1970s began, David Bowie had quickly started to overtake The Beatles as one of the finest artists working in music. Even though he was still looking to play with his sound, every one of his wild experiments felt like one step forward to the point where he started to be looked at as one of the leaders of the glam movement by the time he hit Aladdin Sane. Now with a hot streak that no one else could touch, someone convinced ‘The Starman’ that it was the right time to suck all of the wind out of his sails on Pin Ups.
Because while Bowie sold in droves in England, there was still a chance that he could fare a bit better in the States, so why not give him a bunch of songs to cover? While the tunes are still decent pieces of English pop like Pink Floyd’s ‘See Emily Play’, there was no reason to release when Bowie was already neck-deep in putting together a concept record centred around George Orwell’s 1984.
Despite that album not coming to pass and being folded into Diamond Dogs, Pin Ups is still one of the most befuddling albums to be considered a major piece of his discography. Whenever he relied on nostalgia again, it would be in love letters to his favourite genres like Young Americans, but this is one of the few times where it sounded like Bowie had a gun to his head while making a record.
1. Electronic Sound – George Harrison
For a band as big as The Beatles, each member technically has a few albums that could qualify for this list. John Lennon’s experimental albums with Yoko Ono didn’t necessarily need to be heard, and even Paul McCartney’s avant-garde itch didn’t need to be for human ears when making Liverpool Sound Collage. In terms of where an artist was while making a record, though, George Harrison fans deserved a lot more than what we got on Electronic Sound.
Since every one of the Fab Four wanted to be ahead of the curve, this was the moment when Harrison discovered the power of the Moog synthesiser. As much as the instrument would be utilised to great effect on Abbey Road, hearing him spend the entire length of the record fiddling about with different sounds feels like the rejected noises used for a Star Wars movie that had yet to be released.
I suppose it deserves to exist if only for introducing the sound of one of the greatest albums ever made, but looking at what Harrison had kicking around for All Things Must Pass, having this be one of his first solo outings feels incredibly lacklustre. He only got a few spots on every Beatles album, but when he put his best foot forward, he gave us a bunch of glitching ambient noises rather than ‘All Things Must Pass’ or ‘Wah-Wah’.
