[Mitch Michaels]
5. Pink - I'm Not Dead: I haven't heard Pink's new album, but listening to her last one was a real chore. Yes, there were a few big hits off of there, but hearing them in succession with all that filler included made my ears bleed. Is "Who Knew" catchy? Yeah, but this is the sort of CD that high school girl basketball players crank up in their bedrooms, only to look back a few months later and think, damn, that was lame.
4. Velvet Revolver - Contraband: As a rock fan, the debut of a band featuring Guns N' Roses minus Axl was a must listen. Critics and fans alike were creaming their jeans over this one - I didn't see it. Just a bunch of guitar noise with Scott Weiland's drugged-out ass mumbling into the microphone. Even the band's follow-up, which sold dismally and ultimately led to the band's being dropped from their label and Weiland's exit (yes, the STP thing too, but the soft sales didn't help) had a decent single in "Quick Machines".
3. Eagles - Long Road Out Of Eden: This massive #1 from last year just makes me cry. Some people may think that the Eagles went soft by going country, but the truth is that the Eagles started out as a country-rock band before Joe Walsh and Don Felder kicked the band's guitars into the electric stratosphere. No, the sad thing is that the band went contemporary country - and didn't even manage a decent single. "Busy Being Fabulous"? "I Dreamed There Was No War"? "No More Cloudy Days"? This is the same band that made "Life In The Fast Lane" and "Take It Easy"?
2. Jessica Simpson - Do You Know: Speaking of going country, Jessica Simpson left pop earlier this year for the greener pastures of Nashville and...well, fared about the same. No one gave a fuck, only the people who didn't give a fuck did so in Middle America rather than in Teen Beat. The album itself isn't as hard on the ears as Jessica's pop stuff - but just putting it in the same category as Martina McBride and Reba McEntire is an afront to music.
1. Guns N' Roses - "The Spaghetti Incident?": I asked Mrs. Michaels what some bad, disappointing albums were and she said "Spaghetti Incident is the only one." I wasn't into GN'R at the time, but man, this one just keeps on sucking all these years later. It made people doubt Chinese Democracy (an awesome CD, if you haven't listened to it), and it took GN'R from "biggest band in recluse" to shaky ground. 15 years is a long time to hate an album.
[Rick Switzer]
As opposed to just giving you a list of artist's I hate in today's pop scene, I've compiled a list of bands that I've followed throughout the years, only to be let down by their later discs.
5. Hellyeah - Self Titled: I'm sure I wasn't the only person stoked about a super group featuring members of Pantera, Mudvayne, Damageplan, and Nothingface. Unfortunately this disc fell flat on its face as vocalist Chad Gray's nasally vocals mixed with the bands hard rock sound like oil and water.
4. In This Moment - The Dream: I'll go on record as being a huge fan of ITM's 1st album Beautiful Tragedy. After seeing them a handful of times supporting its release, I was foaming at the mouth to hear more from this group, and their cover of Pantera's "I'm Broken" and Slayer's "Postmortem" on their official Myspace page only added to my anticipation. Unfortunately due to the commercial success of Beautiful Tragedy the band stripped their sound down to sell more records and released a follow up almost completely void of the appeal that made their first album one of my favorite's of 2007.
3. Flaw - Endangered Species: Through the Eyes is one of my favorite albums ever recorded, so I was extremely disappointed when I picked up their follow up effort. Though Volz and company try their hardest, they suffer heavily from living in the shadow of their previous work and come off sounding like a band trying to reinvent the wheel, while stuck in a ditch.
2. Atreyu - Lead Sails Paper Anchor: In most cases, I'm not certain as to whether a band changed or my tastes matured. Atreyu is the exception. Coming off of three great releases, this Orange County metalcore band decided to try something new and released one of the weakest "metal" albums every recorded. Seriously, this is to metalcore as Kiss Dynasty was to 70's rock.
1. Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil: This was the definitive nail in the coffin for my time as a fan of A7X. In my honest opinion Sounding the 7th Trumpet, and Waking the Fallen were about as perfect as an album could be, and primed these guys to be the next big thing in modern metal. Their early work could have put them alongside bands like Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, and Mastadon, but instead they released this hunk of feces. Devoid of every endearing quality that put them on the map, A7X's new sound comes off as Guns N Roses for the easy listening crowd. Even though they gained an all new fan base, and the boys are admittedly doing very well for themselves nowadays, they cast aside myself and many of their long time fans with this abortion of a disc.
[Tom Santoro]
The point of this exercise was to give you five albums to avoid meaning maybe you want to try it out but are not sure. These are not the 5 worst albums ever made, that would comprise of (insert obligatory Creed or Nickelback album here). It does not mean these albums are bad, they just never resonated with me and I would like you to save money or time illegally downloading.
Honorable mention: Mike Ness - Cheating at Solitaire: I was pissed he went solo, but at least he got his alt-country fixation over and done with.
5. The Flight of the Concords - The Flight of the Concords: My friends told me, "If there is anyone that will love this show, it will be you." I hated it. I mean I tried to watch it but I found it not funny and barely watchable. Then they said, "well the music is funny, you will enjoy the cd." Nope, not buying it. Maybe I don't get New Zealand humor.
4. Eddie Vedder - Into The Wild Soundtrack: "Hard Sun" is a good song, but the rest of it is plodding. It won a Golden Globe I believe, but what does that really mean to you or I?
3. The Pixies - Trompe Le Monde: This was the last Pixies record before they disbanded. Kim Deal is nowhere to be found and it just misses the mark the gold standard all the other Pixies records achieved.
2. Arcade Fire - Funeral: This album was on every body's top ten list when it was released. So I picked it up and thought this is horrible. It is not fun, it is pretentious and overhyped. I thought they were another ho hum Coldplay-ish Brit band, then I found out they are from that cesspool Montreal and I hated them even more. Bono and the Boss love them by I don't.
1. Red Hot Chili Peppers - One Hot Minute: All the ingredients to be the best RHCP album. Four years after coming off their best album, Dave Navarro replacing John Frusciante and we get this, a darker grunged-out version of the fun loving band. I despise "Aeroplane" and "Coffee Shop" and was damn disappointed with this disc.
[Paul Hollingsworth]
This was a tough list to make. I try to at least give a fair shake to just about everything, although it's all but impossible not to have preconceived notions about musicians in this day and age. Personally, I don't give one good damn about Nickleback, Fall-Out Boy, the Jonas Brothers, Billy Ray Cyrus, his daughter or anything produced by Timbaland. I would also include 99 percent of what passes for country music on the radio, all past and future American Idol winners, and anybody who proclaims himself the voice of a generation. (It's not your call to make, jackass.)
But all the above are such easy targets. Instead, I've tried to focus on particular records by musicians I respect which failed on some level or which I would never use to introduce someone to their music.
5. Kiss - Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions: Kiss hired Alice In Chains producer Toby Wright and recorded a grunge album. Kiss and grunge should never, ever occur in the same sentence except as antonyms. The reunion of the original members shelved the album for a year, but it was eventually released and thankfully went away quickly. There is one good song on it, Master & Slave, but it's not a good Kiss song.
4. Pink Floyd - The Final Cut: By 1982, Pink Floyd was a mess. David Gilmour and Roger Waters were involved in a pissing contest with each other over the direction and leadership of the band, and the end result was this tepid, self-indulgent album. Fans of the band, whose numbers swelled because the previous record was a little masterpiece called The Wall, were put off by the posturing and in-fighting and the record is the least interesting of all of Floyd's work.
3. Prince - Everything that came after the symbol album until the recent Planet Earth: After a very public fight with his original record company, Prince released a hell of a lot of crap for most of the 90s. Every artist has a right to release a selfish album or two, but Prince spent an entire decade sticking it to the man with vault releases of half-finished tracks, horrible demos and other things which are just unclassifiable. Prince wasn't proving anything to his record label - he was just alienating the majority of his fans. Thankfully, his last release, Planet Earth seems to suggest he's gotten over himself and is interested in making interesting music again.
2. Various - Cover albums of Beatles and Rolling Stones songs: There's nothing wrong with a band or a musician covering a song or two by one of these two musical heavyweights. The first few Stones albums had their own fair share of covers. But I don't need to hear Little Texas's take on Help, off the album Come Together: Country Salutes The Beatles, to know that the original song was just fine, thanks all the same.
1. Various - Greatest Hits: Greatest hits compilations are a horrible way to be introduced to a band. If you're only familiar with a band through their greatest hits, you're likely missing out on a great experience by not listening to the original release of the song on a complete album. Very few musicians bother to release cohesive albums these days, but I think the sequencing of tracks is one of the most important details. With the majority of greatest hits releases, you get the band's most popular songs, usually in descending order, with very little context. Full albums give weight and place to the hits and make the song much more interesting when you hear what the band wanted you to hear before and after the 'hit.'
[Jacob Crogie]
5. Avril Lavigne - The Best Damn Thing: It's not just because she is a horrible musician who basically changed her sound to fit the times. It's also not just because she cannot write her own music, relying on professional song writers to fill the void. It's not due to the numerous cries of plagiarism. It's basically due to myself having to be subjected to this for two years by my younger sister, that kind of shit wears on you after a while...
Worst Track: The title track, it's pure shit...just pure shit...
4. Queen + Paul Rodgers - The Cosmos Rocks: Wow, this album was brutal...just plain brutal. I didn't have high hopes, come on, its the guy from "Bad Company", he sure as shit isn't Freddie Mercury. It failed to even meet my lowest of the low expectations and I was baffled that they wasted their time on this. Thank Jim Morrison that they put Rodgers' name on the end, to avoid any confusion...yeah right...they just barely avoided completely shitting on Freddie's legacy...
Worst Track: C-lebrity...its fucking stupid that's why...
3. The Who - Endless Wire: Wow. Another shit album from a great band of old! This was the biggest waste of 20 dollars EVER! Well, I did get the bonus live DVD which was pretty cool, they can still bring the heat at their age! But holy Janis Joplin this album was bad, Roger sounds like shit, and Pete's lyrics and music have lost a lot of relevance! Just totally not worth it, should have been left on the cutting room floor...
Worst Track: The ENTIRE "Wire & Glass" Mini-Opera...it sucks...hardcore
2. Bon Jovi - Lost Highway: Bon Jovi goes country! YAY! Yay? yay....?! NO DAMNIT, NO! Holy hell what a bunch of sell out bullshit! Sure, "Bounce", and "Have a Nice Day" were no classics, but it was still Bon Freakin Jovi! This is country music at its worst, because it is fake, and forced. Do you know of many country artists hailing from New Jersey? I actually avoided a Bon Jovi concert for fear of them playing their country shitlist...Bon Jovi can just go away, its time, hair metal is dead and you suck at country...just give the hell up!
Worst Track: "Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore"...fuck off...seriously, that's the title? Can you say trying WAAAAYYYY toooo hard?
1. Nickelback - All albums following Silver Side Up: If any of you have read my column, (which means nobody, I highly recommend you check it out, I review new singles and it goes live every Wednesday) you will know my intense hatred for Nickelback. It's not just the fact that they sold their souls in exchange for continued mainstream success. It's not only that the most insane Nickelback fans cannot tell the artistic differences between "Silver Side Up" and this latest schlockfest "Dark Horse". It's basically that I feel betrayed, I love "Silver Side Up", it is edgy and strong musically. The album was a surprise smash and Chad and the boys got all fame drunk and were set to do everything in their (and Satan's) power to stay on top. So they became a punchline...fuck Nickelback...
Worst Track:...wow...this was actually hard...really...I have to pick just one? "Photograph"...man that shit is narsty!
[Fred Richani]
Honorable Mentions: Avoid every Nelly album besides his debut Country Grammar.
5. Lloyd Banks – Rotten Apple (2006): This album sucked compared to his debut The Hunger for More. Gone were the catchy hooks, dope lyrics, and ill beats that made his first album so good. This album just consists of bad braggadocio, false bravado, and sounds more like it belongs on the "G-Unit Radio" mixtape series rather than on Best Buy's shelves. I cannot believe I spent my hard earned ten bucks for one solid track in "Hands Up" and fifteen forgettable ones.
4. Tony Yayo – Thoughts of a Predicate Felon (2005): Luckily for Banks, his sophomore effort couldn't have been as bad as Tony Yayo's debut Thoughts of a Predicate Felon in 2005. I was also lucky, as I didn't buy this album—my friend did. We still regret bumping that in his ride to this day (mind you we had one listen before it was confirmed to be crap). This CD is awful, awful, and oh yeah, awful. How can you be a guy fresh out of jail on rap's then-hottest group G-Unit and not capitalize?! The dude came out with a song called "So Seductive"—because nothing says you earned your stripes in the big house like making your first single about seduction. And those "gangstas" said The Game was the feminine one in the group. I'm just saying…..
3. Flo Rida – Mail On Sunday (2008): Three hot songs do not make an album. Okay, make that four—"Low", "Elevator", "In The Ayer", and "American Superstar". Everything else on this album is straight up trash. Flo Rida is the new Nelly, as in he has the potential to make a hot song only to negate that ill feeling you get with three bad tracks that follow. Honestly, had this album been an E.P. with five or six of the best tracks, then it probably would have sold more than the 200K it barely put out. Instead, we got stuck with filler tracks such as one about Rida's love for a woman that reminds him of alcohol in "Ms. Hangover". Yes, that's the song's actual name.
2. Shawty Lo – Units In The City (2008): Let me start by saying Shawty Lo is my dude, despite his ridiculously petty beef with southern rap king T.I. That being said, he's better off sticking to singles than full albums. Between repeating the same lines so much it would make even Mike Jones stop listening and an incredible lack of lyrical effort, Units In The City is, quite frankly, avoidable as hell. "Foolish" and "They Know (Dey Know)" are the ONLY tracks worth copping. Those are worth ITuning. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the rest of the album. Sorry, Bankhead.
1. TIE between 50 Cent – Curtis (2007) and G-Unit – Terminate On Sight (2008): These choices really pained me because I am a fan of 50 Cent—dumb beefs and all. Yet Curtis was so disappointing considering the expectations fans had when it was released the same day as Kanye West's Graduation last year. Do you see a trend here? Tony Yayo stunk up the joint in 2005, Banks did in 2008, and 50 capped it off in 2007. After kicking out the two best rappers in his camp in The Game and Young Buck, 50 Cent and the gang released Terminate On Sight earlier this year. The Game has already gone Gold with LAX, while G-Unit is barely on the SoundScan radar. Financially, 50 Cent is as dominant as ever, but musically—he has to get his groove back. If Get Rich or Die Tryin' put gangsta rap back on the map in 2003, then Curtis and T.O.S. killed it.
"Follow My Lead", "Amusement Park", and the god-awful Nicole Scherzinger sung "Fire" make Curtis a critical and commercial hemorrhoid in 50's career. At least that album had one Top 10 single in "Ayo Technology" featuring Justin Timberlake and hot street anthem "I Get Money". T.O.S. had "I Like the Way She Do It". This album was so bad Tony Yayo actually managed to outshine his normally iller counterparts. Pardon my language, but when Tony Yayo has the hottest verses on your album—you know your shit sucks.
[Chris Crowning]
This could be really easy, and I could play to my stereotypical self and just vent on artists and styles of music that I hate. I could name everything that 50 Cent has ever done. I could nominate anything by Westlife, most X Factor or American Idol winners and all manner of Walt Disney sponsored nonsense. I could even be the metal snob and rip holes in My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy, but I think that's not quite in the point. If you feel the need to buy albums by the above named artists, it's probable that you actually WANT to listen to 3rd rate, fake, corporate hip-hop, generic soulless chart pop or whatever. No, I'll take this to mean albums that I have been advised to buy by people who know and understand my musical peculiarities, or albums by artists I already liked that brutally disappointed me. These are the ones that hurt. These are the CDs I ritually destroyed for letting me down so badly. Avoid them at all costs.
Oh, and for the record, St. Anger isn't in this list because I liked it at the time, even if it didn't have the enduring quality of your average Metallica album and I still think it's not NEARLY as bad as most folks make it out to be.
Dishonorable Mentions: Trivium - The Crusade, Placebo - Meds
5. Bring Me The Horizon - Count Your Blessings: This was handed to me by a friend, and I was told that this is the future of heavy music. It is not. It is terrible, generic, by-the-numbers, fashionable toss. The frontman is an arrogant fool who needs a good beating too.
4. Stereophonics - Just Enough Education To Perform: I loved their first two albums, full of pleasing, sing-along indie rock, with some great stories, told with charisma and heart. Apart from "Mr. Writer", this album is a horrid, written-on-autopilot mess. When a young and vital band chooses to cover Rod Stewart in all seriousness, it's a bad sign.
3. Fear Factory - Transgression: After Archetype I was really looking forward to the new FF release, as they seemed rejuvenated following Dino's departure. However, Transgression was a real disappointment. By the numbers, it was everything I wanted, a technical, brutally heavy album. But the super-shiny production job made it almost unlistenable, and the far too clean electronic feel of it stripped all the heart and impact out of the songs, even making Burton C Bell's awesome voice sound synthesized. This just doesn't stand up next
2. Oasis - Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants: and everything that has come since. Like every single British teenager in the 90s, I loved Oasis and Definitely Maybe, What's the Story? (Morning Glory) and Be Here Now still hold a place of nostalgic affection in my heart. Since then, however Oasis have been coasting and produced album after album of very bland, soulless songs.
1. Paradise Lost - Host: Paradise Lost were the band that showed me metal wasn't about speed, and you could create brilliantly affecting dark sounds without stripping the face off your audience with sheer distorted volume. I love Draconian Times and I think One Second was five years ahead of it's time, and PL might have been mainstream huge if they'd had that out at the same time Evanescence and their like got big. But Host was step too far down the electronica route, and the album is some of the worst, synth heavy, aimless, boring nonsense. It's the kind of thing you'd expect to be playing in the most depressing gay-orientated Goth bar in Prague. On a Monday night.
[Ben Czajkowski]
Dishonorable Mentions: Staind – Chapter V, 3 Doors Down – The Better Life, Angels & Airwaves – I-Empire, Bloodsimple. – Red Harvest, Drowning Pool – Full Circle, Fear Factory – Obsolete, Flaw – Endangered Species, Atreyu – Lead Sails, Paper Anchor, Train – For Me, It's You, She Wants Revenge – This Is Forever, Panic At the Disco – Pretty. Odd.
5. Crossfade – Fading Away: The radio sure played the hell out of (and still does) the singles from the self-titled disc. Tunes like "Colors", "Cold", "Starless" (which was not a single, but an epic opening track), and "So Far Away" are prototypical, well-cantillated rock tracks; however, nothing on Fading Away even remotely resembles Crossfade. The band tried, and failed, blaming their label on the flop. In the end, though, they only have themselves to hold at fault. Avert this and wait for the third album sometime in 2009 or 2010.
4. Staind – Illusion of Progress: It's hard to believe that the only man I've ever loved could be the brains behind this epic miscarriage of musical recording. Aaron Lewis and company have no edge left, and all creative talent was aborted during whatever Chapter V was. The "Illusion" of success that Staind once had is gone. I highly recommend avoiding this album as long as you possibly can. Like forever.
3. Evanescence – The Open Door: This album is so terrible that Amy Lee herself isn't sure if Evanescence is ever going to record another album. The epic success that was Fallen failed to be matched by Door, and I knew that was going to happen once Ben Moody. The single, "Call Me When You're Sober", is the only good track on this album, and that's a huge stretch. Amy Lee proves that she is not a capable lyricist. I don't recommend this album, if you can avoid it.
2. Hurt – Vol. 1/Vol. II: It's hard for me to find enough material between these two albums to make even one worth listening to. Never in my life have I heard such incohesive, unsystematic, and abysmal collection of tunes as to what these two discs represent. Here is a band, not just the album, where you can go your entire life without hearing and never have missed a note.
1. From Autumn To Ashes – Abandon Your Friends: Take this album out of the FATA catalog, and you have a nearly flawless set of work. Abandon Your Friends is showcase of what happens when bands fall apart. Francis Mark, the then-drummer for the band, had to ghost write the lyrics in a short amount of time because then-frontman Ben Perri was no longer passionate about FATA. While there are a few quality tracks on this album, there's more at fault than there is glory. If you've never the perspicacity of FATA, I recommend that you do not start here.
[Dan Haggerty]
My list will be different metal albums for people to avoid that might accidently pick them up. We all know that St. Anger sucked, so no point in telling people to avoid it. These are popular bands whose metal albums might suck you in due to the album, or band's hype, but you should avoid.
5. Marilyn Manson - Smells Like Children: I can understand the appeal the man has for people, and I'm more than willing to admit he lives on the edge of society as laughing conscious to the things the beautiful people want to ignore. But man, people looking for a little industrial noise and social statement need to avoid this thing and look to later releases in the dude's catalog. What you basically get is a couple of decent and fun novelty covers plus half an hour of what the fuck. This isn't an album; it's the soundtrack to a spooky Nintendo Game on acid. Avoid this absurd attempt to justify Jerry Garcia stumbling through a Type O Negative suicide party (in 16 bit graphics) and move on to the bands latter material.
4. Sepultura - Roots: OK. This one won't make a lot of people happy, but really Chaos AD and Arise are your go to albums for what was a great band. Roots is just too much hardcore noise pumped with the novelty of going folksy from the perspective of the band's homeland. And it's those tribal parts that ironically end up being this albums artistic statement, and for that much applause is in order. But man, if the band had done that while maintaining their thrash frash attack of previous offerings then this would have been stellar. Instead of intelligent riffs you get hardcore notes camouflaged in heavy for the sake of being heavy. I'm not saying it's terrible, but certainly overrated in term of the bands catalog and should be avoided for the sake of checking out the bands early music.
3. Limp Bizkit - Three Dollar Bills, Yall$: Every form of false metal tossed together, then slap on a pair of baggy pants. Who thought that was a good idea? Oh, let's not forget the single most worthless human being in creation is fronting the band as well. I'm more than willing to let the band go as a product of changing times and the face of new teens hitting their party years when they broke, but even this band has more to offer than this. If you're going to listen to this band (and I can't talk you out of it) then move forward at least. The band performed this album at Ozzfest on a set designed like a giant toilet. Enough said.
2. Motley Crue - Theatre Of Pain: You've heard the hits and read the hype. You know many classic metal and rock dudes claim their early stuff was good. So you go for the album with some of their biggest hits on it, expecting the best… right? Nuh-uh. You need to look at Shout At The Devil or even better To Fast for Love. Or even hit late 80's Dr. Feelgood for that matter. This is the history of selling out Part 1. There are some albums so ridiculously filled with filler that you can say the band phoned it in… But really, this is more of a case of the band phoning it in and leaving it on the answering machine, unable to sober up long enough to call in during business hours. At least when Mustaine was ruining pocket mirrors he still managed to produce great music, but these guys devolved into brain dead waste cases stumbling through crap fests like the cover of numbskull "Smoking In the Boys Room", a song so bad it reeked of nine flavors of shit before Crue stuck it in a needle and shot it up their veins.
And for Christ sake, don't even get me started on "Home Sweet Home", a song actually not that bad accept for the dubious honor of launching a 1000 power ballads, 99% of them crap, and for that someone needs to be shot. After that, it's downhill into vapid acts of stupidity, a band buying the sales team's hype and everyone assuming a video would make it gold. Hell, even follow up Girls, Girls, Girls managed to squeeze out a few fun tracks before falling apart, but this just goes on and on as a testament to everything that could go wrong with a Sunset Strip scene that deserved better. There were good bands in that scene, and Motley Crue was one of them. But somewhere booze and limousines allowed the boys to open and say "Ah…" to a dumber version of everything that made them right.
On second thought, maybe that's why they called that album "Dr. Feelgood". The band was finally curing everything that went wrong here. Avoid my friends and stick with the real classics I mentioned above.
1. Def Leppard - Hysteria: The symptom of excess in every wrong way: Pop metal is hot with kids, so let's see how far we can dumb down the lyrics into something you kid brother feels mature next to; songs written not just by the band, but also by the producer and likely marketing managers to insure demographic branding and likely impulse purchases at the local Quicky-Mart; and finally, the piece de résistance, slick production must have made Pyromania popular so we'll deconstruct and surgically reattach these songs until the musicians look less like rockers and more like Star Trek's Borg, automations all wired to a collective machine so every ounce of life is sterilized and pasteurized into something laughingly referred to as rock and roll. Good lord, I'm not exactly a social animal but can we please allow something, anything, akin to a human to breathe on this thing. The drummer made a literally heroic return to playing after losing an arm, and outside of getting to shine on the intro to "Rocket" (and outside of that the song is a steaming grease slick of chemical agents, all designed for the rinse cycle) the man has been substituted by a computer game set to beginner. Pathetic and "Mutt" Lange should be featured in an updated version of Dante's Inferno for his crimes against mankind for what he unleashed in this monstrosity.
This is a band that once hit you with the epic ballad rocker "Overture" and now has devolved into "Love Bites", a song so stupid and bad it became funny then bad again. Fun party rockers like "Mirror, Mirror" have been supplanted by brainless drivel like "Armageddon It"; Yea, I got it. A five year old got it. A monkey got it, and if he was fucking a guitar he would have a more legitimate rhythm. At least that would be real. And let's not even get me started on "Pour Some Sugar On Me", a worthless ode to the morning after an all night binge at Tic-Tac-Taco. Does this band even remember how to write a riff? I could write a book titled "Power Cords For Dummies" that would contain less filler. And somewhere, the Bee-Gees are laughing at the digital harmonizing they couldn't do naturally on a three-for-one deal with the devil.
And wait a minute, shouldn't your pop-stadium-rock record open with a barn burner? Even a few of these limp tracks would be better than opener "Women", which just comes in with no purpose and meanders around like the retarded kid in class who can't remember where he sits, sounding more like a drawer full of samples rejected by bands who know better. By the time it limps back out the door, you're doing something more interesting and didn't even notice. Book-ending this pooch, in a position once home to Def Leppard classics "Overture", the great "No, No, No", and the blistering rocker "Billy's Got A Gun", is the pointless "Love And Affection". This is a twice reworked pile of lifeless afterbirth that's lacking so much substance it's the sonic equivalent of having your food chewed up for you by someone else. All you need to do is swallow, something hard not to do in light of the automatic gag reflex of having to listen to this crap.
Alright, folks. Thanks for reading. Here's what you should do. Enter your list in the comment's section. You do not have to register to comment. Here's how your list should look:
Honorable Mentions: If you have any...
5. Artist - Album: Explanation of choice
4. Artist - Album: Explanation of choice
3. Artist - Album: Explanation of choice
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1. Artist - Album: Explanation of choice
