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ColonelClaypool View Drop Down
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Points: 747 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Great albums let down by a single track
    Posted: October 18 2017 at 04:36
I was listening to Queen I the other day and started thinking about this subject, otherwise great albums that are let down by a single "what the fudge were they thinking" track. For me, Queen I is a perfect example of this. It has great songs like Keep Yourself Alive, Great King Rat, Doing Alright and Liar.... but then there's the autoskip abomination of a track that is "Jesus".

Same with Rush's Fly By Night. Anthem, By-Tor, Fly By Night and In the End are all brilliant, but there's also the clunker Rivendell.

Aerosmith's Get A Grip is let down by not just one, but three tracks. Overall it's a great rock album, but all the hit singles Cryin', Crazy and Amazing are absolutely dreadful and would have been better left off the album altogether. Aerosmith never could get their ballads right, could they?

I'm sure there are lots of other albums out there suffering from this, but these were the first three that came to mind. What do everyone else think?




Edited by ColonelClaypool - October 18 2017 at 05:05
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Points: 4493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 05:01
Selling England By The Pound, The Battle Of Epping Forest.....and not More Fool Me...
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Points: 3136 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 05:12
Originally posted by essexboyinwales essexboyinwales wrote:

Selling England By The Pound, The Battle Of Epping Forest.....and not More Fool Me...
WRONG!
BOEF - brilliant lyrics , and some lovely quirky musical bits as well -easily in the top 10 tracks by Genesis.
More Fool Me.....Dead
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chopper View Drop Down
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Points: 19943 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 05:18
It's all personal preference, I like The Battle of Epping Forest and Rivendell.
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Points: 21 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 05:32
Emerson Lake and Palmer - Brain salad surgery and the song Benny the bouncer. What the f...
King crimson - Red and the song Providence  ugh....
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Points: 23996 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 05:50
Genesis - Wind and Wuthering - Your Own Special Way
Yes - Going for the One - Going for the One
Van der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts - A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers
Gentle Giant - Free Hand - Time to Kill
Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother - Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast
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Points: 14108 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 06:43
Kate Bush has a few pretty weak tracks on her best albums, the most striking being Big Sky on Hounds of Love. Also Leave It Open is by an amazing amount worse than everything else on The Dreaming. All We Ever Look For annoys me on Never For Ever (although this arguably has more than one of this kind).
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chopper View Drop Down
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Points: 19943 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 06:54
Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

Kate Bush has a few pretty weak tracks on her best albums, the most striking being Big Sky on Hounds of Love. Also Leave It Open is by an amazing amount worse than everything else on The Dreaming. All We Ever Look For annoys me on Never For Ever (although this arguably has more than one of this kind).
Again, it's down to personal taste. I love The Big Sky but I can take or leave Mother Stands for Comfort. I also like All We Ever Look For.


Edited by chopper - October 18 2017 at 06:54
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Points: 16130 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 06:59
Sound Chaser by Yes lets down Relayer IMO. It's not terrible, but it's pretty annoying to my ears. A string of unrelated ideas cobbled together and presented as one track.
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Points: 5 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 11:47
Originally posted by M27Barney M27Barney wrote:

Originally posted by essexboyinwales essexboyinwales wrote:

Selling England By The Pound, The Battle Of Epping Forest.....and not More Fool Me...
WRONG!
BOEF - brilliant lyrics , and some lovely quirky musical bits as well -easily in the top 10 tracks by Genesis.
More Fool Me.....Dead


Agreed!!
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Points: 5111 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 12:00
Tom Waits’ early albums all seemed to include one obligatory puke-inducing sentimental ballad alongside the good stuff. Probably been 20 years since I listened to any of my early Tom Waits albums, so I can't really be more specific.
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Points: 4493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 13:01
Originally posted by slowdancer slowdancer wrote:

Originally posted by M27Barney M27Barney wrote:

Originally posted by essexboyinwales essexboyinwales wrote:

Selling England By The Pound, The Battle Of Epping Forest.....and not More Fool Me...
WRONG!
BOEF - brilliant lyrics , and some lovely quirky musical bits as well -easily in the top 10 tracks by Genesis.
More Fool Me.....Dead


Agreed!!


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Points: 1056 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 13:30
David Bowie's Heroes utterly nullifies itself by ending on its most trivial and out of place track: The Secret Life of Arabia. It's not a bad track, but it's profoundly incongrous with the album's sense of sterility and repression. Even more offensively, it interrupts the otherwise meticulous momentum of Side B's ambient instrumentals. Neukoln (the track before) could have ranked among the great album closers, with that lone, wrenching saxophone echoing into the ambivalent void... except for The Secret Life of Arabia awkwardly inserting its pleasant frivolity to interrupt an otherwise profound silence. The tonal dissonance is as jarring as if Dark Side of the Moon ended with I Want to Rock and Roll All Night or if Citizen Kane cut from the sled directly to an exaggerated Bollywood dance number.
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Points: 4591 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 14:29
Queen - Queen II - funny how love is
Manzenera/801 - Listen Now - title track
Genesis - W&W - your own special way
Mutiny in Jonestown : Progressive Rock Since 1987
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Points: 2215 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 15:12
Originally posted by mechanicalflattery mechanicalflattery wrote:

David Bowie's Heroes utterly nullifies itself by ending on its most trivial and out of place track: The Secret Life of Arabia. It's not a bad track, but it's profoundly incongrous with the album's sense of sterility and repression. Even more offensively, it interrupts the otherwise meticulous momentum of Side B's ambient instrumentals. Neukoln (the track before) could have ranked among the great album closers, with that lone, wrenching saxophone echoing into the ambivalent void... except for The Secret Life of Arabia awkwardly inserting its pleasant frivolity to interrupt an otherwise profound silence. The tonal dissonance is as jarring as if Dark Side of the Moon ended with I Want to Rock and Roll All Night or if Citizen Kane cut from the sled directly to an exaggerated Bollywood dance number.

Oh that would have been epic! Missed chance to show some versatility there.. LOL
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Points: 15006 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 18 2017 at 15:35
Originally posted by ColonelClaypool ColonelClaypool wrote:

I was listening to Queen I the other day and started thinking about this subject, otherwise great albums that are let down by a single "what the fudge were they thinking" track. For me, Queen I is a perfect example of this. It has great songs like Keep Yourself Alive, Great King Rat, Doing Alright and Liar.... but then there's the autoskip abomination of a track that is "Jesus".

Same with Rush's Fly By Night. Anthem, By-Tor, Fly By Night and In the End are all brilliant, but there's also the clunker Rivendell.

Aerosmith's Get A Grip is let down by not just one, but three tracks. Overall it's a great rock album, but all the hit singles Cryin', Crazy and Amazing are absolutely dreadful and would have been better left off the album altogether. Aerosmith never could get their ballads right, could they?

1) Nothing wrong with any song on Queen.

2) Early Rush is give/take. The next album is when they became a force in their own right.

3) That's one of Aerosmith's worst albums. They had no fewer than seven "hit singles" on GAG, too (an appropriate acronym, lol). What's left over adds up to a tepid EP. They left their rock cred back in the '70s.
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Points: 2073 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 19 2017 at 00:43
For me, 'Going for the One' is an irritating song on an otherwise excellent Yes album of the same name. A bit surprised no one mentioned that - or do you enjoy it? (Oops, someone did.)

Edited by Matti - October 19 2017 at 00:44
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Points: 16130 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 19 2017 at 03:18
Originally posted by Matti Matti wrote:


For me, 'Going for the One' is an irritating song on an otherwise excellent Yes album of the same name. A bit surprised no one mentioned that - or do you enjoy it?
(Oops, someone did.)


I don't hate it, despite it being essentially rubbish...
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M27Barney View Drop Down
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Points: 3136 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 19 2017 at 04:57
I like 'Going for the one' more than 'parallels', but obviously not as much as 'Turn of the Century' and arguably Yes' best ever track - 'Awaken'...
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Points: 3136 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 19 2017 at 05:01
But nothing compares - with the 'More Fool Me' clunker - no single album in the history of symphonic prog has a track been so much sh*ttier than the rest of the album. Mind U if SEBTP is the MOTHER of ALL Symphonic Prog Rock Albums - even a mother has to have an arsehole!
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