Second-Chance, Same Result

[alantig]

This was going to be a two-part question, but until I come up with a second example, I'm sticking with this part.

We've all had albums that we've loved from the beginning or grew to love, or fell out of love with.

What albums have you heard, thought they sucked, and revisited years later to give the album a second chance and said, "Nope, I was right the first time - this is brutal"?

Two jump immediately to mind for me. The first is the first Rossington-Collins Band album, the one with "Don't Misunderstand Me". RCB is the band that grew out of the ashes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, with Dale Krantz on vocals. "Don't Misunderstand Me" was the first single, and it was pretty good. I remember listening to a live radio broadcast and thinking they weren't bad, but I recall a fair number of Skynyrd tracks, with the big moment being an instrumental version of "Freebird". I bought the album on 8-track (still have it), and it was bad. Really bad. Listened to it maybe three times and it went on the bottom of the pile. Years later, I pulled it out again and figured it couldn't be as bad as I remembered. It was.

Just to show how bright I can be - I bought their second album, too. Granted, it was a quarter in a cutout bin, but still. It was bad, too.

Second, "Crazy Nights" by Kiss. BIG Kiss fan. And I liked Bruce Kulick, so I was looking forward to this album. I remember when the single was released - "Crazy Crazy Nights". My wife was out running errands, and when she came home, she said "I heard the new Kiss single on the radio." I asked her how it was, and she said, "I don't think you're going to like it." She was right - I still don't like that song. The album didn't catch me, either. One or two songs, but overall, no. I listened to it for a while, but I couldn't get past my first impression. I did go back to it a few times, but it's never caught on for me. I can get through the live versions of some of the songs, but it's possibly my least favorite Kiss album.

Your turn...

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Orange 9mm "Tragic" - perfect title for a band who's previous work I really admired.

 

[Jester]

 

[Herr Squid]

I was angry for about 20 years that Rush's "Signals" album wasn't "Moving Pictures II." When I did break down and buy the remastered CD a few years ago, I was really surprised by how much I liked it.

 

[László]

When I was in college, I went through all of the John Coltrane records, and really dug what I'd been listening to, so one day I bought his record, "Om" shortly after it was released. It had been recorded in 1965 and released a year or two after his death, I'm guessing to make a last few bucks off the guy.

I figured all my friends needed to hear a new Coltrane record, so I invited a few over, and with great fanfare I put the record on the turntable. "You guys are gonna love this," I announced.

A cacophony of crazy stuff came out of the speakers. My friends just sorta looked at me...

So I said, "Just wait, it'll all settle down and then just be sublime."

It never settled down. It was just...well...

So I figured maybe I'd missed something. And after everyone left I listened again. Same thing. If they made terrorism prisoners listen to this record, they'd get confessions, but they'd be accused of human rights violations.

Years later, I listened again. Just to make sure I hadn't missed something great in the recording. I hadn't. It's honestly the wackiest, most stoned-out recording I've ever heard. And not in a good way.

 

[james]

I figured all my friends needed to hear a new Coltrane record, so I invited a few over, and with great fanfare I put the record on the turntable. "You guys are gonna love this," I announced.

A cacophony of crazy stuff came out of the speakers. My friends just sorta looked at me...

So I said, "Just wait, it'll all settle down and then just be sublime."

It never settled down. It was just...well...

That usually means it's good. I like that story.

 

[docbennett]

When I was in college, I went through all of the John Coltrane records, and really dug what I'd been listening to, so one day I bought his record, "Om" shortly after it was released. It had been recorded in 1965 and released a year or two after his death, I'm guessing to make a last few bucks off the guy.

I figured all my friends needed to hear a new Coltrane record, so I invited a few over, and with great fanfare I put the record on the turntable. "You guys are gonna love this," I announced.

A cacophony of crazy stuff came out of the speakers. My friends just sorta looked at me...

So I said, "Just wait, it'll all settle down and then just be sublime."

It never settled down. It was just...well...

So I figured maybe I'd missed something. And after everyone left I listened again. Same thing. If they made terrorism prisoners listen to this record, they'd get confessions, but they'd be accused of human rights violations.

Years later, I listened again. Just to make sure I hadn't missed something great in the recording. I hadn't. It's honestly the wackiest, most stoned-out recording I've ever heard. And not in a good way.

Sounds a lot like this masterpiece:




From Wikipedia...

...As a radical departure from the rest of Reed's catalog, Metal Machine Music is generally considered to be either a joke, a grudging fulfillment of a contractual obligation, or an early example of noise music. The album features no songs or even recognizably structured compositions, eschewing melody and rhythm for an hour of over-modulated feedback and guitar effects, intricately mixed at varying speeds by Reed himself. In the album's liner notes he claimed to have invented heavy metal and asserted that Metal Machine Music was the ultimate conclusion of that genre. The album cost Reed credibility in the music industry while simultaneously opening the door for his later, more experimental material...

....According to Reed (despite the original liner notes), the album entirely consists of guitar feedback played at different speeds. This can be heard clearly if the album is played at 16 rpm with the balance adjusted to hear either the right or left channel only as each appears to be unrelated. The two guitars were tuned in unusual ways and played with different reverb levels. He would then place the guitars in front of their amplifiers, and the feedback from the very large amps would vibrate the strings — the guitars were, effectively, playing themselves. He recorded the work on a four-track tape recorder in his New York apartment, mixing the four tracks for stereo. In its original form, each track occupied one side of an LP record and lasted exactly 16 minutes and 1 second, according to the label. The fourth side ended in a locked groove that caused the last 1.8 seconds of music to repeat endlessly (as had been done on John Cale's recording of Loop as a flexi-disc accompanying an edition of Aspen in late 1966). The rare 8-track tape version has no silence in between programs, so that it plays continuously without gaps on most players. A quadraphonic disk was also released by RCA....

 

[László]

Sounds a lot like this masterpiece:




From Wikipedia...

...As a radical departure from the rest of Reed's catalog, Metal Machine Music is generally considered to be either a joke, a grudging fulfillment of a contractual obligation, or an early example of noise music. The album features no songs or even recognizably structured compositions, eschewing melody and rhythm for an hour of over-modulated feedback and guitar effects, intricately mixed at varying speeds by Reed himself. In the album's liner notes he claimed to have invented heavy metal and asserted that Metal Machine Music was the ultimate conclusion of that genre. The album cost Reed credibility in the music industry while simultaneously opening the door for his later, more experimental material...

....According to Reed (despite the original liner notes), the album entirely consists of guitar feedback played at different speeds. This can be heard clearly if the album is played at 16 rpm with the balance adjusted to hear either the right or left channel only as each appears to be unrelated. The two guitars were tuned in unusual ways and played with different reverb levels. He would then place the guitars in front of their amplifiers, and the feedback from the very large amps would vibrate the strings — the guitars were, effectively, playing themselves. He recorded the work on a four-track tape recorder in his New York apartment, mixing the four tracks for stereo. In its original form, each track occupied one side of an LP record and lasted exactly 16 minutes and 1 second, according to the label. The fourth side ended in a locked groove that caused the last 1.8 seconds of music to repeat endlessly (as had been done on John Cale's recording of Loop as a flexi-disc accompanying an edition of Aspen in late 1966). The rare 8-track tape version has no silence in between programs, so that it plays continuously without gaps on most players. A quadraphonic disk was also released by RCA....

yeah, that one, too. though for me, the terms, "love it," and "metal" are rarely heard in the same sentence...

 

[Serious Poo]

The ultimate "second chance, same result" band for me is the Eagles. I hear them and I think "wow, another safe, predictable, low energy pop rock band". Didn't like it as a kid, don't like it now. "Hotel California" came on my wife's car stereo the other day and I got physically uncomfortable. I tried, but couldn't make it 30 seconds into the song before I had to flip the station. It's one of the best selling bands of all time, but I simply can't listen to them. I've heard pretty much everything they've ever recorded (My dad and my sister both had all their albums), but I just can't stand it. Same goes for music by Linda Rondstat, Bruce Hornsby and Jackson Brown. No offense to anyone that likes this type of music, but it just bugs the crap out of me.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is a band called Cake. When they first came in the 90's out I just couldn't "get" them. I mean, they were ok I guess, but nothing from them really clicked for me back then. About 6 months ago, though, I heard "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" on the radio and was just amazed. Here is this insanely tight groove matched with hilariously sarcastic lyrics. Man, I SO missed that bus on these guys back in the 90's. Needless to say, I now own all their albums and have been playing them a lot. Just a brilliant band IMHO.