THE worst album.... EVER!!!

[Big Al]

I'm working on transferring a whole bunch of records to CD for a friend of mine to give to her husband for Christmas. Now, nobody likes a good "bad" record as much as yours truly, but I think I've found the worst, THE piece of vinyl that explains why damn-near EVERYTHING about the 70's was bad:

The soundtrack to the movie FM.

Now, I know there are a couple of good songs on there: the title track, of course, and I've always had a soft spot for the Eagles "Life in the Fast Lane" ever since I heard it when it first came out when I was 7. And, of course, Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" is always good for a laugh. But the rest?

Steve Miller "Fly Like an Eagle." This guy thinks he's a genius. The sound of one hand clapping.

Bob Seger "Night Moves." It must suck to live in Michigan knowing that everyone thinks that Seger is such a revered icon in Michigan. I know better. I've hung around people who actually LIVE there!

Queen "We Will Rock You." Not bad per se, but without "Champions?" That's just wrong!

Billy Joel "Just the Way You Are." Listening to Billy Joel is the aural equivalent of reading "Bloom County:" it has its moments, but you've seen it done so much better by others. It doesn't help his case when he tries to claim he's a rocker with dreck like this.

Boston "More Than a Feelin." These guys have been annoying from day one. I don't know of any other band that has gotten more undeserved airtime than these guys.

Foreigner "Cold as Ice." It's Foreigner fer chrissakes! Do I need to explain?

Dan Fogelberg "There's a Place in the World for a Gambler." The damn song is as long as the title. The nadir of the whole singer-songwriter movement, quite an accomplishment in a world where Paul Simon is allowed to flourish.

James Taylor "Your Smiling Face." Like I said.....

Doobie Brothers "It Keeps You Running." Even corporate rockers started lowering the bar (but then I'm a sucker for "What a Fool Believes," which could double as the title of this thread). You'd think a song with this title wouldn't sound like a sputtering Edsel.

Okay, those are all merely annoying compared to the tracks that put this completely over-the-top shoot-out-yer-eardrums oh-for-the-love-of-God-make-it-STOP atrocious. No, that honor goes to Linda Ronstadt. My GOD, what were record-buyers thinking when they put her at the top of the charts? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, remotely redeeming about any aspect of her career. EVERY DAMN SONG OF HERS SOUNDS THE SAME!!! It's like a female Grateful Dead! Buddy Holly's "It's So Easy" never sounded so lifeless than in her cover, and it doesn't sound any different than "When Will I Be Loved" or any of her other recordings. But none of those even hold a candle to the two tracks on this album. You don't even need to be familiar with the Stones "Tumbling Dice" to know that this is the most wretched cover to ever violate vinyl space. She doesn't even bother to change the words to suit her gender, much less put any feeling into the performance. The worst is at the end when she starts screaming "YOU GOT TO RO-OH-OH-OLL ME" with the kind of fake ruggedness that middle-aged guys try to emulate when they're trying to sing along to Springsteen in the car.

Okay, I feel much better now. Thank you for letting me vent.

Edited November 12, 2008 by Big Al

[Shawn]

I think I might print that out and frame it.

BRAVO!

Many of those tracks are hard to deal with when you happen upon them one at a time...all together though? Jesus...GET ME OUTTA THERE!

[Jim Alfredson]

Sounds like the playlist at any given hour on the local classic rock station sans the obligatory Floyd tune.

[Shawn]

Sounds like the playlist at any given hour on the local classic rock station sans the obligatory Floyd tune.

That's unfortunately the case with 99% of classic rock radio. It could be such a great format with some adventuresome tune choices, but it feels like they only have about 150 songs which they just repeat ad nauseum. No album tracks, no obscure bands, nothing too progressive or heavy, everything right down the middle and hopelessly polite.

ARGH!!!!

[sidewinder]

No, that honor goes to Linda Ronstadt. My GOD, what were record-buyers thinking when they put her at the top of the charts? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, remotely redeeming about any aspect of her career.

Some of her album cover art in LP days used to be nice ! :rsmile:

[Alexander]

No, that honor goes to Linda Ronstadt. My GOD, what were record-buyers thinking when they put her at the top of the charts? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, remotely redeeming about any aspect of her career.

Some of her album cover art in LP days used to be nice ! :rsmile:

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that back when she was still in a vaguely country vein she was pretty good. I also like this recent album:

[Alexander]

I'm working on transferring a whole bunch of records to CD for a friend of mine to give to her husband for Christmas. Now, nobody likes a good "bad" record as much as yours truly, but I think I've found the worst, THE piece of vinyl that explains why damn-near EVERYTHING about the 70's was bad:

The soundtrack to the movie FM.

Now, I know there are a couple of good songs on there: the title track, of course, and I've always had a soft spot for the Eagles "Life in the Fast Lane" ever since I heard it when it first came out when I was 7. And, of course, Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" is always good for a laugh. But the rest?

Steve Miller "Fly Like an Eagle." This guy thinks he's a genius. The sound of one hand clapping.

Bob Seger "Night Moves." It must suck to live in Michigan knowing that everyone thinks that Seger is such a revered icon in Michigan. I know better. I've hung around people who actually LIVE there!

Queen "We Will Rock You." Not bad per se, but without "Champions?" That's just wrong!

Billy Joel "Just the Way You Are." Listening to Billy Joel is the aural equivalent of reading "Bloom County:" it has its moments, but you've seen it done so much better by others. It doesn't help his case when he tries to claim he's a rocker with dreck like this.

Boston "More Than a Feelin." These guys have been annoying from day one. I don't know of any other band that has gotten more undeserved airtime than these guys.

Foreigner "Cold as Ice." It's Foreigner fer chrissakes! Do I need to explain?

Dan Fogelberg "There's a Place in the World for a Gambler." The damn song is as long as the title. The nadir of the whole singer-songwriter movement, quite an accomplishment in a world where Paul Simon is allowed to flourish.

James Taylor "Your Smiling Face." Like I said.....

Doobie Brothers "It Keeps You Running." Even corporate rockers started lowering the bar (but then I'm a sucker for "What a Fool Believes," which could double as the title of this thread). You'd think a song with this title wouldn't sound like a sputtering Edsel.

Okay, those are all merely annoying compared to the tracks that put this completely over-the-top shoot-out-yer-eardrums oh-for-the-love-of-God-make-it-STOP atrocious. No, that honor goes to Linda Ronstadt. My GOD, what were record-buyers thinking when they put her at the top of the charts? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, remotely redeeming about any aspect of her career. EVERY DAMN SONG OF HERS SOUNDS THE SAME!!! It's like a female Grateful Dead! Buddy Holly's "It's So Easy" never sounded so lifeless than in her cover, and it doesn't sound any different than "When Will I Be Loved" or any of her other recordings. But none of those even hold a candle to the two tracks on this album. You don't even need to be familiar with the Stones "Tumbling Dice" to know that this is the most wretched cover to ever violate vinyl space. She doesn't even bother to change the words to suit her gender, much less put any feeling into the performance. The worst is at the end when she starts screaming "YOU GOT TO RO-OH-OH-OLL ME" with the kind of fake ruggedness that middle-aged guys try to emulate when they're trying to sing along to Springsteen in the car.

Okay, I feel much better now. Thank you for letting me vent.

Didn't Steely Dan do the title track to that movie? I have it on "A Decade of Steely Dan" (I have all of their albums, but I hang on to this compilation for this one track).

[Dan Gould]

Al, I am not going to begrudge you your 70s rock likes and dislikes, but you have knocked yourself down several notches in my esteem with this:

... the aural equivalent of reading "Bloom County:" it has its moments, but you've seen it done so much better by others.

You disappoint me, Al. Seriously.

[JSngry]

No, that honor goes to Linda Ronstadt. My GOD, what were record-buyers thinking when they put her at the top of the charts? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, remotely redeeming about any aspect of her career.

Some of her album cover art in LP days used to be nice ! :rsmile:

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that back when she was still in a vaguely country vein she was pretty good.

I'll stick my neck even further out & say that her "classic" 70s work (w/Peter Asher at the helm) was hugely influential in terms of creating an archetypal "L.A. Rock" sound & production style.

I'll go out even further and say that the James Taylor cut remains a favorite, just for the groove. JT had a fan base among jazz musicians, not just for his songwriting, but also for his ability to put together a damn fine band that could give him a groove to be his stiffass self on top of. Not nearly as easy a trick to pull off as you might think, and, geez, it's been a while, but I think that the players he's using are some of the same players that Ronstadt used, which goes back to the point of her work's heavy influence in that time and place. But maybe JT was using East Coast cats. Like i said, it's been a while.

As for the rest of this stuff, liking it or not is wholly subjective, but any objective analysis of it (ie - looking at it for what it was rather than what it's become) must accept that this whole...thing is a direct offshoot of Abbey Road. I can tell you for sure that although today, it's the Beatles' songs on that album that endear, back then it was every bit as much the production style that captivated. And this vein of 70s rock was all about production first & foremost.

I mean, "hating" this stuff for being squeaky clean and "style"-centric is like hating Manute Bol for being tall. It is what it is and it had no choice but to be otherwise.

[marcello]

Thanks, Big Al!

Personal notes:

I once sat a couple of tables away from Ronstadt (she was with Pete Hamill) at Fat Tuesday, listening to Betty Carter.

Lou Gramm, from Foreigner ( yes, the worse bullethead music of all time), has a house a couple/three miles from me on Lake Ontario.

Other than that, like Jim said, it is what it is.

[paul secor]

No, that honor goes to Linda Ronstadt. My GOD, what were record-buyers thinking when they put her at the top of the charts? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, remotely redeeming about any aspect of her career.

Some of her album cover art in LP days used to be nice ! :rsmile:

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that back when she was still in a vaguely country vein she was pretty good.

I'll stick my neck even further out & say that her "classic" 70s work (w/Peter Asher at the helm) was hugely influential in terms of creating an archetypal "L.A. Rock" sound & production style.

I'll go out even further and say that the James Taylor cut remains a favorite, just for the groove. JT had a fan base among jazz musicians, not just for his songwriting, but also for his ability to put together a damn fine band that could give him a groove to be his stiffass self on top of. Not nearly as easy a trick to pull off as you might think, and, geez, it's been a while, but I think that the players he's using are some of the same players that Ronstadt used, which goes back to the point of her work's heavy influence in that time and place. But maybe JT was using East Coast cats. Like i said, it's been a while.

As for the rest of this stuff, liking it or not is wholly subjective, but any objective analysis of it (ie - looking at it for what it was rather than what it's become) must accept that this whole...thing is a direct offshoot of Abbey Road. I can tell you for sure that although today, it's the Beatles' songs on that album that endear, back then it was every bit as much the production style that captivated. And this vein of 70s rock was all about production first & foremost.

I mean, "hating" this stuff for being squeaky clean and "style"-centric is like hating Manute Bol for being tall. It is what it is and it had no choice but to be otherwise.

????

[Big Al]

Didn't Steely Dan do the title track to that movie? I have it on "A Decade of Steely Dan" (I have all of their albums, but I hang on to this compilation for this one track).

Yes. In fact, there is a reprise of the song at the end of the album which I don't believe is available anywhere else. It's quite nice, actually.

[Big Al]

Al, I am not going to begrudge you your 70s rock likes and dislikes, but you have knocked yourself down several notches in my esteem with this:

... the aural equivalent of reading "Bloom County:" it has its moments, but you've seen it done so much better by others.

You disappoint me, Al. Seriously.

Over a comic strip?

[robviti]

yes, over a comic strip.

i think you were too young to appreciate bloom's social and political appeal.

think of it as a more bizarre, and imo more entertaining, version of doonesbury.

btw, i'm no fan of billy joel, but the alto solo in the tune you despise is beautifully played by phil woods.

[JSngry]

No, that honor goes to Linda Ronstadt. My GOD, what were record-buyers thinking when they put her at the top of the charts? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, remotely redeeming about any aspect of her career.

Some of her album cover art in LP days used to be nice ! :rsmile:

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that back when she was still in a vaguely country vein she was pretty good.

I'll stick my neck even further out & say that her "classic" 70s work (w/Peter Asher at the helm) was hugely influential in terms of creating an archetypal "L.A. Rock" sound & production style.

I'll go out even further and say that the James Taylor cut remains a favorite, just for the groove. JT had a fan base among jazz musicians, not just for his songwriting, but also for his ability to put together a damn fine band that could give him a groove to be his stiffass self on top of. Not nearly as easy a trick to pull off as you might think, and, geez, it's been a while, but I think that the players he's using are some of the same players that Ronstadt used, which goes back to the point of her work's heavy influence in that time and place. But maybe JT was using East Coast cats. Like i said, it's been a while.

As for the rest of this stuff, liking it or not is wholly subjective, but any objective analysis of it (ie - looking at it for what it was rather than what it's become) must accept that this whole...thing is a direct offshoot of Abbey Road. I can tell you for sure that although today, it's the Beatles' songs on that album that endear, back then it was every bit as much the production style that captivated. And this vein of 70s rock was all about production first & foremost.

I mean, "hating" this stuff for being squeaky clean and "style"-centric is like hating Manute Bol for being tall. It is what it is and it had no choice but to be otherwise.

????

Well, hey, this was the Pop Culture soundtrack of my college years. I've never been one to really "embrace" Pop Culture, but I've never been one to completely deny it either. I figure that it is what it is, and you're not going to avoid it unless you choose to live in an alternate universe (which I have done, but for whatever reason, never permanently. Maybe because for me, it's always involved some level of delusion/denial). Plus, I'm of the generation that got into music through the Beatles and their aftermath. Jazz was not something I/we heard from the crib on, if you know what I mean.

So, even if 70s rock of this ilk was not something I really "liked" (with a few exceptions), it's not like it was totally foreign to me either. I's like to think that I can evaluate it objectively in terms of lineage w/o having to "like" it at all. Besides, it's not like I (or the people I was around) was living in a vacuum. I had friends who were into the whole Black Nationalist thing, and I had friends (not surprisingly, mostly from SoCal) who were into the whole L.A. Rock thing too. Both were very much "of their time", and everybody was engaged in what they were engaged in because it resonated with them, musically & personally.

I've never been one to limit myself to one "type" of person or music, at least when it comes to allowing myself exposure to it in order to get a better understanding of the "people" factory, although I must say that as I've gotten older, my need for this has greatly decreased, if only because it seems as if the same dynamics keep repeating themselves from generation to generation, and I got mine when I got it.

But like Alexander said in another thread about grunge, if you were of a certain time & place, there were certain things that you just didn't ignore if you were part of the times, engaged in them rather than being passive participants. L.A. Rock was one of them, P-Funk was another, Woody Shaw was yet another, as was the emergence of the AACM/BAG schools into the broader public consciousness. Hell, there was a buttload of stuff going on, "popular" & otherwise, and the "music industry" was firing on all cylinders in the post-Beatles "youth culture" aftermath. "Liking it" was one thing, but hearing it, and hearing it in real-time evolutionary context, was damn near inescapable if you were part of the generational continuum, which i was.

[paul secor]

No, that honor goes to Linda Ronstadt. My GOD, what were record-buyers thinking when they put her at the top of the charts? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, remotely redeeming about any aspect of her career.

Some of her album cover art in LP days used to be nice ! :rsmile:

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that back when she was still in a vaguely country vein she was pretty good.

I'll stick my neck even further out & say that her "classic" 70s work (w/Peter Asher at the helm) was hugely influential in terms of creating an archetypal "L.A. Rock" sound & production style.

I'll go out even further and say that the James Taylor cut remains a favorite, just for the groove. JT had a fan base among jazz musicians, not just for his songwriting, but also for his ability to put together a damn fine band that could give him a groove to be his stiffass self on top of. Not nearly as easy a trick to pull off as you might think, and, geez, it's been a while, but I think that the players he's using are some of the same players that Ronstadt used, which goes back to the point of her work's heavy influence in that time and place. But maybe JT was using East Coast cats. Like i said, it's been a while.

As for the rest of this stuff, liking it or not is wholly subjective, but any objective analysis of it (ie - looking at it for what it was rather than what it's become) must accept that this whole...thing is a direct offshoot of Abbey Road. I can tell you for sure that although today, it's the Beatles' songs on that album that endear, back then it was every bit as much the production style that captivated. And this vein of 70s rock was all about production first & foremost.

I mean, "hating" this stuff for being squeaky clean and "style"-centric is like hating Manute Bol for being tall. It is what it is and it had no choice but to be otherwise.

????

Well, hey, this was the Pop Culture soundtrack of my college years. I've never been one to really "embrace" Pop Culture, but I've never been one to completely deny it either. I figure that it is what it is, and you're not going to avoid it unless you choose to live in an alternate universe (which I have done, but for whatever reason, never permanently. Maybe because for me, it's always involved some level of delusion/denial). Plus, I'm of the generation that got into music through the Beatles and their aftermath. Jazz was not something I/we heard from the crib on, if you know what I mean.

So, even if 70s rock of this ilk was not something I really "liked" (with a few exceptions), it's not like it was totally foreign to me either. I's like to think that I can evaluate it objectively in terms of lineage w/o having to "like" it at all. Besides, it's not like I (or the people I was around) was living in a vacuum. I had friends who were into the whole Black Nationalist thing, and I had friends (not surprisingly, mostly from SoCal) who were into the whole L.A. Rock thing too. Both were very much "of their time", and everybody was engaged in what they were engaged in because it resonated with them, musically & personally.

I've never been one to limit myself to one "type" of person or music, at least when it comes to allowing myself exposure to it in order to get a better understanding of the "people" factory, although I must say that as I've gotten older, my need for this has greatly decreased, if only because it seems as if the same dynamics keep repeating themselves from generation to generation, and I got mine when I got it.

But like Alexander said in another thread about grunge, if you were of a certain time & place, there were certain things that you just didn't ignore if you were part of the times, engaged in them rather than being passive participants. L.A. Rock was one of them, P-Funk was another, Woody Shaw was yet another, as was the emergence of the AACM/BAG schools into the broader public consciousness. Hell, there was a buttload of stuff going on, "popular" & otherwise, and the "music industry" was firing on all cylinders in the post-Beatles "youth culture" aftermath. "Liking it" was one thing, but hearing it, and hearing it in real-time evolutionary context, was damn near inescapable if you were part of the generational continuum, which i was.

Didn't care about liking or not - or even tastes. "It is what it is and it had no choice but to be otherwise", just seemed like a strange way of seeing things. Musicians (and all of us) have to make choices.

[JSngry]

btw, i'm no fan of billy joel, but the alto solo in the tune you despise is beautifully played by phil woods.

Yeah, there was a mini-trend back then of having jazz/jazzy solos in the middle of pop tunes. Remember Zoot Sims on "Poetry Man"?

Say whatever you want about the environment of L.A Rock culture of the time. for all the schlock it gave us, it also gave us Joni Mitchell's best work, as well as Little Feat's & The Doobie Brothers & The Eagles' (I myself never had any interest whatsoever in the latter two until they got "slicker"). Which is not to say that it was all good, anything but, but just that when it worked, it worked splendidly.

[Christiern]

Whenever I want to hear truly awful, how-did-they-even-get-this-far performers, I turn to SNL. That show rarely lets me down when it comes to hyped mediocrity.

[JSngry]

Didn't care about liking or not - or even tastes. "It is what it is and it had no choice but to be otherwise", just seemed like a strange way of seeing things. Musicians (and all of us) have to make choices.

Yeah, we want to think that, and at one level we do.

But...history suggests that what are "choices" are in fact more often than not "inevitable" more often than we'd like to think. Things don't happen in a vacuum, so the notion of making a choice, any choice, totally devoid of influences from the varying currents and crosscurrents already in place presupposes a degree of disengagement that 99% just don't have. Even a "counter" choice is in reaction to a prevailing trend, not something somebody just pulls out of thin air. And when you're talking "popular music", hell, by definition, the pull is going to be towards the underlying consensus, even when it comes to how and when to move things along. That's how and why it is popular.

Edited November 12, 2008 by JSngry

[paul secor]

Didn't care about liking or not - or even tastes. "It is what it is and it had no choice but to be otherwise", just seemed like a strange way of seeing things. Musicians (and all of us) have to make choices.

Yeah, we want to think that, and at one level we do.

But...history suggests that what are "choices" are in fact more often than not "inevitable" more often than we'd like to think. Things don't happen in a vacuum, so the notion of making a choice, any choice, totally devoid of influences from the varying currents and crosscurrents already in place presupposes a degree of disengagement that 99% just don't have. Even a "counter" choice is in reaction to a prevailing trend, not something somebody just pulls out of thin air. And when you're talking "popular music", hell, by definition, the pull is going to be towards the underlying consensus, even when it comes to how and when to move things along. That's how and why it is popular.

I hear you.

Guess that's why I try to steer clear of the "underlying consensus" in most of my listening. I'm less successful at that in living my life, but I do my best.

[JSngry]

And I hear you as well.

The way that i look at it is that it's there for the taking, if/when it's wanted, and that what I'm likely to want it for is not the same thing as most others who take it want it for.

[BruceH]

No, that honor goes to Linda Ronstadt. My GOD, what were record-buyers thinking when they put her at the top of the charts? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, remotely redeeming about any aspect of her career.

Some of her album cover art in LP days used to be nice ! :rsmile:

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that back when she was still in a vaguely country vein she was pretty good.

I'll stick my neck even further out & say that her "classic" 70s work (w/Peter Asher at the helm) was hugely influential in terms of creating an archetypal "L.A. Rock" sound & production style.

Oh, so SHE'S to blame!

[Big Al]

Correct!

[JSngry]

Ok wise guys, laff all you want, but if you think you'd have the beloved Steely Dan (or at least Steely Dan in the form they took) w/o Linda Ronstadt, think again.

[Hot Ptah]

All I can say is, if you think that the music discussed here is the worst album ever, you have not heard enough third rate punk rock, or current teen pop. Compared to many of the songs in those genres, the songs mentioned at the beginning of this thread are musical masterpieces.

Edited November 12, 2008 by Hot Ptah