I read this earlier & thought it was worth posting.
Pretty sure there are more than these 50
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... D=ref_fark
The 50 Worst Decisions in Music History
When Axl Rose let go of every single member of Guns N’ Roses in the mid-Nineties, he had a short window of time to prove the group could still move forward as a creative entity and not just a watered-down oldies act. If they produced another album even near the quality of Appetite for Destruction or even Use Your Illusion I and II, the haters would have been silenced and they could have marched forward. Instead, Axl and a rotating crew of new gunners spent nearly 15 years laboring away at Chinese Democracy, burning untold millions of dollars and an incalculable amount of fan goodwill in the process. The band’s label Geffen even offered Rose a million-dollar bonus to finish it by 1999, a deadline he blew by nine years. When it finally came out in 2008, few fans were still paying attention. A little patience is one thing. Nearly 20 years is something else.
Do you remember a time when angels... do you remember a time when fear?
In the days when I was stronger, in the days when you were here?
In the days when I was stronger, in the days when you were here?
#43 should be top10, IMHO
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ReptileHause
- Road Kill
- Posts: 35
- Joined: 10 Nov 2011, 22:38
No 1 for me. The exploitation of fans by artist/agents/venues/promoters/ticketwankers - depending on who's trying to deflect blame - is sickening. Gigs were a great leveller. You saved your money, usually with the thought of it selling out a long way down the track, paid the same price as everyone else and where you ended up depended on either how early you arrived or, how much you were willing to chance your⁰ arm.
This idea of having to buy stuff in advance as part of some awful loyality scheme or based on what 'the market' allows is absolutely abhorent.
The idea of everyone on ticketmaster at 9am for Gen Admission tickets, usually to spend money on credit cards is a money makers wet dream
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satanarchist
- Road Kill
- Posts: 71
- Joined: 09 Dec 2022, 18:28
#51, Thin Lizzy touring after Phil Lynott's death.
#25 It's implied here that Up was the first album to come out on R.E.M.'s new contract when in fact this was its predecessor, New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
Otherwise...I'm in agreement with a some of the points made here. Sure, Warner were betting on R.E.M. being the next U2 with all that implied and they just didn't see the impending collapse of their business model due to Napster etc. And yes, time would prove that they had passed their commercial peak. Which is sad because IMO they were just reaching their artistic peak, which they sustained for a good four of those five promised albums. To be sure, I'm a far from conventional and admittedly a Johnny-Come-Lately R.E.M. fan who fails to understand entirely, e.g. the God-like genius status accorded to Out of Time or the appeal of almost anything they did before Life's Rich Pageant but, IMO,
NAIHF - The concerns of Monster, though a great album in its own way, are now vanishing small in the rear view mirror of this album, made on the road and sweating authentic Americana through every pore. It's about America, big (How the West was Won and Where it Got Us), small (Binky the Doormat) and everything in between (Low Desert.) It's a fascinating journal of an incredible journey though a vast, multi-faceted place one calls home.
Up - One of R.E.M.'s most exploratory and interesting albums, due to the necessity of the band redefining itself after Bill Berry's departure. One of my favourite albums to nurse a bottle of Chardonnay to on a hazy summers' day, along with Bowie's Young Americans and The Creatures' Boomerang. Sublime.
Reveal - Though in a similar vein to Up in terms of subject matter, the presentation here is more assertive and muscular. The reinvention of R.E.M. is now complete and at its prime. A terrific collection of individual songs, most of which could have served as singles. It's that good and consistent.
Around the Sun - Any album by anyone that begins with the lament 'Leaving New York, never easy' has my attention. Yes, a good album if not quite as blazingly good as its predecessor but for the most part, they did it again: a band at the height of its powers doing its thing and doing it very well. But the title confesses a self-awareness, even if this is presented in positive terms in the eponymous title track, of a certain regularity. If they hadn't already made an album called Automatic for the People, it would have been a fitting title for this one.
Accelerate and Collapse into Now
Oh dear. I've tried, I've really tried to like these two final albums in the R.E.M. canon, the first of which being the last in that infamous contract. I can't but at the same time can't put my finger on what's the main problem. Is it hearing a bunch of middle-aged multi-millionaires trying to 'rawk' out again and sound all raw and vicious and, worst of all, sincere? Not saying this can't be pulled off: case in point Suede's latest album Autofiction does it splendidly. No, it's probably not that. It's probably not this, that or the other thing either. It's probably just the fact that these albums are boring because the songs in them are, for the most part, boring and, in each case, the presentation of the whole, uninteresting. And then there's their swansong, Blue, the final track on Collapse Into Now, which, if you're an R.E.M. fan, will either reduce you to a gibbering wreck with its contribution by Patti Smith, the Country Feedback reprise and (for the odd Sisters fan here) the Under the Gun level self-apotheosizing monologue. Or you will view it as The Rise of Skywalker level fan service.
Ah well, four out of five/six ain't bad. At least they...well, you know.
Otherwise...I'm in agreement with a some of the points made here. Sure, Warner were betting on R.E.M. being the next U2 with all that implied and they just didn't see the impending collapse of their business model due to Napster etc. And yes, time would prove that they had passed their commercial peak. Which is sad because IMO they were just reaching their artistic peak, which they sustained for a good four of those five promised albums. To be sure, I'm a far from conventional and admittedly a Johnny-Come-Lately R.E.M. fan who fails to understand entirely, e.g. the God-like genius status accorded to Out of Time or the appeal of almost anything they did before Life's Rich Pageant but, IMO,
NAIHF - The concerns of Monster, though a great album in its own way, are now vanishing small in the rear view mirror of this album, made on the road and sweating authentic Americana through every pore. It's about America, big (How the West was Won and Where it Got Us), small (Binky the Doormat) and everything in between (Low Desert.) It's a fascinating journal of an incredible journey though a vast, multi-faceted place one calls home.
Up - One of R.E.M.'s most exploratory and interesting albums, due to the necessity of the band redefining itself after Bill Berry's departure. One of my favourite albums to nurse a bottle of Chardonnay to on a hazy summers' day, along with Bowie's Young Americans and The Creatures' Boomerang. Sublime.
Reveal - Though in a similar vein to Up in terms of subject matter, the presentation here is more assertive and muscular. The reinvention of R.E.M. is now complete and at its prime. A terrific collection of individual songs, most of which could have served as singles. It's that good and consistent.
Around the Sun - Any album by anyone that begins with the lament 'Leaving New York, never easy' has my attention. Yes, a good album if not quite as blazingly good as its predecessor but for the most part, they did it again: a band at the height of its powers doing its thing and doing it very well. But the title confesses a self-awareness, even if this is presented in positive terms in the eponymous title track, of a certain regularity. If they hadn't already made an album called Automatic for the People, it would have been a fitting title for this one.
Accelerate and Collapse into Now
Oh dear. I've tried, I've really tried to like these two final albums in the R.E.M. canon, the first of which being the last in that infamous contract. I can't but at the same time can't put my finger on what's the main problem. Is it hearing a bunch of middle-aged multi-millionaires trying to 'rawk' out again and sound all raw and vicious and, worst of all, sincere? Not saying this can't be pulled off: case in point Suede's latest album Autofiction does it splendidly. No, it's probably not that. It's probably not this, that or the other thing either. It's probably just the fact that these albums are boring because the songs in them are, for the most part, boring and, in each case, the presentation of the whole, uninteresting. And then there's their swansong, Blue, the final track on Collapse Into Now, which, if you're an R.E.M. fan, will either reduce you to a gibbering wreck with its contribution by Patti Smith, the Country Feedback reprise and (for the odd Sisters fan here) the Under the Gun level self-apotheosizing monologue. Or you will view it as The Rise of Skywalker level fan service.
Ah well, four out of five/six ain't bad. At least they...well, you know.