The new Billie Eilish album for example. I liked specifically Happier Than Ever and the new one doesn’t catch the same vibe.
Also Rat Wars by Health looked initially exactly like my thing, but fell ultimately flat on the first listen.
Idles newest album was absolutely terrible. A complete change of sound and not a single moment on the whole album that went hard.
Tension builds, and never really resolves - it’s a frustrating listen
John Grant’s last few albums have dropped off considerably in quality.
For how much I love his older stuff, I was so excited and then dropped to “Meh” pretty quick.
Madeon - Good Faith
I adore Madeon’s first album, Adventure. I knew Good Faith would be different and I was really looking forward to it anyway, and it when it finally came out, it just never clicked with me. It’s an album I come back to probably once per year to try it again, but I just don’t vibe with it. It’s an album I respect a lot, but I just don’t like it.
Justice - Hyperdrama
Still a pretty new release admittedly. That opening track is one of Justice’s best ever songs, but the rest of the album just isn’t grabbing me. I’m hoping it’ll grow on me over time.
To twist your question a bit: The Glitch Mob - Ctrl Alt Reality
Another case of an artist moving in a totally different direction, and when I first listened to it, I didn’t like it. Similar feelings to Good Faith. But then I listened to it again. Then again. Then again. There wasn’t a sudden moment where it clicked, it just got better with every listen. It’s probably my second favorite album of theirs now.
And to twist your question even more. I thought I would dislike: Muse - Will of the People
I’ve been in the camp of “modern Muse isn’t that bad” for a while, but there’s clearly been a downward trend. Even I cannot defend Simulation Theory. I expected WOTP to be more of the same, and somehow I ended up loving it. It is maximum Muse cheesiness, in the best way possible.
I think Hyperdrama is mixed REALLY bad. It has no dynamic, and if you play it in a shuffle with other justice albums, you can instantly tell when a Hyperdrama song is playing by how flat it is.
I think other songs on there are good, but they have no “oomph”.
If you listen to the early remixes coming out by other artists, you can also notice how much bigger they sound by comparison.
My War by Black Flag.
“I must hear this album that singlehandedly inspired entire swathes of the punk and later grunge movements!”
It’s bad. No, not unlikeable, but it’s an album full of songs that you and your friends could probably come up with after a single night of drinking in a shitty basement. There isn’t anything that screams genius or promise or talent.
I’ve listened to it a few times and I just don’t get what our early grunge ancestors were vibing to all those millennia ago.
The Mars Volta in general. Tons of friends have recommended them to me after hearing some of what I listen to, and it’s just not my jam. On paper I should, but alas.
Strongly agree.
Individual songs - yes, brilliant. An entire album of this? No thank you
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories.
Surprising me since I absolutely love Discovery.
I heard “Through Glass” by Stone Sour, and I liked it so much that I bought the full album. That ended up being the only song of theirs I liked.
Sorry, my Finger Eleven album is feeling triggered.
This is not exactly answering the question asked, but I loved the album What It Is to Burn by Finch. If you could wear out CDs by playing them, I would have worn that one out. I bought their second album as soon as it came out without ever hearing a single song. I assumed I would love every song on the second album the same as the first. They had completely changed their style. It was maybe not awful, but it definitely wasn’t my style. I literally ended up using it under the leg of a wobbly table.
Meg Myers - Sorry
Desire was so good I was expecting at least 1 other good song
Not an album but an artist. David Bowie.
How can you say something so controversial, yet so true?!
Bowie isn’t fantastic. Neither is Bill Murrey or Betty White. They are just people that have been grasped onto by social media and exemplified. It helps if they’ve died and get a “martyr” image too.
I mean some Bowie stuff is good, Life on Mars, Lets dance… But he’s just a British Melloncamp.
gasp
I’m really into some artists that cite him as a major inspiration and influence. So it baffles me too.
I find with stuff like this it’s important to understand the context of when it first came out. Had a neighbor say he didn’t get the appeal of the Ramones because a lot of bands sound similar. I told him when the Ramones came out NOBODY sounded like that. Another is David Letterman. By the time he retired he was nothing special but when he first started it was groundbreaking.
Sometimes known as Seinfeld is Unfunny
I can understand, stylistically he’s a chameleon and I only like his work from certain periods.
Villains by Queens of the Stone Age.
…like clockwork (the previous album) is top 3 for me and may be my all time favorite at any given moment. But the follow-up was just not what I was looking for.
Yes!! Exactly this one for me too. I love Clockwork so much, this was weird.
So glad to not be alone on this. It felt unfocused. I think working with Mark Ronson gave Homme a bit too much leeway to make an album that tried to hard to be cool.
It somehow went over the ironic/unironic line that Queens has always danced around.
Like Clockwork has moments that veered towards camp and cheese but never felt insincere or cloying.
Every other queens of the stone age record is an instant classic. They’re probably my favorite band and I genuinely dislike half their stuff.
I only like the albums they did with dave grohl on drums, the rest just don’t seem to hit for me.
I’m pretty sure that’s only songs for the deaf and a few songs on like clockwork. I can’t get into any of their other stuff.
Pink Floyd - Animals
I like everything else by Pink Floyd quite a bit, just not the album Animals.
As far as I’m concerned, there is literally one song in Animals and that one song kicks all other Pink Floyd songs out of the water
I’m the opposite, Animals and Piper at the Gates of Dawn are the only Pink Floyd albums I like.
love piper
Piper at the Gates of Dawn?
Hell, I’ve got 12 Pink Floyd albums archived, but I don’t have that one. Honestly I don’t think I’ve even heard of it before.
My favorite Pink Floyd album is The Division Bell. Strangely enough, not long after that became my favorite album, I actually found a pristine copy of it on CD in the ditch on a bicycle ride. No case, just the CD, but very luckily no scratches either.
You better bet your ass I ripped that album that evening, to raw uncompressed WAV audio. And yes, I stuck it somewhere on the Internet Archive…
Same, Animals is by far my favorite album by them
The latest Tool album.
I can’t even remember the name, but it felt like a lot of noise from an alley full of garbage cans. I don’t know if I finished listening to it.
I’ve grown in the same direction and think it’s their best work but I can also totally see how people who liked the earlier stuff might fall off hard.
Not a specific album, but 90% of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s releases. They always sound intriguing at first but end up being mediocre.
Same here. I really enjoy Nonagon Infinity but haven’t been able to get into any other album of theirs.
Yeah, I really like Polygondwanaland and Flying Microtonal Banana. The rest, save for one other album (don’t recall which one) I just can’t get into. They have cranked out so many albums exploring, but not mastering, so many genres that it’s not surprising to be underwater on the K/D ratio.
