Most OVERRATED albums of 2007
 

I guess any music forum at the end of the year ought to have a thread like this, eh? I'm sure there'll be a few matters of contention, but this is Music Banter after all and it's all in good fun.

The following albums get my nod. Note, I do not mean by this that these are bad albums. Merely that they've received an awful lot more credit and acclaim than I believe they deserved:

Burial - Untrue
The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
Battles - Mirrored
Kanye West - Graduation
Jay-Z - American Gangster
and finally...
LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver (and particularly the song All My Friends)

A note on the final choice: I do like this album a whole lot, but I firmly do not believe that it is even top 5 material in 2007 and the way it has been received is, imo, suspect to say the least.

Against Me!'s "New Wave" was absolute garbage.

You know, I tend to agree. I think that had NB been The Arcade Fire's first offering, it would have received considerably less acclaim. Much of the TAF love and adoration rests ultimately on the achievement of Funeral.

MIA - Kala

Just sounds like a chav talking over someones record collection.

Year Zero by NIN.
Also one of the best albums of 07:p:
But the way it was received by NIN fans was near disgusting.
They hailed it as the greatest album ever made, that all Reznors other work wasn't a patch on Year Zero. All of this within a week of first hearing it.

maybe because that's what it is.





oi!

lol

personally I thought the world of this album, though I can't help feeling that it was overrated by all the mags at the same time.

What's with the overrating process anyway? It seems that some special group somewhere or other decide that such and such an album is going to be the big craze, and all the mags and websites suddenly jump on the bandwagon like a bunch of mindless zombies. Hell, look at Pitchfork Media - they're one of those publications often credited with creating trends. This year they've clearly fallen for unduly-raved-over act after unduly-raved-over act, and elsewhere done the purely predictable by their standards (i.e. dropping their jaws over The Animal Collective and any member who happens to release an album).

It makes me wonder: is it more important to half of these publications that they give off the impression of having "guessed" right what the big record of the year would be, than that they actually try to say something new, original, unique?

Since I'm on the topic of Pitchfork Media, it's a laugh that Ghostface's The Big Doe Rehab and Wu-Tang's 8 Diagrams can make Pitchfork's top 50 albums of 2007, yet albums that they themselves rated significantly higher and that imo are way better, like Prodigy's Return Of The Mac and Blitzen Trapper's Wild Mountain Nation, don't even get a nod. And so, I ask...just what is a top 50/100 end-of-year list about half of the time?

8 Diagrams and The Big Doe Rehab were both a million times better than American Gangster, Graduation and Da Drought 3 all of which were ranked in the top 20 and in nearly every list. I don't see why you single out two of the only albums I think were really worthy of being on the list, not even that high on the list, when there are even more overrated and worse rap albums higher up.

LCD Soundsystem-Sounds Of Silver
Hot Chip-did that come out this year?
Justice -cross
Arctic Monkeys-Favourite Worst Nightmare.

LCD Soundsystem-Sounds Of Silver

Yea, i hear poeple RAVING and constantly saying how amazing this is. I feel its simply average for the genre. Nothing to out there or progressive for the genre. Just another album.

They were better than American Gangster and Graduation, I'll give them that. I personally preferred Da Drought 3. But I do think that the inclusion of both was almost exclusively because they had to be there, they had to be mentioned, rather than their own team feeling they were more deserving than a number of other records. There were numerous albums evidently more acclaimed by their people, such as Sunset Rubdown's, Frog Eyes', Nina Nastasia's and indeed the two I've already mentioned, but which were ultimately dispensable. On the other hand, albums they liked but never really loved like Icky Thump and The Flying Club Cup got on (Dizzee Rascal's very low showing on the list I feel is an ode to their own recognition that they overrated this not so wonderful record tremendously when it first appeared). It feels as if they had to put out a list that was as typical in some respects as it could possibly be. They snubbed the very lesser-heard material that they're supposed, by reputation/definition, to be championing. And I would love to know why.

Some here mentioned Cross and Favourite Worst Nightmare. I reckon FWN was in some ways underrated simply out of dislike, raw hatred even, for the hype surrounding Arctic Monkeys. It's not a masterpiece by any standards, but my own feelings on it are that it's a marked improvement on their first.

Cross, though, I thought was fantastic!

Yeah it's what people call a token album. Pitchfork (the magazine in question) likes mostly shit rap (they actually rate 50 cent pretty high) so I don't think anyone should be taking their rap listing too seriously and suggest whats on there is credible or deserving.

What was wrong with Sunset Rubdown's album? I thought it was better than Shut Up I Am Dreaming and certainly better than anything Wolf Parade did and both were amazing.
Pitchfork would never rate the Stripes too high if they could avoid it, it's too mainstream for them. Pitchfork is hardly a magazine that should be taken seriously, they care more about being "indie" than being credible. I think it's the best site for music news but it's opinion and reviews are pretty disposable.

I don't really think they did that all, the lesser known material pitchfork champions like Panda Bear for instance becomes huge in the indie scene. I remember before Person Pitch came out Young Prayer was an album known by people into indie-folk and Animal Collective fanboys after pitchfork raved about Person Pitch Panda Bear was everywhere. Now I wouldn't credit them solely for his success but if pitchfork had slammed the release or just ignored it I don't think it would Panda Bear would be anywhere near as popular as he is. Pitchfork's list was extremely predictable and not surprisingly in the least bit. It was exactly what I expected from them.

Oh no, absolutely, I thought Krug's albums were great. My point was, so did Pitchfork (they rated it pretty high), but they didn't even put Random Spirit Lover in their top 50 and instead included numerous more "mainstream" popular albums (like the Stripes, Beirut and so forth) that they didn't like too much and rated significantly lower in the reviews. The same thing happened with Blitzen Trapper's Wild Mountain Nation, Nastasia's You Follow Me and Frog Eyes' Tears of the Valedictorian, all loved by Pitchfork reviewers yet not even given mention in the final list. They snubbed more obscure acts that they themselves loved in favour of albums like Icky Thump which made the list, and I find that strange.

Far as the Pitchfork Top 10, even 20 goes, I agree it was predictable in all ways. But the failure to include some pretty awesome (though obscure) albums in the list at all was peculiar.

Agreed. Although I love Sound of Silver, I didn't think it was the best album of the year.... I think it's rather ungrateful to deem an album overrated. There's obviously no accounting for taste, for instance, I thought Kala was absolute rubbish that never should have left the demo scene, you and a few others appear to like it....a lot...I assume it's the same with the likes of Animal Collective (which I didn't care for), Panda Bear (which I thought was great)...add Liars (average to me, yet people seem to come over their last two albums), The National's Boxer (sorry, ain't no way in hell it's better than Aligator), Sally Shapiro (which released some forgettable italo disco yet it made it to Pitchfork's top 50), Dirty Projectors (cannot stand the vocals, but I guess they're odd enough to catch the eye of hyper indie asses), Black Lips and King Khan and the Shrines...(both average and forgettable garage rock)...yet, correct me if I'm wrong, Arctic Monkeys and The Shins do not appear on the list even though, objectively (or as far music can be objectively assessed), they are better albums than the last couple of mentioned. So a couple of those like minded people get jobs at the most prominent music magazines, and you get a hype machine...whatever. I'm thankful they're out there bringing the new music to our attention, we can take it from there...;)

I have to disagree with you. There are tons of NIN fans who hate YZ.

I think thats one of the reasons why I love NIN. He seems to lose and gain fans with each record he does. You know the fans he picked up with WITH TEETH heard YEAR ZERO and were like, "WTF is this techno garbage?"

There are even non-NIN fans who hate YZ. I'm one of them. However, I would go as far as to say that God Given is comedic genius and made me laugh for hours (was it supposed to do that? :-s)

To adidasss...I agree that Arctic's album was considerably better than Black Lips' Good Bad Not Evil; it was a decent record and I believe most people who gave it an honest try tend to agree, and reckon the only reason many mags snubbed it was merely out of determination to not be sucked into the AM hype machine.

I read a review of that somewhere where they said it was just a Kylie Minogue album for people who think they're too cool to listen to Kylie Minogue.
I thought that was spot on.

:laughing: Yeah, that sounds about right. I'm not saying she's bad, I think I've listened to the album 3-4 times, but to rank it above Les Savy Fav, The White Stripes or Beirut is beyond ludicrous...

I was more on about the hardcore NIN fans, on a forum I used to post on everyone was all for bummin' YZ.

The Best Album of The Year -

The Good The Bad and The Queen - The Good The Bad and The Queen

Good to know.

this whole thread is a bunch of pretentious wank.....some people say albums are overrated just because it's popular. Even though it's a good album they'll say it's overrated because it's receiving good critical reviews.

That's nice and all but it doesn't change the fact that Kala was rubbish.

lol if you say so......

I liked it and think that it should be getting all the critic raves that it gets

We're talking more about the albums that aren't really that popular yet seem to be thought of as the best thing since sliced bread by certain media. Just take this board for example, the most talked about (let's say the most popular) releases of the year were Favorite worst nightmare, Icky thump and In Rainbows. I'm focusing on Pitchfork's list right now, their number one album is Panda Bear, which got like 10 replies here. What about Battles (I think Mirrored got something as ridiculous as a 9.0 rating on Metacritic) or Animal Collective...? I mean, after being made to listen to those albums I was certainly wondering what the fuck people were on about...:\

In what way is it pretentious? What's in question here is whether the albums actually merited the reviews on their own, or whether there was evidently some other reason why it ended up universally accepted as the best thing of all time.

I have'nt heard Panda Bear, Battles or Animal Collective. I can only go on what I've heard. I think we can sometimes mix over rated with underwhelmed.

You didn't like Strawberry Jam? Really? With regard to SJ, the general reception was a lot more mixed than that of Panda Bear, Battles etc. If anything I think it'd be possible to argue that it was underrated. I thought Strawberry Jam was a purely excellent record, one of the very best things I heard at all in all of 2007. I'da thought/expected that most through-and-through indie music fans who listened to it at least a few times through woulda ended up liking it, so I guess I'm slightly surprised. But to each their own, this is all subjective after all.

Silverchair - Young Modern
Silverchair should have quick while they were ahead. All the new stuff is ****.

Arctic Monkeys-Favourite Worst Nightmare
An all round ****house album.

Justin Timberlake - Future Sex/Love Sounds
Why....?

Santana - Ultimate Santana
Editing one riff does not make you a great musician, especially if you team up with Nickelback.

Foo Fighters - Echoes Silence Patience Grace
Stick to drumming next time.

Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos
Skeltonwitch - Whatever their garbage album is called
Kanye West - Graduation

I agree that the new Foo's album is a bomb. Maybe Dave should go back to drumming for a while. I think the best thing he's done in years is QOTSA.
The Foo Fighters are great, but why not take a break? How many big stars have that option?

Joanna Newsom - Y's.

Honestly, the woman sounds like a dying cat. WTF?

Did you mean a "dying" cat?http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...treptrep-1.gif American educational system...http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c.../radosnice.gif

>.>'

You know what's even more depressing than that?
I'm sixth in my class.
:rofl:

That was 2006. And c'mon. That record's got some of the most beautiful moments I've heard in more recent listening history.

Oh, you're right about that. Sorry, my mistake. ^^

And, for the record, while I love the lyrics and instrumental parts, it was still incredibly overrated, imo.

Joanna Newsom is incredibly overrated especially considering she isn't very original and her voice gets tiring pretty quick.

fall out boy

So what you're saying is that only albums you don't really care for can be deemed overrated...?:p

Basically... yeah :D