Flawed masterpieces
 

Plenty of 'em out there...whether it's poor production, or questionable track selection, there are tons of albums that could have been so much better.


A few obvious picks:

- Goodbye Cruel World (Elvis Costello)
- Infidels (Bob Dylan)
- Never Mind The Bollocks (The Sex Pistols)
- Devils & Dust (Bruce Springsteen)
- My Generation (The Who)


But I'll take the controversial route and nominate The Village Green Preservation Society. I have to admit that I prefer the twelve track version:

1. The Village Green Pres. Society
2. Do You Remember Walter? (alternate mix)
3. Picture Book
4. Johnny Thunder
5. Monica
6. Days
(end of Side 1)

7. Village Green
8. Mr. Songbird
9. Wicked Annabella
10. Starstruck
11. Phenomenal Cat
12. People Take Pictures Of Each Other (alternate mix)


Substitute Sitting By The Riverside for Wicked Annabella, and you have an album that I'd argue is the best of the 60's, or at least very close (only Astral Weeks and John Wesley Harding really come close, in my opinion).



I've heard a lot of people talk about Neil Young's rejected albums, and I know there's a lot of controversy over Let It Be/Get Back, but I don't know enough about those albums to offer an opinion. What are your picks?

Soft Bulletin - The Flaming Lips

'The Observer' and 'Gash' are dull, but the rest of the album is brilliant.

Nevermind.

They could've done so much better. It had some good tracks, but isn't nearly as good as the other Nirvana albums.

A few pretty obvious choices here;

Elvis Costello - Goodbye Cruel World
- Punch the Clock
Both these albums are victims overproduction. They have their moments, but they could have been so much better

David Bowie - Young Americans
Ditch 'Across the Universe' and 'Somebody Up There Likes Me' from the tracklisting (which I still think are really good songs), replace them with the brilliant 'Who Can I Be Now' and 'It's Gonna Be Me' and you've got a classic

Turin Brakes - Dark On Fire
It probably wouldn't have been a masterpiece, but the guys just completely took the wrong approach in the studio for this album

Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards
This otherwise wonderful album tails off with the last two tracks 'God Make Up Your Mind' and 'Rubidoux'. If they'd used those as B-sides and included 'Every Valley Is Not a Lake' this album would be one of my favourites of all time

Oasis - Be Here Now
A noisy, overcluttered and overlong mess of an album. Trimming a few minutes off each song and shuffling some of the B-sides in would have helped this one a lot

PIL - This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get
'Commercial Zone' (i.e the album the way it would have been had Kieth Levene not been fired) is so much better imo

Really, the Gash dull? That's the highlight of the album for me. And I find the Observer a nice break in between songs. I'm probably just biased because it's probably my favourite album though.

As for me, I find You're Living All Over Me to be a flawed masterpiece. Most parts of it are really stunning, but Poledo hasn't grown on me yet and Lose is sort of dull.

Don't we already have one of these threads..."Great Albums Ruined By Bad Songs" or something?

I'd throw the link out for a merge but I'm just to lazy to find it.

Like Waspstar said it doesn't necessarily have to be flawed due to the songs, the production or tracklisting or whatever may play a part in it as well. The Smith's debut is an example of this, it falls behind the others simply because the production does them no favours.

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I've said it before here, if they sifted out the crap here it would be a complete winner.

In other words just take out Motorcycle fucking Emptiness then.

And the other 23102932 unnecessary songs. I don't understand why won't of them didn't say "Maybe this should be only ten or twelve tracks like a normal album."

I agree about the Observer. I'm trying to get used to that questionable interlude. The Gash, I thought, was the highlight of an otherwise "meh" second half of an album. If you look at the inside sleeve with that man running and listen to the Gash at the same time, you sort of "get" the song.

Anyways, definitely the Stone Roses' debut.

If they had cut "Don't Stop," "Fool's Gold" and maybe even "Elephant Stone" out of the mix, the record, to me, would have been flawless, and I might have bought it by now if it weren't for the questionable pacing of the album.

Don't Stop comes in too soon. It's a mess of a song with no groove and five minutes too long. It destroys the pacing of the album completely. Fool's Gold is just redundant - we already have "She Bangs the Drums." And, finally, "Fools Gold" destroys an otherwise fantastic album closer: "I am the Resurrection."