Ah, The Daily Mash…
I can say that I had this experience with the very first album I paid money for. I loved “What Is Love” and “New Song” by Howard Jones and his new single “Things Can Only Get Better” sounded great. I was flush with birthday money and ready to spend.
My God. Even at nine years old I knew this was pretty bad. Apart from that one song. I’m amazed I ever bought another album at all sometimes…
Hah, yes, I saw that too.
My first proper LPs were funded by a Christmas record token. Human League’s Dare plus either the first Depeche Mode album or Shakin’ Stevens. I spent so long in the Virgin Megastore that my mum left me there and went to a nearby cafe.
If Dare had been shit, and I’d opted for Shaky instead of DM, I’d probably now have a lot more storage space and a lot more money.
It’s the supermarket £5.99 “Greatest Hits” selections that often caught my eye. The one moderately successful low chart entry and loads of old dross. I have ‘em all!
Just six?
I’ve lost count of the number of albums I bought after hearing a terrific track on one of those Ucunt, Word or Mojo cover-mounted CDs only to find the album it was from was pants.
Just dumped a load of them off at the local chazza in a post-Xmas clearout
Was that a deliberate typo? I didn’t know they had such a bad reputation.
Deliberate
I came across a wonderful song performed by some unknown country/folk singer on various artists compilation of similar music. I spent ages looking around the local record shops for the album it came from, but to avail. Then a month or two later I happened to be in Central London, headed into Tower Records in Picadilly, and finally found the CD. It was somewhat expensive, so may have been on import.
Anyway, the CD turned out to be a clunker. A few months later I happened to be in Central London again, so again headed into Tower. I came across a bargain bin that had several copies of that very same CD, each one now reduced to £1.
My first disappointing LP purchase as a junior record-buyer, after saving X weeks of pocket money, was Bowie’s “Heroes”… loved the single title track of course, but what’s all this other weird stuff?! Fortunately it didn’t put me off buying albums (or Bowie), and of course I love the LP now, but at the time it was a profound downer for the young Mickey…
Human’s Lib by HoJo was pretty good, quite an odd record really, strange lyrics and excellent production from Rupert Hine. But the second one, yep. A bit of a slog.
Inevitably, I quite like the two first Howard Jones albums.
As my headmaster would say, “There’s always one, isn’t there? And it’s always you”.
Semisonic – Feeling Strangely Fine
Strangely only Closing Time stands up still, the other singles now appear pretty weak (Secret Smile, Singing In Your Sleep) and has recently been ripped and Oxfam’d.
It’s exactly the kind of thing you won’t hear talked about in the rush to throw shade on streaming. The poor quality of CD releases and how it helped fuel illegal downloads was something Eamon Forde wrote about in his book “1999”.
Exactly. That’s why streaming was invented.
I really, really lost count of the albums I bought in “The Sale” which I knew for certain I would grow to love because (insert popular track here) was on it. Money was scarce, plague and pestilence ruled the land, so one sat at home playing (insert Rubbish LP here) over and over and over trying to convince oneself “It’s really, really good”. Then almost without exception the numbing acceptance that once more I had , unlike The Who, been fooled again.
Yep the Steppenwolf album comes to mind. Born to be wild and Magic Carpet ride were the only tracks worth repeat listen
Then Paul Simon Songs from the Capeman the only Paul Simon album I didn’t like until the recent Seven Psalms.
Uncut/Mojo do have a track record of picking the best song from an album – Jackie Levens Single Father comes to mind but I did become
a big fan of the rest of his catalogue.
(To be fair to the mags in question, tracks from new albums will nearly always be put forward by the label rather than selected by the mag, though they will have more latitude when assembling themed oldies CDs)
A cover disc of This Month’s New Releases will always comprise of tracks the record companies have offered them, with the mag’s only latitude being in which albums they use offered tracks from.
Unless the record company have tied using particular tracks to them buying full-page ads, of course.
When I was a student, every girl – and quite a few guys – bought Talk on Corners by The Corrs. According to Wikipedia, it sold 2.97 million copies in the UK, but it’s a charity shop classic. Pretty much everyone I knew who bought it enjoyed Dreams (the cover) but little else.
Stereophonics – managed this twice …
You Gotta Go There To Come Back, bought on the strength of Maybe Tomorrow
and then (because I never learn)
Language. Sex. Violence. Other?, on the strength of Dakota
(at this point I stopped buying Stereophonics albums – I just looked there are 7 more since my last purchase)
I had one good and one bad in 1979
I bought the Sad Cafe album Cascades on the strength of their fantastic Everyday Hurts single. Totally bemused by the “sludge rock” of most of the album
Around the same time I bought the Cheap Trick At The Budokan album, all based on their single. Fell in love with, what I now know is, Power Pop.
Ah yes, the atypical track that was the hit luring you into an album you weren’t prepared for. I remember a friend buying The Score by Fugees off the back of Killing Me ONE TIME! Softly. “It’s mostly just rapping” she moaned. I told her their debut was a much better record and was all rapping.
Oh god, how long have you got?!? The reason I ended up buying more compilations than albums is because the strike rate is so much better.
Not sure why this is the first one that springs to mind, but The Rapture’s ‘House of Jealous Lovers’ was a fine single, perfectly timed to capitalise on the wave of all things New York in the wake of The Strokes. And the rest of the album is one long, directionless nothing.
Yes, that Rapture single was magnificent and the DFA staple so exciting, but I gave up on the album
The first LCD album is Daft Punk, Losing My edge and a ton of other stuff….double as well. On the edge of this discussion.
The first Yasmin Williams album was probably the last one I got really stung on.
I’ve mentioned this before but the Word covermount CDs were by far the worst for this.
Yup, after a while I gave investigating anything further and just ripped the tracks I liked to itunes safe in the knowledge that I’d be unlikely to be missing much. Some very good tracks but no good albums that I remember.
I easily have way more than 6 for this, but there is just one which immediately comes to mind. Step forward Soul Asylum
Seeing them perform Somebody To Shove on The Word (90s low grade TV, not the highly respected mag that is why we are here), convinced me to spend the little money I had on the album. 3 songs in & I thought I had purchased a cracker, but the next 9 songs tailed off so spectacularly it still hurts 33 years later