The Human League’s third album, Dare, is still a thing of wonder. A perfect marriage of synth adventuring and pop sensibility. But there’s one track that much as I love the album I have to SKIP SKIP SKIP. Because whatever residual affection I might have had for it in the early eighties has been worn away by nigh on 40 years of passive absorption as the only League track that anyone ever plays on radio/every single 80s documentary etc. Luckily it’s tucked away as the last track on side 2, the best place for a mustskippable. We’re not talking about an album with a slightly below par track. We’re talking about a real ‘next’ moment for you.
So, albums you love with tracks you cannot bear. We may have been there before but what the hell it’s the middle of January.
Wikipedia tells me that Madonna’s otherwise very fine Music album is marred by the ‘international edition bonus track’ No bonus for this excrable cover version round here.
Only half a point because it’s a cover, often the most annoying track on any album. But boy it’s a stinker. Had Mirwais and Orbit run out of stuff?
Get Carter wasn’t up to much either!
Perversely, I absolutely love it!
Just for starters…
REM, Shiny Happy People, on Out of Time…too forced, too ubiquitous.
The Beatles, Act Naturally, on Help. Simply nowhere near as good as the rest of the album and ruins the flow.
Echo and The Bunnymen, Thorn of Crowns, on Ocean Rain. Stupid, fake stoned lyrics on an otherwise graceful and almost poetic album.
Agree on Thorn of Crowns. A parody of the macca lyric.
Act Naturally is fine, What Goes On on Rubber Soul is 10 times worse.
Dai, I’ll never like Act Naturally but I think you may have a point there, What Goes On is pretty awful and just doesn’t fit on Rubber Soul. “Give it to Ringo…” actually, don’t.
Agreed – I always liked Act Naturally. It is a good vocal, and it brilliantly commented on Ringo’s accidental movie stardom. He still sings it too, but I don’t think What Goes On features in the current set!
Talking of Rubber Soul, The Word was always skippable for me…and Michelle, come to think of it!
Love The Word.
Act Naturally is a big wide smile. Brilliant, and it fits perfectly on the album
Stiff Little Fingers debut Inflammable Material is pretty much perfect.
Apart from (snuck away at the end of side 2) is Closed Groove.
SKIP
On the 40th anniversary tour of Inflammable Material the album was played in its entirety, except for Closed Groove. Jake said ‘we don’t like it much’.
For the 30th Anniversary Tour, at at least a couple of gigs, they waited until the lights went up and played it quietly over the PA as everyone was leaving.
Far too overplayed to listen to again include, for my tastes, Side 1, Track 1 of Sticky Fingers and Side 2, Track 3 of Fire & Water.
One at the beginning, one at the end so little problem.
Might have said this before but really dislike Deep Dark Truthful Mirror on Elvis Costello’s Spike.Rest of album is great.
But the version on the boot, ‘Unplugged and unshaven’ is a joy. it is a good song.
“Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”….like a sore thumb…supposedly known for its “complex plot and long running time.” …click, skip and i’ll pass thanks
Yep
Pish and tosh, my Dylan go to song.
The cover by Tom Russell goes on a bit, mind.
You prefer Lily to Tangled Up In Blue, Idiot Wind, You’re a Big Girl Now etc? That’s different.
Different, maybe. Right, definitely.
As above; much more.
Or possibly wrong
Or definitely not wrong.
The equivalent of being cornered by a bore at a party telling you all about his new conservatory at great length when you’d previously been happy discussing guitars and football with the lively crowd by the drinks.
Love Is The Drug. Undeniably great song, but so ubiquitous on every radio playlist, Ferry concert, party disco…I’d be content if I never heard it again. See also: Let’s Stick Together.
F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.H.O.W.D.I.D.T.H.I.S.M.A.K.E.I.T.O.N.T.O.T.H.E.A.L.B.U.M.?
I find that I skip every Roxy Music track apart from the singles. Same goes for REM.
In every dream home a heartache….
😢
Always thought it went on a bit. Not a patch on ‘Virginia Plain’. Which was perfect.
I was making a comment, not providing an example. 😉
Street Life may be the weakest track on Stranded.
Ah right. My apologies.
Virginia Plain wasn’t on an album (originally)
A rare instance of the record company making the right decision. Another one was to include ‘Starman’ on Ziggy. Both albums would be considerably poorer without the tunes which brought n the fans in the first place.
The world would be a duller place, and the poorer, without non-single Roxy album tracks. It is those tracks which reward long term listening most.
Possibly. But I can’t think of a Roxy album track that is as good as Editions of You or Do the Strand.
Do The Strand wasn’t a UK single until 1978 to promote a Greatest Hits (For Your Pleasure came out in 1972). It failed to chart. Editions Of You was only a B side.
I stand corrected. I only know them from the Greatest Hits album so for me they were always ‘singles’. Tried various albums off the back of the singles I liked as a teenager but, for some reason, the band never really sounded as good as I felt they should. Although they always looked marvellous.
Just about every ‘skit’ on rap albums. One or two are the sounds of the rapper ‘having sex’. You have to question what was going through their minds when they thought that would improve the album. Would Pet Sounds still be thought of as one of the greatest albums of all time if you have a minute or so of Brian getting a good seeing to. Or maybe Let It Be could lose the little dittie about the famous old Liverpool prostitute and instead had the sounds of one of the Fabs getting relief from a modern day version?
Excellent answer except there’s usually more than one. Even acts such as the mighty De La Soul are unable to resist the lure of the skit. Dr Dre’s are particularly bad. Reverse the question: has there ever ever been a good rap skit?
Transmitting Live From Mars.
(And this isn’t the sex skit – that’s De La Orgy!)
The Beach Boys orgy vocal was recorded during the SMiLE sessions, famously captured by lying the microphones on the floor because they were too stoned to stand up. You can find it on some of the Do You Like Worms pieces.
It’s generally accepted that De La Soul started the ball rolling with Three Feet High and Rising. The low point for me is Big Pun’s ‘Taster’s Choice’ on Capital Punishment, which otherwise is a great album. I am not interested in the sound of him having sex!
But yes, there has been a good skit, but just the one. The ‘Public Service Announcement’ at the beginning of Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP.
I dunno – I’m sure there are loads, but there is a tendency to label all the daft/annoying ones “skits” and consider the better ones as just short tracks*.
I find this mini-movie sets up the album quite well even if some might find it in questionable taste:
[Paris – The Enema (Live At The White House)]
*I’m reminded of my friend who insists their are “no good horror films” and when I suggest a horror in space says “oh, but that’s sci fi”, I suggest a horror with sharp political ideas says “oh, but that’s satire”, I suggest a horror with wit and sharp humour says “oh, but that’s a comedy” etc
As Steve Hackett did the ‘play a classic album in its entirety’ thing with Spectral Mornings, I noted with relief that he did not bother with The Ballad of the Decomposing Man.
“Go on, let the other bloke in the band have a writing credit. He has bills to pay, too.”
From Eat To The Beat, Victor:
From Synchronicity, the similar Mother:
See also: any Queen song with Roger Taylor singing. Vocally, he’s no Ringo.
See also Frank Infante’s I Know But I Don’t Know on Parrallel Lines. Maybe not totally skippable, but the weakest track on that album
Absolutely agree with that. Nowhere near as strong as the rest.
Nooo!!!! Modern Times Rock n Roll, Tenement Funster and Drowse are all ACE. Drowse is the great 70s Queen song that nobody has heard of.
I’m In Love With My Car is somewhere in my Top 10 Queen tracks
I think Roger Taylor has a rather good ‘rawk’ voice but it was his misfortune to be in the same band as Freddie Mercury.
they are both err lazy
It does beg the question why music radio insists on playing Brown Eyed Girl, Brown Sugar, All Right Now, Don’t You Want Me, True etc. ad nauseum.
A plumber came round a couple of months ago and he had Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 playing (no, me neither). That day the show was coming from Northern Ireland and I was counting the minutes to Brown Eyed Girl, just one of the 500 songs Van Morrison has recorded and not even a hit in the UK, being played.
Of course, it was played.
Why does anyone at Radio 2 think we need to hear that song yet again?
Almost any other Van song and you’ve got interesting radio – Brown Eyed Girl, and it’s as dull as music radio can possibly be.
Why does anyone at Radio 2 think we need to hear Jeremy Vine (or Ken Bruce) yet again?
Why would anyone at Radio 2 imagine us music snobs tuning in? That station has never been aimed at the likes of us. It’s a civilian station.
It may not have been a big hit at the time or since, but undemanding civilian punters seemingly love Brown Eyed Girl. That’s why so many pub cover bands play it. Some of those punters even know more of the words than the shalala bit.
The Friday request show on Radio 2 drivetime was usually on in my carshare a few years’ back. I was always amazed that people would ring up, week after sodding week, requesting Brown Eyed Girl and Don’t Stop me Now. I’m sure, at times, you could audibly hear Simon Mayo wince when such requests were forthcoming.
Mind you, I do recall reading that even the biggest artists in music history have a very narrow range of records that actually get radio play. Queen basically have Don’t Stop me Now and Bohemian Rhapsody; even the Beatles only have a narrow range of perpetually-played songs.
Another perennial was Club Tropicana.
Every week, and usually about the same time.
Don’t these people have access to YouTube that they need to wait a week to get their Wham dose
and when Chris Evans took over, there was even less variety
I like PopMaster and as it is now available as a podcast, one only has to listen to a few minutes of Bruce’s decades long Wogan impression.
Ken rules! I used to think he was doing a Wogan impression, but his humour is far more sly and more to my taste. His musical preferences are wide and he genuinely seems to love music. If you compare his daily presentation with any of his stand-ins (Gary Davies and – in the recent past – the dreadful Jo Whiley and the even worse Zoe Ball), he is a total pro. Why, yesterday he played Rush in tribute to Neil Peart. Yes, all of 2112 at 10.45 in the morning!*
(*Actually it was “Spirit of Radio”. But still).
I used to think the most depressing phrase in the English language was ‘Rail replacement bus’. Then I heard ‘Fearne Cotton sitting in for Ken Bruce.’
I now have tea coming out of my nostrils.
Oi, Fenton! Get on with some bloody work!
Ha!
An obvious one, but I jut skip as soon as I hear, ‘In the tooowwwwwn where I was born …’ and usually play And Your Bird Can Sing twice to make up for it.
Maybe it’s because I don’t listen to the radio much these days, but, much as I share your feel (and thus fear) for ubiquitous songs: Brown Eyed Girl, Don’t You Want Me etc, to which I will add Stairway to Heaven, Hotel California and Freebird, whilst I won’t deliberately seek them out, when shuffle chooses them, they delight me and uplift me. They are ubiquitous because they are so darn good.
Yes I agree with this.
While I wouldn’t play Blue Monday at home any more – if I hear it out and about or at a party, I am a little bit thrilled that a decent song has come on.
There’s one guy on the Steve Hoffman forum who refers to a must-skip track as “a real Jazz Police”, after the well-known stinker on Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man”.
I think you can double skip on “I’m Your Man”, go straight from the title track to ” I can’t forget”. “Take this waltz” is like, dull-o.
“Take This Waltz” is my absolute favourite Leonard Cohen song of all time.
Not my fave, but a good one. Opened with it live.
Anyone not skip Jazz Police on the next album?
Me.
A side point, but just wanted to note:
I keep seeing people mention this Steve Hoffman forum on here. I’ve never been on it and always idly wondered what it was, while never really having the inclination to visit it.
Today I think I will. Am I likely to come back to the Afterword fold once I’ve visited it? Let’s see…
You’ll be back. It’s a jungle out there.
Take care.
Phew, made it back. I registered and everything, and even left a comment on a thread!
It seems to be a more serious version of here, with a bit more focus on expensive hi-fi gear and stuff like that. But good for a browse and plenty of content. Seems just too busy to have any decent back and forth discussion going though – most threads I looked at are loads of really short comments with no replies.
i got three “likes” on my comment! They love me! See ya, losers, I’m going off to join the Hoffs.
In which case you’ll be needing these bluffer’s-guide catchphrases:
“inky-black silence”
“holographic imaging”
“breathtaking dynamics”
“congested midrange”
“peaky treble”
“one-note bass”
Get ready to compare different masterings of Brothers In Arms. I’d rather swim with sharks…
Also useful to brush up on DR numbers.
One I snuck into the FAQs on our first website: “throws the vocalist into bold relief.”
Arthur – good luck in Nerdsville!
If you want to know what happened to all those people who made Toto, Journey, Styx and Kansas chart toppers in the 70s, the Steve Hoffman Forum beckons!
When Nick Cave was asked why his ‘Nocturama’ album is so hated he gave a long and witty reply – “Nocturama is held in such universal contempt that its very title has become a byword for failure or disaster. “He tried his best but ultimately he met his Nocturama,” you may hear someone say, or perhaps “What a complete and utter Nocturama!” As the years have passed, the disdain for this record has not diminished, and Nocturama has become just another word for ‘loser’ – as in “Fuck you, you fucking Nocturama!” and still it continues to this day, so that when a Bad Seeds fan gets poked in the eye or kicked in the nuts, they cry, “Nocturama!” [edited snippet – full version here https://www.theredhandfiles.com/why-nocturama-is-so-hated/ ]
This far down and nobody’s mentioned this?
See also:
Ob-La-Di, R2-D2 is a skip. Prefer the Ant 3-version.
What In The World on Low.
Student Demonstration Time on Surf’s Up.
Curiously I find that my most skippable tracks are album openers. So many LPs for me start with track two. Openers often seem like the ‘soundcheck’ tune at gigs to make sure the levels are ok before the real show begins.
Obviously there are one or two exceptions…
I always skip Born In The USA.
Been skipping Bruce Springsteen since I first heard him..
Sorry, that’s just wrong. Overplayed, but a momentous opener to a brilliant album.
It gives me a migraine and overwhelms the album, the rest of which is actually pretty good.
I much prefer the understated version on the Tracks compilation. BITUSA is probably my least favourite Bruce album. Nothing wrong with the songs, it’s just that horrible 80’s production. And it contains the ultimate skippable track, Dancing In The Dark, as near as he ever got to ‘shit, we need a single – will this do?’
That’s exactly how it happened. I like it though. Probably most skippable for me is My Hometown, although the solo version on Broadway was great.
DITD is virtually the only Bruce mustskippable, again relentless over-exposure stripped it of whatever charm it possessed on release.
I tend to skip the whole album and go straight from Reason To Believe to Aint Got You
The Beatles albums that don’t have a Ringo sung song are the ones where I don’t skip any tracks, funnily enough: A Hard Day’s Night, Magical Mystery Tour and Let It Be, but I don’t skip every Ringo sung song either. I don’t skip With A Little Help From My Friends. I skip George’s Indian ventures. I skip the more twee McCartney efforts like When I’m 64, Here, There and Everywhere. Quite a few off the White Album, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Octopus’s Garden. I don’t really skip anything by Lennon though. I hope this information is of use.
People say how great that The Beatles material was so diverse, and other bands are more samey. There’s something to be said for a degree of sameyness if you ask me. For diverse one can also read patchy, includes unwanted items.
When a band or artist I like announce a new album by saying how diverse they think it is I am always a bit concerned.
Re: “I skip George’s Indian ventures.”
“The Inner Light” is one of my absolute favourite Beatles songs.
I make an exception with that one. I am thinking of the two studio albums where he does his thing.
It took the 2017 remix of Within You, Without You to make really appreciate its wonder.
Worked for me on “Love” the best with Tomorrow Never Knows, for me the peak of that project.
Now I can get with that remix, sounds great.
The Love version is great but the remix really brings out the juxtaposition of the traditional Indian music and Martin’s very clever, very English orchestration. I hadn’t appreciated its beauty before, at least not fully.
To my own amazement I really liked Love as an album. Thought it mostly worked really well. I can’t say it’s a regular go to album but it has a lot going for it.
The Love version is better because it’s a mash up with Tomorrow Never Knows and is thereby enlivened and re-made, aside from the revitalised sound that leaps from the speakers. Heresy no doubt. The original is a bit of a chore to get through really.
I love this rehearsal of ‘The Inner Light’ which begins with George explaining the song to the musicians in a Bombay studio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2fyYrLN9fA
Here, There and Everywhere is probably in the top 5 songs he ever wrote.
Cloying, syrupy – not my words but I agree with the description. It probably sounded better at the time. Obviously it is the work of a great talent but it’s rather sickly (my word).
I don’t agree. He is writing about someone he is in love with. He uses the correct words for it, and it is a beautiful tune and a wonderful arrangement. Absolute top drawer (as is For No One btw).
“Watching her eyes and hoping I’m always there”
Cloying to some, poetic to others.
I’m not fussed about Blackbird either. Best McCartney to me is more gritty or more pop (upbeat) Not so much the soft, sweet stuff. One can be ‘objective’ and appreciate something is well done but at the same time not really respond to it. I don’t care if Rolling Stone has it as one of the greatest songs of all time.
You don’t skip Revolution 9? Surely the ultimate skipper?
No I don’t. It’s a fascinating piece. Avant-garde but actually still shows a pop sensibility by being almost catchy and quite playful. There are others that are more skippable on that album.
You’re more patient than me, then. I think I’ve listened to it only a handful of times in my lifetime.
A “handful” is a still more than me. Heard twice. Must have been interesting at the time of release. But don’t need to listen to it again.
I don’t mind it. I think there’s a strange musicality to it after a few listens.
My favourite track on this though, by a mile, is ‘Martha My Dear’. Unpretentious and stupidly catchy. Effortless Macca could whip a tune up from mid-air as easily as plucking a cherry. And it’s about a dog.
Here, There And Everywhere was covered by Emmylou Harris.
Emmylou has impeccable taste.
Therefore anyone naysaying the song has cloth ears.
Emmylou’s version is even better than The Beatles’ version.
Jesus, it’s just personal preference. No law has been broken. What is the matter with people?
Sometimes, when the darkness in my soul is at it’s most impenetrable, I find amusement in these exchanges.
Nothing is the matter with me.
Yes I know it is personal preference and no one has been harmed in these exchanges.
Never heard the loveable moptops version, but Emmylou is incandescent therewith.
You’ve never heard Revolver?
The Beatles original benefits from carefully constructed three part harmonies, Harrison’s sensitive guitar and Ringo’s subtle playing, including a warm cymbal sound around the one minute mark. At the end, there are some cool finger snaps and a five note guitar part is so distorted it sounds like a horn. I think it’s a lovely song, extremely well crafted and beautifully delivered, the only truly romantic number on Revolver.
Emmylou does a great job, too.
Quite right Carl. An overreaction. I must accept that mere taste is of no consequence when confronted with objective fact, when it comes to commenting on a pop song. The great artists and experts have spoken. Ian Macdonald is on my side but I fear some of his more critical judgements tend to be dismissed these days. Can’t compete with the sainted Emmylou at least who we dare not contradict. I am not entirrly serious or even partly perhaps.
Persistent skips:
AIRBAG
then
PARANOID ANDROID
then
SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK ALIEN
then
EXIT MUSIC (FOR A FILM)
then
LET DOWN
then
KARMA POLICE
then
fitter happier
then
ELECTIONEERING
then
CLIMBING UP THE WALLS
then
NO SURPRISES
then
LUCKY
then
THE TOURIST
Ba-doom and, indeed, tish!
You need this Airbag:
God, give it up. I don’t post endlessly on here about stuff I hate.
At least you own a copy.
Yeah he knows the name of all the tracks. I bet he plays it every night, sobs and hates himself.
Sure do.
Here it is.
NM (played once)
It’s a grower …
*giggles childishly*
I’ll go with Birdland on Heavy Weather by Weather Report.
This is the track everyone seems to know and like except me.
Boring and repetitive.
I cited Birdland as a good reason to go and see Weather Report in 1979. Neither of them were into non-chart music (or – let’s face it – music to any great degree). I can still recall their expressions as Jaco, Wayne, Joe and co let rip and one amazing improvisation followed another…
I don’t think I’ve ever made it to the end of Frankly, Mr Shankly. Coming after the magnificent opener and just before I Know It’s Over has condemned it for me.
In fact, as much as I like the album, three of its ten tracks are eminently skippable (ducks).
Somebody I knew once used to skip The Queen is Dead because he couldn’t stand the “Take me back to dear old blighty” opening.
Reviews gave the impression the opener really rocks, comes in like some kind of juggernaut. I was disappoint. It’s a bit weedy really, enjoyable enough but a little underwhelming. Funny lyrics when he was still funny.
Well the drums are pretty thunderous.
Maybe I need a new stereo. Mind you, it sounded the same in the 80s when I played it.
I always thought The Queen Is Dead was one of their best songs…thunderous drums, loud driving bass and Marr completely wigging out on guitar. Possibly even better when I saw them play it live though, where the drama of it really shone.
I’ll certainly concede that the opener goes on a bit too long. I was going to start a thread about songs that outstay their welcome, as I’ve always thought Tiny Dancer, great song though it is, should bugger off rather than repeat the first verse…
It’s odd how great albums still contain a fair amount of skippage. I’m happy to skip about a third of Revolver (ducks again).
There could be another thread about non-skippable albums.
Astral Weeks
Odessey and Oracle
Forever Changes
Um …
DSOTM, WYWH, AWATS off the top of my head as unskippable.
Huh? AWATS?
Angry Welsh And Totally Serious?
If you haven’t enough time to type album titles out properly, hold fire until you DO have the time.
It’s like a question on Pointless, name a million seller album with these initials? I got the first 2 but the 3rd one may indeed be Pointless or at least very low scoring …
DSOTM – 75
WYWH – 47
AWATS – 0
All Todd fans know AWATS!
Yep, pointless it is.
AWATS amadder you, HEY!
Godda no respek.
Oh, very good, Mini.
AWATS =
Astral Weeks At The Seaside – A BBC Summer Special recording (at Great Yarmouth) with Tony Blackburn and Diddy David Hamilton on backing vocals
Now I now you’re fibbing Rigid.
There’s no way Tony and Diddy Dave would be seen in Gt Yarmouth, a b list Blackpool. Over the river in the Ocean Rooms Gorleston , quite possibly.
to not know ” A Wizard, A True Star ” is to be able to discover a wonderful album that is through me like Brighton is through a stick of rock. I must have listened to it a thousand times. That and “The Nightfly”.
But “Dogfight Giggle” on AWATS is totally skippable.
I have to disagree. It’s like eating your greens before being allowed pudding, it’s worth the effort for the reward.
I have a personal grudge: it was generally a fine album when i enticed hippie nookie back to my secret blacklight bedroom. But “dogfight giggle” led several laydeez to lose their enthusiasm. I resent some of those missed moments of joy caused by stoned pissing about in the studio with weird noises.
Astral Weeks – that swing jazz track at the start of side two (can’t remember the name) is very skippable. Totally ruins the flow. But I always feel it’s an enforced penance I need to endure in order to “deserve” the rest of the album.
CSNY Deja Vu album – annoyingly, the second track is the skippable one, that ‘orrible syrupy country one “Teach Your Children”. As soon as I hear the pedal steel guitar start up it grinds my gears. It’s lucky I ever made it past track two to discover the rest of the album.
The Way Young Lovers Do is a bit different to the rest of the album, but I still love it.
That’s the one! Nah, you’re welcome to it. It just reminds me of Moondance, which I also hate. It’s the track that makes me realise that I probably am not a Van fan and I just like Astral Weeks as an outlier. (I’ve not yet been tempted to investigate further….)
I prefer Maria McKee’s version.
But, then, I rarely play Astral Weeks. The only time I did ‘get it’ was when I had a monster hangover, and I’ve been teetotal for years, so I’m unlikely to reach for it again.
You are me! One of my favorite LPs and yet there’s this, sequenced slap bang on the middle of it. Great song but still a mood killer.
The why this digital age is the Golden Age (Apologies @deramdaze 🙂 ) , with the ability to remodel albums to our whim.
The definitive answer is obviously Jazz Police on Len’s “I’m Your Man”.
This was a man who could agonise over a line in a song for months, a man whose quality control was exact, and then Jazz Police…
A repeat offender?
Goin’ alright this thread is is not?
All Mod Cons.
Can you guess which track.
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
For no bonds can ever keep me from she.
Not great lyrics, but a nice tune. Side 2 is a bit weak, apart from the last 2 songs.
Not for me Clive. Cringeworthy. In fact I can imagine a whole Curb Your Enthusiasm episode being built around it. Larry arranges for a choir to sing it at Cheryl’s birthday outside her window. Except he wants to change the lyrics as the grammar really really irritates him. Gets Paul Weller on the phone, thinks he’s totally unreasonable. Then he sees Weller at a table with Ted Danson – Weller’s writing a WHOLE NEW SONG for Ted’s wife’s 50th. ‘She to her is that too much? Is that too much?’ Final scene: Cheryl tells him it’s a mustskippable track.
Ha ha. Apparently Jeff Tweedy is in the new season of Curb …
I must be the only person who thinks English Rose is alright. Everything But The Girl do a pretty good cover version too. My track to skip would be It Ain’t Easy on Ziggy Stardust. Velvet Goldmine would have been a better fit.
I don’t mind it in the context of All Mod Cons – not so keen in the middle of Snap! though.
Not a complete duffer – Paul Weller was 20 when he wrote this, you can almost hear the uncomfortable embarrassment in it. So much so, he left it off the album cover.
However, 5 years later he’d obviously reconciled himself to the song and chose it for the Snap compilation.
Don’t think he ever played it live until 2000/2001
I like English Rose as well. It has a certain charm and if you think of the kind of geezerish company The Jam were surrounded by it’s actually quite a brave thing to have gone ahead with.
I certainly don’t think English Rose requires repeated listening but it has an awkward, embarrassing, clunky fourth form poetry character which is strangely endearing.
Family Entertainment – Second Generation Woman
What a stinker.
Well, Grech is no Roger Chapman, that’s for sure. Always enjoyed the guitaring though…
I just can’t comprehend why, when you’ve got Chapman’s voice in the band, you’d use anyone else to sing.
Not that that is my only problem with that song. I can’t even forgive it for having dated badly; it must have felt awkward even then.
Red Flag on the first pressing of The Bible’s debut. A track so unloved by the band that they dropped it for the repress and substituted a b-side instead.
Useless AW fact: Red Flag on the remastered LP, which came out a few years ago, was copied from my vinyl, as the master tape is lost (buried, probably).
Oh, yes. Red Flag is truly awful. Was it Sweetness they replaced it with? Something in my brain tells me that was a b-side. Sweetness is infinitely better than Red Flag, but I always loved Glorybound.
Sweetness; Spend, Spend, Spend (both B-sides); and High Wide and Handsome. Sadly the master tape for Glorybound was lost for decades.
Blue lines by Massive Attack is a very good album.
The cover of light my fire at the end is rubbish and no one, absolutely no one likes it.
Listen to Mr Stanton on this point.
But listen to Protection rather than Blue Lines if you want to put his theory to the test.
Yes! Yes yes yes!
I have successfully skipped the whole of Massive Attack’s output.
Why dat? Blue Lines is such a fantastic album. Even now, 30 years after its release, if any one of its nine tracks pops up on my iPod I’m pleased to hear it.
Dunno really. Just passed me by. I’m sure it’s great but I’m just not terribly interested in most music post 1978. As you can gather, I have skipped a hell of a lot of bands and artists and yet my life is none the worse for it. I am hopelessly obsessed with the sixties and most of the seventies. For me it’s where pop music ‘happened’ and had a genuine cultural role. Since then it has diminished in power as the internet grew and ‘kids’ had more options.
Er, just to clarify, the sixites wasn’t even my ‘era’…. I was only a toddler!
A bit more obscure than many listed above but I knew instantly my selection here…
I love Lloyd Cole’s album “Don’t Get Weird on Me Babe”. It’s up there with Rattlesnakes IMHO but the track Butterfly stinks to high heaven. It actually detracts from a great set of songs.
The Police’s ‘Synchronicity’ is pretty well-stocked with tunes. Unfortunately Andy Summers’s “Mother” must be the worst track the band ever committed to tape. Skip!
‘Jughead’ on Prince’s Diamonds & Pearls shouldn’t just be skipped, it should be scratched and/or scored out so it can never be heard again.
Remain in Light is one of the greatest albums ever made. Can’t stand The Overload though.
I heard recently (after nigh on 40 years of loving the album) that the first song is really fast and it slows down progressively with each track. My skippable one on RIL is The Listening Wind. I love The Overload.
“Listening Wind” is one of my absolute favourite Talking Heads songs.
Love it too
Erm, Maybe these Boys by the Church from Sing Songs.. Oi, Kilbey! Hear that clunking sound.,,that’s your song that is!
Still, it’s only one duff track from a large canon.
About the Stranglers possibly.
Loads but two that spring to mind. If I never hear Maxwell’s Silver Hammer again it’ll be too soon. And Hey Now! on What’s the Story… is a horrendous dirge, especially when you look at the material Oasis were chucking away on B-sides at that point.
@atcf my thoughts – just been listening to The Masterplan and there’s a good arguement for it being their best album. Not overproduced, and really only the title track is overblown. Two words that apply to even their best tracks after the debut.
Hmm, loads, and mostly from one of my favourite artists: Frank Zappa. Many of his songs became embarrassingly, even disturbingly, smutty round about the late-70s/ early -80s, worst offenders being on Joe’s Garage, The Man From Utopia and (quite particularly ) Thing Fish. He was hitting 40..
The music is still worth persevering with, it is FZ, but what was he thinking of?
Don’t answer that.