Classic Albums That Critics Despised Upon Release

[indianstallion]

Just thought I share this interesting article:

http://audiotuts.com/articles/web-roundups/5-all-time-classic-albums-that-critics-despised/

All except No. 1 was before my time. I was never a huge fan of Weezer , but I remember how poorly Pinkerton was received when it was released, my friends who were fans of the band were like complaining on how much it sucked.

I also posted a comment there about my personal choice - Dear You by Jawbreaker. Criminally ignored upon its release in 94', it is now considered a classic.

Do you have others in mind?

 

[dir]

Pinkerton is a personal favorite, it's kinda disheartening to think that Rivers Cuomo will probably never release anything like that ever again.

Spiderland by Slint went virtually unnoticed upon release, but now everyone who listens to godspeed you black emperor quotes it incessantly.

 

[growlingsoulpup]

Doesn't get more "I told you so!" than Blood On The Tracks by Bob Dylan. When it came out it was really trashed, but now it's seen as one of his best albums ever.

 

[blank]

Sucked to have been Rivers after Pinkerton, took him 5 years to release the next album. I'm sure if he had released something a year or two after Pinkerton it would've been interesting.

You can tell he was deeply affected by the reception of it, especially with the release of the green album. All the raw personal lyrics were gone, and maybe him holding back in that aspect affected his writing process as well, or maybe he just got alot happier after those 5 years. But I think the The green album and maladroit had decent songs, don't really like the last 2.

I don't think people necessarily love slint solely because of how 'cool' it is to like it, but more of how you'd like bands that share things in common. And as you said, they probably couldn't give it a chance back then, maybe they were really young or, just didn't hear it at all. I myself don't appreciate spiderland that much.

On topic, sad how critics can affect many people's opinions on lots of things, especially on such a great extent. I try to avoid reviews completely when I listen to albums I've never heard. Though reviews are also helpful to find good albums.
I'll try giving what I think are modern examples.
panic at the disco's first album(although commercially it did very well). Sure the lyrics might be pretentious, but it had really interesting and good songs especially in a mainstream context. Just because all the kids ate it up most of the established critics gave them bad to average reviews. You can also tell they were affected by the reviews, with their new album, and with the guitarist saying constantly that they wanted to escape the 'mall-emo' tag, and then saying that their newer stuff was their true sound, sure it wasn't a coincidence. It probably won't ever be hailed as a classic by other people though, too mainstream, only by me probably.
maybe of montreal's cherry peel too? it might not even be known though, I think it should be a classic though, i was lucky to chance upon it.

 

[indianstallion]

K I am gonna get the Pinkerton album and listen for myself , way too curious now after all the comments about it here and on the article as well!