I adore Madeon's first album, Adventure. I knew Good Faith would be different and I was really looking forward to it anyway, and it when it finally came out, it just never clicked with me. It's an album I come back to probably once per year to try it again, but I just don't vibe with it. It's an album I respect a lot, but I just don't like it.
Justice - Hyperdrama
Still a pretty new release admittedly. That opening track is one of Justice's best ever songs, but the rest of the album just isn't grabbing me. I'm hoping it'll grow on me over time.
To twist your question a bit: The Glitch Mob - Ctrl Alt Reality
Another case of an artist moving in a totally different direction, and when I first listened to it, I didn't like it. Similar feelings to Good Faith. But then I listened to it again. Then again. Then again. There wasn't a sudden moment where it clicked, it just got better with every listen. It's probably my second favorite album of theirs now.
And to twist your question even more. I thought I would dislike: Muse - Will of the People
I've been in the camp of "modern Muse isn't that bad" for a while, but there's clearly been a downward trend. Even I cannot defend Simulation Theory. I expected WOTP to be more of the same, and somehow I ended up loving it. It is maximum Muse cheesiness, in the best way possible.
I think Hyperdrama is mixed REALLY bad. It has no dynamic, and if you play it in a shuffle with other justice albums, you can instantly tell when a Hyperdrama song is playing by how flat it is.
I think other songs on there are good, but they have no "oomph".
If you listen to the early remixes coming out by other artists, you can also notice how much bigger they sound by comparison.
"I must hear this album that singlehandedly inspired entire swathes of the punk and later grunge movements!"
It's bad. No, not unlikeable, but it's an album full of songs that you and your friends could probably come up with after a single night of drinking in a shitty basement. There isn't anything that screams genius or promise or talent.
I've listened to it a few times and I just don't get what our early grunge ancestors were vibing to all those millennia ago.
This is not exactly answering the question asked, but I loved the album What It Is to Burn by Finch. If you could wear out CDs by playing them, I would have worn that one out. I bought their second album as soon as it came out without ever hearing a single song. I assumed I would love every song on the second album the same as the first. They had completely changed their style. It was maybe not awful, but it definitely wasn't my style. I literally ended up using it under the leg of a wobbly table.
How can you say something so controversial, yet so true?!
Bowie isn't fantastic. Neither is Bill Murrey or Betty White. They are just people that have been grasped onto by social media and exemplified. It helps if they've died and get a "martyr" image too.
I mean some Bowie stuff is good, Life on Mars, Lets dance.... But he's just a British Melloncamp.
...like clockwork (the previous album) is too 3 for me and may be my all time favorite at any given moment. But the follow-up was just not what I was looking for.
So glad to not be alone on this. It felt unfocused. I think working with Mark Ronson gave Homme a bit too much leeway to make an album that tried to hard to be cool.
It somehow went over the ironic/unironic line that Queens has always danced around.
Like Clockwork has moments that veered towards camp and cheese but never felt insincere or cloying.
Yeah, I really like Polygondwanaland and Flying Microtonal Banana. The rest, save for one other album (don't recall which one) I just can't get into. They have cranked out so many albums exploring, but not mastering, so many genres that it's not surprising to be underwater on the K/D ratio.
I actually haven’t listened to any other Zappa albums, but probably will at some point.
I love the titular track, so I was excited to listen to the whole thing, but I think I found it 30 years too late. I get he was trying to go Reefer Madness style with his Central Scrutinizer telling a parable of how rock music leads to self-destruction, but the jokes just fell flat for me.
Obviously the nice girl who ended up having to do wet t-shirt contests to get home, the gay prison sex, the robot sex, saying Africans don’t have record players, etc. were all supposed to be absurd, but it’s very 70s humor that nowadays feels more denigrating than biting satire. I also didn’t really get him corpsing in the voiceovers: I’m guessing it was supposed to be a reminder not to take the story seriously, but I personally found it distracting.
I did find it cool that he mixed solos from his live shows into his songs, but it wasn’t enough to save it for me. It’s like when you go back and watch older movies or tv shows, and suddenly something just blatantly racist or sexist just pops up and immediately dates it way more than the technical aspects do.
In short, it feels like Zappa is trying way too hard to be edgy, and it sucked the life out of the album for me. The opening song still slaps, though.