The Scrabbled Post wherein you list "great" albums that you never listen to anymore
Was thinking about this on the way to work. when critics spout about certain classic albums, I often wonder how much they actually listen to them. Sure Nevermind is a classic, but how often do you really ever put it on? I can’t remember the last time. I must be years. Granted, this is just one album and it’s just me, I’m sure there are some of you who listen to the album with some regularity. But you get the gist.
What classics or, hell, just what previous favorites of yours never make it onto your playlist anymore?
A few of mine:
- Nirvana – Everything but In Utero and Unplugged
- The Beatles – Abbey Road
- Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
- Everything The Beastie Boys ever released
- Bright Eyes’ Lifted
- The Faint
- Any Pearl Jam that isn’t Vs.
- Radiohead – The Bends
- Beck’s 90’s stuff
- The Deftones
Comments
Nine Inch Nails: The Downward SPiral
Tool: Ænima
Good call on aenima. I actually tried to listen to it the other day and had zero interest and went straight to Lateralus.
I definitely still listen to the downward spiral though. I was just listening to the 5.1 version the other day. So cool!
Some of these probably don’t count as classics:
- Deftones: White Pony
- Sublime: All of them
- Incubus: Science (the rest were junk)
- Alice in Chains: All of them
- Digable Planets: Blowout Comb
- Chronic 2001
- DJ Shadow: Endtroducing
- Genesis: The Lamb lies down on broadway
- Fugees: The Score
- White Zombie: Astro-Creep 2000
- Any White Stripes album that came out before the city-going party youth became hipsters.
- John’s unfinished Duophone demo that he gave me 7 years ago.
Wow. I could probably list a ton of these, but I’d need to add the caveat that the reason I don’t listen to whichever albums fit the bill on this, it’s because they are so etched in my brain. I can hear and hum and think about every note and nuance and what have you because I listened to them so goddamned much at some point in my life. So putting on the actual record(cd, mp3, whatever) almost ends up being redundant.
The one that comes to mind immediately is Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s Addiction. It’s one of those albums that’s hard to describe to and convince people why it was so groundbreaking at the time, because so much of what they did has become commonplace and quaint. But at the time when everything was either cliched metal, tough guy hardcore/punk stuff, or really delicate britpop/indiepop, etc. what they were doing was bombshell and I listened to it incessantly, flipping over the tape constantly for weeks, if not months.. But I can’t tell you the last time I put that record on.
Master of Puppets is another one.
Bill, the only one of yours I disagree with is the DJ Shadow album which I still put on from time to time. The rest are absolutely my picks as well.
Kev, Master of Puppets? Really? I still rock that record from time to time.
Yeah, again like I said it’s only because it’s seared into my consciousness not that I don’t like it. When I think of situations like this it’s more that I don’t listen to these records because I don’t have to. That’s one of them.
I’ll have to browse through my collection for assistance. As of right now, every album I think of, I can remember putting it on recently.
The Weakerthans’ Left & Leaving was very close. But I thought about this topic a week or so ago and, since then, have listened to it.
Grateful Dead: American Beauty
Pink Floyd: The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon
Good call on The Wall. I still listen to Dark Side every now and again, though. Mostly Us & Them.
Fun post!
Not classics, but these used to be frequent offenders in my stereo when I was a teenager and I got worn out on ’em (though I do not deny that they are solid albums):
I am with the Deftones’ White Pony.
The Shape of Punk To Come – Refused (funny, because I was recently raiding John’s iTunes library at work and pulled it into my iTunes so I could revisit the album to no avail. I felt it unnecessary, though I used to listen to it incessantly.)
Blue Album – Weezer
Clarity – Jimmy Eat World
Funny story. Every time we all hang out and drink, we sing songs (“we all” includes anyone who is nodding their head at the moment). It is almost always kicked off by Say It Ain’t So (or, if Reggie is present, Lisa Loeb’s Stay). By the time this happens at whatever party or gathering we’re all, we’re all pretty hammered.
So rewind a bit to the last big party, The Blue Party at Sammy and Xtina’s. Feeling like absolute garbage, I wasn’t able to drink all that much and never got drunk. And then it happened. I heard the Blue Album sober for the first time in what must have been years. And oh my god did I fucking hate it. Gone was the surge of adrenaline as I get ready to sing louder and more out of tune than everyone else in the room. Instead, all I felt was boredom and a bit of sadness. Alas, this music sucks.
Ok, so it wasn’t that funny a story. But still. The Blue Album is only worth listening to whilst drunk.
John said:The Blue Album is only worth listening to whilst drunk.
i think you’re drunk now.
There’s certain albums that you just don’t want to listen to just so they can somehow become fresh again. I’ve been going through that with Nirvana. For a long time there were on the radio all the fucking time where I almost became sick of them. Trying to avoid Nevermind for a while so maybe I can randomly pop it in one day and love it again.