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Post by ganews on Mar 18, 2021 10:14:19 GMT -5
It's time for April Fool's Record Club!
In 2016, I called on you to nominate bad albums. That resulted in Len, because 2016 was particularly bad year. 2017 featured a new twist that set the standard, which we have continued since: not only are you invited to nominate a stinker, but it has to be an album you currently enjoy. Your name will be listed alongside the album in the poll thread. What's more, you are expected to show up in the final review thread and defend your bad taste. "Why are you doing this to us?" we will cry out. And you will answer! We're all good sports here - that's why we've previously reviewed the Spin Doctors, Spice Girls, Genesis, and Beavis & Butthead.
Of course, you may not want to nominate something too awful even if you personally like it, otherwise no one will vote for it. Aim for a record that may or may not have been popular but at least made enough of a splash to face a fair bit of derision today. You should probably provide some evidence that this album is a bit of a joke these days, unless it's completely obvious. You get two selections before goes up late next week.
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Post by ganews on Mar 18, 2021 10:20:08 GMT -5
Alien Ant Farm, folks. The "Smooth Criminal" cover blew them up big, but that album "ANThology" was good I swear (good enough to burn with my 2001 Dell desktop at least). This was not nu metal at all, they just came out at the same time.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 18, 2021 19:04:37 GMT -5
Butthole Surfers - Pioughd (1991)
As an astute friend put it, the Buttholes started sucking the second they switched from LSD to coke, and this was the opening salvo of that era. Tragic in retrospect for those of us who still return to their '80s carnival lunacy. Yet, their interest in their bank accounts meant they still had to keep up the image of antagonistic acid-punks enough on this one for the burgeoning Lolla crowd, which means we get warped electronics and country songs about Gandhi's penis.
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Post by ganews on Mar 18, 2021 22:30:02 GMT -5
Let’s try this again. Snoop Lion. We have a longstanding rule against back-to-back nominations, but if you can give an explanation for why this is supposedly a bad/joke/ridiculous album, I'll allow it.
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monodrone
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Post by monodrone on Mar 19, 2021 6:27:46 GMT -5
Part of me doesn't want to nominate anything and potentially dilute the Alien Ant Farm vote, however, a different part of me thinks we should celebrate the upcoming 20th anniversary of another very special record. An album I have already listened to by choice in the year 2021. That record, as I'm sure you've all guessed by now, is one of the most important cultural documents of its time. That's right, I'm talking about the one, the only:
HOOBASTANK - HOOBASTANK
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Post by ganews on Mar 19, 2021 10:30:48 GMT -5
Part of me doesn't want to nominate anything and potentially dilute the Alien Ant Farm vote, however, a different part of me thinks we should celebrate the upcoming 20th anniversary of another very special record. An album I have already listened to by choice in the year 2021. That record, as I'm sure you've all guessed by now, is one of the most important cultural documents of its time. That's right, I'm talking about the one, the only: HOOBASTANK - HOOBASTANK Ah yes, the first time I ever crowdsurfed. *chef's kiss*
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Mar 19, 2021 10:41:49 GMT -5
I'd like to nominate the "Nyan Cat" song. I think it's good.
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Post by Djse (and a Sack of Cats) on Mar 19, 2021 23:40:19 GMT -5
From Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lulu_(Lou_Reed_and_Metallica_album)" Lulu is a collaboration album between rock singer-songwriter Lou Reed and heavy metal band Metallica. It was released as double album on October 31, 2011, by Warner Bros. in the U.S. and Vertigo elsewhere. The album is the final full-length studio recording project that Reed was involved in before his death in October 2013...Upon its release, Lulu received mixed reviews, and an extremely negative response from many fans and several prominent critics." ETA: Some review highlights: "Audacious to the extreme, but exhaustingly tedious as a result, its few interesting ideas are stretched out beyond the point of utility and pounded into submission." - Stuart Berma, Pitchfork"If the Red Hot Chili Peppers acoustically covered the 12 worst Primus songs for Starbucks, it would still be (slightly) better than this." - Chuck Klosterman, Grantland...but then there's David Bowie, who called the album Lou Reed's "greatest work". PLUS there's the story of Lou Reed challenging Lars Ulrich to a street fight during a recording session.
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Post by ganews on Mar 20, 2021 10:40:14 GMT -5
Will no one nominate Korn? I actually liked some Korn songs on the radio long, long ago but have never heard an album.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 20, 2021 12:56:16 GMT -5
Will no one nominate Korn? I actually liked some Korn songs on the radio long, long ago but have never heard an album. I never owned any Korn and haven't listened to them since high school but, for what it's worth, my recollection is Life Is Peachy (not a nomination) is about their only one that doesn't lapse unfortunately into homophobic humor. The first two albums are probably mildly interesting for historical value now because you can hear producer Brendan O'Brien Ross Robinson invent nu-metal on them (which he would go on to consider his personal Frankenstein's Monster in interviews).
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Crash Test Dumbass
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Mar 20, 2021 13:52:04 GMT -5
"Weird Al" Yankovic, In 3-D. Because it's actually a really good album and because of the seriousness of reviewing a Weird Al album, hopefully without falling into Nabin territory.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Mar 21, 2021 1:00:37 GMT -5
Will no one nominate Korn? I actually liked some Korn songs on the radio long, long ago but have never heard an album. I never owned any Korn and haven't listened to them since high school but, for what it's worth, my recollection is Life Is Peachy (not a nomination) is about their only one that doesn't lapse unfortunately into homophobic humor. The first two albums are probably mildly interesting for historical value now because you can hear producer Brendan O'Brien invent nu-metal on them (which he would go on to consider his personal Frankenstein's Monster in interviews). Frankenstein's Monster, as in a crude piecemeal lugnut of a golem who just wants love and is unjustly despised by mobs of philistines? Sounds about right...
~
Anyway, I promised I would nominate Buckner & Garcia - Pac-Man Fever (1982) this month, and I meant it. A cash-in on the inexplicably successful ode to Pac-Man, this album features eight songs whose lyrics are literally just descriptions of the premises of various arcade games circa 1981. Inexplicably, all eight of these songs are solid pop numbers that have been stuck in my head since I listened to them a decade-plus ago at the behest of hardcore punk/Internet music critic savant Mark Prindle, who gave the album a perfect 10 and called it one of the best pop records of the '80s.
In addition to being a good album, I think this is a good choice because 1) it is basically perfectly attuned to Rando's sensibilities 2) Buckner & Garcia also apparently released an updated "Pokemon Fever" single in the '90s and wrote a song about pogs called "Pogwild" to go with it, neither of which exist in any form on the Internet, and by nominating this album you will put my feet to the fire in searching for any trace of the pog song 3) They also apparently wrote a theme song for the website "Giant Bomb Dot Com," a website which a certain Shoutboxer is very fixated on relative to their relevance, and as such I think it would be apt if everyone had to suffer through a white guy blues tune about the video game website Giant Bomb.
Thank you for your time.
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monodrone
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Post by monodrone on Mar 21, 2021 6:00:55 GMT -5
Will no one nominate Korn? I actually liked some Korn songs on the radio long, long ago but have never heard an album. I never owned any Korn and haven't listened to them since high school but, for what it's worth, my recollection is Life Is Peachy (not a nomination) is about their only one that doesn't lapse unfortunately into homophobic humor. The first two albums are probably mildly interesting for historical value now because you can hear producer Brendan O'Brien invent nu-metal on them (which he would go on to consider his personal Frankenstein's Monster in interviews). Ross Robinson did the producing on the first two. B O'B came in for Issues, album #4, so I don't think he can claim any ownership for the wonderful sound of nu metal. Anyway, of course I'll nominate a Korn album. Let's try Follow The Leader, it's the one with Freak On A Leash on it.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 21, 2021 10:01:02 GMT -5
I never owned any Korn and haven't listened to them since high school but, for what it's worth, my recollection is Life Is Peachy (not a nomination) is about their only one that doesn't lapse unfortunately into homophobic humor. The first two albums are probably mildly interesting for historical value now because you can hear producer Brendan O'Brien invent nu-metal on them (which he would go on to consider his personal Frankenstein's Monster in interviews). Ross Robinson did the producing on the first two. B O'B came in for Issues, album #4, so I don't think he can claim any ownership for the wonderful sound of nu metal. Anyway, of course I'll nominate a Korn album. Let's try Follow The Leader, it's the one with Freak On A Leash on it. Yes, I was getting the two confused, but I do still recall Robinson peeved in interviews about the nu-metal sound becoming overused.
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 22, 2021 23:48:14 GMT -5
Too many good nominations here already. I don't want to split the nu metal voting bloc by doing nominating Nonpoint or Slipknot so I'm not going to.
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on Mar 23, 2021 23:26:09 GMT -5
We only get one nomination this month? In an effort to hit that sweet spot between Snoop Lion and Korn, I've resolved to nominate 311 - Transistor.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Mar 24, 2021 0:01:36 GMT -5
We only get one nomination this month? In an effort to hit that sweet spot between Snoop Lion and Korn, I've resolved to nominate 311 - Transistor. No, it's explicitly two in the first post, I just can't think of something that hits the sweet spot of good, embarrassing, and not too embarrassing.
I mean, I could just nominate Michelle Branch, but she's not a guilty pleasure, she's just pure pleasure.
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Post by Djse (and a Sack of Cats) on Mar 24, 2021 11:16:08 GMT -5
If I could think of an album as worthy as Lulu, I would have made a second nomination. I cannot.
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Post by ganews on Mar 25, 2021 22:42:54 GMT -5
Last call before the poll goes up sometime Friday.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Mar 25, 2021 22:57:50 GMT -5
OK, hell, just for some feminine energy, I'll nominate Michelle Branch - The Spirit Room (2001). I will stand by my comment that this album is better than Kid A.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 26, 2021 5:54:28 GMT -5
OK, hell, just for some feminine energy, I'll nominate Michelle Branch - The Spirit Room (2001). I will stand by my comment that this album is better than Kid A. I just finished Steven "Dawes" Hyden's book about the creation of Kid A where he goes into detail about the dartboard with the picture of Branch's face they had in the recording space.
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Post by Jimmy James on Mar 26, 2021 11:26:35 GMT -5
Bad Religion- Into the Unknown (1983)
Meet The Deedles: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1998)
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Mar 26, 2021 11:49:46 GMT -5
OK, hell, just for some feminine energy, I'll nominate Michelle Branch - The Spirit Room (2001). I will stand by my comment that this album is better than Kid A. I just finished Steven "Dawes" Hyden's book about the creation of Kid A where he goes into detail about the dartboard with the picture of Branch's face they had in the recording space.
Pics or GTFO
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Mar 26, 2021 18:38:28 GMT -5
I never owned any Korn and haven't listened to them since high school but, for what it's worth, my recollection is Life Is Peachy (not a nomination) is about their only one that doesn't lapse unfortunately into homophobic humor. The first two albums are probably mildly interesting for historical value now because you can hear producer Brendan O'Brien Ross Robinson invent nu-metal on them (which he would go on to consider his personal Frankenstein's Monster in interviews). Speaking of Hyden I looked up his old Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation column and yeah, Korn and Limp Bizkit would basically be unlistenable because of their homophobia (although I guess with Korn you could make a “working through my own demons” excuse, because damn does Jonathan Davis cut a sad figure). Credit where it is due - Fred Durst is not a MAGA chud, somehow.
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Crash Test Dumbass
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Mar 27, 2021 7:20:17 GMT -5
Speaking of Hyden I looked up his old Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation column and yeah, Korn and Limp Bizkit would basically be unlistenable because of their homophobia (although I guess with Korn you could make a “working through my own demons” excuse, because damn does Jonathan Davis cut a sad figure). Credit where it is due - Fred Durst is not a MAGA chud, somehow. He wore a stupid red hat before it was uncool.
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