Artists that had few great songs but produced a lot of mediocre music

[DaRick]

And then on top of those classics the run of albums from Exile to Tattoo You are awesome too. That was the era I discovered the Stones as an early teen, so Some Girls, Black And Blue, Goatshead Soup, Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You mean a lot to me. I could select at least a dozen great songs from those records, so a "few" is well and truly covered.

I think some posters need to look elsewhere to satisfy this thread - Queen would be a reasonable start.

There are a few problems here:
1) Queen up until A Day At The Races made albums that were solid at worst, and truly excellent at best.
2) Even on most of their so-so albums (bar maybe Hot Space), there's at least one classic that elevates the rest of the album just by its presence*.
3) The last album with Freddie still alive (Innuendo) is genuinely good in it's own right.

*
1) News of The World: Those two we've all heard a billion times
2) Jazz: Don't Stop Me Know & Fat Bottomed Girls; others quite like Mostapha and Bicycle Race, but the last song IMO is so fey that it should fly away and never be heard from again, whereas the former never grabbed me for some reason.
3) The Game: Two obvious standouts; I guess that Need Your Loving Tonight is an OK pop-rock ballad with Mercury predictably elevating it above the rank with his timing - knowing when to stop, knowing when to go all-out (during the course). Really part of the reason why he's the greatest rock vocalist of all time IMO.
4) Hot Space: Their worst album. Body Language is a guilty pleasure, not a bona-fide classic. If you include Under Pressure, that's the classic.
5) The Works: Radio Ga Ga and arguably I Want to Break Free. Hammer to Fall has a promising opening riff, but the song is appallingly lightweight given the song's heavy subject matter. Musically, they play it as fairly lightweight hard rock, not the menacing, crunchy hard rock the song initially promises. Because of these lighter arrangements, the song becomes not the musical equivalent of a nuclear holocaust, but more like the equivalent of life in everyday Britain with the nuclear menace representing a danger in the background. You could argue that this depicton is true to life, but it doesn't make the song more enjoyable.
6) A Kind of Magic: Has two classics IMO (A Kind of Magic; Who Wants To Live Forever due to Freddy being at his peak vocally); I quite like Friends Will Be Friends, but others consider it disposable.
7) The Miracle: The Miracle is a classic; I Want It All isn't quite, but it's an enjoyable slab of stadium-rock.

TLDR; Queen isn't in the Green Day class of being a singles vs filler band that churned out only one very good album because:
1) Many of their albums are consistently solid, even excellent at best.
2) Even in their singles vs filler phase, the singles often stood out so much that they elevated the entire album, plus they carried momentum through the album which would have made the lesser songs a little more tolerable for many.
3) They ended with a genuinely good album, and Freddie's unfortunate (and horrifying) death sealed Queen's legacy.

 

[GhostofJimJess]

There are a few problems here:
1) Queen up until A Day At The Races made albums that were solid at worst, and truly excellent at best.
2) Even on most of their so-so albums (bar maybe Hot Space), there's at least one classic that elevates the rest of the album just by its presence*.
3) The last album with Freddie still alive (Innuendo) is genuinely good in it's own right.

*
1) News of The World: Those two we've all heard a billion times
2) Jazz: Don't Stop Me Know & Fat Bottomed Girls; others quite like Mostapha and Bicycle Race, but the last song IMO is so fey that it should fly away and never be heard from again, whereas the former never grabbed me for some reason.
3) The Game: Two obvious standouts; I guess that Need Your Loving Tonight is an OK pop-rock ballad with Mercury predictably elevating it above the rank with his timing - knowing when to stop, knowing when to go all-out (during the course). Really part of the reason why he's the greatest rock vocalist of all time IMO.
4) Hot Space: Their worst album. Body Language is a guilty pleasure, not a bona-fide classic. If you include Under Pressure, that's the classic.
5) The Works: Radio Ga Ga and arguably I Want to Break Free. Hammer to Fall has a promising opening riff, but the song is appallingly lightweight given that the song's heavy subject matter. Musically, they play it as fairly lightweight hard rock, not the menacing, crunchy hard rock the song initially promise. Because of these lighter arrangements, the song becomes not the musical equivalent of a nuclear holocaust, but as life in everyday Britain with the nuclear menace representing a danger in the background. You could argue that this depicton is true to life, but it doesn't make the song more enjoyable.
6) A Kind of Magic: Has two classics IMO (A Kind of Magic; Who Wants To Live Forever due to Freddy being at his peak vocally); I quite like Friends Will Be Friends, but others consider it disposable.
7) The Miracle: The Miracle is a classic; I Want It All isn't quite, but it's an enjoyable slab of stadium-rock.

TLDR; Queen isn't in the Green Day class of being a singles vs filler band that churned out only one very good album because:
1) Many of their albums are consistently solid, even excellent at best.
2) Even in their singles vs filler phase, the singles often stood out so much that they elevated the entire album, plus they carried momentum through the album which would have made the lesser songs a little more tolerable for many.
3) They ended with a genuinely good album, and Freddie's unfortunate (and horrifying) death sealed Queen's legacy.

Yeah fair enough, as a fan you've obviously found enough in there to fill a decent catalogue of tunes.

For me though, Queen have always epitomised the band who has the largest gap between their best and their worst material. That said, their best is wonderful, as exemplified in NaTO.

 

[DaRick]

Yeah fair enough, as a fan you've obviously found enough in there to fill a decent catalogue of tunes.

For me though, Queen have always epitomised the band who has the largest gap between their best and their worst material. That said, their best is wonderful, as exemplified in NaTO.

Bad Queen is admittedly pretty bad, but for me that 'honour' belongs to Guns N' Roses, with David Bowie coming in second.

Both have higher highs than Queen IMO, but Guns N' Roses at their worst sound like a bunch of randoms just putting stuff together while freeballing (My World is one of the worst things I've ever heard). Bad David Bowie sounds so insubstantial and generic (most of Tonight) that afterwards you wonder whether you actually listened to anything.

AC/DC are the opposite. A lot of their discography isn't particularly remarkable, but they've not made many truly bad songs.

(Bear in mind that I actually like all four artists.)

 

[Purple7x08_24]

One Republic have 2 great songs 3 tops. I've been right through their discography and the majority of it is trash.

Kanye West, Drake

Finding a good song is like pulling a needle out of a haystack

 

[Purple7x08_24]

Both have higher highs than Queen IMO, but Guns N' Roses at their worst sound like a bunch of randoms just putting stuff together while freeballing (My World is one of the worst things I've ever heard). Bad David Bowie sounds so insubstantial and generic (most of Tonight) that afterwards you wonder whether you actually listened to anything.

I have found Slash's stuff to be reasonably good
Anastassia is one of my favs

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Simple Minds

 

[Purple7x08_24]

Simple Minds

Tou need to listen to more albums

 

[utility]

Megadeth. To a lesser extent Metallica.

 

[backtozero]

Pearl Jam.

Apart from the debut album, probably one or two good tracks on each album and then filler galore.

 

[Mofra]

Pearl Jam.

Apart from the debut album, probably one or two good tracks on each album and then filler galore.

I really got into everything up to Vitalogy, then it all seemed to move ever so slightly to MoR with each successive release

 

[Spearman]

We will have to agree to disagree here. Their run of albums from Beggars Banquet to Exile is one of the best in music history IMHO.

and add Some Girls and Tattoo You to that list.

 

[Spearman]

I might add Waterboys to the list, Fisherman's Blues had some great songs, but it was the production and arrangements that made it great. Their earlier albums had songs but the sound wasn't for me. When you hear them play some of them in the FB style live they are much better. Same can be said for the later albums. Just didn't nail the sound.

 

[Mofra]

Motley Crue?
By their own admission, Theatre of Pain / Shout at the Devil had a lot of filler on them as they were to drunk and DFed to record whole albums properly.

 

[DaRick]

Motley Crue?
By their own admission, Theatre of Pain / Shout at the Devil had a lot of filler on them as they were to drunk and DFed to record whole albums properly.

Nikki Sixx made a comment about Girls, Girls, Girls being complete ass outside of the two big singles (Wild Side/Girls, Girls, Girls), which is pretty much on the mark unless you have a soft spot for You're All I Need.

Their first two albums are surprisingly consistent, but outside of those two they're very much a singles vs filler band, and even their singles sucked sometimes. Theatre of Pain is just terrible all round.

Tou need to listen to more albums

New Gold Dream is unfortunately the only Simple Minds album I've heard that's particularly consistent.

Megadeth. To a lesser extent Metallica.

Metallica have scaled higher peaks than Megadeth, but their worst sucks just as much as Megadeth's (Risk/Super Collider vs St. Anger/Lulu). Load/Reload aren't much to write home about either IMO. I find Megadeth to be more consistent given the number of albums they've both released/will release (Megadeth's 16 to Metallica's 10).

Pearl Jam.

Apart from the debut album, probably one or two good tracks on each album and then filler galore.

Pretty much, though Vitalogy is an OK take on U2, I guess.

They came up with some smokin' riffs on Ten (Even Flow/Alive/Jeremy), but even those songs are overlong because they tend to go on aimless jams. It's like they took cues from Journey in that regard, but the problem is that while McCready/Gossard are good guitarists, Neal Schon is on another level.

 

[Purple7x08_24]

Motley Crue?
By their own admission, Theatre of Pain / Shout at the Devil had a lot of filler on them as they were to drunk and DFed to record whole albums properly.

you mean Motley Lue

Nikki Sixx made a comment about Girls, Girls, Girls being complete ass outside of the two big singles (Wild Side/Girls, Girls, Girls), which is pretty much on the mark unless you have a soft spot for You're All I Need.

Their first two albums are surprisingly consistent, but outside of those two they're very much a singles vs filler band, and even their singles sucked sometimes. Theatre of Pain is just terrible all round.



New Gold Dream is unfortunately the only Simple Minds album I've heard that's particularly consistent.



Metallica have scaled higher peaks than Megadeth, but their worst sucks just as much as Megadeth's (Risk/Super Collider vs St. Anger/Lulu). Load/Reload aren't much to write home about either IMO. I find Megadeth to be more consistent given the number of albums they've both released/will release (Megadeth's 16 to Metallica's 10).



Pretty much, though Vitalogy is an OK take on U2, I guess.

They came up with some smokin' riffs on Ten (Even Flow/Alive/Jeremy), but even those songs are overlong because they tend to go on aimless jams. It's like they took cues from Journey in that regard, but the problem is that while McCready/Gossard are good guitarists, Neal Schon is on another level.

I've got The Hurting at home and quite like it. I'll have another listen to the other albums. I bought Scoundrel Days by Aha and it was really bad.

 

[PhatBoy]

U2 had a few good songs early in their career, but there is a sameness to most of their music that I found disappointing.

The Dandy Warhols started brilliantly with three great albums, but afterwards were nothing short of terrible.

The Rolling Stones have a dozen or so great songs, but most of their catalogue is disappointing.

There were a lot of Prog Rock bands (The Moody Blues, Yes, ELP etc...) that had a few classics songs but most of their music is dreadful.

Geez I don’t get that take on U2.
Edge does have a particular sound that he defaults to but as a unit I don’t think they’ve ever put out two albums that are like for like beyond maybe Undorgettable Fire and Joshua Tree. I get they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, totally understand that view, but yeah one of the critical commonalities when people talk about U2 is that they have been very quick to reinvent their Modus Operandi from album to album.

A good demonstration of the progression is Joshua Tree, followed by Achtung Baby followed by Zooropa.


On the subject at hand the first thing I thought of was Silverchair.

Their best 5-6 songs - Israel’s Son, Pure Massacre, The Door, Tomorrow, Greatest View (yes they’re all singles so they’re obvious candidates) - they’re as good as any Australian rock music in the last 30 years IMO. The rest is just ordinary when I listen to it.

 

[La Dispute]

Went through a bit of a Kings of Leon phase for a bit and don't think their last decade is as bad as I thought.

Only By The Night was probably their first true mainstream album, and it's kind of a poor man's Because of the Times, but it's listenable end to end. From there is was less a drastic drop off than a slow death. The songwriting is pretty strong considering.

Will say they don't have any high peaks. Depending on your taste your could nominate any of their first 3 LP's as your favourite, but BotT was pretty much the perfect distillation of everything they'd be gunning for on ASH, they just added some more atmospheric tracks and slowed things down tastefully.

Maybe there's a couple of filler tracks toward, otherwise it's basically a 9/10.

 

[the_interloper]

Megadeth. To a lesser extent Metallica.

Big fan of both. If we're talking post 2000s Metallica I'd tend to agree, Megadeth have had a pretty solid record over the same period though, Supercollider was the only stinker, the rest of them have varied from very good to excellent for me.

 

[La Dispute]

I don’t think Metallica have had a decent LP since the Black Album, and even that is a bit by the numbers and closer to hard rock than their thrashier stuff.

They are a pretty good candidate for this thread really. Elite output in the 80’s, but mostly tosh the past 30 years.

 

[the_interloper]

I don’t think Metallica have had a decent LP since the Black Album, and even that is a bit by the numbers and closer to hard rock than their thrashier stuff.

They are a pretty good candidate for this thread really. Elite output in the 80’s, but mostly tosh the past 30 years.

Load is a good album, I still give that a spin, quite underrated. Reload was shit though, Garage Inc was good too (though a covers album so not sure if that counts)

 

[La Dispute]

Load is a good album, I still give that a spin, quite underrated. Reload was s**t though, Garage Inc was good too (though a covers album so not sure if that counts)

Like a lot of bands listed ITT it kind of depends on your personal taste and how highly you rate the band in the first place.

If you’re a Metallica fan a 6/10 album may as well be a 7 or an 8.

I’m more into Slayer of the big 4, and I like their weaker LP’s more than Metallica’s. (And their classic albums more than Metallica’s too tbf)

 

[the_interloper]

Like a lot of bands listed ITT it kind of depends on your personal taste and how highly you rate the band in the first place.

If you’re a Metallica fan a 6/10 album may as well be a 7 or an 8.

I’m more into Slayer of the big 4, and I like their weaker LP’s more than Metallica’s. (And their classic albums more than Metallica’s too tbf)

Yeah that's fair enough. I feel like Load is shit on a lot by "true" Metallica fans though, it really is a great blues rock album, maybe too far away from metal for some though.

 

[Pweter]

There are a few problems here:
1) Queen up until A Day At The Races made albums that were solid at worst, and truly excellent at best.
2) Even on most of their so-so albums (bar maybe Hot Space), there's at least one classic that elevates the rest of the album just by its presence*.
3) The last album with Freddie still alive (Innuendo) is genuinely good in it's own right.

*
1) News of The World: Those two we've all heard a billion times
2) Jazz: Don't Stop Me Know & Fat Bottomed Girls; others quite like Mostapha and Bicycle Race, but the last song IMO is so fey that it should fly away and never be heard from again, whereas the former never grabbed me for some reason.
3) The Game: Two obvious standouts; I guess that Need Your Loving Tonight is an OK pop-rock ballad with Mercury predictably elevating it above the rank with his timing - knowing when to stop, knowing when to go all-out (during the course). Really part of the reason why he's the greatest rock vocalist of all time IMO.
4) Hot Space: Their worst album. Body Language is a guilty pleasure, not a bona-fide classic. If you include Under Pressure, that's the classic.
5) The Works: Radio Ga Ga and arguably I Want to Break Free. Hammer to Fall has a promising opening riff, but the song is appallingly lightweight given the song's heavy subject matter. Musically, they play it as fairly lightweight hard rock, not the menacing, crunchy hard rock the song initially promises. Because of these lighter arrangements, the song becomes not the musical equivalent of a nuclear holocaust, but more like the equivalent of life in everyday Britain with the nuclear menace representing a danger in the background. You could argue that this depicton is true to life, but it doesn't make the song more enjoyable.
6) A Kind of Magic: Has two classics IMO (A Kind of Magic; Who Wants To Live Forever due to Freddy being at his peak vocally); I quite like Friends Will Be Friends, but others consider it disposable.
7) The Miracle: The Miracle is a classic; I Want It All isn't quite, but it's an enjoyable slab of stadium-rock.

TLDR; Queen isn't in the Green Day class of being a singles vs filler band that churned out only one very good album because:
1) Many of their albums are consistently solid, even excellent at best.
2) Even in their singles vs filler phase, the singles often stood out so much that they elevated the entire album, plus they carried momentum through the album which would have made the lesser songs a little more tolerable for many.
3) They ended with a genuinely good album, and Freddie's unfortunate (and horrifying) death sealed Queen's legacy.

I agree on the hit and miss aspect of Queen but gladly tell a story about Friends Will Be Friends when it needs to be told.

I had a mate going through some dark dark days and wasn't responding to anyone. I sent him that song and got a response, not much but a start. From there it was a long road back but he came back.

I rate the song enormously as a result.

As for a live band, I'd love to find a time machine to see Queen on stage

 

[MisterMarcus]

Simple Minds

Post about 1983, sure.

But their early weird arty post-punk/dance stuff is amazing.

 

[GreatBradScott]

Red Hot Chili Peppers. Reckon their top dozen or so tunes are unreal, then the next 20 or so show some of the most intricate instrumentalism in modern music.

Lot of it is just flat ruined by Kiedis being annoying and singing jibberish.