Today begins my countdown of my personal Top 5 Biggest Letdown Albums of All Time. I was thinking about this while some friends and I were discussing who we would consider the greatest rock band of this decade, and it made me realize how many bands I used to really love put out really disappointing albums. So over the next five days, I’ll share my own personal top 5 losers with the hopes that it will start some discussion in these quite-dormant comments.

I’ve used several criteria to weigh what makes an album a big letdown:

1. Being highly anticipated. I need to have really looked forward to its release, rather than just having stumbled upon it or finding it in the back catalog of an established band I was just getting into.

2. Having almost no memorable artistically redeeming qualities.

3. Killed off my interest in the artist / band, making me think of them in terms of their past as opposed to something with a present and a future.

So be here tomorrow for #5, and maybe if you have your own, post them on your blog and I can link to it. Or if you don’t have your own blog, e-mail yours to me and I’ll post yours.

UPDATE: Since the countdown on this blog has now continued, here’s the list:

5. Suede – “Head Music”
4. Super Furry Animals – “Rings Around the World”
3. Matthew Sweet – “Blue Sky on Mars”
2. Grant Lee Buffalo – “Copperopolis”
1. R.E.M. – “Up”

I think it’s worth noting that this series has inspired me to give all five of these albums another listen or two. Writing about the anticipation that led up to them so many years ago has jogged enough memories that I’m excited to listen to them again.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 2:54 pm and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.