Dodgy albums from great bands

Sabbath - Forbidden.

It was like there were a few good riffs in each song, then they all just fell apart by the end of it. Martin gave maybe the worst vocal/lyrical performance Sabbath ever had.

Suede - A new morning

It's got 2 great tracks and 2 good ones, but overall it's quite weak compared to their other albums.

Queen - Hot Space, The Works, A Kind of Magic

I love Queen obviously but they hit quite a rut in the mid-'80s; there's still some really quality tracks on all three albums but they're really lackluster overall. At least on Hot Space they're still trying to do something new, even though it's mostly done really clumsily and sometimes gives the impression that they don't really know what they're doing. The Works and Magic are mostly full of the same kind of poppy rock tunes that take up a lot of New of the World and The Game with more boring synths and generally weaker songwriting. I think that the band finding out that Freddie had HIV gave them a kick in the ass because The Miracle and Innuendo are both great.

Iron Maiden - The X-Factor, Virtual XI

I don't even think Blaze Bailey is the worst part of these albums. He's not good, but I think what really lets them down is the fact that Martin Birch isn't there anymore, so Steve Harris has to take over production duties with help from some nobody, and it sounds like shit. The guitars are weak as hell and long instrumental passages on songs like Sign of the Cross and Fortunes of War just come off as lifeless and boring. Short, to the point tracks like Lord of the Flies and Futureal come off sounding okay because there aren't any spacey soft parts, but overall the albums are just big stupid messes.

Led Zeppelin - Presence

I see people trying to defend this one a fair amount, and that's fine, but I personally don't like it, which is too bad because a master stroke like Achilles Last Stand deserves much better. It just feels like boring, phoned in hard rock with vocals that are even weaker than the unimpressive vocals on albums like Physical Graffiti and In Through the Out Door. I'll take Achilles and Nobody's Fault and forget about everything else, although the Celebration Day performance of In Your Life is actually really good.

Muse - The 2nd Law

Black Sabbath - Forbidden

Ehhhhh.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - By the Way
John abused power here, which was the main problem. They went for the whole "soft rock" approach, which is not what they're good at. I like when a band changes their approach, the Loads were great albums, but obviously this album was controlled by John. Flea originally said that he was gonna leave the band because he didn't get enough power and didn't get to play his Get Up And Jump funky-in-your-face basslines. So, the whole thing seemed forced and John's product. If the whole band wrote all the songs together, the product would've come off as, well, better. I'm not too big on John's solo albums, so this one just didn't cut it for me. There are some good bits though. By the Way, Can't Stop, On Mercury and Minor Thing are all good songs. I suppose I could write a pass for Midnight too but the rest of the album is a bust.

Sublime - Robbin the Hood
I get that they were trying to go for the whole "you gotta be stoned to get it dude" approach, but it has to have SOME appeal when you're not stoned if you want the album to actually be good. There are some good songs though. I like Greatest Hits, Falling Idols, and All You Need, and the Raleigh Soliloquies are absolutely HILARIOUS. The rest of the album just seems like a lot of weird noodling when you're not stoned. Another problem is that the album is underproduced. The songs are literally the raw 4-track demos. No production at all. This really effects some songs, such as Boss DJ, which sounds really scratchy and badly recorded, to where it's hard to even hear correctly. I mean that sounds like something from the Nirvana box set With The Lights Out. Another example is Freeway Time In LA County Jail, where the volume is so low I can only hear the bass. The Raliegh Soliloquies are overly loud too. Some will say this is part of the album's charm, but it doesn't work for me.

RHCPs suck though...

Oasis - Standing On The Shoulder of Giants

Therapy? - One Cure Fits All

U2 - No Line On The Horizon

Dream Theater - When Dream & Day Unite

Errrr that album is awesome, given it's not as good as Chaos AD, but it still rocks like a mf. 

I thought thread title said 'great' bands 

Dig Out Your Soul is one of their best albums

And I rate Heritage highly too

Will have to revisit this one then.
I never really gave it much time.

Go sit in the corner.

Everything Mastodon have released since September 2006.

That + the genuinely upsetting Heathen Chemistry by Oasis kept Idlewild's phenomenal, out of this world, pretty decent record The Remote Part off #1 in the charts in the UK so I oppose this album on ethical and personal grounds.

It's an alright album but I'm not sure RHCP have a single great album in their discography. Always A Few Too Many Weak Spots EH.

Imagine not having that in yr top 3/top 2 Oasis albums. What a cracking album.

Heathen Chemistry is not great but it's better than Shoulder of Giants.

Heathen Chemistry should have had Thank You For The Good Times and the full band version of Songbird.