The Most Disappointing Albums of All Time (10): Michael Jackson: “Invincible”
A winning streak cannot last forever. And when you’re a successful recording artist with a long career, there inevitably comes a time when fans and critics are disappointed with a new album.
This may be because a big experiment didn’t pay off as hoped. The taste changed quickly. You are suddenly dismissed as a relic of the past. For creating something so bold and innovative that its genius will only be appreciated in years to come. Or that you simply produced a dud due to a combination of physical and creative exhaustion. The unbearable stress of trying to surpass yourself. And perhaps the influence of certain chemical substances.
For truly great artists, a disappointing album can be just a bump in the road to a long, successful career. Bob Dylan has many albums that can safely be described as “disappointing.” And they only made the sequels even more impressive and interesting. The same could be said of David Bowie, Madonna, Jay-Z, Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones, and other artists whose careers span multiple generations.
Rating: Also depends on the time
The American ROLLING STONE has compiled a list of the 50 most disappointing albums in music history. There are some important caveats that need to be made before various armies of fans make plans to set our offices on fire. Or unleashing SWAT teams on our homes. We absolutely love some of these albums. An album can be seen as disappointing the moment it comes out. And later be reevaluated forever.
This mainly has to do with the timing and the critical consensus at a particular point in time. And an album that’s considered B+/A- is still disappointing when it follows a string of A/A+ albums.
Plus, a disappointing album by an incredibly talented artist like Radiohead or U2 would be considered a masterpiece if it had been released by almost anyone else. (We had a really hard time deciding to include “The King of Limbs” and “Songs of Innocence” here. But we ended up including them.)
(And if you’re going to storm our houses because we recorded your favorite band here, can you at least do it during the day? It’s annoying when they storm in in the middle of the night. Plus, “The King of Limbs” is damn good. Get a grip , Radiohead Army.)
The Most Disappointing Albums of All Time (10): Michael Jackson: “Invincible”
At the height of the teen pop era, when acts like NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys were making dance-pop songs straight from the Michael Jackson-Wrote the script, the man himself returned after a six-year absence to join in Invincible to reclaim his throne. It was the product of $30 million, five years, and an absurd number of songwriters and producers.
But it still sounded like an AI had been tasked with producing Michael Jackson songs. There wasn’t a moment on the album that sounded remotely fresh or original.
In that respect it was the opposite of thriller. “There is no joy or humor in it, no sense of liberation,” Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times. “Mr. Jackson is trying to write songs that will capture the media universe again. Pop that lives up to its former glory. He’s not willing to get too personal. But he can’t escape his scars and ambitions.”
To make matters worse, the first single was released just weeks before 9/11. When the album came out in October, not many people felt like dancing.