Recommendations of the Editorial team
The most disappointing albums of all time (18): Duran Duran – “Thank you”
A strand of success cannot last forever. And if you are a successful recording artist with a long career, the moment in which fans and critics are disappointed is inevitably disappointed.
This can be because a large experiment has not paid off as hoped for. The taste changed quickly. One is suddenly dismissed as relic of the past. That you have created something so bold and innovative that your genius will only be recognized in the coming years. Or that you simply produced a dud, due to a combination of physical and creative exhaustion. The unbearable stress of wanting to exceed yourself. And maybe the influence of certain chemical substances.
For really great artists, a disappointing album can only be a little bump on the way to a long, successful career. Bob Dylan has many albums that can confidently describe as “disappointing”. And they only made the successors 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 include several generations.
Evaluation: also depending on the time
The American Rolling Stone has put together a list of the 50 most disappointing albums in music history. Some important reservations have to be made before different fan armies make plans to set fire to set fire. Or to let go of SWAT teams on our houses. We absolutely love some of these albums. An album can be considered disappointing the moment it comes out. And later re -evaluated forever.
This has to do with the time and critical consensus at a certain point in time. And an album that is considered a B+/A- is still disappointing when it follows a series of A/A+albums.
In addition, a disappointing album would be viewed as a masterpiece by an incredibly talented artist such as Radiohead or U2 if it had been published by almost everyone else. (We made the decision to record “The King of Limbs” and “Songs of Innocence” here, but made it really difficult. But ultimately they recorded.)
(And if you storm our houses because we have picked up your favorite band here, you can at least do it during the day? It’s annoying when you storm in the middle of the night. “The King of Limmbs” is also damn good. Tear together, radiohead army.)
The most disappointing albums of all time (18): Duran Duran – “Thank you”
Duran Duran were as dead as the disco started when the nineties started, but in 1993 they were relevant again thanks to “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone” from the 1993 album “The Wedding Album”.
That was the moment to go back to the studio and to record another album with your own songs and to capitalize on the unexpected swing. It was not the moment to record a cover album on which everything from Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” and Elvis Costellos “Watching the Detective” up to public enemys “911 is a joke” and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “White Lines” received the Duran-Duran treatment.
The most disappointing albums of all time (18): Duran Duran – “Thank you”
Nobody wanted to hear that Duran Duran tries in hip-hop. The project was a mistake from start to finish and ended their comeback prematurely.