{"id":1965453,"date":"2025-08-17T16:59:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T16:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1965453"},"modified":"2025-08-17T16:59:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T16:59:59","slug":"your-favorite-artists-worst-albums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/your-favorite-artists-worst-albums\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Favorite Artists\u2019 Worst Albums"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

As the late, great Hannah Montana once said: \u201cEverybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days.\u201d And she meant every<\/em>body, even your favorite artists\u2014the genre-defining, Grammy-hoarding icons with more money than I\u2019d have even if I lived forever. So, I decided to revisit some of their lowest moments\u2014to better understand them, not to tear them down. I went big, in both name and discography. After hours of actual research and mildly unhinged listening, I\u2019ve gathered what I believe to be each artist\u2019s weakest link. This is a lovingly compiled archive of unfortunate misfires.<\/p>\n

Obviously, this is all subjective. And therein lies the point: These names are generally regarded as great in one way or another, which makes the flops all the more fascinating. Consider this a study in what happens when you go too long, swing and miss, or completely abandon the styles that once made you great. And hey, maybe we\u2019ll return to this again and talk about Kendrick Lamar or the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But until then, here is our inaugural of the worst albums by artists we really like.<\/p>\n

My Everything<\/em> is a classic instance of an album of singles padded with filler. To prove it, look no further than the transition from the gentle, harmony-forward opener, \u201cIntro,\u201d into \u201cProblem,\u201d the Iggy Azalea-featuring track that I am certain I blocked from my memory. Those squawks, Azalea\u2019s \u201cUh-huh.\u201d It\u2019s an affront to ears everywhere. Similarly to someone like Justin Bieber, Grande\u2019s effortless vocals make even the most filler of filler tracks easy listening. It\u2019s just so underwhelming and consequently makes the singles, as catchy as they are, feel unsettlingly out of place.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"I AM\u2026 SASHA FIERCE<\/em> serves a similar purpose in Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s discography as Ariana Grande\u2019s My Everything: a vessel to release a slew of singles under one disc. It\u2019s set up in two sections: I AM<\/em>, the R&B-focused, soulful moments, and SASHA FIERCE<\/em>, the dance-centric, party-forward types. Between \u201cDiva,\u201d \u201cVideo Phone,\u201d \u201cSweet Dreams,\u201d and \u201cRadio,\u201d the FIERCE<\/em> side outdoes the I AM<\/em> side by miles, but the album as a whole doesn\u2019t make good use of its double LP runtime. Tracks like \u201cSatellites\u201d and \u201cDisappear\u201d are forgettable, made even worse next to era-defining hits like \u201cHalo\u201d and \u201cIf I Were A Boy.\u201d So yes, this is the worst Beyonc\u00e9 album, but more for lack of cohesion rather than lack of musical quality. There are still plenty of songs on here that remind you exactly why she is Beyonc\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Britney Jean<\/em> was meant to be Spears\u2019 most personal record to date, but it underwhelms from the jump. Chillwave pseudo-ballad \u201cAlien\u201d is meant to be the pop star unpacking her inherent isolation, positioning herself lost in space, wanting to go home. There\u2019s a \u201clights on no one\u2019s home\u201d to the delivery that permeates through every song. Even the still-iconic \u201cWork Bitch\u201d has a kind of dead eyes, robotic overlay to the whole thing. Spears recorded the album during the depths of her conservatorship. She was in the midst of her stint as a judge on X-Factor<\/em>, and announced her two-year Vegas Piece of Me<\/em> residency during the rollout. The record feels like recycled Femme Fatale<\/em> rejects, at times even mirroring certain tracks (I\u2019ll die on the hill that \u201cTil It\u2019s Gone\u201d interpolates \u201cI Wanna Go\u201d in the laziest way possible). Her heart wasn\u2019t in it, and for rightful reasons. What\u2019s left is a shell of an album that says more about her circumstances than her artistry.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"A lot of Springsteen\u2019s recent work is hard to swallow. 2019\u2019s Western and 2022\u2019s Only the Strong Survive<\/em> almost took Working On A Dream<\/em>\u2019s spot. But this album grinds my gears in such a specific, adult contemporary Starbucks\/Barnes & Noble-compilation-CD way that it needed to be called out. The Boss\u2019 voice sounds particularly scratched up on the opener, eight-minute \u201cOutlaw Pete\u201d that is part musical soundtrack, part wanna-be \u201cThunder Road.\u201d There\u2019s honky-tonk (\u201cTomorrow Never Knows\u201d), accidental Christmas carols (\u201cThis Life\u201d), and songs that sound destined for Disney movie soundtracks (\u201cLife Itself\u201d). I\u2019ve just never wanted to listen to something less.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Every time I see a video of early 2010s Charli XCX head-banging on stage with an electric guitar and a live band, I am further vindicated in my belief that SUCKER<\/em> will have its very own \u201cparty 4 u\u201d cultural reckoning. I love this album, even if it crumbles next to how I\u2019m feeling now<\/em> or Pop 2<\/em>. I\u2019m just a sucker (ha!) for rocker-girl Charli. She was in her early hitmaker era, coming off the highs of \u201cI Love It\u201d and \u201cFancy\u201d before recalibrating the shockwaves with \u201cBoom Clap\u201d and \u201cBreak the Rules.\u201d The title track is one of the best, most left-field Charli tracks in existence. She possesses the same overconfident drawl she has on tracks like \u201cVon dutch\u201d in the opening line: \u201cYou said you wanna bang? \/ Well \/ Fuck you! \/ Sucker!\u201d There\u2019s an oversaturation of crashing backbeats and spikey pop rock guitar, Charli\u2019s double-tracked harmonies bouncing around whatever empty space that\u2019s left. It has that angsty attitude akin to tracks like \u201cFranchesckaar\u201d on 2008\u2019s 14<\/em>. And overall, it\u2019s much more foundational than people give it credit for.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Before I started my research for this piece, I\u2019d never even heard of this album. I saw the cover and title alone, and had to brace myself for what was about to meet my ears. For God and Country<\/em> is Dolly Parton\u2019s 40th album, and also her most patriotic, born out of good old-fashioned post-9\/11 nationalism. (She\u2019d originally wanted the record to stop on September 11, 2003, in fact.) The tracklist literally includes \u201cGod Bless the USA\u201d and \u201cThe Star Spangled Banner.\u201d She even does a bluegrass rendition of \u201cMy Country \u2018Tis Of Thee\u201d (shortened to \u201cMy Country Tis\u201d), which is as jarring as you\u2019d expect. Among the Parton originals on the record are \u201cWelcome Home,\u201d an on-the-nose ode to military returning from overseas, and \u201cBrave Little Soldier,\u201d a lullaby-meets-Disney-soundtrack that\u2019s basically just Parton repeating \u201cI\u2019m a brave little soldier\u201d on a loop with a chorus of children behind her. Everything is either set to a march, a gospel, or skull-shattering bluegrass. Aside from the fact that For God and Country<\/em> wasn\u2019t really an album we needed, especially from Parton (who prided herself as being patriotic but apolitical at the time of release), especially when it is 18 songs long and half of them fall under the genre \u201cTraditional.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Now, I had a lot to choose from here. It was truly a toss-up between a good few. Drake\u2019s post-Views<\/em> career remains an enigma to me: hit hungry and insatiable in a way that drastically compromised quality for quantity. Truly, nothing was the same (pun intended). The 2020s haven\u2019t necessarily been the Toronto egomaniac\u2019s decade. Even before being publicly and globally humiliated by Kendrick Lamar, he had a steady slew of overstuffed, subpar albums. Certified Lover Boy<\/em>, for me, takes the cake as his worst to date. First of all, it\u2019s in the running for worst album cover of the century. It\u2019s Drake at his most self-aggrandizing, an hour and a half of him waxing poetic about how hard it is to be such a singular, industry-defining rapper. He cycles through the same three beats over the 21 songs, delivering his underwhelming verses in the same cadence he\u2019s used for years. He insists on looking backward, holding himself on such a high pedestal that you can hear him trying to recreate old career highs. The heavy, recycled 808s on \u201cNo Friends in the Industry\u201d are Drake shooting for CLB<\/em>\u2019s \u201cNonstop\u201d and underdelivering. He continues his timestamp series with \u201c7am On Bridle Path,\u201d named after the street that leads up to his multi-million dollar Toronto mansion, continuing to whine about all the people seemingly plotting his downfall. There\u2019s also an R. Kelly credit? In 2021? I\u2019m over it.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"An album so inconsequential I forgot it existed. We, as a collective, should never let Justin Bieber forget about \u201cYummy.\u201d I can\u2019t deny that his voice will always catapult me back to a very specific time in my tweendom, so for that, I\u2019ll always possess the smallest of soft spots. But Changes<\/em> is just bland, mostly because of the \u201cI love my wife\u201d of it all, which doesn\u2019t give the record much room to explore a deliberate narrative. It\u2019s all, \u201cI want you,\u201d \u201cI miss you,\u201d \u201cI love you,\u201d with nothing underneath. Bieber\u2019s vocals can turn any bad song so-so, and it really is the saving grace across Changes<\/em>. Songs like the downtempo \u201cE.T.A.,\u201d where his vocals are center stage with just a guitar and an echo behind them, are much-needed reprieves from the senseless trap beats and video game soundtracking. The features are equally grab-bag: Lil Dicky, Quavo, and Post Malone among them, with Bieber explicitly trying to bring his sound into the electro-R&B space. The Journals<\/em> 2.0 that fans had been looking for wouldn\u2019t come for another five years. Who knew he just needed a crashout and a little Swag<\/em> to tap back into what made him magnetic in the first place.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"I got into a heated debate with my therapist about the \u201cworst\u201d Gaga album. Unfortunately for him, I stand by the fact that it\u2019s Joanne<\/em>. And I\u2019m a Joanne<\/em> believer. I just have to look at the facts. Chromatica<\/em> is a close second, but the lows on Joanne<\/em> hit worse, if only given the subject matter. I like exactly half of Joanne<\/em>. Sometimes, I like three-quarters of Joanne<\/em>. But I never like all of Joanne<\/em>. Tracks like the folk-ballad \u201cGrigio Girls\u201d and the full-on country \u201cCome to Mama\u201d can hit on occasion. I can only listen to \u201cJoanne\u201d if I\u2019m mentally stable enough and not actively grieving anything (though it is a perfect song to scream-sing in your car). Most of the time, when I listen to Joanne<\/em>, it\u2019s in this specific order: \u201cDiamond Heart\u201d \/ \u201cA-YO\u201d \/ \u201cJohn Wayne\u201d \/ \u201cDancin\u2019 in Circles\u201d \/ \u201cPerfect Illusion\u201d \/ \u201cSinner\u2019s Prayer\u201d \/ \u201cHey Girl.\u201d Yup, that\u2019s it. And where was the Best Pop Duo\/Group Performance Grammy for \u201cHey Girl\u201d??? Florence x Gaga collab of the century. And you know what, Gaga was just too ahead of the country curve, just like ARTPOP<\/em> was too ahead of the hyperpop curve. That\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n

\n

Lana Del Rey: Honeymoon<\/em> (2015)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"I don\u2019t know if it was the lighting in my apartment or the heat broiling the pavement outside, but when I sat down and listened to Honeymoon<\/em> all the way through for the first time in at least five years, I couldn\u2019t remember why I thought it was flighty and incoherent. I still don\u2019t think it\u2019s anywhere near her best, and I do still think it\u2019s her worst. But it is exactly what she intended: a cinematic, overheated, melancholy reverie with a floaty removal, sweeping arrangements, and Old Hollywood\/Southern Gothic sensibilities. Honeymoon<\/em> makes Chemtrails<\/em> and Blue Banisters<\/em> make more sense. She returns to the baroque pop of Born to Die<\/em> after Ultraviolence<\/em>\u2019s distortion-drenched haze (though I\u2019m team Ultra<\/em> \u2018til I die). For better or worse, it all fits: the Starline tour bus on the album cover, the inherent \u201cVenice Bitch\u201d -ness of \u201cHigh By The Beach,\u201d the Wilshire Blvd. name-drop within the album\u2019s first minutes. Moments in \u201cFreak\u201d felt like a slowed, tripped-out version of \u201cFlorida Kilos;\u201d \u201c24\u201d feels like it could be on the Godfather<\/em> soundtrack, and the whole thing feels like it could be played out on a soundstage in front of you. The trip-hop influences come and go, never quite taking hold, and the whole record moves at a glacial pace that can feel more like atmosphere than substance. It\u2019s her third album, and, especially towards the end, it sounds like she\u2019s stalling rather than building. Still, even Lana\u2019s stalling sounds better than most people\u2019s breakthroughs. She also gets points for the Animals cover closer. She got me there! Regardless, after enough listens, Honeymoon<\/em> started to make me wonder if Lust for Life<\/em> is Lana\u2019s actual low.<\/p>\n

Led Zeppelin: Presence<\/em> (1976)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"Led Zeppelin burned out just as fast as they blew up. By late 1975, not long after their breakout double LP Physical Graffiti<\/em>, Jimmy Page was strung out on heroin and Robert Plant was recovering from a car accident. Given these circumstances, they cancelled their tour and decided to make Presence<\/em> instead. So that\u2019s the context the album was born out of: not entirely deliberate, more as a means to kill time. Plant was so deep into his recovery that he was performing his vocals from a wheelchair, and Page took it upon himself to fill Plant\u2019s gaps with even more guitar, overwhelming the mix and nearly taking complete creative control of the record. It\u2019s the first Zeppelin record without keyboard (with John Paul Jones kept solely to his bass parts), and John Bonham could arguably be seen as a saving grace, his explosive drumming upping the energy and closing the gaps in some of the weakest songs. Songs like \u201cCandy Store Rock\u201d or \u201cHots for Nowhere\u201d crumble next to the more experimental \u201cAchilles Last Stand\u201d and \u201cNobody\u2019s Fault but Mine,\u201d which remain some of their most innovative and expansive songs.<\/p>\n

Neil Young (& the Shocking Pinks): Everybody\u2019s Rockin\u2019<\/em> (1983)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"Every time I think I have it rough, I remember I\u2019m not a classic rock figurehead trying to stay relevant in the depths of the 1980s. Neil Young\u2019s Everybody\u2019s Rockin\u2019<\/em> was his attempt to make a statement that just royally flops. He tries to go for a \u201cThis is the root of all music since!\u201d message that 1983 listeners (for whom The Police\u2019s \u201cEvery Breath You Take\u201d had been their Song of the Summer) weren\u2019t interested in even entertaining. There are covers (grating opener \u201cBetty Lou\u2019s Got A New Pair of Shoes\u201d) and originals (the unfortunate \u201cPayola Blues\u201d), all equally rockabilly and shallow. Young\u2019s voice, never his strong suit, sounds even more beat up than usual: strained, angry, frustrated. He could\u2019ve thought the whole thing through better. He could\u2019ve done a \u201creimagining\u201d instead of a downright replica. I take solace in knowing that, regardless, Young had zero regard for what the \u201880s general population thought, and it was more for him than anything else.<\/p>\n

Oasis: Heathen Chemistry<\/em> (2002)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"Some said Heathen Chemistry<\/em> was Oasis finally returning to form. While that\u2019s true, it\u2019s hard not to view it as an \u201cOasis doing Oasis\u201d album, a step back to old sounds just to give the people what they want. But that doesn\u2019t take away from the fact that \u201cThe Hindu Times,\u201d though front-loaded bait, is an absolute ripping intro that I think I\u2019d cry to if I saw them play live. Liam Gallagher\u2019s vocals are particularly whiny if I have to say it; Noel credits the album\u2019s delay with Liam being too drunk to put down his parts, which feels emblematic of the phoned-in quality the record can hold. \u201cLittle by Little\u201d gives full adult contemporary\u2014Daughtry, Nickelback, pick your poison\u2014and yes, it\u2019s because of Noel\u2019s vocals. There are batches of corny lyrics, \u201cWe the people fight for our existence\u201d is particularly crazy, like teens trying to protest without knowing what they\u2019re protesting. Johnny Marr even graces the band with his presence, saving B-sides \u201c(Probably) All in My Mind\u201d and \u201cBorn on a Different Cloud\u201d from total irrelevance.<\/p>\n

Paramore: After Laughter<\/em> (2017)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"After Laughter<\/em> feels like the point where Paramore lost some of the edge that originally drew me in; the shift towards pop rock, and away from their grungier, harder roots, marks a stylistic turn I never fully bought into. I know it\u2019s a divisive record in the fandom too, arriving at a time of major personnel changes and signaling the band\u2019s evolution toward the This Is Why<\/em> era. I connect more with early Paramore, partly for nostalgia, but mostly because the raw, emo-rock energy just hit harder in my prepubescent ears. I like and relate to a lot of the themes Williams explores on After Laughter<\/em>, (songs like \u201cIdle Worship\u201d capture a deep unease with aging and identity: \u201cI can\u2019t think about getting old \/ It only makes me want to die \/ And I can\u2019t think of who I was \/ Cause it just makes me want to cry cry cry\u201d), but musically, they\u2019d lose me by the chorus, shifting mid-song and at-times abandoning any remnants of gritty bite in the verses. The record bounces around a lot, veering between psych, ska-adjacent rhythms, post-punk, and piano balladry, but it never fully coheres. \u201cNo Friend\u201d is a standout, and I appreciate what they were going for with \u201cTell Me How\u201d as a closer, but the late-arriving beat and low energy make it feel more like a fizzle than a firework.<\/p>\n

Pavement: Terror Twilight<\/em> (1999)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"Terror Twilight<\/em> is in the \u201cleast good\u201d territory of this list. For me, it just doesn\u2019t land the way earlier Pavement albums do. I like the folky moments, but it feels scattered, and runs out of steam quicker than some of their longer albums. Even Wowee Zowee<\/em>, which often competes with it for Least Favorite, keeps it interesting until the final minutes. It might just be too hi-fi for what I\u2019m used to from them. They\u2019d spent years resisting conformity, only to throw in a last-ditch effort at the buzzer, all while more detached from each other than ever. They even brought in Nigel Godrich, of OK Computer<\/em> fame, to whip them into shape, which meant less experimenting, more sticking to structure, not giving them enough time to chase down the detours. Songs like \u201cFolk Jam\u201d stand out, if only because they feel the most jammed out and expansive, even if the tracks rarely go longer than four minutes.<\/p>\n

Pink Floyd: Ummagumma<\/em> (1969)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"I want to like this album so badly, if only because the cover\u2014the Droiste pattern creating an endless tunnel of repeated images. It gives the impression that the record will transport you into the depths of the Pink Floyd universe at a time when the group was in major flux. It was their second full-length venture without Syd Barrett (founding member and original creative force), and a step back from the cohesion of More. Ummagumma<\/em> is a snapshot of four musicians trying to figure out what their band\u2019s next sound is gonna be, but not talking to each other about it. Richard Wright, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Nick Mason each worked independently, owning their own \u201csides\u201d of the LP. Wright\u2019s \u201cSysyphus\u201d is a four-part orchestral tragedy, the third part of which is almost unlistenable for its clanks and clamors. Waters\u2019 \u201cSeveral Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict\u201d is a cacophony of animal noises, while \u201cGrantchester Meadows\u201d possesses shimmers of what would come on The Wall<\/em>. Gilmour later admitted to \u201cbullshitting\u201d his section, \u201cThe Narrow Way Pts 1-3.\u201d The most impressive thing about this album is the fact that they released Meddle only two years later.<\/p>\n

Talking Heads: True Stories<\/em> (1986)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"True Stories<\/em> wasn\u2019t even meant to be a Talking Heads album. David Byrne wrote it to go with a movie by the same name, rather than with the band specifically in mind. The movie followed a cowboy (Byrne) visiting a town in Texas and interacting with its citizens. They\u2019re still fun tracks, if only because of the people recording them, but it teeters into parody, especially without the film as context. They\u2019re almost so inconsequential that I forget them as soon as they\u2019re over. Most importantly, though, we wouldn\u2019t have Radiohead as we know them without True Stories<\/em>; B-side \u201cRadio Head\u201d was direct inspiration for the band name. And for some reason, the cover ended up being the de facto Talking Heads logo? What the hell, sure.<\/p>\n

Taylor Swift: Lover<\/em> (2019)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"I\u2019m by no means a Swiftie. If anything, I lean closer to the skeptic side of the spectrum\u2014if not because of her music, then because of the overwhelming scale of her fame and wealth and the tightly managed brand that is her public-facing persona. Still, I like to think I can set aside my personal hangups and find a song or two on each album that clicks. But I can\u2019t say that for Lover<\/em>. Her 2019 LP is like the foil to her darker, Reputation<\/em>-era persona: a full-on pop sugar rush after dabbling in EDM. It\u2019s a complete 180 that reads as someone trying too hard to project lightness. The opener \u201cI Forgot That You Existed\u201d doesn\u2019t even sound like her. It\u2019s uncanny, like a bot imitation, or what you\u2019d get if you asked a very early version of ChatGPT to record her vocals. Dropping the line \u201cIn my feelings more than Drake\u201d within the first 30 seconds is also one of the more bewildering choices on the album. She experiments with trap-lite production on \u201cThe Man,\u201d which comes off like Charli XCX cosplay filtered via Selena Gomez\u2019s Disney era, complete with an overly literal take on gender standards. I can\u2019t talk about Lover<\/em> and not mention \u201cME!,\u201d the Brendon Urie-featuring single injected into the populace\u2019s veins against our will. \u201cMiss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince\u201d is an odd return to high school imagery, one that\u2019s hard to connect to from someone in their 30s. And then there\u2019s \u201cPaper Rings,\u201d which pivots to full Lumineers hey-ho energy. Taken together, the album feels like a search for direction more than a clear statement.<\/p>\n

The 1975: Notes On A Conditional Form<\/em> (2020)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"The fourth album from The 1975 was a dropping-off point for a lot of original fans, myself included. It ended up being a COVID album, partially due to the group changing plans for their third and fourth releases at the last minute (what was originally meant to be Music for Cars<\/em> was split into A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships<\/em> and Notes On A Conditional Form<\/em>). This was apparently done because Matty Healy found double albums \u201cself-serving.\u201d But I\u2019d argue a 22-song LP recorded over 19 months in 15 studios across four countries is just as highfalutin. The record came at a really annoying time for Healy in a personal sense, a time when he was viewing himself as a holier-than-thou political trailblazer of sorts (hence the Greta Thunberg narration on the opener). There are seemingly endless genre variants throughout the tracklist, with punk explosions (\u201cPeople,\u201d which features the indisputably iconic line \u201cWell, my generation wanna fuck Barack Obama \/ Living in a sauna with legal marijuana\u201d), honky tonk on \u201cRoadkill,\u201d Americana on the Phoebe Bridgers-featuring \u201cJesus Christ 2005 God Bless America\u201d that I can\u2019t listen to too many times in a row due to the amount of existential dread it gives me. There are sweeping orchestrals, industrial electronic textures, and free-wheeling sonic experiments. Not all bad, but overstuffed nonetheless.<\/p>\n

The Beatles: Beatles for Sale<\/em> (1964)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"I\u2019ll go to my grave with the belief that we would lose nothing as a culture if Beatles for Sale<\/em> never existed. Yeah, that\u2019s right, I wouldn\u2019t even miss \u201cEight Days A Week.\u201d It was recorded during peak-Beatlemania, peak Beatles-as-cash-cows (it was their fourth album in 21 months, their second of that year), shoved right between A Hard Day\u2019s Night<\/em> and Help!<\/em> to create a nice little slump in the Fab Four\u2019s discography. They went back to half covers, half originals for this one, simply because Lennon and McCartney didn\u2019t have enough time to come up with another<\/em> full album\u2019s worth of material. What they did write, though, is some of the most deceptively depressing in their discography. The opening three-track run of \u201cNo Reply,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m A Loser,\u201d and \u201cBaby\u2019s In Black\u201d is just a bummer! Our boys were tired and weary! They just wanted to rest their little bones. Their voices don\u2019t even sound that good, because they literally recorded it while they were touring. They also left the two best songs of those sessions (\u201cI Feel Fine\u201d and \u201cShe\u2019s A Woman\u201d) off the album, releasing them as A\/B singles instead of replacing a cover or two with them.<\/p>\n

The Rolling Stones: Dirty Work<\/em> (1983)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"1983 was a rough year for the rock and rollers. Before even listening to Dirty Work<\/em>, you could tell the Stones were mid-identity crisis just by looking at the cover: the neon, the hair, the geometry of the whole thing. The album was recorded in peak Mick\/Keith beef, so much so that the instrumentals were recorded fully without Jagger (it\u2019s the first record with no Jagger guitar since Let It Bleed<\/em>). There are only three Jagger\/Richards songs on the project (the lowest since 1965), and \u201cHarlem Shuffle,\u201d the lead single, was the first non-original single since their earliest releases. Charlie Watts was in and out of sessions because of his heroin habit, and Jagger sounds particularly squawky, quacking his way through the songs with a persistent tone of anger that permeates the tracklist. They go from sounding like they\u2019re cosplaying the \u201880s (\u201cBack to Zero\u201d), into a random bout of ska (\u201cToo Rude\u201d), back to Exile<\/em>-era, harmonica-laced country rock (\u201cHad It With You\u201d). This was a cry for help.<\/p>\n

The Smiths: The Queen Is Dead<\/em> (1986)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"I\u2019m already preparing to be doxxed for this, but I have to stand by my convictions. It was difficult to make my selection for The Smiths, as much of their best work is featured on compilations only, each taking a different form for UK and US releases. There was just no way around it: The Queen Is Dead<\/em> is my least favorite Smiths record. It\u2019s Morrissey at his most insufferable. \u201cSweetness, I was only joking when I said \/ I\u2019d like to smash every tooth in your head\u201d makes me want to smash every tooth in my head, and then shove the crumbs down my ear canals. They were too confident! No one can ever take \u201cThere Is A Light That Never Goes Out\u201d from them, but I\u2019ll sure as hell try to go for the rest of it. Justice for Strangeways<\/em>!<\/p>\n

The Strokes: First Impressions Of Earth<\/em> (2006)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"I don\u2019t foresee there ever being a time when First Impressions Of Earth<\/em> isn\u2019t my least favorite Strokes album. I\u2019m a true Is This It<\/em> believer, and I don\u2019t think I like how crisp the band sounds on this. I can appreciate the pivot toward more thrashing guitar themes, but it feels like they saw that people liked \u201cReptilia\u201d and they said, \u201cWell, here\u2019s all the different ways we can do that same thing, but not as well.\u201d Songs like \u201cYou Only Live Once\u201d and \u201cHeart in a Cage\u201d are higher points, but they hide the best song (\u201cRed Light\u201d) at the end of the album. Julian Casablancas is at his whiniest, as if that was even possible. \u201cOn the Other Side\u201d and \u201cFear of Sleep\u201d are just him moaning into a mic on an endless loop. \u201cAsk Me Anything,\u201d one of my least favorite songs of all time, puts it right in front of our faces: Casablancas \u201chad nothing to say.\u201d If that was the case, why not opt for discernment?<\/p>\n

Tyler, The Creator: Goblin<\/em> (2011)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"Goblin<\/em> is one of those albums that, despite its cult status and musical impact, just hasn\u2019t aged well. Slurs are dropped in the first 30 seconds. The verses are riddled with violence, specifically against women, flaunting it like an accomplishment (just listen to \u201cTron Cat\u201d). And yes, that is its innate concept\u2014Tyler returns to the Dr. TC therapist theme used in Bastard<\/em>, setting the record up as a space to let all of that chaos and violent energy loose without shame or remorse\u2014but in the wrong ears (specifically, white suburban tween boys), the impact is dangerously literal. It\u2019s also just Tyler at his most scattered and meandering, his least focused. It\u2019s even a step down from Bastard<\/em>, which had a more complete narrative and cohesive style. There are plenty of tracks that don\u2019t need to go on for the six or seven minutes they do, and there is probably some truncated version of the tracklist that would make for a much more compelling record. But especially looking at the places his artistry has gone since (the narrative introspection of Flower Boy<\/em>, the synth-pop jazz on Call Me If You Get Lost<\/em>), Goblin<\/em> feels like a necessary evil in retrospect. Tyler even told GQ himself that he thinks Goblin<\/em> is \u201chorrible,\u201d so I\u2019m honoring the Creator with this one as well.<\/p>\n

Willie Nelson: Countryman<\/em> (2005)<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"Countryman<\/em> is probably Willie Nelson\u2019s worst album, if only because it feels the most like he was trying to inhabit a character. It\u2019s his reggae record\u2014a decade in the making\u2014and while the concept had the potential to work, the execution makes it cartoonish rather than grounded. Originally intended for Bob Marley\u2019s Island Records before that label got folded into Universal, Countryman<\/em> features reggae renditions of old Nelson tracks and a few covers, including Johnny Cash and Jimmy Cliff (\u201cThe Harder They Come,\u201d which ends up being one of the better moments because it leans more acoustic and stripped-down). The biggest issue is the dissonance between the vocals and the production. Willie\u2019s voice is Auto-Tuned beyond recognition in certain spots, clashing with the beats underneath instead of flowing with them. The production feels muddy and overstuffed\u2014sometimes it\u2019s slide guitar and a steel drum tossed in for the island effect, other times it\u2019s buried in a mix of auxiliary percussion that doesn\u2019t seem to serve the song at all. At its best, it\u2019s passable background music; if you forget it\u2019s Willie, you might not even mind it. But ultimately, it just sounds like a regular Willie Nelson album with a bunch of mismatched rhythms and textures slapped on top, and that disconnect is hard to ignore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.pastemagazine.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the late, great Hannah Montana once said: \u201cEverybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days.\u201d And she meant everybody, even your favorite artists\u2014the genre-defining, Grammy-hoarding icons with more money than I\u2019d have even if I lived forever. So, I decided to revisit some of their lowest moments\u2014to better understand them, not to tear them down. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1965454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1965453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Your-Favorite-Artists-Worst-Albums.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1965453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1965454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1965453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1965453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1965453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}