Hooters - One Way Home (1987)
Having already performed at the historic Live-Aid concert in their hometown of Philadelphia, for their socially-conscious ethno-folk follow-up, One Way Home, the band seemed to have set their sights on Farm-Aid.
After all, John Cougar Mellencamp had gone "socially acoustic" and his records were selling mo' better than ever, so it would stand to reason that, if they chose to go that route, the Hooters could attain the same results.
Unfortunately, for as passionate as they are performed, these songs do absolutely nothing for me. If you want to hear better socio-political songs performed just as passionately, The Alarm's Declaration is a prime example of such an album done right.
I'll be honest, I didn't see the Hooters going full "Celtic Thunder" on their follow-up to the massively successful Nervous Night, but such was the case here. Whereas Nervous Night had been a testament to jamming as many stylistic changes into one album, One Way Home settled on maybe two and none of those were "uptempo rock".
Imagine Nervous Night minus "And We Danced", "Day By Day" and "Don't Take My Car Out Tonight", but with four variations of "All You Zombies" (the worst track on Nervous Night) and you'll start to see One Way Home for what it was: An ambitious train wreck.
Sadly, their third album for Columbia, Zig-Zag did little to win me back due to its monotonous use of acoustic instrumentation. Plus, every chorus was a slogan hammered into your skull with an urgency that lacked nuance and real passion. Whatever the Hooters were trying to sell, nobody was buying.
U2 - No Line Upon The Horizon (2009)
So there we were, my first serious girlfriend and I, attending the Chicago stop on U2's North American tour in support of The Joshua Tree when some fucked-up looking dude who claimed to be me from the future said that, by the year 2009, U2 can't even give their music away without pissing people off.
As my older self chatted up my girlfriend, I borrowed his phone and took a listen to "the future" and what I heard was the musical equivalent of sour milk. Sonic boredom.
I handed the phone back to my future self, who whispered in my ear, "She invites you to her family's Christmas party. It will snow like a bitch. Trust me, do not go."
Now that I am my future self, I must say, I was right on the money.
Jesus & Mary Chain - everything after Psychocandy
Did the Reid brothers shit the musical bed by dialing back the distortion on their second album, Darklands, you ask?
Hell yes. The boys from Distortion City pulled a historic bait-and-switch on their adoring fans. See, the band's dead-simple songs only work when there is something there to disguise the fact that what they were giving us is, Rock 101.
Sure, "April Skies" and "Only Happy When It Rains" are decent enough, but they lacked the urgency and chaos that drew little sickos like me to Psychocandy like bugs to a zapper. Had there been no Psychocandy and Darklands was our introduction to the band, it must be said that the Reids would belong to the March Violets wing in the Wax Museum of the Almost Famous.
If that wasn't bad enough, the thunderous drumming of Bobby Gillespie had been replaced by a drum machine. And not in a good way, either.
Part of what made Psychocandy such a glorious earful was Gillespie's constant abuse of the floor tom, adding some much-needed bottom end to the mix. Plus, the dude could swing.
Tin Machine (1989)
As a big Bowie fan, watching him run out of gas midway through the Never Let Me Down album was a sad moment, but checking his ego at the door to start a band with the Sales brothers and an unknown guitarist from the Adrian Belew School of Guitar Synth Insanity was one way to dig for inspiration.
We knew it was a temporary departure, maybe just the one album, but this band still checked off a lot of boxes for me. Unfortunately, the only one left unchecked was "Write memorable songs".
For the level of talent involved, this writer found that absolutely unacceptable.
R.E.M. - Out Of Time (1991)
First off, lemme just say that "Losing My Religion" is a great song for not having a chorus and being mostly acoustic, but the rest of the band's seventh album is utter crap. Coming off of massively successful Green world tour, the band was so sick of amplified sound that they made an album that would show the band embracing acoustic instruments such as the mandolin and working with a fuck-ton of guest musicians.
Normally, that's fine if you're Stevie Nicks or Steely Dan, but R.E.M. has always been a band that only needed four people to get their point across. This reliance on distractions and additional musicians hinted at deeper problems within the band, which subsequent records (and Bill Berry's departure in '97) would only confirm.