2021 Worst Albums
by Stewart Lucas
So here we go. The albums I really hated. Now it would be easy just to list those outside my usual music comfort zones but frankly that would be lazy journalism. I am nothing but through with this list, I will and have listened to anything. I have listened to the Coldplay (poor person’s U2), I listened to the Billie Ellish (far less rebellious than it thinks itself to be), I listened to the Drake (just don’t see it), I listened to the Ed Sheeran (how can a man this dull be this popular, it’s not inventive in any way. It’s just a dreary little shit whining on about his life. You’re a fucking millionaire, enough) and listened to the new Abba (not half as good as I wanted it to be. Felt like filler tracks from the later albums). I will also listen to the new Adele, Little Mix and Westlife when released (Christmas present market anyone?). But it would be really easy for me to slag those so I am reserving the next section to those acts that either orbit my world or that I have liked past works by. In a word, all the records in this section below are seriously pants.
This is a messy hardcore punk album that seems to think that hardcore punk’s only virtue is to be noisy and shouty. It misses any of the subtlety or emotional depth that makes good hardcore so engaging.
Metalcore pioneers Atreyu’s first post Alex Varkatzas record sees them venture even further from their roots and even closer to Nickelback territory. This is a slick soulless arena rock album and dispenses with any of the charm or originality that they once had. A sorry state for such an influential band.
What is it with once great Metalcore acts losing their pizzazz? This feels so formulaic and so lacking in any form of inventiveness or ingenuity. It is identikit arena rock designed to do nothing more than sell records.
This is meant to sound ethereal and brooding. It is meant to stretch the definitions and confides of metalcore. It ends up feeling diluted and dull. It doesn’t seems to have the conviction to make the obvious genre splicing work and in the end feels messy and directionless.
They have had five years to come up with ideas and what we get this is this. It’s a flimsy pop oriented album that smacks of “will this do?”. It is bereft of ideas and instead feels a weak attempt to smuggle themselves onto pop radio.
There is a viking folk bandwagon riding through town and Nytt Lands are making a stirling effort to jump on it. This feels cold and it feels calculated. It brings nothing new to the stark nordic ambient world and feels like a cynical cash in.
Prior to Volbeat, Pretty Maids were Denmark’s biggest heavy rock export. Ronnie Atkins is their frontman and this is his first ever solo record. Recorded in-between his ongoing treatment for stage four Cancer, it is meant to be his opportunity to produce an album that captures his exuberant personality. Not wanting to kick a man whilst he is down but this nothing more than a run of the mill rock album. It has nothing at all that makes it stand out from the crowd.
I found this really rather insipid and formulaic. Most of the tracks started with a bang and then retreated back into a very run of the mill structure of restrained versus and bouncy choruses. It was all very one dimensional and found myself not remembering much about it once it had finished.
Complete and utter proof that 50 year old millionaires should not be allowed to make records. This has no flair or self-awareness. It is a bloated and creatively bankrupt set of songs that essentially recycle ideas and riffs that they have used countless times before.
What the hell happened here? I remember a time when Garbage made terrific records, I remember a time when they were one of the most innovative and exciting bands out there. This is horrible. It is nothing but a substandard St. Vincent record.
You need to be bringing the goods if you are going to name yourself after perhaps Pantera’s greatest moment. This is a shouty record that lacks any sort of definition or uniqueness. It goes through it motions without really understanding that to combine punk and Metal you need to do far more than just play a bit of punk and then a bit of Metal. For such an energetic record it is remarkably dull.
Earlier I accused Garbage of making awful St. Vincent albums. Never one to shun the limelight here is St. Vincent herself with an awful St. Vincent record. The last couple of albums were nothing short of ground-breaking. Sexy and sassy, but very much on her terms. This is as about as sensual as a pencil. It is trying to be her “serious” “issue” record and in doing so it removes all the things that made her unique. We are left with stripped back tracks that feel devoid of passion or piazza.
Really boring Heavy Metal that lacks any spark or level of creative songwriting. Seems to think that Metal is all about fast repetitive riffs and lots of Woahoos. Awful!
In my eyes Foo Fighters are rock music for people who don't like rock music. “Medicine at Midnight” is so inoffensive that your gran would like it. Safe corporate rock without the remotest level of ingenuity.
Bad Wolves take a break from the ongoing soap opera that is their relationship with their former frontman Tommy Vext, to release a new record. They needn’t have bothered as this is a sub-standard rock album that offers nothing new at all. It sounds exactly like their previous records (even if Tommy is not around anymore) which in turn were poor facsimiles of Five Finger Death Punch records. Pointless.
Psychedelic rock from Finland that seems to forget that to make this sort of stuff work you need to have the songs. This feels samey and never finds its groove.
To my horror this is described as Goth. It shares no level of DNA with the Goth that I know. This is pop and not even good pop. It is that strain of modern that tries to take it self seriously and forgets that pop is about being sugary and fun.
Worthing based White Stripes plagiarists go disco. Yes it is as awful as it sounds.
In “Demanfacture”, Fear Factory made one of the best and most innovative Heavy Metal albums ever. Twenty six years later that are trying to emulate the formula that worked so well for them and failing miserably. This feels cold, calculated and just a complete waste of everyone’s time.
Why the hell would you create yourself a side project that ended up sounding like an exact carbon copy of your main band? It just does not make any sense. Go explore some other musical forms. Go and be experimental. If you are the guitarist with Alter Bridge don’t make a solo album that sounds exactly like Alter Bridge.
Let’s face it, Bullet For My Valentine have not made a decent record since 2010’s “Fever”, and even then it was two absolutely terrific tracks (‘Alone’ and’ Your Betrayal’) and quite a lot of filler. Since then they tried all manner of variations on their sound, but just haven’t managed to deliver anything that matches “The Poison” or “Scream Aim Fire”. This is yet another disappointment as (pardon the pun) there is no venom here, just lots of mediocre heavy rock tracks. There is nothing that stinks to high heaven but as consistent unit it smacks of a band fast running out of options.
Chris Daughtry shot to fame as a finalist on American Idol in 2006. This is rock band and they are as bland as you would expect. This is grunge lite with all its danger and nuances removed. Safe, predictable and lacking anything to make it stand out from the crowd
There is a single Black Veil Brides album and they have released it six times. “The Phantom Tomorrow” sounds identical to the five records that came before it. There is no evolution and there is a no variation. They have found a formula that unfathomably has made them an arena bothering act and they show no interest in diverting from it at all. It is all highly predictable and pedestrian.
Second post reunion album from the Swedish melodeath and they have seriously dropped the ball. It feels unoriginal and bereft of any ideas that are its own. Everything on here sounds like something you have heard before. Just smacks of lazy song writing.
Unimaginative pop rock from Sweden. Has a retro AOR feel but has no new ideas or concepts to bring to the party. Feels in the idea like an uninspired tribute act.
When did they ditch John Corabi? Glenn Hughes will also bring something to act as a front person as range is so enormous but they seem to have sacrificed all the charm and inventiveness that they once had. This is a fairly standard rock record with no frills and no real spark of innovation. Whatever fire they once had in their bellies has now gone out.
I have written at length about my issues with Sleep Token (666 : The Great Showdown : Sleep Token — ROCKFLESH) so wont go into here. Needless to say this is awful. It attempts to be slight and stirring and just ends up feeling paper thin and insipid. It’s not inspiring or emotive, it’s just a mess of maudlin pop hooks that just don’t hang together.
An unholy alliance of symphonic Metal and pop punk that ends up falling flat on its face as it manages to master neither. They seem to have forgotten that the most important ingredient is passion and this has ended up sounding like a band going through the motions without very much feeling or soul.
Yes them of Three Little Pigs fame. Well I can tell you that the joke is so not funny anymore. This is the sorry tale of a comedy Metal album that is devoid of humour. It is puerile, it is derivative, and it fails to contain a single credible joke. Just horrible.
Apparently they are trying to marry Black Metal with hardcore punk. The result is something that lack any of the traits or virtues of the two constituent parts. The whole thing feels abrasive for abrasive sake. Black Metal works because it has shades of subtlety, this is just nasty and objectionable for no real reason than the members decided that was a good idea. Pointless.
Not even the fact that it has my beloved Bruce Springsteen singing ‘Highway to Hell’ can save this record. It is hotch potch of different styles and genres that fail to hang together in sort of cohesive way. It feels like scanning through the radio and getting blasts of completely different station. A complete mess.
I am very much swimming against the tide here as this will be top of many people’s lists this year, but I just don’t see the hype. To my ears it sounds like an uneasy alliance of Post Metal and Hip Hop that just doesn’t gel. I get that it is radical and I get that it is challenging so many of Metal’s conventions, but I still expect some sort of cohesive whole. I just got no sense that there was anything here apart from someone raspy rapping over some noise.
When did modern Indie become so measured, so well behaved and so dull. This is lacking that feeling of joyful rebellion. It just feels maudlin, self-absorbed and really really boring.
This is meant to be a loving homage to the garage speed rock n’roll of MC5 and the Stooges. What it lacks though is any real understanding of what made those acts so great. This is a soulless facsimile. It may be playing all the right notes, but the passion and conviction aren’t there. It comes across as very cynical bandwagon jump.
Put this in the category of appallingly bad and lacking any redeeming features. The men behind Alestorm and Gloryhammer (remember them) decide to turn their attentions to mythical Power Metal. I know that it is meant to be self-aware, ironic and has its tongue firmly in its cheek but Alestorm (and to a degree Gloryhammer) have built their careers on mixing that with a decent tune or two. This has none. It is all “ohhh look how pretentious we are wink, wink) without having one quality track. Turgid and utterly incredulous.
Mr. Clarke was in Guns N’ Roses for about five minutes in the mid-90’s (ok three years) and has traded on this ever since. He is trying to do good time boogie with some rock n roll flair but there is nothing here that we haven’t heard being done better elsewhere. It just doesn’t have the song-writing chops and instead the whole album feels staid and boring.
Well this is a prophetic album title if there ever was one, as I am so done with this band. I have really tried as I truly believed that there was something quite different here. But they are now insisting on being difficult for difficult sake and I am out. I no longer think they are revolutionary or auteurs. I have seen through their emperor’s new clothes and decided that this is just intolerable white noise with no redeeming features or arty statements.
Potentially the thirty-eighth Hawkwind album but to be honest even Hawkwind’s rapidly rotating collective of members have lost count. This is prog by numbers, that has none of the other worldliness that made 70’s and even 80’s Hawkwind such an exciting prospect. It just plods and feels like they ran out of ideas about ten albums back.
I don’t have anything against dance metal, but this is an utter mess. The electronic elements are woefully underbaked and its shifts in gear jaw rather than flow. It ends up feeling like a shunt job as opposed to a fully formed hybrid.
This just screams marketing ploy. It comes across as a cold and cynical move to create a USP for what is essentially rather dull run of the mill metalcore. “lets be a horror movie themed band” they will have proclaimed after a long protracted band strategy meeting and the record label executives will have rubbed their hands in glee. There is nothing new here at all. They have borrowed their cliches from Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie and Marylin Manson and they nicked their sound from the Black Veil Brides. Synthetic and soulless.
Very much a case of love the politics and appetite for disruption but cannot get or connect with what they are doing musically. It is jumble of incoherent sounds that is meant to be edgy and discombobulating but comes across confused and disjointed.
How can an album that has had a ten year gestation period end up sounding so half arsed and rushed? It is full of unrealised ideas and bored cliches. It screams we pulled this together in our lunch hour, will it do? It lacks any stand out tracks or anything that is capable of capturing the imagination. Truly horrible.
I love Saint Etienne and have done so since the early 90’s. Even during my metamorphose over the last two decades back into a fully-fledged metalhead I have taken their bright and breezy indie disco with me. But this record is nothing short of a travesty. It is understated, lilting and lacks anything you would recognise as euphoric pop. Their wonderfully catchy hooks are conspicuous by their absence, and it does not have a still song with the aptitude to fill a dance floor at an indie disco. Miserable, maudlin and just really really dull. By far their weakest record by a country mile.
Right! that is enough of me being cruel and unkind. Next to come, a quick summary of the close by no cigar records that ended up between 150 and 101. Then on Friday November 26th we will publish numbers 100-81 of the 2021 TOP 100 Albums. Enjoy…
Now I like unintelligible noise, in fact some of my favourite records consist entirely of unintelligible noise but this is, well this is frankly unlistenable. They've decided to essentially meld black and doom Metal and create a form of white noise that has no point and no passion.