Albums you were disappointed in based on the "big" song from them

[NJRoadfan]

Hunting High and Low by a-ha. Everyone knows "Take On Me." Great song, especially back in 2012 when Michael Morse used it as his walk-up music in the late innings and the Nats Park crowd started singing along with it (there is scary video somewhere online of me at a ballgame trying, and failing, to hit the high notes). I bought the LP and did not particularly like any of the other songs on it.

I had a weird feeling I would see this album come up. The only other decent song on the whole album was the title track "Hunting High and Low" followed by maybe "The Blue Sky". The rest isn't very memorable and one would have to be a diehard 80s synthpop fan to appreciate it. Compared to anything Vince Clarke did (of Erasure, Yazoo, and Speak-and-Spell era Depeche Mode fame), it was lackluster.

[J3ebrules]

So ... how many times did you hear a song and really like it, and then go buy the CD (or album or cassette) and find yourself totally disappointed that the rest of the set sounded nothing like the song that lured you in?

Example #1 for me is probably Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness by Smashing Pumpkins. If you expected the whole album to sound like "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" you were in for a huge letdown. And it was a double-CD, too. I wasted my money on it way back then.

That's interesting that you didn't like Mellon Collie, since that was probably their most popular album with the most hits. And "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"  was the first single, so you probably got the album before they released the next single, "Tonight, Tonight" , almost a year later. I personally love both those songs, and to a lesser extent, "1979" , but it's so funny to think back to not knowing all the songs on the album, like they're talking about. I'm only 32!!!

[ErmineNotyours]

I'm 52, and I still think in terms of albums.  If there's an album with just one good song in my collection, I rarely listen to it.  I mostly listen to albums to space between my three or so weekly podcasts so that I'm not just listening to three hours of speech.  Streaming doesn't work when I'm placing music between the podcasts which are onboard, and I want to make a playlist to keep my hands free when driving or if I'm in an area without cell coverage.  I also rarely acquire new albums, though I've hit a good streak with Freegal, a service that the Seattle Public Library and other libraries subscribe to where you get to download five songs a week.  Sony Music and some smaller labels supply Freegal.  For the other labels you need Hoopla, which streams only.  However, if you can record music off your phone then that's no problem.  I have to compress the songs again, but the price is right.

[DJStephens]

I was typically a fan of bands, not necessarily songs or albums. Therefore, I had everything in the catalog of the bands I liked. I kept on buying their albums even they had a particularly bad period (Chicago after "16," those three awful Rush albums following "Signals," etc.) A few times, I'd really like one album (Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog," for example, or Blue Oyster Cult's "Agents of Fortune") but would then buy two or three other releases and find them to be nothing like the album I really enjoyed. Even albums I really liked had songs I would skip over. There are very few albums on which I would consider every song to be a good one, and will actually play the whole thing through.

I've quit doing that. I rarely buy music anymore. I haven't bought a Chicago or Aerosmith album in ages, and those were two of my favorite groups in my high school days. Same for the Stones. I got into them when I was in college and bought most of their back catalog, but haven't bought anything of theres since "Steel Wheels" and that's been out for 25 or 30 years.

Believe "Steel Wheels" was released in 1989.  So it is nearing 31 years.   The big single on Steel Wheels was Mixed Emotions, have it on you tube.   Video was a low budget job of Jagger and Richards in a room, jamming.   Still really good though.   

[hbelkins]

I was typically a fan of bands, not necessarily songs or albums. Therefore, I had everything in the catalog of the bands I liked. I kept on buying their albums even they had a particularly bad period (Chicago after "16," those three awful Rush albums following "Signals," etc.) A few times, I'd really like one album (Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog," for example, or Blue Oyster Cult's "Agents of Fortune") but would then buy two or three other releases and find them to be nothing like the album I really enjoyed. Even albums I really liked had songs I would skip over. There are very few albums on which I would consider every song to be a good one, and will actually play the whole thing through.

I've quit doing that. I rarely buy music anymore. I haven't bought a Chicago or Aerosmith album in ages, and those were two of my favorite groups in my high school days. Same for the Stones. I got into them when I was in college and bought most of their back catalog, but haven't bought anything of theres since "Steel Wheels" and that's been out for 25 or 30 years.

Believe "Steel Wheels" was released in 1989.  So it is nearing 31 years.   The big single on Steel Wheels was Mixed Emotions, have it on you tube.   Video was a low budget job of Jagger and Richards in a room, jamming.   Still really good though.

There may have been another release or two that came out since then that I bought, but that was the one I first thought of.

[kwellada]

Remember when Chicago had a song where they tried to sound like Devo? Actually, a lot of bands did back then.

I'm always amused by the fact that the "best" Devo song was actually Weird Al Yankovic's "Dare to Be Stupid". 

In an interview on VH1's Behind the Music, Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh stated in reaction to the song that: "I was in shock. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. He sort of re-sculpted that song into something else and... I hate him for it, basically." (from Wikipedia)

[bandit957]

Remember when Chicago had a song where they tried to sound like Devo? Actually, a lot of bands did back then.

I'm always amused by the fact that the "best" Devo song was actually Weird Al Yankovic's "Dare to Be Stupid". 

In an interview on VH1's Behind the Music, Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh stated in reaction to the song that: "I was in shock. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. He sort of re-sculpted that song into something else and... I hate him for it, basically." (from Wikipedia)

Even Lindsey Buckingham had one!

The Fixx too!

[1995hoo]

I was typically a fan of bands, not necessarily songs or albums. Therefore, I had everything in the catalog of the bands I liked. I kept on buying their albums even they had a particularly bad period (Chicago after "16," those three awful Rush albums following "Signals," etc.) A few times, I'd really like one album (Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog," for example, or Blue Oyster Cult's "Agents of Fortune") but would then buy two or three other releases and find them to be nothing like the album I really enjoyed. Even albums I really liked had songs I would skip over. There are very few albums on which I would consider every song to be a good one, and will actually play the whole thing through.

I've quit doing that. I rarely buy music anymore. I haven't bought a Chicago or Aerosmith album in ages, and those were two of my favorite groups in my high school days. Same for the Stones. I got into them when I was in college and bought most of their back catalog, but haven't bought anything of theres since "Steel Wheels" and that's been out for 25 or 30 years.

Believe "Steel Wheels" was released in 1989.  So it is nearing 31 years.   The big single on Steel Wheels was Mixed Emotions, have it on you tube.   Video was a low budget job of Jagger and Richards in a room, jamming.   Still really good though.

There may have been another release or two that came out since then that I bought, but that was the one I first thought of.

Steel Wheels was indeed a 1989 release. The Stones have had a couple of studio albums since then–Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon are the two that come to mind, but I think there was at least one other. Most of their output in recent years has been live albums and anthologies.

[kevinb1994]

I was typically a fan of bands, not necessarily songs or albums. Therefore, I had everything in the catalog of the bands I liked. I kept on buying their albums even they had a particularly bad period (Chicago after "16," those three awful Rush albums following "Signals," etc.) A few times, I'd really like one album (Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog," for example, or Blue Oyster Cult's "Agents of Fortune") but would then buy two or three other releases and find them to be nothing like the album I really enjoyed. Even albums I really liked had songs I would skip over. There are very few albums on which I would consider every song to be a good one, and will actually play the whole thing through.

I've quit doing that. I rarely buy music anymore. I haven't bought a Chicago or Aerosmith album in ages, and those were two of my favorite groups in my high school days. Same for the Stones. I got into them when I was in college and bought most of their back catalog, but haven't bought anything of theres since "Steel Wheels" and that's been out for 25 or 30 years.

Believe "Steel Wheels" was released in 1989.  So it is nearing 31 years.   The big single on Steel Wheels was Mixed Emotions, have it on you tube.   Video was a low budget job of Jagger and Richards in a room, jamming.   Still really good though.

There may have been another release or two that came out since then that I bought, but that was the one I first thought of.

Steel Wheels was indeed a 1989 release. The Stones have had a couple of studio albums since then–Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon are the two that come to mind, but I think there was at least one other. Most of their output in recent years has been live albums and anthologies.

The one from 2005 was meh.

[kwellada]

The Fixx too!

There's a band I've been revisiting a bit and they had some pretty solid stuff, beyond the couple of hits. 

[michravera]

I generally don't buy an album unless I like every song. Fortunately, I usually like every song, so my collection is at about 90 and growing.

The old guys in here remember when it wasn't an option to hear every song before buying an album.

Let me guess, you had to walk 6 miles both ways, uphill, in the rain to school every day, too.

Nearly 300 m often in rain up to the heals of my galoshes, but sometimes in fog that cut visibility to less than 50 m. The real problem came when the visibility was cut to less than 10 m. It's hard to cross a street when you can't see the other side! We often had to rely upon the noise that vehicles made in order to determine that it was safe to cross.