Albums that just don't click for you (2024)

For me it’s Hats, the Blue Nile. I’ve tried, repeatedly, to appreciate it, and, with the possible exception of Downtown Lights, it hasn’t happened. The lads do a great job of conjuring up images with their music, but I struggle to get past the 80s arrangements and the melodies don’t do a lot for me.

Strangely, I really like Paul Buchanan’s solo record-the only other Blue Nile adjacent LP I have in my collection. If I’m romanticising, it might be because my Scottish roots are in Edinburgh-where Paul was born-whereas the band are very much a Glaswegian proposition.

love the Clear Spot album, Safe as Milk too.

Trout Mask Replica - my first reaction to this was much the same as a lot of people, ie. "wtf is this noise?" It did eventually click with me but I don't really know why. Still not something I'm inclined to listen to regularly though.

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass.

I'm a big fan of Beatle George but this hasn't clicked with me.

I can't get past the first side and half of the second side.

I like the Hammond solo AND the album title.

Marvin Gaye,"Let's Get it On", sure the title track is a classic, but it's the first track and by the third one the album has already run out of steam. Just gets slower and more monotonous as it goes, i dont hear what others are hearing here
Give me "What's Going On" any day over this one

This doesn’t take any thought on my part; what I feel is the most overrated, commercially successful album in my entire 55 year album buying “career”: Bat Out Of Hell by Mr. Loaf.

No comparison to What’s Going On; it’s like comparing Let It Be to Sgt. Pepper.

Lots of wheat, plenty of chaff.

For such a downbeat thread....

On the positive side....here's a number that actually clacked as it clicked for me !! In all it's peculiarity !

A lot of 70s jazz-rock or fusion albums.
Let's start with Return To Forever's Romantic Warrior.
I never undertood what was so special about it.
All is very cliché and the music hasn't aged well IMO.

I have spent three decades trying to "get" this album. Hasn't happened yet. Maybe sometime in the next decade.

Arcade Fire - Reflecktor
...and everything after.

First three were all great imo.

Bought Sade's CD album Diamond Life for £9.99 when it came out based off hearing the singles Smooth Operator and Your Love Is King. Played it over and over for a whole week. Sold it for 50p probably two weeks after buying it. Very annoying album bar the two hits.

My serious interest in Stevie Wonder began with the incredibly infectious, Keep On Runnin’ making me want to get the Music of My Mind album which much to my very pleasant surprise, also contained the super radio friendly Superwoman (a top five Wonder song for me). This album became a pivotal point for me for the remainder of the seventies. Not including …Life of Plants which was a soundtrack and I don’t consider a “regular” Stevie Wonder album, even though he did write everything and play a lot of the instruments, I think Key of Life is a good album but really falls short as a double album…so in that sense I found it a disappointment compared to the previous four albums which had pretty consistently strong material. I remember giant billboards advertising it at the time and the first song I heard from it, Sir Duke, got me pumped for a double album filled with songs just as or nearly as strong. Not quite. Overall, I call it a “lesser” winner from the last four albums.

Speaking of Stevie Wonder, I never got into "Talking Book", the singles are just wonderful, but the album itself leaves me cold. I don't get what people hear in that album

As far as being noisy and confrontational goes, there's nothing here that the Velvet Underground hadn't already done—and done a lot better—a decade before, with a lot less posturing.

Yeah, and imagine if the Sex Pistols had copied the "banana" cover from the first VU album

I became a Radiohead fan with The Bends, super fan with OK Computer and loved everything since. Try as I might, I just cannot get anything from the debut, Pablo Honey. I want to like it, but it’s as if it was done by a completely different band. I don’t even own it.

With Tori Amos, I enjoy all of her albums, some more than others, and in the last few years I developed an appreciation for her later work. That all said, Abnormally Attracted to Sin remains a mystery to me. All her other albums I can connect with in some way, but this one I have listened to multiple times to try to get into it, and I can’t recall a single note or lyric from it.

Someone on X was doing a 'your 3 Weather Report albums' and some chose Mr Gone which surprised me a bit. Having only started with Heavy Weather and worked backwoods I eagerly awaited the follow-up only to be disappointed. I play it from time to time when someone suggests it's not as bad as I think but still doesn't do anything for me.

Does one need to be in the logging business to appreciate Weather Report now?!

Agreed. Sounds like a pack of songs with two-chords going back and forth.

Oasis.... Any of their albums. I can't explain it, just does not do it for me. It's not even a distaste for Britpop either, I like Blur, Pulp, and some Suede... Nothing Oasis put out I like.

It's just too lush and bland.

Axis Bold as Love (except for "Little Wing")
Sides 3 and 4 of Physical Graffiti (except for "In the Light" and "Ten Years Gone")