What in your opinion is the most underrated album of all time.

Mine has to be Michael Jackson-Off The Wall. When a person has an album that sells over 100 million copies...people seem to forget any other work they might have done. Off The Wall is MJ at it's finest.

Bobby Caldwell - "Carry On" (1982)




Perfect album no need (then) to pick up the needle, strong songs one after the other. Didn't do well in the States and that's a shame, people missed a jewel here.

i'm not saying it's a huge genius masterpiece, but it should have been a hit album. it's so much fun to listen to, from beginning to end.

It wasnt really underrated when it came out and it did really well at the time, but I think Christina Aguilera's Stripped is now underrated. I don't really hear people talking about what a good pop/r'n'b album it is for this decade. I was really schocked by how good it was when it came out, and I've been dissapointed with everything shes released since. I don't think she can pull this off again.

This has to be the most underrated album of all time... "From the Mint Factory" by Mint Condition

Casualy, Sign O The Times.
This is close to the most creative, most talented album in the galaxy.

In fact a lot of Prince albums:-

Lovesexy
Lotusflow3r
Black Album
Dirty Mind
The Rainbow Children
Crystal Ball
Around The World in a Day
Parade

You know? Easily a bunch of the greatest.

However, of all time? impossible to know as we ain't heard them all.

What about ALL Rahsaan Patterson's albums? A few of Kate Bush's?

Many...

BoOTyLiCioUs said:

All those you quoted are overated bar OTW.

Julian Cope's "Peggy Suicide" is another album that I can't believe never rose above the radar. THIS album is what I consider to be a textbook example of "underappreciated masterpiece".

WetDream said:

GTFO.

Just a few:

George Winston- December (the best instrumental album ever?)
The Cure- BloodFlowers (completely forgotten outside of fans)
Eurythmics- 1984: For the Love of Big Brother (completely forgotten outside of fans)
Janet Jackson- All for You (it's usually lumped in with her last 3 albums as "crap")
Blondie- Eat to the Beat (sleeker and more representative of their diversity than Parallel Lines)
Kylie Minogue- Body Language (so many fans hate it)
The Smiths- Strangeways, Here We Come (better than The Queen Is Dead to me)
Siouxsie and the Banshees- Kaleidoscope (really, all of their 80-82 material)
The Strokes- Room on Fire (I rate it more highly than Is This It)
Tubeway Army- Replicas (better than The Pleasure Principle)
Chromeo- Fancy Footwork
Can- Monster Movie (Gimme Malcolm Mooney!)
The Velvet Underground- White Light/White Heat (nearly as good as the landmark debut, and way better than the lukewarm VU albums that followed)
Missy Elliott- This Is Not a Test (in my book, her second best album)

Moonbeam said:[quote]
Can- Monster Movie (Gimme Malcolm Mooney!)Clean your ears![\quote]



Now that's a statement I can pretty much agree with.

World Party - Goodbye jumbo:
The 'british' Sign of the Times. Apart from one song maybe, this album has no filler, its so well composed / performed / produced. Karl Wallinger is also far more grounded then Prince could ever be.

Grant McLennan - Horsebreaker Star
Even when you take away the lightweight country jams from both CD's and the rather banal rocktracks from the second disk, this remains a nineties masterpiece of pop-infected singer/songwriting, combining elements of the Beatles, the Byrds, REM and Crowded House, a hugely underrated gem.

damosuzuki said:

Please! The raw, earthy energy that Malcolm Mooney brings to Can's lunacy is sublime! You must be lost in the soul, soul desert.
[Edited 9/10/09 16:09pm]

Moonbeam said:

i agree with you about 1984...that's such an amazing piece of work, and it got sucked into obscurity so quickly.

as for tubeway army, i have a hard time distinguishing most of the older stuff, other than i know i love all of it. i think some of gary numan's "comeback" albums of the 90s and this decade are underrated. he does kinda turn into a NIN clone at times, but some of it really holds up well next to his classics.

Riverpoet31 said:

You already know I completely agree with you, but I'm happy to agree with you again. This album is really one of the great unheard gems of all time, & I never get tired of singing its praises. It has some fat, as you said, but overall there were few finer albums released in the nineties.

Scary Monsters - David Bowie.



The last classic David Bowie album, Scary Monsters is also his best. Throughout the 70s, Bowie was a pioneer of unthinkable talent and foresight. Each of his 70s albums was an adventure that greatly influenced the music that followed. 1980's Scary Monsters offers a capstone to Bowie's epic achievements of the 70s.

Following the Berlin trilogy (Low, Heroes and Lodger), David Bowie seemed to be able to do no wrong, but it was hard to think he could top himself. Scary Monsters takes the experiments of that period and extends them to a more human, palatable aesthetic. From the roaring title track to the quirky genius of "Ashes to Ashes," from the paranoid, ultra-hip funk workout of "Fashion" to the truly gut-wrenching "Teenage Wildlife" and "Because You're Young," Scary Monsters is both instantly catchy and memorable.

This is Bowie searching the depths of his soul to exorcise his demons. The angry opener "It's No Game" with its comical confrontation with a Japanese woman sets the stage for an emotionally charged listen. The dejected acceptance of "Up the Hill Backwards" reveals a lot of Bowie's thoughts on the world circa 1980: "A series of shocks - sneakers fall apart, Earth keeps on rolling - witnesses falling." "Ashes to Ashes" reflects on decades of drug use and its effects with a new take on "Space Oddity"'s Major Tom. 33 must have been an awkward age for Bowie, as he fiercely demands respect in the guttural "Teenage Wildlife" while dejectedly accepting his loss of youth and its ability to heal on "Because You're Young."

This is Bowie's most personal album. He invents no fictitious characters here to deter the attention from himself. This is perhaps the most pure glimpse into the turbulence of a man stretched to the limits of his imagination, ability and health for over a decade. No wonder he took a 3-year sabbatical from the music industry afterward. This album sounds like the final words of a man dying before his time. In a sense, he did die after this album, languishing in his own legend and status for over a decade. Scary Monsters is David Bowie's parting message, a chronicle of his own crucifixion.

Moonbeam said:

Mark Prindle said it for me already:



http://www.markprindle.co...tm#monster

damosuzuki said:

What a hack!

Imago said:

Have you taken your pills today, Dan?

BoOTyLiCioUs said:

I was sort of pressured to change my mind.




.... by. a. psychopath

In my opinion is the first one the best album of the 80s and the second album the best album of 2000 so far.

Imago said:

Pressured by a psychopath? Do we need to get out the straight jacket again?

Maybe not of all time, but these were quiet & even unliked releases after the huge critical success & moderate popularity of My Aim is True - Get Happy and the big hit of Every Day I Write the Book off of Punch the Clock.







and notice, this album is where the title "Napoleon Dynamite" came from!

MeShell NdegeOcello: Plantation Lullabies/Peace Beyond Passion/Bitter/Cookie/Comfort Woman/The World Has Made Me The Man of My Dreams

Stevie Wonder: Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants/Characters/A Time 2 Love

Marvin Gaye: Here My Dear/In Our Lifetime/I Want You

Donny Hathaway: Everything Is Everything/Donny Hathaway (Self-Titled Album)/Extensions of a Man/Live

The Jacksons: Destiny/Going Places/Triumph/The Jacksons (Self-Titled Album)

Michael Jackson: Off The Wall/Dangerous/Invincible

Parliament: Clones of Dr. Funkenstein

Boz Scaggs: Down Two Then Left

Sly & The Family Stone: There's A Riot Goin' On/Small Talk/Fresh/Stand/Life/Dance To The Music/A Whole New Thing

David Bowie: Young Americans

D'Angelo: Voodoo

Earth, Wind & Fire: Spirit/Last Days & Time

George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice, Vol.1

Janet Jackson: The Velvet Rope

Jimi Hendrix: Axis As Bold As Love/First Rays of the New Rising Sun

Joni Mitchell: Hissing of Summer Lawns

Laura Nyro: Christmas and the Beads of Sweat/Eli and the Thirteenth Confession/New York Tendaberry/ Gonna Take a Miracle/Smile/Nested

Todd Rundgren: A Wizard,A True Star/Something-Anything?

Prince: Parade/Around The World in a Day/Sign O The Times/ hell, most of Prince's stuff is underrated...casuals go straight to Purple Rain or 1999 when they think of him
[Edited 9/10/09 16:33pm]

I think Gene Clark's No Other is probably one of the most undervalued albums of all time. It's one of those once in a lifetime records where a songwriter/performer really tries to break out of his comfort zone and succeeds brilliantly.

In general, I think a case could be made for Gene Clark being the most unjustly overlooked figure in rock/country. Gram Parsons gets all the credit for being the founder of country rock, and he deserves his dues because he made some great records, but I think Gene Clark, who made very similar records in the same era, was better by almost every standard: he was a better songwriter, a finer vocalist - he was better looking, even - yet Parsons gets all the posthumous glory.
[Edited 9/10/09 16:38pm]

Some of these choices are literally the artists' most highly acclaimed albums

NDRU said:

But they still go unnoticed by the artists' best-selling, more popular work...