Re: Preferring the Black Sheep

I just posted in the "Bargain Prizes" thread how I prefer Big Star Live to either of the first 2 studio records and that got me thinking about other bands and their acknowledged classics taking a back seat to something more offbeat. Example : Husker Du, a band I love, and their acknowledged masterpiece is certainly "Zen Arcade", but "Flip Your Wig" is by far my favorite and I have a major affection for "Candy Apple Grey" which some people I know flat out think is a bad record. Any others?

i'll take the beatles third or 4th over white or let it be anyday...

Flip is Better than ZA btw

The Cocteau Twins' BLUE BELL KNOLL seems to be pretty lightly regarded by critics (TP refers to it as forgettable) but it's by far my favorite album by them, much better than FOUR CALENDAR CAFE, which seems to be a critical fave.

i like dream syndicate's second album. apparently, many didn't because steve wynn said that when "medecine show" came out, people avoided eye contact with him when they saw him walking down the street and, all of the sudden, he had to start standing in line and paying to see shows.

new day rising, flip your wig and "turn on the news" (mainly cuz it's on a gazillion of my mixes) seem to be my most listened to huskers...

and i've kinda never really understood the medicine show issue either, that's a damn good album!

i suppose my black sheep is rating lloyd's solo stuff over anything tv (televison or verlaine solo).

oh, and if i HAD to listen to bad religion...INTO THE UNKNOWN, here i come!!!

I agree, *Zen Arcade* and *New Day Rising* are both excellent, but *Flip Your Wig* is definitely my favorite Hüsker Dü album. In fact, seeing that *Flip Your Wig* was available on CD is what made me decide to buy a CD player, way back then ... since by that time, I'd worn my vinyl copy to near uselessness.

*Candy Apple Grey* and *Warehouse*, IMO, are unfairly looked down upon by a lot of Hüsker Dü fans. Sure, the Warners releases may not have the indie cachet of the SST albums, but the songwriting and playing are there -- just presented a bit more clearly, that's all. (And the HD show I saw on the Warehouse tour was jaw-dropping.)

As for the Beatles, I'll take *Hard Day's Night*, *Help!*, or especially *Revolver* over *Sgt. Pepper* or the White Album.

Of course, none of the above albums really qualify as black sheep, except maybe the HD albums on Warners. Grey sheep, perhaps?

Oh, and total agreement with Satch, re. *Into the Unknown*. The fact that Bad Religion titled its next album *Back to the Known* speaks volumes.

Kinks - Misfits

Cocteau Twins - Blue Bell Knoll
Butthole Surfers - thought Weird Revolution was a great tech outing
Cure - Head on the Door
J & MC - Munki
Replacements - don't like TIM! (but all their songs were nothing but ashtray floors, dirty clothes and filthy jokes)
Pavement - Westing sounds masturbatory to me; prefer Wowee
Rancid - Life Won't Wait (a desert disc; doesn't everyone else like Wolves?)
Smiths - Meat is Murder
Sonic Youth - Goo is one of their best
Springsteen - the covers LP of Young Gods and Rhys Chatham (still reading this list eh?)
Talking Heads - More Songs about Buildings
U2 - October (the only U2 I can sit through, dark instead of whiny)
Television - Adventure (because it's still revealing its secrets)
The The - Soul Mining
Ultravox - Vienna (panned in its day - now it's a blueprint)
X - Wild Gift? nope, New World
Yo La Tengo - Painful not ElectroPura
Police - prefer Regatta de Blanc; stopped liking them when I heard zenyatta



Post Edited (04-09-07 16:21)

Agree on the Blackmarket Clash. The version of Justice Tonight was much missed when listening to Superblackmarket Clash. I feel a reformatting coming on.

Glad you mentioned Roxy Music, Paganizer, because it reminded me of a true "black sheep favorite" of mine. Virtually every critic (including Ira) describes *Flesh + Blood* as the band's weakest album, but it's stood up beautifully to my ears, from the day I bought it. And it's not the first Roxy album I heard (that would be *Greatest Hits*).



Post Edited (11-09-05 18:00)

I dont know if my selections qualify as "black sheep" selections or not but I find that I frequently disagree with critical concensus about what the good albums are for a particular artist. Some examples that come to mind are:


PJ Harvey - Is This Desire? (whereas Stories From the City, Stories from the Sea does nothing for me)

Camper Van Beethoven - Key Lime Pie (I enjoy this album 5 times more than any of their earlier albums)

Pogues - Peace and Love


I dont if anyone in this group has really picked a true "black sheep" yet (with the exception of the Big Star Live). I think somebody would have to say "Emotional Rescue" is the best Stones album or something like that....

p.s. I love Flip Your Wig and dislike the White Album as well.

Mercury Rev's Boces has long been a favorite of mine. I find Yerself Is Steam, which generally seems to be well regarded, barely listenable. But the "slipshod and shapeless" Boces (though not classic start to finish--it loses its way toward the end) has always moved me.

I've always really loved The Jam's Sound Affects although it's generally considered in my neck of the woods and in the UK that Setting Sons is THE album (having said that I see that TP rates All Mod Cons). It really got me into the cranky young man stuff.

The other one that comes to mind is The Clash. Whenever I feel like listening to The Clash, I seem drawn to Super Blackmarket Clash more often than not.

BUT

What the hell's wrong with Candy Apple Grey? I think it compelled a lot of folks to check out the likes of Zen Arcade and Flip Your Wig.

I suspect, in some cases, it depends on the first album you hear by a particular artist. That first time becomes part of your soul, somehow. No matter how much you may love albums by that artist that you hear subsequently, they often don't have that same impact as the first time.

For example, I was a late-comer to Sonic Youth. *Daydream Nation* generally is considered the apotheosis of that band's work to date, but *Goo* is the SY album I heard first. It remains my favorite SY album ... and to read the TP review, it's just about the "blackest sheep" in that band's catalogue.

I do agree w/the prior post. I'm a Kinks fan & my first album back in '77 was Everybody's In Show Biz, which has one of my favorite Kinks songs, "Hot Potatoes". Soap Opera was another one of my initial Kinks listens. It seems that the Kinks post-1970 has been the black sheep part of their career. However, I think that albums such as Sleepwalker, Misfits, Word of Mouth & the Did Ya EP are pretty solid & the rest of the albums had a few gems on them.

My favorite Roxy Music falls into the category of the first one I heard - SIREN, which of course is referred to as disappointingly dull in the TP entry. Which I don't even really disagree with after listening to some of their earlier stuff. But it was the first one I heard and still the one I love the most.

there is no such thing as a bad Kink's album

Unless you're talking about the stuff after Muswell Hillbillies. Yech. There were some good songs in there, as the stripped down To the Bone proves, but the production got pretty bad. I can't stand any of it.

I have never been able to get into New Day Rising. Loved Zen Arcade and Flip Your Wig but have never been able to find anything good about what came between them. And I despised pretty much everything the Beatles did post Revolver.

don't know if these are black sheep but I always seem to prefer the punk bands more "mature" or sellout recordings:

Agent Orange "This is the Voice" over "Living in Darkness"
Adolescents "Balboa FunZone" over "Adolescents"
Bad Brains "I Against I" over "Bad Brains"

and considering that it was pretty much a different band at this point - TSOL "Revenge" over "Dance With Me" so does that count?

The two Ramones albums that would fall into this catagory for me would be End of the Century and Subterranean Jungle, especially the latter, although it seems that Little Steven plays a lot of tracks from it on the Underground Garage

though animal boy might not be a black sheep album, i do like 'crummy stuff.'