I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: The Screen Door's Most Disappointing Albums of 2008

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: 2008’s Most Disappointing Albums
By Anthony Kuzminski

It happens to everyone, you wait with intense anticipation from new music from an artist you love and adore and when you hear it, you simply shake your head in disbelief. Not the disbelief of how immense and staggering it is, but how pedestrian, underwhelming and commonplace that listening experience truly was. Virtually no one with who has ever created music over decades has a batting average of 1000%, but it doesn’t make the pain you feel from the heartache any less real. I’m not a fan of putting down those who create, but at times they miss the mark and are blinded by any number of circumstances and ultimately they take their eye off the ball and drop it. The list below can be viewed in two very distinctive ways; truly awful music (Numbers ten through seven) and albums that had huge potential and disappointed me tremendously (Numbers six through one).

Number Ten: Pussycat Dolls – Doll Domination

Why? Because the Pussycat Dolls sums up everything that is wrong with the music industry. Flat beats with missing melodies and enough sheen to make to make you sick with the shits for weeks.

Number Nine: Beyonce -I Am…Sasha Fierce

It may have the single of the year according to Rolling Stone, but of all of the albums on this list none suffer from egomania like this one. Beyonce makes the occasional great single and eventually, she’ll have enough of them to make a stellar Greatest Hits record, but in no uncertain terms was there ever a need for her to release a double-album. If you answered three out of sixteen on a test in school, you would have a 19% score, hence why I have such disdain for this record. Even if it had been edited down to nine songs it would still have 75% filler. Albums like this do nothing but add to the demise of the album format.

Number Eight: Natasha Bedingfield-Pocketful of Sunshine

A few years back Bedingfield created some of the most indelible pop hits of the decades with “These Words (I Love You)” and “Unwritten”; two examples or truly luminous pop music and both tracks deserved all the recognition thy received. This new album? 100% Junk. Not a single song on it features a song a tenth as infectious as the two aforementioned tracks. Bedingfield has the potential to be a pop princess, which there is nothing wrong with. I can’t bang my head and feel depressed all the time. I like junk food and Unwritten was a top tier grease joint, Pocket Full of Sunshine is a bankrupt fast-food restaurant whose food isn’t just bad, but gives you the squirts.

Number Seven: Leona Lewis-Spirit

Most. Overrated. Artist. Ever. Artists expunge their inner demons through their art. Lewis is someone who got lucky on a reality TV show and the powers that be churned million of dollars in a campaign to make her the next Mariah. Can you say “payola”? The world is full of millions of talented artists who will never get their day in the sun because some idiotic executive thinks this is what people want. She will be nothing more than a trivia question five-years from now.

Number Six: Madonna -Hard Candy

Madge partnered with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake to make an album that is simply underwhelming. What makes Madonna such a fascinating pop culture figure is her ability to stay one step ahead of everyone. On Hard Candy she’s one step behind. Instead of creating trends, she is following them. Judging by the album’s lackluster sales (less than 700,000 in the US) it appears the public feels the same way I do. Even worse is that the music failed to inspire in concert, whereas her last album, Confessions On A Dance Floor stunned and shined in concert.

Number Five: Counting Crows- Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

Six-years in the making, this epic double album was supposed to be an involving two part record that was a throw back to the days of where albums ruled. Sadly, the band delivered an album that isn’t just bloated but one where even killer EP is unobtainable. To add insult to injury, the band partnered with Maroon 5 on a summer tour where little from the album was performed. If they truly believed in this album and in its importance as a whole, the band would have opted for a theater tour where they could have performed the album in its entirety and then do an extended second set of hits. If they had done this, they may have altered my mind and many others as well. Instead they took the easy money and as a result, this album will have a blemish on it over time because the band never allowed these songs to develop, progress and show its true colors in concert.

Number Four: Queen + Paul Rogers-The Cosmos Rocks

By no means is this a “bad” album, but it had the potential to be great and failed. Rogers has one of the greatest voices of the last fifty-years and Queen…well, they can tear down the walls of any stadium in the world. Instead of leaning towards stadium anthems or bluesy aural sounds, they created an album that sounds like neither artist. This is the problem. It is admirable to see both of these acts go out of their comfort zone, but once again, this is a case of over thinking everything. It’s a solid rock album, but one that aside from fanatic Rogers and Queen fans, will be forgotten in a few months time. I love both artists but as a hybrid this is merely a kick-ass karaoke band.


Number Three: My Morning Jacket-Evil Urges

MMJ’s 2005 release Z is a modern masterpiece that continues to grow and evolve with every listen. MMJ has never been a group whom you could appreciate after one listen, but those who have the patience to spend time with their albums are rewarded. Sadly, no matter how much anyone listens to Evil Urges, it fails to inspire. “I’m Amazed” is a brilliant single, but the remainder of the album sounds like a band who has lost all focus. I’m all for experimentation and pushing the envelope, but an artist should never try and force their music. My Morning Jacket evolved so fast and furious that I believe they had issues when it came time to write and record Evil Urges. This album sounds forced. It’s one thing to evolve your sound and have a gradual growth; it’s another to create music for the sole purpose of being different for the sake of being different. Sadly, this is what Evil Urges feels like; an album where the band fought against their natural talent and order and instead strayed into a zone they were not comfortable with. This is a great band and they will create great music again, it just didn’t happen this time around.

Number Two: Motley Crue-Saints of Los Angeles

The inspiration for Saints is said to have come from the band’s best-selling 2001 biography The Dirt. While this appears to be a brilliant idea on paper, it provides minimal gusto and nominal motivation. Nikki Sixx has never had a shortage of inspiration when writing, but this time he appears to have hit a brick wall. You mean to tell me that besides a divorce and the sorry state of the world, he could only draw inspiration from a book that is seven years old about events from ten to thirty years ago? Maybe the well has run dry; alas it’s no excuse for producer James Michael for going easy on the band and doing his best to hide the sleaze in their sound. This is where Bob Rock or Tom Werman would have bent the band into shape. Werman would have been the consummate carpenter molding, modifying and crafting these songs into an album that flowed and had a clear beginning, middle and end. Rock would have forced the band to delve deeper and continue peeling layers off of the songs and in the studio. If he had, a song like “The Animal In Me” could have been so much more; instead it feels like a song with huge potential but ultimately is an unfinished idea...close but no cigar. Instead of writing an album full of vitality and fervor, they wrote about a time and place when they had vigor and passion. Good idea, but poor execution. Maybe they are meant to be heard live…but even if they are great in concert, the last time I checked the Library of Congress doesn’t catalog concerts; the album is the long lasting piece of art you hope that will live on in infamy.

Number One: Marah-Angels of Destruction

Five years ago this coming February, I saw Marah deliver a rock n’ soul review for the ages in a tiny club in Chicago. It was sub-zero outside, the show was on a week night and there were maybe a hundred people in the club but this band from Philadelphia play within an inch of their lives. It featured the best of their first three records, a smattering of new songs and covers that left me wanting more. It was one of the great club experiences of my life. Authors Nick Hornby and Stephen King have praised this band and they have been featured extensively in the New York Times and Entertainment Weekly. So what does the band do with this attention? They pissed it away like spoiled rock stars. Ever since then, I’ve watched this band self-destruct in every Spinal Tap way possible. More insulting is the lack of direction this band has had inside the recording studio. Each record has been chock full of songs that have potential, but have lacked focus and execution. Angels of Destruction is an album that is so disappointing that it makes me wish I never had seen that show five years back. There is no greater crime than having talent and throwing it away on excess and ego. There is a very good reason this band never broke through to the mainstream and it falls completely in their laps. Their PR firms and management have not helped either. I have requested over a half dozen interviews with this band in the last five years (I even offered an email interview) and I was told “the band does not have the time”. It appears they were too busy with infighting and self destruction to ever allow an interview. Am I holding this against them? No way, it’s just that Marah has delivered the same record three straight releases in a row and I’m tired if believing in this band only to have them deliver third rate blue-collar under produced songs done better by a dozen different artists. This is easily the most disappointing record of not just the last twelve months, but possibly the last decade and appears to be the final nail in the coffin of Marah.

Anthony Kuzminski is a Chicago based writer and Special Features Editor for the antiMusic Network and his daily writings can be read at The Screen Door and can be contacted at thescreendoor AT gmail DOT com.