Underrated/underappreciated Albums Thread

Currently listening to The Ataris' Welcome the Night and I think this is a brilliant album that undoubtedly destroyed the bands career because of the fan alienation. What are some of your favorite underappreciated albums?

 

Agreed 110%. Such a great record

I really like Pretty.Odd by Panic at the Disco. It's actually my favorite record of theirs.

 

I was just listening through the album “Fast Times at Barrington High” by The Academy Is and couldn’t stop thinking about how widely hated this album was by seemingly all except me so I searched to see if there was an underrated albums thread and I found this.

This record is super underrated IMO. It’s catchy. It’s fun. It’s infectiously upbeat and happy which is all too rare in the genre. It’s an album you can sing along to. It’s an album you can be nostalgic over and an album you can relate too.

Lyrically and vocally it seeps with an almost cocky confidence. I love it. The guitar riffs while nothing crazy complicated are executed with a smooth and energetic catchiness to match the overall vibe and tone of the record as a whole.

I can listen to this album front to back happily. It’s a fun easy listen. I think people just expected something harder and thus were turned off.


I’d like to see this thread take off. There’s a lot of overlooked records out there.

 

Absolutely. And a great example of records that people hated when it first came out but now people love it is Saves the Day's In Reverie. There was a Modern Vinyl podcast recently talking about the history of that record and how most old school StD fans now truly love that album even though they lost a lot of fans once it came out.

Same with Underoath's Disambiguation. It was the first (and only) album without Aaron and at the time, metalcore was really dropping off from trendiness, but now it's a favorite among UO fans.

 

In reply to your original post. The Ataris were my favorite band for a long time growing up. It was them and SoCo. While Welcome the Night took getting used to and learning to adjust my expectations I do love it.

That said - The Ataris is a rare case where the music hasn’t necessarily held up to the test of time. I don’t feel the same way anymore when I go back and listen to some of their older records I used to love.

I also felt alienated from the band when Kris Roe promised new music repeatedly for years and years without ever really backing it up until finally releasing All Souls Day way too late.

 

I feel you 100%. Graveyard was announced 10 years ago and still nothing haha. Plus yeah, I can't listen to Blue Skies with much enjoyment anymore. I love 1*15*96 and Your Boyfriend Sucks, but otherwise it's just kinda meh to me now. Welcome the Night is the only one that has really lasted for me. But who knows, maybe this year we'll get Graveyard but I won't hold my breath.

 

Radiohead- Amnesiac

 

Not totally accurate. If you didn’t know about this I may be about to make your day.

 

Our Lady Peace - Spiritual Machines

 

Oh yeah, I'm aware. Thanks though. It's still just the same four songs that were released as far back as 2009 and I'm not the biggest fan of the rerecorded old songs :/

 

I can really only think of two albums that are underrated or underappreciated that I have listened to extensively.

The first would be Sound The Alarm by Saves The Day. There's a super awkward period where Chris' overly nasal singing is quite unbearable like in the first Bug Sessions EP, but on Sound The Alarm his voice just works because it goes so well with the distressing nature of the lyrics and music. It's really frantic and full of despair and his voice perfectly echoes that. Some of the songs like "Eulogy", "Shattered", "Bones" and "Dying Day" are such awesome jams as well.

The other CD is Prepare The Preparations by Ludo. While You're Awful, I Love You was really tight and had a nice flow to it, Prepare The Preparations suffered from trying to do way too many things. It ended up being a record of really solid songs that just went horribly together. It's a shame because when you listen to almost any song off that album by itself it's usually really great, but listening to it from front to back is like getting whiplashed sometimes due to the jarring changes from song to song. Not to mention the production quality of "Whipped Cream" is completely different than every other song on the album which is just frustrating.