By Drew Adamek
I am a metalhead through and through. Occasionally, a little 1990’s hip-hop, Chicago Blues or Rolling Stones will poke through, but I am on a steady diet of screaming guitars and thundering drums.
I’ve tried to experiment; I’ve tried listening to other music. figure I’ve bought, on average, one album a week for the last 25 years. That means I’ve probably bought somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400 albums. Some were garage sale cassettes for a dollar, others were CDs, and most recently it’s been iTunes impulse buys.
My CD and cassette collection was several hundred strong before the iPod and I now have 400 purchased albums. Some are classics, some are forgotten and some are absolute, gut-rot stinkers.
Here, then, are 20 albums I wish I never bought:
1. Marxman, 33 1/3 Revolutions.
At some point, I thought that a hip-hop album by communists was a funky twist on the genre. It wasn’t. Das Kapital just doesn’t have the same flow as “Get Low, Get Low.”
2. PM Dawn, Of the Heart, Of the Soul and of The Cross. De La Soul was and is one of my favorite hip-hop acts. This cheap, one-off ripoff isn’t.
3. Aphex Twin, Richard D James Album.
Jesus, an hour of beeps. I quit drugs too early to appreciate this album.
4. Godsmack, IV.
I have a Nu-Metal prohibition; I’m just not that angry at the faceless masses that have done me wrong anymore. I only bought this album because they opened for Metallica on the St. Anger tour.
5. Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison.
I get that he’s an icon and a legend. But I only bought this album on an impulse because I saw the movie on an airplane. As great as Johnny Cash might be, I just don’t like country music.
6. Jane’s Addiction, Nothing Shocking.
I was obsessed with this album in 1988; I couldn’t stop listening to it for at least a year. I don’t regret re-buying it in 1988 or 1990 or even 1995. I decided that I had enough when I bought it again in 2000 and 2004. It isn’t that good.
7. Marilyn Manson, Antichrist Superstar.
There was a single, I don’t remember which, that I really liked, and I thought they could be a new Nine Inch Nails. But, I was starting to get older and the faux shock value just seemed a little silly to me.
8. Various Artists, The Blackest Album.
Sometimes being an obsessed fan really has its downsides. This industrial/goth cover album of Metallica’s greatest hits is a low point of fandom for me. I would like my $12 back, please.
9. Sepultura, Chaos AD. I wanted to get this album so bad and I just didn’t. It was supposed to be heralding in a new wave of metal and I wanted to ride that wave but I just ended up puzzled.
10. Down, NOLA.
This album ruined heavy metal for me – no one will ever do it this good again! Nothing compares to this monster of heavy, stoner, riff metal and there hasn’t been a record that’s come out since that’s been as good (Metallica included). Hands down, the best album in my collection, and the standard against which every album I’ve bought since is compared.
11. Limp Bizkit, Three-Dollar Bill Y’All.
Yes, you can slap me.
12. Lords of Acid, Pussy.
What can I say? I was really lonely in the ’90s.
13. Vanilla Ice, To The Extreme.
True story: I spent some time in a structured environment (teen rehab) in 1990, without a lot of interaction with the outside world. Right before I left society at-large, To The Extreme was the hottest, hardest album going. What I didn’t know, when I returned to the world at-large, was that Vanilla Ice had become the biggest joke going. My first day back in school, I tried to impress a girl by singing all of the lyrics to “Ice Ice Baby.” She never talked to me again.
14. Any AC/DC album since Back in Black.
I mean, I am just throwing money away buying the same album over and over again.
15. Aerosmith, Permanent Vacation.
Wait, didn’t these guys used to rock?
16. Fergie, The Dutchess.
Alright, I was on a road trip in northern Wisconsin in a rental car with no iPod. We stopped at a Target and it was this or Tim McGraw. I have no idea how it then found it’s way onto my iPod or any of the five playlists it’s on. No idea.
17. Any Supergroup Album.
With the exception of Cream and Audioslave, most of the supergroup albums I’ve bought over the years have been really bad ideas. I am talking to you, Damn Yankees, Fantomas, A Perfect Circle, Velvet Revolver, Them Crooked Vultures.
18. Any Motorhead Album since Orgasmatron.
I am afraid Lemmy may kill me now, but it’s the AC/DC problem: Do I need to spend the fifteen bucks to buy the same album again and again? Spare my soul, Mr. Kilmister, for I have blasphemed.
19. My High School Records.
I still don’t know how I managed to only earn one-half credit my last year in high school.
20. Nirvana, Nevermind.
I didn’t get the revolutionary part then, and I don’t get it now.
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Submit your own regrets.
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Other Lists By Drew Adamek:
* Today’s Syllabus
* Shit My Dad Says
* Work Weirdos
* Things I Miss About Chicago
Plus:
* Fan Note: Me & Metallica
Posted on February 25, 2010