Broken Records - The Search for the Worst Album Ever

There’s endless amounts of mid 00’s indie landfill for us to sort through on Broken Records, as you might well imagine, and that’s the territory we find ourselves in yet again, as Steve and Remfry hold their collective breath and dive head-first into The Twang and their 4^th full-length studio album Neon Twang.

Released in March 2014, Neon Twang faced a fairly apathetic reaction from the general public whose appetite for paper thin, non-descript and utterly soulless chav-indie had (thankfully) quelled significantly at this point. It was a far cry from the band’s early days when they were hailed by the NME as ‘Britain’s Best New Band’ on the cover of the 31st March 2007 edition of the magazine. A couple of months later, their debut album Love It When I Feel Like This received 6/10 in the very same magazine (déjà vu anyone?), hardly a critical mauling but a score that is somewhat baffling given NME’s cover proclamation just weeks before.

As is sometimes the case with this indie landfill stuff, wavering critical opinion seems a large part of the reason why Neon Twang has found its way onto Broken Records and whilst neither Steve nor Remfry are going to bend over backwards to hand out platitudes to The Twang, the question remains ... does Neon Twang really deserve the critical appraisal that it received?

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We’re getting sexy with Emerson, Lake and Palmer this week on Broken Records, as Steve and Remfry head down for a taste of love on the Love Beach.

The seventh studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson Lake & Palmer, it was released in November 1978 by Atlantic Records as their final studio album prior to their split the following year. By the end of their 1977–1978 North American tour internal relations had started to deteriorate, but the group were contractually required to produce one more album. They retreated to Nassau, Bahamas as tax exiles to record Love Beach with lyricist Peter Sinfield who is credited as a co-writer of each track. After Greg Lake and Carl Palmer had finished recording their parts they left the island, leaving Keith Emerson to finish the album himself.

It spelled the end for ELP but will Steve and Remfry want to sup upon the taste of creamy, peachy love served up by Love Beach or will they gag at the merest hint of a widdly, masturbatory synth solo freak out?

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Welcome to another episode of Broken Records, the podcast which desperately scours the music world and tries to answer that age old question; what is the worst album ever made? This week Steve and Remfry have a hot contender on their hands as they look at Paula by Robin Thicke, the 7th studio album from the soul-pop lothario, released on the 1st of July 2014.

Thicke had a pretty decent decade long career in the music industry by 2013, he may not have scaled the heights of a Justin Timberlake or an Usher, but his brand of slinky, sexy, soul was popular enough to earn him a decent following in the US, where he appeared on Oprah and supported Beyonce. But it all changed for him when he released the song Blurred Lines in 2013. The song, as we are sure you’re aware, was a monolithic hit, dominating the airwaves for the entire year, but came with plenty of criticism and controversy, the ugly sexual politics of the song were condemned by many, Thicke stirred the pot further with a overly sexualised performance at the 2013 MTV Awards with Miley Cyrus and the estate of Marvin Gaye launched a plagiarism lawsuit against the song as well. Thicke himself was now at the centre of a media storm, and when allegations of drugs, violence and infidelity came out in the aftermath, his wife of 9 years Paula Patton filed for divorce. Most people would take time away form the spotlight to address these problems in private, but Robin Thicke decided to do the absolute opposite of that, writing and recording an album named after his wife in a mere 7 week period that detailed their relationship in painstakingly minute detail in the vain hope of winning her back. It didn’t. It was a critical and commercial flop, and turned Thicke from one of the biggest stars in music into a washed up nobody practically overnight. Whether this is any good or not we will get to, but in terms of career suicide and a fall from grace, there aren’t many albums that can get close to Paula.

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The customer is always right, so they say... hmmm... well, on this week's show we’re going to test that theory to the limit as we look at the second album from the early 00’s most successful hard rock revivalists; The Darkness’ One Way Ticket To Hell... and Back! Let’s hope you had a receipt for that catsuit.

We’re joined by Metal Hammer editor and longtime fan of the band Merlin Alderslade to dig deep into just what went wrong with rock's great new hopes of the 21st century. Released on the 28th of November 2005, the follow up to the inhumanly successful Permission To Land was always going to struggle by comparison, and it would take more than endless nudging, winking and tomfoolery and the excessive production techniques of the legendary Roy Thomas Baker, he of Bohemian Rhapsody fame, to save this album from a fickle mainstream public. During the recording of the record the band lost their iconically moustached bassist Frankie Poullain, frontman Justin Hawkins made the bizarre decision to go solo, and by the time the album was released drugs, apathy and exhaustion had all but destroyed the band, their stratospheric rise all crashing down around them as quickly as it had risen.

But is the album actually that bad, or had The Darkness fifteen minutes of fame just expired? Find out here.

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Another week, another Broken Record to rank as we search for the worst album in the history of music. In this episode Steve and Remfry discuss Baptism, the 7th studio album from the big scarf-wearing, hard funk, singer-songwriter Lenny Kravitz, released on the 18th of May 2004.

By 2004 Lenny was a massive rock star! He’d picked up Grammy’s four years in a row from 1999 to 2002, he’d gone platinum a bunch of times, he was doing songs with Jay-Z, P Diddy and Pharrell, dating Brazilian supermodels and A-list Hollywood actresses, he had been immortalised in The Simpsons and he even had a book released which consisted solely of pictures of his own, let's be real here, very lovely looking, face! But did all this actually make Lenny Kravitz happy? Baptism would suggest not. In his search for some kind of spiritual fulfilment Kravtiz crafted an album that questioned his career, his life decisions and the industry that had turned him into one of the most recognisable faces on the planet. Often this kind of soul searching from artists can lead to some brilliantly arch and transgressive music, often it can lead to some rich bloke whining and grumbling about how hard they have it over the top of some truly awful, bland and sappy tunes. Guess which one Baptism is.

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