Bad albums,
There Just is no Excuse
by Lily Murphy
While doing
some cleaning out I came across an old shoe box
full of CD’s under my bed. I wondered why
these CD’s were hidden away but when I
opened it I would soon learn the reason why.
When I opened
the box I came into contact with my pre-teen self.
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince Greatest Hits,
Aquarius by Aqua and Boyz II Men The Ballad
Collection, were just some of the CD albums
stored away in that shoe box and I knew that
there was a valid reason as to why they were
indeed cast away under my bed, they were CD’s
I wouldn’t save from a fire.
I did come
across some bit of sense when I found a CD of the
Stone Roses debut album stuck in between Brittany
Spears and Justin Timberlake like their unwanted
lovechild hidden away from the world but I took
it out, dusted it down and placed it with the
rest of my socially acceptable collection of
albums, then I closed the shoebox and shoved the
shit CD’s back under my bed.
When you grow
up and start to somewhat mature, it is a rule
that some bands and music are meant to be given
up after adolescence, it’s a rule some folk
find hard to follow but not me thank Christ.
I boxed up the
dishonour of being the owner of bad albums and
began compensating for the shame by investing in
a back catalogue of musically acceptable albums
such as Neil Young’s Harvest and Van
Morrison’s Astral weeks. They helped
me shed the shame of a youth spent listening to
cheap pop, music which I now term as the most
unfashionable music on the planet, next to disco
of course.
Many people
harbour a bad album or two like a guilty pleasure,
be it cock rock otherwise known as 80s hair metal
or even an album by the marmite of the music
world, Lionel Richie. While it takes years for
some artists to age like fine wine and become
musically acceptable it is still not cool to own
an album by the likes of Burt Bacharach, but I
reckon it will only be a matter of time before he
joins the likes of Sinatra in the league of
coolness, but until that day comes, keep hiding
your best of Burt collection.
While my own
shameful collection of shit albums are enough to
get me taken away by the men in white coats, I
have at least some bit of dignity and have never
been the owner of what I can only describe as the
most horrendous album in the history of music.
In 1974 the
world was subjected to a non musical album called
Having Fun With Elvis on Stage. It was nothing
more than over an hour of Elvis rambling on with
humourless jokes on stage between himself, the
audience and his band.
This album was
the experiment of Col. Parker and was hawked at
concerts across the states. The album is cringe
worthy, it is something you don’t want to
experience in your life, it’s up there with
water boarding as a form of torture.
The record
sleeve indicates that it is ‘a talking album
only’ and some highlights include Elvis
asking for water and Elvis describing a
number of ways of pronouncing Memphis, it is an
album I wouldn’t wish my greatest enemy to
have to listen to.
Although
Having Fun with Elvis on Stage was such a shit
album it managed to reach number nine on the
country billboard chart of 1974 and it is
something of a rare collectors item these days.
So although I
may have some distasteful CD’s in my
collection, at least I am not tarnished with the
shame of being the owner of Elvis’ worst
ever album but then again, it is said to be worth
money in the collectors market and ones mans shit
Elvis record is another mans pot of gold! Sure
who knows, my Aqua album may be worth something
in a few more years!
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