Just when you thought it was over

Just when you thought we were done

Just when you thought it was safe, man

We did it, did it again

- Ja Rule feat. Metallica and Swizz Beatz, "We Did It Again"

In some ways, this is a blog I didn't want to write. When the site announced Albummer! was ending after a 66-episode run, I was upset by the news. I held out hope when it was announced as a hiatus rather than a cancellation, but it's been over 6 months now. Worse yet, it ended while my family was struggling with the premature birth of my second child; you can read all about that in my blog about a dripping wall penis game. Work ungraciously got very busy when home life called down, and a lot of stuff hit the back burner. These things happen.

Of course, I'm also extremely stubborn, and I always said I'd ride this out to the bitter end. So let's hop on our Harleys like Ja and James Hetfield and take a final death race through some of the worst albums ever produced, just like in the movie Biker Boyz (note: I have never seen nor read a recap of Biker Boyz, and there is no way to remedy this issue; I'm not even sure it's spelled with a Z at the end). Open up all the remaining windows on your Metallimonthtober Advent Calendars, fish out those snake chocolates, and reminisce with me.

A special note before we get into it: I reranked every single album prior to this blog, which is something I outright refused to do before this point. I didn't re-listen to every album, but I did sit through all of that Bad Luck 13 cover of "White Lines" again, which I feel is penance enough. At any rate, you get a couple of sentences for every single album on the list.

(Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4)

1. Quake (soundtrack), Nine Inch Nails

This album is good, not great. On a list like this, that's enough for #1.

2. Metallica, Metallica

Yes, it's not as good as the four thrash albums, and all of the singles are overplayed, but it's still a good album!

3. Jugular, Judas Priest

I only dimly remember anything from this album, but I could throw it on the background and have a good time at pretty much any occasion.

4. Attila, Attila

The critical dogpiling of this album makes even less sense than declaring K-Fed's rap album the worst thing ever made.

5. Be A Man, "Macho Man" Randy Savage

I'm still stunned this was good. I thought the John Cena album was all right, and this one absolutely crushes it. The cream rises, indeed.

6. Liz Phair, Liz Phair

I did a ranking of every Cathy Dennis-sung and -written song recently (for... reasons), and that exercise made me appreciate Liz Phair all the more. Maybe I just strongly dislike early 00's pop music, but this album is well above average for its time.

7. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, Various Artists

My brother instructed me to look at the soundtrack to the Digimon movie a couple months back, and I encourage you to do the same. I'm bringing it up here because I conflated it with this album.

8. Shaq Diesel, Shaquille O'Neal

Shaq is performing after a Baltimore Orioles game for their summer concert series this year, and I've never been happier to be an O's fan. They're sporting the second-best record in the league as of the time I'm writing this. Coincidence???

9. Greatest Hits, Chris Gaines

This is the only physical CD I've bought in the last 15 years, and it was worth it for the booklet alone.

10. Still Sucks, Limp Bizkit

Man, I don't know.

11. Songs of Innocence, U2

In hindsight, it's still so funny that this is the album forced into everyone's iTunes library. It's like if the James Bond franchise proudly announced that every Xbox Game Pass subscriber now gets a complimentary copy of Quantum of Solace. Thanks, I guess.

12. Death Magnetic, Metallica

In 2008, I decided to get over my dislike of 90’s Metallica and give their latest album a real shot. Because I was either still in college or recently graduated, this meant “borrowing” their music from Limewire. What I heard was an intriguing, sparse, and sludgy mix that wasn’t the band’s best work, but it did represent the first interesting transformation they had ever made. Naturally, those tracks were fakes. The real album has a few great tracks that overstay their welcome, one legitimate banger in “My Apocalypse”, and several middling songs. Its worst crime is providing another sequel to “The Unforgiven”, which made me realize that there had to be an “Unforgiven II” somewhere since the black album. But the album’s main issue is the one I stated earlier - it’s just too fucking long. When it’s on, it’s actually legitimately good, and for that, it’s getting pretty solid booking on this list.

13. Dead Man's Bones, Dead Man's Bones

This is probably the final album on this list that I would voluntarily listen to again from start to finish.

14. Mission Impossible 2 Soundtrack, Various Artists

The Metallica song's music video is really fun, especially the Jason Newsted portion.

15. Music from Another Dimension!, Aerosmith

After I finished re-ranking everything, I thought "surely it's a mistake putting Aerosmith this high". Then I looked down the list, and... oddly, nope.

16. Deliver Us from Evil, Kryst the Conqueror

What if the David Bowie song "The Width of a Circle" was spread out over 5 tracks and much worse?

17. The Return of Bruno, Bruce Willis

By all accounts, Bruce Willis has been an enormous asshole for most of his life. However, it's still sad to see him struggle with dementia. Apparently his youngest child put together a "fun facts about dementia" list for her school, which is the most depressing thing I've heard this month.

18. Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy, Leonard Nimoy

Did you see that last entry? I need another minute to recover.

19. 44/876, Sting & Shaggy

Sting is annoying, but skimming this again reminded me that his intentions are good. I don't want to listen to any of this music, but credit where credit is due.

20. Father of All Motherfuckers, Green Day

I really wanted to rank this lower, but that runtime was the most respectful of my time of anything on this list.

21. Sonic Adventure 2 OST, Various Artists

This past weekend, I told my siblings about Shadow the Hedgehog, who they had never heard of before. After noting that Shadow uses guns and works for an organization named GUN, and he is friends with a big-breasted bat that helps the President of the United States, I don't think they're speaking to me anymore.

22. Return of the Dream Canteen, Red Hot Chili Peppers

Dad Rock as a genre comes for us all. And so here I find myself defending this album, at least in part, for being inoffensive and listenable. I’m not sure how others feel about it, but I’ve always been something of a Stadium Arcadium defender. This album captures a lot of the feel of that album, only without a single standout track or interesting angle to put some shine on it. This might be a backhanded compliment, comparing a new album to the bloat of a double LP from nearly two decades ago, but that’s the best kind of compliment I can spare the Chili Peps at this stage in their history. John Frusciante is back for the 69th time, and Anthony Kiedis (scandal acknowledged) is still a great lead singer. There are a lot of cringe-worthy lyrics of course, but considering “Sir Psycho Sexy” is over 30 years old, that’s always been part of their identity. I will say that “My Cigarette” was so rough to get through that I had to take a break for 24 hours before finishing it.

23. Anywhere I Lay My Head, Scarlett Johansson

I think I'm still mad about how cowardly the setlist in this album is. Where's "The Eyeball Kid", "Oily Night", and "Filipino Box Spring Hog"?

24. Loud Rocks, Various Artists

I have this album at least 20 spots higher than anyone else, and I still can't remember much about it. Maybe the guy on the album cover just reminds me of Porcupine Tree's In Absentia, and I sank into a blissful state imagining I was listening to that instead.

25. Rebirth, Lil Wayne

I'm not brave enough to suggest this album was a decade ahead of its time, but it probably needs a critical reassessment.

26. Hardwired... to Self-Destruct, Metallica

In Drew Magary’s Jamboroo on Defector (and old Deadspin), he made sure to note that he wouldn’t be commenting on every NFL matchup. Sometimes, he would talk about the things he wanted to say and ignore the subject at hand. I live northwest of Denver, and nearly my entire backyard is covered in either some weird thistle or little thing that looks like Kochia, both of which are not ideal for having two young children. My approach towards these plants usually starts at “let’s pull the weeds out by the root” and ends in “fuck it let’s mow the bastards”. I don’t have the money or desire to re-sod the back yard, as maintaining a lawn of grass is incredibly wasteful in this arid climate. My end goal is to have somewhere the kids can play without getting scraped up by foliage anytime they fall over. Anyway, I think that this album is a soft reboot of Load / Reload, with lessons learned by the band and their production team. “Spit Out The Bone” is a pretty good song, although it fails to incorporate the best thing about “My Apocalypse”: not overstaying its welcome. The whole album is over 77 minutes long, and I really wish Metallica would learn that a tight 40 would be way, way better. In conclusion, any advice for a drought-resistant ground cover that isn’t covered in spikes would be very welcome.

27. Pure Moods, Various Artists

My family never purchased a direct-sales music compilation album (although I did steal Buzz Ballads when I was in college). I distinctly remember the disco hits one (particularly the snippet of “Heart of Glass”), but I don’t think I actually encountered any in the wild. Pure Moods feels like the first album made specifically to be played at a low volume in your local mall’s iteration of The Nature Company. It’s evenly split between ignorable filler vibe tracks and “wait, is that…?” material. I will say that this was the funniest YouTube listen because a) there was a 30 second pause between each track for some reason and b) it was frequently interspersed with UC Health “insurance perks for men” ads. I imagined the kind of person this 2023 internet hellscape algorithm had invented, evenly torn between their needs for gender essentialist healthcare and the insatiable urge to listen to a song featured on a British Airways commercial. I confess that I remember little of the actual material that I hadn’t heard before, but Jean-Michel Jarre’s “Oxygene Part IV” had the distinct feel of a song that plays too often during a season 8 Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie. However, I will forever associate this album with the ending of Albummer, and if that doesn’t put me in a Pure Mood, I don’t know what would.

28. Cyberpunk, Billy Idol

I'm regretting writing a blurb about every album now. SOYBEHPOWNK!

29. Load, Metallica

Even as someone who has never spoken ill of Metallica’s mid-90s output, especially on this website, I can’t blame Albummer for covering this record. I still really enjoy the black album to this day, even if there are some very weak songs on it. Load is nothing but weak tracks, to the extent that pablum like “Until It Sleeps” is by far my favorite one. This has also become a common refrain of mine, but the fact that it’s pushing 80 minutes is a crime that, to my knowledge, has gone unpunished for decades. While not even in the bottom half of albums I’ve listened to for this blog, it ain’t my choice, ain’t my jam, ain’t my bitchaaaahhhhhh.

30. Reload, Metallica

Anytime I think about this album, I have a hard time differentiating it from Load (and vice versa). So it’s only fitting I rank them together. I’m giving the slight edge to Load because I have always disliked the song “The Memory Remains”, which singlehandedly kept me from wanting to check out earlier Metallica for a long time. The biggest difference is probably that every song title on Reload radiates Divorced Dad energy, even more than usual for this band. The tragedy with this album isn’t so much as it sucks (though stuff like “The Unforgiven II” does suck, don’t get me wrong), but that it’s all so boring. Aside from maybe Fall Out Boy’s 2010s pivot, I can’t think of another band that redefined its sound by changing it to something so unremarkable. At least they could only go upwards from here, right?

31. Transplants, Transplants

Our final self-titled album on the list. It's surprising that each of them ended up in the top half, though maybe that speaks to any given group's first effort having an actual purpose, unlike many of the albums below.

32. Shine On, Jet

The exact midpoint of the list is precisely where Jet belongs.

33. ANThology, Alien Ant Farm

Like anyone else, I’m too familiar with Alien Ant Farm’s cover of “Smooth Criminal”. Honestly, I’m surprised it wasn’t the very first track on this album, since it’s the only reason to remember the band existed in the first place. They cruelly ask people to get through a brutal middle portion of the album (“Summer” will haunt me) to get to “Smooth Criminal”, which is the penultimate track. The songs aren’t so much bad as they are annoying, as they jump around in style and tone on a minute-to-minute basis. I don’t claim to understand the mind of a person who spent their own money to hit the Skip Track button 11 times for the sake of the only song they wanted, but this can’t have been an enjoyable listening experience for anyone. At least the band had the human decency to stick their 9 minute track at the very end after everyone had gratefully ejected the CD. For high school-aged me, downloading a copy of “Annie Are You OK by Incubus.mp3” on Kazaa was enough.

34. The Philosophy of the World, The Shaggs

Even just thinking about this album makes me furious that a parent could be this shitty to their children. I don't mind people pumping its tires, but this album is just not a good time.

35. Youth Authority, Good Charlotte

We are firmly entering "absolutely no one asked for this" territory now.

36. Playing with Fire, Kevin Federline

Please know that I tried to get K-Fed into the top half of the list again, but I just couldn't make it work. It's still extremely far from the worst album ever made, and I'm not sure it would make my bottom 100.

37. Mainstream Sellout, Machine Gun Kelly

I've listened to a couple dozen 2022 albums now, and this is still ranking dead last. However, I only hated parts of it, so I feel like music is in a really good place nowadays.

38. Bang! Pow! Boom!, Insane Clown Posse

Has anyone asked ICP what they think about AI? If not, I feel like that's a missed opportunity.

39. The Tears of Hercules, Rod Stewart

On the topic of Tom Waits covers from like 20 entries ago, I absolutely loathe Rod Stewart's version of "Downtown Train". Hearing that upset me more than "Kookooaramabama".

40. 1000hp, Godsmack

Releasing a song called "FML" is still one of the top five funniest things that happened on an album covered by this show.

41. Van Weezer, Weezer

A friend of mine got really mad at me when I told them this album sucked, so thanks for that, Rivers.

42. Freddy's Greatest Hits, The Elm Street Group

Why didn't the Paranormal Activity or The Conjuring movies release a gimmick CD? This is why they'll never hold up in horror movie canon.

43. Cut the Crap, The Clash

Somehow, despite this album’s notoriety, I had never listened to the music that killed The Clash. Now I can confidently state that it might be the most poorly produced work the Albummer crew have covered, with the exception of maybe Corey Feldman. Maybe by some objective scale, this album ranks much higher than where I’ve stuck it here. However, in terms of pure physical pain I inflicted upon myself during this journey, Cut The Crap is a cut above. A sentence on the Wikipedia article for this album states that “after Jones was fired, the band assumed that anyone could write a punk song”. Rarely do we see such incredible hubris not only shoved back into someone’s face, but also see such immediate realization of the full brunt of their failure. And that’s ultimately what makes this album so tragic (and such a bummer to me): they were capable of knowing better and stopping, and something (probably vitriol towards their ex-bandmates) launched them through each of these safeguards. I’m grateful that no mistake I’ve made with the supreme belief of success in hand has ever been this public or this messy. Maybe a competent producer could have fixed some of the songs (I like some of “Three Card Trick”), but the only thing we have is unlistenable garbage. Oh, my corazon.

44. Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven, Kid Cudi

If the vibe of this album interested you at all, it's done a million times better in last year's NNAMDI record (Please Have A Seat). I highly recommend giving that a listen instead of thinking about this album any longer.

45. Origins, Imagine Dragons

I'm still very unclear as to why this album was called "origins". Was it part of getting back to their roots when they made a song for the Wreck-It Ralph sequel?

46. Taste of Christmas, Various Artists

As promised, I included a half-dozen of these tracks in my Trashvent Calendar for 2022. I'm really scraping the bottom of the well for Xmas music trash now, though.

47. Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You, Joe Pesci

This has to be the weirdest album on this list to exist in the first place, right?

48. Scatman's World, Scatman John

The first time I ska-ba-dee-boh-dib-beh-dee-boh-dah-doh encountered Scatman John was probably the same place as most of you: in a friend’s car. We all had a good skibby-doo-doo-deh-deh-doo-doo-deh-deh-ba-dah-deep time with “Scatman (ski-ba-bop-ba-dop-bop)”, but few of us listened to anything else by the skee-dib-bop-dop-boh man. I guess I’m thankful to the Albummer ski-bop-bobbity-dop-boo-budededede crew for forcing me to listen to this skub-da-bibebe-dop-bop-bee-dah-boh Crazy Frog-esque vocalizing that it took an additional two decades to hear anything else from. I’m worried I would have lost too many brain cells ski-bi-di-dah-bop-dee-bop-dee-bop-dee-bop-dop-bope in a formative time da-bee-dop-bodidididid-oh-boh-dop-dee-ski-doo-yoda-yoba-boh-bip-bop-dedede-brrrrrrrr of my life. Overall, I skibby-dibby-dibby-boh-bee-dope-doh-dibby-mlllrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

49. Crazy Frog Presents More Crazy Hits, Crazy Frog

Am I imagining things, or did Crazy Frog attempt to come back as an NFT?

50. Kidz Bop 3, The Kidz Bop Singers

After I finish ranking every David Bowie song (I'm only on my 9th LP, so it'll be a while), my next task is to rank every Kidz Bop song. We'll see if anything can top their cover of "Lips of an Angel".

51. Too Legit for the Pit, Various Artists

Much of this site's content has operated around the principle of making a pun into a feature. That might work for a website about video games, but it sure as hell didn't work for this album.

52. Believers Never Die Volume Two, Fall Out Boy

Believers may not die, but maybe they should quit.

53. Sex and Violins, Rednex

At this point, I’ve written about more than 60 albums. Is there really a need to give the “Cotton Eye Joe” group a full writeup and assessment? What am I going to say: that a gimmick band from Sweden scored an unexpected hit in one of our stupidest decades? That there are at least two other songs that sound completely indistinguishable from their breakout hit? The only interesting thing on the album is that the music video for “Wish You Were Here” clearly depicts these “rednecks” as fighting for the Union in the Civil War, which is probably not as interesting as it is funny. Instead, let me direct you to the “Other brand ventures” subheading on their Wikipedia page, which discusses the ways the Rednex have attempted to franchise themselves and/or resolve disputes with former band members. There is also apparently a point-and-click computer game called “Inbred with Rednex”, which I strongly feel should be covered in a UPF or user blog on this site. Also, apparently “Cotton Eye Joe” was featured in The Negotiator? Let’s move on for the sake of our collective sanity.

54. Rock'n Roll Gangster, Fieldy's Dreams

Honestly, this album feels downright quaint in a post-Dee Dee King world. More on that below.

55. LuLu, Metallica

I've given it more thought, and I think Lou Reed is definitely trolling Metallica on this album. I submit the end of the music video for "The View" as my proof.

56. The Dumbest Asshole in Hip-Hop, Steve-O

I declared this the worst album the Albummer! crew covered last time, and obviously time has softened that opinion. I wish I could say it was because of a change in my critique, but I really just appreciated how short it is.

57. WWE Originals, Various Artists

On the flipside, I didn't give this album enough credit for how much it sucks. At least I'll always remember the "meat wrap" story.

58. St. Anger, Metallica

I will never forget the physical sensation of being ill that I felt while listening to this album for the very first time. Maybe the only time that's ever happened to me, at least I hope so.

59. Funny Minions: TV and Movie Theme Remixes, Funny Minions Guys

Funny Minions Guys final update: on October 14th, 2022, they released Funny Christmas Hits: Minions Version. Now you can experience "All I Want for Christmas Is You", "Feliz Navidad", and more in the three-word lexicon of the Minions! My son was born prematurely a few days later, presumably because he couldn't wait to be part of such a world.

60. Around the World with the Chipmunks, Alvin and the Chipmunks

My nephew apparently demands nothing but Chipmunks in the car now. I sincerely hope nothing from this album ever shows up on whatever playlist my sister is using, for her sake and the sake of future generations.

61. Danzig Sings Elvis, Danzig

This album is akin to watching a mudslide slowly engulf a small town, only it sounds nowhere near as lively.

62. Standing in the Spotlight, Dee Dee King

Wow, these raps are bad! Like, worse than Steve-O bad! The producer on this album claims that Dee Dee banged out the lyrics in 20 minutes, and honestly I’m surprised that much time was spent on them. If this had been a Shaggs-type scenario, I would be far more sympathetic with the incompetence on display in almost every facet of the rap-centric songs. Fortunately for Dee Dee, there are a couple of listenable tracks on this album (“Poor Little Rich Girl” and “The Crusher”) that make it impossible to call this the worst thing Albummer has discussed. More importantly, I now have music to sit alongside Cowboy Troy on my shelf of terrible hip-hop albums. Next time I want to cackle like a maniac, I’ll just throw on the song about the mermaid who read some surfing magazines. On this website, we stan a King.

63. Angelic 2 the Core, Corey Feldman

It took five blog posts to get there, but I finally accepted what Emily objectively determined many months ago: Corey Feldman holds the title for the worst album that Albummer! ever covered. Please accept this correction as my apology for ever suggesting otherwise.

As we ride off into the sunset, I'd like to once again express my appreciation for the entire Albummer! crew and all of its guest stars. You provided dozens of hours of entertainment and introduced me to some true nightmare music. I hope this show returns someday, whether in Albummer! form or elsewhere on the internet, but even if it doesn't: you absolutely killed it. Now, take us out over here, James.