Album Disappointments of 2020

Whilst we rightly cherish and praise good albums, it's also interesting to see which ones let people down.

For me:-

Deftones - Ohms

Heralded as a return to form (despite their last album Gore being great and quite experimental comparatively) I find Ohms completely lifeless. It's like someone was told what a Deftones album sounded like and created one almost to the point of pastiche. I think getting old producer back was a regressive step and there's just nothing memorable about this whatsoever. Which is a shame as last 3 albums have been very good.

At the moment I rate it as their worst album although it has to fight it out with Saturday Night Wrist for that title.

It's like if Radiohead tried to remake the Bends badly or something.

A turd.

Plone puzzlewood, bought it, played it once and now it hasnt left my shelf since i put it there.

Also (Im sorry) Autechre - Plus, IMO its the weaker counterpart to Sign. Sign is great but this just doesnt have a personality or a destinctive sound since there are still Sign like tracks on this thing even though this was supposed to be the beat heavy album.

Maybe Plus will be a grower but so far I am left cold by it. hope i dont get assassinated for having this opinion lol

the avalanches - we will always love you

it's technically not out yet but they've already released half of it as singles, and none of them are particularly brilliant. a few of them have brief beautiful moments, some glimmers of hope, but before you can get immersed they bring in some generic, piss weak vocal to ruin the day. think it's a case of too many cooks for this one. i'm still curious to hear the other half, and i love the artwork so i'm not gonna write the entire thing off just yet, but this has been the biggest disappointment for me in 2020, as their discography (albeit brief) up until this point has been exceptional.

Plone-Puzzlewood: I didn't have very high expectations, but still. 

Serpentine Prison (Matt Berninger solo): Really anemic and dull. Same with the new Kurt Vile ep. 

Jason Molina-Live at La Chapelle: All those beautiful songs sounds like they were recorded through a phone from the back row. Amazing shitty sound.

Alva Noto-Xerrox v4: Not bad, but 1 and 2 was way better.

Arca-KiCk i: No 

Four Tet-Sixteen Oceans: Some really nice tunes, but bloated with boring tracks.

Pantha Du Prince-Conference of Trees: Pretty much the same as for Four Tet

  On 11/27/2020 at 4:36 PM, scumtron said:

 

Arca-KiCk i: No 

 

Truer words have rarely been spoken

lol yeah arca has always been ok to terrible...

honestly was a bit disappointed with the aleksi oscillation series, but luckily the spectrum series made up for it. but after those and the last LPs on trip im getting confused why aleksi puts the worst tracks out on wax...

ital tek - outland ... meh im not into this cinematic stuff so much

grimes - miss anthropocene. pretty lame shit after all that hype. 

machinedrum - a view of u. living in LA must be really fun but damn it makes the music pretty boring

oh yeah and the new mr bungle lol

not electronic, but the new Idles record, Ultra Mono, was a pretty big bummer aside from 1 or 2 songs. undercooked with pretty bad lyrics. shame, because they are one of the better rock bands out today.

the new king krule record was not bad, just not very memorable. i was hoping for something more outstanding from such a talent.

Khruangbin had somewhat of a disappointing year IMO. first they released an ep with a vocalist, which took them a little too far into the pop r&b realm for my liking. then they released an album with maybe 2-3 solid tracks, and the rest sounded like half-done sound sketches, where the guitarist didn't seem interested in playing at all.

that Washed Out album released this summer was horrible. he seemed to be on a pretty good run up until Mister Mellow. that one was questionable, and the new one is so bland and boring, makes you start to question "what the hell happened to him."

  On 11/30/2020 at 3:37 PM, dr lopez said:

oh yeah and the new mr bungle lol

Expected, but yeah. 

Cabaret Voltaire - Shadow of Fear (more dancy than I expected; not sure why Richard Kirk solo needed to resurrect the name)

Shabazz Palaces - The Don of Diamond Dreams (yuk I hate autotune and you can't change my mind)

Open Mike Eagle - Anime, Trauma and Divorce (just got into him earlier this year so it's too bad I'm not impressed with this one)

Four Tet - Sixteen Oceans (just boring)

Helvetia - Fantastic Life and This Devastating Map (really liked the last one from 2015, but these two stink)

Profligate - Too Numb to Know (not like the previous one was amazing, but this has some particularly cringe vocals and just sounds forced and inauthentic)

Public Practice - Gentle Grip (I was expecting to like this more based on the EP and the singer's previous band WALL, but this is a bit too glossy and new wave, with some songs sounding a bit too close to specific 80s songs as opposed to just being influenced by them)

  On 11/30/2020 at 4:49 PM, zero said:

that Washed Out album released this summer was horrible. he seemed to be on a pretty good run up until Mister Mellow. that one was questionable, and the new one is so bland and boring, makes you start to question "what the hell happened to him."

I was so bummed about that one. I can see what he was going for, but, yea...

  On 11/30/2020 at 9:19 PM, jules said:

I was so bummed about that one. I can see what he was going for, but, yea...

he should just release 4 track eps imo

New Mr. Bungle would have been disappointing if I wasn't already aware it was going to be a rerecording of their earliest material.  For what it was, it was well executed and as good as expected.  If I were expecting a musical followup to California it would have been extremely disappointing.  Still hopeful that could one day happen, as all members are still creating interesting music individually.

  On 11/30/2020 at 4:49 PM, zero said:

Khruangbin had somewhat of a disappointing year IMO. first they released an ep with a vocalist, which took them a little too far into the pop r&b realm for my liking. then they released an album with maybe 2-3 solid tracks, and the rest sounded like half-done sound sketches, where the guitarist didn't seem interested in playing at all.

I totally agree. I was super hyped, then pretty disappointed. It sounds generic at times, like the guitarist is doing just variations/jamming of already known lines.

After all I find myself listening to Pelota and Shida only.

Ae was quite underwhelming for me as well. Yeah, a disappointment even. My excitement is at like 10% of NTS levels.

Those were 2 of 3 which I had so high expectations in. #3 is IC3PEAK - ДО СВИДАНИЯ... they delivered, 50% of all my listening in 2020 was probably this album. 

Had no expectations for Tom Jenkinsons album. Lots of love for Detroit People Mover and Terminal Slam. 

Still no MNLTH.

didn’t mnlth take a bunch of preorders for something that he never delivered? or am i thinking of some one else?

The Orb - Abolition of Royal Familia

  On 11/27/2020 at 4:36 PM, scumtron said:

Jason Molina-Live at La Chapelle: All those beautiful songs sounds like they were recorded through a phone from the back row. Amazing shitty sound.

I was at this concert. I totally forgot he was dead. Such a strange feeling to listen to this now, i remember shaking his hand at the end of the concert, and he found my Death to the Pixies shirt cool :)

i accidentally watched one of the promotional videos for the latest yello album while coming down off shrooms & it felt like something generated by AI

The Campfire Headphase

2020 was full of album disappointments for me. A ton of the stuff everybody loved did nothing for me. In general I'd rather just keep quiet than trash somebody else's work so I haven't posted much about these.

Luckily there were also tons of records I loved this year. Music was just about the only thing that wasn't horrible in 2020.

  On 1/3/2021 at 9:46 PM, Alcofribas said:

didn’t mnlth take a bunch of preorders for something that he never delivered? or am i thinking of some one else?

lol