Top 10 worst/most disappointing albums of 2017

Following on from my list of the top 10 worst songs of the year list, available here, here is my list for the top 10 worst and most disappointing albums of the year, split up into top 5s for both categories. Also, note that the albums in the disappointing category aren't necessarily that bad, but fell way short of my expectations for them.

Top 5 most disappointing albums of 2017

5. Wolf Alice - Visions of a Life




I actually enjoyed Wolf Alice's debut album a decent amount when it came out back in 2015 - although I didn't think it was a masterpiece as many have labelled it - and I thought they were easily the most interesting new British band to become massively popular, so I had high expectations for their follow-up. Then 'Yuk Foo' was released, a faux-punk song complete with cringe-worthy whispered verses and some awful production decisions (Such as the vocal sampling that randomly ensues halfway through the song.). The next 3 singles varied in quality but all seemed to be in completely different genres, and while the album is generally more cohesive than was suggested by these songs, they tend to be on the hazy, bland shoegaze side of things, making 'Visions of A Life' a frustrating listen.

4. Ed Sheeran - Divide



I was never a super-fan of Ed Sheeran before divide, and I actively hate 'The A Team' and 'Thinking Out Loud' at this point, but for the most part I was appreciative of a unique new voice in pop that was making some legitimately great music - 'Don't', 'Sing', 'lego House', 'Drunk' and 'I see Fire' are some of my favourite hit songs from this decade - so I was pretty let down by 'Divide'. It has one or two great songs, namely 'Castle on The Hill' and 'Supermarket Flowers' - hey, I don't mind 'Galway Girl' much either, but these moments are swallowed up by an album filled with lowlights. From the overplayed and irritating 'Shape of You' to the endless stream of dull, generic ballads: 'Perfect', 'Dive' and 'How would You Feel' all feel twice as long as they actually are. The rest of the tracklist is made up of twee nonsense ('What Do I Know?'), or the utter embarrassment of 'New Man'.

3. Weezer - Pacific Daydream




After making my top 3 best albums of the year last year, Weezer now make the opposite position. This isn't their worst album by any means, probably not even their bottom 3, but it's still for the most part bland and uninteresting. With the exception of 'QB Blitz', every song has lifeless, modern pop production that doesn't suit River's vocals or lyrics at all, but hey, this is Weezer. They'll probably have another album out next year and we can all forget about this.

2. Arcade Fire - Everything Now




This is a weird one, as I didn't really become an Arcade fire fan until after this was released. But 20 listens of 'Funeral' later and this is, in retrospect, very disappointing. Taking on the manic maximalism of the internet in an album is a great idea, but Arcade Fire's attempt at making a Sgt. Peppers style alternative band image for this project fell flat on it's face. The highs on this album - The title track and 'Put Your Money on Me' - reek of other artists (e.g ABBA), but the main problem is how bafflingly awful much of the material on here is. 'Electric Blue' just plain sounds awful, and songs like 'Peter Pan' and 'Chemistry' sound oddly wrong, with random synth and guitar noises popping up without any attempt to link these sounds into a cohesive song. It all sounds like someone trying to make 'OK Computer' and ending up with 'Trout Mask Replica'.

1. The whole music industry Ft.Gorillaz - Humanz




When Gorillaz announced a new album, I was PUMPED for it. 'Demon Days' and 'Plastic Beach' are two of the first albums I ever owned, and after taking 6 years off, surely Damon Albarn would have some great songs up his sleeve! Plus, the last Blur album in 2015 was decent, so what could go wrong? What if you release 4 singles that happen to be the best songs off a 14 track album, and have none of them being up to the same level of quality as their last album? What if you not only have multiple featured artists on every song, but have lots of them essentially dictate what each song sounds like, so the album becomes massively incohesive? What if Albarn sounds bored stiff as 2D, whenever he occasionally pops up? What if a large chunk of the songs sound (similarly to 'Everything Now') incohesive and cluttered - 'Sex Murder Party', 'Let Me Out', 'Hallelujah Money'?
I was massively let down by this, and the fact that the guestless B-Side 'Sleeping Powder' is better than every song on the main album makes me feel like 'Humanz' was little more than a way for Damon Albarn to show off his musical connections.


Top 5 worst albums of 2017

5. Chris Brown - Heartbreak on a Full Moon



It's a Two and a half hour, 45 song album and Chris Brown ain't no Stephin Merritt. The worrying trend of hip-hop/R&B albums getting longer and longer to encourage more streams taken to an excruciating extreme, this is a mess of autotune and sexism that we've come to expect from Chris Brown. This might have been number one on this list, but I can't make it through more than 20 tracks no matter how hard I try, so I technically haven't heard all of this album.

4. Taylor Swift - Reputation



More bearable in size, but less bearable in quality is Taylor Swift's 'Reputation'. Aside from the car-crash that is 'Look What you made Me Do', this is all of the worst parts of modern pop production paired with bitter, cringey lyrics. The 'concept' of having every song discuss Taylor Swift's public image is never developed in any way deeper than saying "I don't like you", and I think it's telling that this wasn't put onto streaming services and the marketing campaign had an unusually large focus on pre-orders - nobody would pay money for this after hearing it.

3. Linkin Park - One More Light



It's depressing to know that this was the last album Chester Bennington will ever make, the equivalent of if Weezer had broken up after the release of 'Raditude'. If anything, 'One More Light' is this decade's equivalent of 'Raditude', complete with guest rappers, pop-country balladry, EDM drops and what would have been the most mockable hook of the year with 'Heavy' (though that would be in pretty poor taste now.). Had Chester Bennington not died this year I would be shrugging and passing it off as a low note of a generally decent career, but his suicide just makes the album seem even more unworthy of being the last Linkin Park album.


2.The Chainsmokers - Memories... Do Not Open



The most appropriately named album of the year, this is somehow even worse than what everyone expected from the Chainsmokers. When a song as bland as 'Paris' is the best tune here you know something's wrong, but what's more worrying is that there are so many clunkers here it's difficult to pick the worst track. 'Break Up Every Night', 'My Type', 'Bloodstream' and 'Last Day Alive' are all so purely terrible they could be mistaken as the soundtrack to a musical comedy about two frat-boy DJ's who realise they can become popular off of doing nothing and yet instead make an effort to make toe-curlingly awful music.

1. AJR - The Click



Similarly to The Chainsmokers' album I find it difficult to pick the worst song on this album - every song here is equally unbearable. Obnoxious pitch shifting, Twenty-One Pilots rip-off vocals (Which manage to make Tyler Joseph's already annoying vocal style utterly unlistenable.), and music that rips off Jon Bellion, this feels like an album made specifically to appeal to fans of both artists, created by out of touch adults. The lyrics constantly sound overly defensive, with several songs addressing what the band believes the haters will say - which is ironic, since this constant insecurity becomes the most hateable aspect of the album. Well, that and the painful falsettos that ruin every song they appear within instantly. Everything else sounds like it was written to be in advert, which twee acoustic guitar that renders these songs completely worthless. Childish, annoying and painful.

Reviewing the 3 new Ed Sheeran singles

I've always felt neutral about Ed Sheeran. Every song I liked by him ('Lego House', 'Don't') seemed to be balanced out by a song which was so twee and sentimental that I could barely stomach it ('Thinking out Loud', 'The A team' after it's 1000th play on UK radio). Nonetheless, Ed Sheeran has re-emerged once again with 3 new singles, all 3 of which are very different from each other.

Shape of You 

The biggest hit of the 3 singles (although to be fair one was only released yesterday so we can't really judge it's success yet.), 'Shape of You' initially annoyed me on the first few listens but it's grown on me significantly since then. The lyrics are probably the weakest part of the song, with them presenting Ed as some kind of smooth sexual person, which isn't really conveyed in his voice, at least at first. That said, the double tracked vocals on the chorus are a step in the right direction and there's nothing cringe-inducing or overly in your face. It strikes the perfect balance of song-that-can-be-played-at-an-8-year-old's-birthday-party and song-that-can-be-played-at-a-club which many songs on the radio are missing.

The production is average, with the same melody repeated throughout the whole song, although it's subtle enough to not get overly annoying. There's also enough variation to make it interesting, with a wide variety of artificial and  live percussion and with varying guitar picking/strumming as the song moves along.

Overall it's decent, and is easily the second best  best number one single the US has had for months after 'Starboy'.

7/10



Castle On The Hill

So far it seems as if 'Castle On The Hill' is generally less liked than 'Shape of You', which is a shame as I personally think it's the better song. Despite being released as essentially a double-A side with 'Shape' it's already fallen down the Billboard top 100 to the second half of the table, and doesn't seem to getting any real radio radio play. Some have criticised the song for being 'the same as '7 years' by Lukas Graham', probably because the first line of 'Castle' is "When I was six years old".

However, unlike '7 Years', 'Castle On The Hill' actually paints an image of nostalgia rather than boasting about how great you are. The opening U2-esque riff grounded by the surprisingly good bassline builds up brilliantly to the explosive chorus, which is the the most passionate Sheeran's ever sounded. The lyrics are also very visual, effectively painting pictures of time passing without seeming overly sentimental. Pretty much as good as a top 10 hit we're likely going to get this year.

9/10

How Would You Feel (Paean)

I really hoped that this song wasn't around the corner, but I knew it was coming. The 'slow, romantic Ed Sheeran song' is quickly becoming a staple of his career. I've never had a point in my life where I've enjoyed ballads (Obviously there are many exceptions.), and even when the general public agrees on a one to become a hit I can't usually get behind it. 'All of Me' by John Legend, 'When I was Your Man' by Bruno Mars, 'Thinking Out loud' by Sheeran and even 'Someone Like You' by Adele just aren't my cup of tea, so when I initially heard 'How Would You Feel' I instantly grouped it into this category.

After hearing it more, I've decided that I like it more than all of those mentioned above, but still have some big problems with it. The whole song feels insincere, simply because of how many times we've seen Ed do this. Surely by this point he knows that the public will eat this kind of thing up, hence why this was released as a single when most songs similar to this by other artists stay as deep-cuts or album closers. Also, the lyrics are very generic, with not a single line that sticks out to me even after I've heard it about 10 times.

The instrumentation is typically slow but the piano melody is nice and the violins help to make the song more relaxing. Best is the guitar that pops up near the end of the track, especially the guitar solo, which fits the mood of the track well. Nonetheless, I feel like this is the kind of song I won't be remembering in a month's time.

5/10