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 new Gorillaz singles

So after 7 years of waiting Gorillaz have suddenly dropped 4 singles at once and as a massive fan I was immediately hyped. I was slightly wary however - after all, the puzzling kind-of release of 'Hallelujah Money' which not only seemed to be a very strange choice of lead single with a video which wasn't anything like the beloved animated videos fans are used to, but was also one of too many similarly themed anti-Trump songs all released around his inaguration, which meant it got swallowed up with little praise. These new singles however are far more promising...

Saturn Barz (ft. Popcaan)



Saturn Barz is the main single being pushed to promote 'Humanz', as evidenced by it being the only of the 4 singles with a proper video, and it seems to so far be the most divisive of the 4. I can see why some would be turned off by instead of hearing Damon Albarn/2D's familiar reverb-heavy British voice hearing an autotuned Jamaican dancehall star yelling "ALL MY LOIFE!", but it's pretty much exactly what I wanted from the new Gorillaz album - the band trying out new, relevant stuff without 'selling out'. Aside from Popcaan's addictive hook, the instrumental is also great, with heavy bass, trap inspired percussion and ghostly voices backed up by equally spooky synth notes. And that's all before 2D's perfectly depressing chorus rolls around, and the song turns from being a  hellish party into a claustrophobic nightmare about cannibalistic Gods and technophobia. If someone had told me that Gorillaz were about to drop a dancehall-inspired track just a year after the boom of unbearable commercial dancehall in the form of Drake and Major Lazor I would have been worried, but Gorillaz pull it off in style.

9/10

Andromeda (ft. D.R.A.M)



The first of the four singles I personally heard, Andromeda is still my favourite of the 4. My favourite Gorillaz song (and one of my all time favourite songs in general) is 'On Melancholy Hill', which should make it clear why I love this song so much. It's calm, euphoric and the repeated refrain of "Take it in your heart now lover" gets me every time. D.R.A.M doesn't make a huge contribution to the song, to the point where I didn't realise he was actually featured until several listens in, but his soulful voice fits the song greatly. Overall, it's one of the best songs I've heard this year.

10/10

Ascension (ft. Vince Staples)


This is a weird one. Lyrics about racial tensions meet with ideas about the end of the world and a meme is sampled for the most terrifying second of music released this year. This is possibly my least favourite of the songs, mainly because several of Staples's lines are a bit... off ("All these liberated women sittin' in my lap" and "She wet like Barbra Streisand" are two examples.), but other than that the track has massive momentum and the build up to the scream was absolutely nerve-shredding until I found out it was sampled from the legendary "OH YEAH MR KRABS" Youtube video.

8/10

We Got The Power



Listening to this right after 'Ascension' can give you whiplash, as it's maybe the most straightforwardly joyous songs they've ever made. Since Gorillaz are most loved for their more depressing cuts ('Clint Eastwood', 'Feel Good Inc.') this has the potential to go under the radar, which would be a huge shame. Jenny Beth's powerful vocals, distorted in the same way as 2D's are perfect for the song, and although their not immediately noticable, Noel Gallagher's vocals on the final chorus are incredibly significant, as it gives legitimacy to the message of the song. After all, what could be a better way of preaching love and tolerance than having two of the key players in the once-huge Blur vs Oasis beef finally coming together on a great song?

9/10