Albums Whose Anticipation Grew to Mythic Proportions

Everybody knows the obvious entries (Smile, Chinese Democracy), but upon discovering that even Chicago had one of these (Stone of Sysiphys, 15 year delay), I'm intrigued to find more examples. What albums, either due to length of time to release, stories of studio meddling, turmoil, or whatnot, subsequently attained mythic or cult status as a result? Note it doesn't matter if the album's quality was anywhere near the myth, or if the album ever did get released (scrapped albums totally count).

http://thelemurblog.com/gallery/Animal%20Collective%20-%20Merriweather%20Post%20Pavilion.jpg

Dr. Dre's Detox album has been forthcoming for like 10 years. Likewise with RZA's "The Cure". But I never hear about these albums anymore. Maybe people got tired of waiting.

good point - I keep forgetting about Detox until people remind me.

also both of those albums will inevitably suck major balls

Avalanches' follow-up.

have there been any albums shelved anywhere near as long as Smile was and released later in completed form (ie, not demos, not 'reconstructions')?

The album cover is making me want to spit up all over my keyboard.

it looks like obnoxious ClipArt

Dre's last album was anticipated for nearly as long.

Hysteria
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Greatest Story Never Told

In any case, the Sisters of Mercy have purportedly been working on an album for ... oh, I don't know ... THE LAST TWENTY YEARS. I'm not saying that everyone's waiting with baited breath for it by this point, but it'll be interesting if/when it ever materializes.

I know we, the world, have tried to forget but

http://swaggeroverload.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/jay-z-kingdom-come-3804671.jpg

didn't John Fogerty wait like 11 years to release a follow-up or something once

not sure if it qualifies using your criteria, but trust me, this was a big deal just before it was released:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d130/mywow/NirvanaInUtero.jpg

March 21, 2006:

A Roxy Music spokesman said: "Since the highly acclaimed summer dates of 2005, Roxy Music have been back in the studio for the first time for over 20 years.

"All five original band members ( Ferry, Thompson, Eno, Andy Mackay
and Paul Manzanera ( have been working on an album with producers Rhett Davies and Chris Thomas.

"In the build-up to the release, Roxy are planning on releasing a remix album, in which various DJs and producers will be putting their own spin on Roxy and Ferry's back catalogue."

Well, I'm still patiently waiting outside Tower Records on Amazon to press 'Buy Now with 1-Click' oh hell, Mediafire Ichip Digital Thought Implant

I seem to remember the Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy was one of the first (if not the first) times that record stores opened at midnight on the day of release.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreleased_Prince_projects

also,
The Who - Lifehouse
Zappa - Läther

My Bloody Valentine will eventually release an album, and it's bound to let folks down.

I still remember the Melody Maker review for Loveless, which was along the lines of "well, it's good but is that all there is?"...(Loveless being released a full FOUR YEARS after Isn't Anything!)

it will be the most anticipated album of 2019.

i will be 50.

Thing with anticipation is that it requires some energy to sustain it. I doubt many people wake up in the morning in 2010 and wonder about Detox. If it takes a certain amount of time, people lose interest, seems like, even big fans. It anyone really "anticipating" a follow-up to Loveless at this point? Or even the remasters?

times not necessarily a killer. although it sold well below expectations, hype for Chinese Democracy was nuts. Fans were swapping mp3s and arguing over what would make the final cut for years.

I seem to remember tons of hype for Wu-Tang Forever. MTV News interviewed record store clerks and fans on the day of release, "Better than 36 Chambers?" etc.

Also, The Strokes' Is This It, but that was mostly rock critics. The album only debuted at like #70 or so, iirc.

hell hath no fury

wtf is mpp doing on this thread?

anticipating the leak was a big deal 2 the internet shut-in demographic

hence the dissipation of our rick astley leak

St. Anger kind of hit ridiculous levels until people realized they had ears and listened to it in advance.

I never noticed that there was actually a picture behind that op-art facade of the MPP album...

Burial DJ Kicks.

Use Your Illusion was extremely anticipated

Second Coming

A Season In Hell

Meltzer ties the impact of Sgt Peppers to the anticipation & hype, though obviously it wasn't shelved or delayed.

Kid A, maybe?

The massiveness of Rumours made Tusk-anticipation pretty mythic iirc.

Kid A (all music says it was the most anticipated rock album since In Utero.)
Be Here Now
X&Y

http://noizumi.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/nsync-no-strings-attached-cd_lg.jpg

not sure why it was such a BFD but the buzz for this album was INSANE, it was their first album in two years (after a break from their record label), the first single Bye Bye Bye was a huge hit with a Making the Video that was on MTV rotation like it was going out of style not to mention how it was all NSYNC all the time there leading up: ultrasound, TRL, making the video, NSYNC presents their favorite videos ever, etc. KUBE 93 in Seattle (which has always been strictly hip-hop) got a copy of the CD in advance and played the entire thing at midnight a few days before release, or so the urban legend went at my school - i can't tell you how hard we searched for someone with the presence of mind to put that shit on a cassette. and it was a huge status symbol to have bought the album the day it came out, i demanded to be driven to Tower records to get it - I waited in a line about 25 deep of tween girls in the morning on a weekday and was interviewed by a DJ "on the scene" to report about the madness. (pardon my anecdotes)

the overall hysteria panned out with sales too of course, it went 2x platinum in a week and 7x platinum in a month. not exactly a classic all-time album but it has its place in history.

Kid A (all music says it was the most anticipated rock album since In Utero.)

yeah, i'd say that's right.

Stone Roses - Second Coming

Seems so weird to think back to the days when an album could sell 2,000,000 copies IN A WEEK.

Good old Scott Walker's Tilt and The Drift come to mind.

it's pretty startling to look at what they did in a week - a big mainstream album of last year was Black Eyed Peas and that's gone 2x in almost a year

mythically anticipated debuts:

doggystyle

slanted & enchanted

aw man... killing me with that Roxy business

Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP and Encore were both pretty anticipated.

anticipating the leak was a big deal 2 the internet shut-in demographic

Just wait 'til their next album, now that their fanbase has grown so much since MPP hit #1 across 2009 critics' charts.

musically's post about 'no strings attached' is awesome & otm

musically's post about 'no strings attached' is awesome & otm

2x platinum in a week

O_O

I remember the Springsteen live box set.

(Not the music, hey I didn't GET one or owt!)

Portishead's third album. Remarkably it didn't disappoint.

I feel like there are 3 distinct things being described in this thread:

- albums that were delayed/shelved for years and years and years where the title was known and it was the subject of tons of debate and speculation in the media (Smile, Chinese Democracy, Detox)
- albums that came out more or less on schedule with a normal advance promotion cycle that were a big deal to fans of that artist and either sold big right out of the gate or were enthusiastically embraced by fans/critics
- albums by an established artist that just got delayed a lot for a couple years because they couldn't get a lead single to hit or the artist was hemming and hawing and people were interested to hear it but the anticipation was hardly 'mythic'

arguably a 4th category:

- artists who went a long time between albums without floating out any working titles or tentative release dates that fans nevertheless constantly anticipated releasing something again eventually

Dylan's The Basement Tapes - category one, I think

that's in a subcategory of albums that were heavily bootlegged and didn't have a lot of 'mystery' per se around what they'd sound like, though, right?

i remember being really excited to hear first jesus & mary chain album and i hadn't even heard them yet i don't think. the buzz was huge.

later i remember that i kept bugging the people at armand's in philly for anything by massive attack - cuz again the buzz was huge - and they didn't know what the hell i was talking about. then safe from harm 12 inch finally got to philly and it was big. first tricky album was kind of the same way in philly. everyone had to go get it.
and straight outta compton. don't even get me started. anticipation for that was very high where i lived.

seriously though one of the last albums i bought that i ran out and got immediately - like a lot of other people - was ...and justice for all. that definitely felt like a big deal at the time.

Neon Bible
Speakerboxxx/Love Below

Not sure if it applies (and it doesn't really fit any of the 4 categories), but Belle & Sebastian's "The Boy With the Arab Strap" had massive anticipation within indie circles who had been soaking in the B&S mythology (origin story of the then-difficult-to-find Tigermilk; second album on a tiny label; no interviews/press pics/etc.) and wanted to see what they would come up with fro a new album on a big indie.

Big Indie was the same as the small indie.

Or do you mean the US release?

(in the U.S.)

White Stripes-Elephant

The anticipation was aided by the fact that the advance copies dropped two months before the release date and were only on VINYL. Remember the hemming and hawing over that?

Pearl Jam-Vitalogy

Similar case. Released on vinyl two weeks before the CD. A lotta folks double dipping so they could hear the album sooner, dusting off turntables they would be abandoned for years once the CD came home.

NEVER FORGET:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PlPmcYlWL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Black Bastards

seriously though one of the last albums i bought that i ran out and got immediately - like a lot of other people - was ...and justice for all. that definitely felt like a big deal at the time.

Yeah, was one of the last records I remember anticipating too. It got postponed for a few months or thereabouts.

Surprised there's no mention yet of two victims of record company doings:

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (which arguably wouldn't have been as big as it was without the backstory)

Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine

how has nobody mentioned destruye's rubies? I hear Pitchfork is gonna give it a 10.0

Black Bastards

― 51|)e|-|4x012z (ojo), Wednesday, 21 April 2010 22:24 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Wanna explain? I thought this was all but forgotten by the time it was released in what... 99/00? Subroc had died, Zev/DOOM had obviously given up on KMD, Elektra were a bit cunty (not on the artwork thing, I understand that, but post-Subroc's death and still being dicks)... And then it came out to sell like 2 copies.

Which reminds me... Swift & Changeable! That's still a thing right? I remember a couple years around and upto Fishscale/'The Mouse And The Mask' when I was trippin' balls just off the thought of this being made.

Maybe this only counted for a very small percentage of people, but Willie Nelson's "reggae" album was anticipated from the very second people heard he'd signed to Island, and took a long time to actually arrive.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/Elvis_is_Back!.jpg

Elvis is back and he's black

the first post-Pinkerton Weezer album

Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine

This is a common misconception. The record company didn't sit on it, Apple did, until she was happy with it. Still hotly anticipated, though.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PlPmcYlWL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

seriously stared at this for a sec thinking "...Nelly?"

i would buy the nelly box set

Haha, at first I thought it said Nelly too, and I was like, "Nelly's released that many albums?!".

Nelly Young, man!

Cure - Wish

iirc, the kids (like me) were hoping for them to outdo, or at least repeat, Disintegration & the suits had a lot riding on their new status as the least-likely stadium/arena band in the US. Were they as popular elsewhere at the time? Like U2/REM popular?

very loose definition of "mythic" itt

yeah, this thread has kinda gone astray

yeah, this thread has kinda gone astray

New ILM board description?

Could append that one to all threads.

Black Bastards

― 51|)e|-|4x012z (ojo), Wednesday, 21 April 2010 22:24 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Wanna explain? I thought this was all but forgotten by the time it was released in what... 99/00? Subroc had died, Zev/DOOM had obviously given up on KMD, Elektra were a bit cunty (not on the artwork thing, I understand that, but post-Subroc's death and still being dicks)... And then it came out to sell like 2 copies.

Which reminds me... Swift & Changeable! That's still a thing right? I remember a couple years around and upto Fishscale/'The Mouse And The Mask' when I was trippin' balls just off the thought of this being made.

― tart w/ a heart (a hoy hoy), Wednesday, April 21, 2010 6:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i don't know, by the time what a niggy know dropped, i knew a lot of kids who thought a new album was right around the corner. i remember picking up the source month after month for a while looking for ads, reviews, anything. i think it was a little while before the article about subroc's death and them getting dropped from elektra, but me and my skateboarding/lil' cratedigging buddies anticipated the hell out of bb.

Michael Jackson's Invincible? well, it was for me, and then I didn't like it when I bought it :/

sucker

the first three trax were good :( :( :(

Any official recordings of early LaMonte Young, the stuff with John Cale, Tony Conrad et al. We'll probably have to wait till he dies now.

The La's debut album (the "real" one, not the one rushed out by Go! Discs) allegedly rules, at least according to Lee Mavers...

Nelly Young, man!

Totally now wishing for a Jimmy Fallon as Neil version of "Hot In Herre".

Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key Of Life". 2 years plus felt like an eternity in the mid 70s.

The La's debut album (the "real" one, not the one rushed out by Go! Discs) allegedly rules, at least according to Lee Mavers...

It is now part of the Deluxe edition, and apparently, nobody agrees with Lee Mavers....

Kraftwerk's "Technopop", the working title now reinstated to the remastered edition of the album that it was originally meant for.

2 years plus felt like an eternity in the mid 70s.

True, but thesedays..

I can leave an album/book/something on a bookshelf, and come back to it 2 years later and it can seem like I did it yesterday.

Ah, life.

for reasons, I've been going through a rage against the machine nostalgia kick this week and I remembered that Zach de la Rocha promised a solo album like 10 years ago. I'm sure it'll suck if it ever appears, but it'd be a minor news story.

Also, I REALLY want to bump that Big Boi record this summer.

I try not to think too much about the elusive, mythical Smiths box set personally overseen by Morrissey and Marr and supposedly full of unreleased stuff.

Radiohead - In Rainbows

Maybe not 'mythic' proportions. But the 10 days after the announcement was made it seemed that everyone in the music media refused to speak about anything else.

And well, yeah already mentioned upthread but I spent several years anticipating Kid A.

Steely Dan's "Gaucho" and The Eagles' "The Long Run".

Both were follow-ups to mega-sellers, took ages to record, and the exhausting process eventually ended up breaking up both bands.

http://img218.imageshack.us/i/tourdefrancevr3.jpg

http://www.multinet.no/~jonarne/Hjemmesia/Favorittartister/kraftwerk/album/tour_de_france_soundtracks.jpg

Suprised no mention of the follow up to the Blue Nile's debut. At the time it was pretty unheard of for a band, especially a new one, to wait 5 years for the second album.