Albums for which critical opinion has changed the most over time

e.g. Talk Talk's Laughing Stock which was "virtually ignored upon its release" (allmusic) and is now straight canon.

Negative examples too!

surely this has been done before?

Sorry but I don't believe Talk Talk's Laughing Stock was "virtually ignored upon its release". Why would it be?

... also, is it "straight canon"?

maybe i read ILM too much?

Laughing Stock was ecstatically received by Melody Maker at the very least (#12 in EoY poll) and that's all that mattered to me...

(also, not ignored, but SLATED by NME - David Quantick possibly?)
xp

When Metal Machine Music was released, Lou Reed needed an armed police guard for 6 months and was sent at least 2 nail-bombs thru the mail. But in 2011, MMM is the best-selling album of all time in 17 countries, and has a day dedicated to it in Portugal where all TV stations play the album in its entirety throughout the day.

In my head, that last post is entirely true.

Embarrassingly I proclaimed Squeeze "VU's best album yet!" upon its release.

In 1967 when the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the critical and public acclaim was such that the band needed an armed police guard for 6 months, and in a tearful review on BBC1's flagship arts show Aquarius, Malcolm Muggeridge declared that the album had made all previous music "irrelevant", and that the ouevre of Mozart was "some old bollocks" in comparison. And yet today, the record is probably the most despised item in the Beatles' discography, leading one Pitchfork reviewer to describe it as "pitiful sub-Deerhoof cuntery" and music critic Paul Gambaccini to wipe his arse with a copy of the album sleeve on BBC1's flagship arts show The One Show.

I think the Zombies' Odyssey and Oracle has kind of retroactively been treated as a classic which it wasn't really seen as at the time

Fatboy Slim got a lot of great press in the late 90's but I think everyone kinda thinks he's shit now and has always been

Also I can think of a number of bands like Neu!, Cardiacs, and Faust, that have kind of now been given classic status as their work becomes available, as many people thought it was a waste of time when it came out

as many people thought it was a waste of time when it came out

This just isn't true about Neu! or Faust, they always had supporters. Faust probably never had a bad review in the UK press in their career! Dunno abt the Cardiacs but I do know they are in no way classic!

LOL Cardiacs

yeah they always did of course but they were still fairly obscure; from what when Faust actually released something that people bought (Faust Tapes) it was panned heavily

MGMT 'Congratulations'

...people liked that mgmt album?

Faust actually released something that people bought (Faust Tapes) it was panned heavily

Yeah, by Jim Kerr, not by critics!

panned heavily

Love their use of stereo.

The first four Black Sabbath albums. BANK!

In 1986 The Smiths were set to become the most popular band in Britain with their hugely anticipated new album, The Queen is Dead. Unfortunately, they made the mistake of releasing the record in the same week as It Bites' The Big Land in the Windmill. The Smiths' record was completely eclipsed, managing a couple of single paragraph reviews in Sounds and the NME and nary a mention in the mainstream press. The band were subsequently dropped from their record label and imploded acrimoniously, Johnny Marr going on to a short-lived career as the rhythm guitarist in Saxon and Morrissey eventually becoming the North-West's number one children's party magician.

And yet, in a 2010 list of records which are compulsory listening for all practising Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI described the album as "a seminal moment in the development of English guitar pop", whilst the Observer's chief music critic Jim Davidson wrote "that bloke needs to cheer up a bit, he sounds a right miserable bastard. Mind you, it's better than all that bongo bongo music innit mate, know what I mean?"

Johnny Marr going on to a short-lived career as the rhythm guitarist in Saxon

... somewhat more interesting than his actual post-Smiths career

Q mag were very big on Talk Talk's late period back in the day. 4 stars for Eden definitely, not sure about Laughing Stock. neither were slagged off in many places i'd wager.

stock answer here is Be Here Now. in my lifetime there's not been an album as ridiculously praised then beaten to death that i can think of.

noodle killin it itt

The British press ignored early albums by Outkast and The White Stripes that have now become critical favourites.

XTC's Skylarking wasn't that popular with the critics when it came out and was actually their lowest charting album but is now seen as one of their best.

When George Formby debuted his controversial song "Mr Wu is a Window Cleaner Now" at the 1937 Reading Festival he was bottled so heavily that he had concussion for a month and exuded a faint tang of urine for the rest of his life. But when the song was revived for a 1987 Levi's Jeans ad, it spent 27 weeks at number 1 in the UK charts and proved so popular that his body was informally disinterred and paraded by cheering crowds through the streets of Wigan.

you don't hear folk reference this as an influence anywhere, i mean considering the original hoopla, but whether the crits still stand by it i'm not sure:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2138/2477894033_8c8a027e40.jpg

Michael Jackson may be famous as the USA's number 1 children's party magician, but it could all have been so different if his 1982 solo album Thriller hadn't met with such a chorus of critical disapproval. Industry insiders believe that his decision to have the video for the title track made by director Lucio Fulci, and the video's subsequent banning from all TV stations in the western world, may have led to this former child star's critical demise.

what i'd be interested in isn't necessarily what albums got a positive critical reception on release - and then, years later, critical consensus with an entirely different set of critics turned against them - i kind of want to know whether the actual critics who praised the albums in this thread still think they're good, or whether they've changed their minds.

like if someone who gave be here now 5 stars at the time still thinks it's worth that (or even still thinks it's good), that doesn't count imo.

if john harris was still alive, i'm guessing he'd still rate it

Only 100 people read John's review of Be Here Now, but every one of them went on to send him a nail bomb.

Serious answer: Miles Davis's On the Corner. Pretty much universally loathed upon release in 1972, now recognized as a classic, precursor to half the clattery electronic music made in the mid-1990s, a proto-No Wave stroke of perverse genius, subject of an entire boxed set, etc., etc., etc.

charles shaar murray did the Oasis one for Mojo. i'd love to know what he thinks of it now. truth is of course most of the critics didn't think much of it then anyway but they had to say something great about it.

Only 100 people read John's review of Be Here Now, but every one of them went on to send him a nail bomb.

― The north-east's Number 2 children's party magician (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 8 March 2011 16:07 (2 minutes ago)

tbqfh he was tempting fate with his 'if this isn't the best album since the style council's coruscating debut, then my postbox is made of semtex ' comment

xpost Yeah. Oasis sold paper, so it made sense to give them good reviews. I still hate the fact my lukewarm Aeroplane review got upgraded because said publication was featuring him at one of the nights they were running. But that's the way it is I guess.

truth is of course most of the critics didn't think much of it then anyway but they had to say something great about it.

OTM

... not confined to Oasis of course

I would bet that genre landmarks would rule this thread if only because those releases were usually ignored by pop/mainstream critics who finally come around years later.

Some possibilities:

NWA Straight Outta Compton
Black Sabbath
Slayer Reign In Blood

Pavement, Wowee Zowee. I remember a 2 star review in Rolling Stone.

I'm sure I read a Tom Ewing article about how the first Sabbath album, arguably the first ever heavy metal album, was called derivative by critics upon first release. Not sure if it was Lester Bangs who described it as a sub-par Cream rip off or something to that effect.

Swells reviewed Straight Outta Compton for the NME, it was a shit review and the fact that he mistook the word "wack" for "white" didn't help much.

isn't it true that the velvet underground are the epitomy of such a turnaround ?
according to the various bits-n-bobs i've read, very few people bought their bands debut release, and yet now its definitely part of the all important canon.

Maybe but even the Velvets got good reviews, had fans etc

The late-1970s edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide gave The Velvet Underground & Nico 3 stars out of 5. The next edition boosted it to 4/5. Thereafter it finally got 5/5 from RS, and is now on just about everybody's list of the greatest, most influential rock albums of all time.

i read that kate bush's the dreaming and joni mitchell's the hissing of summer lawns were both panned as being too difficult, overly experimental etc - both generally considered to be among artists' best nowadays

Well, it did make the Billboard charts at #99 or some such. (The VU 1st)

also, xposts, the fact that the White Stripes album got ignored isn;t the same thing. If it had got played/reviewed, it would have got good reviews, undoubtedly.

The late-1970s edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide gave The Velvet Underground & Nico 3 stars out of 5. The next edition boosted it to 4/5. Thereafter it finally got 5/5 from RS, and is now on just about everybody's list of the greatest, most influential rock albums of all time.

That's Rolling Stone I suppose. It was pretty highly regarded elsewhere before the late-1970s. Whereas seems everybody hated Sabbath.

I hate it when people claim famous band x were complete unknowns until being rescued from the dustbin of history. I know what it's like to be in a completely unknown band, and believe me, neither the Velvet Underground nor Nick Drake (the major example of this phenomenon) were unknown.

I think we had a thread about the ratings changes in those two editions. I seem to remember Led Zeppelin getting bumped way up and the Doors getting bumped way down.

Well if you had a record deal you weren't "unknown" but I did think Drake's rise to public consciousness was pretty slow and largely post mortem? There were a lot more artists on big labels back then, easier to get lost in the crowd.

Re: italo I'm obv talking from a Euro perspective where it was pretty hard to miss italo with an acts like Modern Talking selling 50+ million records and it being the default mainstream club music. Like trance ten years ago, really.

...With acts like...

Most extreme metal was very badly received in the metal press throughout roughly 85-94

Most metal, extreme or not, was very badly received in the music press in general until around 10 years ago.

Metal Edge? Metal Something Something? I was pretty young at the time, but I feel like Leppard and Maiden and even Motorhead, Venom, Priest, etc, were still getting a bit of attention through the 80s although I guess post-86-87 that might have dimmed a bit. Didn't feel like until the rise of hair metal anyway that metal mags were too influenced by MTV (since it's not like outside of Leppard metal bands got much MTV play anyway prior to that.)

Do Ratt, Quiet Riot, Twister Sister count as hair metal? (I guess so -- 1984 must be the dividing line. And I'm not sure how often Van Halen or AC/DC were on MTV before then.)

Motorhead, Venom, Priest

These make sense -- or least Motorhead and Priest do -- though I always think of them (especially Priest) as having been around too long to count as NWOBHM, and Motorhead being too pub rock or punk rock or something, and Venom more being the beginning of "extreme"/speed/thrash-etc metal. Guess it depends where you draw the line. Actually, related subject, I've got this issue (well, most of the issue -- cover's missing) of Extra Kerrang! (whatever that was) from c. 1984 that has this goofy roundup column called "Janet And John Guide To Metal" by Paul Suter and Xavier Russell, where they go off on how horrible all these Angel Witch, Bathory, Cirith Ungol, Voivod, Slayer, etc., LPs are, in a section called "The Devil Is Alive And Well But Highly Embarrassed About All This S**t Going Down In His Name." No idea how common that was at the time, though.

Yeah Kerrang! were mostly pretty negative about first wave Black Metal, but then they put Duran Duran in there so fuck them. Most of the metal fans I was at school with hated BM too, they were into Ratt, Motley Crue, Kiss, Def Leppard, Maiden.

Van Halen 3. At the time, critics/fans hated it and called it one of the worst albums ever.

Now...most people have forgotten it exists!

(I liked it!)

Speaking of Italo, I guess one of the reasons European critics dissed it in the 80s was because the bigges hits were by the cheesiest acts, like Sabrina. And the Italo stuff that inspired 90s/00s dance music was more underground (except maybe in Italy), so it wasn't written about much, especially since popular music writing was still more rock oriented in the 80s. So it's less of a case of a shift in critical consensus, and more of this stuff being evaluated for the first time by a large number of writers,

Well choosing not to write much about some artists (and not placing them on end-of-year lists) is in itself already a statement. Compare with, say, the way critics tend not to really engage with highly visible artists like Tiesto, Inna, Cascada or Tokio Hotel today.

Didn't people not really love Sleater-Kinney's The Woods at the time and now they do?

i remember the woods being pretty unanimously praised when it was released

Speaking of Italo, I guess one of the reasons European critics dissed it in the 80s was because the bigges hits were by the cheesiest acts, like Sabrina.

I reckon it was more because of the disco backclash. Italo Disco was.... disco.. And as such....
You are right that critics were largely rock oriented and actually rather generally anti-synth in the 80s. But they were still more likely to back ABC, Human League or even Culture Club than to back Italo Disco.

Speaking of Culture Club, they might fit in here. Their first two albums went down rather well with a lot of critics. Today they are... well... not hated or disliked, but largely forgotten in critical terms.

Well choosing not to write much about some artists (and not placing them on end-of-year lists) is in itself already a statement. Compare with, say, the way critics tend not to really engage with highly visible artists like Tiesto, Inna, Cascada or Tokio Hotel today.

What I was saying is a different thing, though. Because 80s music criticism was more rock-oriented (and also mostly focused on the US and UK,) and because (as Geir points out) disco had fallen hard from the mainstream, most critics probably didn't even know about Eurodisco acts like Laserdance or Koto, except for the critics in their home countries where they might've had local hits. (When Eurodance acts had big Europe-wide hits, like Modern Talking or Sabrina did, I'm sure the critics still wrote some disparaging comments about them.) Whereas after the 80s European dance music scene has become such important part of global popular music that not being aware of Tiesto seems less likely - like you say, the critics make an active choice in ignoring him.

This raises one interesting question, though: "I Feel Love" is now considered the Rosetta Stone of dance music, and Giorgio Moroder is seen as a pioneering electronic music genius, with only Kraftwerk being rated higher than him in that regard. But what was their status before house and techno music put them on the pedestal? Before the late 80s, did critics rate them highly, or did they think "I Feel Love" was just another example of cheesy synth-drive Eurodisco?

I seem to recall that all things Moroder was seen as kind of cheesy in the 80s. Mind you, even ABBA were largely looked down upon by then.

"I Feel Love" was, I'm pretty sure, actually listed in the discography at the end of John Rockwell's "Art Rock" chapter in the first update (1980) of The Rolling Stone Illustrated History Of Rock & Roll. (Somebody who still has that edition should check, though. I've only got the 1992 edition now, and the Art Rock discography in that one lists five 1974-77 Moroder LPs and soundtracks, along with three by Kraftwerk and one by Edgar Froese under "German Art Rock.")

First edition of the RS Record Guide gives Summer's I Remember Yesterday only two songs, but does call "I Feel Love" a "Kraftwerk-derived dance tune." Kraftwerk get four stars for Autobahn in that edition, three for three other albums. Trans Europe Express placed #30 Pazz & Jop in 1977; Christgau gave it an A-. I'm fairly sure that was the only time they ever placed in P&J, but they got at least some votes in other years. (The Man Machine, an Xgau B+, was Tom Smucker's #3 album of 1978 for instance.)

"only two stars" for that Summer LP, I meant.

And, as mentioned above, Lester Bangs seemed to like Kraftwerk enough to do a feature on them, though I'm not sure how much he liked them.

Uh, I guess nobody was really asking about Kraftwerk, but whatever.

S-K The Woods finished #4 P&J in 2005 -- pretty high.

Kraftwerk get four stars for Autobahn in that edition, three for three other albums.

Compare with AMG now where every album from Kraftwerk 2 to Computer World gets four, four and a half, or five.

"only two stars" for that Summer LP, I meant.

Well, TBH, the LP is a bit disappointing compared to the brilliance of "I Feel Love". But I'm still kinda wondering, what was the critical opinion on "I Feel Love" and other early synth disco, like Cerrone? I know rock critics were pretty dismissive of disco as a whole, so I'm not sure if they saw any exceptions to the rule...? Was disco rehabilitated only in the 1990s because of its influence on electronic dance music (and because of the general 70s revival that took place in the 90s)?

I am pretty sure Kraftwerk were never really hated. But they weren't considered part of the "canon" until the 90s.

But they weren't considered part of the "canon" until the 90s.

What do you mean?

Was disco rehabilitated only in the 1990s because of its influence on electronic dance music (and because of the general 70s revival that took place in the 90s)?

Basically, yes. And only some of it. I doubt Baccara and Boney M will ever be rehabilitated.

What do you mean?

As in appearing in lists of the best ever albums ever made.

Well, I confess I haven't read every list of best ever albums ever made, uh, ever made but pretty sure Kraftwerk would have been in one or two before the 90s

They were indeed considered an important influence on synthpop, but 80s critics were largely baby boomers or punkers who hated anything with synths in it.

No comment required I think

^ The now forogtten work of genius by Phil Collins.

I don't think 80s critics hated anything with synths in it, but the sort of synth heavy music that had its roots in white and straight scenes (rock, punk, new wave) was certainly rated higher than the synth heavy music that had its roots in black and/or gay scenes (disco, R&B, soul). That is why they wrote a lot about synth pop and new pop, whereas boogie, Italo, early house, and hi-NRG were mostly ignored.

xp Certain "rock critics" liked lots of disco. Most rock critics probably liked some disco. Some definitely liked Cerrone. It's not like all rock critics had the same tastes. And I doubt many more are conversant in Cerrone now than in the '70s or '80s, tbh. I think he's great, myself, but he's a minority taste, still, where critics are concerned. (Just like Italo-disco, or the post-disco r&b you call "boogie.")

Vince Alleti's top 10 from 1977 (though he was admittedly more a disco guy, like Michael Freedberg): Cerrone: Love in C Minor 10; Love & Kisses 10; Donna Summer: "Once Upon a Time . . ." 10; The Emotions: Rejoice 10; Loleatta Hollaway: Loleatta 10; Teddy Pendergrass 10; C.J. & Co.: Devil's Gun 10; Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express 10; Jean Carn 10; Peter Brown: Fantasy Love Affair 10.

And here's his 1978 list: USA-European Connection (Marlin) 10; Don Ray: Garden of Love (Polydor) 10; Musique: Keep on Jumpin' (Prelude) 10; Voyage (Marlin) 10; Sylvester: Step II (Fantasy) 10; Alec Costandinos & the Syncophonic Orchestra: Romeo and Juliet (Casablanca) 10; Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (ECM) 10; James Wells: True Love is My Destiny (AVI) 10; Ashford & Simpson: Is It Still Good to Ya (Warner Bros.) 10; Cerrone: Cerrone IV: The Golden Touch (Cotillion) 10.

Ha, good stuff!

I don't think 80s critics hated anything with synths in it, but the sort of synth heavy music that had its roots in white and straight scenes (rock, punk, new wave) was certainly rated higher than the synth heavy music that had its roots in black and/or gay scenes (disco, R&B, soul).

Typical white early 80s synth based pop music had its roots in both though. New Pop/New Romantics was just as influenced by disco/funk as it was by new wave and punk. Plus a lot of key figures in that scene were bi or gay males. Bands like Culture Club, Thompson Twins and UB40 (I'd arguably count the latter partly as part of the same scene) were also multi-ethnic.

UB40 had nothing in common with new pop/synth-based music/Culture Club/Thompson Twins. You may as well say the Jimi Hendrix experience had a lot in common with the Equals because they were both multi-ethnic groups at roughly the same time.

I'd argue there is a synth/new wave element in the music of UB40. It isn't pure reggae.

Pretty sure they trying their damnedest to make pure reggae - when they started anyway

Also, you don't get synths in reggae?

Of course there are synths in reggae (Black Uhuru used a lot of them around the same time), but I know reggae fans didn't count UB40 as true reggae at the time, feeling they had to much of a pop element in their music.

But sure, I agree Culture Club and Thompson Twins are more typical examples of the point I was trying to make (both of which also had a certain reggae element in their music)

No, they probably thought, "British reggae band fronted by a couple of white guys, how good can they be?"

Go and listen to Signing Off, Geir. They were not a synth-pop/new wave band. They were a reggae band in their early years, who became a pop-reggae band and were spurned by purists. They were not spurned by purists for having too much in common with the Thompson Twins. You might argue otherwise, but you'd be wrong.

I agree "Signing Off", and arguably also "Present Arms", were close to true purist reggae. "UB44" I am not that familiar with at all. But already by the time of "Labour Of Love" they had added a lot of new wave-ish pop elements.

The presence of synthesisers does not make a group new wave or synth pop.

battle not with monsters etc

Anyway, as a fan of new wave-ish synthpop/new romantics and not so much of disco/synth based black music (I actually liked a lot of the latter too), I felt critics didn't like any of my favourite music until critics from my own generation started appearing in the late 80s. Sure, there were exceptions, like they could enjoy Human League, ABC, Japan or Scritti Politti, but usually critics would reject most of that typical synth based 80s music, regardless of it being made by black or white people.

Did anyone like the early Judas Priest stuff critically?

"Sad Wings Of Destiny" is a motherfuck but I wonder how it was recieved (and the band didn't really get popular off that release).

I know that the kids in my HS felt that "Rocka Rolla" was abysmal (we were growing up on the "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" Priest and the riff-boogie debut was foreign to us) but it is cherished in some circles now. Don't know what the critics thought of it a decade before, however...

"The group signed to Gull and, in 1974, two still popular albums, Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings Of Destiny, followed. The latter is a masterpiece of demonic heavy metal which beats Black Sabbath into the ground." -- Tony Jasper and Derek Oliver, The International Encyclopedia Of Hard Rock And Heavy Metal, 1983.

"Grunting, flailing Seventies hard rock, as vulgar as its name, but less euphonious. For lovers of recycled Led Zeppelin riffs only." -- Dave Marsh, The Rolling Stone Record Guide, 1979. He gives Sad Wings Of Destiny and two other early Priest albums one star each.

Second edition of that book, 1983, has the exact same review, but now nine Judas Priest albums all get one star each -- ha.

reminded reading that bangs thing on sabbath in '72 that not everyone hated them. and creem, in general, stood up for the dopers. don't know what they thought of early judas priest though.

http://www.newsrealblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/crazy_professor_sims.jpg

Always an exciting day in the classroom when Professor Hongro starts droppin' the knowledge.