Post one album you consider to be criminally underrated

[Stumpy Pepys]

Gene Clark—No Other

To quote Wikipedia:

Released in September 1974, it was largely ignored or lambasted by critics and was a commercial failure; the studio time and cost were seen as excessive and indulgent. The record label, Asylum Records, did not promote the album, and by 1976 had deleted it from their catalog. Clark never recovered from the failure of the album.

This album's a masterpiece and, even though it's been reappraised, will never appear in a list of 100 Best LPs.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Ben & Jason - Emoticons.

13 tracks of whimsical folk-pop. Not everyone's bag, but I rather love it. What I Meant To Say is a deceptively simple song about not being able to express yourself to the one person you should be able to.

[San Bernardhinault]

It's Immaterial - Song

An incredible album that nobody bought. Everyone remembers Driving Away From Home, but nobody even realised they released a second album afterward that was much less mainstream and catchy. Someone described it as a low key indie Pet Shop Boys. That's possibly half the story. It's lyrically pretty bleak which feels very much of a time and place of late 80s, early 90s, northern England

Anyway, having whined a few days ago that I couldn't find it streaming, it turns out that somebody had uploaded the whole thing to Youtube two years ago.

[Lang Spoon]

Van Dyke Parks, Song Cycle. His voice is a bit terrible but really really works. Who would have thought we needed sardonic whimsical psychedelic ragtime/Charles Ives pastiche?

[Jimski]

Discosis by Bran Van 3000. I doubt many people know anything more than Drinking in LA by this lot, and this isn't even the album that contains it. It's a bizarrely eclectic mix of styles crammed together in a mish-mashed way, but somehow it works. For me, anyway. Maybe only for me.

[Etienne]

Mary Gauthier - Filth and Fire. Probably the best country album ever (yep, better than Townes or Emmylou) and yet probably not even her best known album - that would be Mercy Now, which is also very good but perhaps a little too bleak.

[diggedy derek]

Locust’s Weathered Well, from the era of Aphex Twin’s and Autechre’s and The Black Dog’s breakthrough albums, is as good as any of the others.

The Orb’s Pomme Fritz is prob their most adventurous record

Sorcerer is a really underrated Miles Davis album

[Fussbudget]

Parallel Universe by 4 Hero, a brilliant pioneering album that should be mentioned in the same breath as Timeless and Black Secret Technology as an early drum and bass masterpiece but almost never is. One of the best dance music albums ever recorded

[Amor de Cosmos]

Country Joe MacDonald's (of Fish fame) War, War, War. Based on the WW1 poems of Robert Service, who was an ambulance driver in that carnage, they possess a direct timelessness that never fails to move me. Sadly I've never found anyone else who feels the same. Though I have experienced an audience rise to its feet in applause when the longest song, Jean Desprez, was performed live.

[Jobi1]

I think "criminally underrated" might be a bit of an exaggeration in this case, but the one that sprung to mind immediately for me was Interpol's self-titled album (their fourth). It didn't really move the dial that much and the reviews were pretty lukewarm (one quoted on WIki sums up the reception very well: "it's a better album than their last, and diehard fans should be satisfied, but it's not going to get the rest [...] very excited"), but I absolutely love it, and in fact when I'm moved to listen to one of their albums in full, it's almost always that one. For me it's got quite a different feel to their other records, a really strange atmosphere around it – as another review quoted on Wiki says: "creepy, morose, and sinister by the end", which is exactly my kind of thing!

[diggedy derek]

Parallel Universe by 4 Hero, a brilliant pioneering album that should be mentioned in the same breath as Timeless and Black Secret Technology as an early drum and bass masterpiece but almost never is. One of the best dance music albums ever recorded

Oh yeah, brilliant shout.

[diggedy derek]

Global Communication’s album 76’14” is lauded as one of the best electronics albums of the 1990s. I personally think it’s a bit ponderous. A release that’s rarely ever talked about is their prior album as Reload, A Collection Of Short Stories, which seemed to get overlooked, maybe as it was on Infonet.

It’s a masterpiece.

[Bored Of Education]

I mentioned this recently and have been mocked for it with the brilliant line “I don’t think it’s even one of Groop Dogdrill’s favourite albums” but Every 6 Seconds by Groop Dogdrill. It’s not even criminally underrated, it’s just completely unknown to almost everyone.

After their excellent but quite cartoonish first album, Half Nelson, this is a much more considered, diverse album with more depth. There are massive guitar tracks on here but also much more melody on there. Although fairly obviously influenced by them, “Head Of Safety” is how I think Nirvana should have sounded. Indeed, there’s a bit of that to the whole album. The lyric topics talk more about loss and longing than the first album’s broader and shallower themes. Indeed, it has a line “she tells you to pull up a chair while she tells you all about loss” that I love so much, I nicked

[Patrick Thistle]

Not Your Kind of People by Garbage.

Most people don't even know Garbage have released 7 albums. This was their 5th. It's got some of their best work on it.

[Oldelpaso]

I mentioned this recently and have been mocked for it with the brilliant line “I don’t think it’s even one of Groop Dogdrill’s favourite albums” but Every 6 Seconds by Groop Dogdrill. It’s not even criminally underrated, it’s just completely unknown to almost everyone.

After their excellent but quite cartoonish first album, Half Nelson, this is a much more considered, diverse album with more depth. There are massive guitar tracks on here but also much more melody on there. Although fairly obviously influenced by them, “Head Of Safety” is how I think Nirvana should have sounded. Indeed, there’s a bit of that to the whole album. The lyric topics talk more about loss and longing than the first album’s broader and shallower themes. Indeed, it has a line “she tells you to pull up a chair while she tells you all about loss” that I love so much, I nicked

I occasionally go down Spotify rabbit holes by thinking of a band I have vague memories of seeing many years ago, then letting the "similar artists" algorithm do its work. Given how small some of these bands were at the time, the number of monthly listeners they now have is tiny and indicates it will be several centuries before they get a cheque from Daniel Ek.

Groop Dogdrill (311 monthly listeners) were one of these recently, a perennial support band from when i started going to gigs regularly in the late 90s. I had no idea they had a second album, and will check it out.

[Sits]

The Shins’ big moment was the hit single Australia and the album it was on, Wincing The Night Away and both are excellent. But the previous album Chutes Too Narrow is the real gem. A perfect balance of pop and oddness, with hooks galore. It sounds as though great fun was had making it. Didn’t make the top 50 anywhere.

Also a mention for The Delgados’ Universal Audio.

[Sits]

If Daniel Ek is related to Phil Ek (who produced the Shins’ album with them) then that’s quite a coincidence.

I’ve also just discovered that he (Phil) produced another favourite of mine from the period, Cease To Begin by Band of Horses.

[Plodder]

My favorite ACDC album is Powerage. I don't know anyone else who rates it as highly.

There's also a 2000s self- titled collection of sad and downtempo electronica by an act called Older. It's really beautiful, but I don't know anyone else who even knows it.

[Jobi1]

The Shins’ big moment was the hit single Australia and the album it was on, Wincing The Night Away and both are excellent. But the previous album Chutes Too Narrow is the real gem. A perfect balance of pop and oddness, with hooks galore. It sounds as though great fun was had making it. Didn’t make the top 50 anywhere.

Oddly though, a few tracks off Chutes Too Narrow were used as a sampler to demonstrate the music playing abilities on Windows PCs at the time (or certainly were on the one we got), so must have got them a fair bit of exposure.

Great record anyway.

[Sits]

Oddly though, a few tracks off Chutes Too Narrow were used as a sampler to demonstrate the music playing abilities on Windows PCs at the time (or certainly were on the one we got), so must have got them a fair bit of exposure.

Great record anyway.

Well I never knew that.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Another which might fall short of the criminally underrated tag, but I have always been fond of The Darling Buds' career ending album Erotica , having rescued a copy of it from the bargain bin at a branch of HMV once, for the princely sum of £1.99 if I remember rightly. I've certainly had my money's worth out of it, and have still got it.

[elguapo4]

By 1983, The Undertones were struggling, with no major commercial breakthrough, and tensions among the band, especially between Fergal Sharkey and John O'Neill. In this atmosphere it's surprising that they released an album, let alone one as good as The Sin of Pride. Soaring and soulful, the critics got it but the public didn't. The wonderful musical instrument that is Sharkey's voice has never been better, it's a pity we don't hear it anymore.

[Tony C]

In the early days of OTF one of my big hobby horses was the lack of attention given to Lewis Taylor’s sublime debut album. I generated some vague interest (I think G-Man gave it a go and offered some encouragement) but it was a tough sell. However I love the album just as much now, so it pips Mark Hollis’s solo debut to the top of my list.

[Patrick Thistle]

If I can add a second album to the list, I'd add Zooropa by U2. It sounds like it could be by a different band altogether.

[Sits]

If I can add a second album to the list, I'd add Zooropa by U2. It sounds like it could be by a different band altogether.

I believe Sean of the Shed is another advocate.