Although the topic can be understood as a very specific variant of unpopular opinion, I consider that this is a topic that can serve to shape our opinions in different discographies.

Recently I have been listening to a lot of Carcass, specifically the first two albums, and these were probably the records I held in the least esteem, and the truth is that they have grown on me a lot, to the point where starting to evaluate individually each of the british band's albums, I realised that Heartwork is the release I like least. I'm not saying that I don't like Heartwork or that it's a bad album, but it's the record that I like the least and I don't find any special feature that makes me go back to it over the rest of the Carcass discography. Reek of Putrefaction has ended up winning me over with its dirty and nauseating atmosphere, Symphonies of Sickness is a milestone of deathgrind, Necroticism is my favourite of theirs and I love its technical and progressive elements, Swansong without being a masterpiece is simply a very fun album to listen to, Surgical Steel is very similar to Heartwork but its songs are more memorable and much more direct and finally Torn Arteries is a masterclass by Carcass between their different styles. All of this makes it so even though I can appreciate Heartwork for its legacy and importance as my least favourite title from the band.

The same thing happens to me with Necromantia, Scarlet Evil Witching Black is without a doubt their most popular album, and it is also without a doubt the work of the greek band that I return to the least. In this case I'm quite a fan of the early period of the band and that's why Crossing the Fiery Path is my favourite album of theirs, that's why I also enjoy To the Depths We Descend the most, because although it's a tribute to everything the band has achieved, it's from this first stage that it shows the most influence. And then there is IV: Malice and The Sound of Lucifer Storming Heaven which I think take the concept started by the band in Scarlet Evil Witching Black itself but in a much more interesting way, like the use of classical music or the symphonic touches while being much more aggresive sounding. Again I'm not saying that I dislike Scarlet Evil Witching Black or that it's a bad album, but at the end of the day it's the one that I find the least interesting despite its importance.

Do you have your own examples of this? I know that it can be debatable in some cases what is really the most popular work of a band, in the end there is a lot of subjectivism here, but I think that an interesting conversation can come out of all this. I read you

Death's Symbolic and Sound Of Perseverance albums are not uncommonly brought up as peoples favourite Death albums and they are definitely the one's I like least.

Great idea for a thread.

Gorguts - Obscura is the one that comes to mind. Innovative and a landmark album, sure, but the least enjoyable for me. From Wisdom To Hate is where that style crystallized for me and Colored Sands is not too shabby either. The older more traditional albums were just solid, fun death metal that I'd also choose to spin over Obscura.

OP's name had me want to mention Vital Remains, but are the Glen Benton albums even all that popular anymore? Seems like, if anything, Forever Underground is what's hot from that band - absolutely deservedly so, of course!


Sound of Perseverance is what comes to mind for me too.

I struggle to think of any to be honest. Most bands / artists I feel like the worst thing they've released is noticeably inferior to what would typically be considered their most popular album(s). Perhaps people make a distinction between worst / least favourite, but for me there's no separation.

The only example that might be relevant would be Sepultura - Roots. I know it's not the most popular album on these boards, but in the wider metal / music community, it probably has a case. It was a commercial and critical success, it still gets talked of fondly, and Max and Iggor did a relatively recent tour based solely around playing this album. For me, it's very poor except for Roots Bloody Roots and Ratamahatta. The only album they did that I think comes as close to being as bad as this is the follow up, Against, but I'd give that the edge over this.

The Number of the Beast. Probably the worst of the Bruce classic albums.

Craft - Fuck the Universe perhaps gets the most attention as their straight to the point / crowd-pleasing album. Whereas I prefer the extra savagery of Total Soul Rape and the more interesting/varied elements of their other albums.

Suicidal Tendencies' s/t as it's just not my kind of punk. I've heard a bit more than half of their discography and some of their mid-era stuff isn't any better though.

If taking popular to meant most sales, Metallica's s/t was an example of this until they lowered the bar with Hardwired for me.

And what about their catalogue in general? You prefer the Di Anno albums, the 90s albums and reunion albums to TNOTB as well?

Same, worst of the 80s catalog for me. Only care for a few of the songs.

Monotheist bores the hell out of me more than any other Celtic Frost release.

I prefer some (if not most) of the reunion albums with Bruce. I also think The X Factor has better songs, just not a fan of the vocals. I tend to think of Iron Maiden as a different band without Bruce.

ouch

Despite the fall in popularity of Vital Remains, Dechristianize is still without a doubt their most popular work, I think that thanks to the popularity of the albums with Glen Benton the previous works gained more awareness and became fan favourites, and yes probably Forever Underground is the album that benefited the most from that. Yet there are still a lot of people who only know Vital Remains from Dechristianize and Icons of Evil.

Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness

Necrophagist - Epitaph

Cryptopsy - None So Vile

Deathspell Omega - Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice

Bathory - Bathory

Venom - Black Metal

Death - Scream Bloody Gore

Dimmu Borgir - For all tid

Carcass - Reek of Putrefaction

Indeed, the riffs on these albums don't work on me. And I say riffs because the only thing that matters about a band are the riffs.

Hmm. Then Vital Remains is a half and half kinda thing here because those two do happen to be my least favorite, though Dechristianize is simply just less good than the rest. Icons of Evil, though, I genuinely do not like at all.

Altars of Madness being someone's least favourite Morbid Angel album, behind Illud Divinum Insanus, is quite a take.

Also in what world is Reek of Putrefaction the most popular album by Carcass?

Yeah, never seen For All Tid or Bathory's s/t quoted as anyone's favorites either.

I see the Bathory s/t name dropped, but I think it might more they're posing with the album cover as though it's some kind of rare finder's item. But yeah usually its UTSOTBM or Blood Fire Death.

British Steel is my least favorite classic Priest, and I ain't crazy about Sad Wings either.

Diary of a Madman is the most overrated Ozzy to me

Heaven & Hell is the most overrated Dio Sabbath to me.

Death or Glory isn't my least favorite Running Wild album but I'll take any album from the 90s and the debut over it.

Budgie's Never Turn Your Back On A Friend.

Eternal Devastation would be the best Destruction album if the production wasn't so limp. Even the Sentence of Death EP sounds better.

This!

I can't come up with anything either. I think you'd have to do some mental gymnastics to make this work on most cases. Such as not doing the whole discography but only the 80's album as we've seen above or perhaps include a band which only has two releases which also feels like cheating. For example I definitely enjoy Epitaph more than Onset of Putrefaction by the band Necrophagist. Most have it the other way around. That's as close as I come.

Pretty much any band that started as hard rock/proto metal and then got more popular for AOR/stadium stuff/etc. Might not fit the spirit of the thread, but definitely stuff like Scorpions, Def Leppard, etc- I can't stand their popular stuff but I adore their earlier material.

I don’t know if I’d call any of these the bands’ most popular, or even most loved albums. I don’t know what the sentiment was for Death back in the day though.

But nonetheless I do agree with Deathspell Omega if we’re considering what they’d be become from this album onward as functionally being the real start of the band. SMRC does get held in a little too high of esteem and nearly gets put on the same pedestal as what followed.. And while I do get why people would be inclined to do that in a sense, since it’s obviously where the band’s major themes both lyrically and musically start to take root, I still think it’s pretty far below the quality of what followed. It’s a decent enough album in itself, but Kenose is where the band really started to become something special imo.



I kind of agree with this tbh, though I wouldn’t say I like it less than Illud or Kingdoms Disdained. I do like this album more and more over time and I totally understand the album’s appeal and importance though. It’s still the best debut album out of all the OG death metal bands. Similar to Deathspell, I feel like I wouldn’t be as hard on it if it wasn’t for the rest of their catalog. Blessed through Gateways are the albums that really excite me.

Just a curiosity here, but have you actually heard all of the Venom "reunion" stuff from 1995 onwards? Or are you, as I suspect, basing this on the two or three albums that everyone has heard?

Here I am!

Word. Si monumentum is the worst "modern" Deathspell Omega album. Paracletus > Furnaces> Fas > Katechon > Kenose > Synarchy > Long Defeat > Drought > Mass Grave > Diabolicus >>>> Si monumentum. The vocals are really annoying and it's way too long. The prayers are actually the best tracks in that one.

I'm not the biggest Carcass fan, but Heartwork is my least favorite of theirs. I'm not a melodeath hater, just really disliked how it was done and find the rest of their work more enjoyable.

I otherwise don't have a great answer for bands I listen to, but somewhat so with Agalloch and Cattle Decapitation.

I don't care for The Mantle that much, but it's better than Serpent & The Sphere at least. I love everything else they've done.

Since the era when Cattle Decap decided to get better around 2009, Monolith's been my least favorite of theirs. Think it's a good album, just personally rarely go back to it over anything else of the last 5.

I have a weird Metallica taste, I love the black album which is arguably their most popular album, but man besides post-2003 stuff, And Justice For All always bored the shit out of me, and man I have tried to listen to that album since I was a kid, now I am in my late twenties and really still think the same. The songs on that album are too long and too derivative, you can always guess what the next riff is going to sound and the production of that album doesn't make any sense, somehow they expend millions of dollars on a record in which the bass is inaudible and missing.

Out of the 5 first Metallica classics, clearly And Justice is a flawed record, and only thrash fanatics and people who like very long thrash metal songs really like this album. I like St. Anger a lot more than I like this album. And I like it because is contrary to what Metallica did in that record, trying to sound different and doing something creative with the sound. And Justice is just another thrash album, out of the already 3 that sound a lot better with the same style.

Songs that I like in that album: Eye of the Beholder and One

Motorhead - Ace of Spades

I like some of the songs but I much prefer everything before and after it.

Somewhere in Time by Iron Maiden. Not my least favorite overall, but my least favorite of the 1st 9 albums. Yep, I like No Prayer for the Dying and Fear of the Dark better.

Metallica's Black album was my least favourite Metallica record until St. Anger came along. And honestly, I still think it's the one I listen to the least.

Me too (not hashtagged ffs) - For all tid made it to #9 on my "top ten releases of the nineties"-list here on discogs. The band were never able to recreate the magic captured on their debut; the sophomore is just boring and the orchestrated works that followed drip with mundane sophistication, not any otherwordly romanticism.

VR hasn't released an album in almost 20 years and have done absolutely nothing of any notoriety since then, either. It's no wonder they've become irrelevant and nobody talks about them anymore. Personally, I like all of their albums, even the Glen Benton ones

So, for me, Whoracle by In Flames is my least favorite of their proper melodeath albums.

BUT, hear me out! That doesn't mean I don't like the album, I think it's a masterpiece...

I just happen to like their other albums more than that one in particular. Colony is a true classic in every sense of the word. A testament to the genre

I have never understood why Blackwater Park is considered Opeth's magnum opus. Not even one of their top 7 releases for me; everything from that era is similar but superior in every way.

Of Metallica's first four albums, I prefer 'Master of Puppets' the least by a wide margin. "The Thing That Should Not Be" is usually a skip for me, I have to be in the right mood "Welcome Home..." and I will very rarely play "Leper Messiah." It's actually the lowest reviewed of the first four on MA, but outside of our insular community, 'Master...' is regarded as Metallica's landmark album.

Also, 'Scum' and 'Harmony Corruption' are often going to be cited as Napalm Death's most popular albums, but are easily my least favorite of theirs. If I am ranking their 16 albums, those two are #15 and #16 in terms of my personal enjoyment. Post-2000 Napalm Death is one of my favorite bands, so those two albums sound like they're from two different groups respectively. 'Scum' while historic, is not a particularly thrilling listen to me and 'Harmony Corruption' is a snooze-fest and the production is parody level bad - everything I dislike about a Scott Burns production amplified to the nth degree.

Interesting thread. I expected post after post denouncing Slaughter of the Soul but it hasn't turned out that way.

I'd agree. I think it's possibly my least favorite of theirs pre prog rock Opeth. I don't think it's particularly a bad album, but I don't understand how particularly beloved it is when I feel they've released better material both before and after. Even when I run into diehard Opeth fans, I'll tend to hear Still Life, MAYH, or Ghost Reveries rated higher.

I'm one of those who does tend to consider it their magnum opus, but "Still Life" is inches behind it. I was a fan since 1996 or 1997, after blindly picking up Morningrise. Each subsequent release was better than the last, culminating in the masterclass that was "Blackwater". Hard to find a better one-two punch than "Drapery Falls" and "Dirge for November", and that says nothing about every other track there.

I tried to listen to Countdown to Extinction today and I was really disappointed, that was an album that I really liked when I was a teen but I really can't stand it now. For most Megadeth stuff to be honest, something happened to me or Megadeth is a band that aged very poorly. I thought that it was something of the post-90s albums but I tried to listen to So Far, So Good, So What? And man, that album blows really hard. I could not finish it, I don't know what happened, I really loved those albums growing up. Such a shame for old Dave Mustaine.

I've felt this way, too. The 80s classics generally still hold up, but their 90s material hasn't at all, IMO.
I can't listen to "Countdown" today without some cringing....and those that followed are an even harder pill to swallow.

I really don't know what happened, I loved those albums when I was younger. Countdown was a classic album back in the day, now it's a cringefest. And most Megadeth albums suck really hard. And I went to see Megadeth like 5 or 4 times, they are extremely popular here in my country, I was a big fan of them, it's a shame that their material aged very fast and very poorly.

I honestly never met anyone (IRL) who liked Heartwork most. Well, perhaps one guy. But he was a few years younger.
Among my circle it's always a battle between Symphonies and Necroticcism