So I realize this topic can only be highly subjective at the end of the day, but I'm hoping people can come up with one or two very STRONG EXAMPLES, rather than big lists of highly debatable ones. Again, this can only be very subjective because what one person (or even many people) deem a "shitty" song, someone else will always step forward to defend.

Here's the best example I can give, and my basic inspiration for this thread- the recent 'Rank and rate all tracks from "Powerslave"' thread. If you followed it, you saw that most everyone agreed there aren't any "bad" songs on Powerslave, only strong, stronger & strongest. So by that rationale, 'Powerslave' does not qualify for this thread. The general consensus is that it's strong through & through.

Now 'Piece Of Mind' on the other hand is, to my mind, just as solid as 'Powerslave', and may even have a few stronger tracks overall... and would possibly be Maiden's greatest EXCEPT FOR for one super-shitty track. And that track is 'Quest For Fire'. I hate everything about it and I think you only need give it a listen & then consider every other song around it to hear what I'm talking about. The lyrics suck, the verses are weak, the chorus, the pace, even the fact that dinosaurs & men did not co-exist... It's just a BAD song, it taints the entire experience, and I personally skip it every time. It's like you're eating a wonderful gourmet meal and then you find a piece of cat shit under the salmon.

So, again, some will disagree that it's even a bad song & I'm definitely not trying to pick on Iron Maiden, a band whose music has brought me great enjoyment for over 30 years & who I will always credit for broadening my literary horizons & getting me thru some tough times. I love them. But that song sucks & pulls down an otherwise amazing album, imo.

So that's what I'd like to hear about & I think even a highly questionable cover song on an otherwise great album qualifies. I guess a good barometer is if you love a certain album but you always wonder "What the hell were they thinking?" when you get to that one song.

Barbara Ann from Blind Guardian - Follow the Blind

'Børnehjem' on Myrkur's second album Mareridt. Damn.

Can these retards please die out? I get it, you're 13 years old and just discovered super smart geniuses on Youtube who make funny videos "debunking creationism" and you think that gives you an IQ of 300, but it really doesn't and you just look like boob. "Quest for Fire" is an amazing song, it's pretty much the last song they did that did the "narrative songwriting" style of their Paul Di'Anno albums but with - as we know - a technically superior singer who makes it even better alternating between high falsettos and mid-range vocals. The lead segment in the middle is just perfect and has been periodically stuck in my head since I first heard it in the 80s and never left. One of nine reasons why Piece of Mind is Maiden's (only) completely flawless album.

If you really wanna ruin the mood on an otherwise great album, you gotta go "Pace Till Death" or "Pleasure Slave", that's the kind of stuff that makes me glad we don't use vinyl or tapes anymore and can just easily skip songs or remove them from a playlist.

It's a stretch to say they ruin the albums as they can be skipped, but they're bad songs on otherwise great albums for me.

"Seventeen" on Virgin Steele - Age of Consent
"Straw Girl" on Virgin Steele - The Marriage of Heaven & Hell 2
"Never Ever" on Hammerfall - Chapter V Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken
"Pleasure Slave" on Manowar - Kings of Metal
"Years Go By" on Stratovarius - Destiny
"Don't You Cry" on Kamelot - Karma

That's all i've got. There are songs i like less than others on albums, but not songs i hate like the above.

'In union we stand', from Overkill's otherwise excellent 'Taking Over' album.

I completely agree. The lyrics sound like something a 12 year old girl would come up with, and the chipmunk effect she used on the vocals is inexcuseable.

For me, the most frustrating example is on Sonata Arctica's nearly-immaculate debut, Ecliptica, which is marred only by the mediocre "Kingdom for a Heart." It's not a terrible song by any means, but it's the clear and obvious low point.

Both Straw Girl and Kingdom for a Heart are great songs. Ecliptica has a minor drop with "Unopened" but even that's a pretty OK song overall - sort of their version of Maiden's 80s filler tracks.

A lot of the Avantasia albums have one slower song that just drags things down - I don't think any near perfect album can be ruined by one song, but "The Toy Master" and "Scales of Justice" aren't very good compared to most everything else on those albums.

I love 'Strawgirl' and, in particularly, 'In Union We Stand' (c'mon, Overkill do a chest-beating Manowar style anthem? Fuck yeah). I guess 'Feeling Free Again' fits. But it's kinda charming that they even wrote a song like that for such an otherwise brilliant, life-affirming record like Crystal Logic.

I really hate that stupid outro think at the end of Baroness' Purple record. Especially because "If I Have To Wake Up..." is such a killer closing song.

Yeah, I guess the best song on the album can really "ruin the mood" sometimes .

As for myself, I can't think of too many examples as I'm one of those crazy people who never skips tracks, but one that comes to mind that's kind of a "special case" I guess, is Brutal Truth's Sounds of the Animal Kingdom which is a really unique, experimental death/grind album which is great front to back, but I challenge anyone to listen to "Prey" in it's entirety . Also, Obituary's Back from the Dead is by no means a perfect album, but still there's about a universe of difference between the worst of the actual songs on the album (let's say "Lockdown") and that closing track, which will of course go unnamed.

Black Arrows on Manowar's Hail to England is the first thing that comes to mind. The opening spoken bit is cringy enough but the piece itself is thoroughly horrible in composition, tone, and length. Even as a bass player myself, there's nothing in the technique that I can get into and it brings down the album severely after the five perfectly strong albums before it. If it was composed as torture for all false metal types, then I guess I'm one of them.

Gorguts - Colored Sands (The Battle of Chamdo). I really hate that song.

I doubt a single song can ruin a perfect album. But on the subject of near perfect albums with a completely worthless song:

-Can I Play with Madness
-Dissident Aggressor (on South of Heaven)
-I Ain't Superstitious
-The Thing That Should Not Be

???????????????

ARE YOU SERIOUS??

Nightwish putting a cover of 'Walking in the Air' on Oceanborn - WHY ?!

'She Goes Down' on Dr Feelgood - Even for The Crue, it's a horrible, horrible song that I always skip (at least, if my wife is in the car).

Oh speaking of covers: Destruction - My Sharona

I'll go ahead and second this. Having heard Priest's version first, I've never liked the Slayer cover. The guitar tone is fantastic but the verse vocals are bland and the chorus useing guitar squeals in lieu of falsettos is an absolute copout. Sure it'd be uncanny to hear Araya try to Halford screams but that just makes the idea of them doing it at all even more questionable. That said, South of Heaven isn't quite perfect in my eyes as Read Between the Lies and Cleanse the Soul also drag it down quite a bit.

I absolutely love the majority of "Conqueror's Oath" by Visigoth, but "Salt City" is pretty damn annoying.

Slayer's cover of Dissident Aggressor is the second-most-pointless cover of all time, ahead of only Forbidden's cover of Dissident Aggressor. I don't know if it's the guitar tone or tuning or what, but the bluesy post-chorus riff sounds totally off in Slayer's cover as well, almost like it's mocking the original. The worst track they've ever recorded.

There's nothing not perfect about South of Heaven. It is the single most perfect metal album in history, though granted that's only because Reign in Blood has 2-3 songs that should have been developed more.

Also...


Glad you prefer all the tracks they recorded the last 21 years, shows what your opinion is worth.

Some of the ballads on the two Metal Opera albums are pretty awful. Especially "Inside". What a horrible song. Edguy didn't escape either, as "Tomorrow" drags down the otherwise incredible Vain Glory Opera. Whilst not a ballad, "Aren't You a Little Pervert Too" is probably the worst song they've ever done, and although it's cited as a bonus, I'm not sure there are versions of Tinnitus Sanctus that exist without it.

I've never been keen on "The Prophecy" from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, although I'd hesitate to call it shitty. It's just far inferior to the rest of the songs.

I absolutely love Kreator's Enemy of God, but "Dystopia" is painfully mediocre in comparison to the rest of the album.

"Anesthesia" from Kill 'Em All seems an obvious choice. An absolute throwaway.

And since we never shy away from mentioning Alice Cooper, "Something to Remember Me By" is a major low point on the superb Welcome 2 My Nightmare.

Most Edguy albums start way stronger than they end, and a few of em have some obvious fillers, yeah.

As for Avantasia, I legit often forget the Metal Opera ones exist. Haha.

I'm somebody who believes cover versions are best left for b-sides (or bonus tracks), as I'd much rather have another original song instead of a cover, so I've never been a fan of having them on an album. Which is why 'I Ain't Superstitius' ruins an otherwise perfect 'Peace Sells...' by Megadeth, for me.

Sticking with Megadeth, 'Rust in Peace' does contain the rather crap and pointless 'Dawn Patrol'.

Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' contains classic after classic... until you get to 'Rat Salad'... and then it's back to a classic again.

Type O Negative's 'October Rust' first has that stupid buzzing sound at the beginning (which sounds like your speakers are fucked), and if that wasn't enough you get the entire band laughing at that 'hilarious joke', then introducing themselves and saying they hope we enjoy the album. An hour later and Pete comes back for more chat. Fuck off! Other than that, smashing album, boys!

Yeah, fuck, who would take Slayer's nu metal era over an excellent Priest cover?

Yes, finally after 8 years of saying this, someone agrees with me! (The song has grown on me a bit, but I still consider it by far the weakest track on the album and probably skip it about half the time).

Also I agree about "Don't You Cry" from Kamelot's Karma, though I never thought "Across the Highlands" was all that hot either.

One that sticks out like a sore thumb for me (that I haven't heard anyone else echo) is "The Ninth Wave" from Blind Guardian's most recent album, Beyond the Red Mirror. While I don't think it's a great album by their standards, I consider the rest of the songs anywhere from solid to great, but "The Ninth Wave" is literally the only song from BG (besides covers, like the aforementioned "Barbara Ann") that I actively dislike and have to grit my teeth to sit all the way through. I still can't put my finger on what it is exactly, but I've tried it at least ten times and have turned it off partway through on more than half of those occasions. Anyone else agree on this? Just curious.

Another likely controversial one for me is "Pirates of the Underground" from the universally lauded FW sophomore album. It hardly ruins the album for me, but I've always found the main riff boring, the vocal lines nothing special, and nothing about the song was ever compelling or interesting to me; in short, it never really "clicked." I've heard the album upwards of 20 times. I dunno, it just feels bland to me compared to the rest of their 2nd/3rd albums.

This is admittedly another case of a song not necessarily being completely awful but decidedly below the quality of the rest of the album, but "Eat Me Alive" has always been a low point for me on Defenders of the Faith. Just doesn't have the huge hooks or infectious energy that the rest of the proper songs have.


I think Beyond the Red Mirror is one of their stronger albums, but I agree that "The Ninth Wave" is a flop. autothrall put it pretty well in his review when he said it feels like they put so much effort into trying to make it bombastic that they forgot to make it catchy. It just utterly lacks any of their characteristic strengths. It grew on me a bit after listening to it so many times between that album and the most recent live album, but even now it always feels like "Twilight of the Gods" is where things actually get started.


I'd nominate this more for tonal clash than for actually being a bad track. "Blades in the Night", on the other hand, is just a subpar version of the normal Visigoth sound, IMO.

I like this one, it's weird but it kind of matches the style of the album, just like Razamanaz, Antisocial and These Boots. The Dissident Aggressor thing, it's not that the song is bad, it's just totally mood breaking and hardly sounds like Slayer, the same can be said about I Ain't Superstitious and Megadeth.

Killing is My Business is ruined by that beep infested Nancy Sinatra cover. I understand a beepless version exists, but both issues of the album I've bought have the beeps unfortunately.

Changes from (1972) Black Sabbath - Vol.4.

In what world is it an excellent cover? It adds nothing to the song and subtracts in many ways. I'll take a bad nu metal song over the rape of a classic.

Dissident Aggressor was already a Slayer song when it was first recorded in 1977. Take your bad nu metal over that, whatever.

"Hallowed Be Thy Name was already a Cradle of Filth song when it was first recorded in 1982."

Nope, that was an Iron Maiden song. Maybe you never heard Judas Priest or Slayer before last week, with a bit of experience in metal you'd get the connection. The preference for bad nu metal must make it difficult to get into the meat of things, but it's worth it.

One thing that always ruins it for me is a cover in the middle of an album.

Novembrine Waltz for example, I can't stand "Cloudbusting", it just destroys the flow and I fucking love the record.

Brutality's When the Sky Turns Black has "Electric Funeral" right in the middle, and I just don't get it. You have a really strong record and throw that in there, WHY?

Judas Priest's original is superior in every single respect and if you can't hear that it's because you listen to too much tasteless extreme metal. Araya can barely sing; he doesn't need to on a Hell Awaits song, but attempting the greatest song sung by the greatest metal singer is a joke. Lombardo is good by thrash standards but he's no Simon Philips, and his performance is still less heavy than the original. I can't remember how Slayer's attempt at the solo went, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't touch the original that basically served as the framework for more extreme metal leads. To say nothing of the unfitting production and general gimmick factor of its inclusion. Slayer's cover is an absolute bastardization of the original and on par with any of the worst covers of metal songs. Would you rather listen to There Will Be Blood over the other Dukes Exodus albums? Would you rather watch a snuff film starring a family member than a random person taking a shit in public? Bad nu metal is ignorable, that cover is a crime.

Yes I'm sure when you discovered Judas Priest in 2014 it made a big impact between Slipknot and Mudwayne songs, but when I heard South of Heaven in 1988 it was pretty clear it was the best metal album of all time. It is not a violation by any means but the opposite, the fact that a Judas Priest cover fits a 1988 thrash metal album perfectly is a testament to how heavy Judas Priest were eleven years prior. If you had an understanding of classic metal instead of trying to fake elitism about things that were done before you were born, you'd easily get it, but throwing in some Judas Priest between random nu metal songs won't give you a context.

Surprisingly topical: http://www.nwnprod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=68479

No Bone Movies from Blizzard of Ozz album - complete filler with no redeeming qualities

Sadistikal from Danzig 4P - zzzzz

Take on the World from Killing Machine - how this piece of turd was released as a single and was even successful at the time completely blows my mind

Escape from Ride the Lightning - James himself was too ashamed to perform this song for almost 30 years. Let that sink in

Walk Away from Heaven and Hell - let this song song go to hell

Angel City from 1916 - Motorhead never made a band or even mediocre album but you can find a handful of bad songs and this is one of them

Out on The Streets from Sirens - Savatage made some of the best rock ballads you'll ever hear but their first attempt was not great to say the least

Skullcrusher from Years of Decay - Controversial pick I know but this song is just tooooo loong!

Beth from Destroyer - I know that KISS doesn't belong on the Archives but I just had to point this one out cuz it's the worst of all popular KISS songs

Pain and Pleasure form Screaming for Vengeance - Priest was so close to hit bull's eye but this one song made it impossible.

Born to Touch Your Feelings from Taken By Force - really not my cup of tea.