Any album can feel like a headache after one too many days in the studio. Everyone can hope to have the kind of record that they can make in an afternoon, but there comes a point where things can hit a hurdle that no one can manage to get over. It’s one thing to be able to work through their differences, but bands like The Beatles had records under their belt that made every band member want to wash their hands of their troubles.
Then again, it’s always disheartening to see good songs being wasted. There’s always potential when someone decides to hit record on the console, but when they finally manage to get on the same page and still don’t have the basic pieces of their music together, it’s easy for anyone to either want to pull their hair out or take out all their aggression on their fellow bandmates by the time the session is over.
Although there are many problems surrounding the albums here, that doesn’t mean they’re all bad, either. Many of the biggest names know how to muscle through any kind of pain that comes their way, and while there is some weapons-grade level garbage on some of them, there are also transcendent ones that prove all that hard work would be worth it if they found the right idea.
While some of these bands left their albums with a few scars, that doesn’t discount any of the work that they put into it. Whether good, bad or just plain boring, any album with a horrible backstory needs to be celebrated, if only for the fact that the band got them over the line. Because where most people would crack under the pressure, they thrived and often went even higher than they could have dreamed.
10 albums that made bands want to give up
The Paper Kingdom – My Chemical Romance
Every great My Chemical Romance album needs to have a sturdy idea behind it for everyone to get on board. Gerard Way was never into being a musician simply to make a collection of singles, and if there was an album coming out, it was bound to have a specific agenda outside of a handful of sing-along choruses. But whereas most bands have some demoralising experiences working on a record, Way knew there was no way he could feasibly get The Paper Kingdom finished the way he saw it in his head.
The Black Parade was already dark enough, detailing someone coming to grips with dying, but the treatment for their fifth record was meant to be even more depressing. Centred around a concept where a support group of parents all lost their children, the story was set to follow the tale that they had made up in their heads for where their children had gone, including a convoluted tale where they would be fighting against a witch after getting lost in the woods.
It would have been a nice goth aesthetic for an Into the Woods-style story, but since Way had recently had a kid and was dealing with his own demons, the band ended up dissolving the project before going their separate ways. Songs like ‘Fake Your Death’ have seen the light of day on some of their compilation records, but out of everything on this list, The Paper Kingdom is the only project that will most likely remain unfinished.
River of Dreams – Billy Joel
There was always a certain stigma around Billy Joel’s music from the minute he became famous. He was hardly an artist to get too worked up about, but at the same time, there was no way that anyone could feasibly look cool when listening to tracks like ‘Piano Man’ or ‘Uptown Girl’. Joel was still a musician’s musician, though, and when he found out that he didn’t have much more to give to the world, he figured he would quit while he was ahead on River of Dreams.
The album itself is among one of Joel’s best, but that’s probably because of the pain that went into making it. Joel has always treated any songwriting like pulling teeth half the time, and aside from making tunes like the title track on a whim, this was the sound of him putting a bow on the final years of his original music, whether that’s writing a gentle song for his daughter on ‘Lullabye’ or having his final say on the matter in ‘Famous Last Words’.
While Joel has broken his studio celibacy more than a few times to work on the one-off single here and there, the fact that he has this as his last record is pretty commendable. Most people don’t get the opportunity to stop at the very height of their career, but Joel would have much rather gone down with something he could be proud of than watch himself make something even more cringy years down the road.
1984 – Van Halen
Was there anyone really arguing with who called the shots in the band Van Halen? According to the rules of all rock and roll band names, if the group is named after a member, they’re the ones that can be judge, jury and executioner on things, but it’s not like Eddie Van Halen was leading the group with an iron fist. He simply wanted to make the best records he could, but when David Lee Roth started having a problem with that, that’s when the fangs came out and Eddie put his foot down.
Many fans might have agreed with Roth that keyboards didn’t belong in Van Halen’s music, but considering how big a song ‘Jump’ was, Eddie hardly cared. He was determined to make records that had different shades of colour to them, and since Roth didn’t want to mess with the formula, they begrudgingly went through every song before Roth announced his departure following the band’s tour.
Although Eddie was never going to give up once Sammy Hagar entered the fold, any chance of him working with Roth in any capacity by this point was long gone. Compromise needs to happen in every band, but it’s sad to think that one of the greatest rock bands of all time couldn’t get along anymore because one of them brought in a synthesiser to rehearsals one day.
Gone Troppo – George Harrison
By the mid-1980s, George Harrison was being treated like a piece of meat by his record company. No Beatle should ever have had to go through as much bullshit as they had to after Allen Klein screwed everything up, but since ‘The Quiet One’ was still under a contract with Warner Bros, he needed to meet his quota of songs no matter what. And if his label rejected the fantastic songs on Somewhere in England, Gone Troppo was practically the sound of Harrison trolling his record company.
He could not have been asked to care by this point, and outside of going on holiday, he seemed more concerned with gardening at Friar Park than with the music at hand. Are there some good songs? Sure, but you have to go through some truly rough 1980s production to see them, especially ‘Circles’, which seems like some kind of cinematic soundtrack fodder that went haywire.
It’s easy to support Harrison’s passive-aggressive tone throughout the album, but if the label’s not happy and he’s not happy, how the hell are the fans supposed to be? There are the makings of some good tunes here, but since many of Harrison’s greatest songs relied on his optimistic tone, it’s hard to take these tracks seriously knowing that he secretly can’t wait for them to be over.
Brand New Eyes – Paramore
There’s a certain danger that comes with a band getting too big too fast. Most labels want to get their artists in front of as many people as possible to make sure they get as much profit as possible, but that can lead to either overexposure or the band themselves not surviving the ride they’re being put on. Paramore fortunately lived to see another day after Riot, but Brand New Eyes was one of the most combustible periods of their development.
While most of the album features a more mature and reflective answer to what their blockbuster album was, you can hear their anger on every track. There’s the odd love song that brings things down like ‘The Only Exception’ and ‘All I Wanted’, but whether it’s ‘Ignorance’ or ‘Brick By Boring Brick’, many of the songs feel like they have a pretty clear target. And judging by what happened directly after the album, it’s not like the band didn’t have a few scars after it was finished.
After the Farro brothers parted ways with the group, a lot of fans started realising how passive-aggressive some of the lyrics could be interpreted, especially when the brothers claimed that Hayley Williams’s words contradicted the Bible. Williams and Taylor York may be the two giants left standing from this era of the group, but while a lot of the songs are still a part of their setlist, it does feel a little bit strange knowing that one of the Farro brothers is back in the group playing the tunes all over again.
St Anger – Metallica
Taking a break and recharging one’s batteries was never a priority for Metallica. They were the ultimate road dogs since the beginning of their career, and they weren’t about to let anything get in the way of continuing to dominate the landscape once The Black Album started selling in droves. While the Load era is something many fans wish to forget, the true ugliness wouldn’t turn up until the next proper studio album.
Each of them were dealing with their separate issues, but after Jason Nwsted quit, all hell broke loose. James Hetfield had already been dealing with some substance issues, but looking through the documentary Some Kind of Monster, St Angerwas the sound of him trying to build himself back up, showing him going to rehab, becoming a family man again, and eventually working up the courage to walk back into the studio and finish off the record.
It’s great that the band lived to see another day, but it doesn’t help that the record sounds like trash, to the point where every instrument sounds distorted and it’s hard to make out what Hetfield is playing and what’s being echoed by Bob Rock on the bass. But St Anger’s quality was never the goal behind the record. It was about finding the time to make something they could be proud of, and looking at it now, it feels like more of an audible therapy session than a proper record.
Synchronicity – The Police
The only reason why The Police were able to stay together so long was because of the tension between them. Everyone knew that Sting’s songs were far better than anything Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers could come up with, but there was always a battle of how the rest of them could give their identity to tracks like ‘Message in a Bottle’ without them becoming Sting solo albums with a band behind him. It had worked incredibly well for a few years, but by Synchronicity, the tension finally had to end.
Everyone knew that songs like ‘King of Pain’ and ‘Every Breath You Take’ were hits in the demo stages, but when Sting started taking over the studio, there was little room for them to wiggle around in. There are still the odd experimental tunes like ‘Murder By Numbers’ or ‘Mother’, but the latter especially feels like the culmination of all those birthing pains for a few cacophonous minutes.
Anyone in their right mind would have called the band crazy for stopping when they had graduated to stadiums, but it was only natural for them to come apart at this point. They had taken things as far as they could go together, and if they had kept themselves confined to one band for the rest of their lives, it would have only hurt their creative spirits knowing they couldn’t express themselves fully.
Tango in the Night – Fleetwood Mac
Should it really shock anyone that there was some drama behind a Fleetwood Mac project? Even before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the group, everyone from Peter Green to Bob Welch was having problems in the group, and when they brought romantic relationships into the mix, it was only bound to get messier. But whereas Rumours was the happy by-product of everyone singing through gritted teeth, Tango in the Night was among the most fractured releases they ever made together.
That said, you wouldn’t know it from the songs themselves. Everyone brought their A-game to the table, and ‘Little Lies’ might be the perfect example of every singer’s voice working off one another, but since everyone was grappling with their feelings about the record, it got extra tiresome when Nicks failed to show up for some of the sessions while in the middle of her solo tour. If the tension between her and Buckingham was tense by then, the physical bust-up between them was the dividing line.
There had been harsh sessions, but as soon as they began throwing hands, Buckingham knew he could no longer continue with the group, eventually breaking up with the band before they could go on tour. The band kept trucking as always, and Nicks has always said that she would never quit Fleetwood Mac, but since Say You Will didn’t have Christine McVie on the record, the core lineup of the band breathed its last breath that day.
Pyromania – Def Leppard
No hard rock band is ever satisfied with being number two in the charts. Most people would be happy to get something that charted at all, but Def Leppard had other plans once they came off of making High ‘n’ Dry. They wanted to make the musical equivalent of a blockbuster movie, but when they began working with Mutt Lange the second time around, they weren’t simply going into the studio. They were going to musical boot camp, and not everyone was prepared for what they had to suffer through.
Although most of Pyromania sounds immaculate, that’s only because of the amount of takes they had to put into it. Lange was insistent on the band playing in perfect time together, and he wasn’t necessarily kind about it, either. While not exactly Whiplash-intense, Lange would make sure he was getting nothing less than perfection, which led to Rick Allen throwing drumsticks at him from behind the glass and Joe Elliott eventually needing to be thrown into a taxi after crying his heart out to David Coverdale over drinks in between the sessions.
No band should have to suffer this much to make a classic, but it turned out that all of this hard work was only preparing them for what would come next. Hysteria may have been even bigger than this, but if they had to soldier through Allen losing one of his arms midway through production, they would have given up well before they finished had they not had Lange’s guidance.
Let It Be – The Beatles
There’s no clear answer for when The Beatles started to disagree with each other. As much as people like to portray Yoko Ono as the villain of the story who tried to pull John Lennon away from the rest of the group, the world is not that black-and-white or misogynistic to immediately jump to that conclusion. The Fab Four were simply growing apart, and if their double album was a mess, Let It Be was them trying desperately to make music together again.
The documentary Get Back shows that the sessions were far from as nasty as people make them out to be, but it’s clear that something was off during that time. Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney are on two completely different creative pages, and when George Harrison eventually left to work on his own, there was a real question of whether to keep the sessions going or face the fact that they were splitting up.
While the final album technically wasn’t supposed to come out until the label got their meaty paws on things, Let It Beis still a nice snapshot into what those final days of the band were like. Abbey Road is technically the final release they wanted to make and does a much better job at putting a bow on their career, but even if this was billed as the band without the traditional bells and whistles, it was still nice to see those few moments of them enjoying themselves.
