10 Hard Rock Albums MUCH Better Than You Remember
It's time to give Metallica's Load album its due.
No two albums are treated the same way.
As much as you might consider something to be either overhyped or under-appreciated, there's always going to be those few albums that just don't come up in the general discussion because they are just middle of the road. On the contrary, sometimes we leave a bunch of quality records in that limbo as well.
From rock to punk to grunge, there have been plenty of records that should have been celebrated a lot more than they were back in the day. However, it's not like the fanbase had genuine reasons to not enjoy some of these.
Throughout rock history, most of these albums either came at a really bad time or were just the polar opposite of what people may have expected from these bands. Even with all of the scorn that was thrown their way, there's actually a healthy amount of great material to sift through if you really want to look for it.
Whether they are celebrated for their brilliance now or still living in the shadows, these are good examples of albums that we got to know after the fact. No matter what kind of trajectory they took to reach the top, they deserve to be praised just as much as their contemporaries.
10. Waiting for the Sun - The Doors
Towards the end of the '60s, rock was beginning to sound a lot more dangerous. With the emergence of heavier songs from the Beatles and the Stones infiltrating the airwaves, the time was just right for the Doors to come through with their psychedelic freakouts like Light My Fire and People Are Strange. So since their self-titled debut and Strange Days get all of the glory, why does Waiting For the Sun get treated like a stop gap?
Even though this record did have an ace in the hole with the Kinks-like single Hello I Love You, that drastically undersells the wild experimentation that goes on across the rest of this album. Leaning into their experimental side for the first time, Ray Manzarak and Robby Krieger have a field day with their instrumentation, from the off-kilter pop of Love Street to the weird flamenco guitar noodlings going on in Spanish Caravan.
Jim Morrison is no slouch either, with some of the most charismatic performance he has ever committed to tape, both restrained like on Yes the River Knows and chaotic on the acappella My Wild Love.
However, the magic doesn't truly reach its full potential until Not to Touch the Earth, whose weird aura and original drone-y structure combines everything dark about the Doors into one neat package. Though this album is a clear snapshot of the Summer of Love, the reception should have been a bit better than just a throwaway.