10 Great Bands With One Terrible Album

There are probably a few Metallica fans who would argue that the thrash titans have a few albums that could have made this list. I mean, we can't just ignore their collaboration with Lou Reed on Lulu, right? Or even the times when they seemed to sell out to the masses on Load and Reload. But no, this is one of the greatest metal bands of all time, and nowhere did they drop the ball harder than with St. Anger.

Before you even get to the music though, you need context. As this record was being made, bassist Jason Newsted quit, James Hetfield entered rehab, and the band eventually clashed when James returned and led to the entire album getting pushed back further and further. Any setback like that should kill a band, and boy does it sound like torture when listening to this record, with the emotion and anger being on the wrong side of listenable the more you try to stick with it.

Standing at over 70 minutes, this is the kind of Metallica album that only the true diehards need to listen to, and even then you might leave with a headache from the constant snare bashing and James' vocals. Metallica have stuck by St. Anger though, saying that it was the right way to capture that negative energy. Fair enough, but that doesn't mean that the album is necessarily fun to listen to.