10 Huge Rock Albums That Didn't Deserve To Flop

There comes a point in almost every artist's career where you reach the true blockbuster albums. Even though some of these might feel like the band can do no wrong, there's always a chance that they can come through with something great that will put them up in the big leagues of their musical heroes. There are more than a few that seem to miss the mark more than a few times though.

As much hype that was behind all of these records, most of the fanbase seemed to respond to these records with a pretty audible clunk. That's not to say that all of these albums are hated from back to front, with fans either not willing to get down with a particular premise behind an album or just not gelling with what the band was thinking about at the time. With years removed from the initial hype though, these albums are actually more than that initial opinion was worth.

Are they up there with the knockdown dragout classics that we know these guys are capable of making? Hell no. What they do have behind them is a unique vision though, and the time of day that fans gave these records at the time really shouldn't have been thrown their way. It's not the arrival of a rock and roll messiah...it's just good sounding music, and that should be enough.

From day one, critics always seemed to have a bit of a nasty streak when it came to Styx. Although they were far from the first or the last corporate rock band to come out of the '70s, something about the songwriting from Tommy Shaw and Dennis DeYoung was enough to send a chill up the spine of every single critic looking for the latest trend in pop culture. So when they decided to go conceptual, you can imagine how that went over with the higher ups in the music industry.

Granted, it's not like Kilroy Was Here was greeted with open arms by the rest of the band either, since most of the non-DeYoung members couldn't get on board with a concept album set in a dystopian future. Dennis had put his foot down though, and this was the closest that the band came to theatre, launching themselves into the MTV generation with some of the cheesiest material of their career like Mr. Roboto.

When you take away the fact that this was the moment where the band started falling apart, this is still just a decent Styx album, having a fair assortment of cheesy ballads, weird tracks that go nowhere, and more than a few kickass riffs thrown into the mix for good measure. Rock and roll was never supposed to be high brow material by any stretch, so what's the harm with putting some cheese into your musical diet every now and again?