10 Legendary Albums That Fans Originally Hated

As the saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20. No matter how much you may think that whatever's on the radio right now is garbage, there's no telling what's going to stand the test of time. And even if you think that your favorite band has made an all time bomb, you'd be surprised to find out what a few years does to it.

While not all of these were necessarily the worst of the worst for their respective artists, they were certainly not that well received upon first release. When these were first out, many fans were turning in their fan memberships and giving up on them entirely, thinking that they'd officially lost their way. If you were to say that to any of these albums these days though, you might end up getting some funny looks from people. Over the course of just a few years, these albums have held up surprisingly well, becoming a favorite among critics and even fans coming around on them later down the line.

That's not just warming up over time either. These albums have also managed to cast their shadow over the music industry as well, with the seeds being planted here going on to show up in different stripes of rock and roll. Like them or not, the rock scene wouldn't look like it is today if not for those odd ducks paving the way first.

Of all the titans of Seattle from the early '90s, Alice in Chains was the one band that seemed to get the metalhead seal of approval. While bands like Pearl Jam were leaving most of the metal scene in the dust on the radio, Alice were the one band that could stand alongside acts like Slayer and actually hold their own. That was their first album though, and fans were initially not having it when they tried their first experiments.

When the band was given an advance to write what would become Would? for the movie Singles, they used the rest of the money to cut a bunch of acoustic tunes that would be released as SAP. Since all we had known at this point was Man in the Box, this was a different change of pace, being entirely acoustic and featuring a more melancholy tone than what we had already heard. And fans were not responsive at all from what Jerry Cantrell remembers, as most of the live debuts of these tracks resulted in people throwing anything they could at the stage.

It would take a few years for the rest of the world to warm up to this dark side of the band though, from acoustics being layered on Down in a Hole off of Dirt and Jar of Flies becoming one of their most celebrated collection of acoustic cuts. While it looked like they were toning things down, all of that darkness was still there once you stripped the distortion away.