10 Rock Albums Made Out Of Obligation

It's every band's worst nightmare to be tied to the same label for the rest of your life. Even if you may have seen eye to eye when you first signed that contract, a lot can happen in just a few years, and some of the greatest bands of all time have found themselves having to play catchup with the trends or cower to what their higher ups want them to do. It's a tough balancing act to manage, but The Strokes didn't even try to hide their cynicism on Comedown Machine.

While the songs on here are definitely a step above what was happening on albums like First Impressions of Earth, the cover really says it all for this entire record, with the band nowhere to be seen and only containing the bare essentials of the RCA logo printed on the front. As much as songs like One Way Trigger and Tap Out may have been fun to listen to, half of the album feels like it's neutered as well, with the sort of title track '80s Comedown Machine sounding a lot closer to lounge music than anything that's supposed to be coming from the band who made Reptilia.

The rest of the tour for this record wasn't much better considering it never actually happened, with the band only releasing a few old touring videos as promotional videos for the record and not really going out to support the record. You can feel the band desperately trying to capture the magic here, but you can also tell that most of these guys would rather be working on their solo projects than be called back into work right now.