10 Terrible Rock Songs That Killed Classic Albums

When listening to your favorite albums, every single song seems to speak to each other in its own unique way. Even if the album is meant to have some sort of underlying theme, these songs all seem to compliment each other in just the right way, either sounding similar to one another or filling in the gaps right where the last track left off. And while a lot of the albums on this list share that kind of company, there are always those few songs that seem to fall just a little bit short.

Even though each of these albums have multiple classics across their runtime, these are where everything seems to get put on pause for the album to just get weird. Since there’s nothing holding you back in the studio, every one of these songs feels more like moments on the record, either taking the band in a different direction or just putting something together as a bit of a troll on your audience.

While none of these were enough to sink the artists’ reputations for good by any stretch, they did end up killing the flow of every one of these records. Right when it sounds like you’re having a good time, these tracks pull you out of the experience so hard that it practically feels like you’re getting audio whiplash the first time you hear them. All of you guys were doing so well, so why the hell did you give these songs a spot on the record?

U2 are one of the first people who would tell you how much they have been influenced by American culture. The Joshua Tree practically sounds like something you’d see in an old Western, and some of their greatest hits have had to do with their fascination with some of their American heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. on Pride. Just as you’re winding down through the Unforgettable Fire though, Elvis Presley and America has got to be one of the single strangest tracks they have ever put to tape.

Although there’s the start of a great U2 song hidden in here somewhere, most of this track tends to feel more like an open ended jam session than a proper song, with most of the band sort of fiddling around aimlessly trying to lock in on a groove. Any song can come together with the right lyrics though…only problem here is trying to get a handle on just what the hell Bono is actually saying.

From one line to the next, Bono seems to be speaking gibberish, pretty much letting the music guide him and spitting out anything that pops into his brain when the tape is rolling. Considering this was following some of the band’s greatest songs like Wire and Pride though, it’s hard to really have this live up to the same standard. Experimentation should always be encouraged in bands, but you need to keep it in moderation. When it works well, U2 creates something like Drowning Man, but when they don’t have a goal, we get something like this.