Broken Records - The Search for the Worst Album Ever

Welcome back to Broken Records, the podcast that searches in all the right places to crown the very worst album in the history of music. We've got a biggie of a name this week as we look at Born Again, the 11th studio album from the inventors of heavy metal, Black Sabbath, released on the 7th of August 1983. Sabbath basically dodged a bullet when original vocalist Ozzy Osbourne left the band and they were able to replace him with the equally enigmatic Ronnie James Dio. Dio recorded two albums with Sabbath, with 1980's Heaven and Hell being considered as good as anything the band had ever put out. But when personal dynamics led to his departure in 1982, Sabbath were once again on the lookout for a new frontman. Enter former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, a man who was highly influenced by Elvis and used to be in Jesus Christ Superstar, he didn't quite look the right fit for a doomy, dark and menacing heavy metal band. And so it proved; though Gillan is a fine vocalist, he and the band struggled to gel creatively, and the result is this album, which also features one of the most eyeball abusing front covers in the history of music. To rub salt into the wounds, when the band went out to tour the record they were beset by problems, the main one being a massive Stonehenge stage set that they accidentally erected due to some incorrect measurements. Gillan was soon gone, but he leaves this fascinating album behind him. Question is; is it actually that bad?

Welcome back to Broken Records, where Steve and Remfry have decided to try and find the very worst album of all time. This week we're looking at the debut album from UK rock personality Screaming Lord Sutch, Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends, released on the 25th of May 1970. If you're of a similar age to us then you might know the name from his various political endeavours back in the 80s and 90s, but Screaming Lord Sutch (not a real Lord) was actually something of a shock rock pioneer back in the early 60's. He had a hit in 1963 with the song Jack The Ripper and during his live shows he would jump out of a coffin and chuck maggots at the audience...which was nice! But, by 1968 Sutch's joke had worn thin with the “Great British Public” and he went over to the USA and decided to create his first album with the help of a few friends. Those friends were Led Zep pair Jimmy Page and John Bonham, Jeff Beck and Noel Redding of The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Good eh! Well… not if you're any of those guys, because they weren't sure what they were doing was even going to feature on the album, as session musicians were brought in to finish parts of the album in the style of the big names that featured. It was released and immediately became hated, both by musicians, with Page being particularly vocal about his dismay at the results, and by music fans, being voted the worst album ever by the BBC in 1998. But is it really that bad? Hmmm…

Welcome back to another edition of Broken Records, where Steve and Remfry are charged with the unenviable task of finding the worst album ever made. This week we're looking at Other Voices, the 7th studio album from the LA psychedelic rock band The Doors, released on the 18th of October 1971. In the aftermath of the release of arguably their finest album, 1971's LA Woman, The Doors were rocked with the untimely passing of their iconic frontman Jim Morrison. They had already been writing as a three piece without the singer and had composed enough material to make a follow up, assuming that Morrison would return from his new home in Paris to complete the material but unfortunately, he passed away July 3rd 1971 before he was able to record any vocals. With this news rocking the band they became somewhat punch drunk, stumbling around trying to recruit the likes of Paul McCartney and Iggy Pop, before deciding that Jim Morrison, one of the greatest rock singers ever, didn't need replacing and that both guitarist Robbie Krieger and keyboardist Ray Manzarek could handle vocal duties themselves. The result was Other Voices, released a mere three months after Morrison's passing, it stripped The Doors, not just of an iconic voice, but of almost all personality they previously had. In terms of bad ideas, this is right up there, luckily they saw sense and disbanded in 1973, but the appearance of Other Voices in their discography remains a troubling reminder of a very troubling time for the band.

Welcome back to Broken Records, where Steve and Remfry search for the least good of all the albums in the history of music. Today we're once again joined by Tom Dare, host of the Hell Bent For Metal podcast, as we're in bad heavy metal territory once again. Yup, the time has come for us to tackle the Blaze Bayley era of Iron Maiden with their 11th studio album Virtual XI from 1998. The 90's weren't great for Maiden, and unlike a lot of bands they can't really blame grunge. The faults of that decade were pretty much entirely all their own fault. After a patchy couple of final albums from Bruce Dickinson's first run in the band, the iconic frontman stepped away from Maiden to make solo material that sounded… well, basically like Iron Maiden. Maiden themselves were charged with replacing their beloved vocalist and decided on Bayley, of Wolfsbane fame, to fill Dickinson's mighty shoes. 1995's The X Factor wasn't particularly well received, but there were mitigating factors to make the case that it was just a blip. But then came Virtual XI, an album that was self produced, was marketed by the band making a fake football team and promoting a video game that wasn't even out yet, despite neither of those things having anything to do with the album, and was given a lead single called The Angel and The Gambler which is nearly ten minutes long and is… look it's not good. The record flopped and Maiden seemed destined for the knackers yard. Until they went back to Bruce and, you know, the rest is history. It's worked out fine for them in the long run, but we still need to know; is Virtual XI really as bad as all that?

Welcome to another episode of Broken Records, the podcast which desperately scours the music world and tries to answer that age old question; what is the worst album ever made? This week Steve and Remfry have a hot contender on their hands as they look at Paula by Robin Thicke, the 7th studio album from the soul-pop lothario, released on the 1st of July 2014.  Thicke had a pretty decent decade long career in the music industry by 2013, he may not have scaled the heights of a Justin Timberlake or an Usher, but his brand of slinky, sexy, soul was popular enough to earn him a decent following in the US, where he appeared on Oprah and supported Beyonce. But it all changed for him when he released the song Blurred Lines in 2013. The song, as we are sure you're aware, was a monolithic hit, dominating the airwaves for the entire year, but came with plenty of criticism and controversy, the ugly sexual politics of the song were condemned by many, Thicke stirred the pot further with a overly sexualised performance at the 2013 MTV Awards with Miley Cyrus and the estate of Marvin Gaye launched a plagiarism lawsuit against the song as well. Thicke himself was now at the centre of a media storm, and when allegations of drugs, violence and infidelity came out in the aftermath, his wife of 9 years Paula Patton filed for divorce. Most people would take time away form the spotlight to address these problems in private, but Robin Thicke decided to do the absolute opposite of that, writing and recording an album named after his wife in a mere 7 week period that detailed their relationship in painstakingly minute detail in the vain hope of winning her back. It didn't. It was a critical and commercial flop, and turned Thicke from one of the biggest stars in music into a washed up nobody practically overnight. Whether this is any good or not we will get to, but in terms of career suicide and a fall from grace, there aren't many albums that can get close to Paula. 

Welcome back to another episode of Broken Records, where Steve and Remfry from that Riot Act show search for the worst album in the history of music. This week we are looking at the 4th album from South Africa post-grunge band Seether; Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces from back in 2007.  We don't know much about Seether, other than some bloke at Sonisphere 2014 really liked them and bullied Steve into playing them on the radio, but it turns out they are a pretty big deal in the US. The band got a foot up from their association with Evanescence vocalist Amy Lee, who appeared on one of their songs and was dating frontman and guitarist Shaun Morgan for a period, before they split up and Lee penned her band's big song Call Me When You're Sober about Morgan just a year before this record was released. Morgan did in fact try to get sober by checking himself into rehab in 2006, and when he came back, he penned this record full of chunky but unremarkable post-grunge rockers. The press didn't much care for it, the band still went platinum, and got another boost when they covered George Michael's immortal Careless Whisper in early 2009. So it hasn't really done much to crush Seether's career prospects, and they definitely steadied the ship after this rocky period, but, here's the big question, is this actually any good at all?

Welcome back to Broken Records, our weekly search for the worst album ever made in history. This week Steve and Remfry are looking at Shine On by Australian old school rock revivalists Jet, released on the 30th of September 2006. It's a place that we've been multiple times here on Broken Records, looking at the follow up album to the hit record from a garage rock/indie landfill band of the mid-00's. Usually it would be the same ol' conversation and we might even be telling you to skip this week's episode because, you know, you have heard us talk about all this stuff before, you know what we think about this music, you know how this story plays out. But, actually, no. There is a very different flavour and a very unique reason to tune in to the show this week. Yes, Jet had become massive off the back of the worldwide smash single Are You Gonna Be My Girl, and their debut album Get Born saw the band sell over 4 million albums worldwide, but they had to follow it up, meaning Shine On was birthed three years later into a world that wasn't as interested in the indie rock stylings that the band clinged so tightly to. It probably would have been fine, they probably would have just gone away and none of us would ever have had a second thought about Shine On were it not for one thing; a monkey pointing his penis into his mouth and urinating straight down his throat. Confused? Yeah, Jet were too.

Our search for the worst album of all time resumes, yes, it's us here at Broken Records. Steve and Remfry head back to October 30th 2006 this week and look at the boom of deathcore with its most successful ever exponents; Bring Me The Horizon and their debut album Count Your Blessings. It's pretty odd to be thinking about BMTH today in the context of them being a scrappy, drunk bunch of kids trying to sound like The Red Chord, whilst they're currently one of the biggest rock acts on the face of the planet and have just played the BRIT awards with Ed Sheeran. But, that's what they were back on their debut album, and they were divisive as anything as well. Winning Kerrang Awards and hitting the top 100 in the UK album charts around the time this record was released, but also inspiring some truly eye-rolling gatekeeping comments from the metal scene at large, due to… we dunno, young girls liking them or something. So, were BMTH jumped up emo, scene kids, desecrating the good name of death metal, or were they miles ahead of their time and doing something that was so forward thinking that it scared the old guard and inspired the kids? Well, as usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Is Count Your Blessings actually any good? Have a listen and you'll find out. 

Welcome back to Broken Records, the show that searches high, but more often, low for the worst album ever made. This week we are looking at one of the most obvious on paper albums in history; Danzig Sings Elvis from April 2020.  Surely Glen Danzig should have done this album ages ago right? The man has made a career from being a black clad, gothy version of The King, earning the nickname “Evil Elvis” dating all the way back to his time fronting goth-punk pioneers The Misfits. If there was a time for Danzig to start pulling out obscure Elvis songs and recording them to show his love for his biggest influence, then the early 90's at the height of his fame would have been the best time to have done that, right? But he waited, and waited, and waited, until he came up with the idea in the aftermath of his 2015 covers album Skeletons. An album that saw him covering the likes of Black Sabbath, The Everley Brothers and… you guessed it, Elvis himself, it was also pretty terrible. A Misfits reunion, a new Danzig album and a movie written and directed by Glen himself, named Verotika, all got in the way of this album. The longer it went on, the more songs were added, turning it from its original idea of an EP into a 14 track album. It's not got many of Elvis' big hits on it, it's recorded in a very low energy and low key style, but, here's the big question, is Danzig Sings Elvis actually any good?

Welcome back to a brand new entry into the catalogue of Broken Records, where Steve and Remfry search for the very worst album of all time. This week we come to you with a warning, this episode is not the usual laugh-a-thon that we pride ourselves on being. It's a heavier and often upsetting episode as we look at the debut album from reality TV star Farrah Abraham, My Teenage Dream Ended, released on 1st of August 2012.  Abraham made her name as a 17 year old, on the MTV show 16 and Pregnant in 2008. The title of the show should make it pretty clear what that entails, and it set in motion a set of events that led to Abraham becoming a big star, but at a significantly high cost. Four years later, her story was chronicled in her first book, My Teenage Dream Ended, which also included a companion 27-minute album inspired by the events detailed in said autobiography. Essentially, Abraham took a few lines from each chapter of the book and turned them into lyrics, which she gave to album producer FRDRK, who made her record her vocals to a click track and then put music (which Abraham never got to hear) over the top of it. The result was 27 minutes of utterly bizarre, pre-Hyper Pop, auto-tuned, electro, weirdness. The response was initially one of derision, but MTDE soon picked up a cult following from members of the indie press, who decided to anoint Abraham as some kind of avant-garde musical queen, much to the bemusement of many (including Abraham herself). It's a fascinating, it often traumatising, story but the question is, who got this one right? Is it a forward thinking, deconstruction of pop in true outsider art fashion? Or is it a grubby, tuneless, cash grab from an industry determined to milk and exploit every last drop from another young, out of their depth, reality star?

Welcome back to Broken Records, the podcast that searches for the worst record ever made in the history of music. This week Steve and Remfry travel back to Britain in that wondrous period of the late 90's going into the early 2000's as they look at You'Ll Love To Hate This, the long forgotten debut, and so far only, full length album from comedian, actor, presenter and… rapper… sort of… Richard Blackwood, released on the 11th of September 2000. Who remembers Richard Blackwood… yeah?... a few… who remembers him for something other than not knowing how to grate lemon zest…? Okay, not so many of you. How about anything other than his recent appearances in big name UK soap operas Hollyoaks and Eastenders? Oooh, hardly anyone. Blackwood was, if you can believe it, a pretty big star in the UK from about 1998 to 2001, presenting a host of big name shows like Top of the Pops and MTV Select, before being given his own vehicle, The Richard Blackwood Show, in 1999. His star dropped pretty dramatically after the release of this album though, maybe it was too much of RB too soon, maybe we never really needed a UK version of Will Smith, or maybe it was just the staggeringly bad execution of this album, full of terrible rapping, cheap pop instrumentation and cheesy R&B fronting. Either way, this record is no fun. Less fun than having 18 litres of coffee shot up your arse? Well, we wouldn't know about that… but we know a man who would! WE LOVE YOU RB, WE WATCH YOU EVERY NIGHT ON TV!!!

On this weeks Broken Records Steve and Remfry continue their search for the worst album ever made by reacquainting themselves with an old friend. This is definitely not the first time we've spoken about death metal pioneers Morbid Angel's 2011 comeback album Illud Divinum Insanus, but we're obliged to do it and so we're going in deeper than ever. Quite what makes this record broken are things we've discussed in prior podcasts; the absurd and seemingly endless wait from the return of iconic frontman David Vincent in 2004 to the actual release of the album, the various line up changes, Vincent's quite atrocious lyrics and, most importantly of all, the bands ludicrous attempts to broaden out their classic death metal style with some highly ill advised industrial metal influences. We're not quite sure what they were going for, but, whatever it was, we're pretty sure it wasn't meant to end up sounding like Radikult does here. The death metal fans, famously known for their open mindedness, went mad and had a meltdown when the album was released, Vincent soon departed… even though he didn't appear to be told about it, and both he and guitarist Trey Azagthoth spent the next few years blaming the other one for the stench that Illud Divinum Insanus made. Still, it's not all bad, they did manage to release a three disc, 39 track, 3 hour and 5 minute long remix of the album, which surely gives them the world record for the single most pointless music release ever, the original artwork is good and, man, you should check out the lovely tin the CD comes in!

Grab the coffee and the sleeping pills, this week's Broken Records is going to be a long one. Steve and Remfry are back, continuing their quest to find the worst album of all time, and today they have found the foolproof insomnia cure that is Phil Collins 7th solo album Testify, released on the 11th of November 2002.   Listen, we don't want to hate too hard on Phil Collins, lord knows he's had enough pops taken at him over the years. Particularly in the 90's, when, after his commercial peak in the 1980's, he was kicked from pillar to post (metaphorically speaking) by the likes of Noel Gallagher, U2 and even some random barman. Yes, Phil Collins in this era was the antithesis of cool Britannia, but he looked like he was going to have the last laugh when he hooked up with Disney at his lowest ebb and ended up a Golden Globe and Oscar winner after his work on the Tarzan soundtrack. You go Phil! You've proved all the haters and naysayers wrong! You've still got it! Now go make a cracking new solo album under your name and your rehabilitation will be complete… oh. Oh well. Testify was that album, and it's fair to say that it killed the career renaissance of Phil Collins stone dead before it really even got started. Instead of the massive yacht pop bangers or atmospheric slow jams that he made his name on, Phil seemed incapable of creating anything on Testify that wasn't pure, middling, bland, pop nothingness. Testify is just under an hour, but feels like it stretches time like a Matrix movie as song after song of paper thin, flat, uninspired and uninspiring noodling drag by. Phil, you fucked it mate, and the worst thing is, you made Noel Gallagher look like he was right about you. Shame that.  https://youtu.be/mEnUhjmwjlI (Phil Collins - Can't Stop Loving You (Official Music Video)) https://youtu.be/XwzID90zhAc (Phil Collins - Wake Up Call (Official Music Video)) https://youtu.be/qD4PXEw8hxM (U2 Drunk - dissing Phil Collins - Billboard Awards 1992)

Broken Records is here again, bringing you our search for the very worst album ever released in music history. This week Steve and Remfry are looking into the weird, wild and rarely wonderful world of Cyberpunk, the 5th studio album by the plastic punk superstar Billy Idol, released on the 29th of June 1993. Billy Idol was, of course, a huge star as the 90's came into view. With a string of MTV heavy hit singles in the previous decade he had become one of the music world's most instantly recognisable faces. But the 1990's was the decade that killed many a rock star, and Billy knew that he was going to have to fight off grunge if he was going to stay relevant. After nearly losing a leg in a motorcycle accident in 1990 he became fascinated with the underground subculture of cyberpunk, consuming the works of JG Ballard, Phillip K Dick and, most notably, William Gibson and using it as inspiration for a new record that was recorded completely at his home on a computer. In 1993! Imagine that! Idol ingrained himself so deeply into the subculture that he even set up an online account to chat to other cyberpunk aficionados and ask their advice on how the record based on the culture should look and sound. Still, when it came to the release of the record he might have wanted to listen to their advice a little more intently, as Cyberpunk is a messy dance rock concept album that bizarrely leans in on dated electronic sounds, cringe-y critiques of the LA riots, some exhausting new age hippie nonsense and a truly abysmal cover of The Velvet Underground's Heroin. The critics hated it, it sold poorly, but, perhaps most gallingly for Idol, the cyberpunk community were furious. Trolling him on his personal email account and accusing him of appropriating their culture for his own financial gain. Obviously it was a different time, and that sort of thing doesn't happen anymore… little bit of satire for you there. https://youtu.be/lx2fZU5USus (Billy Idol - Shock To The System)

Hello and welcome back to another edition of Broken Records, the podcast that searches far and wide for the very worst album of all time. Today Steve and Remfry are talking about Lil Wayne's The Rebirth, the 7th studio album from the New Orleans rapper, released on the 2nd of February 2010. We can't pretend that either of us are massive fans of Lil Wayne… or small fans… or fans. But there's no doubt that he's a pretty significant artist in the hip-hop world. By the year 2008 he was a legit superstar in fact, with his The Carter trilogy seeing him lauded all over the place and the third installment picking up the Best Rap Album Grammy. Not bad. He was restless though, and decided that, rather than go into the studio and give his fans The Carter IV, he would do a rock album. Rap and rock have always proved to be challenging bedfellows, for every Rage Against The Machine there is about 50 Vanilla Ice's, Methods of Mayhem or whatever other cack we still have left in the hat. But, surely, a rapper of Weezy's stature could put together a band with the chops to provide the killer backing to his unique and idiosyncratic drawl couldn't he? You'd think, right… but alas no. The Rebirth is instead a confusing, often troubling and often hilarious mess of autotune mixed with paper thin pop punk and generic sleaze rock guitar that is hard, maybe impossible, to enjoy.

Welcome to another episode of Broken Records, where Stephen Hill and Remfry Dedman take a deep breath, hold their nose and dive head first into some of the stinkiest musical moments ever in search for the very worst album of all time. Today we're looking at I Am Me, the second full length record by US pop-rocker Ashlee Simpson, released on the 18th of October 2005. With us both being UK based, we don't actually know all that much about Miss Simpson. She never really cracked Britain, in fact all she is really known for is what she is most known for the world over - being the pop star who was “scandalously” caught lip-syncing on a 2004 episode of Saturday Night Live. Being a pop star (pop stars mime a lot by the way, SPOILER!) you'd think that this would be something of a non-event, but in actuality it became a massive great bastard stick to beat Simpson with for some time. Her career suffered a significant nose dive after the event, but rather than sit at home and mope, she got back in the studio and decided to chronicle her feelings in her second album. Which is what we get here. It's not exactly groundbreaking, with Simpson claiming the record would lean on influences from the 80's whilst being 'rawer' and 'realer', yet confusingly crediting her stylist, make up artist and hairdresser in the linear notes of the record. EH?! Still, did she redeem herself or does she show herself up to be the cynical pop puppet prat that the media spun her as?... Listen to find out what we think... https://youtu.be/xKyGyXlHS9Y (Ashlee Simpson - Boyfriend (Official Video)) https://youtu.be/a41s4IMyamQ (Ashlee Simpson - L.O.V.E. (Official Music Video)) https://youtu.be/lWJCfbMw0Yo (SNL Ashlee Simpson - Clean SDTV Video Capture) https://youtu.be/HkrPDaJwAU8 (Owen Paul “My Favorite Waste Of Time” Lip Sync Fail BBC Pebble Mill)

Welcome to another search for the worst album of all time here on Broken Records. Steve and Remfry really don't want to be here this week as they are covering an album by one of their heroes; the late, great Chris Cornell and his third studio album Scream released on the 10th of March 2009.  Cornell had become a legit mainstream star in the mid 00's after his cover of Billie Jean by Michael Jackson was being karaoke-massacred by X-Factor contestants and his song You Know My Name being an actual Bond theme! Not bad for the singer in an alternative rock band that had split a decade earlier. Being hot stuff he decided to rope in pop producer extraordinaire Timbaland, he of the sublime work of early Jay-Z, Missy Elliott and Justin Timberlake's banger filled Justified album, to work on some new material. An odd pairing? Maybe on paper, but then Cornell has a voice of such stunning quality that he would easily be able to pull off pretty much any genre right? Sure, but by this time Timbaland was working with the likes of New Kids on the Block, Black Eyed Peas and The Pussycat Dolls, and it was tempting to say that the pop revolution that he helped kick-start in the early part of the decade was starting to sound a little stale and oversaturated in 2009. What we got was an album that plays to neither man's strengths, despite the two enthusiastically telling the press how great it was to be working with each other and both the rock and mainstream worlds looked at Scream like a middling half-way house that neither rocked like Cornell's early material or made you want to get up and dance in the way that Timbaland at his best could. A shame, but then we got Soundgarden back for a few years in the aftermath, so was it really all that bad? Videos https://youtu.be/7GiyhVHIiWo (Chris Cornell - Scream (Official Music Video)) https://youtu.be/-OgwDVaCiSw (Chris Cornell - Part Of Me ft. Timbaland (Official Video))

Welcome to another episode of Broken Records, our search for the very worst album that has ever dared to disgrace the good name of music. This week Steve and Remfry are joined by Tom Dare, host of the Hell Bent For Metal podcast, to talk about Supercharger, the fourth studio album by Oakland metal heroes Machine Head, released on the 2nd of October 2001. After the lukewarm reception to 1999's nu-metal leaning The Burning Red, Machine Head told the world that they were coming back swinging with some of the classic sounds of their beloved debut album Burn My Eyes. They certainly talked a good game, and having ditched the orange tracksuits, bleach blonde tipped spiky hair and “I'm mad I am!” facial expressions that characterised much of The Burning Red cycle, they looked the part too. In fact frontman Robb Flynn was more than confident that the band had “weathered the storm” and were going to be better than ever as the new Millennium arrived. Sadly, it didn't quite work out that way, as Supercharger was a big ol' flop of an album, the band themselves would point to a release around the time of the 9/11 terror attacks happening that saw the records lead single Crashing Around You dropped from radio and MTV for being a little too thematically close to the events of that day. Really though, that's not the problem with Supercharger is it lads. This is a painfully long and oddly neutered album from a band who had proved one of metal's most integral voices in the 90's. As we know, the band definitely got their shit back together fairly quickly, but, as we discuss, it was touch and go for a while there for Machine Head.  https://youtu.be/iQWu8IE-b6A (Machine Head - Crashing Around You [OFFICIAL VIDEO])

Happy new year and welcome back to our search for the worst album of all time. We've got a beauty for you this week as Steve and Remfry wrap their ears around Allow Us To Be Frank, the fifth studio album from Irish boyband sensation Westlife, released on the 8th of November 2004. At this point in their career, Westlife had become a license to print money, simply from being nice, faceless boys singing balladic cover versions of increasingly dislikeable songs. In early 2004, the band's only recognisable member, Brian McFadden, had left the group, leaving… er… the other four to soldier on regardless. Thanks to the insane success of Robbie Williams' Swing When You're Winning album, the music world was inundated with any-old-wanker donning a zoot suit and crooning out the hits of The Rat Pack. Some were fair enough; Seal? Sure. Micheal Bolton? Umm…if you like. Some were not; Bobby Davro? Definitely not. RON ATKINSON?! You've gone too far now! Never ones to have an original idea in their collective heads or pass up the opportunity to make a quick buck, Westlife's team (which included Louis Walsh and Simon Cowell) decided to get in on the swing revival and give the band a set of standards to karaoke their way through. The songs are undeniable and the members of Westlife have perfectly competent (if utterly soulless) singing voices but is that enough to save Allow Us To Be Frank from getting an absolute kicking? 

On this week's episode, it feels like Steve and Remfry have very little to say about the album Atilla by Atilla, so they go off on all manner of tangents instead. You'll enjoy that, we're sure. Anyway, the Attila we're talking about this week are not the rap-metalcore band that you probably know and begrudgingly tolerate, no, rather they are the proto-metal duo of Jon Small and Billy Joel. Yes, THAT Billy Joel. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1970 with Epic records signing the band and giving them fifty grand to record the scrappy compositions that they had pieced together. The result is an album that sounds a little bit like The Doors falling down the stairs, with a sleeve that might make you laugh, cry, vomit and bleed from the eyes all at once. And, frankly, the cover of the record is definitely the worst thing about this pretty ho-hum collection of songs, but it's here because of one particularly harsh review it received and because Billy Joel hates it, and he went on to become… well… Billy Joel. Could be worse eh.

This week Steve and Remfry get ready to rumble as they once again search for the worst album of all time. This week Broken Records steps into the squared circle to grapple with the debut album from Macho Man Randy Savage, 2003's Be A Man. Back in the glory days of professional wrestling The Macho Man was one of the most recognisable faces and voices in a game filled with huge and iconic characters. But by 2004 it had been a while since we had heard anything from him, save for a cameo… sorry, feature appearance, in 2002's Spiderman movie. What had the Macho Man been up to you ask? Was he getting ready to make his return to the ring? Gearing up for Wrestlemania? About to drop a flying elbow on The Rock or Triple H? Not quite, instead he was recording his only solo album, a record that took his apparent love of Eminem and Run DMC and mixed it with his, ahem, unique vocal approach and lyrics about fighting, putting your hands in the air, being a tender lover, the fact that he was back (he's definitely back alright guys!) and dissing his (im)mortal real life enemy Hulk Hogan. The result, and we cannot stress this enough, is genuinely HILARIOUS! Where it ranks on our list…? Well, listen to find out, but ultimately it doesn't matter, Be A Man should just be enjoyed for the Macho Madness it delivers. OOOHHH YEEEEAAAHHHH!!!! https://youtu.be/MUPxEUdI4HE (Listen to the album in all it's glory)

It's another trip into music's most embarrassing recesses with Broken Records and our search for the worst album ever made in history. This week Steve and Remfry head back to 2005, and pick through the poo and willy-filled world of scatological humour dreamed up by Pennsylvanian frat boy rockers Bloodhound Gang and their 4th album Hefty Fine. Seems mad to think it by 2021 standards but, way back when, Bloodhound Gang's mix of bratty hip hop, pop punk, 80's synths and deliberately politically incorrect humour actually became something of a mainstream hit. Their atrociously named 1999 album Hooray For Boobies featured a couple of legit anthems in the shape of The Bad Touch and The Ballad of Chasey Lain, and even though they just appeared to be obsessed with cocks, fannies, breasts and faeces, Bloodhound Gang managed to score a platinum album in the US and a number one position on the German album charts. MAD! You'd think, what with the TBG coming across as a bunch who were slightly more knowing and self aware than their music suggested, that a follow up to that album would arrive swiftly, to capitalise on what could surely only be 15 minutes of fame. But, no. In fact it was six long years before they returned with new material, in the shape of this confusing and deeply unfunny 35 minute long record. Face it lads, you blew harder than “Yo mama blows ma weenie”! (See, this shit is so easy!)

This week we head back to the 9th of September 2014 and discuss one of the most heinous crimes in the history of music; stadium rock megastars U2's 13th studio album Songs of Innocence. After 2009's No Line On The Horizon album “only” went platinum once in both the US and the UK, U2 were keen to make themselves relevant to a broader spectrum of music fans once again. After a protracted 5 year recording process, Songs of Innocence was not just released, it was shoved into the iTunes library of everyone on Earth as a little gift, due to the bands ongoing relationship with tech giants Apple. Nice idea in theory, but the response was one of outrage from the non-U2 loving contingent of the planet. Which, despite them being proper fucking massive, is still a hell of a lot of people. Years later the only thing that anyone can actually remember about the album and the band around this time is the fact that we all own it, which in these days of streaming culture is hardly the worst thing in the world is it? One thing that tends to be overlooked about Songs of Innocence is the fact that, yes, it is actually an album and therefore does actually have music on it, so… we should probably talk about that actual music right? We give it our best shot, but, damn, it's not easy with music this bland.  https://uproxx.com/indie/u2-songs-of-innocence-apple-iphone-free-album-anniversary/?fbclid=IwAR11HPxAffwSNPT-lAYk-_8nrjUCpYohBFN_JuAM2Ie-pr0-bQGrAFDU4Tc (Uproxx article "Five Years Later, It's Time To Admit We Overreacted About Apple Putting A Free U2 Album On Our Phones") https://consequence.net/2016/05/why-radiohead-is-the-only-rock-band-to-perfect-the-surprise-album-release/?fbclid=IwAR2yBSJi7Ra4NRuOXvMMIodOF8IkFdfKhGXEtoBynwkrlolG6WYwvnlPsiM (Consequence of Sound article "Why Radiohead Is the only Rock Band to Perfect the Surprise Album Release)

Our search for the worst album of all time has brought us to a place where we are considering actual rock n' roll royalty. This week we look at The Weirdness by The Stooges, the 4th full length album from the Detroit proto-punk legends, released on the 5th of March 2007. These days we are well aware that when a legacy band return with new material, chances are, it won't be as good as the classics that they used to churn out. That attitude hadn't really arrived with quite so much gusto in the year 2007, so with The Stooges reformation in full swing in and a garage rock revival scene in it's mainstream invading pomp, there were plenty of people who genuinely believed that a group of 60 year old blokes who hadn't released a record together in 34 years might still be capable of giving fans a record that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the era defining masterpieces that they put out in the early 70's. Needless to say, The Weirdness couldn't do that, which doesn't strictly make it a disaster; if all albums had to be as good as 1970's Fun House then 99% of albums ever made would be useless, but a select group of critics at the time were utterly outraged that the band would tarnish their legacy. But did The Stooges really tarnish their legacy on The Weirdness? The Stooges perform "Burning Up" at the 2008 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony https://youtu.be/LaO4ZvsrTKc (https://youtu.be/LaO4ZvsrTKc) The Stooges perform "Ray of Light" at the 2008 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony https://youtu.be/nLZDwaaumio (https://youtu.be/nLZDwaaumio) The Stooges perform "I Wanna Be Your Dog" at the 2010 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony https://youtu.be/HSUyF4LIAiY (https://youtu.be/HSUyF4LIAiY)

We continue our search for the worst album ever made in music history this week by checking out the result of the gargantuan ego of Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, namely his second full length solo album Asshole, released on the 8th of June 2004. Simmons is, was and will forever remain a fairly controversial character within the music world, most of his detractors would tell you that this is down to his questionable attitudes to the opposite sex, his seemingly endless obsession with squeezing as much money as he possibly can from his rather gullible fanbase and his lip constantly flapping ill thought out and ignorant opinions on queue to anyone in the media like a shite filled Pez dispenser. Simmons himself would argue that you're just jealous, because of… well… we don't know what exactly. Still Remfry and Steve try to head into Simmons' record as neutrally as possible, but it soon becomes clear that, no matter the character of the person that made it, this record is very much worthy of inclusion on our list, due to its bizarre use of canine metaphors, constant crotch thrusting horniness, cheap sounding production and an incredibly ill advised cover of The Prodigy's classic Firestarter, all fronted by a wheezing old goat of a man. 

It's a shooting fish in a barrel kind of week here on Broken Records for Steve and Remfry, as their search for the worst record in history has brought them into contact with one of their least favourite bands of all time; LA glam metal morons Mötley Crüe and their 1997 “comeback” album Generation Swine.  The 90's wasn't the best time for the 80's hair metal scene, most of them just vanished or tried to reinvent themselves in a grunge or alternative style. But none of them had it quite so hard as Motley Crue, who lost vocalist Vince Neil, released a self-titled album that everyone ignored in 1994 with a bloke named John Corabi and then desperately flailed about trying to create a follow up. Producer Bob Rock, the only man to make the band sound half decent ever, was canned and replaced by a bloke who closed a door on a Melvins album, Corabi quit, sick of being constantly undermined by the label and production team, leaving the band to have to go crawling back to a disinterested Vince Neil and have him sing songs written for someone else. The result is a confusing mish mash of the type of dunderheaded hard rock typical Mötley Crüe and some desperate attempts to ape the sound of the zeitgeist. Albeit the zeitgeist of three years previous. It's not the worst, but, hold tight, as at the end of Generation Swine lives a song so terrible, so mind meltingly atrocious, so unfathomably abysmal that our hosts cannot even find the words to describe it. Dare you listen to… Brandon?!

It's back to the land of the fetid novelty cash grab, as Broken Records takes on the two biggest franchises of all time; Star Wars and Christmas! What genius would have thought to put these two goliaths together? None other than producer Meco Monardo, a Star Wars superfan, who had previously recorded Star Wars and Other Galactic funk, a dubious 1977 cash grab that inexplicable reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Sniffing dollars, this marked a point in George Lucas' career where he began to embark on systematically destroying the science fiction world he created with tacky merchandise, thus concluding his trajectory from ‘promising young film director' to ‘Star Wars merchandising maverick'. Strangely, a Christmas themed Star Wars album seemed like A GOOD IDEA(!) to Lucas and he agreed to lend the talents of the cast to the album, before scarpering from the project, sticking his fingers in his ear and laughing all the way to the bank. Mark Hamil, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher were smart enough to spot a terrible idea and declined to appear on the album, but no such luck for Anthony ‘C3PO' Daniels, who delivers classic Christmas carols like a monotone robo-nanny, delicately cooing over R2-D2 and condescendingly taking an entire song to explain what bells are.   The worst thing about Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album, is that despite its demented development, it's not only naff but deathly dull, barely managing to elicit a chuckle out of Steve or Remfry. It's crap but it ain't funny, but where will it rank on our list of the worst albums of all time?

Another week, another Broken Record to rank as we search for the worst album in the history of music. In this episode Steve and Remfry discuss Baptism, the 7th studio album from the big scarf-wearing, hard funk, singer-songwriter Lenny Kravitz, released on the 18th of May 2004.  By 2004 Lenny was a massive rock star! He'd picked up Grammy's four years in a row from 1999 to 2002, he'd gone platinum a bunch of times, he was doing songs with Jay-Z, P Diddy and Pharrell, dating Brazilian supermodels and A-list Hollywood actresses, he had been immortalised in The Simpsons and he even had a book released which consisted solely of pictures of his own, let's be real here, very lovely looking, face! But did all this actually make Lenny Kravitz happy? Baptism would suggest not. In his search for some kind of spiritual fulfilment Kravtiz crafted an album that questioned his career, his life decisions and the industry that had turned him into one of the most recognisable faces on the planet. Often this kind of soul searching from artists can lead to some brilliantly arch and transgressive music, often it can lead to some rich bloke whining and grumbling about how hard they have it over the top of some truly awful, bland and sappy tunes. Guess which one Baptism is.

Welcome to what surely has to be the most exhausting, exhaustive, confusing, extensive and ultimately, unsatisfying Broken Records that you'll ever listen to. In their search for the worst album ever made, Steve and Remfry run the rule over Chinese Democracy, the sixth studio album from hard rock megastars Guns N' Roses, released, FINALLY released, on the 23rd of November 2008. Where do we even start with this one?! Well, we're pretty sure you're more than aware of at least certain parts of the mythology of this record, what with it being the most expensive album ever made and surely the most prolonged recording process in the history of music. The kernel of the idea of Chinese Democracy started in 1994, when Guns N' Roses were the undoubted biggest rock band on the face of the planet. By the time it was released 14 years later they were a circus freakshow, an elusive entity, the punchline to a million jokes and only one of the men that made Gn'R such a beloved band was still present in the ranks. That man, one W. Axl Rose esquire, oversaw endless managers, band mates, producers, studios, millions of dollars spent, numerous failed release schedules, rumours of an industrial metal direction and the construction in the studio of one dog shit filled chicken coop. But, 13 years down the line, we do our best to answer the questions that continue to plague Chinese Democracy; was the wait worth it, could it ever have lived up to the hype, what was Axl thinking, and, most importantly, is this record actually any good? Do we answer them? Errrrr… we do our best. But, come on, is anyone ever going to make sense of this record?! Probably not, so best just enjoy it for the madness that it is, right?

On this week's Broken Records the boys are divided, as we look at ¡Tré!, the 11th studio album from pop-punk megastars Green Day, released on the 7th of December 2012. On one hand Remfry is a self-confessed fan of the band, enjoying their jaunty, pop punk, stadium rock hits like a happy little fella and then on the other hand we have Steve, miserable, agitated, elitist punk rock snob, who hates their ascent into the mainstream. But can they agree on Tre? They certainly have plenty to talk about, with it being the worst rated Green Day album on Metacritic (bar odds and sods b-sides collection Shenanigans) and it seemingly being the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of the public's appetite for new Green Day material as the final part of their three part trilogy of albums released in 2012. It remains the bands lowest charting effort and one of only two post-Dookie albums to sell less than 100,000 copies in the US on the first week of release. All of this is made all the more galling by the fact that Billie Joe Armstrong declared that the band would be going ‘epic' on the record but instead just released yet another album of toe-tappingly fine pop punk songs. The delusions of grandeur, the lack of creativity, despite claims to the contrary, and the total disregard of any type of quality control makes ¡Tré! a very difficult album to love, but after Mr. Blobby and Crazy Frog, at least it's a ‘proper' band right?

It's unclear quite what Remfry or Steve have done to deserve this but for the second week in a row, we are forced to listen to an album fronted by a fictional character with absolutely no musical talent what-so-ever (sorry Blobby). At least last week, Remfry could claim some sort of defence in that Mr. Blobby was ostensibly aimed at children but Crazy Frog (or The Annoying Thing to give the little shit its more appropriate title) was created and eventually marketed to siphon money from the pockets of simpletons who really should have known better. And the worst thing is … it worked! For a brief period of time in the mid-00s, this babbling CGI monstrosity was inescapable and not just in the UK either! Finland, Poland, New Zealand, Austria, Denmark, France, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal all fell for the ‘charms' of this nonsensical babbling irritant. Steve takes us through the story of how a ringtone (a f@!king ringtone!!!) ended up releasing not one, not two but three albums of deliriously bad Eurodance trash, even managing to drag down a couple of semi-decent dance bangers along the way, much to the delight of simpering imbeciles everywhere. And it gets worse ... like a cockroach, Crazy Frog refuses to die with threats of a new album imminent. Pray that global warming wipes us all out before that drops but rest assured, if it doesn't, we will not be reviewing it on Riot Act

Blob blobby blobby blob blob!... or welcome to another week in our search for the worst album ever made. This week it all gets a little odd as Steve and Remfry are forced to take a trip back to the death rattle of British light entertainment and dissect the debut (and weirdly only) album from 90's pop culture sensation Mr. Blobby, released during some point of 1994. Apologies to those listeners who are either from outside of the UK, or below the age of 25, this might take a fair bit of explaining for you. But those who do know and remember Mr. Blobby… well, you'll have no doubt in your mind that he is a worthy inclusion into the Broken Record family. Introduced as a foil to fool hapless celebrities during a segment on Noel Edmonds blockbuster Saturday night, prime time behemoth Noel's House Party, Mr. Blobby soon transcended the segment to become a genuine cultural phenomenon in Britain during the first part of the 1990's, despite the fact that he just said “Blobby blobby blobby” and fell over a lot. Depending on your viewpoint (or age at the time) it's either not much of a trick, and is in fact very fucking annoying, or it's a hilarious continuation of the grand tradition of slapstick that the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton would be proud of. Whatever, the massive success of the character saw his popularity milked for all it was worth, with merchandise aplenty (Towels, lunchboxes and VHS videos being particularly popular in the Dedman household at the time) and an inevitable musical career being thrust upon the Great British public. Blobby's debut single somehow managed to fight off competition from Take That and Meatloaf to land the prestigious Christmas number one spot, in one of the greatest upsets in chart history, in 1993 before an entire album of material was released the next year. As a relic of a bygone era, and with radically differing views on the quality of Mr. Blobby's work from back in the day, what exactly do our hosts think about the record today? It's certainly some deviation from what we're used to talking about on the show, still at least the hat full of shit can't give us anything more ridiculous than this next week can it!... or can it?!

Steve and Remfry take a trip down memory lane this week and review an album that one of our hosts has already reviewed at the time of its release in the form of post-grunge no marks Puddle of Mudd's covers album, the confusingly titled, Re:(disc)overed, released on the 29th of August 2011. It's an album that could very much have flown under the radar for many people, what with Puddle of Mudd having suffered a serious drop in fortunes and commercial appeal after the mainstream dalliance they had with their 2001 album Come Clean. That record sold over 5 million copies worldwide, but a decade later the band were on something of a downward trajectory, so what better way to pump life into their career than to record a set of their versions of some of the most famous songs in the history of popular music. A good idea on paper, but quite how a band as rudimentary and lacking in quality as Puddle of Mudd thought that they were going to be capable of doing justice to classic songs by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin and Elton John's ROCKET MAN is a confusing one. Still, they did it, and back on an early incarnation of the Metal Hammer podcast, Steve was given the record to review on a particularly stressful week, resulting in the album, the band, their fans and, more than anyone, frontman Wes Scantlin getting a verbal kicking of the highest order. Ten years on and it's fair to say that Scantlin hasn't had the best of decades, being arrested for everything from tax evasion, to drink driving, to riding airport luggage carousels to strapping bombs to his own cars, he even ruined About A Girl by Nirvana. The silly bastard. But, we have to ask, did he really deserve to be thrown at a wall as a baby…? 

We're a little late this week, apologies for that, but, hey, who can blame us, we're having to dive back into one of our least favourite scenes in musical history; the indie landfill boom of the mid-00's. This week we look at the fourth album from Leeds based indie nothing-men The Pigeon Detectives, released on the 29th of April 2013.  You might feel that, having already discussed the likes of Razorlight, The Vines, The Enemy and The Twang there isn't much gas left in the tank from Steve or Remfry when it comes to yet another one of these artists, but, actually, one of us is particularly wound up by the bands bland, jaunty noodlings. Having had a number three UK hit in 2007 with their debut album Wait For Me, The Pigeon Detectives seemed to make it their life mission to hang out with as many appalling and objectionable people as possible. This meant a record number of performances on Sky's risible flagship football banter show Soccer AM, going on tour with fellow hometown tossers The Kaiser Chiefs, allowing one of their gigs to be filmed by the internet TV company of gormless everyman and Sunday Brunch presenter Tim Lovejoy and inviting lunatic former Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino up onstage with them to piss all over Jimi Hendrix's Hey Joe. So far, so easy to hate.  Unsurprisingly the band suffered badly as the 2010's quickly re-evaluated the artistic merits of the indie scene, and We Met At Sea was their first album not to chart, was savaged by the critics and even the band themselves struggled to formulate a coherent sentence to justify their existence. But is it really that bad, or is it just really dull?... well… it's kinda both actually. 

Broken Records is often a painful experience, but it's made all the more painful when we're discussing a band as essential and admired as The Clash. Unfortunately, their sixth and final studio album, released on 4 November 1985 by CBS Records, is a record that is truly worthy of the prefix ‘broken'. Lead guitarist and co-principal songwriter Mick Jones and drummer Topper Headon had been dismissed by lead vocalist Joe Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon. Jones and Headon were replaced by three unknowns: guitarists Vince White and Nick Sheppard and drummer Pete Howard, a line-up that Strummer, somewhat sneeringly, referred to as ‘The Clash 2'. During the tense recording sessions, Clash manager Bernie Rhodes and Strummer fought with each other for control over the band's songwriting and musical direction. The band wrote 20 songs for the Cut the Crap sessions, 12 of which ended up on the finished album (God only knows how awful the other 8 are). The songwriting is far from The Clash's best but the real villain of the piece is manager Bernie Rhodes, who's cluttered and hideously unfocused production ruins and squanders whatever negligible integrity the songs might've had.   

Steve's already let his feelings on this week's Broken Record be known but can Remfry make him see reason? Short answer ... no. But then, both our hosts have a soft spot of sorts (one more so than the other) for One Hot Minute, the sixth full-length studio album by Red Hot Chili Peppers. An album which Steve believes ‘justifies their entire ridiculous existence as a band' and Remfry calls 'the most frustrating RHCP album in a back catalogue full of frustrating albums', One Hot Minute is the follow-up to the world conquering Blood Sugar Sex Magik, an album that firmly established Red Hot Chili Peppers as one of the biggest rock bands in the world. Disaster followed soon after however as John Frusciante became disenchanted with fame and quit, Anthony Kiedis relapsed after 5 years clean, and Flea (gulp) ... sang! To replace Frusciante, the Chilis looked to former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, a wonderful guitarist who errr ... doesn't really like funk. Bit of an issue for the biggest funk rock band in the world, but they persevered all the same, creating the most eccentric album the band would ever release in the process. Largely ignored by a large swathe of the band's fans (and the band themselves to be fair) One Hot Minute has nevertheless garnered devotional cult adoration by a small minority and has become the most celebrated Red Hot Chili Peppers album among those who can not f**king stand the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

We're on home turf this week as Remfry and Steve dye their beards red, dust off their wallet chains and practise their tilted head / bug eyed stares as we head back to 1999 and re-visit Chamber Music, the second full-length studio album by Coal Chamber. Possibly the only band in the world who were proud to attach themselves to the ‘spookycore genre' (basically, nu-metal with eyeliner) Coal Chamber effectively ushered in the second wave of nu-metal when they released their self-titled debut album in 1997. Whilst the quality of nu-metal was beginning to decline (bar a few notable exceptions) the genre's popularity continued to rise and with their second album coming out in September 1999 (just prior to the genre's commercial peak) they seemed set to ride the incoming nu-metal explosion. It didn't quite happen for them though, mainly due to the fact that Chamber Music was an overlong, bloated stinking mess of an album. They tried to broaden their sound in an attempt to escape the, as Kerrang! would have put it at the time, konstant komparisons to Korn' (the 90s was great but it wasn't perfect). It didn't really work, because it turned out that Coal Chamber only had one riff and we'd already heard it 14 times on their debut, an album which had a sort of primal appeal for about two minutes. High profile manager and professional twat Sharon Osborne roped in her husband Ozzy (who had no idea what was going on) for a cover of Peter Gabriel's Shock the Monkey which really is as terrible as you remember it being but at least it was a talking point on an album that was utterly devoid of any creative ideas or musical talent … but where will it place on our list of Broken Records?

There's endless amounts of mid 00's indie landfill for us to sort through on Broken Records, as you might well imagine, and that's the territory we find ourselves in yet again, as Steve and Remfry hold their collective breath and dive head-first into The Twang and their 4th full-length studio album Neon Twang. Released in March 2014, Neon Twang faced a fairly apathetic reaction from the general public whose appetite for paper thin, non-descript and utterly soulless chav-indie had (thankfully) quelled significantly at this point. It was a far cry from the band's early days when they were hailed by the NME as ‘Britain's Best New Band' on the cover of the 31st March 2007 edition of the magazine. A couple of months later, their debut album Love It When I Feel Like This received 6/10 in the very same magazine (déjà vu anyone?), hardly a critical mauling but a score that is somewhat baffling given NME's cover proclamation just weeks before. As is sometimes the case with this indie landfill stuff, wavering critical opinion seems a large part of the reason why Neon Twang has found its way onto Broken Records and whilst neither Steve nor Remfry are going to bend over backwards to hand out platitudes to The Twang, the question remains … does Neon Twang really deserve the critical appraisal that it received?

We're getting sexy with Emerson, Lake and Palmer this week on Broken Records, as Steve and Remfry head down for a taste of love on the Love Beach. The seventh studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson Lake & Palmer, it was released in November 1978 by Atlantic Records as their final studio album prior to their split the following year. By the end of their 1977–1978 North American tour internal relations had started to deteriorate, but the group were contractually required to produce one more album. They retreated to Nassau, Bahamas as tax exiles to record Love Beach with lyricist Peter Sinfield who is credited as a co-writer of each track. After Greg Lake and Carl Palmer had finished recording their parts they left the island, leaving Keith Emerson to finish the album himself. It spelled the end for ELP but will Steve and Remfry want to sup upon the taste of creamy, peachy love served up by Love Beach or will they gag at the merest hint of a widdly, masturbatory synth solo freak out?

It's our 45th episode of Broken Records and we're looking into the curious case of Fischerspooner, the electroclash duo and performance troupe formed in 1998 in Chicago after Warner Fischer and Casey Spooner met at school. #1 is the first full-length album by electroclash duo Fischerspooner released in 2001. It originally received a limited run on International DeeJay Gigolo Records, and contained "The 15th", a cover of a Wire song from their album 154. #1 has been re-pressed several times with a different track listing. The title "Fucker" was also censored on subsequent releases, either as "!@*$%#", "*#!@¥¿", or "*#!@Y?". "Sweetness", "L.A. Song" and "Megacolon", all from the re-issue were originally released together on an EP titled #1 Supplement that was discontinued in time for the first re-issue. A limited edition pressing from 2003 also included a DVD with several remixes, a documentary, as well as four videos—"Sweetness", "The 15th" and two versions of "Emerge". The album itself is … ok!?? Certainly not your usual Broken Records fare, so why oh why is #1 (working title ‘Best Album Ever') in our hatful of shit?

The customer is always right, so they say… hmmm… well, on this week's show we're going to test that theory to the limit as we look at the second album from the early 00's most successful hard rock revivalists; The Darkness' One Way Ticket To Hell… and Back! Let's hope you had a receipt for that catsuit. We're joined by Metal Hammer editor and longtime fan of the band Merlin Alderslade to dig deep into just what went wrong with rock's great new hopes of the 21st century. Released on the 28th of November 2005, the follow up to the inhumanly successful Permission To Land was always going to struggle by comparison, and it would take more than endless nudging, winking and tomfoolery and the excessive production techniques of the legendary Roy Thomas Baker, he of Bohemian Rhapsody fame, to save this album from a fickle mainstream public. During the recording of the record the band lost their iconically moustached bassist Frankie Poullain, frontman Justin Hawkins made the bizarre decision to go solo, and by the time the album was released drugs, apathy and exhaustion had all but destroyed the band, their stratospheric rise all crashing down around them as quickly as it had risen.  But is the album actually that bad, or had The Darkness fifteen minutes of fame just expired? Find out here.

We've covered some absolute guff from the 90s on Broken Records, Steve and Remfry's collective favourite period of time for music but it's always led to some compelling, nostalgia-filled conversations and this week's 90s entry is no exception. Stop, collaborate and listen cause Vanilla Ice's on the mic and he's jizzin out 13 truth bombs that are going to be Hard To Swallow. Released by Republic Records in 1998, Hard to Swallow is the third studio album by American rapper Vanilla Ice. It proved to be a shallow attempt to move away from hip hop and discard his former pop image. Instead, Hard to Swallow featured what he described as "skate rock", a fusion of heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop. The album features appearances from Amen vocalist Casey Chaos, Bloodhound Gang vocalist Jimmy Pop, and Insane Poetry front man Cyco. Session musicians included drummer Shannon Larkin, keyboardist Scott Borland, and Snot guitarist Sonny Mayo. Oh and it's produced by Ross Robinson, the nu-metal superstar producer who said that working on this album was “the most punk-rock thing you could do." But was it? Or was it simply a sticky, premature gag of an album?

Its episode 42 and we have a special guest with us for this week's Broken Record in the form of metal aficionado and Hell Bent for Metal Podcast creator Tom Dare. And this particular episode is catered to his tastes perfectly … or it would be, if we weren't talking about an album written and released in the past 10 years of 'anything you can do I can better' Metallica copyists Megadeth's career. Hold on to your hadron collider's cause we're talking Super Collider. Released on June 4, 2013, Super Collider marked the first time the band had released more than one album with the same lineup since 1997's Cryptic Writings, however it is the band's final album to feature drummer Shawn Drover and guitarist Chris Broderick, due to their departures from Megadeth in November 2014. The album debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 and has sold over 86,000 copies in the United States as of December 2015, despite receiving mixed reviews from critics with a Metacritic rating of 41/100 We discuss the lead up to this album, which had, for the most part, placed Megadeth in the best position they'd been in since the early 90s. They ballsed up most of that good will with this album, but where will we rank it on our list of Broken Records?

Steve and Remfry are talking about one of their favourite eras in music, so expect 90s references a-go-go as we delve into The Boy with X-Ray Eyes, the debut album from Wolverhampton's one hit wonders Babylon Zoo. Released in February 1996. It features the single "Spaceman”, which charted at number one on the UK Singles Chart after being featured in a popular Levi's jeans TV advertisement in late 1995. The album peaked at number 6 on the UK Albums Chart and lasted a total of six weeks in the top 100 (three in the top 40) generally receiving favourable critical reviews. But time has not been kind to Babylon Zoo or this album, as it's retrospectively been re-appraised as one of the worst records of all time, hence its inclusion here. The Guardian and Q, who initially published favourable reviews, have named the record one of the worst of all time. In a 1999 Guardian article, critic Andrew Mueller labelled The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes "one of the most hilariously terrible albums ever made". Q staff ranked the LP at number 42 in their 2006 list of the 50 worst records in history, calling it an "album of lumpen MOR rock" that "sank without trace". A 2016 public poll organised by online trade-in site Ziffit.com placed it at number 31 in a list of the 50 worst records ever. But does an album with one of the biggest hit singles that the UK has ever seen really deserve its reputation as one of the worst albums ever made?

Its episode 40 of Broken Records so how appropriate that Steve and Remfry return to one of their least favourite eras for guitar-based music, an era where the prefix ‘The' was king (or Queen but let's face it … mainly king). Melodia is the fourth studio album by Australian alternative rock band The Vines, a band who were signed to Capitol Records on account of frontman Craig Reynolds' personality (what a great thing to put money behind!) Album sessions for Melodia lasted one week and yielded 25 songs! Based on the 14 that made the record, almost all of them were crap. Maybe they should have simply re-named the album ‘That'll do' because that seems to be the attitude that has prevailed for this entire record. But, where will it rank in our Top 40 Broken Records list?

We come to one of the most infamous examples of a Broken Record in the history of modern music, an album that has been on pretty much every list that we have encountered of worst albums ever. An album with a story so bizarre, ludicrous and inconceivable it has passed into rock n' roll folklore. We won't spoil the story for those of you who don't know it here but suffice to say, neither Steve nor Remfry were aware of the strange tale of The Shaggs and their 1969 debut album Philosophy of the World. This is a tale best told with no prior knowledge and so Remfry has a week off from Broken Records research so that Steve can tell him the extraordinary story of The Shaggs fresh. Maybe it's best to leave the last word to Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, who said that “hearing the band was like discovering a strange new kind of tree. You can tell it's a tree, but it's not like any other tree that you've ever known.”

There are bad records and then there are broken records … and by golly gosh are we covering a broken record this week! 28th March 2008 was a dark day for music, as it saw the release of Concerto in True Minor, the debut album from True Symphonic Rockestra. Masterminded by German producer Dirk Ulrich, the inspiration for Concerto in True Minor came from The Three Tenors. Ulrich sought to create a project that brought together the worlds of rock, opera and musicals in perfect synergy. Unfortunately, Ulrich didn't have Messers Carreras, Domingo and Pavorotti on speed dial, so instead he brought in Vladimir Grishko, an Opera Tenor who (apparently) was the Cultural Minister of the Ukraine (according to the True Symphonic Rockestra website at least), Thomas Dewald, a tenor who may or may not have murdered some kids and James LaBrie AKA the worst thing to happen to Dream Theater. Herr Ulrich imaginatively called the trio … The Three Rock Tenors … what a vivid imagination he must have. Ulrich had the following to say about the project. ‘This is a new, unique combination of these two forces and probably the first time ever to feature two world class tenors and one of the most respected voices in rock on one entire album.' It's safe to say that neither Steve nor Remfry agree, but exactly how bad is Concerto In True Minor? Oh and we also throw shade at Andrew Lloyd Webber cause he's an absolute bell!

There's an air of slight befuddlement on episode 37 of Broken Records as Remfry and Steve discuss Tin Machine's II, the 1991 sophomore album from the sort of supergroup. Sort of because really, the only member of the group that is ‘super' is one Mr. David Bowie (you may have heard of him). Supported by 3 singles, the album peaked at number 23 in the UK, though it only made it to number 126 in the US. The band's label, Victory Music, went bankrupt after the album's release, leading to it being mostly unavailable for purchase until 2020, when it was given its first major reissue on both vinyl and CD. In a rare failure of judgement, Bowie himself was so assured with the project he left EMI, who were willing to put out David Bowie solo material but not this project. But is Tin Machine II really that bad? Where would it rank as a part of David Bowie's solo career? And did Tin Machine, as some critics have retrospectively argued, predict the rise of grunge?

We're going big on this week's Broken Records this week by covering American Life, the ninth studio album from Queen Madge herself, Madonna. Released on April 21, 2003, by Maverick Records and Warner Bros. Records, the album is a concept album (apparently) with themes of the American Dream and materialism and was produced by Madonna herself and Mirwais Ahmadzaï, a collaborator who had worked wonders for Madonna's material on her previous studio album Music.   Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for American Life, an album that attempts to mix elements of Americana folk with electronica to sometimes risible, often just plan boring results. American Life featured Hollywood, the first Madonna single not to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 since 1983. Hollywood turns out to be one of the least of the album's crimes however, although there is some rip-roaring debate between Steve and Remfry over Die Another Day, the Bond theme to the film of the same name that also features on this album. Dance club banger or a turgid mess in search of a song?

It's our first foray into Soundcloud Rap on Broken Records and about time too(!) as Steve and Remfry talk about the debut album from emo rap lad Lil Xan, Total Xanarchy. Released on April 6, 2018, by Columbia Records (who really should have known better) the album features guest appearances from Charli XCX, YG, Rae Sremmurd, 2 Chainz, Diplo, Yo Gotti, Rich the Kid, and Steven Cannon. Not even all those guest spots can save this sheer abomination from our wrath but precisely how bad is Lil Xan's Total Xanarchy?

We're in previously uncharted Broken Records territory this week, as Steve and Remfry take a deep dive into the 1994 debut album from Naomi Campbell. Yes, that's right, Streatham's very own supermodel released a (predominantly) R&B record, because it was the 90s and the 90s was a weird ole' time for the music industry. We take a look back at the inescapable celebrity culture that surrounded Campbell and her supermodel chums which allowed them to take part in a variety of extra-curricular activities above and beyond wearing clothes and looking pretty. As well as making this album, she's (ghost)written a book, released 25 fragrances for women via her eponymous perfume house and made light of her various assault convictions by wearing a t-shirt that reads "Naomi Hit Me...and I Loved It" ... how noble of you Naomi. But we're not here to drag all that up again. Instead, we talk about the relative merits of babywoman, the album that Campbell managed to rope in a surprising amount of talent for, including The Virgin Prunes founding member Gavin Friday, English musician and producer Tim Simenon aka Bomb the Bass, American hip hop and R&B double act P.M. Dawn and Killing Joke bassist Youth! In fact, there are many surprises surrounding this album, not least the reaction of one of our hosts to it. But where will it end up on our ever-expanding chart of Broken Records?