The critics always have their golden calves. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, it was Cream, and bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath (who dared to play a heavier style than blues rock) got thrown to the wolves.
Zeppelin and Sabbath ultimately stood the test of time, as did these 10 albums which were panned by critics upon release, but became immortal thanks to the greater sensibilities of heavy music fans.
You’ll notice a recurring theme in this list — bands getting panned for being too ahead of their time. When Led Zeppelin released their 1969 debut album, Rolling Stone reviewer John Mendelsohn wrote that Jimmy Page wrote “weak, unimaginative” songs on the record and that “the Zeppelin album suffers from his having both produced it and written most of it.” He also called Robert Plant “foppish as Rod Stewart, but nowhere near so exciting.” Imagine being bored by “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” “Communication Breakdown” and “Dazed and Confused.”
Few publications really got Black Sabbath when the heavy metal blueprinters dropped their self-titled debut in 1970. Rolling Stone‘s Lester Bangs called Sabbath “Just like Cream! But worse.” The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau gave the album a C- and noted it as “the worst of the counterculture on a plastic platter.” Additionally, a newspaper article from 1970 (exhumed by YouTuber AudioMover) branded Black Sabbath “obnoxious, boring, superficial, pretentious and too loud.”
Oh boy did critics hate AC/DC‘s High Voltage. “Stupidity bothers me,” Rolling Stone‘s Billy Altman wrote. “Calculated stupidity offends me.” Critics didn’t necessarily ease up in the coming decades either. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music gave High Voltage only 2/5 stars, while the Spin Alternative Record Guide issued it an identical 4/10. This is the album with “It’s a Long Way to the Top,” “The Jack,” “Live Wire” and “T.N.T.” The hell were these critics thinking?!
After grasping Britain’s attention with their debut album, Iron Maiden didn’t receive as much warmth with Killers. UK Magazine Even Sounds gave killers a brutal 1/5 stars, calling it “good, unreliable; more of a failure than a triumph.” Robert Christgau also added Iron Maiden to his “meltdown” list, where he disposes of artists “unworthy of the time it would take to dispatch them.”
Despite housing some legit classics, Mötley Crüe‘s 1983 Shout at the Devil got skewered by critics at the time. Rolling Stone gave the record a score of 2/5 and said Crue “look meaner than they sound” while calling the Sunset Strip musicians “teenybopper antiheroes.” Robert Christgau gave the album a D and and labeled its false braggadocio poor “even by heavy metal standards.”
A birthing point for death metal, Kerrang! somehow gave Death‘s Scream Bloody Gore 1/5 stars back in 1987, only to rescind that score and replace it with a perfect 5/5 in 2011. In the Collector’s Guide to Heavy Metal, the seminal album received a 4/10 score.
This album would’ve been too controversial for mainstream publications to praise, but even the heavy music press shit all over Mayhem‘s ultra-violent debut. The Collector’s Guide to Heavy Metal somehow gave De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas a ZERO out of 10. C’mon guys… at least admit to the greatness of “Freezing Moon.” Kerrang! only gave Mayhem‘s first album 3/5 stars back in 1994, but raised the score to 4/5 in a 2011 retrospective.
Oldheads weren’t ready for Korn. D- from the Calgary Herald. C- from the Village Voice. Only 2/4 stars from the Los Angeles Times — the biggest paper from Korn‘s home state! The LA Times were somewhat kind to Jonathan Davis‘ lyricism, but wrote the music itself had “no sensible measure of its artistic merit.” Even in a 2004 retrospective review, Rolling Stone gave Korn just 2/5 stars.
Vulgar Display of Power and Far Beyond Driven are almost impossible to follow, but critics were still too harsh on Pantera‘s The Great Southern Trendkill. With less of a focus on pure brutality, Trendkill got reamed by the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone, which gave the album 2/4 and 2/5, respectively. Entertainment Weekly mustered up a C+ score and said Trendkill offered “little variation” from Far Beyond Driven. The fuck album were they listening to?
Metalcore was in a semi-shitty stage in 2010, likely contributing to the lukewarm and sometimes extremely harsh reviews Parkway Drive received with Deep Blue. Alter the Press gave the album a 2.5/5, PopMatters gave it a stale 6/10… but oh boy did PunkNews go in on Deep Blue. Reviewer Sloane Daley called Parkway Drive “the Celine Dions of Australia” and ended the review with “your ears deserve better than this.”
Source: metalinjection.net
