More about: Royal Blood

What if your favourite record is actually a load of old shit? Someone, somewhere definitely thinks so. Here, our writers out their dirtiest secrets and write about why some of the best records of all time are some of their absolute worst.

Discretion advised...

Radiohead - Kid A

Radiohead’s 2000 album, Kid A is totally and utterly overhyped. Stop reading here for a moment and give Pitchfork’s review a read - it's a total chin-stroking, Brewdog-drinking, love-in for music bores who think they’re so much better than the average indie rock fan. The review is as uneventful as the album itself, which makes it clear that Thom and co. are trying so incredibly hard to appeal to “the intellectual rock fan”.

The album itself fails to pique interest at any moment. 'The National Anthem'’s “jazz” horns and brass sound bizarrely out of place, 'In Limbo' starts off dreary and only gets drearier, 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' has no meat on its brittle bones and 'Idioteque' is so uneventful that I can’t listen to it in the car for fear of falling asleep at the wheel.

It’s not like I’ve not tried to love Radiohead either: pretty much every album has graced either my turntable or my headphones and I just can’t hack it. Try as I might, I find it grandiose, obtuse and fucking boring - and Kid A is the prime example of this. It’s little more than Coldplay for hipsters, Snow Patrol for beanie-wearers, Keane for guys who own collapsible bikes... You get my point. (Charlie Brock)

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

I can already hear the deafening screams of indie kids threatening to kick me in the face with classic Reeboks and knackered Converse. Excuse me for being a mardy bum, but this album really isn’t worth the praise of being the holy grail of indie rock. The cultural significance of the record back in 2006 can’t be ignored: Arctic Monkeys were one of the first ever bands to rise to fame by utilising the internet which paved the way for the music industry to become what it is today. 

Despite this triumph, how the hell did this album become the fastest-selling debut album of all time? Despite including some catchy numbers still played in indie clubs across the country today such as 'I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor', 'Mardy Bum' and 'When The Sun Goes Down', the record is musically dull as dishwater – those aforementioned tracks included. Every track has the same guitar tone that becomes tiring after three or four songs: they’re played with the same barre chords, the riffs and solos are all played in the same scales – the band just really weren’t very creative at this point in their career. 

I don’t hate this album. I appreciate its cultural significance at the time, and I’m grateful it got Arctic Monkeys on the scene and propelled them to create their deeper, complex, and more interesting material later down the line. I know many will disagree with this: the fact it’s the fastest-selling debut of all time is enough to tell me that, and that’s okay. I love that others love it; it just doesn’t hit the mark for me. Anyway, I’m off to listen to Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino. (Kieran Macadie)

The Beatles - Abbey Road

Hear me out: I don’t dislike The Beatles, nor do I necessarily dislike their music or think they’re - for want of a better word - shit. However, I can’t help but feel like they’re just a glorified boy band. Abbey Road was, and still is, a huge album from one of the hugest bands of all time, acting as influences for so many we know and love today. But this was the eleventh studio album they released in six years, which is slightly excessive considering.  

Huge singles such as ‘Come Together’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’ come from this album, but as a whole, it’s just so dull. Not particularly inventive, experimental or anything different from the ten albums they’d released previously. In fact, the lyrics to the latter are so uninventive, I think my dog could’ve come up with them. Much of the album sounds like a film soundtrack, and a pretty forgettable one at that. In the '60s and '70s (I get it) they were huge, and it was an album of the times. But now we’re in a new millennium; the year is 2021; it’s time to let it go (or be) and move on. (Elisha Cloughton)

Royal Blood - Royal Blood

Royal Blood's self-titled album is like a delicious steak dinner. Ooh num num num some lovely sirloin. Ooh num num num delicious chips. Ooh I think I’ll just glide the meat through some of this gorgeous peppercorn sauce. It’s good music and a good meal. 

That being said, if Marco Pierre White popped round and told me I had to have that same steak every day, it would start to grate on me. Suddenly you realise the steak is just a well-seasoned dead cow, the chips are fancy potatoes, and the peppercorn sauce is store bought rubbish. The magic fades and that’s what happens on Royal Bloods self-titled album (and has continued happening ever since). What came off as an innovative debut ends up being 10 basic pop songs disguised with distortion and overkill outros. 

It’s not a bad album, sure, but each song follows the same formula so strictly and relentlessly that once you’ve heard one track you’ve heard them all and the amount of hype it receives is unjustified. I can’t imagine the conversation Royal Blood had after their first jam session when they spoke about the outro to Out of The Black, but I imagine it went like this: 

Mike: How long do you reckon we should drag this out for then?

Ben: Dunno, like 6 or 7 years?

(Dale Maplethorpe)

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon

The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most critically-acclaimed records in history, often featured on numerous ‘greatest albums of all time’ listings. But...is it really? This album has sold over 45 million units, so there are a hell of a lot of fans out there that do love this album...but it also evokes an air of pretentiousness. It is one of those albums to which people think “I want to look cool so I’ll say I’m into Pink Floyd and my fave album is Dark Side of the Moon.” It’s like saying you love Oasis and your favourite song is 'Wonderwall' (I mean - it might be?): chances are you’re probably using the album to gain popularity points as it’s one of those iconic albums you must know and like. It’s not cool to defy a critically-acclaimed album either - but here I am.

I don’t really care for this album as a whole - lyrically, not that progressive - the concept is endearing, but to me it’s always felt a bit flat - like it was missing something. That Oomph. That Va-va-voom. (Lucy Wynne)

AC/DC - Highway To Hell

AC/DC are often heralded as iconic figures in the world of rock but quite frankly, the best thing to come from their career was the cast of School of Rock covering ‘It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)’. School of Rock also did the school uniform thing better while we’re on the topic.

Whenever I bring up not liking AC/DC, there’s always somebody who says, “But just listen to Highway to Hell, it will change your mind.” No, it won’t. The only track from that album I have ever actually heard any anyone talk about is the opening, titular track: that is it. Surely, if the album is as good as AC/DC fans would like you to believe, there would be other tracks that would be lauded just as much?

Revisiting the album to write this piece, it feels like something a 16-year-old lad would write: just the Young brothers being horny to an uncomfortable degree. By trying so hard to live up to the “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” mantra with their lyrics, AC/DC made an album that is effectively a meme. Rock music doesn’t have to be deep or convey a profound message but just ONE song on the album that doesn’t revolve around how much they either are shagging or want to shag would be nice. (Niamh Pillinger)

Crimson King - In The Court of the Crimson King

In the Court of the Crimson King is the album equivalent of being told to “respect your elders". They’ve done nothing to warrant your respect, but because they’re old it’s a bloody given. I believe it was Nietzsche who once stated “just because an album is of classic merit doesn’t automatically make it not shit”, and that statement applies to In the Court of the Crimson King. Ooh, what’s that? Pan-pipes? Word salad lyrics? Mythological references? 90-minute long guitar solos? Essentially everything that every single prog-rock band had done before or since but this album has that song that was sampled by Kanye West, so it’s instantly a classic? I’m certain if this album never existed, Kanye would have found another sample: it’s not like he’s bereft of them.

At least Genesis had theatricality. At least Pink Floyd had something to say. At least Jethro fucking Tull had self-deprecating charm. King Crimson were over the hill before they’d even learnt to crawl. “But it’s deep”, say the men (yes, it’s always men) in flannel shirts who insist this is one of the Greatest Albums Ever. It’s as deep as a puddle, as meaningful as the sound of a drunk guy who’s been kicked out of his local pub way too early, stumbling home rambling about neurosurgeons screaming for more at paranoia’s poison door. Give any toddler a pack of crayons, a distortion pedal and a can of Red Bull, and they could write something far more emotionally challenging than this drivel. If In the Court of the Crimson King was never written, someone else would definitely have written it by now. And it would rightfully reside at the bottom of history’s wheelie bin. (Cameron Sinclair Harris)

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Classing Rumours as overrated will no doubt baffle a great majority of musos. It's a record that casual music fans and professional pop aficionados alike worship, and even deem a bonafide masterpiece. A good portion of society would surely list a number of these tracks in their top rankings of soft-rock and road trip singalongs. It’s easy listening for sure and fairly harmless. But, that’s just it. It’s an album that you’re supposed to enjoy, and nothing else. 

Whilst the tracks are undeniably catchy and memorable, they are overplayed (‘The Chain’s breakdown lost its frisson many years back) and somewhat light on substance. The supposed gossip-fueled idea that we are witnessing a band collapsing (the group were experiencing a number of fallouts with one another at the time of recording)...after so many plays no longer carries the benefit of intriguing and overhanging mythos. Instead, it just chugs along as a paint-by-numbers pop record.

Whilst this may be perfectly satisfactory to some, it falls short in justifying its considerably high standing in music history. Rumours exists in the same realms as ‘Eminem’s later work’ - we’re all supposed to think it’s good because people deem it so. But dig a little deeper, and this advocation for something's quality just rings as synthetic and fabricated, and you’re left feeling indifferent.

However, controversial, music opinions are a wonderfully bizarre thing. No matter what they may be, there will always be a barrage of backlash followed by a list of reasons why it is categorically wrong and truly heinous to have uttered such a thing. But that’s what makes them so fascinating. That, whatever the reason may be that someone harbours such passionate unconventional tastes, someone else will always be wholly disapproving. 

It’s certainly uneasy to air your true thoughts of a product, in this case, Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ but as a champion for the unorthodox, I’ve no quarrels in admitting that as a record, it’s reasonably serviceable but in no way the classic that is thought to be. (Harrison Smith) 

More about: Royal Blood