Albums that make you think: What happened!?

From what I read, the album confused people back than, especially the american audience. The album started to grow on people much later. They did not do it for money, it was Bob Ezrin's idea(from what I read). 

Slayer - Divine Intervention... What Happened?

Special WTFs I will never forget:

No Prayer for the Dying? - BORING, it all went downhill from there. Fear of the Dark had the last three great songs by Maiden. (Sorry Maiden fans!)

Helloween - Pink Bubbles Go Ape. Mediocrity, boring mediocrity. But nothing prepared me for the great WTF IS THIs SHIT that was Chameleon

Megadeth - Cryptic Writings. WTF is this pop rock sound?? A couple of great songs but otherwise very tame, still quality work. Risk, however you cut it though, is UTTER SHIT. They never really got back to the quality of Youthanasia. Endgame was a good album though.

Cold Lake. I think it's a very bad album personally. :)

Black Album. Well, it kinda made me mad that everyone around suddenly discovered them (I was at school at the time, not my most mature time!) when previously they would talk about my Metallica shirts as if they belonged to savages. Great album but musically I knew the thrash was gone for good. Load managed to be an even bigger WTF though. And this time, I ran out of excuses. It's a good album but there is absolutely no excuse for the aesthetics and the enforced metal bashing that they did at the time. Those were the grand WTF for me.

Flotsam and Jetsam - When the Storm Comes Down. I love the previous two. LOVE them to the point you wont believe. So this album with the terribly shitty cover and the lack of awesome Flotsam logo was a big WTF because there were no great songs. Apart from two and one of those is really memorable for its amazing solo section (October Thorns, the other great song is of course Suffer the Masses). Cuatro was even worse, so that's when I gave up. on them.

...will get back on this. Tons more.

I'm with you 100% on this one. 

There is no way in hell I would ever concede that they are better than the classic Bruce stuff (Number to Seventh). That's just crazy talk man! 

Metallica's St. Anger reminded me of this when I 1st heard the songs . . .

Maybe not vocally but the music, but - Metallica!. . . Entombed did it already!

Metallica's "None more black" album is the one that did it for me, even though I like maybe 3 songs (I am

done with "Enter . . ." you know what), I could see it was an end of an era and the newer Thrash Bands

would take over the throne. But Metallica will always be the ones who are the main root to the Tree.

Great album "Sonically", I just wish it was more like this one and "Of Wolf and Man". ...And Justice, Ulrich

was really progressing as a Drummer, with other songs on Black, he seemed to be regressing .

 I guess many will say Entombed lost their way after their 2nd album as well.  But I will always

remember that Entombed introduced me to "down-tuning" and that HEAVY Guitar tone on "Left Hand

Path" (and Obituary's Double Bass), Death Metal would evolve from here . . .

Bands like this basically stuck to the fast aggression, but Entombed made it "progress".

As a Queensryche fan (from the 1st EP release) who has been disappointed for decades now, I have to

say I liked "Hear in the Now Frontier"  (and remember, DeGarmo is on it, and on "Tribe"). To me

"Promised Land" was the last great QR album, but "Hear..." was just another change, yet they chose to

keep that "Grunge" sound, even when Grunge was over a few years before.  Which is strange seeing they

put Seattle on the map after Heart (and before The Accused).

A touch of the "Beatles" on this one.  I like DeGarmo's "Slide" and Guitar Tone on the album.

DeGarmo also does this nice little ballad . . .

I like Maiden's "No Prayer for the Dying" . . .

I need to start listening to this album again, its more "Progressive" than I remembered.

 . . . and Flots "When the Storm Comes Down" . . .

Funny, the "Snare" sounds like Ulrich's on St. Anger . I think Flots is way underrated.

LittleBig wrote: MAVIIIVAM wrote: As a Queensryche fan who has been disappointed for decades now, I have to say I liked "Hear in the Now Frontier"  (and remember, DeGarmo is on it, and on "Tribe"). To me "Promised Land" was the last great QR album, but "Hear..." was just another change, yet they chose to keep that "Grunge" sound, even when Grunge was over a few years before.  Which is strange seeing they put Seattle on the map after Heart (and before The Accused). Queensryche really messed it up big time with their last album Dedicated to Chaos, one of the worst and uninspired albums, from a band I personally love.

True, even though I only like them up until their 1994 opus.

Some cases, IMO:

Pain of Salvation since Scarsick (even though I enjoy Scarsick, the album is a huge quality drop);

Sepultura's Roots (and everything else they've done since);

Nevermore's latest;

Andromeda's Immunity Zone, even though the epic is very good;

Evergrey every albums since Monday Morning Apocalypse;

Pestilence's newest albums;

Mastodon's latest;

Almost every Iron Maiden album after 7th Son;

Voivoid after Nothingface;

Liquid Tension Experiment's posthumous album, even though it was mostly b-sides.