The Worst & Most Disappointing Albums Of 2019

There's a line of thought you hear argued from time to time that everything in the world is always getting worse. Movies aren't as good as they were in the old days. Art certainly isn't as talent-obvious as it used to be. And it seems almost everyone who gets to a certain age says music was better when they were fans. Of course this isn't absolutely true, since everyone forgets about all of the trash from years back that disintegrated over the course of time. However, sometimes there is a grain of truth in these comments, and this year has been an example of that.

2019 has been a decent year for good music, but a banner year for terrible music. I compile these lists every year, and this has been the most competitive race to the bottom I've yet encountered. Whereas I usually just manage to find five albums each to fill the slots as the worst, and most disappointing, of the year, 2019 gave me so many options I didn't know what to do. Bad music was everywhere, and there isn't a way to say goodbye to this year without setting it on fire, and hoping we can rid the world of whatever demonic spirits created this crap.

So, without further ado....

The Worst Albums Of 2019:

1. Manowar - The Final Battle Pt I

The worst release of the year wasn't even an album, as Manowar didn't need a full-length to righteously piss me off. These five songs were more than enough to cement them as the worst band on the planet, which is tough considering a high-profile release came out featuring a guy who went to jail for trying to have his wife killed. But at least they made decent music. Manowar failed on each and every level. They failed as songwriters, giving us an EP that had an intro track, and one that was all spoken word. They put out an EP, and still wasted our time for almost half of it. They failed as a metal band, giving us a production that was thin, weak, and gutless. The guitars barely sounded like guitars, with the tone sounding like a kid's practice amp, and the playing so rudimentary it was laughable. They also failed as human beings, and this is the biggest reason they top(?) this list. Manowar had a dark episode when Karl Logan got charged with possessing child pornography. People do bad things, and I wouldn't have necessarily held it against them, except that the band has never put out a statement officially kicking him out of the group. If you followed along, you wouldn't know whether or not Logan was on that EP, or still profits from the band's music. Not giving us the information to make an informed decision about whether giving Manowar our money is a moral sin is pathetic, cowardly, and obscene. Fuck Manowar.

2. Devin Townsend - Empath

People call Devin Townsend a genius, but I imagine that is for the same reason that people think magicians who use stage illusions that do all the work are immensely talented. Somehow, Devin has fooled a large number of people into thinking that his chugging riffs and lame melodies are masterful, because he wraps them in a veneer of being weird for the sake of being weird. This record is barely a record. It's a tapestry of ideas that are stitched together much like a county fair quilt; random scraps that form a pattern if you're far enough away, or a little bit day-drunk. Otherwise, what you get from this album is a collection of 'songs' that bounce from random idea to random idea, with no logic or explanation. Why is Chad Kroeger singing background, then there are cats meowing? I don't know, and I doubt Devin does either. All I know is I hated every second of listening to this music.

3. The Three Tremors - The Three Tremors

There are threee reasons, one for each tremor, why this album is one of the worst fo the year. 1) They stole the name and the concept from Bruce Dickinson, and don't have nearly the talent to justify such theft. 2) They spent the entire album screaming god-awful shrieks at me, which made my head hurt, but in the form of a migraine, not from headbanging. 3) They have since re-released the album as a set of three, with each singer doing the entire record themselves, which only proves this who project never needed to exist. And it rips off the 'fans' who bothered to buy the record in the first place.

The music is terrible to begin with, featuring plenty of second-rate, generic metal songs, but the rot goes deeper than that. Now that they are trying to get anyone who liked their lousy record to buy it again, it's an ethical stain. They are con artists who took someone else's idea, did it poorly, and now want to get paid twice for it. Not to mention, if each of the singers can sing the entire album, it means there was no reason to have more than one singer. They've disproven their own existence, which is so funny I almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

4. Neal Morse - Jesus Christ: The Exorcist

There isn't much to be said here other than the fact that of all the things music could offer me, a two-hour dad-rock musical telling the story of Jesus is very near the bottom of the list. The beat you over the head religion of the record is bad, but it's what I expect from Neal. The real problem is that this particular project features his worst, most tired songs I've ever heard from him, and the dinner-theater vibe renders the lyrics so painful I have to turn away fairly often. Rather than being an epic statement from a great musician (and Neal is.... was?), it comes across like the sort of thing you would find at a local theater that holds pancake breakfasts to pay the bills. It's low-rent, all around.

5. Arch/Matheos - Winter Ethereal

I'll keep this short; musically, this actually isn't that bad of a record. There is some interesting guitar playing and melodic writing on display. However, John Arch delivers one of the worst vocal performances I've ever heard from a singer people consider great. His tone is high-pitched and shrill beyond belief, painful like a dog-whistle, but it goes beyond that. Arch is terrible because he slurs so many of his words that all but a few fragments of lyrics are obscured and unintelligible. The whole point of being a singer is to convey the lyrics and the message to the audience. If I can't understand the words, the effort put in writing them is wasted, and you have failed at your job. John Arch fails all over this record, and he ruins what could have been pretty good with a singer who actually does his or her job.

And just a note; Weezer's "Black Album" would have been on the list, but I'm sick of talking about how terrible they are, so I decided to skip them to give someone else a chance. That record is hot garbage as well, rest assured. The others that just missed the cut include Quiet Riot, Spirits Of Fire, Leprous, and Tool. Sorry, but I was bored to tears by "Fear Inoculum".

The Most Disappointing Albums Of 2019:

There's only two of them this year. The others that normally would have filled this list are actually continuations of trends, so I wasn't really disappointed. Taylor Swift's album wasn't disappointing, since "Reputation" had been so bad. Flying Colors wasn't disappointing, since I was already disappointed in "Second Nature". So, which two did disappoint me?

1) The Neal Morse Band - The Great Adventure

I knew this was going to happen. A second straight double-disc concept album telling the same story was always going to be a tough task, but this album was a complete let-down after "The Similitude Of A Dream". That record was too long, and a bit hokey, but had plenty of great songs. This new one felt even longer, tried to be 'angry' when Neal cannot sell that feeling even a little bit, and didn't have a single song as good as the previous album. I'm not sure how I made it through the end of these two discs, I was that tired of listening by the time the journey was over. It's Neal's worst prog album in a long, long time.

2) Baroness - Gold & Grey

I am not the kind of snob who needs productions to be pristine and perfect, but I am the kind of snob who won't put up with insulting middle-finger wagging. That's what Baroness did on this album, just like they did on "Purple". Both records are actually very good, and I would like to listen to and enjoy, but they sound so terrible I won't subject myself to it. The choice is intentional, and it's inexcusable. Baroness has made their music so loud and distorted, so ugly and painful, that I simply refuse to listen to it again. I have certain triggers that cause migraines, and Baroness' production choices are very close to being one. I don't know why they want to make records that destroy all the good work they do, but it pisses me off they feel that they can get away with it. They shit on their own art, so why would I take it?