Five albums I regret now...

...but didn't regret at the time I bought them. Some have since been sold.

(in no specific order.)

• Creed - Human Clay

  This one took about a year to really turn sour for me. I suspect a lot of people got pulled in by their seemingly rocking music and bellowsome lyrics, only to be miffed by all the pseudo-religious bullcrap that permeated all their interviews about it. It's one thing to be clear and unwavering about your music and its religious aspects like Jars of Clay was, but it's quite another to try and talk out of both sides of your mouth talking about how it's "not religious but well maybe spiritual but not necessarily about Jesus" and such. It reeks of the same crap that Intelligent Design stinks of now.

• Jewel - Spirit

  Yes, I'm admitting to waaay too much by acknowledging that I purchased this album. If it's any consolation, I seem to recall that I picked it up used, but still. The songs here lack the same innocence and airy quality that still gives some appreciation to Pieces of You, but at the time people were clamoring for new material and didn't care much about what exactly it was. This seems to happen to a lot of follow-up efforts to critically acclaimed albums.

• Candlebox - self titled

  I was stunned to discover a few months ago that Candlebox is still together and touring (at least here in their home region of the northwest.) This was one of the first CDs I purchased back when I switched to the format. I signed up for Columbia House (remember their awesome twelve CDs for a penny deal?) and snatched up a bunch of the one-hit-wonders that I saw on MTV back when they still aired videos. I was in a musical void at the time, stuck in suburbia with nothing but corporate "alternative rock" stations and no internet connection. Little did I know I was one of the lucky ones - in Buffalo we had access to most of the Toronto radio stations, and CFNY turned me on to a fair bit of actual decent music before I had a good filter to discern what actually was "decent". That said, this wasn't one of those.

• Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I&II

  Two more Columbia House purchases. When I first abandoned country music back in the early 90s (there's probably an entire separate entry's worth of commentary to show my progression to current music, but I'll save that for another time...) I turned to others to see what they were listening to. Most of my friends on the track and cross country teams were into metal and hard rock, and these albums popped up frequently. Toss in the endlessly repeated 'November Rain' video on MTV and VH1, and the albums were both must-have. Now they're much more must-cringe, but every once in a while cranking the volume up to 11 while playing 'You Could Be Mine' is quite cathartic, so they stay on the shelf.

• Various Artists - City of Angels Motion Picture Soundtrack

  I was among the many people suckered in by the constant airplay of the Alanis Morrissette song 'Uninvited'. Sure it was a decent song - epic in scope, dramatic to the point of near-absurdity, and full of orchestration at a time when that was limited to special appearances by bands at awards shows, but in the end this album was basically a collection of B-sides from a few famous names (Peter Gabriel, U2, etc...) and a bunch of instrumental filler to justify charging full price for what amounts to an EP's worth of music... and often phoned-in efforts at that.

I suspect that I realized many of these albums sucked fairly early on (the prime evidence being mix tapes that I made almost instantly with the one or two "good" songs from each placed on them), but it's hard to admit a mistake like this when you've just spent $15 of your hard-earned dollars when you're only earning about $50 a week. These days, with the advent of broadband internet and downloadable samples (not to mention *cough* other sources of musical material) albums tend to get a much more thorough vetting prior to purchase, both through my own previewing of material, and reviews from other trusted parties. Of course that doesn't stop me from picking up the occasional steamer, but those fall into a different category - albums I regretted immediately.

That said, I guess time will tell if some of the albums I've bought this year and enjoy now land in the regret category a decade hence.