The Zutons: Tired of Hanging Around. Not nearly as clever or fun as the debut. The production is dry as paint.

Sonic Youth: Rather Ripped. A decent album but I expected more after Murray Street and Sonic Nurse.

how could i forget.....

Jurassic 5: Feedback

The Killers - Sam's Town

Everclear, Welcome To The Drama Club. Man, what happened to this band? "Sparkle and Fade" was one of my favorite albums of the '90s, but with every passing year frontman Art Alexakis sounds more and more like a parody of himself. With only Alexakis from previous albums fronting a group of newcomers, "Drama Club" sounds like leftover angst that no longer sounds fresh at all.

Gwen Stefani - Sweet Escape

I actually liked her first solo album, but this one was just horrible.

The Killers - Sam's Town

Wow, as an admittedly (almost) life long SY fan, I loved Rather Ripped. I rank it higher than Nurse and below Murray, but all three are excellent.

For me:
Pretty Girls Make Graves: Elan Vital- got great reviews, I bought the damned thing and listened to it once. Mediocre, IMO.

Mars Volta- Amputecture- I really tried hard to like this one, gave it many chances. No dice. It's a boring, pretentious and irritating album, IMO. A huge letdown after Frances the Mute which was one of my favorites last year.

Hot Chip- The Warning- what am I missing about this album? Obviously, I'm wrong about it as everyone seems to love it. Yeah, there's a few good tracks at the beginning but is it just me or does the album completely fall apart very quickly?

The Streets- Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living- not a bad album but certainly no Grand don't Come For Free. Two of my favorite albums of all time and then a pretty good one. I guess not a huge disappointment...

Bob Dylan - Modern Times

Seconded. I guess Cut Chemist played a more integral role than one would imagine.

And while I admittedly didn't give it enough listens, I really didn't care for the Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics. I'm not a huge fan of them, but I freakin' love Yoshimi and this one was just kind of "meh".

Not a huge fan, myself, either - but this one was kind of a grower. Had a co-worker who used to play this album a lot, and eventually I found myself liking it. "The Sound Of Failure" and "Vein of Stars" in particular are quite good - but overall, still didn't come anywhere near my year ending "Best Of" list.

Not really. That one's pretty lame as well.

On the other hand, I loved RPM and The Unraveling is pretty sweet too, which is why the new one was such a disappointment. I was still clinging to some hope that it would live up to those two.

Funny, I love the new Killer's album.

I was pretty disappointed with the new Guster album. Just seemed kinda sad and melancholy the entire time...bleh.

The Killers-Sam's Town

Their first is one of my newest favorites, but this one is just filled with over-inflated egos. There's still four or five songs I really like, but I've never seen success go to someone's head so quickly. Actually one of the better songs was only on the Best Buy disc, which is stupid. Not to mention Bones is probably one of the worst singles I've heard all year.

Sorry to hear about The Stills second album...I loved their first album.

And that automatically makes the album suck?

I really like Sam's Town. One of my favorite albums of the year and better than Hot Fuss. I don't know about "success going to someone's head" it's not like the songs are about banging beautiful women and driving around in Lamborghinis.

When Hot Fuss came out in 2004, I probably would've said it was one of the top five albums that year. However, Sam's Town takes all the energy and fun that Hot Fuss had and drains it all to hell. Sam's Town, in my opinion, is probably one of the most disappointing album of 2006 as The Killers had so much to live up to after their debut and they pretty much dropped the ball on it.

Sam's Town is more of an exercise in how not to make a sophomore album than anything else.

Speaking of sophomore albums that completely suck -- Head Automatica's Popaganda would probably rank as my most dissapointing album of 2006. All I can say for that album is why the fuck did those guys sell out so goddamn badly? Decadence (their first album) was a friggin' blast. At least Sam's Town has 4 or 5 good tracks on it whereas Popaganda is just a fucking trainwreck.

K-Fed's debut was far worse than anyone was possibly imagining.

2006 has been untimately disappointing for music.
Music sales have been slumping, but so has creativity.

Or am I just getting too old for this stuff the kids are listening to?

Take a look at the "best of 2006" thread. There was tons of good music released in 06. I just got another good one: Peter Bjorn and John's "Writer's Block".

Yes, to me, most of Sam's Town feels like they're trying so hard to not be just a flash in the pan and show that they're as big as U2 or something. All of a sudden they're downplaying the whole New Wave thing. But why? If that's the music they legitimitely love, why all of a sudden turn your back on it? Hell, their name is taken from a New Order video. They forgot to just relax and make good music. I'm still looking forward to their next album. Just about everybody else seems to like it and it seems to be selling good, so hopefully they won't be so pressured and just have fun again.

Barenaked Ladies Are Me
Evanescence - The Open Door
Iron Maiden - A Matter Of LIfe And Death
Peeping Tom
Tool - 10,000 Days

Hey that's cool if that's how you feel. I just picked up the album a couple of months ago because I loved the first album and really liked the new single. Didn't hear any hype or anything, and I've really had a fun time with it. Different strokes...

No problem by me. that's the fun thing about music. It's probably THE most opinionated subject there is. As long as someone honestly likes certain music, as opposed to just trying to fit into a "scene" or something, I'll never look down my nose at someone else's music taste. I always like hearing others' opinions.

Delays - You See Colours

I know some people loved it, but as someone who really liked their debut CD, I thought this turn to overproduced, synth heavy, dance pop sounded like a load of sh*t.

As did I, which is why I was so dissapointed in the new one.

I guess the main reason why, is because it's not at all what I was expecting from them. I'm all for bands broadening their horizons and showing some growth album to album. However, when you do a complete 180%, especially on your second album out - well maybe it tends to throw your audience a bit, and not in a good way. I felt like I'd ordered a pepperoni pizza, but got mushroom instead.

I good comparison could be made with the differences between the first and latest Killers album. A lot of folks are saying they don't like Sam's Town because of the changes in style. But at least with The Killers, I can still recognize it's them. With The Stills, however, the change is dramatic and much more drastic. Without Feathers doesn't even sound like it's been made by the same band as Logic Will Break Your Heart. It's truly that different.

Never did find out why, exactly, they deceided to do what they did with the change in musical direction - and maybe if I knew the whole story, it would change my mind about the album a bit. And I tried liking the album, I really did - but I've hardly given it a spin in months.