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Sometimes a bit of rock criticism just makes you honk with laughter. This week’s NME contains a review of the new album by Seasick Steve. Receiving just 2 out of 10, its opening paragraph caused me to laugh out loud in an otherwise church-like village coffee shop…

“Without dwelling on the complex socio-economic factors that can render a person homeless, really, Seasick Steve should have a bath, get a job and shut the fuck up.” (James McMahon)

It’s funny because it’s so wholly inappropriate. I haven’t heard the album but I suspect that the review isn’t very fair. Really bad reviews rarely are.

Whilst browsing the excellent Metacritic.com, I decided to see which album had the lowest critical rating on the site. It turned out to be Kevin Federline’s “Playing With Fire”. Here is a choice quote from the All Music Guide:

“Soon, he was dubbed as an “aspiring musician” in the tabloids, which soon gave way to “aspiring rapper.” The fruits of his labor were first tentatively revealed when a portion of “Y’all Ain’t Ready” was leaked on the Net toward then end of 2005. It may have lasted no longer than a minute, but that minute was jam-packed with memorable absurdity, most notably his timeless malapropism of calling paparazzi “Pavarottis” and his boast that his style was “straight 2008″ when his sleepy drawl and backing track recycled every white wannabe-gangsta cliche from the past 15 years. Bloodied but not beaten, K-Fed” which he was now being called, with absolutely no irony on his part unveiled his first full-length single on New Year’s Day 2006. “PopoZao”, “a celebration of Brazilian ass” was let loose on the Internet, where it was greeted with unfettered and deserved ridicule, as it lived up to the promise of “Y’All Ain’t Ready.” Both singles were awful, but they were gloriously awful, the work of a hack who believed he was a genius and was surrounded by yes-men were either too well paid to tell him otherwise, or were laughing behind his back as they gave him enough rope to hang himself high.”

To be honest that review makes me eager to track the album down and listen to it. Is this the desired effect of a bad review? For some time now, I’ve enjoyed searching out notoriously bad albums. Or just albums that killed an artist’s career. I enjoy the stories behind such records. One of my favourites is the story of how, in days long before the invention of the internet, fans of the 1970s prog-rock group Spirit petitioned the band’s record company to force them to issue their “Journey To The Centre Of Potato Land” album. When the album finally got a release, the general consensus among fans was that it was unmitigated rubbish.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to write about a few career-destroying, award-losing albums. Some of them have been dismissed unfairly. Others deserve all of the criticism they get. Feel free to use the comments section to talk about records which you believe to be the worst you’ve ever heard, or which you think are mocked for no good reason.

First up, ABC’s 1983 album “Beauty Stab”…

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ABC “That Was Then But This Is Now”

This is one of the most unfairly overlooked albums I can think of. Where to start… Let’s start with the end then. The end, that is, of their previous album “Lexicon Of Love”. You may be familiar with “4 Ever 2 Gether”, it was a grim, apocalyptic closer to what is otherwise a glamourous, glossy pop album. A real manifesto album - the ultimate realisation of New Pop principles. “Lexicon of Love” was lavishly produced by Trevor Horn, featured the fledgling Art of Noise and was bursting with singles and wit. ABC had the world at their feet. So they toured the world. And in Tokyo, Martyn Fry flushed his gold lamé suit down the toilet. It was a symbolic gesture.

The England which ABC returned to after their fairytale round-the-world trip was in a slump. Miners striking, mass unemployment, youth disenchantment - that type of thing. So ABC changed tack by swapping tack for substance, or at least they tried to, and they weren’t as unsuccessful as is claimed. “Beauty Stab” was met with a fair amount of derision on its release and regularly crops up in discussions of career destroying records. Where other British pop groups were busy polishing their sound - copying “Lexicon…” in other words - ABC made a 180 degree turn. Pianos and strings were, largely, out. Guitars were in. Not acoustic ones. Chugging rawk ones. Riffs, even. The spirit of “Lexicon…” still hovered about though. “S.O.S.” musically at least, mined a similar vein of sweetness. “By Default By Design” is another string-driven thing and is one of the highlights of the album.

Lyrically, Martyn Fry was still quick with a pun and a witty couplet (such as “The Power Of Persuasion”’s “Workless, cashless, hungry and in debt/ Out of house, out of home, out of pocket…”). Thematically, it dwells on Thatcherite Britain. “King Money” is a good example of an 80s pop record rejecting the aspirations of yuppy culture. Its refrain is simple and straightforward, critics would say overly simplistic and platitudinous: “If your king is money, then I feel sorry for you”. In his book “Rip It Up and Start Again”, Simon Reynolds criticises the sentiment of lyrics like this and suggests it just sounds hypocritical coming from a band who promoted their “All Of My Heart” single dressed as aristocratic huntsmen. That’s fair enough, I suppose. I celebrate the tentative and sheepish retraction of those values which “Beauty Stab” represents though. Not many were brave enough to make a move like it.

The album saved from being outright gloom by its zippy production (I think Gary Langan does a great job, personally, but he’s often considered to be Trevor Horn’s apprentice.) It is tempered by a kind of righteous anger, often clumsily expressed but commendable nonetheless. It tackles Reaganism (“Russians should be babysitted/ Americans resist it”), consumerism (“They persuade you that they made you/ Then betray you and they blame you/ With the power of persuasion”), and the dangers of being seduced by the lies of politicians (“Love’s a dangerous language/ Survey the damage/ Look what we’ve done”).

So it’s a meatier album than it’s given credit for. I suppose it depends on who people are prepared to accept politically-charged music from. It’s ok coming from Gang of Four or the Clash, but it’s as if ABC are too frivolous a pop to get away with this sort of thing. That’s quite a patronising view, I’d say. It’s not as if “Lexicon…” is just silly fun either. Compare “Beauty Stab” with that other long-awaited follow up of the time: The Human League’s “Hysteria”. That also incorporated guitars into the band’s sound. It didn’t really work. It sounded really tinny and awful. Overall, “Hysteria” is a big, big disappointment. Time hasn’t been kind to it either. Its legendary attempt at political commentary, “The Lebanon” is rather cringeworthy (although I do like the rhyme “Before he leaves the camp he stops…/ And where there used to be some shops…”). In attempting to swing away from the whole New Pop thing, in the spirit of the endlessly challenging avant-garde, it really does protest too much and gets it all wrong. It contains “Rock Me Again and Again and Again and Again and Again and Again (Six Times)” which has to be among the most dreadful cover versions in history. “Dare” is one of the greatest albums ever made. “Hysteria” is not even the best album called “Hysteria” to come out of Sheffield.

“Hey Citizen!” (from “Beauty Stab”) contains the line “All through summer/ There’s no glamour in the slammer”. It always makes me smile to hear it. I keep a mental list of lyrics like that.

Next week: Dexys Midnight Runners “Don’t Stand Me Down”