Be Here Now - Oasis
Well it's a sad fact that many of those albums just end up being out-of-date and left in the bargain bin a few years down the line, so we have decided to examine five albums which, despite mind-blowing success upon their release just don't cut the mustard today.
It's generally accepted these days that Oasis' third album, Be Here Now, is an overblown disaster; the sort of thing bands release when they believe their own hype.
Not that you'd have known it at the time. Not only did it sell 420,000 copies on its first day and over a million within two weeks, it received almost universally glowing reviews.
Tom Townshend investigates albums which were critically and commercially successful on release but don't stand up to scrutiny today...
Be Here Now - Oasis
Oasis were undoubtedly the biggest band of then 1990's (unless of course, you were in Blur) and the follow up to their smash hit albums, Definitely Maybe and (What's the Story) Morning Glory? Was none other than Be Here Now. A record which was sure to send them flying into the history books.
Their drug habits and the feud between Liam and Noel meant the album was received with such uproar, everyone believed it would top the charts forever, sadly though, it was the bands stardom which ultimately led to their demise.
Songs such as D'You Know What I Mean and All Around The World are way too long and despite their commercial success, the party was slowing drawing to a close for the Manchester lads and despite attempts to regain their glory, those days are history now.
Faith - George Michael
When George Michael hung up his Wham! Shoes, he was already a global superstar in his own right - hell, he could have bought out a CD of nursery rhymes and it would have sold - so it was pretty unsurprising when his solo debut, Faith, won the 1989 Grammy award for Best Album and went on to sell over 20 million copies, worldwide.
These days however, George's personal life seems to have overshadowed what was once a 'classic', its clear now that his desire to be more mature and like Prince has led to what is pretty much a Prince rip off, and what was at the time some cutting edge digital production, sounds laughably cheap in places now, it's true what they say that nothing dates a record faster than technology.
Spice - Spice Girls
The Spice Girls were THE band of my generation. We were all about 'girl power' and Spice postcards, Spiceworld, pigtails and union jack dresses, and their 1996 debut album was on my CD endlessly for about three years. I loved it.
They shifted a huge 23 million copies worldwide, making Spice the biggest-selling album by a girl group ever, and one of the most successful albums of all time, but sadly the album sounds careless and thrown together in today's society.
The computer drums and 90s keyboards give Spice a sadly dated sound, well except on Wannabe though, which still gets my feet moving after a glass of wine or two.