3 Albums That Divided Fans but Are Better Than You Remember

Some albums have threatened friendships. When bands change, nostalgic listeners feel abandoned while others embrace the new direction. Either way, you end up with divided fans. But time has a way of softening the edges of heated debates over musical transformations that alienate the diehards. The three albums below confused many and divided fans when they came out, but they are better than you might remember. In fact, the first one on this list is now widely viewed as a masterpiece.

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‘Kid A’ by Radiohead

With OK Computer, Radiohead pushed the boundaries of rock music. But they still sounded like a rock band. Yet, Thom Yorke was not only done with rock music, he was also finished with melody, choruses, and even the idea that each band member should appear on every track. “Everything In Its Right Place” remains one of the most dramatic and shocking ways to begin an album. You can hear Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich deconstructing Radiohead by splicing Yorke’s voice into broken bits of abstract lyrics. A muted synthesizer and a filtered four-on-the-floor loop drive toward some unknown destination. It also gave Radiohead a way out of the creative corner they felt trapped in.

Kid A became the threshold between past and present, and its arrival in 2000 feels a little poetic. Technology often splinters our brains several times a day with a deluge of information. But this album puts to music the process of absorbing the fissures and figuring out a way to repair them. The skittering beat on “Idioteque” feels like an audio representation of synapses firing new transmissions. Meanwhile, Kid A includes the back-to-back beauty of “Morning Bell” and “Motion Picture Soundtrack”, as emotionally moving as anything Radiohead has recorded.

‘Adore’ by The Smashing Pumpkins

Billy Corgan’s band was broken as he wrote the follow-up to the sprawling classic Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. The band could no longer sustain Jimmy Chamberlin’s ongoing heroin addiction, so they carried on without him. While many rock groups survive changing drummers, there isn’t anyone who can rip “I Am One” like Chamberlin. He’s as crucial to The Smashing Pumpkins’ DNA as Corgan’s iconic riffs. But the Pumpkins emerged without Chamberlin and with an electronic album called Adore.

The album documents a fractured band but also the pain of Corgan losing his mother. Many rock stars of the time couldn’t escape their sadness, but Corgan did. Adore is beautiful both sonically and because it represents the possibility of surviving our darkest moments.

‘One Hot Minute’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Guitarist Hillel Slovak co-founded Red Hot Chili Peppers and created the blueprint for a guitar style that defined the band by mixing punk rock and funk with the psychedelic blues of Jimi Hendrix. Slovak died in 1988 of a heroin overdose, and the California band’s future was in doubt until one of their fans, a teenage virtuoso named John Frusciante, showed up. Frusciante’s contributions led to the Chili Peppers’ greatest commercial and creative successes on groundbreaking albums like Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Californication, among others.

When Frusciante quit in 1992, RHCP had finally reached alt-rock stardom. They carried on with Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, and the collaboration seemed perfectly drawn up, like a bohemian Los Angeles supergroup. Some have dismissed the album entirely. When Frusciante returned, tracks from One Hot Minute disappeared from the band’s concerts. However, “Aeroplane” and “My Friends” still sound good alongside their colossal hits.

Photo by Linda Strawberry/Napalm Records