10 albums that disappointed in 2019

There was a lot of great music to come out in 2019, full-stop. 

With streaming as dominant a force as ever and playlist curators and algorithms becoming the new gateways for tastemaking, it shouldn't come as a shock that the best albums and songs for this crazy year did a phenomenal job of not adhering to the dusty old rules of "genre."

However, the proliferation of free audio software and digital platforms with a worldwide reach means there are fewer hoops to jump through before any given song greets the entire planet. Due to these lower standards, we shouldn't be too shocked that some acts disappointed us and not just in the usual Morrissey way. Avril Lavigne's almost-comeback was more "almost" than "comeback," and new hype bands like Cigarettes After Sex were soon dismissed as quickly as they were heralded once people actually got to hear how terrible they were.

As easy as it is to make fun of outright bad albums, we're simply going to go through the records that ended up being the most disappointing of all. Maybe we had high hopes; maybe we were taken back by the surprise nature of the release. But once our ears clicked in, there's no denying that 2019 had its share of striking disappointments. Grab a drink and then pour it out for these notable sonic letdowns.

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Ed Sheeran - "No. 6 Collaborations Project"

As the decade wore on and streaming increasingly became a source of revenue for artists, albums themselves started to change, sometimes coming off less as artistic statements and more like playlists — the kind that no longer had to be constricted by the 72-minute limit of a CD. Drake and The Weeknd notoriously bloated their tracklists to get more plays, but Ed Sheeran, fresh off some of his highest pop successes to date, decided to utilize this to his advantage and get his pasty hands into every genre he could think of, collaborating with everyone from Eminem to Ella Mai to Stormzy. It's perfectly fine to conduct genre experiments, but so many of them are alarmingly dull, with Sheeran going full braggadocio about his success and his wealth all while still trying to come off as a regular guy who gets awkward at parties. Full of trap beats and astoundingly few guitars, Sheeran has gone full Hollywood, completely forgetting why people liked him in the first place.

Animal Collective - "Ballet Slippers"

Having been releasing albums since the start of the millennium, you'd think that by the time the freak-folk champions Animal Collective put out their critical and commercial high watermark "Merriweather Post Pavilion" in 2009, they would have performed enough to put together a powerful and compelling live show. As the release of live record "Ballet Slippers" proved, this was not the case. Capturing the group touring through most of 2009, "Ballet Slippers" is a head-scratcher of a release, as many of the cuts here are so sloppily mixed and poorly performed that one has to wonder if this is supposed to be a joke. In truth, Animal Collective is not especially well known for being a stellar live act, but the reverb-heavy, nearly-atonal tones achieved on tracks like "Guys Eyes" and complete vocal disharmony featured on "My Girls" makes you wonder less if they got any better as a concert band in the decade that followed but, more worryingly, if they got any worse.

Stephen Malkmus - "Groove Denied"

Despite his first non-Pavement album being called "Stephen Malkmus," the true indie-rock icon still had the backing of his powerfully creative new band The Jicks even in 2001, which is why when it was announced that in 2019 Malkmus would put out his first utterly true and proper solo album, fans got excited. The fact that it was going to be a synth-heavy electronic album only added to the intrigue. The end result? One of the more forgettable records of the year. "Groove Denied" couldn't be a more apt title, as songs like "Belziger Faceplant" started out interesting but soon devolved into amateurish warbles of digital sound. It's great that Malkmus wanted to challenge himself, but in doing his bargain-basement Peter Hook bass imitations over lazy and downright sloppy beats at times, it's clear that despite his legendary status, Malkmus shouldn't quit his day band.

LSD - "Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present LSD"

On paper, this should be the pop collaboration of the decade, with decorated songwriting and performance veteran Sia, trailblazing hitmaker Diplo and grime superstar Labrinth combining their talents to create something downright boundary-pushing, changing the pop music game the way Robyn did at the start of this decade with "Body Talk." Instead, their much-hyped group effort was...merely OK? Somewhat forgettable? It's somewhat shocking how all these smart performers with devout fan bases ended up creating an album that adheres to clichés and trends more than so many of the contemporaries they've worked with. Sure, there were a few decent experiments that congealed into enjoyable jams ("No New Friends" chief among them), but overall this pop music supergroup proved to be anything but super.

Kanye West - "Jesus is King"

It's not so much that Kanye has lost his talents as a songwriter and producer: It's simply that after capturing the rap zeitgeist for so long, kicking off the decade with one of the best records in the form of "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," his tastes, persona, and politics all blended together to create increasing divisions within his fan base. Some can't "hear" Kanye due to his divisive politics, but in truth, his big artistic swings have been weighed down with his increasingly asinine lyrical outlet. Maybe there is a better gospel record inside of Kanye —goodness knows Prince mixed the secular and the divine in his own sexy, artistic fashion — but an album where he praises Chick-fil-A and mentions how paying taxes to the IRS is why he charges exorbitant amounts for his own merchandise feels less like "contemporary gospel music" than it does indulging his ego one more time — except this time he's backed by choirs.

Madonna - "Madame X"

The prerelease material for "Madame X," Madonna's 14th studio effort, was wildly intriguing. Here she was adopting a persona: that of a world-traveling woman of mystery, capable of passion, deceit, lust and inspiration. Madonna, of course, is often ahead of pop music trends, but let's be real: Sometimes she falls right into them, and on "Madame X," her Latin music obsession comes to the forefront of her sound, and she mixes Spanish lyrics with contemporary trap beats to create a record that can best be described as...curious. It's not as surface-level and trend-chasing as, say, 2012's EDM disaster, "MDNA," but "Madame X" is a confusing and sometimes deeply odd album. The mid-tempo groove of "Medellin" as the lead single? Interesting. The surprise disco breakdown during "God Control" where she speak-raps about not smoking dope? It's certainly memorable — but maybe for the wrong reasons. Generating no true hits to speak of, maybe we'll all be eating crow five years down the line when every new top 40 hit rocks that "Madame X" sound. But as it stands, Madonna's latest is a detour that, if not exactly satisfying, at least can be given credit for being bold.

Post Malone - "Hollywood's Bleeding"

Post Malone has been an argument-starting figure in pop music since his sudden and impactful rise over the past three years, as his guitar-playing stoner vibe was beset with lyrics that were at turns confessional, confident and immensely relatable (except in the case of "Rockstar," which has become one of the most annoying pop hits of the decade). This is the kind of attitude that made his debut album, "Stoney," a low-key classic, but one massive pop hit after another put Post on the path to "Hollywood's Bleeding" — his third album to date and his most indulgent to a fault. While any metal-loving fan would of course use their pull to get Ozzy Osbourne on their new song, the problem is that Post Malone has morphed into Pop Machine, and while his excellent "Spider-Verse" song "Sunflower" is here, that older track feels notably out of place, as the rest of this dour, radio-ready album feels like a betrayal of sorts, with Posty giving us what he thinks we want instead of what he really cares about. He has a knack for a pop hook, but the Post of just two years ago would never write a gimme-gimme pop hit as blatant as "Circles" or even drop a by-the-numbers rap song as dull as "Saint-Tropez." This album is still massive and people still love Post — but if he keeps hand-feeding us his crafted persona instead of that defiant heartfelt honesty that made him a star to begin with, how much longer will his fans keep running back to him?

Weezer - "Weezer [The Black Album]"

Shockingly, this is the second Weezer album to come out this year. The first, the surprise-released "Teal Album," capitalized on the band's hit cover of Toto's "Africa" by providing the world with even more Weez-ified cover songs. Then the long-fabled "Black Album" came out soon thereafter, and somehow it debuted on the charts even lower than the covers record did. This is due in part to the fact that for all intents and purposes, Weezer has long (long) fallen out of critical favor and is now basically a novelty act. To the band's credit, it has done nothing to dissuade people from reaching that conclusion, as songs like the cheeky "Zombie Bastards" and numerous mariachi and guitar-funk experiments show that for lead singer-songwriter Rivers Cuomo, his craft has become less about quality and more about quantity, as if trying to match the sheer number of songs written by Guided By Voices is somehow a goal worth achieving. There have been worse Weezer albums to be sure (lookin' right at you, "Raditude"), but a Weezer album release no longer feels like an event: just a reminder that more passable pop-rock songs from a band we once loved have been unceremoniously released into the world.

Pink - "Hurts 2B Human"

"Don't hustle me! / Don't f--- with me!" Pink declares at the start of "Hurts 2B Human," and maybe even five years ago, it would've felt like another defiant, rousing Pink anthem. Now that her eighth full-length is here, Pink has done that transition from wry pop star into sonic craftswoman, making songs like it's her job because, well, it is. She can write a hell of a Pink number at the drop of a hat, but there is no notable growth in her song, no defiance that became her signature, and shockingly little of that classic Pink humor we've become so accustomed to. "Hurts 2B Human" is less an album and more of a series of poses, all of which we've seen before. It's slickly produced for maximum radio impact, but by the time we get to the Betty Who knockoff "Can We Pretend" followed by yet another by-the-numbers anthem in the form of "We Could Have It All," we're not sure if we're listening to the same LP or if we've lapsed over into a different Pink record. "Hurts 2B Human" is a perfectly fine, inoffensive pop album, but since when did Pink become OK with releasing perfectly fine, inoffensive pop albums?

Chance the Rapper - "Big Day"

Oof, this is rough. After his 2013 mixtape, "Acid Rap," launched him into critical favor and 2016's Grammy-nominated, "Coloring Book," helped push him into the mainstream, Chance the Rapper was everywhere, guesting on chart-topping DJ Khaled singles and collaborating with everyone from John Legend to Ed Sheeran to Cardi B. Maybe fame got to his head or maybe the idea of making a concept album about his recent marriage as his new artistic statement was just too damn tempting, but no matter what way you cut it, "Big Day" was a big letdown. The signature Chance wit is nowhere to be found during this entire runtime, as if he got lost in the character of Chance the Rapper and made an album that he thought the character wanted to make. Half-tempo weepy collaborations with Death Cab for Cutie? An atonal single called "Hot Shower" that wastes DaBaby's time? A collaboration with...Randy Newman? You know things are rough when the best song on the record is a jazzy Shawn Mendes duet called "Ballin Flossin." Even hardcore Chance stans gave this record a pass. Maybe Chicago's biggest MC of the decade can come back from this, but goodness what a fall from grace "Big Day" is.