RSO Records destroyed hundreds of thousands of copies, crippling the company with a large financial loss.
Pepper's movie soundtrack was the first album in history to achieve "return platinum" status as stores took over four million copies of it off their shelves to ship back to their distributors. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Various artists (1978) This is a glam rock and disco Beatles cover album that was named the "worst ever" on Maxim's April 2000 list of pop albums from the 1970s to 1990s. In 2005, Q magazine included the album in a list of "Ten Terrible Records by Great Artists" and ranked it #4 in its list of the 50 worst albums of all time. 2 in the 1991 book The Worst Rock 'n' Roll Records of All Time by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell. Metal Machine Music, Lou Reed (1975) An album consisting entirely of guitar feedback loops, Metal Machine Music ranked No. It ranked atop Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell's list of the worst rock and roll albums in the 1991 book The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time, bemoaning the lack of music on the album. Many of the jokes refer to specific songs not included on the album. Having Fun with Elvis on Stage, Elvis Presley (1974) The album is a compilation of excerpts from Presley's concerts, containing almost no actual music and instead consisting mainly of banter and jokes between numbers. The album led to a mutual breakup between Columbia and Bennett from which his career would not recover until his son Danny revitalized his father's career in the 1980s.
Retrospective reviews by Allmusic and Time considered the album a "disaster." A particular low point was Bennett's refusal to sing the Beatles' " Eleanor Rigby," instead reciting the song in the style of William Shatner.
It consisted of cover versions of popular songs of the 1960s, and though some effort was made to select songs that were in line with Bennett's Great American Songbook standards, he was not eager to record the material, which he saw as banal. There have been many bad ideas in rock, but none match the colossal stupidity of Attila." Joel has described it as "psychedelic bullshit." Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today!, Tony Bennett (1970) Bennett, in the midst of a career collapse, recorded the album under duress on orders from Clive Davis at Columbia Records. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote, " Attila undoubtedly is the worst album released in the history of rock & roll-hell, the history of recorded music itself. Rolling Stone called Sutch "absolutely terrible" and lamented that the collection of talented musicians on hand were made to sound "like a fouled parody of themselves." Attila, Attila (1970) Attila is the only album by psychedelic rock duo Attila, notable for featuring a young Billy Joel. It was mentioned as the worst record ever released in a 1998 BBC poll. Many of these players disowned the record when it was released. It included some of Britain's best known-rock musicians, such as Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page (who also produced the album) and John Bonham, guitarist Jeff Beck, session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience's bassist, Noel Redding. Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends, Screaming Lord Sutch (1970) This supergroup was led by Sutch, a pioneer in the horror rock genre. Blender placed it 100th on a 2007 list of the "100 Greatest Indie-Rock Albums Ever", and it was cited as influential by musicians including Kurt Cobain, Frank Zappa, Kimya Dawson and Deerhoof. Among those who liked the album in spite of, or even because of, its flaws, Debra Rae Cohen in Rolling Stone referred to it as "the sickest, most stunningly awful wonderful record I've heard in ages." AllMusic gave the album 4.5 out of 5 stars. Chris Connelly wrote for Rolling Stone: "Without exaggeration, may stand as the worst album ever recorded." The New York Times dubbed it "the worst rock album ever made." The Shaggs themselves were appalled at the record. The album received wider release in 1980 when it gained attention (much of it ironically positive) for being " so bad, it's good". Albums 1960s–1970s Philosophy of the World, the Shaggs (1969) The Shaggs were composed of four sisters who recorded this divisive album at the behest of their father despite only a rudimentary understanding of popular music.