Note: I'm sharing this due to some renewed attention on Twitter. It isn't by any means as thorough as it would have been had I known this was to happen.
"(Some of) THE MOST UNDERRATED ALBUMS EVER
This is a list I've just done of what I feel are some of the most 'underrated' albums by major artists. By 'underrated' I do not necessarily mean most unfairly overlooked as such, I mean albums that genuinely have a mixed or poor reputation, at least critically, and that I think shouldn't. This is all made up on the spot tonight so inevitably it'll miss off some (read: countless) favourites but I just wanted a writing opportunity.
So, from A-Z then: 
BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE - MEGATOP PHOENIX (1989)
Basically any album of theirs that isn't the debut is critically neglected, but that seems especially mournful when it comes to this mid-period opus, my favourite record Mick Jones ever did. As an acid house-informed concept album celebrating the exaltation of modern London, dotted with telling sampled cutaways of found sound and film, it perhaps foreshadows Saint Etienne's Foxbase Alpha.
BLOC PARTY - INTIMACY (2008)
Insincerely mistrusted in its day simply because it was the third album by a band whose initial hype from a few years earlier had systematically subsided. Pity, because it's the accomplished, venturesome and diverse album the band were always destined to make. "Ares" and "Mercury" exist at the dazzling, rowdy meeting point between "Peek-a-Boo" and "Setting Sun" (two of my favourite songs ever), while "Signs" imbues post-minimalism with gothic dusk.
DAVID BOWIE - BLACK TIE WHITE NOISE (1993)
Not his best since Scary Monsters, but Low. An up to the minute, rhythmically supple, perfectly executed mingling of swingbeat, house and other 1993 musics, gelled by a re-energised, suited pop fountainhead, who synthesises his genepool of music as well as he ever did. The moving, yet banging "Jump They Say" - second only to "Be My Wife" as my favourite Bowie single - sums it all up best, but the cryptically menacing "Pallas Athena" and the genuine jubilance of "The Wedding" are other reasons why this would be no. 3 on my Bowie album rankings.
THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS - WE ARE THE NIGHT (2007)
The unforgettable soundtrack to my 2007 Corfu holiday. Had Fatlip and Sammy the salmon never met, we might have been looking at a better-received album, because who could ignore vast, high-voltage chapels like the title track or "Saturate" or "A Modern Midnight Conversation". They noticed and realised the potential of bigroom electro house by feeding it krautrock smarts and stomach-twisting melody. It all culminates on their 2010 masterpiece Further.
THE CLASH - CUT THE CRAP (1985)
A radioactive punk sound collage, the neon younger brother of Mark Stewart's As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade. Dissonant and layered to its last breath and yet compellingly flat sounding, it helped (with B.A.D.) light up a hyperactive route for the likes of Pop Will Eat Itself and Age of Chance, and years later, if you squint, PC Music and Max Tundra. "This Is England" is the best Clash song of all.
THE CURE - THE TOP (1984)
The best and most repeatedly rewarding of their relatively unappreciated LPs. Genuine psychedelia of the lopsided, delirious kind, sometimes too drunk to stand, sometimes smitten with the minutiae of the moment. Often playing like Kiss Me x3 in miniature, it's all about blurry, sickly purples and oranges bleeding into each other, and the late Andy Anderson was a fine drummer, capable of military snares ("The Empty World"), tribal juggernauts ("Give Me It"), eastern crawls ("Wailing Wall") and everything between.
DAFT PUNK - HUMAN AFTER ALL (2005)
An unforgiving, brutalist concept album about autistic depression, and last year I wrote 3,200 words on why that is. It's the Brass Construction template taken to an uncomfortable extreme, chanting and repetition as coping mechanism, unwavering minimalism as private breakdown.
EARTH, WIND & FIRE - HERITAGE (1990)
This is one where I suspect ultimately it may just be me, as this isn't really EWF playing to any of their recognised strengths. But never mind that because if you have a weakness for old R&B stars losing themselves in the new jack swing blanket then there is plenty to really take to here. While not exactly innovative, it can be fascinating to hear outsiders to a certain, intricate style work out a way to mould themselves into its unusual shapes.
FLEETWOOD MAC - SAY YOU WILL (2003)
All it's missing - by and large - is Christine's touch, because for me this is second only to Tusk in terms of quality and sonic adventure. Typically minor-key things like "Thrown Down" and "Smile at You" are so gorgeous and made me realise I don't have nearly as much of a problem with Nicks' singing as I once thought I did, while "Murrow", "Red Rover" and "Come" are Lindsey in full on studio wizard mode. Every one of these 18 songs works.
GEORGE HARRISON - WONDERWALL MUSIC (1968)
Crystalline and enigmatic, always surprising and full of quiet pathos and wonder, and it has "Dream Scene" on it. What more could you ask for?
JAMES - WHIPLASH (1997)
Wah Wah, their largely improvised, limited edition 1994 album, is in some ways their secret masterpiece, 69 minutes of Brian Eno-assisted technoid post-rock. But then came their next 'proper' album and lessons had been clearly learned; euphoric power-pop brushing soldiers with inventive, and rather unpredictable, electronica excursions like "Go to the Bank" and "Greenpeace", all joined at the hip by Tim Booth's gift for continuity.
KING CRIMSON - THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR (1984)
While I agree that many of the songs on the 80s KC albums are better live, that's quite irrelevant because they (along with Red) are my favourite King Crimson albums overall. Beat is probably less liked by fans but this one attracts more critical indifference, despite its eventful dialogue between twisted pop and outright experimental work. "Industry" is so good I ripped it off for one of my terrible songs back in 2018.
KRAFTWERK - ELECTRIC CAFE (1986)
One of their best strengths was how they put an incredibly human affection for human creations or the human imagination - trains, bikes, calculators, motorways, robots - on display, reminding you these things were born of real, ceaseless inspiration. So it continues here with the rhythmic fuck-all of side one, a tribute to dancing itself and who cares if by 86 it sounded in debt to Art of Noise. While over on side two, "The Telephone Call" was their best ever pop song.
LED ZEPPELIN - IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR (1979)
Probably the critically best liked of all these albums in some ways, but few of them get to the heart of it. This is, ahem, an album of Swedish Europop and informal worldbeat jams and all the better for it. It also helps that the final 13 minutes of the album, and their entire career - "All My Love" and "I'm Gonna Crawl" - are IMO the 13 greatest minutes of their whole career, a bittersweet synth-pop couplet that contrarian me says they were always building up to.
LINKIN PARK - A THOUSAND SUNS (2010)
Perhaps it's strange that I like an album by this band as much as I do. But like Muse, they do well when they indulge their Depeche Mode side and this has the added bonus of being in some ways their Kid A but in more ways their Dazzle Ships - war-darkened electropop songs interspersed with paranoid musique concrete-type interludes. And it genuinely works most of the time.
MADONNA - AMERICAN LIFE (2003)
The ultimate supposed 'midlife crisis' album is a disruptive, glitched up minor classic, where digital manipulation as aural representation of the singer's lapse in faith and breakdown in communication is as expertly realised as that on Neil Young's Trans, (eek) Kanye's 808s and George Michael's True Faith (the latter of which is the only of those still in need of drastic critical rehabilitation).
MANIC STREET PREACHERS - KNOW YOUR ENEMY (2001)
Now on the comedown from their sustained commercial peak, and with the backing to do it, they spew out one of their most ambitious and polystylist albums, where the noisy calls to arms can be anything from explosive ("Found That Soul") to exploded ("My Guernica"). And between all that, what unlikely half-buried gems are waiting to be heard - disco political satire, Murmur jangle, Nicky Wire droning to a drum machine like Mark E Smith, an attempt at Phil Spector that ends up like Pinkerton's Assorted Colours. A tree of many branches.
GEORGE MICHAEL - PATIENCE (2004)
Put on the naughty step by critics for being supposedly overlong and over-indulgent, a trap that blinded them to the magnificence of the sparkling microhouse jam "Precious Box" and The Ones-recontextualising elation of "Flawless (Go to the City)", among so much else on this relatively contented final album that followed so many years of personal turmoil.
MOBY - LAST NIGHT (2008)
His on-off public gaffes mean he's certainly not someone who helps anyone state his case, but whatever, because when I was 10 I played this album endlessly. In the middle of rave nostalgia from the Prodigy, M.I.A., Burial and Zomby, this terrific homage to late 80s/early 90s pop-rave, diva house and NY garage was and still is just the ticket. "Ooh Yeah", "I Like to Move in Here", "Everyday It's 1989" and "Disco Lies" - not far from the stuff disco infernos are made from.
GILBERT O'SULLIVAN - I'M A WRITER, NOT A FIGHTER (1973)
Not that any of his albums get much of a critical look-in, but even so this one is largely dismissed. But why? It's not my go to Gilby album either but those cod-funk clothes really suit him, in a homely sort of way. Ditto "Not in a Million Years", which manages for once to be more offbeat musically than lyrically. And Gilbert knows all about offbeat lyrics.
PET SHOP BOYS - BILINGUAL (1996)
Neil's coming out album is suitably one where they don't give a fuck. Latin pop, and all the signifiers it gives British listeners, is the mood of the day and thus Cuban disco and Favre samba, among other touchstones, are deployed with total wit. Neil even raps! And rhymes Pinter with winter, and 'best effects' with 'Sex-O-Lettes'! Furthermore, the rhythmic exploration really works and few of their contemporaries had a final genuine crossover hit as happy as "Se a vida é".
PINK FLOYD - THE FINAL CUT (1983)
My favourite Floyd album of all, or at least my favourite album credited to Pink Floyd, and one of the most repeatedly disarming albums I can name you, a big jump into the deep end of contemporary British attitudes and Roger's place in all of that. It can be genuinely harrowing if it catches you at the right time, and "The Gunner's Dream" and "Two Suns in the Sunset" - the fallout from the post-war consensus being slowly atomised - will often be the songs when it does.
POP WILL EAT ITSELF - THE LOOKS OR THE LIFESTYLE? (1992)
A transitional album but a great one, filled with cautiously angry songs, leaving the positivity of 1990 behind for the pessimism of 1994's Dos Dedos Mis Amigos. "Harry Dean Stanton" comes over like a stunning inner-city raga.
THE PRODIGY - INVADERS MUST DIE (2009)
Partly their attempt to reclaim the wailing cartoon hardcore of Experience - my favourite album ever made by a 20-year-old? - it actually sounds closer to Erasure's awesome cover of "Voulez-Vous", of all things. Whatever, it's a near flawless album of harsh punk geometry that did, and still does, all that could be asked of it.
ROBERT PLANT - SHAKEN 'N' STIRRED (1985)
A rocker deciding to make an art pop album, but he has no idea how to exactly, so at its best it sounds deliciously off-kilter and startling. Was "Hip to Hoo" an attempt by OpenAI to create 80s pop? "Too Loud" on the other hand was Plant trying for David Byrne but ending up with a misshapen approximation of Yello. Just bonkers, all of it.
R.E.M. - UP (1998)
Even by their standards, this meek move is really introverted, which may be why someone likes myself takes to it so much. All those drum machines and rusty, analogue synths playing these gorgeously amorphous, open-ended lullabies. It's really, really ambient at times - so much so that songs can altogether slip away into the air (particularly on "Airportman", now there's an opening song to challenge a fanbase), and "Why Not Smile", "At My Most Beautiful", "Falls to Climb" and the clattering, Stereolab-ish "Hope" (ending delightfully with pure white noise) are like stomach butterflies.
CLIFF RICHARD - EVERY FACE TELLS A STORY (1977)
Insofar as there is any critical consensus on Cliff's albums. But this was in the Bruce Welch period and is frequently fabulous. There is a touch of the Brothers Gibb but not even that prepares you for "You Got Me Wondering", which would fit snugly into McCartney's Ram, and "When Two Worlds Drift Apart", one of the greatest songs basically ever, with chordal shifts and a nuanced, ever-shifting arrangement to die for. The 2002 CD is best for boasting "No One Waits", Cliff's best song full stop.
THE ROLLING STONES - BLACK AND BLUE (1976)
A band I like best when they sound their least Stonesy, but they only did two albums where their guard is down pretty much the entire time, firstly on the free-rock of Their Satanic Majesties and then, almost a decade later, this eclectic collection of ad-hoc jams and rhythmic workouts. They're not trying for anything major and it works entirely in their favour because nothing is ever so straightforward. In some ways its like Wings' Wild Life. In other ways it's like Radiohead's The King of Limbs.
THE SELECTER - CELEBRATE THE BULLET (1981)
A captivatingly glum portrait of 1981 UK civil unrest, and the mournfully dubby title track in particular is every bit the equal of "Ghost Town", with Barry Jones' trombone evoking Rico's most somnambulant moments. But you can still dance to it all.
SKIDS - JOY (1981)
I've yet to read a kind retrospective review of this outstanding album, which may be why I'm going to have to write one someday. Stuart Adamson may have already parted to found Big Country but it feels as though his former bandmates were one step ahead of him in the rustic reanimation stakes. A proud, open-hearted album of tradition, it is nevertheless brought to life through its spaciousness and structural smarts, the best Caledonian avant-rock folk album. "Iona" strangely evokes Peter Gabriel's "Biko" in its patient build, and "Fields" should have made the UK top five.
SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES - THE RAPTURE (1995)
An eleventh hour meeting with John Cale results in their most overlooked and therefore unusually rewarding work that aims for much and gets it all. "Not Forgotten" is there if you want to know how well they could still be (something like) their 1981 selves, and "O Baby" is the pick of the quirky light relief, but once it's got you it keeps you with the swirling, 11-and-a-half minute title track, which drones as much as it moves and takes you on a trip as far as that of Suzi Quatro's "Angel Flight" but still keeps so much concealed and unexplained.
STEVE MILLER BAND - CIRCLE OF LOVE (1981)
I'm not exactly a Steve Miller fan and I've not heard most of their albums. What I care about is this quickie album being mostly taken up by the phenomenal 18-minute "Macho City", a spiky avant-garde disco sierra that dares to become increasingly empty and reductionist in the most novel (and post-punk) way.
THE STYLE COUNCIL - CONFESSIONS OF A POP GROUP (1988)
Maybe it's too tempting to see this as the mirror image of Spirit of Eden in some ways? Anyhow, it's the ultimate, decimating final step in Weller's abandonment of rock before there was nowhere else to go but square one. The synth-funk half stands up remarkably well - particularly in its more kinetic moments - but the 'classical' side is poignant in its mirrored hallway of pauses, gasps and deep breaths, occupied by memories of the Swingle Sisters, Brian Wilson and Erik Satie.
SUEDE - HEAD MUSIC (1999)
The only bad song is Neil's "Elephant Man", which sounds like its come in from another album anyway. Otherwise this is a slinky record for twilight lounges. Even when Brett's infamously cocaine-crisp lyrics veer towards apparent self-parody, the expansive grooves take over, but what of"Asbestos", in which he still effortlessly writ everyday suburbia into a sky-wide daydream? Best of all is "Indian Strings", maybe the best thing they've done since 1997.
SUICIDE - AMERICAN SUPREME (2002)
It sounds like it was made in about 1992, Alan Vega seems to have slowed down to an early 00s Mark E Smith slur, the prismatic prog-house rhythms go on forever without many shifts in perception. And as if this wasn't tasty enough already, amidst it all are some particularly finely honed spears that remind you of its actual time, and its city, and its creators, and what all these things mean in proximity. An unsung triumph that awaits further inspection from those who stop at "Surrender".
TRAVIS - 12 MEMORIES (2003)
Travis? How easily people forget "Re-Offender", the moody lead single that abruptly halted their imperial phase but which is awfully pretty in its own obtuse way. I agree it's all a little heavy-handed - the entire album, that is - but even from the get-go (the rainy vaudeville of "Quicksand") there's more than plenty of different angles that together make the album strangely gripping.
U2 - POP (1997)
Get past the jammy red herrings "Discotheque" and "Do You Feel Loved" and what you've got is an engagingly troubled work, where the band - at their art rock best - shoot world-weary songs with multihued signs of life, the sound of grey stretched into a giant yellow arch. The increasingly bleak final 16 minutes are particularly downcast but utterly wonderful ("Velvet Dress" is ambient par excellence), while the acid techno-propelled "Mofo" is not their noisiest but their heaviest and densest, where a shoegaze guitar smog comes like a sierra during a panic attack.
ROBBIE WILLIAMS - RUDEBOX (2006)
Self-sabotage, Robbie dismisses it as these days, but what a way to go about it! Sprawling in its adventure, negotiating conference between the 80s and the 00s in the most unlikely ways, and ways there are many. So for every straight-up should-be-classic like "She's Madonna" or "Lovelight", there's askew declarations of love for his younger selves' favourite Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, Beastie Boys and Sly & Robbie songs, to say nothing of funny, carefree cornball raps like "The 80s"/"90s" and "Good Doctor".
NEIL YOUNG - LANDING ON WATER (1986)
As though understudies of Einstürzende Neubauten had been tasked with making a pop album, this is a wonderfully wonky album of electronic, quasi-industrial rock. The drums beat everything else into submission and the rhythms are always distended and distorted, leaving the songs to sound all diseased and float around choppy EBM waters. There's a really compelling battle of purity and impurity at here that I wish I got more often from his work.
XTC - MUMMER (1983)
Once underrated even by me, as even though the two albums either side of it are among my favourite albums of all time, I have tended to forget about this wonderful little record in the middle. But it's a fantastic and not particularly 'transitional' classic, Steve Nye an ideal translator of the group's sparse thinking. It gets a mixed rep these days because I think critics feel they *have* to knock one XTC album down a few pegs (even though they don't), and this poor one with little public appeal is their lazy go-to.
Anyway, that's that (I'm getting some rest now)"
