Three horrible albums that served as a crushing blow to a band's career

The Velvet Underground - Squeeze

The recording of this album happened about a year and a half before its release. That might give you an implication that the band simply wasn't ready to put out a final record. The fact is that the Velvet Underground you might have known at the time did not exist for this record. This LP was simply a Velvet Underground album in name alone and was more of a Doug Yule solo work.

Yule at least was part of the group when Lou Reed was still involved so at least it wasn't some random player going by the name of the band. Lou Reed was not a part of the album and nor was John Cale who Yule had previously replaced. If Yule had done the correct thing, he would have simply eschewed the band's name for the record's release and put his own name on it.

That is part of the problem with honestly critiquing the album. If one did not know who had made the record, the songs were still mostly underwhelming, but it would not be as disappointing. Even what had become a watered-down Velvet Underground line-up could still produce some solid songs. Even Yule said the recording sessions were "like the blind leading the blind, me leading myself. That's what came out of it, I don't even have a copy of it."

Yule was not a bad musician and he wasn't a terrible songwriter, but he was not Cale or Reed. At least one good (and odd) thing came from the album. The band Squeeze took their name from the LP.