40 Saddest Albums of All Time by Discogs

评语：I always have trouble choosing which is the saddest The Cure album. For a lot of people, it is Disintegration, but I’ve always read part of that album as more of a nostalgic vibe than straight up sadness. Pornography is super dreadful and meditative at times. But if you ask me, Faith is the one I’ve always found the saddest one. The atmosphere of the record feels like the closest you can get to a coma as a listening experience. Slow, gloomy, gothic — everything about this album after “Primary” is bleak.

评语：In their breakthrough album, The Antlers told the story of the relationship between a hospice worker and a female patient suffering from terminal bone cancer. If this line already sounds bleak for you, you’ll be happy to know that the whole plot of this concept album also plays as a metaphor for an emotionally abusive relationship. Not exactly a party. All the hospital and cancer references give a raw edge to it. Even if from the melodic side of things the album reaches pretty sweet heights.

评语：Music media always loves a tortured soul, and sometimes that’s unfair. The tragic circumstances of Mark Linkous weren’t something to be thrilled about. As much as it’s easy to get detached from the circumstances of artists creating these masterpieces, it’s also unfair the high rate of mental and physical health issues among musicians. A true loss for the music world, Linkous left behind a bunch of incredible albums worth everybody’s attention. It’s hard to pick just one album representing that beautiful sadness that covered his whole career, but I feel confident in putting in front of you It’s A Wonderful Life.

评语：The debut album by This Mortal Coil could have been quite a Frankenstein monster. Created by 4AD head honcho Ivo Watts-Russell in collaboration with 4AD producer John Fryer, the idea was to cover the favorite records of Watts-Russell but adapted to the sonic aesthetics of the label. Performed by label artists such as Cocteau Twins, Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance), and Kim Deal, it was assembled with instrumentals created purposely for the album. The results of this experiment gave us one of the most beloved records from the 1980s, a record that somehow anticipated some of the key elements of shoegaze. A couple of those songs were straight out of 3rd by Big Star, another album on this list.

评语：Ghost Tropic is lumbering and somber, but somehow effortlessly incorporates tropical birdsong. The lyrics are bleak, even for Jason Molina, and they hang suspended for perusal. A harrowing, gorgeous meditation on an ending.

评语：With a career spanning three decades, Bill Callahan (AKA Smog) is one of the greatest American singer-songwriters. The Doctor Came At Dawn is Smog at his most slowcore. Looking back, 1996 was a great year for this. With such beautiful music coating it, the lyrics of the songs remain the true star of this release.

评语：Red House Painters, the band fronted by Mark Kozelek (aka Sun Kil Moon), released their debut record in 1992 and it doesn’t get much more depressing than this when you’re 24. Only six songs and 43 minutes were enough for Red House Painters to establish themselves as one of the most revered bands of the 1990s. Very few times the artwork of an album matched so perfectly the mood of its music. We have to thank Mark Kozelek for a whole career of heartbreaking music. So no, we haven’t forgotten about Benji.

评语：Portishead’s genre-bending, widely revered debut album is often attributed with taking trip-hop mainstream. Even years after it was released, nothing really sounds like Dummy. It gets under your skin and feels like being deserted on an alien planet. It’s lonely, but at the same time, there’s so much to keep you occupied that you barely really notice. The effortless blend of hip-hop, soul, jazz, and blues, topped with Beth Gibbons’ dazzlingly chilling vocals works together so well. Despite being a critical darling, the sad core of this album really creeps up on you.

评语：Nobody can be emotionally prepared for this album. After the incredibly sad and unforgettable Skeleton Tree, Nick Cave continues mourning and takes us along with him. Even though officially it is not just about the tragedy, at times, this album requires an insane amount of emotional stamina to stand. This double album is as beautiful as it gets, but be ready to get a lump in your throat throughout.

评语：Both I Could Live In Hope and Things We Lost In The Fire are fantastic examples of the endless talent of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, one of the most beloved and iconic couples of the American underground. I Could Live In Hope is still revered as the most representative slowcore album and one that opened infinite doors to other musicians by slowing down the rhythm.

评语：James Blake took the world by storm with this debut album. A new way of making music showcased his sensibilities to the world and the album was an instant hit. The lyrics also dig deep into the soul of a tortured crooner. In his most recent release, Assume Form, James Blake deals with very different feelings, a much happier and fulfilled Blake is in front of our eyes. He made it.

评语：Liz Harris has built one of the most wonderfully unique careers in the industry since she started releasing music in the mid-2000s. Her music exists outside of time and trends, and what you feel the first time you listen to it is very similar to finding hidden treasure from a past civilization buried in the soil. Mysterious, atmospheric, and haunting, Ruins was released in 2014. Because of how stripped down her songs are after years of heavy layering, it felt like her most direct and impactful release. Harris, her piano, a portable 4-track recorder, and a Sony stereo microphone were enough for her to capture the enigmatic and gloomy atmosphere that persists through the album.

评语：Few albums, if any, captured the technologic disappointment awaiting us with the energy of the sophomore album by Grandaddy. The Sophtware Slump was released soon after the turn of the millennium and it combined traditional elements of the American underground with unexpected themes for the time. This is not science fiction; this is an utterly sensitive author opening up in infinite new creative ways and letting us have a look at his anxiety. Jason Lytle was quoted at the time saying, “…I just remember everything out there was dusty. Humidity and dust,” and that he made the recordings “…in my boxer shorts, bent over keyboards with sweat dripping off my forehead, frustrated, hungover and trying to call my coke dealer.

评语：Sometimes I feel like Codeine will never get as much appreciation as they deserve. The pioneers of slowcore released this incredible album in 1990 and cleared the path for many bands to follow. Not many understood that rock music could be this slow and this powerful at the same time. It’s emo before emo existed. Raw, emotional, and evocative, Frigid Stars LP remains as one of the best albums of the genre and it will keep bringing us down for many decades to come.

评语：No list about sad albums can do without A Crow Looked At Me. None. Phil Elverum’s wife, Geneviève, died in 2015 of pancreatic cancer four months after the birth of their first child. I don’t know if you already feel like crying, but I do. As devastating as this all sounds, Mount Eerie took all of that sadness, grief, hopelessness, and disorientation and turned it into A Crow Looked At Me, a collection of songs so raw, so authentic, so deeply personal that it’s impossible to escape its sadness.

评语：The debut album by Interpol is a whole mood in itself. Recorded only two months after 9/11 and released in August 2002, the record connected with a whole generation in a moment of collective existential dread. The line between oppressive and sad isn’t always clear, and that’s where Interpol found their voice in the new generation of rock bands at the turn of the millennium. To most fans, Turn On The Bright Lights remains their best effort almost 18 years after.

评语：No other band will ever achieve this level of sadness and depression while at the same time delivering good –even catchy — melodies and profound lyrics. Decades later, Unknown Pleasures is still one of those albums that you come back to over and over each year, and few albums can stand the test of time with such grace.

评语：It’s a sharp departure from its predecessor, Uh Huh Her (and every other album she’s ever released), trading guitar and full band for an eerily stripped back piano and austere arrangements. Harvey also tries out a different vocal style for this album, moving into the higher end of her range and allowing her voice to take on more vulnerability, fragility, and precariousness at the edge of her register. Where some of the albums on this list offer a contrast of upbeat instrumentals with despairing vocals or glimpses of light at the corners of depression, White Chalk is unyieldingly grim. Sometimes you just want to revel in your sadness, and it’s comforting to have Harvey’s hand to hold.

评语：Desertshore is such a raw piece of music history. For Nico, it would have been easy to remain an appendix to The Velvet Underground history. But she was much more than that and she was ready to prove it to the world. Desertshore is so passionate and magnetic that once you’ve started playing it, there’s no way back. She dedicated “Janitor Of Lunacy” to her recently deceased friend Brian Jones, sang with her little child Ari in “Le Petit Chevalier,” and collaborated with her then-boyfriend Philippe Garrel in the experimental film La Cicatrice Interieur (featuring music from the album as its soundtrack). Also, how many other artists get their albums reworked by Throbbing Gristle?

评语：Breakups always fuel the best cathartic sound experiences. Tender Forever’s 2010 release No Snare is about pulling yourself out of the ashes after being in love. The title of the album is calling out the deliberate removal of the snare drum, a symbol of removing the heart from the body. While some of Tender Forever’s songs carry the sweetness of pop music, the orchestral undertones of timpani drums feel like heartbeats and the strings and droning synths like long deep sighs. This album is a beloved companion to the oscillation between sadness and perseverance that accompanies heartbreak.

评语：Beautiful guitar harmonies and a soft voice create these sad melodies that, from the first song, enter your mind and leave you breathless till the end. “Madman” is absolutely the saddest song I have ever heard. The lyrics and the music let you perfectly imagine the madman running in the rain and how is feeling. Magical and mystical, it creates amazing epic harmonies.

评语：William Basinski intended to transfer different tapes he recorded in the 1980s to a digital format in order to preserve their content. When he started with the process, he realized that the tapes already deteriorated but, instead of trying a different approach, he played those tapes over and over again in order to further contribute to their disintegration. By pure chance, he finished the project on the morning of 9/11 in Brooklyn from where he and his friends watched the Twin Towers collapse. He filmed video footage of the attack during the last hour of daylight from a roof, and the following morning he played “Disintegration Loop 1.1” as a soundtrack to the aftermath. Listening to these tapes disintegrate is a transcendent and unforgettable experience. And, thanks to its context, it is one of the saddest ones as well.

评语：How much devastation are you able to stand? This question is an important one to ask before playing Moon Pix. For many, it’s the best collection of songs by Chan Marshall, and that’s a lot considering the unparalleled brilliance of the singer-songwriter’s career. Written in full after a hallucinatory nightmare, Moon Pix showed Cat Power at her most vulnerable yet delivering some of the most achingly beautiful songs ever written. But be prepared because nobody crosses through Moon Pix unharmed.

评语：I remember listening to this album obsessively in the early 2000s. Just to give you an insight into how heavy I See A Darkness feels: I didn’t speak English – or at least decent English – at the time, and I could still perceive the great sadness that flows through it. It’s a magical record. To me and many others, it’s the highest peak of a career filled with incredible music. Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s honesty and lyrical quality can be felt in every corner of this masterpiece. And just in case you didn’t get it from the artwork: Yes, this is an album about death. And about many more things. Please, listen to it right now if you haven’t before.

评语：Part of what makes the third and last album by Big Star such a heartbreaking one is knowing the details of its release. After not succeeding commercially with #1 Record and Radio City, this album was recorded in 1975 then slated by the company until it was finally released in 1978. By that time, Big Star was no more and the album was met with apathy by both audience and critics. The beginning of “Kizza Me” gives a hint of cheerful power-pop glory before the album sinks into some of the most depressing lyrics and sounds ever produced in the 1970s.