Brendon Snyder – Not all albums can be the best, that’s for sure. But sometimes the sound and direction is such a misstep that for me I can’t stand even having it in my music collection. However, I’m a completist and at times still want to try these “hated” albums and see if my opinion has changed. So join me as I run through some hated albums from my music collection.

*St. Anger* is Metallica’s version of a mid-life crisis—complete with a new snare drum that sounds like it fell out of a toolbox. This album has all the angst of a band trying to reconnect with their roots, but somehow ended up with a sound that’s, well, divisive, to put it politely. The production feels like they recorded it in an empty warehouse, left the reverb on max, and decided “Hey, what if we make Lars’s snare sound like he’s banging on a trash can?” It’s a bold move, for sure, and one that has since been lovingly referred to as the “ping of doom.”

The lyrics are like a mix of therapy session notes and heavy metal fortune cookies, with lines that range from “I’m madly in anger with you!” to “My lifestyle determines my deathstyle.” James Hetfield is trying to exorcise some serious demons, and you can tell he’s really feeling it—even if he’s not sure what “deathstyle” actually means. And while *St. Anger* lacks guitar solos, Kirk Hammett’s here for moral support, probably wondering where his chance to shred went. Love it or hate it, the album is like a car crash you can’t look away from—noisy, chaotic, and oddly fascinating.