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Editor's note: this review has caused quite a dust-up, in part because of the sonic description and in part because of this, which you'll find further down in the text:

In a 1991 book called The Worst Rock’n’ Roll Records of All Time, music critics Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell declare Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle the 23rd worst rock’n’roll album of all time.

Lou Reed’s bleak Berlin album dropped with a thud when first released back in 1973. The fans were probably expecting Transformer 2 and a “Walk on the Wild Side” reprise, but Lou was having none of that. He was moving on and down (both chart-wise and thematically) but times eventually catch up to vision and that’s the case with Berlin.

Laura Nyro’s most personal, mature and intense album of love’s struggles proved to be the stopping point for many fans of the earlier gospel-y good time Nyro who sung “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Eli’s Comin’,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Stoney End,” and even “And When I Die,” which was celebratory despite the song’s morbid title.