I've been listening to Ministry's With Sympathy on repeat recently, the album head minister Al Jourgensen vehemently hates, and it's got me to thinking. What other bands have famously disavowed their material, either actively by publicly admitting dislike or passively by pretending that portion of their catalogue simply doesn't exist? I recall an I Love Music thread about this subject, but I've been unsuccessful in digging it up. Wait, scratch that. I found it.

Why do bands orphan albums, leaving them in little baskets at the door of irrelevance? Some blame record labels for cobbling together contract obligation releases. Some blame themselves. Other acts change styles and grow in talent so dramatically from one album to another that they render their past work incongruous. Some albums are so bad, so ill-conceived that abandoning them is the only understandable response.

So away we go with the list, additional submissions are welcome:

-The Beta Band - The Beta Band: "fucking awful" and "worst album released this year" was how the Beta Band described this album upon its release.

- The La's - The La's: Soon after the release of the La's only record, band leader Lee Mavers, incorrigible curmudgeon that he is, shared his somewhat negative opinion on the results: ''I hate it," Mavers told the NME.  "It's the worst, a pile of shit. There is not one good thing I can find to say about it.'' Some people disagree, including me. I mentioned this Entertainment Weekly article way back when and at the time it wasn't on the magazine's site. It's there now and I highly recommend reading it.

- Ministry - With Sympathy: Jourgensen describes the first Ministry record as an "abortion". Again, I have to politely disagree. Listen to "I Wanted to Tell Her" (MP3).

- Kraftwerk - Kraftwerk 1, Kraftwerk 2, Ralf and Florian: Long out of print, the first three Kraftwerk albums have not been actively disowned by the band (as far as I can tell). Rather, Ralf and Florian choose to ignore them, reasoning the albums do not represent the Kraftwerk sound. For now the albums remain "lost", although the Kraftwek FAQ notes the band has "allegedly" discussed re-releasing these records. Listen to "Stratovarius" (MP3) from Kraftwerk 1.

- Underworld - Under the Radar, Change The Weather: As a once frequent visitor to the U2 section of my local record store in Tucson, I often saw the smarmy grin of that black-clad cowboy staring at me from cover of Underworld's Under the Radar cassette. The cover intrigued me, but I never risked the purchase. Apparently, no one else did either. Thankfully, that was not the last the world heard from Underworld.

More allegedly disowned albums:

- Built to Spill - Ancient Melodies of the Future
- Bad Religion - Into the Unknown
- Pantera - Their first four albums
- Motley Crue - Motley Crue (recorded with John Corabi on vocals)
- Primal Scream - Anything before Screamadelica
- LeAnn Rimes - I Need You
- Can - Out of Reach
- The Damned - Music For Pleasure
- The Velvet Underground - Squeeze
- The Clash - Cut the Crap
- Fields of the Nephilim - Fallen
- Sam Phillips - Her Christian albums, recorded under the name Leslie Phillips
- Tori Amos - Y Can't Tori Read (which has its own FAQ site)
- Toni Halliday - Hearts and Handshakes