Originally Posted by
LJJ
Emerson Lake & Palmer - Pictures at an Exhibition
ELP's famous prog-rock rendition of Mussorgsky's piano suite. It's an absolute trainwreck. At the end of their run in the 70s ELP actually toured with a symphony orchestra as their backing band.
Tool - Lateralus
Another example of ambition gone wrong. Really, really pedestrian metal wrapped in the most pretentious drivel imaginable.
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Now an example of an ambitious album that was pretty good. An album with only 2 tracks, 20+ minutes each, instrumental and didn't really have an identifiable genre at the time. Also:
The best music generally gets made when ambition isn't really involved.