Pretty Hate Machine is undeveloped NIN. The Downward Spiral is NIN finding their stride and running with the wind. Such a better album than PHS.
Undertow is great, but AEnema is one of the greatest albums of the 90s.
Hendrix's first three albums are all debatable and a case can be made for all of them.
Joe's Garage is great, but it's not his best work. His best work is obviously Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation, and One Size Fits All and Absolutely Free are up there too, and all are perfect albums, as is Wakka/Jawakka.
If the Blue album is Weezer's best, and that's the pinnacle of their sound, why did they have similar feelings as Kurt Cobain did with Nevermind? Why did they do this?
Quote:
To assist in capturing the group's live sound, Weezer decided against hiring a producer for Pinkerton.
...
Weezer decided against hiring a producer, feeling that "the best way for us to sound like ourselves is to record on our own."[16] The band hoped to explore "deeper, darker, more experimental stuff"[11] which would better resemble the band's live sound.[17] To give the album a live, "raw" feel, Cuomo, Bell and bassist Matt Sharp recorded their vocals in tandem around three microphones rather than overdubbing them separately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_%28album%29
The fact of the matter is, Weezer, like Nirvana, felt like their debut album didn't portray their band as they really were, and sounded too polished. For this reason, Pinkerton and In Utero are better albums. They do a better job of capturing how the bands really sounded.