quickest ways to ruin a song or album?

[Alright_Computer]

Re-recording tracks from previous albums. I've already heard the song; I don't care if you're a Progressive Post-Punkcore band now.
I'll use Whitesnake as an example. To my knowledge, they did this thrice; Here I Go Again (82/87), Crying in the Rain (82/87), Fool for Your Loving (80/89). Two out of three of these were actually worse than the originals (Crying in the Rain and Fool for Your Loving). And the one that was better (Here I Go Again) featured worse lyrics than the original ("like a drifter I was born to walk alone" instead of "like a hobo I was born to walk alone").

Yeah, personally, I think the second one sounds a lot worse. There are a few words that I love using personally, but I don't think they sound very good in music. Hobo is one of them. Drifter is the much more "musical" of the two, if you catch my drift. haha, I made a pun

[Fizzeler]

Covers, sometimes broken up epics, and bad growls

[Alright_Computer]

Oh, to actually contribute to the topic: I can't stand bad MIDI. If there's one thing that ruins an album for me, it's if any part of the sound is made from really bad MIDI files.

(Millionaires, I'm looking at you)

[Squaretriangles]

Covers, sometimes broken up epics, and bad growls

Portnoy. 'Nuff said.

[Fizzeler]

Portnoy. 'Nuff said.

he is pretty bad, but he was good on back-up vocals for Transatlantic

[Squaretriangles]

he is pretty bad, but he was good on back-up vocals for Transatlantic

Was he singing or growling? I have yet to give Transatlantic a listen.

[Fizzeler]

Was he singing or growling? I have yet to give Transatlantic a listen.

singing

[Squaretriangles]

singing

Yeah, his singing his pretty good. His growling, though, is....ugh, just ugh.

[Runesmith]

Skits.

[JukeBoxHero]

^How dare you say skits, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles and Fripp wouldn't be the same without them.

I would say something that definitely ruins a song for me is poor musicianship. Note, I'm not referring to the skill level, but rather what they do with that skill. A song that is so simple and bare that doesn't have a strong melody and build up to make it work usually sticks out as being bad quite quickly. A song that is perfectly fine, but has a boring wank section or tasteless fill is bad as well. I mean come on, if you know how to play well, why don't you use your ability to come up with something more tasteful or simply don't do it.