Bands that were great, then weren’t

Arctic Monkeys..
WPSIATWIN is a corker of an album but each subsequent one has got progressively worse. The critics seem to think they are amazing though. I actually fell asleep watching them at Glastonbury on the telly last year

I actually think the Arctic Monkeys deserve credit for deciding they were bored of their original sound and going for something new. I really like AM. Not going to appeal so much to their original fans but it’s a great album in its’ own right. I can see why they got fed up with being expected to reproduce the sound of their first album, which was one of those that was so good and different that everything afterwards was bound to disappoint.
The Strokes were in a similar situation after This is It which was a piece of genius. They’ve carried on doing the same sort of stuff but not very well since. At least Arctic Monkeys tried something different.

I’ve always thought that most ands/artists are only really good for 2 or 3 really good albums if they are lucky.

tbf even producing that is an achievement, I’d be over the moon if i could write a half decent limerick!

I’ve always thought that most ands/artists are only really good for 2 or 3 really good albums if they are lucky.

I agree. It is only the really good artists that can re-invent themselves or develop to remain interesting over many years: Bowie, The Beatles and Kate Bush come to mind.

AC/DC – basically were awesome right up to (and including) BinB then became a tribute band to themselves for the next 30 odd years

Radiohead just changed – early stuff was great, but I also think A Moon Shaped Pool is a superb album too.

And I’ll say it – for me, Suck it And See is Arctic Monkeys best album. Love every song on that.

Bowie turned out some dross at the back end of his career. But I’ve never been a Bowie fan.

And Aerial from Kate Bush was meh! That bloody Bertie! 🙂

Back to the thread though – Manic Street Preachers have settled into mid-range festival headliners with nothing of note in donkeys years.

“Well, they’ve only released five albums, 100th Window being the last. So unless you’re talking about Mezzanine being rubbish, which is their fourth, that only leaves one sub-par album. Mezzanine is a superb album.”

Album numbering is always a bit confusing – it depends on wether you count remixes/duybs/compilation, etc.

I’d say Massive Attack have five studio albums”

1- Blue Lines

2- Protection

3- Mezzanine

4- Hundredth  window

5- Heligoland

… and yes, I think Mezzanine is where it went wrong. I regularly play the first two albums, but when I occasionally ‘give Mezzanine another try’ it has a good start but I’m bored by half way through.

Nothing they’ve done since has interested me at all. It turns out Tricky and Mushroom were more important than believed.

@winston, perfectly describes the Stones also, pretty good to about 1975(ish) and then have ever since just been one of the better Rolling Stones tribute bands.

Velvet Underground. One or two perfect albums, change in line up, dross…

Prince (not a band) Early albums were just amazingly good, the output was so prolific though, most of the later stuff past diamonds and pearls is a bit mleh. Apparently there’s still something like 50 albums worth of unreleased original material in the vaults he had installed in his house/studio.

“I’ve always thought that most ands/artists are only really good for 2 or 3 really good albums”

2 or 3? Most bands get 1 if they’re good, two if they’re great. Hardly anyone gets more than that – and I include Bowie, Bush and the Beatles in that.

““I’ve always thought that most ands/artists are only really good for 2 or 3 really good albums”

Dylan and the Stones are the only exceptions to that I reckon!

Gomez had two great albums and then a slow downwards spiral as they seemed to let go of all the elements that made them so good.

I can’t agree. I think they evolved and the music changed as they aged. I can listen to any of their albums happily.

Sadly agree with the comment on Paul Weller. Loved his early solo stuff, but whilst he kept changing things to make it more interesting for him it just got boring for me.

I love Ben’s solo stuff and still listen to the other Gomez albums but they don’t flow as well. Still great compared to a lot of bands but just lacking something for me at least.

Crash Test Dummies.

Their excellent debut album, The Ghosts That Haunt Me and their second, perfect offering, God Shuffled His Feet were followed by a salvo of shit.

It’s like they all simultaneously lost all songwriting and musical abilities. Such a shame. One of the best gigs I ever attended was their 1994 performance at Manchester’s Apollo.

Me and Mrs. S chose Swimming in Your Ocean for our wedding first dance.

Same for the majority of artists I reckon.

1st album, a lifetime of experiences, bit rough around the edges but promising. 2nd album, ditch the guys who can’t play, bit more polished, looking good. 3rd album, sells loads but nobody really wants to hear about your famous girlfriend and nights at the Groucho. 4th album, people have given you the benefit of doubt but your coke dealer got a producing credit. 5th album, hastily written to get you out of your crappy record deal. 6th album, hastily written to pay your tax bill. 7th album, bit of a return to form thanks to a messy break up from the famous wife, lucky because you’ve got a big divorce. All subsequent albums are just promos for your tours which are just to top up your modest pension.

I really like AM. Not going to appeal so much to their original fans but it’s a great album in its’ own right.

I don’t mind AM, in fact I like it

Tranquility Base Hotel and The Car can get in the bin though

Humbug was shite too

Primal Scream. Screamedelica is a stonewall classic (possibly due to Andrew Weatheralls production) and I also bloody love Give Out but Don’t Give Up. After that there was a brief upward blip with XTRMNTR (largely due to Mani), but everything that followed that is utter drivel!

I remember sniggering away while reading the crushingly accurate Alexis Petridis in the Guardian of Beautiful Future. Its possibly the best album review you will ever read. Absolutely scathing…

Is any contemporary artist cut quite as much slack as Primal Scream? In recent years, they have regularly received weird, circle-squaring reviews in which adjectives like “embarrassing” and “ridiculous” figure heavily, but the star rating remains stuck at four or five.

That’s great read binners, thanks.

Came here to say Guns ‘n’ Roses.  Was wholly unsurprised to see several people beating me to it.

Appetite For Destruction was an astonishing album.  Lies was a decent stocking-filler.  Use Your Illusion were impressive follow-ups to Appetite.  Then… what?  The Spaghetti Incident?  Chinese Democracy?  Both immediately forgettable, anything else I’ve already forgotten.

And don’t get me started on their live performances.

I actually think the Arctic Monkeys deserve credit for deciding they were bored of their original sound and going for something new.

This blighted Def Leppard.  Hysteria was their magnum opus (though some may argue that Pyromania is the better album).  They followed it with Adrenalize and everyone went “this is just like Hysteria, it’s shit.”  Then they followed that with Slang and everyone went “this is nothing like Hysteria, it’s shit.”  Sometimes you just can’t win.

MUSE.

Primal Scream.

I’m led to believe that Primal Scream lives or dies depending on just how shitfaced Gillespie is at a given moment.

I’m old enough to have seen Primal Scream way before Screamadelica (Sonic Flower Groove anyone? thought not….) and they were rubbish. Then a 2 album brief blip where somebody else did all the work then back to rubbish!

I’ve always thought that most ands/artists are only really good for 2 or 3 really good albums if they are lucky.

tbf even producing that is an achievement, I’d be over the moon if i could write a half decent limerick!

Gotta agree with this. One great album is enough for me.  Looking over at my vinyl I can only see multiple albums from The Cure, Depeche Mode, Faithless & The Prodigy. And Kate of course.

Ephel Duath. First couple of records were bonkers, didn’t really sell possibly because Italy isn’t known for extreme metal. Line up changed and they tried to make it more listenable, lost all that was good about the original records.

Metallica. Yeah-ee-yeeeaaaahhh……

I agree with a lot of this, especially Metallica after AJFA.

But. Let England Shake is the best PJ Harvey album and Radiohead just got better as they drifted further from the bog standard guitar indie of Pablo Honey. I also reckon Kayne peaked around 2010, MBDTF is far more original and creative than the early stuff I reckon. But he went downhill fast after that.

And I disagree about RHCP – Californication is coffee table bilge and everything since then is even worse.

One more for the pot: The Wildhearts, who I was a MASSIVE fan of until 1996, and was so so gutted with Endless Nameless when it came out.

I love Goat’s first album but lost interest after that.

And does anyone here ever listen to any Iron Maiden albums since Fear of the Dark? No, me neither.

I would generally agree that there are very very few acts that stay great for more than a few albums. Low spring to mind, Radiohead are close, maybe a few others. But most bands that make it big do so because they nail a zeitgeist, and then times move on. And they either need to reinvent themselves or change it up. A very difficult ask.

The Darkness. After permission to land they just turned into a comedy band

Incubus, have to disagree. Thought 8 was brilliant.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Californication was the last good album.

Foo Fighters….meh rock

The Darkness. After permission to land they just turned into a comedy band

I thought that was their USP from day 1! 🙂

Foo Fighters – yeah, don’t do it for me anymore. Shouty rock now.

I got six tickets for their gig in Manchester I was going to go but decided I couldn’t do with two hours of them so leaving it for the wife and her friends to go now.

Rolling Stones were stunningly good BUT not nearly so after Exile  (1972).

Oh and Queens of the Stone Age. Rated R was good, songs for the deaf is amazing, everything since, bar a couple of songs is just pap.

I remember Zane Lowe payed the entire album on his show a few years back and right at the end and his mic faded up at the end a little earlier than he thought so you got to hear him mumbling “and from there it was downhill…” before dong his prepared monologue 🤣

Oh and yes, Muse win this.  Guaranteed to get a good album from them with some stellar tracks on each but then wend downhill rapidly.  Glad I saw them just before they started going downhill.

Arcade Fire.  Early live shows were amazing.

First album (Funeral) – great.  Second album (Neon Bible) – good.  Third album (The Suburbs) – great.

4th, 5th, 6th albums dire.

I always thought the ST, Rated R and Like Clockwork were the best QOTSA albums with  SFTD coming in after them. The rest are a bit disappointing.

I love Ben’s solo stuff

He used to do some of the small music events locally (he’s originally from Matlock Bath)

This was 2015, but seem to remember his stuff just sounding like Gomez after Gomez went rubbish tbh

Would it be too emo of me to say Jimmy Eat World?

I got into them as I was “coming of age” into music when Bleed American came out and I loved it – same energy as pop punk but felt more “adult” somehow and I still listen regularly. After that, Futures was also a fantastic album if not a little on the soft side at times. I got into their previous album Clarity a few years later and it’s up there as one of the greats. Some of the live show footage from that era gives me chills, so much energy!

Ever since Futures though, I’ve tried to like them but they have slowly just turned into a kind of soft-rock indie pop band. They were never super super punk (more punk for the sad middle class in plaid shirts) – but they’ve lost any kind of big “rocky” sound that they once had.

Ocean Colour Scene.

Blur.

Their last couple of albums, there’s only a song or two that I’d actually listen to for a second time.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Californication was the last good album.

What? By The Way is IMO a fantastic album, there’s not a bad song on it. The guitar sound is beautiful.

Primal Scream were a bit average*, briefly became awesome, then went downhill. There’s a documentary about Screamadelica that’s worth seeking out, it was a ‘gotta try something’ throw of the dice as much as a conscious decision – Weatherall had never worked in a studio setting before but just managed to achieve something that a ‘trained’ producer would never have tried.

* actually, I REALLY liked their early stuff, being a C86 indie kid but it didn’t give a clue of what Screamadelica was about to do.

Pulp buck the trend….. first couple of albums, before the legendary line up formed were a bit meh – then Separations was half decent, and then BANG – His n’Hers, Different Class, This is Hardcore. What a three album run. OK, We Love Life wasn’t quite as good and they then ended before they ruined it for themselves.

U2 after Achtung Baby

Kanye after MBBTF

Radiohead after Kid A

The Who after Who’s Next

REM after New Adventures In Hifi

So many really, it’s a moot point whether it’s the band that’s gone bad or I’m just not prepared to follow them down the path they’ve chosen.

“And does anyone here ever listen to any Iron Maiden albums since Fear of the Dark? No, me neither.”

Nothing past 7th son and that’s a push.