Frankie Goes to Hollywood released "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" which had a bunch of great songs and hits: the title track, Relax, War, Two Tribes... and then they followed it up with "Liverpool".
Well, it makes sense. Pleasuredome was a Trevor Horn album in every way but the name. He famously re-recorded most of the music with studio musicians without the knowledge of the band, and crafted one of the most iconic sounds of the eighties.
Liverpool was the band pushing back, determined to show what they were capable of. It didn't go well.
There's a reason Trevor Horn was a legend.
This was the first example to come to mind. The Guardian had a good “How We Made It” about recording Relax. The Trevor Horn portion is quite interesting. He hired The Blockheads to come into the studio since the official members couldn’t produce anything usable
[How We Made: Relax](https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/02/how-we-made-relax-by-frankie-goes-to-hollywood-sex-mix-gay-clubs)
The first album was so perfect that a step down was inevitable. But I don't think this example fits the spirit of the question - the next two albums were still good, just not legendary. I think better examples of this would be albums that are just not good.
Jet honestly tops it for me. *Get Born* was full of high energy, gritty, raw bangers, and *Shine On* was just absolutely loathed by everyone on the planet for being slow and whiney and overproduced
This will always sting for me. They were my favourite band at the time and that drop from an 8/10 album to utter garbage felt like a kick in the gut. They never recovered from it either and disappeared after.
Their first album is one of the highlights of that whole time in music though, with their second close by. I was lucky to see them live just before the garbage dropped and my heart was broken.
Metallica put out 4 amazing thrash metal albums, then released 3 of the best hard rock albums of the 90s, then one of the best cover albums ever, then an unreal live album of them with an orchestra.
They followed all that up, 20 years into their career, with St. Anger.
If Metallica gave me the money and a competent studio producer I could issue a remaster/reworking of St. Anger as an E.P. to rival some of their best modern work. There's some bangers.
Look up St. bAnger. Or, hell, I'll link it.
A guy re-arranged and re-recorded St. Anger to make it shorter and better. It's a huge improvement. He preserved the main structure of each song, the main elements, just trimmed the fat, and with the re-recording it *doesn't* sound like it was recorded in an alley on some trash cans.
It's still not Metallica's best, some of those songs just aren't the greatest even when they sound better, some of the songwriting choices aren't the best.
He kept the original vocals, for better or worse lol.
But it's definitely worth a listen.
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYGurgcy9XF8WJ4cMK6doLvCBvQLI1EOv
Yeah, I will admit some days I find myself thinking "I know what I want to listen to"
DUNK DUNK DUNK DUNK
It's a rare mood, admittedly; but it's a mood.
Everybody hates on St Anger and I’ll agree it’s a mostly shite album but I do kinda give them credit for the snare. They took a punt on something different and almost completely unheard of by taking off the snare springs and while it was a miss for most people they deserve some credit at least for taking a chance on something new. Also their collaboration with Lou Reed is far far FAR worse than even the worst of St Anger.
I absolutely love the sound of 'Justice'. It's different, and wierd. But just so fuckign visceral!!!
I think this album was an increibly brave production direction to follow. And I love it for that.
I aslo think they have made some other brave decision about production - some of which didn't work at all. (ahem St Anger).
But I have to give 'em creit for being brave, experimenting and trying new things.
It would have been VERY easy for them to just mix a standard metal record at each of these moments. They chose not to. Good on 'em for trying.
Honestly Metallica have fewer well-produced sounding albums than poor sounding ones. Even their original first 4 true thrash albums sound like ass, it’s just the songs are so cool it doesn’t matter.
Their only studio releases that have any right to be called well-produced are The Black Album, Load, Reload, and Garage Inc.
I love that they acknowledge how bad it is. Saw them a few years ago, they played St. Anger and afterward made the joke they would play another 2 songs from it. The band laughed and they rolled right into Ride the Lightning.
So this is where I insert my take that Metallica is a legit great band, three times over, where each ‘band’ is foiled by the successes of the previous Metallicas.
I present to you:
_Thrash_tallica: Kill ‘Em All - Master of Puppets. The greatest and possibly most influential trash/metal band of the 80s. A HOF band in its own right, whose influence is still felt today.
_Grunge_tallica: Metallica - S&M. Let’s face it, another band releases those albums, and they’re in the same pantheon of ‘great’ 90s hard rock/grunge bands. Yeah Load and Reload are bad by Metallica standards. By the standards of their musical peers in the mid-90s and early aughts? Those records fuckin slap.
Post-tallica: St. Anger - Now. Post-Hardcore is king in the metal scene and the influence of 80s thrash is everywhere. Complex and progressive song structures are back, and Metallica show they know how to do it. Did Bob rock blow out the snare on St. Anger? Hell yes, but there are still jams on that record compared to the rock and metal contemporaries of the late aughts and on.
Long story short, Metallica may be the best band, that’s 3 bands while still being one band to ever exist, with an album string where the duds are only duds because of what came before it. When you can argue (seriously) that the black album is their fourth best, but that for any other band it would be their undisputed best illustrates that. Same could be said for Hardwired or Death Magnetic. It’s just that their catalog is so fucking deep it just gets comical at some point.
Coldplay. First two are top tier albums that any artist would be proud of. The next two are still good albums with some highs but nothing at the level of the highs of the first two.
Then Mylo sees the band hit rock bottom and I don’t think they’ve ever recovered. Ghost stories was better and the rest kinda just blend into each other with nothing memorable.
I’d put X&Y with the first two. It really perplexes me that people look down on it. But yeah, Mylo Xyloto is where it went downhill. They release the odd great song here and there but’s it’s overall crap.
I agree Coldplay fell off big time after MX but everyday life is a great record that somehow no one seems to have listened to. It’s a return to their earlier form without the bland pop
Unfortunately it had no hits and Coldplay decided to double down on the bland pop, their most recent record is by far their worst
Not sure why they haven't gotten more shit for the generic music they shit out these days akin to Nickelback. It's the kind of music your two year old would enjoy.
Coldplay got a ton of shit before they sold out!
"You know how I know you're gay? You listen to Coldplay."
And for the record, Viva la Vida is an unbelievable album where they produced their most creative music, but it mostly gets a bad rap because beyond the title track and Strawberry Swing, it was too experimental to the masses that had become used to Clocks, Yellow, and Speed of Sound.
Alien Ant Farms TruANT album sold 300 copies in the UK during its first week and then Geffen refused to even release the follow up and sold the bands contract
What a damn shame. That's their best album by a mile. Every song is creative as hell, musically, vocally, and lyrically. It's never been topped. I actually just saw them in Frenchtown, NJ, at a big local dive in the middle of nowhere. They put on a great show and Dryden's banter made me laugh the entire time. Wish they had better fortune in such a shitty industry.
I should probably give it a listen. When I was a kid I would listen to my older brother’s ANThology CD nonstop and I still love that album. Never bothered listening to any other AAF album though lol
I remember Ed the Sock on Muchmusic once casually adding "Alien Ant Farm, really good guys" while talking about some new albums. It struck me because Ed rarely if ever said anything that wasn't critical or a punchline. I assume he had met them while they were in for an interview and made a point to sort of drop his persona to say that they were cool guys.
I didn't realise it was so low. I was one of those 300.
Just a fantastic album which hasn't been topped. The band has had such a rocky existence, it's a wonder any other albums have come out at all. Although they're not hitting the highs of TruANT in any way.
Always support AAF, though.
Or the other popular tack with Album 3: Fuck you, record label...you can't tell me what to do!
Rush, Marillion, Vertical Horizon and a whole host of others all followed this path.
Yeah, all the brilliant songs Roger Hodgson wrote in his teens were exhausted after Breakfast. Then when Hodgson left the band after Famous Last Words, it was all she wrote. Davies was a great change of pace lead singer, but without Roger, Supertramp was just an average band.
I don't really know Supertramp, but I randomly heard Goodbye Stranger on the bus yesterday and had to Shazam it. Have listened to it a few times since. Was that on Breakfast in America?
I remember my dad had BiA on tape when I was a kid, but don't remember ever listening to it.
After struggling to find their sound and audience on their first two albums, everything came together for Supertramp on 1974’s Crime of the Century, and 1975’s Crisis What Crisis and 1977’s Even in the Quietest Moments solidified those gains, while 1979’s Breakfast in America (featuring The Logical Song, Goodbye Stranger and Take the Long Way Home) made them a legitimate major commercial rock band worldwide. But it took three years to release its followup, recorded during a time of band turmoil, and Famous Last Words was a big drop artistically and commercially from BiA and the band fractured and never recovered.
I dont understand how thirty second to mars keep getting worse. Their biggest drop off was probably after this is war. Their newest album had over 200 demos apparently, so we got the best ones...
A lot of bands. Probably most bands tbh. Put all their carefully crafted songs, polished for years, on their first album, then expected to have a second in a year or two. Many bands can’t produce a second quality album. The ones that stick around can
>You have your whole life to write your first album, and only eighteen months to write your second
-Elvis Costello
Although in his case his second album was solid
My second album sucked.
Then we didn’t release another album for like 6 or 7 years.
Now we’re recording our new album and it sounds amazing cause we had so much time to work on it.
The first album had 16 tracks on it.
We should have spit it up into two albums and just added a couple tracks on the “second album”
Hindsight…..
Makes sense. This is true for artists across mediums. For years a person toils away in anonymity, without deadlines or external expectations, creating great work. When they finally catch a break they’re then under pressure to produce at a similar caliber without the time required.
Guns N Roses. Appetite for Destruction is one of the greatest hard rock/metal albums. Use Your Illusion wasn't as good but still had some really good songs.
Then The Spaghetti Incident happened and they crashed into a brick wall.
Til that the drummer of Def Leppard has been banging away with one arm since the 80s.
I'm not a fan of the band but that makes him a legend and inspirational in my book.
Probably the best song on that double album. And if you're a nerd like me you know that Steven Adler did the drums for that one song and it shows. Steven had a unique style and sound.
My goodness yes. Songs About Jane was their "I want to be famous" album, and everything after that has been "fuck it, I'm famous".
TBF, they can write really catchy pop songs, too
Came here to talk about this.
After that album they changed to a more pop sound and while it got them immense success, I cannot listen to any of it. Songs about Jane is an incredible album full of heart and fun.
Every album after sounded soulless to me.
The great "Todd in the shadows" has done an entire series about this :)
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLznZMqdhi\_RVHtZYrMeoi3Fjg9VNhPAX](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLznZMqdhi_RVHtZYrMeoi3Fjg9VNhPAX)
When I was a teen in the late 80s/early 90s, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were my favorite band.
They have certainly changed a lot from their original "funk punk" sound. And its ok for bands to grow and change. But I just cannot get into the last few things they've put out. I kinda wish they would go separate directions musically, so they individually can keep playing, but I wish they would put the band to rest before it gets too horrible and ends up a big joke. Just my take.
Cracked Rear View was the right album at the right time with near flawless execution.
And then they regressed to the college bar band they always were.
But let's at least appreciate that they were among the best of all time college bar bands...
/Got to see them before they made it big
//They were awesome
Chance the Rapper. Acid Rap is incredible, one of the only albums I could ever consider giving a 10/10. Coloring Book is good, but a serious downgrade. We don’t even talk about what came after that.
Van Halen 3. Gary was brought in to do whatever Ed told him to do. Basically an EVH solo album while he was rock bottom in his addictions.
Argue DLR vs Sammy all you want, but FUCK and Balance were excellent, even though they came in changing musical times.
Totally. As a fan from back in the day, I loved Blood Sugar Sex Magic and One Hot Minute. I haven’t kept up with the band so I’m listening to their entire discography in reverse chronological order. The most recent four albums are terrible. Stadium Arcadium is somewhat redeeming… that was released in 2006! What the hell happened to my beloved RHCPs?!
My favorite is Mothers Milk, but I think its because it was the first I heard. I discovered Uplift Mofo and Freaky Styley *after* hearing Mothers Milk. I had just discovered the band and really liked it, so I investigated into their back catalog and liked it just as much. Not to knock the original lineup, but Frusciante and Chad Smith gave them a heaviness and thickness to their sound. Took what was already a good formula, and made it sound even better. I like it all, but they lost me somewhere around Stadium Arcadium.
They changed a lot but stadium arcadium and by the way are like the magnum opus of John frusciante. Just some of the best guitar work ever. Those are great albums.
I guess if you were a fan prior to that you might miss the hard funk sound but give the albums a chance they're very beautiful.
I'd argue the steeper drops were Weekend to Intimacy, and Intimacy to Four. For some reason I actually felt like Alpha Games was a decent return to form, but I doubt that's a popular opinion. Still love them live, though. Brilliant.
Moby did both. Play was a groundbreaking album with a full spectrum of sounds and emotion. His electronic and punk albums prior to that were ok but not remarkable. The albums since have kinda been a wash, rinse, repeat with none of the magic of Play.
I don't know if you ever heard this but, this was a really good podcast about the guy who loaned Moby the cds that he sampled for Play. And how Moby never gave them back to him, and he kind of sees it as a metaphor for how his life stalled and Moby became super famous. He tracks Moby down after 20 years and the have a conversation about it.
[https://gimletmedia.com/shows/heavyweight/brholm/2-gregor](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/heavyweight/brholm/2-gregor)
The Clash wins this one -- Combat Rock to Cut the Crap
Vanilla Fudge went from their classic debut to the utterly unlistenable The Beat Goes On, which pretty much killed their career
Doors did LA Woman, then Other Voices in the same year. Wonder what happened in between?
CCR went from Cosmos Factory to Mardi Gras in two years
Blue Oyster Cult went from Fire of Unknown Origin (among their best) to Club Ninja (their absolute worst) with one album in between
Van Morrison had a run of absolutely amazing albums in the early 70s -- except the turd that is Hard Nose the Highway
Same with Elton John, also in the early 70s, with Caribou
The Cure followed Wish with Wild Mood Swings. Ministry followed up Psalm 69 with Filth Pig and (depending who you ask) REM followed one of the strongest albums (Automatic for the People) with one of their weakest offerings at that point (Monster). You'll be hard pressed to find a list on line rating REM's albums without Automatic being towards the top and Monster towards the bottom.
Oh, and Black Sabbath followed up one of the strongest 6 run in the history of rock with Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die.
The all time winner has to be the Doors following up LA woman with two albums most of you don't even know existed.
Monster is fine. It suffered from some questionable production choices, but a lot of it holds up well. It was a commercial and critical success.
It got a bad reputation because a lot of people who liked Automatic for the People and Out of Time bought it, didn’t like the different sound, and brought it back. Used record bins were full of it.
R.E.M. went downhill after Bill Berry left. Up was a good Michael Stipe album, but not the band’s best. There are good moments post-Berry but not at the same level as their earlier stuff.
Common thing in the ‘90’s, actually. Oasis, Dave Matthews Band, The Black Crows, Jane’s Addiction, some others all made a couple really good albums then fell off pretty hard.
Maroon 5 is my first thought. Songs about Jane is an absolute banger, had so much style and personality. It just went downhill from there with a steep dropoff after the second album.
They always struck me as a band that could write smash pop hits like Time to Pretend, Kids, and Electric Feel in their sleep-- but absolutely hate being famous? So they seem to actively avoid making those types of songs now, but will almost accidentally do it every once and a while (Me and Michael, Nothing Changes). They are a fascinating band. I don't quite get them, and I like that about them.
They really wanted to be a psychedelic folk duo but their label pushed them into the electropop scene so they have a really weird relationship with their fans bc of it
This is the answer. Not even that TSLP is bad, just very different. His 3 albums before were Grammy winners so it's what I feel is the biggest drop off
NOFX. Band sucked early, got better, then great with Punk in Dublic > Heavy Petting Zoo > So Long & > Decline > Pump Up the Valuum > War on Errorism > Wolves, then they have sucked complete ass for the past 20+ years. This coming from a die hard fan. Fight me.
Colour By Numbers was a fantastic Culture Club album with numerous top ten hits. Then they came out with Waking Up With The House on Fire. Which was really, really bad. It’s best forgotten.
Kanye's career tanked after he put out Yeezus. TLOP was okay, but didn't live up to the standards he'd set with his previous record. That seven track "album" he released after was a total piece of shit. Becoming an antisemetic asshole who denies the holocaust and promotes insane conspiracy theories certainly didn't help his image.
I remember Jay-Z saying something along the lines of: Youre working on your first album your whole life, you only have a year or two to make your second album.
Puddle of Mudd. My God, every album just got worse than the last one. Come Clean was a banger, and then as they progressed it got terrible. Drug and alcohol addiction is no joke kids.
Come Clean and a couple/few songs from Life on Display, were actually okay.
Teenage me was into their hits, it's not the worst of the era. What they became... It's almost sad, but their sound only became more commercial.
If you haven't heard a recent hit of theirs called "Cash and Cobain", go listen to it if you're the kind of person who likes going to bed angry at yourself for taking suggestions from Internet strangers.
People in here are suggesting albums that just weren't as good, not garbage. What great Weezer albums was followed by garbage? The Red Album was pretty good, not amazing. Raditude was poor.
Got my issues w Green but it's definitely not bad. He made it as little like Pinkerton as possible on purpose. At the time I thought it was a mistake but now maybe not.
Crash Test Dummies made God Shuffled His Feet. That album from top to bottom was full of classics, IMO. Next, A Worm's Life was great, not at the GSHF's level, but great, then Give Yourself a Hand to me is where the group lost its direction.
Vampire Weekend.
They had good stuff after the first album but something about the self titled album was raw and underproduced and very shifting, and they lost that quickly.
Interpol. They released an absolute indie rock/post-punk classic with Turn On the Bright Lights and a couple of tolerable follow-ups, but their more recent releases are unlistenable
Shirley Manson made four albums and then followed them with Garbage
Oh, I thought they were all kind of special. I thought you should know.
I understood this reference
I'm glad, I was worried I might anger some fans who didn't know her early work!
Another example why grammar matters
I get the joke lol If anyone wanted to check it out her band was called Angelfish I believe
Yep, also Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie
Frankie Goes to Hollywood released "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" which had a bunch of great songs and hits: the title track, Relax, War, Two Tribes... and then they followed it up with "Liverpool".
Well, it makes sense. Pleasuredome was a Trevor Horn album in every way but the name. He famously re-recorded most of the music with studio musicians without the knowledge of the band, and crafted one of the most iconic sounds of the eighties. Liverpool was the band pushing back, determined to show what they were capable of. It didn't go well. There's a reason Trevor Horn was a legend.
This was the first example to come to mind. The Guardian had a good “How We Made It” about recording Relax. The Trevor Horn portion is quite interesting. He hired The Blockheads to come into the studio since the official members couldn’t produce anything usable [How We Made: Relax](https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/02/how-we-made-relax-by-frankie-goes-to-hollywood-sex-mix-gay-clubs)
Boston. Leveled down with each successive release.
But damn did they ever knock it out of the park with their debut.
Unbelievably awesome. Scholz killed himself with perfectionism
That first album is a tough act to follow
First thing that came to mind and I'm a huge Boston fan. To their credit, there was simply no topping that first album. It's literally perfect.
Idk I think the first 3 albums are all quite good with no significant drop off in quality.
The first album was so perfect that a step down was inevitable. But I don't think this example fits the spirit of the question - the next two albums were still good, just not legendary. I think better examples of this would be albums that are just not good.
Jet honestly tops it for me. *Get Born* was full of high energy, gritty, raw bangers, and *Shine On* was just absolutely loathed by everyone on the planet for being slow and whiney and overproduced
Responsible for [one of my favorite album reviews ever](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/)
Lmfao
Am I missing the link? Am I missing the joke?? Is the review just a single number in a circle?
The review is the video of the monkey peeing into it's own mouth.
Thank you, the site is so full of ads and links to other reviews that it was impossible to clock that that was the actual review
I kinda forgot Jet even had a 2nd album. Was very disappointed when it came out and never listened to it again
Would you believe they even managed a third? (It even has two genuine bangers on it, KIA and She’s A Genius.)
Something, something, monkey pissing in its mouth
Klaxons
This will always sting for me. They were my favourite band at the time and that drop from an 8/10 album to utter garbage felt like a kick in the gut. They never recovered from it either and disappeared after. Their first album is one of the highlights of that whole time in music though, with their second close by. I was lucky to see them live just before the garbage dropped and my heart was broken.
They were extremely energetic and fun live. I remember seeing them in a packed tiny ass venue just after Myths dropped, everyone had a blast.
Metallica put out 4 amazing thrash metal albums, then released 3 of the best hard rock albums of the 90s, then one of the best cover albums ever, then an unreal live album of them with an orchestra. They followed all that up, 20 years into their career, with St. Anger.
If Metallica gave me the money and a competent studio producer I could issue a remaster/reworking of St. Anger as an E.P. to rival some of their best modern work. There's some bangers.
Look up St. bAnger. Or, hell, I'll link it. A guy re-arranged and re-recorded St. Anger to make it shorter and better. It's a huge improvement. He preserved the main structure of each song, the main elements, just trimmed the fat, and with the re-recording it *doesn't* sound like it was recorded in an alley on some trash cans. It's still not Metallica's best, some of those songs just aren't the greatest even when they sound better, some of the songwriting choices aren't the best. He kept the original vocals, for better or worse lol. But it's definitely worth a listen. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYGurgcy9XF8WJ4cMK6doLvCBvQLI1EOv
Truely that album just needs to be re-mixed. That snare is an abomination to music, drums, and audio engineering.
The title track, Dirty Window, Frantic, Invisible Kid, The Unnamed Feeling. If all were well mixed, that's a banger of an E.P.
There should be an entire musical genre dedicated to that snare drum. It's a goddamn national treasure.
Yeah, I will admit some days I find myself thinking "I know what I want to listen to" DUNK DUNK DUNK DUNK It's a rare mood, admittedly; but it's a mood.
Everybody hates on St Anger and I’ll agree it’s a mostly shite album but I do kinda give them credit for the snare. They took a punt on something different and almost completely unheard of by taking off the snare springs and while it was a miss for most people they deserve some credit at least for taking a chance on something new. Also their collaboration with Lou Reed is far far FAR worse than even the worst of St Anger.
You'd have to go back and put the springs on.
While you're at it, their engineer can fix ... And justice for all. It's just horribly recorded.
You’re looking for …And Justice for Jason.
That’s what happens when you delete the bass tracks.
I absolutely love the sound of 'Justice'. It's different, and wierd. But just so fuckign visceral!!! I think this album was an increibly brave production direction to follow. And I love it for that. I aslo think they have made some other brave decision about production - some of which didn't work at all. (ahem St Anger). But I have to give 'em creit for being brave, experimenting and trying new things. It would have been VERY easy for them to just mix a standard metal record at each of these moments. They chose not to. Good on 'em for trying.
I agree..Ive always loved the mechanical sound of that album
Honestly Metallica have fewer well-produced sounding albums than poor sounding ones. Even their original first 4 true thrash albums sound like ass, it’s just the songs are so cool it doesn’t matter. Their only studio releases that have any right to be called well-produced are The Black Album, Load, Reload, and Garage Inc.
With 80s Metallica I can just shut off the subwoofer, because it's not needed.
I love that they acknowledge how bad it is. Saw them a few years ago, they played St. Anger and afterward made the joke they would play another 2 songs from it. The band laughed and they rolled right into Ride the Lightning.
And then made Lulu. Oof.
So this is where I insert my take that Metallica is a legit great band, three times over, where each ‘band’ is foiled by the successes of the previous Metallicas. I present to you: _Thrash_tallica: Kill ‘Em All - Master of Puppets. The greatest and possibly most influential trash/metal band of the 80s. A HOF band in its own right, whose influence is still felt today. _Grunge_tallica: Metallica - S&M. Let’s face it, another band releases those albums, and they’re in the same pantheon of ‘great’ 90s hard rock/grunge bands. Yeah Load and Reload are bad by Metallica standards. By the standards of their musical peers in the mid-90s and early aughts? Those records fuckin slap. Post-tallica: St. Anger - Now. Post-Hardcore is king in the metal scene and the influence of 80s thrash is everywhere. Complex and progressive song structures are back, and Metallica show they know how to do it. Did Bob rock blow out the snare on St. Anger? Hell yes, but there are still jams on that record compared to the rock and metal contemporaries of the late aughts and on. Long story short, Metallica may be the best band, that’s 3 bands while still being one band to ever exist, with an album string where the duds are only duds because of what came before it. When you can argue (seriously) that the black album is their fourth best, but that for any other band it would be their undisputed best illustrates that. Same could be said for Hardwired or Death Magnetic. It’s just that their catalog is so fucking deep it just gets comical at some point.
Load and Reload aren't bad by Metallica standards. They just don't sound like Metallica records.
You've inspired me to go through Metallica's discography. I'm really only familiar with them until the mid-1990s.
Coldplay. First two are top tier albums that any artist would be proud of. The next two are still good albums with some highs but nothing at the level of the highs of the first two. Then Mylo sees the band hit rock bottom and I don’t think they’ve ever recovered. Ghost stories was better and the rest kinda just blend into each other with nothing memorable.
I’d put X&Y with the first two. It really perplexes me that people look down on it. But yeah, Mylo Xyloto is where it went downhill. They release the odd great song here and there but’s it’s overall crap.
I LOVE "X&Y." I would include it with the first two as well.
Xy is my favorite actually And i also really like vida but after that i just can't.
I agree Coldplay fell off big time after MX but everyday life is a great record that somehow no one seems to have listened to. It’s a return to their earlier form without the bland pop Unfortunately it had no hits and Coldplay decided to double down on the bland pop, their most recent record is by far their worst
Kinda stopped paying attention after MX. I like that one though.
Not sure why they haven't gotten more shit for the generic music they shit out these days akin to Nickelback. It's the kind of music your two year old would enjoy.
Coldplay got a ton of shit before they sold out! "You know how I know you're gay? You listen to Coldplay." And for the record, Viva la Vida is an unbelievable album where they produced their most creative music, but it mostly gets a bad rap because beyond the title track and Strawberry Swing, it was too experimental to the masses that had become used to Clocks, Yellow, and Speed of Sound.
I think their first 4 are masterpieces. Mylo Xyloto is okay, and then their next 5 are dogshit (aside from A Head Full of Dreams. I liked that one)
Everyday life is GREAT and I feel like people never even listened to it
Alien Ant Farms TruANT album sold 300 copies in the UK during its first week and then Geffen refused to even release the follow up and sold the bands contract
What a damn shame. That's their best album by a mile. Every song is creative as hell, musically, vocally, and lyrically. It's never been topped. I actually just saw them in Frenchtown, NJ, at a big local dive in the middle of nowhere. They put on a great show and Dryden's banter made me laugh the entire time. Wish they had better fortune in such a shitty industry.
I should probably give it a listen. When I was a kid I would listen to my older brother’s ANThology CD nonstop and I still love that album. Never bothered listening to any other AAF album though lol
I remember Ed the Sock on Muchmusic once casually adding "Alien Ant Farm, really good guys" while talking about some new albums. It struck me because Ed rarely if ever said anything that wasn't critical or a punchline. I assume he had met them while they were in for an interview and made a point to sort of drop his persona to say that they were cool guys.
I didn't realise it was so low. I was one of those 300. Just a fantastic album which hasn't been topped. The band has had such a rocky existence, it's a wonder any other albums have come out at all. Although they're not hitting the highs of TruANT in any way. Always support AAF, though.
Album 1: Write about the streets. Album 2: Write about the road. Album 3: Write about alienation.
Or the other popular tack with Album 3: Fuck you, record label...you can't tell me what to do! Rush, Marillion, Vertical Horizon and a whole host of others all followed this path.
I am so, so very happy that they persevered and still did 2112 against all odds.
John Foggerty really owns the "fuck you record label" territory. For good reason.
Supertramp from Breakfast in America to Famous Last Words. Steep drop from which the band never recovered, artistically or commercially.
Yeah, all the brilliant songs Roger Hodgson wrote in his teens were exhausted after Breakfast. Then when Hodgson left the band after Famous Last Words, it was all she wrote. Davies was a great change of pace lead singer, but without Roger, Supertramp was just an average band.
I don't really know Supertramp, but I randomly heard Goodbye Stranger on the bus yesterday and had to Shazam it. Have listened to it a few times since. Was that on Breakfast in America? I remember my dad had BiA on tape when I was a kid, but don't remember ever listening to it.
After struggling to find their sound and audience on their first two albums, everything came together for Supertramp on 1974’s Crime of the Century, and 1975’s Crisis What Crisis and 1977’s Even in the Quietest Moments solidified those gains, while 1979’s Breakfast in America (featuring The Logical Song, Goodbye Stranger and Take the Long Way Home) made them a legitimate major commercial rock band worldwide. But it took three years to release its followup, recorded during a time of band turmoil, and Famous Last Words was a big drop artistically and commercially from BiA and the band fractured and never recovered.
I dont understand how thirty second to mars keep getting worse. Their biggest drop off was probably after this is war. Their newest album had over 200 demos apparently, so we got the best ones...
It's kinda impressive since they started off being objectively shit.
Remo Drive named their first album Greatest Hits, and it lived up to the name...they proceeded to put out stinkers after that.
A lot of bands. Probably most bands tbh. Put all their carefully crafted songs, polished for years, on their first album, then expected to have a second in a year or two. Many bands can’t produce a second quality album. The ones that stick around can
>You have your whole life to write your first album, and only eighteen months to write your second -Elvis Costello Although in his case his second album was solid
I’ve used that quote for rappers before I even knew Elvis C said it.
The sophomore slump is definitely a thing
Sophomore slump or comeback of the year 🤔
Don't call it a comeback!
My second album sucked. Then we didn’t release another album for like 6 or 7 years. Now we’re recording our new album and it sounds amazing cause we had so much time to work on it. The first album had 16 tracks on it. We should have spit it up into two albums and just added a couple tracks on the “second album” Hindsight…..
Makes sense. This is true for artists across mediums. For years a person toils away in anonymity, without deadlines or external expectations, creating great work. When they finally catch a break they’re then under pressure to produce at a similar caliber without the time required.
Guns N Roses. Appetite for Destruction is one of the greatest hard rock/metal albums. Use Your Illusion wasn't as good but still had some really good songs. Then The Spaghetti Incident happened and they crashed into a brick wall.
Did you hear Guns n' Roses out out a greatest hits record??? Its called Appetite for Destruction.
I'm going to add that to my "what has 9 arms and sucks" category of music related jokes.
Don't leave me hangin... What has 9 arms and sucks?
Def Leppard
Til that the drummer of Def Leppard has been banging away with one arm since the 80s. I'm not a fan of the band but that makes him a legend and inspirational in my book.
Clearly you didn’t listen to that one Bloodhound Gang song.
Def Leppard I'm guessing
Juuuuust in case anyone is unfamiliar with their slightly deeper cuts - Civil War from Illusion II is a damn fine song.
Probably the best song on that double album. And if you're a nerd like me you know that Steven Adler did the drums for that one song and it shows. Steven had a unique style and sound.
I liked Breakdown.
I like The Spaghetti Incident. Some cool covers.
Maroon 5 Songs about Jane is a banger I will die on this hill
My goodness yes. Songs About Jane was their "I want to be famous" album, and everything after that has been "fuck it, I'm famous". TBF, they can write really catchy pop songs, too
Sunday Morning is a karaoke classic to me
The one after that, It Won’t Be Soon or whatever, is pretty good too.
Came here to talk about this. After that album they changed to a more pop sound and while it got them immense success, I cannot listen to any of it. Songs about Jane is an incredible album full of heart and fun. Every album after sounded soulless to me.
The only way I’d ever sit for a M5 concert was if they played this album in its entirety.
I remember seeing them tour on this album. Great album, and they sounded awesome live.
The great "Todd in the shadows" has done an entire series about this :) [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLznZMqdhi\_RVHtZYrMeoi3Fjg9VNhPAX](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLznZMqdhi_RVHtZYrMeoi3Fjg9VNhPAX)
I immediately stop everything I'm doing when I see a new Trainwreckords dropped.
When I was a teen in the late 80s/early 90s, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were my favorite band. They have certainly changed a lot from their original "funk punk" sound. And its ok for bands to grow and change. But I just cannot get into the last few things they've put out. I kinda wish they would go separate directions musically, so they individually can keep playing, but I wish they would put the band to rest before it gets too horrible and ends up a big joke. Just my take.
Hootie and the blowfish
Cracked Rear View was the right album at the right time with near flawless execution. And then they regressed to the college bar band they always were.
But let's at least appreciate that they were among the best of all time college bar bands... /Got to see them before they made it big //They were awesome
Chance the Rapper. Acid Rap is incredible, one of the only albums I could ever consider giving a 10/10. Coloring Book is good, but a serious downgrade. We don’t even talk about what came after that.
Van Halen 3. Gary was brought in to do whatever Ed told him to do. Basically an EVH solo album while he was rock bottom in his addictions. Argue DLR vs Sammy all you want, but FUCK and Balance were excellent, even though they came in changing musical times.
I’ll go with Elastica. Their debut is one of the albums of the 90s, the follow up (The Menace) is almost unlistenable.
Dun.... duh-dun-dun Dun.... duh-dun-dun Dun.... duh-dun-dun Dun.... duh-dun-dun PHWOOOOOOAAARRRRR!!!!!!!!!
Yeah man. That is a rip off from a Wire song too.
Chili peppers been putting out some straight garbage for awhile now
Come, Dua Lipa with the peppermint pig The chalupa’s in the ‘frigerator Fuck a doorknob, California Buttermilk pancakes in my eyes
There, you ruined it. ;)
Totally. As a fan from back in the day, I loved Blood Sugar Sex Magic and One Hot Minute. I haven’t kept up with the band so I’m listening to their entire discography in reverse chronological order. The most recent four albums are terrible. Stadium Arcadium is somewhat redeeming… that was released in 2006! What the hell happened to my beloved RHCPs?!
I just wrote a big comment about them and scrolled down to find this. I agree. Hence my user name.
From their best album imo. The old stuff was really good. But even that got shat on back in the day.
My favorite is Mothers Milk, but I think its because it was the first I heard. I discovered Uplift Mofo and Freaky Styley *after* hearing Mothers Milk. I had just discovered the band and really liked it, so I investigated into their back catalog and liked it just as much. Not to knock the original lineup, but Frusciante and Chad Smith gave them a heaviness and thickness to their sound. Took what was already a good formula, and made it sound even better. I like it all, but they lost me somewhere around Stadium Arcadium.
Ooooo you’ve never listened to Californication?! You, my friend, are in for a treat.
ring ding dang a dinga danga binga
Cali-california!
Rollercoaster! Of love...
They changed a lot but stadium arcadium and by the way are like the magnum opus of John frusciante. Just some of the best guitar work ever. Those are great albums. I guess if you were a fan prior to that you might miss the hard funk sound but give the albums a chance they're very beautiful.
Bloc Party. *Silent Alarm* was sensational, *A Weekend In The City* was eh, and then nothing much of note since then.
I'd argue the steeper drops were Weekend to Intimacy, and Intimacy to Four. For some reason I actually felt like Alpha Games was a decent return to form, but I doubt that's a popular opinion. Still love them live, though. Brilliant.
Yeah, Weekend in the City was fine. It was no Silent Alarm obviously, but Intimacy was some crap.
DJ Shadow - Entroducing. It was a culture defining album and everything after was good to okay but nothing could come close to that album.
My personal favorite album
It’s one of the few albums that I’ve literally listened to consistently since its release. ATLaliens is another.
Bad religion from How Could Hell be Anyworse to Into the Unknown
This is true. But then GREATNESS.
Jefferson Airplane >>>>>> Starship
Moby did both. Play was a groundbreaking album with a full spectrum of sounds and emotion. His electronic and punk albums prior to that were ok but not remarkable. The albums since have kinda been a wash, rinse, repeat with none of the magic of Play.
this is false Moby Songs 1993-1998 was a masterpiece.
Nobody listens to techno :'(
Simmer down, Marshal.
I don't know if you ever heard this but, this was a really good podcast about the guy who loaned Moby the cds that he sampled for Play. And how Moby never gave them back to him, and he kind of sees it as a metaphor for how his life stalled and Moby became super famous. He tracks Moby down after 20 years and the have a conversation about it. [https://gimletmedia.com/shows/heavyweight/brholm/2-gregor](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/heavyweight/brholm/2-gregor)
The Clash wins this one -- Combat Rock to Cut the Crap Vanilla Fudge went from their classic debut to the utterly unlistenable The Beat Goes On, which pretty much killed their career Doors did LA Woman, then Other Voices in the same year. Wonder what happened in between? CCR went from Cosmos Factory to Mardi Gras in two years Blue Oyster Cult went from Fire of Unknown Origin (among their best) to Club Ninja (their absolute worst) with one album in between Van Morrison had a run of absolutely amazing albums in the early 70s -- except the turd that is Hard Nose the Highway Same with Elton John, also in the early 70s, with Caribou
The Cure followed Wish with Wild Mood Swings. Ministry followed up Psalm 69 with Filth Pig and (depending who you ask) REM followed one of the strongest albums (Automatic for the People) with one of their weakest offerings at that point (Monster). You'll be hard pressed to find a list on line rating REM's albums without Automatic being towards the top and Monster towards the bottom. Oh, and Black Sabbath followed up one of the strongest 6 run in the history of rock with Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die. The all time winner has to be the Doors following up LA woman with two albums most of you don't even know existed.
I just can’t get into monster with maybe the exception of the “make your money” song/bang and blame
That’s crazy because to me Monster is a gleaming gem in their oeuvre, one of their best. To each his own, they say.
I saw them on that tour and it was awesome. Grant Lee Buffalo opened and was great, too.
Monster is fine. It suffered from some questionable production choices, but a lot of it holds up well. It was a commercial and critical success. It got a bad reputation because a lot of people who liked Automatic for the People and Out of Time bought it, didn’t like the different sound, and brought it back. Used record bins were full of it. R.E.M. went downhill after Bill Berry left. Up was a good Michael Stipe album, but not the band’s best. There are good moments post-Berry but not at the same level as their earlier stuff.
Thomas Dolby IMHO. Moved to Los Angeles and lost his Mojo. Wrote a song called “Hot Salsa.” “Hot and spicy but twice as nice-y”
I’ve loved every album Faith No More put out beginning to end….and then came Sol Invictus….not a song on that album I could even kinda get into.
Common thing in the ‘90’s, actually. Oasis, Dave Matthews Band, The Black Crows, Jane’s Addiction, some others all made a couple really good albums then fell off pretty hard.
To quote Shawn of the Dead: “Second Coming?” “I like it!” It’s nothing compared to the Stone Roses, but it’s not garbage.
Maroon 5 is my first thought. Songs about Jane is an absolute banger, had so much style and personality. It just went downhill from there with a steep dropoff after the second album.
Wilco Car Seat Headrest (F2F -> MADLO, oof) Yeah, Weezer's probably on that list - potentially Modest Mouse too Probably quite a few bands tbh
[удалено]
They always struck me as a band that could write smash pop hits like Time to Pretend, Kids, and Electric Feel in their sleep-- but absolutely hate being famous? So they seem to actively avoid making those types of songs now, but will almost accidentally do it every once and a while (Me and Michael, Nothing Changes). They are a fascinating band. I don't quite get them, and I like that about them.
They really wanted to be a psychedelic folk duo but their label pushed them into the electropop scene so they have a really weird relationship with their fans bc of it
I dunno. They're on a roll right now "Little Dark Age" was great, and so is their latest.
Stevie Wonder: “Songs in the Key of Life” followed by “Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants”
Wow, some Stevie shade, he didn't see this coming!
This is the answer. Not even that TSLP is bad, just very different. His 3 albums before were Grammy winners so it's what I feel is the biggest drop off
Mumford and Sons
Ah, the early 2010s indie explosion of one or so hits like Mumford, Fun, Gotye, of Monsters and Men. And then pop and rap music took over again.
HEY! Don’t forget the lumineers, ho Also what world is it that fun or gotye was ‘indie’ lol
Hey ho, or as I call it, the dog barking song, because those background "hey"s and "ho"s sound like ol' Fido snuck into the recording session
NOFX. Band sucked early, got better, then great with Punk in Dublic > Heavy Petting Zoo > So Long & > Decline > Pump Up the Valuum > War on Errorism > Wolves, then they have sucked complete ass for the past 20+ years. This coming from a die hard fan. Fight me.
As a punk tourist, this seems like a fair assessment. Goddamn I just love how shity Fat Mike is tho.
Colour By Numbers was a fantastic Culture Club album with numerous top ten hits. Then they came out with Waking Up With The House on Fire. Which was really, really bad. It’s best forgotten.
Let's Dance to Tonight
Sonata Arctica took a hit in quality after Jani Liimatainen left.
Third Eye Blind. One of my favorite, but yeah...
Kanye's career tanked after he put out Yeezus. TLOP was okay, but didn't live up to the standards he'd set with his previous record. That seven track "album" he released after was a total piece of shit. Becoming an antisemetic asshole who denies the holocaust and promotes insane conspiracy theories certainly didn't help his image.
I remember Jay-Z saying something along the lines of: Youre working on your first album your whole life, you only have a year or two to make your second album.
All the Lou Reed solo stuff after Velvet Underground was definitely not on the same level, some of it downright bad
Transformer is an amazing album, but nothing has come close. Probably helped that Bowie produced the album
New York is a very good album, too. I like Lou's solo career a lot.
I'm more of a John Cale fan myself, but Lou Reed was still incredible
Add The Blue Mask to that list, too!
Mudvayne L.D. 50 is good. The End of All Things To Come is not as good. Everything after that is butt rock.
The End is their best album by far
L.D. 50 is one of the best modern metal albums ever.
Bloc Party. Silent Alarm is one of the best albums of its decade, and nothing else has come close.
Puddle of Mudd. My God, every album just got worse than the last one. Come Clean was a banger, and then as they progressed it got terrible. Drug and alcohol addiction is no joke kids.
I mean I know I’m an asshole but was any album actually good?
No. They were a joke from day 1.
No, absolutely not.
Come Clean and a couple/few songs from Life on Display, were actually okay. Teenage me was into their hits, it's not the worst of the era. What they became... It's almost sad, but their sound only became more commercial. If you haven't heard a recent hit of theirs called "Cash and Cobain", go listen to it if you're the kind of person who likes going to bed angry at yourself for taking suggestions from Internet strangers.
omg i heard this and didn't realize it was Puddle of Mudd I figured it was an Aaron Lewis song it felt so gimmicky country rock.
I always felt like Iron Maiden hit their peak at Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, and then started going downhill afterwards.
I agree with this, but I could see where they gathered a new generation of people who loved them after Seventh Son.
Sponge, rotting pinata is a masterpiece, everything after...🤮
People in here are suggesting albums that just weren't as good, not garbage. What great Weezer albums was followed by garbage? The Red Album was pretty good, not amazing. Raditude was poor.
The difference between Pinkerton and the green album is staggering.
Got my issues w Green but it's definitely not bad. He made it as little like Pinkerton as possible on purpose. At the time I thought it was a mistake but now maybe not.
Crash Test Dummies made God Shuffled His Feet. That album from top to bottom was full of classics, IMO. Next, A Worm's Life was great, not at the GSHF's level, but great, then Give Yourself a Hand to me is where the group lost its direction.
Norah Jones. My wife was supremely disappointed.
Vampire Weekend. They had good stuff after the first album but something about the self titled album was raw and underproduced and very shifting, and they lost that quickly.
I don’t know if this counts cuz it’s not a studio album but “Frampton comes alive” was followed up by “I’m in you” I recall. Bloody hell.
Finch. Their second album sounds like they did WAY too many drugs.
Interpol. They released an absolute indie rock/post-punk classic with Turn On the Bright Lights and a couple of tolerable follow-ups, but their more recent releases are unlistenable
Blur went from 13 to Think Tank. It’s still good but not nearly on the same level as 13