Which bands have gone backwards since their inception

close2u

Gomez ... as a debut album, Bring It On was a killer. A truly monumental release.
I haven't really kept up with their subsequent releases, but I haven't heard anything to match it.

If I can bend around Pablo Honey and think of The Bends as their first significant release, I would say Radiohead ... The Bends is superb ... everything I have heard since is self-indulgent and inferior.

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

I'll probably get laughed at for today's one, but here goes...

Spandau Ballet

Journeys To Glory is really good, and Diamond isn't bad. It just all went wrong after that...

I've never heard any of their full albums, to be honest, but I remember when they first came out with those collarless Russian shirts, shawls, culottes and tea towels round their necks and I thought What The Fuck.... then I saw them do "To Cut a Long Story Short" on TOTP and it was excellent.  Still is.

I'm sure the transition can't have been as rapid as it seemed, but in my mind it was that one great single then overnight they'd transformed into this dull blue eyed soul band with big baggy suits.

DulcetJones

Genesis started with a couple of so-so albums, then released 5 or 6 masterpieces, and then degenerated into a simplified pop act. 

breakstuff

Agree with everything @Philly_Q says,To Cut a Long Story Short was part of the soundtrack of my childhood,a great song though I must say,and i know it's all kinds of wrong and I'm a bit ashamed of myself but I really like Through the Barricade.

There,I've said it and to uphold the credibility of the forum I shall now log off,never to return.

close2u

I'm just working at my PC and due to @ICBM and @Philly_Q put best of Spandau Ballet on youtube in the background ... so - so mostly .. of those mostly awful new romantics in the early 80s they had a decent pop sensibility .. but I won't be listening again in a hurry. Through The Barricades is a good pop song.


@DulcetJones
I'm sure there's a pop trivia factoid that Genesis are unique in that each subsequent album through their career out-sold the previous ones.

ICBM

I prefer the mid-period post-Gabriel Genesis - Trick Of The Tail through to Duke, quite like Abacab, and I actually like a lot of the 'shapes' album although it's becoming a quite different thing. Not keen on Invisible Touch and I don't like We Can't Dance. My favourite of all is either Wind & Wuthering or And Then There Were Three depending on mood…

I also think Gabriel improved post-Genesis as well, interestingly!

EricTheWeary

Those Beatles haven't released anything for ages.

DulcetJones

close2u said:

@DulcetJones
I'm sure there's a pop trivia factoid that Genesis are unique in that each subsequent album through their career out-sold the previous ones.
 

That is true and it puzzles me to this day.  I do like some of the latter album music but the big turning point for me was after Steve Hackett left.  In my opinion the songwriting took on a simpler approach.  While I love what they did with Peter Gabriel, I also consider "Trick of the Tail" and "Wind and Wuthering" to be among their best works and, like ICBM said, Peter Gabriel went on to release some high quality music on his own.

RocknRollDave

close2u said:

I'm just working at my PC and due to @ICBM and @Philly_Q put best of Spandau Ballet on youtube in the background ... so - so mostly .. of those mostly awful new romantics in the early 80s they had a decent pop sensibility .. but I won't be listening again in a hurry. Through The Barricades is a good pop song.


@DulcetJones
I'm sure there's a pop trivia factoid that Genesis are unique in that each subsequent album through their career out-sold the previous ones.

if that was true, I'd wager Calling All Stations scuppered that pattern

dogload

The Kaiser Chiefs. 

First album: very good. Everything else: meh!

BloodEagle

Rolling Stones
Metallica
Public Enemy

loads of bands -

I think in general most bands produce their best stuff in the 1st few albums/near the beginning when they are excited about it and want to show how good they are

Chuffola

I liked the second Kaiser Chiefs album a lot. Third one had some good songs on it but was very patchy. Fourth was awful and haven't heard the new one, but hated the single.

Genesis are one of my favourite bands but I agree their best albums are probably Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering, immediately post Gabriel but still with Steve Hackett. Beyond that, they deteriorate pretty rapidly post Duke.

However, my favourite is Lamb - THE prog album for me. 

Calling All Stations is so bad, I refuse to acknowledge its existence!

Karlos

BloodEagle said:

Public Enemy

No way !!!???!!!

'Yo Bum Rush The Show' was a great album no more so than 'It takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back' and 'Fear of A Black Planet.

I'd say PE are a great example of a band not having 2nd or the classic 'difficult 3rd album' problems. Patchy after the first 3 granted but rare for a band to smash it 3 times in a row.

Stevepage

Metallica
Megadeth
Motorhead
Joe satriani

Off the top of my head.

stickyfiddle

BloodEagle said:

Rolling Stones
Metallica
Public Enemy

loads of bands -

I think in general most bands produce their best stuff in the 1st few albums/near the beginning when they are excited about it and want to show how good they are

I reckon it's much easier to write good songs when you're poor and grumpy and have no money to do anything else

Philly_Q

We've drifted quite a long way from the initial concept of "1st album WOW...then drivel thereafter", but it's true that many of the above-mentioned bands are well on the slide.

Has anyone mentioned Whitesnake?  They were never absolutely amazing, but after years of ignoring Old Cov's projects I was tricked by suspiciously good reviews into buying the last couple of albums.  In fact I only bought Forevermore because I couldn't imagine it being any worse than Good To Be Bad.  They sound absolutely horrible.  Coverdale's voice is completely and utterly fucked - and that's on a studio album, God knows what he's like live.

RocknRollDave

stickyfiddle said:

BloodEagle said:

Rolling Stones
Metallica
Public Enemy

loads of bands -

I think in general most bands produce their best stuff in the 1st few albums/near the beginning when they are excited about it and want to show how good they are

I reckon it's much easier to write good songs when you're poor and grumpy and have no money to do anything else

Gawdelpus if i ever get rich then, if my songwriting is gonna get WORSE

xSkarloey

Television: Marquee Moon is a classic and a great first album, but everything else they did has been- ahem- eclipsed by it. 

Not a fan, but whatever happened to Franz Ferdinand? They were all over the place like a rash a few years ago, but seem to have gone down the bog since. I hear they're playing a 'Vote Yes' Scottish independence gig tonight, which would probably have me waving a Union Flag were I a Scotsman. 

ICBM

RocknRollDave said:

close2u said:

I'm sure there's a pop trivia factoid that Genesis are unique in that each subsequent album through their career out-sold the previous ones.

if that was true, I'd wager Calling All Stations scuppered that pattern

At first I didn't know what you meant, and then I realised that "Calling All Stations" must be the name of the album they made with whatshisname from Stiltskin.

Iamnobody

BloodEagle;352020" said:

I think in general most bands produce their best stuff in the 1st few albums/near the beginning when they are excited about it and want to show how good they are

I'd expand on that and say prior to their first release some (not all) bands have been playing and writing for a long time.

The first LP might made up of songs and ideas that they have been working on for years. And the output is probably the best out of tens of songs.

Then comes the touring and PR circus and before you know it the label wants another album. Some of the old stuff didn't make it into the first record, so there is pressure to write a whole new batch of songs between tours etc.

It suddenly becomes a job. Rather than a hobby.

The best songwriters probably thrive in that situation and can keep shitting out the hits for years - others may have played their hand early and got nothing to back it up with.

Also if a band or singer is a bit different - we sit up and listen to the first output. The subsequent stuff might have the same USP but it isn't different or unique by then so it doesn't have the same appeal.

That's a simplistic view on it but I'd bet is the model for a lot of bands.

Of course things also change as well when we get older...