Bands who's biggest/most commercial albums were way shitter than their previous stuff.

[Papa G]

No, sorry, Diesel and Dust is an excellent album. It's not my absolute favourite of theirs, but there are only two songs on the album that you can describe as missteps. They certainly sanded the harder edges off from 10, 9, 8 (which most would regard as their best album), but that didn't make them ordinary.

Also wasn't the beginning of the end for them worldwide - that decision was made when their US record company made a last minute decision not to promote Truganini, thus killing their momentum for Earth and Sun and Moon.

Disagree. Place without a Postcard and Head Injuries were excellent raw Aussie pub rock, I was a big fan of Red Sails and was good follow up to 10-1 which as you said most Oils fans would agree was their high point, Deisel and Dust was the beginning of the end for me.

 

[The Speaker]

Disagree. Place without a Postcard and Head Injuries were excellent raw Aussie pub rock, I was a big fan of Red Sails and was good follow up to 10-1 which as you said most Oils fans would agree was their high point, Deisel and Dust was the beginning of the end for me.

Red Sails is my personal favourite. But there are many who would say Diesel and Dust is actually more 'Oils' than Red Sails, which was fairly experimental and was more produced than anything else they made.

 

[MisterMarcus]

Powderfinger.

Double Allergic and Internationalist >> Odyssey No.5 and Vulture St IMO

Yeah I came here to post Odyssey No 5.....seemed to me like a deliberately calculated Powederfinger-lite grab for US glory.

Vulture Street was good though.

 

[Dory_77]

err, no. It was a commercial success, but previous albums were much better musically.


Here's another for the list for me.

Crack the Skye is brilliant; how dare ye!
Actually I can see how it'd fit in here. Pretty big shift in sound from their earlier stuff, but I love all the fiddly, noodly guitar bits and meandering song structures. It's my favourite Mastodon album by a fair way.

 

[Upgrayedd]

err, no. It was a commercial success, but previous albums were much better musically.


Here's another for the list for me.

Crack the Skye was alright.


****ing Blood mountain is still the shit.

 

[Plugger35]

Yeah I came here to post Odyssey No 5.....seemed to me like a deliberately calculated Powederfinger-lite grab for US glory.

Vulture Street was good though.

Odyssey No.5 was far and away Powderfinger's best album, it featured in the SBS Classic Australian album series for a reason.

I liked Double Allergic and The Internationalist but they were inconsistent with some standout tracks but also had some ordinary filler tracks.

Odyssey No.5 was consistently good the whole the way through with no filler tracks, great album.



It's not cool to like it though just like it's not cool to like Californication even though it's RHCP's best album.

 

[off kilter]

That is a great album, probably their most complete. Nothing wrong with By The Way either.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA, AHHHHhhhhhhhh, sooo good.

Blood Sugar brother

 

[off kilter]

King For a Day.

Because in the true sense of recycling....

 

[The Casey Cat]

I'd also argue Soundgarden. Badmotorfinger is infinitely better than Superunknown.

Infinitely? I'm not sure it's better at all. Both pretty great. Sugar Ray own this topic.

 

[the_interloper]

Metallica with the Black Album. I wouldn't say it was way shitter but their clear peak was Ride the Lightning/ Master of Puppets and AJFA.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Infinitely? I'm not sure it's better at all. Both pretty great. Sugar Ray own this topic.

I was going to post Sugar Ray!


Only because it would give me the opportunity to post the cover of lemonade and brownies.

 

[Papa G]

King For a Day.

Because in the true sense of recycling....

Brilliant Album.

 

[Twoslabs]

A few off the top of my head .....

The Damned - Phantasmagoria

The Clash - Combat Rock

Killing Joke - Nightime

 

[Pweter]

Iron Maiden - Powerslave. By no means do I see them as a shit band from this point on, they've produced some masterful songs and some good albums since, but their best work was pre 1985 with no album seeming as complete as their first 5 were.

Pantera - Strength Beyond Strength. This was the last of the true Pantera sound for me. Their final 2 albums didn't cut the mustard.

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream. If MC&IS were 1 album without the crap it would've been their last quality release, but it was 2 albums and had too much crap. Subsequent releases did nothing for me.

Stone Temple Pilots - Purple. After this it all went south.

 

[sigur]

Hunters and Collectors. Early stuff was inventive and often brilliant. And suddenly they turned into just another by the numbers guitar band.

 

[The Speaker]

Hunters and Collectors. Early stuff was inventive and often brilliant. And suddenly they turned into just another by the numbers guitar band.

Which album?

 

[sigur]

Which album?

Cut. The one with Holy Grail, head above water and true tears of joy.

 

[The Speaker]

Cut. The one with Holy Grail, head above water and true tears of joy.

I reckon they were already moving that direction on Ghost Nation.

 

[Cruyff14]

Springsteen.......Born in the USA

It's by no means all that shitty, it's just nowhere near as good as 6 masterpieces that came before it.

I'm a massive Bruce fan, but I just don't listen to BITUSA at all anymore. The majority of the live versions of the songs from the album are far superior to the studio versions.

Came here to say this.

BITUSA got the commercial succcess Bruce deserved.

But BTR, Darkness, Greetings and WIESS are all far superior.

 

[thurmanmunson]

Brilliant Album.

I think I'm one of the few people who thought FNM's output got better as they went along (AOTY is my favourite album of theirs closely followed by KFAD)

Saw them on both The Real Thing and Angel Dust tours and they were good but not great, but when I saw them 3-4 years ago they were phenomenal

Would also add The Jesus Lizard to this debate - both their albums on Capitol (Shot and Blue) were below par compared to their previous LPs. Same probably applies to Helmet after Betty and Melvins after Houdini (although Nude with Boots is incredible)

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Crack the Skye is brilliant; how dare ye!
Actually I can see how it'd fit in here. Pretty big shift in sound from their earlier stuff, but I love all the fiddly, noodly guitar bits and meandering song structures. It's my favourite Mastodon album by a fair way.

Crack the Skye sounded like self-indulgent twaddle to me.

 

[Roobs321]

Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
Herbie Hancock - Future Shock

Both albums I own and may even play on rare occasion, but they are a misleading representation of the quality of the artist's overall discography. Not terrible albums (although potentially highly irritating in the wrong mood), in fact they are probably albums you could play around your kids fair easily, but they pale in comparison to the best few works of each artist.

A lot of casual music listeners also immediately think of Harvest when you mention Neil Young, which while being a solid listen, isn't among his best handful.

 

[WALDENPOND]

Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
Herbie Hancock - Future Shock

Both albums I own and may even play on rare occasion, but they are a misleading representation of the quality of the artist's overall discography. Not terrible albums (although potentially highly irritating in the wrong mood), in fact they are probably albums you could play around your kids fair easily, but they pale in comparison to the best few works of each artist.

A lot of casual music listeners also immediately think of Harvest when you mention Neil Young, which while being a solid listen, isn't among his best handful.

'Head Hunters' is the only album that I seriously enjoy.

 

[Corrosion]

Offspring

Smash is their biggest and most commercial album, and also their best.

 

[Papa G]

Iron Maiden - Powerslave. By no means do I see them as a shit band from this point on, they've produced some masterful songs and some good albums since, but their best work was pre 1985 with no album seeming as complete as their first 5 were.

Pantera - Strength Beyond Strength. This was the last of the true Pantera sound for me. Their final 2 albums didn't cut the mustard.

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream. If MC&IS were 1 album without the crap it would've been their last quality release, but it was 2 albums and had too much crap. Subsequent releases did nothing for me.

Stone Temple Pilots - Purple. After this it all went south.

I'd assert that both Purple and Powerslave were at the height of both STP's and Maiden's powers and were their best albums, in STP's case absolutely, Maiden's arguable.