acts that happened to release their finest material just as you started listening to them

Recently had the privilege of seeing Julien Baker live, and while I enjoy her new material (which I believe has greatly expanded her audience) I found the songs from Sprained Ankle (2015) to be the strongest expression of her singular talent. Which it may well be, but I might have had a different experience if, say, Turn Out the Lights (2017) had been my starting point, in which case Little Oblivions (2021) could have seemed like the logical conclusion of her artistic development.

And this is often the case for me, that I fall in love with an artist through an early recording, and then when they develop their sound and (often) become more popular, the popularity of their new material is slightly baffling to me, as their old material was clearly stronger.

Not always the case though, compare with Destroyer who I got into when he released Rubies (2006), then followed on Trouble in Dreams (2008), then started digging through his back catalogue especially enjoying Streethawk (2001), but then when Kaputt (2011) was released it really eclipsed everything else in spite of being quite a departure from the style I had gotten to know Bejar through.

Anyway, do you know what I mean? Is there already a thread on this?

The first Nick Cave album I heard was The Good Son, which I loved and still do, and his records since then have been consistently great, except for Dig Lazarus Dig and the Grinderman stuff. I checked out his earlier records but am not a fan of their fire-and-brimstone style. I like Cave in considered troubadour mode.

I think it's hard to pick this feeling apart from "your favorite record by X which is not the most popular or critical consensus pick but was the first one you bought by them". For example Trompe Le Monde, Wowee Zowee, May I Sing With Me, In Utero, The Biz (Sea and Cake), The Italian Flag (Prolapse), A Century of Fakers (Belle and Sebastian) and amazingly Whip-Smart fall into this category for me (and were the current records by these artists when I bought them).

i didn't really get into sonic youth until murray street came out.

well played acts that happened to release their WORST material just as you started listening to them