Fame banished their muse: Each release was inferior to the last

I'm not clear at which point these three are adjudged to have become famous.

I'll submit Depeche Mode, since Violator, when they became really huge.

I'm tempted to maybe say Sloan, as their new album has pretty low expectations(it's called Action Pact, and features NO Andrew songs).

Thompson Twins, though... *sighs*. Yes, sadly enough. Though I did like "Lay Your Hands on Me". Hmmm.

Saying she ever made a good album in the first place is stretching it.

the Clash
Bad Brains
Gang of Four
Killing Joke
Metallica

relative inferiority/decline is still no measure of overall muse goodness

they whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

I still say Velvet Underground without John Cale is...ugh...too much Lou Reed for my tender bowels.

1. Gary Numan -- tubeway army was a great start; replicas through telekon were sheer genius; after that, it's pure law of diminishing returns (at least till he went industrial, and even then ... )

2. Morrissey -- obv. the smiths years don't count. so start with viva hate (though that isn't so great AFAIC anymore), bona drag is great, and then the rest ... well, i do like "the operation" a lot.

3. Nas -- Jay-Z summed him up perfectly when he dissed Nas in "takeover," he said it all and i can't top that even if i tried.

yes, i have. half of it's OK (i.e., "white boys and heros" and "music for chameleons"), the other half is just noodling (too japan-y, a band whose appeal continues to escape me). haven't heard the version w/ the extra tracks, so maybe my judgment should be suspended till i do. but i did say "diminishing returns" (i.e., in my estimation numan-stuff began to really stink at or around berserker [great album cover notwithstanding]).

Chris, that is a very precise mathematical function your describing there with Matthew Sweet. It's like his medicority is doubling with each release.

Everthing up to Odelay was good and better, but then Mutations--> Sex Laws--> Sea Change

And I heard he missed Field Day because a speaker fell on top of him backstage. Poor guy's just lost it.

Whu-whu-whu-WHAT?!?!?! But why?

Andrew suffers from the reverse of this thread - his songs get better and better. So why has he been bannished from the new album? The Andrew songs were my favourites on Pretty Together! Oh, this is just upsetting.

Besides, Sloan don't qualify for this thread, because they got better and better for the first three albums.

But see also Boston, Joe Jackson and the Dictators

As much as I hate to rile the kate, if Twice Removed had been the third album then they'd completely have fit this thread. Smeared is great, Twice not so, and One Chord pretty good again. After that, save a couple songs off of Navy Blues and you'll be fine, the rest has been preeeety boring.

I can only speak for myself, obviously. I found Twice Removed such a huge fucking letdown and insanely derivative (not that the first one wasn't derivative, I just found it derivative of more interesting things) that I've never understood why it keeps topping polls of best Canadian albums of all time. I mean, why not just make Exile on Main Street a top Canadian album then? Why no love for April Wine? I suspect sometimes that the main reasons why Sloan were able to get away with releasing albums that seem (to me) this derivative and yet still being lauded is because a) the majority of their fans were too young to know the bands they were almost shamelessly ripping off; or b) because Sloan are all a bunch of cuties. Of course, having seen them live following my disenchantment with them, it's probably c) they put on a hell of a live show, and they rock like hell. Which still doesn't change my opinions about the albums themselves.

We all know where Noodles is gonna come down on this issue.

Anyway, some obvious names to throw out here... The Pretenders, Ultravox

probably millions more.

I don't get the Stones comparison at all; what songs are you thinking of?

Damning with faint praise. There are half a dozen tracks from Romantica that I listen to more than anything else at all these days (I just checked iTunes).

Yup, and Geffen wanted them to re-record it with a "name" producer (methinks Butch Vig, but I could be wrong) for US release.

I will accept this aslong as it means more Big Star worship from Jay and not more stadium rawk from Chris.

OK so noodles will have the last word on this 'issue'.
We all know where Noodles is gonna come down on this issue.

You are all mean bastards! WTF is that supposed to mean? :`(

Wasn't Geffen's problem with Twice Removed that it wasn't grunge enough?

Thats their story and they are sticking to it.

Oh hush you, it's no secret that you're the biggest Sloan fan in the world and that you're the one that wrote all of those letters in "Penpals".

I don't get the Stones comparison at all; what songs are you thinking of?

A lot of it is just a general feel, though there are certainly places where the guitar tone is so Stones it hurts; for more specific examples listen to the lead-in to "Penpals" and then think of early Stones, the guitar line of "Coax Me" or pretty much all of "Snowsuit Sound". I'm not saying it's overWHELMing or anything like that but it's there.

Those letters were to Nirvana you fool Stinkypants.
I am not the biggest Sloan fan in the world but I know who is. Shes a Patrick fan in Hell'N'Back.

Pretty Together's highlights were all Andrew, aside from Pat's It's In Your Eyes... try compiling all of Andrew's aongs, right back to 500 Up, and then you'll have one fucking great album.

Violent Femmes is a pretty spot on placement.

For me, though, it'd have to be Spiritualized (though I'm holding out a bit for the new one--but already it's far from the early stuff). Each successive album has been more "produced" and slick and just gives me more of a headache. The first Spiritualized album is warm and fabulous, the second is quite swell and then.......

Thank you Dan. In these parts, being called an 'extreme mentalist' is the highest compliment there is.

I could possibly see yr point if you said, say, Some Girls, but not early Rolling Stones. I can't see the two at all.

Ok Sundar, besides that crazy-ass thing you said about Talk Talk sounding like hippes and Corey Hart, this is the least true statement you have ever made.

Aphex was being called the new Jimi Hendrix and the new Joe Meek etc etc when Digeridoo came out (and not without good reason). The difference between the pre-fame and post-fame material (around or just after "Selected Ambient Works Vol 2") is astonishing. The music becomes freakily self-conscious and brittle, where once it was very vulnerable and intense.

As for Orbital, their first release was Chime, a really marvellous piece of alien funk. Then came their first album - elegant, clean, bouncing scientific pure techno. Then they got increasingly lumpen, incorporating all kinds of soggy weebix indie and secondhand punk aesthetics. Their problem I think was that they did too much live work. That is bound to train you to go for the cheap, cheesily pompous rock gesture, losing all subtlety.

Maybe it's just that they only have a couple of good ideas/songs and that's it.