Albums that made you get off the 'bus...

But I liked it. What a messed-up world this is.

just restrain from mocking above answer

'driver! (ding ding)'

When I heared he'd rediscovered his love of Small FAces, I got back on for a couple of stops. But I'm off now and I can't remember which stop I got off...

Pavement -- i signed off their station upon Wowee Zowee only to later get talked into Terror Twilight; which was worth the look, and as it turns out, so was BTC.

_What Sound_ almost made me get off the Lamb bus but the new one is RIDICULOUSLY FANTASTIC and makes me love them even more.

I think it is categorically impossible for The Cure, Prince, Orbital, The Prodigy, Meat Beat Manifesto, or De La Soul to do anything that would make me get off of the bus short of beating up my family members.

Cure - wish, Prince - DiamPearls, Dela Dead, others never on t'bus...

That said, Sea Change. Jesus hell, he wrote "Truck Drivin' Neighbors Downstairs", and then this?

yipyip! it's allll about "Trimm Trabb", which I will take great delight in playing very loudly at the ICA next Tuesday.

Re: don's pick of Tricky's "Angels With Dirty Faces", that's the album that got me back on the bus. For a couple of months anyhow, by the time his next record came out I didn't care anymore.

i actually really like Vespertine but it does have a "start of the decline" vibe about it.

i like this brief moment of being familiar with three bands in a row

Lips were a v rare case for me of getting off the bus w/Yoshimi, getting fully back on the bus with Embryonic, and then getting off the bus a 2nd time when they immediately squandered all the potential of their cool new sound with years worth of halfassed collabs and collectable toys and stunts

millions of people disagree with me but not only does Green Day's American Idiot fail as social commentary and entertaining music but it also seemed to wreck their ability to be fun ever again, even when they tried

Divine Comedy - Bang Goes The Knighthood
Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Magnetic Fields - I
Kanye West - MBTDF
Basement Jaxx - Scars
Teenage Fanclub - Man-made
Lawrence/Go-Kart Mozart - Hot Dog Streets
Damon Albarn - Somewhere between The Fall and The Magic Whip

I completely agree regarding American Idiot. Warning is their last worthwhile album, with some truly wonderful songs on it. It spawned some great music videos, too.

David Bowie – Let's Dance
Lucinda Williams – Little Honey
Dead Can Dance – Spiritchaser
Leonard Cohen – Dear Heather
Genesis – Abacab
OMD – Junk Culture
Simple Minds – New Gold Dream
Human League – Dare
Peter Gabriel – So
Radiohead – Kid A

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Oh, and Electric Café by Kraftwerk. Probably the most egregious example of an artist pissing all over their glorious legacy I can think of.

xp

gosh.
i love the whole zoolook vocal cut up aspect of electric cafe.
different strokes and all that ..

I lost interest in REM after Up but I was dragged back by Accelerate. Maybe not the best sounding record but it felt like they woke up, slapped each other’s faces and made a 90 yard touchdown run.

The SING TO GOD records are still pretty unlistenable, and I continue to love Cardiacs.

CRALER by IDLES didn't have me getting off the bus, just maybe sitting closer to the exit..

whoops, CRAWLER

I completely agree regarding American Idiot. Warning is their last worthwhile album, with some truly wonderful songs on it. It spawned some great music videos, too.

― beamish13, Thursday, January 12, 2023 3:16 PM bookmarkflaglink

for me it was the album after, AI was more "omg cheesy songwriting, a portent of things to come" amidst some good tracks.

Morrissey - Southpaw Grammar. In retrospect I'd already stayed on way past my stop.

NIN - With Teeth
Autechre - Untilted (but then I got back on the bus with Oversteps and revisited Untilted and liked it?)
M83 - Junk
Arcade Fire - Reflektor
Kanye - Life of Pablo
Flaming Lips - The Fear

Still Crazy After All These Years

missing Hearts and Bones? Seems a waste even if you don’t like the Graceland phase

lol was making a dumb joke based on one of the lyrics of one of the songs on the album

sorry Gus

Simple Minds’ New Gold Dream is a great pick. My god, they were on FIRE between 1980 and 1984

Dear Catastrophe Waitress = "albums that made you get back on the bus" afaic

Bad Religion had that for me with uhh...No Substance, only to get back on for The Process of Belief.

I'd expect more got off the Simple Minds bus later than New Gold Dream. Was that considered a sell-out by anyone, at the time?

I popped back on t'bus for "Girls in Peacetime", even went the box box. Was just like old times.

But, that's it now.

big box

Dino Jr lost me around Without a Sound. It just sounded to me like J Mascis was going through the motions. I hate that their biggest "hit" was my least favorite song on the whole thing. Even the cover art was a turn-off. I got back onboard for a little while when Lou came back, but I haven't really listened to anything since Farm.

^ Same! I don't even seem capable of *remembering* any of WaS beyond the first two tracks. And those two only fare better because of casual broadcast exposure rather than personal enthusiasm. The (relative) MOR sheen of Where You Been? had already been somewhat confronting but pretty much all of the individual songs still managed to assert themselves regardless.

Weezer’s Green Album pissed me off so much that I’ve never heard any of their subsequent works

I’m not particularly fond of Dinosaur Jr.’s reunion albums

but . . . farm is incredible

never paid much attention to green day after dookie but some while back i heard 'boulevard of broken dreams' on a car radio and wow it is just awful

Steve Earle - The Revolution Starts Now
After an unimpeachable 3-album run, a couple of sideways slips, and the peaks-n-valleys half-masterpiece of Transcendental Blues, this was the record where I knew he’d never make anything essential ever again.

Elvis Costello - North
I could always find something of merit in even his fuckups to this point, but holy shit, what a steaming turd. Things were never the same again between us.

I'd say a couple of the groups way back in the earlier ILM days I found through the site was Porcupine Tree and Mastodon.

For as much as I really loved Porcupine Tree, I have not checked out anything Wilson has done since "The Incident". I struggled to even listen to that one a couple of times.

"The Hunter" was just EHHHHGGGHH do not like how that sounds at all. I still listen to the other earlier Mastodon records, but I have not checked out much other than a video of their later records. I was thinking to myself it was kind of wild Mastodon has been around now like 20 years. Time flies.

The Hunter is a major speed bump in the Mastodon discography. Give the albums after it a listen — Crack The Skye is amazing, and the most recent one, Hushed & Grim, is great, too. I like the albums in between, too, but CTS and H&G are real peaks.

h.dill: North is probably the most boring album I ever purchased (and that is saying a lot, because I have bought some very bad albums)

Prodigy - Fat Of The Land
Pearl Jam - Yield

Enjoyed both of these a lot at the time but just couldn't be arsed after that

The SING TO GOD records are still pretty unlistenable, and I continue to love Cardiacs.

― Alex in NYC, Thursday, January 12, 2023 2:52 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is such an odd take that I'm actually really impressed by it. its like someone saying "I love Yes but man did they lose the plot when Close to the Edge came out"

Drive By Truckers: The Big To Do
Lucero: All A Man Should Do
Black Lips: Good Bad Not Evil
Reigning Sound: Love and Curses

Green was when R.E.M. started to include lyrics in the booklets and when I rapidly departed the bus.

― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, January 11, 2023 8:24 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

it was only "world leader pretend"! and they didn't include full lyrics on an album until up!

For as much as I really loved Porcupine Tree, I have not checked out anything Wilson has done since "The Incident". I struggled to even listen to that one a couple of times.

yeah same, I think there's something about these albums which are generally pretty good but nevertheless lean pretty hard into the aspects of the band you're not crazy about. I can tolerate bad albums if they at least try something new, but yeah this one was just too far down the wrong road. though it was the last PT album for a long time. anyway the albums that came to mind for me are like that. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank by Modest Mouse was the big one. MM was such a big part of my teenage/early 20s years, all their songs still have massive play counts on my iTunes, would seem unfathomable that they'd do an album that I thought was "decent" but nevertheless would just still my enthusiasm for the band. and yet there it was. "Dashboard" still rules though

Possibly I am too young to have many examples. I rarely also truly 'get off the bus' as I find it necessary to hear all new albums by acts I have really liked at some point at least once. However two examples that come straight to mind (if only because they were once all-time favourite bands):

I fell out with Green Day after the trilogy. American Idiot was my favourite album as a child and they were still my favourite band when 21CB was released (still think that's a very good album). There were some nice songs on the 2012 albums and an incredible amount of stuff I never cared for haven't listened to since. I have heard the two records since but think little of them.

I haven't listened to any Muse album since the 2nd Law more than twice although Simulation Theory was quite good.

Miss Anthropocene

I find when my mum got off the bus more interesting. She had every R.E.M. album up to and including Monster, which she loved, so it seems a bit strange to me she'd leave it there.

She also loved U2 all through the 80s but was baffled by The Fly so didn't buy anything by them again until Beautiful Day was on the radio and she was like oh yes they're back.

Green was when R.E.M. started to include lyrics in the booklets and when I rapidly departed the bus.

― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, January 11, 2023 8:24 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

it was only "world leader pretend"! and they didn't include full lyrics on an album until up!

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Friday, January 13, 2023 2:44 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I found this odd too. They'd also been "flashing" their lyrics in their videos for a few years before that!

I stopped following New Order after Republic (whch I loved at the time and still love). Then saw them on the Music Complete tour and went back to the albums I missed (and like them too, not as much as Republic and before).

She had every R.E.M. album up to and including Monster, which she loved, so it seems a bit strange to me she'd leave it there.

Great place to stop, IMO! It’s downhill fast after that…

I stopped following New Order after Republic (whch I loved at the time and still love). Then saw them on the Music Complete tour and went back to the albums I missed (and like them too, not as much as Republic and before).

This was where my wife gave up, too. I stopped after Technique.

I got of the bus with The Cure when 'Wish' was released. I hated 'Friday I´m in love'.

Also, I was a big Morrissey fan up until 'You are the quarry', after that I lose interest. It also didn't help that he became to have awful opinions (Maybe he always had, but I wasn't aware until then, I live in Mexico).

*started to have