Great beginnings to total disappointment

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So what bands emerged with great potential to evolve into some embarrasing parody of themselves.

I've often wondered what went wrong with Billy Idol. Generation X were a great band at the beginning with songs like Your Generation and even later on with Wild Youth. Then he went solo and if White Wedding wasn't just bordering on Like/Hate, Hot in the City was the final straw. All that spikey blond tanned biker bad boy L.A. smuck bullshit! I suppose there was quite a few punk bands who disintegrated into their own quagmire and came out smelling like rotten hypocritical crap. Faeces Sharpe..I mean Fegal Sharkey came from great beginnings as well with The Undertones with classic pop punk tunes like True Confessions and Teenage Kicks etc and then ol Fegal turned into some kind of pavlov's dog crooner.

― Harry H, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Moby and the Beastie Boys, as mentioned on Moby thread. The Beastie Boys more so.

― Tom, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Simple Minds is the most obvious answer here.

― Chris Barrus, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Smashing Pumpkins. Their 'potential' of course was just to be a great rock band, maybe not the loftiest of goals but fulfilled well enough on Siamese Dream. Sometime around the Adore period, though, they'd lost all traces of post-angst psychedelia and become the epitome of "an embarassing parody of themselves."

― Dare, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, I second the Simple Minds. Worst case of a band losing the map ever!

― Alex in SF, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ted Nugent. From 'Nuggets'(groovy man!) to "Stranglehold" (RAWK DUDE!) to "If you can't speak English get out" etc. (OK piss off now.) Way to go, Elmer Fudd.

― dave q, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

So when does that picture of Ma$e turn up on this thread?

― jacob, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Billy Idol got bettah!! surely?? (true he may have got worse again afterwards)

― mark s, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tricky, Shamen, David McAlmont, Simple Minds (again), Espiritu etc.

I could moan about these all day..

― Zanny G, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If i say Nas will this thread turn into a monster?

― jacob, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Jesus & Mary Chain -- did they ever match PSYCHOCANDY again? Nope!

― Alex in NYC, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

http://us.a1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/a/iy/music/mase.jpg

― Poops McGee, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I second Moby. His new video is shit served through the television. The song is bad too.

― Lindsey B, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I disagree with The Jesus and Mary Chain, largely because the quality of their output oscillated like a sine wave and their best album was _Honey's Dead_. Before hearing _Come With Us_ I would have said The Chemical Brothers, but fortunately the new album is very very good.

Hmm, who do I think qualifies for this? Cranes would be a good one, as would Sky Cries Mary. And I completely agree with Nas.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm tempted to refer to this as the Cypress Hill/Portishead/Tricky board, which are three answers right there.

― M Matos, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sammy Hagar and Bob Seger and Iggy Pop, but I mean pretty much every rock band ever really.

― Kris, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

For me, the greatest fall from grace is that of Rod Stewart. In the early '70s, with the Faces and solo, he was consistently magnificent, making some of the best music anywhere. Then he went rapidly downhill and quickly became utterly laughable, and he's pretty much stayed there since, only of use to anyone now if you want to crack jokes about older men with ridiculously tall young blondes.

― Martin Skidmore, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

OMD, and I think Simple Minds are getting alot better with thier two newst albums.

― A Nairn, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

darklands is better than psychocandy at least it is in my world. verve fit the description in the question, great first lp after cool first few singles then total crap the rest of the way even on through mr radley's solo nonsense.

― keith, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

seven months pass...

The Stone Roses

― Rich Henderson, Sunday, 24 November 2002 06:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Mogwai so owns this thread . . .

― Tad (llamasfur), Sunday, 24 November 2002 06:51 (twenty-two years ago)

mogwai was once good?

― geeta (geeta), Sunday, 24 November 2002 07:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Violent Femmes - all downhill from the first album. Pale Saints - that last album shouldn't even have been made under the name "Pale Saints". Sly & The Family Stone - quite possibly one of the most sad & pathetic flameouts in pop music history.

― Nick Mirov (nick), Sunday, 24 November 2002 08:24 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah but what do you do after making the greatest album ever made (Riot natch)?

― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 24 November 2002 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

("making...ever made": what a beautifully elegant sentence. yes sir, this is why I make the big bucks....)

― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 24 November 2002 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Heh, I knew a guy once who sincerely believed Prince went downhill quick after the first two albums.

― James Blount (James Blount), Sunday, 24 November 2002 09:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Prodigy, take yerselves a bow! Experience = Beloved rave classic; Jilted = head-rocking crossover masterpiece, Fat of the Land = half-decent "singles album" with some moments of terrible self-parody, and now listening to "Baby's Got A Temper" alone I'm starting to think they've completely lost it.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Sunday, 24 November 2002 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Devo. Oh No It's Devo was the beginning of the end (get it?), but Shout is where the rot settled in. If only Mark had founded Mutato Muzika 3 albums earlier, Devo's career path would have been near-perfect.

― mike a (mike a), Sunday, 24 November 2002 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I agree w/Moby and the Smashing Pumpkins. Siamese Dream was classic, but Billy Corgan's voice and songwriting ability got worse and worse, and it was pretty obvious with MCIS that the next album was going to be total shite.

― Curtis Stephens, Sunday, 24 November 2002 17:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Except, of course, it wasn't. Adore, how I love thee, etc. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 24 November 2002 18:13 (twenty-two years ago)

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