They WERE good, but...

[harris]

So in the spirit of my new Beegees fascination I wanted to start a topic about other bands that may have started great and gone bad or started bad and became great.
Also if you could point out which album did the turning.

For instance:

Drive-by Truckers started with some hit or miss albums then Decoration Day made them great for a few albums then Isbell left and everything since Blessing and a Curse is not so hot.

[joe]

Weezer is a great example of this for me.  Their first two albums are two of my all-time favorites.  I didn't even buy either of their last two.

[daveB from Oakland]

Rod Stewart was SO great on  Jeff Beck's "Truth" album, in his own early solo work, and, of course, with the Faces. But by the end of the 1970s, he was the worst. And continues to be.

[Gilly]

Rod Stewart was SO great on  Jeff Beck's "Truth" album, in his own early solo work, and, of course, with the Faces. But by the end of the 1970s, he was the worst. And continues to be.

Ooh, that's a good one. I struggled to think of some, but he has to be near the top of the list.

[harris]

Rod Stewart was SO great on  Jeff Beck's "Truth" album, in his own early solo work, and, of course, with the Faces. But by the end of the 1970s, he was the worst. And continues to be.

This was a HUGE one for me a few years ago. His first few solo albums are where it's at. With him and the Beegees do you think that simply the change in culture was all that made them bad? I just don't get how someone who made such dead on great songs just lost it. I want to think it's more complicated. Or Elton John!

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Thanks to Masterofsparks, I learned that Bob Seger and ZZ Top were once really good.  So I'm preemptively stealing his likely suggestion.

[harris]

Weezer is a great example of this for me.  Their first two albums are two of my all-time favorites.  I didn't even buy either of their last two.

Weezer is indeed a great example. The arrival of the Green Album was when I first realized that I could think about music in a different way than my friends. I wanted to love it so much because since pinkerton and the blue album this big Weezer fanbase started in my group. Then the green album came out and I was the first to call bullshit and nobody else saw a problem. I can remember listening to it over and over at friends' house while they ate it up and I just started hating Weezer more and more. I did see them live before Maladroit and it wasn't an awful show because they closed with Only in Dreams, which made me a fan again for about a week.

[masterofsparks]

Thanks to Masterofsparks, I learned that Bob Seger and ZZ Top were once really good.  So I'm preemptively stealing his likely suggestion.

I would've probably mentioned both of these. Also Rod Stewart and Elton John, who have already been mentioned.

As far as a big, obvious one, how about Aerosmith? First four albums are amazing, next few are not so hot, and starting with Permanent Vacation, everything else is pretty rotten.

As for a band that started not so good and got great, Thin Lizzy is a big one. Their first 3 albums are the sound of a band playing with different ideas, trying (and mostly failing) to find their sound. Once they hit "Whisky in the Jar," they found it and got great and stayed that way till the end.

[erika]

Weezer is a great example of this for me.  Their first two albums are two of my all-time favorites.  I didn't even buy either of their last two.

Weezer didn't just lose speed, though. It was the loss of Matt Sharp. Rivers can't handle it without him and the music has been complete shit since Pinkerton.

Also: Everything the Smashing Pumpkins did prior to Melancholy was groundbreakingly good. Everything after was a pile of poo. I blame drugs and Billy being insane.

[buffcoat]

I think there's a thread on a certain 70s band along these lines.

[yesno]

The Pink Floyd.   Even though I've slightly warmed to some prog rock, I still think everything post-Barrett is pretty wretched.

Ministry.

Butthole Surfers.

µ-ziq.  I know there are not too many techno fans on this board, but Tango 'n' Vectif, Bluff Limbo, The Auteurs v. µ-ziq, and Spatula Freak are just so good.  And then he went down the laptop-driven drill and bass route which ruined electronic music for a decade.

[yesno]

There's this band called the Rolling Stones.

And for good to bad to good again, how about 4AD Records?  The decent new Flaming Lips album may put them into that category, as well. (I didn't care for The Soft Bulletin and its successors but I love their more rocking stuff.)

[Martin]

Scott Herren aka Prefuse 73. Dude influenced my music in the 00's as much if not more as MF Doom, Kerri Chandler and Theo Parrish, but man did he flame out quick. After the second album he fell in love with guitars and "got back to his Spanish roots", which basically meant he disappeared in a cloud of herbal smoke in Barcelona. Though I suppose given that the first stuff he did was so much of the day back in 2001-2003 it's stupid to wish for more of the same.

[harris]

The decent new Flaming Lips album may put them into that category, as well. (I didn't care for The Soft Bulletin and its successors but I love their more rocking stuff.)

I think they were great and are now too over the top. It's like every song on the new record had to be this loud boisterous mess. (And not the 'good' loud)

[nec13]

The Pink Floyd.   Even though I've slightly warmed to some prog rock, I still think everything post-Barrett is pretty wretched.

I agree. I think Animals is a pretty good album, though.

Also:

Pere Ubu, most everything post-Dub Housing
Brian Eno, everything post-Before and After Science
The Kinks, after Muswell Hillbillies