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Bands that made an amazing album, followed by a HORRIBLE one...


gunsfanoldie

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Anybody have a band that comes to mind in this respect? Doesn't have to be a band that only made a few records. Could be a well known band like Judas Priest or something that made tons of albums that just happen to fall into this category. Most of the bands I think of however are kind of one hit wonders:

1. Taddy Porter. This topic is made because of this band. I freely admit, I'm not a big fan of most music these days. I don't think I'm living in the past, but I just happen to love 60s and 70s rock and not many bands are doing that for me nowadays. One of the very few that was and made an impact was Taddy Porter, who I saw open for Slash twice. The friend I saw them with convinced me to buy their record at the show (something I never do) and he was absolutely right. Amazing record front to back. One of the best ROCK records in recent memory. Waited years for another album and it came out last year and was TERRIBLE. Like, beyond awful. I heard their first yesterday for the first time in over a year and it still holds up. Revisiting the second one now on Spotify again and it is just as bad as I remember. It then encouraged this topic. Like, this second album is so bad you don't actually think its the same band.

2. Parlor Mob. Another INCREDIBLE band that put out one of the better debut albums I've heard. Sure, its a bit too long. Maybe cut 3 songs from it, but otherwise its pretty flawless. Zeppelin style rock but they branch out into great softer tracks as well as an amazing 8 minute epic. The album had everything in its favor. They disappear for years. Maybe not disappear, but I think this debut came out in like 2007. They didn't put out another record till last year or so. Ended up sucking. It was like they moved from hard rock to being the generic metal/rock you hear from everyone these days. Sounds like a completely different band and so sad to see they had to conform to what the label insisted or what they thought would get them more acclaim.

3. My Chemical Romance. The album The Black Parade IMO is one of the top rock albums of the last 20 years. I don't have to sit here listing why its amazing. I think it and American Idiot are modern masterpieces, and again I don't like many new records. Anyway, they put out that album. A masterpiece in its own right. They follow it up with the god awful Danger Days, and then break up.

It really seems like every band I get into these days either doesn't make another record, or makes one more, its horrible, and then they vanish. It really is like a curse. Anyone else been burned in this way? Again, it doesn't have to be a new band that ended up completely changing directions. It could be like if you loved Appetite For Destruction and then despised GNR Lies or something.

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Buckcherry (the first 3 albums were amazing, everything else since that has been terrible.)

Ooh, you've hit a sore spot for me lol. They are one of the few modern rock bands I think are actually pretty consistent, even though I understand how people think they are a little too childish and simple/dumb. My favorites from them are actually their middle 3 of 15, Black Butterfly and All Night Long. I can see how people may have think they ran their course by that point, but those were the first three I heard by them so they were fresher to me. I don't think there's a bad song on any of those 3. The first two albums are also very good, but I like the newer sound a bit better. I'll agree with you though that I thought Confessions after All Night Long was a rather poor effort and their Fuck EP was just fucking stupid.

KISS

Amazing: Sonic Boom

Awful: Monster

Don't completely agree or disagree. I do think Sonic Boom is the superior album. However, it took me a few plays of Monster, but I do think that one is also pretty good. And actually thats rated as the superior one by KISS fans. Don't get me wrong, there are some laughable tracks on it (Take Me Down Below is the funniest and wrongest song written by 60 year olds) but thats kind of part of the charm. Like I said, I think Sonic Boom holds up better, but they are both pretty similar in the end and after about 5 listens I couldn't actually find anything I thought was terrible about Monster. IMO Monster's biggest fault is that it opens with Hell Or Hallelujah and literally nothing ever tops it (and that song alone is my favorite KISS track since the 70s, which says a lot).

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inb4 VR... (don't agree with it though)

I don't think it's shit, but the Stones' Emotional Rescue was a poor follow-up to Some Girls. Same can be said for Undercover following Tattoo You and maybe Satanic Majesties Request following Between The Buttons (although the latter already wasn't a superb follow-up to Aftermath). But none of those are actually really shit.

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I think Another Self Portrait really changed some opinions around, but Self Portrait following Nashville Skyline might need a mention here too...

Another that sort of might count was The Cosmos Rocks following Made In Heaven. That album was SO forgettable.

And another Metallica mention. Death Magnetic was by no means stellar but still a very decent Metallica album. But then Lulu was just the musical equivalent of manure.

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Buckcherry (the first 3 albums were amazing, everything else since that has been terrible.)

I agree with Buckcherry but their second album was awful. S/T was good, 2nd was bad, 15 was good... What was next? Black Butterfly I think it was called? I remember thinking that had more good songs than bad but haven't listened to it for a while.

In Flames have done it twice:

Amazing "Come Clarity"

Awful "A Sense of Purpose"

Amazing "Sounds of a Playground Fading"

Awful "Siren Charms"

You beat me to it. SOAPF was a great record, I said it when it came out and it's still true: it's their best album since Clayman. I bought Siren Charms without listening to it first and it's pretty bad. The only song I'm digging is "When the World Explodes".

I'll add these:

Aerosmith going from Nine Lives to Just Push Play.

Eminem going from The Eminem Show to Encore.

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Buckcherry (the first 3 albums were amazing, everything else since that has been terrible.)

I agree with Buckcherry but their second album was awful. S/T was good, 2nd was bad, 15 was good... What was next? Black Butterfly I think it was called? I remember thinking that had more good songs than bad but haven't listened to it for a while.

In Flames have done it twice:

Amazing "Come Clarity"

Awful "A Sense of Purpose"

Amazing "Sounds of a Playground Fading"

Awful "Siren Charms"

You beat me to it. SOAPF was a great record, I said it when it came out and it's still true: it's their best album since Clayman. I bought Siren Charms without listening to it first and it's pretty bad. The only song I'm digging is "When the World Explodes".

I'll add these:

Aerosmith going from Nine Lives to Just Push Play.

Eminem going from The Eminem Show to Encore.

I REALLY liked "Timebomb" from Buckcherry. I haven't listened to it for a while, so I don't know how well it's aged for me.

I'm also a fan of Aerosmith's "Just Push Play." I just listened to that album the other day. It's held up surprisingly well, but to this day, I still can't stomach "Fly Away From Here" in any way, shape, or form.

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Where to begin? Taking it as GN'R's true sophomore, Lies being merely a stop gap, then Use Your Illusion; it had not of the genius that Appetite had. Apocalyptic Love was a bit of a climb down after Slash, also. The Stones career is littered with stinkers: for every Aftermath, Beggars, Some Girls and Tattoo You, there is a Satanic, Emotional Rescue, Undercover and Dirty Work polluting the place out. Self Portrait stinks to high heaven. Neil's Hawks and Doves was a bit of a let down after his seminal Rust Never Sleeps record. Kiss produced two turds in Unmasked and the Elder before producing the excellent, Creatures of the Night.

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TSI after UYI

Metallica after And Justice For All

Encore (and Relapse, and Recovery) after The Eminem Show

Yeezus after MBDTF (Yeezus isn't terrible but coming off the 10/10 MBDTF, a 7 looks pretty bad)

The Resistance after Black Holes and Revelations

Let it Be after Abbey Road (and a million other masterpieces)

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Buckcherry (the first 3 albums were amazing, everything else since that has been terrible.)

I agree with Buckcherry but their second album was awful. S/T was good, 2nd was bad, 15 was good... What was next? Black Butterfly I think it was called? I remember thinking that had more good songs than bad but haven't listened to it for a while.

In Flames have done it twice:

Amazing "Come Clarity"

Awful "A Sense of Purpose"

Amazing "Sounds of a Playground Fading"

Awful "Siren Charms"

You beat me to it. SOAPF was a great record, I said it when it came out and it's still true: it's their best album since Clayman. I bought Siren Charms without listening to it first and it's pretty bad. The only song I'm digging is "When the World Explodes".

I'll add these:

Aerosmith going from Nine Lives to Just Push Play.

Eminem going from The Eminem Show to Encore.

Dude no! Just Push Play is lovely!

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I think Another Self Portrait really changed some opinions around, but Self Portrait following Nashville Skyline might need a mention here too...

Another that sort of might count was The Cosmos Rocks following Made In Heaven. That album was SO forgettable.

And another Metallica mention. Death Magnetic was by no means stellar but still a very decent Metallica album. But then Lulu was just the musical equivalent of manure.

Self Portrait was supposed to be a bad album. It was Dylan dumping his old fans because he was tired of people praising him, asking for guidance when all he ever wanted to do was write songs and play.

Another Self Portrait was what would have been released if Dylan just made another great record. Further proved what he did with Self Portrait was self sabotage.

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.

In Flames have done it twice:

Amazing "Come Clarity"

Awful "A Sense of Purpose"

Amazing "Sounds of a Playground Fading"

Awful "Siren Charms"

You beat me to it. SOAPF was a great record, I said it when it came out and it's still true: it's their best album since Clayman. I bought Siren Charms without listening to it first and it's pretty bad. The only song I'm digging is "When the World Explodes".

WTWE is actually the only redeeming feature about that album I can find. I'm going to be generous to it and say that it sounds like the bastard lovechild of Morphing Into Primal and Whoracle, with some pretty decent synth going on in there too...

The rest of the album, I don't know what happened! There are some decent ideas but it's so disjointed, particularly the vocals have no flow and often too little to do with what's going on in the instrumentation... kinda like Anders is just rambling over the top of some music that is far blander than what In Flames should be putting out these days.

SOAPF was absolutely their best since Clayman and a perfect cocktail of everything that In Flames had ever been up to that point. I kinda hoped that Siren Charms would be them then taking that forward, if they'd decided to create a less aggressive, more haunted synth-based record, it could have been amazing but this just lacked all inspiration. I felt like the lyrical content didn't really say anything....

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Buckcherry (the first 3 albums were amazing, everything else since that has been terrible.)

I agree with Buckcherry but their second album was awful. S/T was good, 2nd was bad, 15 was good... What was next? Black Butterfly I think it was called? I remember thinking that had more good songs than bad but haven't listened to it for a while.

In Flames have done it twice:

Amazing "Come Clarity"

Awful "A Sense of Purpose"

Amazing "Sounds of a Playground Fading"

Awful "Siren Charms"

You beat me to it. SOAPF was a great record, I said it when it came out and it's still true: it's their best album since Clayman. I bought Siren Charms without listening to it first and it's pretty bad. The only song I'm digging is "When the World Explodes".

I'll add these:

Aerosmith going from Nine Lives to Just Push Play.

Eminem going from The Eminem Show to Encore.

I REALLY liked "Timebomb" from Buckcherry. I haven't listened to it for a while, so I don't know how well it's aged for me.

I'm also a fan of Aerosmith's "Just Push Play." I just listened to that album the other day. It's held up surprisingly well, but to this day, I still can't stomach "Fly Away From Here" in any way, shape, or form.

I used to really like Just Push Play and I still like a couple songs but otherwise it didn't hold up at all, for me. They were good on that tour though from the bootlegs I've heard.

Also adding to the list:

Metallica: S/T - Load

Arctic Monkeys: Favorite Worst Nightmare - Humbug

Sebastian Bach: Angel Down - Kicking & Screaming

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.

In Flames have done it twice:

Amazing "Come Clarity"

Awful "A Sense of Purpose"

Amazing "Sounds of a Playground Fading"

Awful "Siren Charms"

You beat me to it. SOAPF was a great record, I said it when it came out and it's still true: it's their best album since Clayman. I bought Siren Charms without listening to it first and it's pretty bad. The only song I'm digging is "When the World Explodes".

WTWE is actually the only redeeming feature about that album I can find. I'm going to be generous to it and say that it sounds like the bastard lovechild of Morphing Into Primal and Whoracle, with some pretty decent synth going on in there too...

The rest of the album, I don't know what happened! There are some decent ideas but it's so disjointed, particularly the vocals have no flow and often too little to do with what's going on in the instrumentation... kinda like Anders is just rambling over the top of some music that is far blander than what In Flames should be putting out these days.

SOAPF was absolutely their best since Clayman and a perfect cocktail of everything that In Flames had ever been up to that point. I kinda hoped that Siren Charms would be them then taking that forward, if they'd decided to create a less aggressive, more haunted synth-based record, it could have been amazing but this just lacked all inspiration. I felt like the lyrical content didn't really say anything....

When I played some songs for a friend I had to describe WTWE as "the 'In Flames' sounding song on the album". It sounds kinda like it could've come from Come Clarity. I agree about the rest of the album though, it really does sound like they had to make a record so they slapped it together and gave it to Anders. He's said something to the effect of "I still like to do the screams and all the old songs live but this is how I like to sing now", I don't remember what website the interview was for though, but anyway, yes- a haunting synth record could've been cool. If ideas like 'Jester's Door' got stretched out into a whole album it would've at the very least been a lot more interesting than Siren Charms. They only had half the amount of time in the studio that they had for SOAPF though so I guess not a lot of ideas got properly expanded on, just kinda added to.

edit: Listening to Sounds of a Playground Fading again now. An album with tracks like Liberation would've been :drool:

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I think Another Self Portrait really changed some opinions around, but Self Portrait following Nashville Skyline might need a mention here too...

Another that sort of might count was The Cosmos Rocks following Made In Heaven. That album was SO forgettable.

And another Metallica mention. Death Magnetic was by no means stellar but still a very decent Metallica album. But then Lulu was just the musical equivalent of manure.

Self Portrait was supposed to be a bad album. It was Dylan dumping his old fans because he was tired of people praising him, asking for guidance when all he ever wanted to do was write songs and play.

Another Self Portrait was what would have been released if Dylan just made another great record. Further proved what he did with Self Portrait was self sabotage.

You're entirely right. But it being intentionally bad still makes it... well.. bad. ;)

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I think Another Self Portrait really changed some opinions around, but Self Portrait following Nashville Skyline might need a mention here too...

Another that sort of might count was The Cosmos Rocks following Made In Heaven. That album was SO forgettable.

And another Metallica mention. Death Magnetic was by no means stellar but still a very decent Metallica album. But then Lulu was just the musical equivalent of manure.

Self Portrait was supposed to be a bad album. It was Dylan dumping his old fans because he was tired of people praising him, asking for guidance when all he ever wanted to do was write songs and play.

Another Self Portrait was what would have been released if Dylan just made another great record. Further proved what he did with Self Portrait was self sabotage.

You're entirely right. But it being intentionally bad still makes it... well.. bad. ;)

Yeah, it was clearly a record that no fucks were given during the making.

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.

In Flames have done it twice:

Amazing "Come Clarity"

Awful "A Sense of Purpose"

Amazing "Sounds of a Playground Fading"

Awful "Siren Charms"

You beat me to it. SOAPF was a great record, I said it when it came out and it's still true: it's their best album since Clayman. I bought Siren Charms without listening to it first and it's pretty bad. The only song I'm digging is "When the World Explodes".

WTWE is actually the only redeeming feature about that album I can find. I'm going to be generous to it and say that it sounds like the bastard lovechild of Morphing Into Primal and Whoracle, with some pretty decent synth going on in there too...

The rest of the album, I don't know what happened! There are some decent ideas but it's so disjointed, particularly the vocals have no flow and often too little to do with what's going on in the instrumentation... kinda like Anders is just rambling over the top of some music that is far blander than what In Flames should be putting out these days.

SOAPF was absolutely their best since Clayman and a perfect cocktail of everything that In Flames had ever been up to that point. I kinda hoped that Siren Charms would be them then taking that forward, if they'd decided to create a less aggressive, more haunted synth-based record, it could have been amazing but this just lacked all inspiration. I felt like the lyrical content didn't really say anything....

I gotta agree, unfortunately. I was so hyped for Siren Charms after what a great album SOAPF was, but what we got instead was some bland, uninspired songs that sound like they were thrown together for the sake of making an album. It sounds like they were afraid to take the new sound too far, because Anders totally changed up his vocal style again, but the band is still playing watered down SOAPF riffs. Based on the Clarity/Purpose/Sounds/Sirens list you posted before, at least the next album should be good...

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