Definition: A band you might have once considered your favourite or loved once that now you can’t handle their new stuff, and it has tainted their earlier work.
For me the one that springs to mind is Muse. I imagine this’ll be the one for most folk here. I adored their debut and the follow-up were quite literally life changing at the time. It is hard to believe, but once Muse were one of the most interesting “rock” bands in the UK. I gobbled up Absolution like it was crack-covered Coco Pops and then when Blackholes and Revelations came out I convinced my self it was pretty incredible, but it feels oddly anaemic now.
I, like a few here, used to post on the Muse message board back in the day.
Obviously, nowadays they’ve entered the realms of self-parody and impossible to love mode. Can barely listen to half their earliest stuff now.
Don’t hate them of course…but ever since Boy King I’ve viewed their other stuff (even high points like Two Dancers and Smother) through a veil of disappointment. Who knows, maybe it’ll pass.
Definitely another vote for Oasis. Absolutely fanatical about them early on when I was growing up, still got all the WTSMG and BHN singles somewhere. Convinced myself in August ‘97 that Be Here Now was the best thing I’d ever heard and then rather than going steadily downhill they just seemed to teleport themselves directly to the bottom. The last four albums are 85% unlistenable trash.
Oh and a smaller vote for Stereophonics purely cause around the same time Word Gets Around came out and was (still is, I stand by that) a brilliant, urgent record. Half the second one was ok, and ever since Mr Writer came out it’s like they’ve just been releasing parts of one continuous, tortuous, awful song for about 20 years (see also Kings of Leon)
Oh and Morrissey but that ones obvious.
Used to adore Kings of Leon up to and including Because of the Times. Would still argue that those 3 albums are good to great for what they were. Can’t really listen to them anymore
I could say Oasis, given they were the band that got me into (sigh…) ‘real music’ back in the mid-90s, but it was more the case I grew out of them rather than I thought their later stuff was shitter than the early stuff. Same with the Chili Peppers, I guess. Foo Fighters too, although they do have the odd decent choon.
Arcade Fire must be up there. Diminishing returns since album #1 and I can’t bring myself to listen to the new one. Massive Attack, Frightened Rabbit, Radiohead are all bands whose new releases just seem to dilute the impact of their early stuff for me.
