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5_moves_of_doom

Bands That Have Improved As They Went

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All bands burn out, from Led Zeppelin to the Clash to the Grateful Dead. No matter how great they are in the beginning, they always seem to have deteriorated just a bit and lost that special something by the end of their career, usually ending with a fizzle rather than a bang ("Cut the Crap," anyone?) It's pretty much a widely known fact that this happens... but are there exceptions? I was bored, so I started trying to name some bands -- even one -- that ended with their best album, having only gotten better over the years -- or at least ended with an album on par to their earlier works. To be honest, it's way more fuckin' hard than you might think. Burning out is pretty much just a law in the music industry if a band has a career longer than say, three albums. So -- again -- since I'm bored, can anyone out there name a band or an artist that totally bent the rules, and pretty much no-sold losing quality in their music until the very end?

 

Pretty much what I came with was Joy Division ("Closer") and Nirvana ("In Utero"), but both of those are arguable and not really fair since both's careers were ended quite abruptly due to lead singers dying. Aside from that, I honestly could name nothing. The Pretenders are a band that I consider to have stayed virtually on par to their top form... through some ups and downs, at least. Their new stuff is clearly just one notch below their self-titled album and "Learning to Crawl," but "Viva el Amor" and "Loose Screw" have both been pretty damn good.

 

So, uh, first one to name a band that fits this profile gets a cookie, and stuff. Hell, even one that improved over their first few albums would do.

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Obviously The Beatles, but I think everyone will name them.

 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Doors were both still good, but as you said with Nirvana and Joy Division, there were major deaths in those bands.

 

Buddy Holly was still good when he died.

 

Simon & Garfunkel were probably at their peak when they both split up.

 

And I think Bruce Springsteen has had a pretty consistent level of quality.

 

Can't think of many more though.

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I wouldn't say Led Zeppelin was a burn out.

 

I'll throw out the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their sound has got a bit more slick and clean, but their still putting out great albums. I'm sure some with debate that though.

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I wouldn't say Led Zeppelin burned out. Their last few albums were ho-hum compared to their earlier stuff but overall were pretty damn good. I actually think they quit at the right time.

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I wouldn't say Led Zeppelin was a burn out.

 

Please, have you even heard In Through The Out Door? It's horrid. I'd say Zeppelin peaked around Houses Of The Holy, and it was downhill since.

 

I can't really think of any others. The Beatles are the obvious choice here, but besides them, I can't think of any.

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Guest Doyo

Some of the hair bands would fit into this category. They wrote the party songs and ballads

that the major labels wanted and once their popularity started to fall off they were able to

experiment more and do what they wanted. "Subhuman Race" - Skid Row's last album with

Sebastion Bach is one of my favorites. Warrant's last two regular albums, "Ultraphobic" and

"Belly To Belly" are pretty good and are totally different than the song "Cherry Pie." I only

ended up purchasing them because a lot off King's X fans were saying Warrant were very inspired

by King's X on these albums and I'm a fan of King's X.

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Stuck Mojo. Honestly, each album is better than the last, as the band grew musically (mostly due to Ward writing better songs), and although it can be argued which was the better studio album between Declaration Of A Headhunter and Rising, those were the band's final two studio efforts (3 years in between them, which saw the release of the live album HVY1, and after they broke up they released a collection of b-sides and demo's called Violate this, but I consider Declaration to be their final album), it's not easily argued that they didn't get better with each album.

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Iron Maiden?

They have the one of the most consistant albums of all time, but improved? Hardly. Its more like a Roller Coaster. After Piece of Mind, it started to go downhill with Powerslave, and back up with Somewhere In Time, and No Prayer for the Dying, Fear of the Dark were decent albums at best. X-Factor was okay, and Virtual XI had one good song (Clansman). Though Brave New World was the step in the right direction, Dance of Death (with poor cover) improved greatly and reminds me of Piece of Mind a lot.

 

I also say Black Label Society as well, as The Blessed Hellride is constantly in my CD player

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Radiohead. They started off decent with Pablo Honey in 1993 and took off from there. With each album, you saw them push themselves to not become a mediocre band that could not follow up their previous release.

 

The bad thing about that is that they have set the bar so high for themselves, perhaps too high. After Hail to the Thief, they've stated that they've taken "this" type of music as far as they could and Thom Yorke recently said that he was thinking of getting out of the business for a while.

 

With that, Radiohead are both a band that got better and better with each album and had a great finale, so to say.

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Can't believe I forgot the Beatles. Abbey Road definitely isn't my favorite Beatles album, but still, it's a classic, and George, John, Paul, and Ringo most definitely stayed on par with their best stuff even to the very end, though I'm not a HUGE Let It Be fan.

 

As for the Velvet Underground, I'm glad someone mentioned them. They're my second favorite band of all time, and pretty much everything they ever did would fall under the ***** heading. I only didn't mention them because Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat are just so far ahead of everything else, that even with their 3rd and 4th efforts being awesomeawesomeawesome, they could be considered a slight step down for the group.

 

Oh, and hey, I don't know much about the band's history, but what about My Bloody Valentine? Loveless, their second album, was a whole lot better than the first, wasn't it?

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Oh, and hey, I forgot about the Dandy Warhols! Since they debuted, pretty much all four of their albums have been an improvement on their sound (though one COULD argue that 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia was their peak) and I think it's only a matter of time before they get a much larger fanbase.

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Afghan Whigs - Never recorded anything close to a bad album and their last record was arguably one of their best.

 

Uncle Tupelo - Influential and consistant with a progression which resulted in them peaking with their final two albums where they perfected & refined their sound to write their best songs.

 

As for consistant artists still going strong you could pick stuff as diverse as Tom Waits and Fugazi. Steve Earle would be a good shout for a country artist.

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Oh, and hey, I don't know much about the band's history, but what about My Bloody Valentine? Loveless, their second album, was a whole lot better than the first, wasn't it?

 

Loveless is actually their third album. I haven't heard their first album, but by all accounts, it's terrible. The second album, Isn't Anything, is like 3/4 Loveless. Almost genius, but not quite. Loveless, of course, is a masterpiece. So, yeah, I'd say they definetely improved.

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As for the Velvet Underground, I'm glad someone mentioned them. They're my second favorite band of all time, and pretty much everything they ever did would fall under the ***** heading. I only didn't mention them because Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat are just so far ahead of everything else, that even with their 3rd and 4th efforts being awesomeawesomeawesome, they could be considered a slight step down for the group.

white light/white heat better than the grey album? that's just all kinds of crazy talk. if anything, WL/WH is the weak link in the catalog. aside from "sister ray" and the title cut, the songwriting doesn't hold a candle to their last two albums. and although there's all sorts of wild experimentation, the experiments aren't entirely successful about half the time ("lady godiva's operation" feels more campy than creepy to me, and "the gift" gets pretty boring after repeated listens).

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As for the Velvet Underground, I'm glad someone mentioned them. They're my second favorite band of all time, and pretty much everything they ever did would fall under the ***** heading. I only didn't mention them because Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat are just so far ahead of everything else, that even with their 3rd and 4th efforts being awesomeawesomeawesome, they could be considered a slight step down for the group.

white light/white heat better than the grey album? that's just all kinds of crazy talk. if anything, WL/WH is the weak link in the catalog. aside from "sister ray" and the title cut, the songwriting doesn't hold a candle to their last two albums. and although there's all sorts of wild experimentation, the experiments aren't entirely successful about half the time ("lady godiva's operation" feels more campy than creepy to me, and "the gift" gets pretty boring after repeated listens).

I suppose I love it personally because "Sister Ray" is one of the few songs out there that just doesn't get old to me, and it takes up about half of the album. Aside from that, I could definitely see how you could form an argument, but The Velvet Underground & Nico is in my opinion the best of all, so either way the band sort of hit their peak at the beginning of their careers, though the "downward slope" admittedly was almost completely flat. Either way, they did stay very consistant, and... ah hell, I don't know what I'm trying to prove here. I've spoken my opinions, but when it comes down to it they rule, no questions asked, so I'll just leave it at that.

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Guest mesepher
Black Label Society

Dream Theater

Red Hot Chili Peppers

TOOL

Dream Theater most likely hit their peak with Scenes from a Memory. Six Degress... was a great record and the title track was very well balanced, but it still has its weak moments. That leaves us with Train of Thought which is one of the most unbalanced and one sided records I have ever heard. Sure, some of the songs have AWESOME moments, but then just like that they segue into some pile of crap. Take "This Dying Soul" for instance.... rapping???? What's the deal with James LaBrie (who has an excellent voice) rapping? disgusting. Lets not forget the pointless wanking which goes no where and evokes zero emotion. People blame Rudess for all of this wanking, but I really think it is Petrucci who pushes for all of it. I read an article how Rudess didn't want to do all of the dueling solos which were John's ideas. I'm not too sure why DT lets James record songs, since they have already said that Vacant WILL NOT be played live. All of the guitar solos are super fast, but they are really just novelties. Nice to hear once, but they get old VERY quickly.

 

I do however LOVE Jordan Rudess on the grand piano... wow.

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Black Label Society

Dream Theater

Red Hot Chili Peppers

TOOL

Agreed with Tool, but the RHCP essentially peaked with bloodsugarsexmagik and went down from there. I mean, that's one of those things that's not even a matter of opinion -- it's just their best album. However, despite coming down from God-esque levels, Californiacation and By the Way both top Mother's Milk, in my opinion.

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