10 bands that failed to make a great album after their masterpiece
Making a masterpiece tends to be the best and worst thing that ever happens to a band. Millions of people who weren’t there before might be learning to love your music, but just as many expect you to either do the same thing again or blow them away even more. That kind of pressure is always bound to grate on a person, and by the time artists like Boston came up for air with a new album, they had already exhausted everything they had.
Then again, that’s not to say that it was all downhill from here. Some of the artists still had fantastic albums under their belts and even saw a fair bit of success once they reached the top of the mountain, but the amount of time they spent trying to make lightning strike twice led to them spending the rest of their careers chasing their tails.
There are definitely some major flops spread throughout the band’s back catalogue as well. Sometimes, it can get difficult trying to make any album after getting everything right, and when fans first laid their ears on the follow-up, it was enough to leave a pair of smoking shoes next to where these legends had once stood.
Everyone may have tried to recapture that spark every now and again, but sometimes it’s better just to leave the legacy where it is than trying to resurrect it every time you go up onstage. Because there’s a fine line between celebrating the songs that made you famous and becoming a borderline tribute band to yourself.
10 bands that never released a good album after their masterpiece:
10. Kick Out the Jams – MC5
At the end of the 1960s, rock and roll finally started to learn how to get a little heavy. The Rolling Stones hinted at it here and there, and Black Sabbath were still years away from forming, but the sounds of garage rock were tearing the American rock scene inside out. And while the MC5 made quite the impression on Kick Out the Jams, some of their best moments ended up being reserved only for that one album.
That’s not to say that everything the band did afterwards was terrible, but it’s a significant downgrade compared to everything else. Compared to the feral sounds of the title track, it’s hard to really go back to an album like High Time with fresh ears, which sounds like they are actively trying to make it sound dishevelled and just come off as amateurish instead.
There are some good songs to be cherrypicked off every one of their albums, but let’s get one thing straight. The MC5 were a band that lived and died in a live setting before anything else, and when you take away the sound of a raucous crowd from them, they ended up sounding like any other by-the-numbers rock band you would catch in a dive bar. Still decent rock, but not nearly as hard-hitting in the studio.
9. Dr Feelgood – Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe’s ascent really comes down to the year you caught them in the 1980s. They started things off right with a ratty punk debut in 1981, and they were one of the biggest names in music by the end of the decade, with Dr Feelgood becoming the cornerstone album in their discography. For all the fun they had in that decade, they were in for a rude awakening once grunge rock started to make an impact.
In one of the weirdest pivots any group has ever made, Mötley Crüe spent the next few years doubling down on their creativity, ditching singer Vince Neil at one point to make a post-grunge album. Once that didn’t work, bringing Neil back into the band led to them trying to chase trends yet again, including making their hair metal equivalent to Nine Inch Nails and Pantera on Generation Swine.
Even though Saints of Los Angeles was a solid effort, it served less as an album and more as a victory lap that the four original members were still standing. And since the original lineup isn’t even on speaking terms these days, Dr Feelgood might be the last time that any of them saw that camaraderie pay off. Still, for a sendoff for the hair metal genre, you could still do far worse than this.
8. Hotel California – Eagles
OK, hear me out. There’s a case to be made that the Eagles never had any stumbles throughout their career. They had peaks and valleys saleswise, but never anything that warranted them destroying their career. Once the band actually decided to get back in the studio after Hotel California, something must have messed up the formula back in 1976 to put them into permanent decline.
Even half the band doesn’t want to talk about everything that went into making The Long Run, which is now more remembered for being made amid a barrage of cocaine in the studio. Everyone just wanted out by the end of the tour, and when Glenn Frey and Don Felder finally came to blows, it looked like we had finally gotten our wish.
The California rockers did eventually get back together, but even Don Henley admitted that their massive comeback album Long Road Out of Eden was far from perfect, standing at the same length as most feature films and having far too many filler tracks to go around. Hotel California has etched itself into American folklore at this point, but it’s saying something when the band hardly play anything from their post-Hotel career on their farewell tour.
7. Traveling Wilburys Vol 1 – Traveling Wilburys
You couldn’t script a better band than The Traveling Wilburys if you wanted to. Even though George Harrison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and Jeff Lynne could have filled the stadiums on their own, the fact that they got together with their heroes like Roy Orbison at all feels like a minor miracle. It was a ton of fun getting to see these icons perform alongside each other, but it wasn’t something anyone was really willing to revisit.
For all of the great music on their debut, the death of Orbison shortly after its release cast a dark cloud on everything. None of the band members could be called “replaceable”, so they didn’t even bother when making their next album, just bringing in a couple of friends to add parts and making one of the more milquetoast albums of any of their careers.
While there’s nothing on Traveling Wilburys Vol III that’s awful, it has been showing its age over the years, especially when they try their hand at 12-bar blues numbers and just sound completely spent by the end of it. Their debut had everything going for it, but anyone who ever claimed that all the Wilburys did was make dad rock probably points to this album before anything else.
6. The La’s – The La’s
If time had been different, there’s a good chance The La’s could have been superstars. Their debut might be heralded as one of the greatest albums the early 1990s spat out, but it seemed to come out a bit too early for anyone to truly appreciate it. Granted, If Lee Mavers had had his way, we might not have gotten a proper album from them at all.
When working on the first demos of the songs, Mavers had a clear goal to make the greatest album ever produced, only for everything to turn to shit every time. After getting fed up with the record company demanding them to make an album, what you’re hearing on the final mix is Mavers’s attempt to play as sloppy as possible in the hopes that they would ease up and give them more time to work on the album.
The label didn’t care either way; they just released the album as is, which resulted in songs like ‘There She Goes’ becoming smash hits around the world. Given that Mavers was so dissatisfied with the results that he ended up breaking up the band, how good did the version in his head sound that this stone-cold masterpiece was considered a disappointment?
5. The Queen is Dead – The Smiths
Anyone who has ever experienced some sort of emotional struggle can usually relate to The Smiths just a little bit. Yes, Morrissey can be an insufferable windbag and has said some irredeemable things in the past, but when he sings over songs like ‘This Charming Man’, all seems to be forgiven in a few short notes. The band may have been poised to become the next indie starlets of the 1980s with The Queen is Dead, which naturally meant that it was time for Splitsville.
Despite Morrissey and Johnny Marr calling Strangeways Here We Come the band’s best record, the final tracks have more than a few blemishes. The production is much improved over their previous records, but many of the songs sound meandering as if Morrissey is stalling for time or wrote fewer lyrics than the song really needed.
The hardcore fans could still cling to the B-sides and compilation albums, but in terms of any well-rounded albums, The Queen is Dead is really the peak of their powers. ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ and ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before’ are still amazing, but after a few listens, you start to realise the magic of a song like ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ is never coming back.
4. Boston – Boston
The arena rock scene was always especially kind to Boston. For all of the great sounds that Tom Scholz got out of his homemade studio equipment, it was songs like ‘Foreplay/Long Time’ and ‘Peace of Mind’ that got millions of people embarrassing themselves trying to sing along to what Brad Delp did naturally. When you’ve done something that perfect right out of the gate, there’s nowhere left to go but down.
Ever since their debut, most of Boston’s output has seemed to be chasing that initial spark they had in their early days. The debut’s first side of their debut is nearly perfect for every song, but it’s easy to mistake some of their later hits, like ‘Amanda’, as just lesser versions of ‘More Than a Feeling’ or ‘Hitch a Ride’.
It seems that the band knew this if their album title game is any indication. For the handful of great songs to be found on Don’t Look Back, the band stated their intentions loud and clear. You’re all going to get more of the same, so pay no attention to the far better album behind the curtain.
3. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
The indie scene before alternative rock blew up always felt like music’s best-kept secret. Artists like Pixies and The Replacements were never going to see any action on the charts, but if you ever picked up one of their records, chances are you were going to stumble upon your new favourite song without even knowing it. The Stone Roses weren’t focused on just being indie kids. They wanted to become the next musical movement, and they were, if only for a brief second.
Whereas Nirvana’s Nevermind served as the calling card for grunge, The Stone Roses was Britpop before the genre was even invented, featuring John Squire’s immaculate guitar playing and Ian Browne putting together the kind of surreal pictures you normally had to go to the 1960s to find. Everything was lined up for them to knock it out of the park again, but somewhere, they got caught in recording studio purgatory and never got let out.
Throughout Second Coming, you get the impression that a good album is hiding somewhere in between all the filler. For every great track the band recorded, they made just as many that either go on for way too long or are needlessly dragged out for no reason when a punchy runtime would have been just fine. Considering how much they impacted the Britpop community, is it really all that much of a shock that Oasis ended up falling into the exact same trap when they made Be Here Now?
2. Nevermind the Bollocks – Sex Pistols
From day one, the Sex Pistols based their entire career on anarchy. John Lydon’s line about wanting to destroy something wasn’t on accident, and from the way they conducted interviews to how they carried themselves onstage, you knew you were seeing a band of punks flying by the seed of their pants half the time. When you build everything based on a chaotic mess, there’s only one way to go once you enter the studio.
While Nevermind the Bollocks was at least a polished version of what Lydon wanted the group to be, shit started hitting the fan the minute the album got done. Outside of firing original bassist Glen Matlock in favour of Sid Vicious, The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle feels more like a well-intentioned project than an album featuring the makings of great songs and more than a few attempts at sounding somewhat coherent.
The group didn’t need to worry about following up their masterpiece, though, instead folding in on themselves the minute that they hit America, leading to a San Francisco where Lydon announced the band’s breakup from the stage. Sex Pistols helped remind us to get over ourselves, but the minute they started to take their career seriously, they left us with a cautionary tale of what happens when you have absolutely no direction.
1. The Wall – Pink Floyd
By the start of the 1980s, it turned out that nothing could have killed Pink Floyd. The prog legends had been through the trauma of losing founding member Syd Barrett, but the years spent honing their sound led to them breaking down barriers and turning in one classic album after the next. But somewhere along the line, Roger Waters felt he could do most of everything on his own, and The Wall marked the moment where they kind of tested that theory.
Despite everyone calling this album a chore to make, it’s not like they didn’t get results. Every note on the album sounds immaculate, and bringing in different aspects of musical theatre serves the concept of a rockstar lost in his mind really well. Then again, this wasn’t just Pink Floyd anymore. This was the ‘Roger Waters Show’, and the rest of the group didn’t want any part in being his backing band.
After Waters left the group and David Gilmour took the name, their subsequent albums like A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell feel like decent attempts at capturing what Pink Floyd was about, but with none of the passion behind it. It’s not that they can’t make good songs without Waters…it’s just that Waters was looking at the big picture a bit more often.
