What's a band that has one album that is just about perfect in your opinion, but rest of their discography misses the mark with you?
What's a band that has one album that is just about perfect in your opinion, but rest of their discography misses the mark with you?
One of mine is Commit This to Memory by Motion City Soundtrack. I basically took the title verbatim and know the album word for word. And while I would love if it did, the rest of MCS's stuff just doesn't hit the same way.
And if you're not an album person, maybe a period of time in the artist's work? Whatever works for you.
*Lots of mentions of hit debut albums that subsequently petered out, which follows with the dreaded sophomore slump that hits many artists. Anyone with mid or even later career albums that stand alone? Those always intrigue me.
M83. "Hurry up we're dreaming" may not be perfect but it's a great album all their other stuff pales in comparison to.
"Wolfmother" by Wolfmother. Period.
"Cruelty and the beast" by Cradle of Filth, although they had a good run around that time.
"Origin of symmetry" by Muse. It is the almost perfect sweet spot between too rough and too polished in their discography.
"Seeds" by TV on the radio.
"Boy King" by Wild Beasts.
"Passage" by Samael was peak song writing and composing. A text book concept album. Brilliant.
"The Four Seasons" by Antonio Vivaldi. Absolute banger, not an album though.
In the realm of 90s Canadian quirky-core folk rock, Crash Test Dummies... Well, I'm cheating a bit. Their debut album is indeed right up my alley, and even today there's not a miss on it. Alternately funny and maudlin and nerdy, it was jauntily, unabashedly country-adjacent folk. One track even helped with the early chipping away at the walls of prejudice I was raised with as a southern-fried Mormon. I remain very fond of the album, though I only listen to it once or twice a year.
The reason I say I'm cheating is because I really did like God Shuffled His Feet as well, even Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, but "quirky" was broadening into self-parody and even teenage me could hear it on several tracks. A Worm's Life was... okay, I guess, sort of, but forgettable even for a fan, and nothing the band or Brad Roberts or any of he other members did afterwards really recaptured anything like that magic for me.
Probably not a ton of people representing for a meme-voiced 1.5-hit wonder from the early 90s, but I'll stand and be counted, LOL.
Silent Alarm from Bloc Party is such a an absolutely incredible album. Fantastic upbeat indie rock songs spaced out with slower meaningful emotionally powerful love songs. It really takes you on a journey.
Their other albums after have been anywhere from okay to good with a few great tracks here and there, but Silent Alarm is just head and shoulders above the rest. If I were ever able to write a song as good as Helicopter, Banquet, This Modern Love, or Luno... I'd die happy.
That'd be Gorillaz for me. I can appreciate them, but not my thing. But, Demon Days is so damn good, love it start to finish
Gravity by Canadian alt-rock band Our Lady Peace
It comes from the middle of their discography in 2002, and while it's short at only 10 tracks, it packs an incredible amount of energy. I've tried several times to listen to the rest of their catalogue but it's maybe just a little too alternative for me. Can't get enough of Gravity though.
Alice in Chains - Dirt. Like, you can't get any better than that and their quality after Dirt was wildly fluctuating and it didn't help that the band was dealing with a struggling Layne Staley until his death.
Sabaton - The Art of War. A handful of my favorite tracks is coming off from this album (Ghost Division, Firestorm .etc). A lot of this band's discography, I like a max amount of like 4 songs per album while the rest is forgettable. But Art of War has just a little more to it.
Disturbed - Believe. This is easily one of my favorite albums of all time and definitely my favorite album of all of the Disturbed discography. Their sound matured off from The Sickness and it was only their sophomore album. Their quality of sound gradually decreased every album release since to where I'll only find a favorite track or two from them.
Foster the People.
Their first album is brilliant, with not one bad song on it. The rest of their stuff is shite.
Epsilon by Blood Stain Child
Melodic death metal with techno/tranceMorbid Angel Blessed Are The Sick. To me, they have never reached the peak of their second album. A was okay, too. But after B I would eagerly listen to C and D when they came out and just never felt the same enthusiasm as I did for B. I gave up and moved on even though I later went back and listened to F, G, and H, and F is interesting because it is so strange but I can’t really recall much about the other two. Never bothered with I, and that’s where my tale ends.
LEN - You can’t stop the bumrush
Other than the one pop song that got tons of radio play, it’s a great album. It’s still a great listen.
Every other album or song since then seems to be a weak grasp.
Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stone Temple Pilots both have controversial albums that illicit love or hate from their fans.
Sleigh Bells - Treats
The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
Hooray For Earth - True Loves
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
Dayglow - Fuzzybrain
The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I
One of my favourite black metal albums is Rain Upon the Impure by The Ruins of Beverast. Nothing he's done before or since comes even close to the perfection of that album.
Groove Armada’s Black Light.
I highly doubt if anyone but me is listening to it.
The album Colours from Graffiti6 was so good, I'm still mad about the crap album they released after that (it was also their last)...
And to a lesser extend, Miike Snow's first album was sooo good. Everything they've put out after that was mediocre at best.
Alt-J has also been going down hill ever since the first album. It's still decent, but if I had to rate the albums from good to bad, it would be equal to the release order. Saw them live two years ago and it was meh as well.
wall of voodoo and fine young canibals but its not like they had huge discographys although I love stan ridgeways later solo stuff.
Remo Drive - Greatest Hits (which isn't a greatest hits album) definitely fits the description. It's extra sad since it's their debut album, so it falls into your sophomore slump category. I respect the decision to not repeat themselves though, but I can't help to feel like they would be able to make an album that both pleases the fans garnered from the first, and which isn't just a rehash.
Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers
I think the popularity of Stacy’s Mom really scared them. But everything on the album is amazing. Interstate Managers was their third album. The other two albums following Interstate Managers were good, but not at that power pop level that Interstate Managers reached.
Other Tragically Hip albums have some standout tracks, but the only album of theirs I really enjoy beginning-to-end is Fully Completely.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Boatman's Call seemed like a solid album and mostly unweird, if not kind of cheesy. But his other stuff, earlier and later feels off. I imagine that's blasphemous to a proper nick cave fan as BC was likely more mainstream and all that but it was nice, lovely, and at some points thoughtful.
The Ataris, with So Long, Astoria
Ryan's Hope - Apocalypse in Increments. It's from 2006 but I didn't discover it until around 2012, by which point they'd already rebranded as The Reaganomics and adopted a more pop-punk sound that didn't resonate with me.
AJJ - People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People
I knew them by their original name (Andrew Jackson Jihad) and was basically given this album as a demo from someone who knew the band.
There is something so raw and real about this album that just did not make it to anything that came later. It was like they gave up the edge that set them apart when they rebranded to make themselves more marketable.
I get it, the original name was bad. Like actually pretty bad. But I also genuinely feel like the name wasn't the only thing they changed.
Regular Urban Survivors by Terrorvision. Most people probably know them by way of their subsequent album, Shaving Peaches, but RUS is far superior.
Kiko by Los Lobos is a masterpiece, to me. The rest of their albums are hit or miss, with The Town and the City being their 2nd best, but nowhere near as good as Kiko.
Sevendust - Animosity - loved every track but only a few selected tracks from their other work
Disturbed - The Sickness - made my 2000
Orgy - Vapor Transmission - way ahead of their time
Limp Bizkit - Significant Other - still fun to listen to
I'm not usually a full album guy, but the bands I do like every track on an album tend to only be from one album.
Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica. Outside of that entire thing, I really only like Shit Luck and Float On.
I love the first Kings of Leon's album I ever heard, Aha Shake Heartbreak, but have disliked everything else they've ever done.
Same with Head Automatica; I'm not really big on metal so I could even count Pantera's stuff (I like Walk and that's about it) with it and still only like Decadence.
I don't know about an album, but ALL of Smash Mouth's good songs were played somewhat frequently on the radio.