I think the driving cause of this is expectations. I think the thrust for most bands is getting a deal/recording a debut before they start worrying about what an audience expects of them, or having a career. Even if a band anticipates more than a first release, that doesn't mean it meshes with what their audience connects with or expects of them.

I was raised on Boston's Boston and The Cars' The Cars, and I often hold those up as perfect albums front to back. I don't ever feel the need to listen to anything else either band did. Both had multiple years to hone their first album while chasing a record deal, but once they were successful the industry would never give them the time or space to get things to that point again.

This has the answer I was gonna give to the question of first album specifically. The stuff you have spent a long time coming up with and focusing on makes it on the first album. The stuff that wasn’t good enough to make that album might make it on the second one. And so on.

The question of first few albums vs later albums I think is a different phenomenon. That can come down to “where else can we take this? How much farther can it go, in terms of (fast, loud, witty, edgy, etc)?” If it’s a band that uses an extremity to be great, and push boundaries, that just isn’t a sustainable model. Eventually you end up with square waves at 700bpm and it’s like, yeah, you’re the loudest and the fastest, and it’s not listenable.

Personalities can be key, too. Like a band like Blonde Redhead, I don’t know them personally or anything but it seems like they had a lot of fire and passion in the beginning that included their relationships with each other, and that just kinda petered out over time. It makes sense that a band like Fleetwood Mac doesn’t have a 30 year run of putting out top quality shit, cause eventually you can’t even look at each other.

Drugs, too. Partying so much and rocking all night and partying every day and whatever, and then you get to the point where someone is dead and someone else is floating in a pool pouring whisky on their face and it’s like, yeah, not sustainable.

And the whole thing, what’s the saying, something about being progressive when you’re young and conservative when you’re old? The younger you are and the less you’ve done and the less you have, the less you have to lose so it’s easier to take chances. And don’t forget, there are plenty of bands who took chances with their first album and made some garbage you never heard or cared about. But when someone tries something and it hits, then you’ll care about it. And then when they try something different and it doesn’t hit for you, or they are less inclined to try something different because now they have that bit of success they don’t wanna lose, well then you end up here.

zircona1 wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 4:51 pm

jfv wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 4:21 pm I am interested in hearing opinions on why this often happens.

What's that quote, "you've got your whole lifetime to write your first record, and 6 months to write your second one..."?

I think Prince got better as he went on, his first few records are fine, but Dirty Mind is his first great one, IMO.

Some coworkers were talking about the latest Weezer record. How the fuck does anyone still listen to them? I wasn't a huge fan either way but the drop off after Pinkerton is obvious. Everything since has been insultingly bland and stupid.

penningtron wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 10:53 am Some coworkers were talking about the latest Weezer record. How the fuck does anyone still listen to them? I wasn't a huge fan either way but the drop off after Pinkerton is obvious. Everything since has been insultingly bland and stupid.

Unfortunately, I think you are grossly overestimating the average listener.

My wife still loves them.

I don't buy into the notion that bands just "get it all out" on the first record and then either become conservative or have nothing left to say. It took Fugazi almost a decade to "get experimental" and I would argue that their albums got successively better and better. Led Zep was excellent down the line, with forgivable off-tunes here and there. Walking into Clarksdale is great. Dry is awesome, but not Polly's best. While Pod is incredible, the Breeders hit it out of the park with Last Splash. And I'm one of those who believes all their albums are excellent. The first VU record is amazing, but so are the ones that followed! And Loaded, their last ditch effort to "go commercial" and appeal to a larger audience is just fantastic. 'The Stooges' rules, but Funhouse is insane. I love the first Cars record, but I listen to Candy-O and Panorama more often. The first Suicide album is iconic, but the second is also amazing. And A Way Of Life might be my favorite. Chrome didn't lock in till Helios came around on the second record. The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Kinks...so much to be said for their early efforts, but they didn't have the freedom to really let loose with their own vision of production and album composition until way later. CCR was unstoppable. So many greats. Psychocandy is one of my favorite records, but Darklands, Automatic, Honey's Dead and Stoned & Dethroned are all really good.

I love it when a band takes chances, does the unexpected, or follows up a great album so brilliantly (De La Soul Is Dead, Sandinista!) that it takes people a long time to realize just how great it is.

Maybe some bands don't have much to say to begin with but work with a great producer that turns their stuff into a well polished turd of a debut album (like Rick Ocasek did for Weezer) and they have good management or something and are able to parlay that mediocrity into a lifelong career. And just dump out an album every so often to tour on. Plenty of bands that have been around for decades were never good, even actively terrible, but have figured out a way to hook fans anyway. Like Phish or Stain'd or The Offspring.

I'd say that The Flying Burrito Brothers first album was their best by a mile, but Graham was pretty checked out by the second, then out of the band, and it was just a hodge podge after that. The first strokes album captured a kind of zeitgeist and a lightning-in-a-bottle sound for me that their subsequent stuff didn't live up to. But I'm all for giving a band a chance to come back with something great. That last Uzeda album? Holy shit!!

I guess it's fine to only like a band's first album if those are your true feelings. But it can also be expressed in a weird purist, condescending way. Or as a cover for being completely unfamiliar with a band's later work.

Catastrophe Ballet, and, Ashes, by Christian Death, are both great in that they show a successful progression between recordings, but all you really need is Only Theatre of Pain

rsmurphy wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 12:29 pm Christian Death... all you really need is Only Theatre of Pain

Yeah, Agnew's riffs and arrangements are the only reason to hear that band (who's lineup dissolved after that album). I either tune out the vocals completely or pretend they're an elaborate joke.

Catastrophe Ballet is excellent.

Weezer seems to have some devoted fanbase similar to Dave Matthews Band. People are bland with shit taste.

tommy wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 10:26 am Having said that, I'm probably more often guilty of preferring the first couple of records. But here are some bands that I think have their best records in the middle:
Sonic Youth, Afghan Whigs, Spoon, Tortoise, Stereolab, Trans Am, Wilco, Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Soundgarden

The bell curve of creative potency over time. I agree that some of those had that.

Talking Heads definitely have that upsidedown V shape on their chart.

The Police 'Outlandos D'Amour' rules. GAMYF.