Which album was a band's creative zenith/magnum opus before falling off?
Which album was a band's creative zenith/magnum opus before falling off?
Demon Days by Gorillaz
Silent Alarm by Bloc Party
Metallica (Black Album)
Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt
Blood Sex Sugar Magic by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Tragic Kingdom is one of my favorite albums of all time. It's just so damn good.
Seen both of these in concert. Still both amazing shows.
Hard agree. One Red Hot Minute was really the beginning of the end.
Smashing Pumpkins: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
R.E.M. - Automatic for the people
These are great. In this vein I add:
Pearl Jam - Yield
(and forgive me but)
Radiohead - OK Computer
Kid A was class when it came out
Gish is a transcendental album that created the genre that dominated the next 20 years: alternative rock.
Everything after Gish might have been more popular or well known, but none of it will ever approach being as influential.
As massive R.E.M. fan, this made me conflicted! Automatic for the People is beautiful, and most days my favourite, but I wouldn't want to miss where the band went after.
Their last album was brilliant, Accelerate was fun... I know AftP was a hell of a peak, but I can't find it in me to write off anything except a chunk of Around the Sun...
Thank you for allowing me to talk about my favourite band. :)
Gorillaz fell off? Since when?
Idk if I would say they “fell off” but Demon Days was fucking AMAZING and Plastic Beach was really good. Plus all their stuff from before that ranged from good to great too. Everything that came after Plastic Beach was…. Mediocre at best and this is just my own subjective opinion obviously as is anyone’s opinion on music but like I grew up listening to all sorts of electronic music and I just don’t like any of their newer stuff it’s experimental though which aligns with their style I’ll give them that
Yeah wtf is OP smoking their last album was one of my favs of the year
Pink Floyd - The Wall
Not their last album before Roger Waters left the band (that was The Final Cut, the album which followed), but it was far superior, and arguably their best album-- and inarguably their magnum opus.
The David Gilmour-led era of Pink Floyd was ok, but it would never reach the fevered heights and sick intensity of the Roger Waters days.
It's good album. But I view The Wall as a Waters solo album than a Pink Floyd one.
It's an okay album. It's a rock opera. It's very melodramatic. There are some great songs.
I go back and forth on Animals or Meddle as their best record, with Wish You Were Here close behind.
Definitely The Wall feels much more like the solo Roger stuff than the best of Floyd.
Though the real purists only like the Barrett stuff.
I agree except that Dark side of the moon is clearly Pink Floyds magnum opus.
I understand that Roger is a divisive character (personally I love him despite his flaws), but god damn he could write an album.
More popular, more commercially successful, and more accessible to casual fans. Agreed.
But for magnum opus, I gotta agree with the wall for a few reasons
- They made a movie out of it
- The ode to the intense para social relationships that revolve around stardom and how a truly crazy creative can take advantage of it in scary ways was not only true back then, but predictive of how much worse it would get in current time.
- DSotM always seemed like a lot of good ideas in an unordered list. I felt like they could be scrambled and the album would be similar, except for the first and last songs.. Meanwhile the wall tells a story of pain, alienation, search for meaning, lashing out, and then a quest for self-forgiveness.
Everyone knows Ummagumma was their best album, they're just too scared to admit it!
Best song is several small species
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
They still had a few good tracks afterwards but that album really was a masterpiece.
Metallica (Black Album)
Is this a joke? This is where they're newfound mediocrity was cemented. They peaked at Ride the Lightning, everything after that was more and more watered down garbage.Sorry, I meant I strongly disagree.
Sadly, Guns n Roses, Appetite for Destruction.
Nothing any of them have done since has matched the quality of creativity that they did on aod.
I'm not saying I didn't like the use your illusion pair, and Slash has done some damn good work on specific songs in his various projects. But the band as a whole fell off hard after their very first. Axl in particular kinda lost his songwriting during use your illusion, which had some great songs, but it wasn't consistently great as albums
Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica
This is really the only band I have that hipster thought that they were better before they got big. This was the last album they made that I love every song on. Then they dropped Good News for People Who Like Bad News and their style was almost completely different, but also got many more people listening to the band.
Similarly I liked Kings of Leon before they changed the original vocalist. They had a rather unique sound when I discovered Aha Shake Heartbreak, but by Only By The Night, they had completely lost everything about their sound that I liked.
I'm in agreement that The Moon and Antarctica is the peak album, but I feel Good News is a great representation of the band transcending into something brand new rather than just fizzling. It's Iike going out with a bang. Then after that it feels like fizzle haha.
I would probably have hated Good News if I had followed them before it came out, but it has a great representation of rebirth and becoming an unapologetically new person. I return to it usually when I go through loss.
The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
Claude Debussy - Claire de Lune
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Weather Report - Heavy Weather
Rush - 2112
Mr. Bungle - California
Dr. Dre - The Chronic
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle
Wu Tang Clan - Enter the 36 Chambers
Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Getz/Gilberto/Jobim - The Girl from Ipanema
Mozart’s Requiem (good place to peak!)
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Cynic - Focus
Death - Human
Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten
Eric Johnson - Ah Via Musicom
Steve Vai - Passion and Warfare
Yngwie Malmsteen - Rising Force
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
Radiohead - Kid A
Deftones - White Pony
Secret Chiefs 3 - Book of Horizons
Dream Theater - Scenes from a Memory
The Allman Brothers - Live at the Fillmore East
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Yeah Mozart really fell off after he died.
The Beatles - Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
Bruhhhhhhhh
White Album? Abbey Road? I mean, even if you aren't a big fan of Yellow Submarine or Magical Mystery Tour, how can you say freaking Abbey Road is a comedown from Sgt Pepper's?
Actually, you might be right. I’ll take the Beatles out. They were good all along.
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Thank you for correcting the original poster on this one.
Once they went from metal to hard rock, it was over for me.
It’s bizarre to hear anyone mention anything other than Master of Puppets. As an old school death metal guitar player turned jazz geezer, Master of Puppets is, by a wide margin, unanimously considered the best metal album of all time by most metal musicians who know their shit.
Kid A was genius, I'm curious on your thoughts of In Rainbows?
Meh. Didn’t suck but nothing will have the cohesiveness of that album.
Hard disagree on Rush's 2112 being peek, if anything that album was the start of one of the greatest streaks in music history. They did like 4-5 excellent albums after that. Personally if I were to rank Rush albums, I'd put Farewell to Kings above 2112, maybe hemispheres too if only for La Villa Strangiatto. Not that I don't love 2112, but relative to the other albums in that streak I think it's a little tiny bit overrated
Agreed. Peak Rush is Hemispheres (Circumstances is possibly the best rock song ever written) for me, but really I love almost everything from Fly by Night to Grace Under Pressure. That's 8 albums I can easily listen to front-to-back.
Whelp. As I typed I realized I forgot about Caress of Steel. I suppose that says something...
Do you like guitars? Yngwie, Vai, Johnson.
Yeah. But I’m just naming ones I can think of where the album was never eclipsed. It just so happens that that is the case for those guitar players…and it’s not like we’re going to hear Yngwie or Johnson somehow suddenly reinvent themselves this late in their careers.
For example, I’m a HUGE fan of Khruangbin and Julian Lage but….what will Julian Lage or Khruangbin give us in the future? We may never know if they have peaked until that time has passed.
Man, if you liked deloused I get why you'd be disappointed by what comes after, but Francis the Mute is something else. It's structured way different, it's a damn opera, but 20 years on that is my all time favorite album.
Peaked at Pablo Honey. Radiohead after that was meh. Take it or leave it.
Opinions. This person has em.
Girl You Know It’s True- Milli Vanilli
Breakfast in America - Supertramp
And Justice For All.... By Metallica
Master of Puppets > …And Justice for All
Too easy
Death Magnetic
(...And Justice for All was the second CD that I owned, and I love it)
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
lmao.
if you don't get it — it's his first album
as nin albums became less driven by chunky 80s synthesisers and more driven by guitars, they got worse. however, the quake soundtrack and ghosts I-IV are excellent, in my opinion.
I find myself listening to year zero a lot, maybe I'm too big a fan of NIN in general. Something I like from every album.
I’ve been a NIN fan since way back and I felt like every album was their best before falling off with pretty much every album when it first releases. After a couple of listens and thinking I’m not gonna ever get into the new stuff, I catch myself having songs off their newest album stuck in my head only to repeat the process with the next one.
This happens to Queens of the Stone Age with me too but less so. I always go into a new Qotsa album with the understanding that it’s going to take a couple listens before it becomes my new favorite album.
I really enjoyed year zero as well. It felt fresh, there was a decent amount of experimentation, and I appreciated the lyrical themes
I would push this to The Downward Spiral.
Broken is my absolute favorite. But starting with The Perfect Drug he began to do nothing but suck at ever greater intensity.
I was going to come in and say The Fragile
Wait you think the Gorillaz fell off after Demon Days???
Not dramatically but it was the best and none topped it.
That's arguable, and even then it could only ever be considered marginally better than Plastic Beach. Even if you don't like the new stuff, PB is fire.
Why wherever did you get that idea
A Rush of Blood to the Head by Cold Play...
Of what came after I like X&Y and Mylo Xyloto too, but this one was their best.
I know bands can change their style over 20 years, and I'm glad the band can be happy touring and making music they like and I don't hate people that like their new stuff, but something about the brilliant, raw feeling their music had (imo anyway) gave way for generic electronic music trend-chasing. When I heard "Higher Power" I was like "wow it's The Weekend just with Chris Martin singing."
Wait a second, no way you're slandering Plastic Beach like that. PB is equal to DD, some days it hits better even.
DD = 🐐
Plastic Beach is better for the simple fact that it contains Sweepstakes. I've come to learn that a lot of people dislike that song a great deal, which blows my mind. Mos Def is aces and the production on that track is brilliant.
I'm more of an Empire Ants man myself, but I get what you're saying. It's such a fun album.
Plastic Beach is good, but I like Demon Days more. Gorillaz fallen since PB.
Demon days > anything else gorillaZ
Sure, but I wouldn't call PB "falling off." Still, Gorillaz still makes bangers these days, even if the albums themselves aren't as good. Desolé slaps.
Green Day - American Idiot. It's not that I dislike what came after, but 21st Century Breakdown feels disjointed, the Trilogy has really low lows, and they stopped being ambitious after that and just put out two "pretty good" albums and one awful one.
Also even if you don't like their '00s sound, I seriously don't get why Dookie is more well-liked than Nimrod beyond "it had more hits and I heard it first."
21st is a mix of B-Sides from American Idiot and Cigarettes and Valentine's, put together to make it's own album, I don't see it as disjointed but I can understand why. For me it comes across as an aged Warning.
Uno-Tre was their way of screwing over their record label because they were contracted to do 3 more albums. So considering they pulled out 38 songs in that timeline. I'd say listening through 21st and the songs through Uno-Tre, it's pretty clear to hear the difference in production of the songs complexity. 21st has tons of diverse, almost orchestral elements supporting the background of the songs. Uno-Tre are generally a bit more simple in their compositions (as are Rev Radio and FOAMF)
This seems to happen with progressive rock at alarming levels. They just reach a point where they take their pretentious bullshit a little too far, and the fans grow weary of it. You saw that with Jethro Tull, which pushed its luck with A Passion Play after scoring a critical success with Thick as a Brick. Yes took it too far with Topographic Oceans. I'm sure ELP has an album where they pushed the envelope a little too far and pushed away the audience in the process. Unfortunately, that had a pendulum effect, with ELP releasing the wimpy Love Beach in an attempt to reel back in those lapsed fans.
I think A Passion Play being my favorite album in that whole genre might be my least popular opinion in all of music, I really don't get the hate. And I'm not really a Tull fan even.
I feel like Topographic Oceans could've been way better if it was condensed by almost half its runtime. The songs have cool ideas, but no focus and they all blend together.
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002)
They had an incredible decade prior to this releasing 3 other top notch albums, but by far this one sticks out as the most successful and easiest to pickup. They have a lot more after this release as well, but I think Wayne found himself diving into an era of depression and it absolutely showed on those later releases. The last release was good but also nothing special at the same time.
Ahhh they toured this album last year and it was amazing.
It’s not the shows from 20 years ago, but there’s still lots of confetti and smoke and glitter and sparkles.
He got in the ball but stayed on stage with it which was weird cuz it just looked like he was trying to hotbox farts
The anti-Bush album dated itself quickly, but it was still pretty solid, when in context.
Wolfmother by… Wolfmother
I can name every song and lyric from that album but don’t ask me about anything else by them. Iirc the band basically split post album
When I discover that album I knew it was something magical and never again to be achieved.
Funny with Metallica … I think there’s an argument that Death Magnetic (2008) is, for the thrash fans, the “Black Album” they wanted.
It seems popular to think that Load, Reload, and St. Anger are the worst Metallica albums. If that's the truth, they fell off after the Black Album. In this case, Death Magnetic is a comeback album, not the creative zenith before their worst albums because it happened after their worst albums. With that said, my vote would be And Justice For All... if we're speaking about their creative zenith. It's the most progressive musically. The Black Album is more representative of their sound at the zenith of their popularity.
Yep agreed. I think it's fair to call the black album a successful and good album for what they were trying to do, which was walk back the progressive metal thing and go for punchy simpler music. Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters are basically pop classics now, which in the case of Sandman is really something as it's undoubtedly a metal or heavy track.
Otherwise yea, Justice is awesome, and my personal favourite, however much Master might be objectively better or more consistent. Something people forget about Justice, but which always resonated when I first gave it a listen, is the progressive themes.
First four tracks: Blackened, And Justice For All, Eye of the Beholder, One, which are thematically Environmentalism, Corruption, "Manufactured Consent" (free thinking), War.
The bad thing about Death Magnetic. You have the loudness war thing about the album. To an point you have people saying the Guitar Hero version sounds better then the album version.
Bad mastering in an album has ruined many great albums.
I agree wholeheartedly about the GH version. I couldn't stand it until I heard that version.
I feel like this is a based take (as a Death Magnetic fan myself). My favorite is still the Black album, but Death Magnetic is a very close second
Yea ... apart from the "loudness wars" tone, which in the early 90s might actually have come off as an attempt to get back to the garage band early days vibe, it's very easy to imagine Death Magnetic as the follow up to Justice.
At the drive in - Relationship of Command
Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come Tocotronic - Digital ist besserI def used "one armed scissor" as a screen name back in high school.
Green Day - Dookie
Radiohead - Kid A/Amnesiac
System of a down - Toxicity
Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the deaf
The Offspring - Smash
I love that game!
I agree that Songs for the deaf is QOTSA's magnum opus, but majority of their other albums are bangers too and it feels unfair to say they fell off after it
Oh for sure, I can listen to all their albums and be totally happy no matter which one I chose, SftD just has something special.
Fair enough 'Steal This Album' has a few flat tracks but there are so many great songs. Also, every song on Mezmerize is wicked. Granted, not in the same mood as Toxicity but far out... So so good.
In rainbows?
Also a great album, I just feel the other two were their peak and contrary to Green Day (that I also mentioned), I've continued listening to Radiohead, including their new albums and they're all great!
Disagree on Green Day and SoaD, imo American Idiot is green days best album and Mezmerize and Hypnotize are slightly better than Toxicity.
Songs for the Deaf is incredible, but how could you say they fell off when
Like ClockworkEra Vulgaris exists and is clearly their best album all the way through?100%
Era Vulgaris is by far my favorite album of theirs.
"fell off" is interpreted very strongly by some, I just see it as "here's their peak, after that they never made something quite as good as that"
And to me that's SftD even if EV is still awesome!
No way with Green Day. Insomniac, Nimrod, and American Idiot are all excellent.
I'd have to disagree with QotSA, but I can definitely see why. I'm a huuuge fan of theirs, but for some reason every new QotSA album seems to take years for me to fully appreciate. I absolutely hated Era Vulgaris when it first came out. It's by far my favorite album of theirs now. Even ...like clockwork is barely starting to really grow on me, but I'm definitely coming around. I haven't even bothered to listen to their newest one yet.
QoS has a bunch of awesome albums after Songs for the Deaf. Unless we're talking about popularity, but quality def not.
I never said they don't, I said that to me it's the best and nothing else they released was as good, it doesn't mean the rest isn't good.
NIN - The Fragile
This is exactly what I was coming here to comment. This album was fucking astounding, complex, beautiful, intense, musical, destructive... Every single noise in that album was intentional and meant something. Trent was making music at the time that was so far above and beyond what anybody else was doing or has done since.
Then Atticus Ross joined. Now they make background music for movies. It is fucking heartbreaking.
Double Nickels on the Dime, Minutemen. Also probably the best power trio record ever made. Granted, they only made one more record before D Boon died, but as legendary as he is, Mike Watt has still never done anything as good since.
I'm not saying Minutes to Midnight was Linkin parks zenith. But I thought it was fine, it was different for sure. But not bad at all IMO.
After that however, I don't think they released a single song i liked.
I know a lot of people didn't like it because it was a departure from their earlier style but I honestly think A Thousand Suns was their peak. I don't even like all the songs on it, but each one was so obviously crafted with care and intent, and you could tell they were really all-in on it. I think the exploration of their talents through a post-apocalyptic concept album really challenged and brought out the best in them.
I miss Chester still :(
They Might Be Giants - Flood
A Perfect Circle - 13th Step
This is gonna be a really spicy take - Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold. Pretty much every song is a banger and Save Me is a masterpiece. The singing is on point. I debated Waking the Fallen, but sadly I feel that some songs on that album just aren't up to the same quality (and Nightmare is much more approachable).
As for albums after Nightmare, Hail to the King was okay, The Stage was good but flawed (we got so many songs, but the mixing wasn't very good imo) and Life Is But A Dream is.... Just not good - again, in my opinion as a long-time fan.
Before Nightmare, self-titled was okay (certain songs like Unbound kinda pull it down for me, but they're not straight SKIPS per se) and City of Evil was amazing but not quite Nightmare quality in my opinion (just because of Matt's nasally singing, especially in songs like Seize the Day). WtF I've already went over, and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet honestly only had a few good songs in my opinion.
I just checked it out and Save Me feels very Dream Theater. I'll have to dig around their discog a bit.
If you like Save Me, I also highly recommend I Won't See You Tonight Part 1. It's very solid and pretty ubiquitously referred to as one of their best songs
I could definitely see that. I heavily disagree with you on the self-titled album just being okay, but as for a creative peak, it kind of feels like they've been phoning it in after Nightmare. There's excellent songs on all the albums, but Nightmare was the last one where it felt that the majority of the tracks were ones where you really didn't want to skip.
Stadium arcadium - red hot chilly peppers
RAM - Daft Punk
Evenessense - fallen
Lateralus - tool
RAM - Daft Punk
So you think they tailed off after their final album? Well they've split up now so technically correct, I guess!
I think people don't understand the truly massive undertaking of what that album represented. The sheer musicality of what they did probably took a massive toll on their psyche.
There was just nowhere else to go after that album there was nothing else for them to do they have accomplished it.
I think a lot of people didn't like where Amy Lee took Evanescence after the split with Ben Moody, but I feel like The Open Door is a better album than Fallen overall. It may be less hard rock, but it's more interesting and really showcases her writing talent, while Ben just wanted to be a pop hard rock group without exploring other musical elements (as showcased with his lackluster project We Are the Fallen, which was just Evanescence Light with a less powerful female vocalist).
The last Tool album I enjoyed was Aenima, and even then they were veering into overly-proggy wank. I honestly think they peaked with Undertow, but you know, music is subjective and all that.
Hard disagree on Tool, their sound has definitely evolved over the years but I think that Fear Inoculum is a damn masterpiece. I totally get it though if the more prog rock/experimental style isn't your thing.
I've been unhealthy obsessed with tool since 2001. 10000 days was good and fear inoculum was just more of the same no innovation at all. Lateralus was and is their gran opus.
And the older I get the more and more I realize that Maynard can't sing well.
Sam's Town - The Killers
Stone Roses - Stone Roses.
Their debut album put them on a very high pedestal that they were never able to match.
Endtroducing
Death Magnetic is better than Metallica's Metallica. That coming from a person who has been a fan since the 80s.
A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. And in no way do I mean this as a dis for anything that followed. A masterpiece is simply just that.
Marilyn Manson - Holywood
I’d put ACS as peak, MA and Holywood were both great, then a very long lull. Pale Emperor was the last one that caught my ear like the older ones did.
Yeah, I really liked ACS, but it didn't feel right leaving the next 2 out. Pale Emperor was the last half decent one for sure.
Agree with lots of others here so I'll say
Paul Simon - Graceland
- Last Splash by the Breeders
- White Album - The Beatles
- The Wall - Pink Floyd
Abbey Road was their final album and it was arguably their best. They definitely did not fall off after White Album.
Shinedown The Sound of Madness
I love all of their albums, but there's something truly special about the musicality and emotional impact of the songs and album as a whole for The Sound of Madness
There subsequent albums are fantastic, but have more ups and downs than the consistent high bar of The Sound of Madness
Similarly, I think Disturbed Immortalized was Disturbed's peak work, with The Light and The Sound of Silence being incredible peaks of their signature style and highly musical storytelling on a fantastic album.
Wow, I entirely forgot that Devour existed until just now. It blew my teenage mind when I first heard it. I also forgot how much I hated that every single store seemed to be playing The Crow and the Butterfly when you walked in.
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Cursive - The Ugly Organ
LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
Avenged Sevenfold - White Album
Murray Street -- Sonic Youth
Therion : Lemuria / Sirius B (released on the same day)
Long Live by Atreyu, though it feels kind of like cheating. They went on hiatus after leaning toward more casual songs with the two albums before, and came back five years later with an excellent album that made people think they were back to their roots. And then they started trending towards the more popular stuff again.
There's argument to be made for several albums across their career (including their first), but I think REM's Document was the last great one they made. I know a lot of people will cry and point to Automatic for the People, but they are wrong.