8mo ago

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.

178 comments

Live-Throwing Copper. It's an absolute masterpiece. Their other albums have some gems, but the rest of the discography is nowhere near the quality of TC.
- I personally like Mental Jewelry best and feel like its a shame they asked the bass player to chill out. TC is great though.
- I was going to say the same thing!

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.
- I'm kind of curious, I've tried Seeds over and over, but it's unlistenable to me. Especially compared again Dear Science or Desperate. What is it you like about that album? I really want to like it because it's probably the last of what we'll get from them. Got any tips on appreciating it?
  
  I think it's one of the albums that "just click" and then you try to discover more of that great stuff and it doesn't work. There's this mood and vibe in the album I couldn't find in the others.
- “Passage” by Samael
  I’m just going to assume you have never heard Ceremony of Opposites. That’s the only explanation.
  
  Or Worship Him which is by far their best work.
  
  I did (and sometimes still do). It's okay, too doomy and far from being refined. Passage takes the stomping doom metal parts and surrounds them with the right amount of electronic sound, great lyrics, and interesting composing and arrangements. Without Ceremony, Passage wouldn't exist, tbf, but it gets out maneuvered by its (indirect) successor in every aspect.
  
  Correct answer
- Are you a fan of the Four Seasons Recomposed, by Max Richter? I discovered it this past year and have been loving it.
  
  I'm conservative on this one. I like the versions with Anne-Sophie Mutter and the one by Europa Galante the most. Interpretations can be so different, I'm content with that.
- I loved that Wolfmother album
- Sorry but Return to Cookie Mountain fromTV on the Radio is great, and staring at the sun was on their first album. But I was at peak concert going age in 2003 when that came out so I’m biased toward that.
  Seeds is my second favorite album (after Cookie) and still pretty underrated though.

Linkin Park.
Hybrid Theory was amazing, but most of their other albums were mostly "meh" for me. Meteora had a couple of good songs, but that's about it.
- I would put Hybrid Theory and Meteora on the same level as far as albums go. Everything after that.... Not so great.
- You’re wrong
  
  This is all personal opinion. Sometimes music just doesn't click for some people and that's alright.
  
  I just can't agree. I wish having a different opinion didnt just mean people downvoted you to hell, you should be allowed to disagree with a popular opinion.
  So, instead, i will just counter with: i think hybrid theory and meteora were written around the same time, ive always held that both albums are start to finish bangers. When one song finishes and im just "catching a mental breath", but another one starts and im like "oh shit!" Because i know its another great track i cant help but think both albums are amazing.
  They did, however, fall off a cliff after those albums. (Save for maybe reanimation, that was a fun album)
  Also im not even particularly a fan. I know them second hand from my younger brother who is/was more die hard. Im more into Muse, dear hunter, radiohead and things like that.

Songs for the Deaf. A very brief moment QOTSA existed in that form and nothing before or after even gets close.
- I respect your opinion, but hard disagree - SFTD is good but both Villains and (especially) ...Like Clockwork are better musically and lyrically imo.
  
  Interesting, I love all of their albums except for Villains, just can't find my way in to that one. And ...Like Clockwork is probably my next least listened to, but I do love a bunch of the tracks on it
- I think all of their albums have songs equal to or better than SFTD. Is SFTD the most consistent throughout?? I don't know. This coming from a guy that had SFTD in his cd player from 2002 to 2006. I
- QOTSA is not the same without DG banging on the drums.
- I'm with you there. SFTD hit a great balance between dark and light. I think Josh needs Nick Oliveri's approach, though I know he had his problems (maybe still?). Musically though, I think they're a case of a whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
- I prefer Rated R and Lullabies to Paralyze to Songs for the Deaf. Fight me.

How about we take it a step further: Gotye's song "Somebody That I Used to Know" is sooooo different from the rest of his discography. The rest of that album is great but is stylistically very different and never blew me away like that one single.
- Lol. I'm the opposite. Love his other stuff. I can sing along to most of the songs on two albums, but that hit... It's an instant classic, but very much a pop song. His other stuff is almost antipop
  
  The track where he sings about his new keyboard tech goes harder than it should. That whole album is great.
  
  Antipop is definitely a great way to describe all his other stuff. And to be clear, I kinda went against the theme of this discussion because I genuinely quite like his other stuff, just not to the degree that I like that one hit.
- Until very recently, I thought that the whole track was an original production. Turns out Gotye is something of a sampling genius - mad respect for the craft in STIUtK, and what a killer set of melodies on top of everything else.
- I heard a story once that he made that song to show how easy it is to have a mega hit song even though he didn't like it himself, kind of like the guys that formed MGMT. Unsure of the source on that and it could very well be untrue but it would make sense.
  
  MGMT is another good one! First album was amazing, 2nd one was really good, everything else is meh except Little Dark Age (just the song).
- What's most impressive are his animations. This is on his main YouTube channel. Really good stuff.

Endtroducing by DJ Shadow was life-changing, but everything after that… meh.
- challenge. and yeah, i could have gone for something more recent, but i figured if you like endtroducing and haven't heard this, you will probably appreciate it.
  
  Hot damn!
- Good call. That album is dirty, visceral perfection from start to finish.

Daft Punk for me. Random Access Memories is perfect from start to finish but their other albums don't do much for me even though I like many of the songs.
- I’m the exact opposite, but I’ve been into house music for 20+ years
  
  I wonder if The Avalanches have a simial divide of fans.
  
  It's not an age thing as I've been listening to electronic music since Prodigy dropped The Fat of The Land in the 90's. I discovered Orbital and Daft Punk shortly thereafter. I was into the music at the time I just don't think Daft Punk's albums are great except for RAM.
- Makes sense considering how musically distanced RAM is from everything else they've made, it's a lot less house-y than their earlier albums. Talking as a die hard daft punk fan.
- Haven't heard that take before, interesting. When did you start listening to their music? No judgement, no quip coming, just interested; sometimes the order we hear music from an artist gives us a very different impression than someone who followed them chronologically.
- Lol, I'm the exact opposite. I really dislike Random, and love everything else.
- I have the same opinion! Once, I had the idea to check the album reviews on reddit, and I was surprised by people not liking it so much. As people commented here, Daft Punk fans do not like it because of the same reason hehe

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.
- There are so many great Canadian 80's/90's bands that many folks will never discover. CTD would definitely have been among them if not for Weird Al.
- In the realm of 90s Canadian quirky-core folk rock,
  Three words for you, then. Moxy Früvous, Bargainville.

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.
- I would have picked Intimacy for largely the same reasons!

Turn on the Bright Lights by Interpol is incredible, in my opinion it's one of, if not the most impressive debut albums I have ever come across. The rest of their discography is ok, but nothing that I would rate anywhere close to that.
- I kind of disagree. I think Our Love To Admire and El Pintor are much more solid albums with better songs and better construction that better contend for their best. They hit the highs of TOTBL, and then some - my personal favorites are Heinrich Maneuver, Anywhere, and Everything is wrong.
  That being said, that doesn't keep TOTBL from being one of their best - it really captures that feeling of pre-9/11 indie rock with songs that are really gripping. If anything, I would say that the 10th anniversary edition of TOTBL is the best version of that album that includes their EP and demo material for the band that shows that the album wasn't just their first album, it was an entire era for the band through the material they released around that album.
- Came here to post this.
  
  Like, the rest of their albums are totally fine, that's just how good their debut was.
  I would kind of say the same thing about The Strokes, but I think some of their follow ups have aged well

Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane.
They used to be so delightfully unique and funky. They're just sellouts now.
- Makes me sad where they ended up, such a great album.

Garbage V2.0
- The first garbage album I ever bought. I agree with this. Along the same lines, I think Chumbawamba's Tubthumper comes to mind. Besides "Tubthumpin" (I get kocked down), the rest of the album is actually really solid and still a good listen today.

The Strokes. Their debut *Is This It *is one of the best if not the best Rock debuts. Eveything else after is just meh to me.
- You’re right. It’s an amazing album. “Definitely Maybe” by Oasis is my vote for best rock debut album but I think you’re spot on otherwise about The Strokes.

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

Metallica: Ride the Lightning
I love this album, but can't stand any of their other stuff.
- I prefer Master of Puppets to Ride the Lightning for the overall heavier sound, and the distinct lack of acne in Hetfield’s voice. However, those two albums are definitely their top two.
  
  Agreed
  
  Oh, the production quality on Lightning is trash. The drums sound like their not in the same room with the the microphones. Part of the charm. It sounds like a band who doesn't know any professional producers.

Infected Mushroom.
Classical Mushroom is fucking amazing to the point I can hear the whole album in my head including every note if I want. But after that it just fell apart.
- Huh. I’ve been a fan of pretty much everything they put out. I’m curious what this album had that the others didn’t for you.
  
  It was all the E notes.
  Seriously though how am I supposed to answer that?
- I love Return to the Sauce. So good.

Black Sabath Paranoid. Their other stuff has a decent song here and there, but this album is my favorite.
- I think War Pigs/Luke's Wall is one of the best anti-war songs. While so many of the era were very hopeful/happy (Youngbloods, Buffalo Springfield...), Sabbath's take on the war song genre was a giant middle finger to the military industrial complex, saying "you are literally doing Satan's bidding." It's awesome.
  Fortunate Son, Gimme Shelter, and I'm gonna say Rooster round out my favorite Vietnam songs.

Pearl Jam Ten. I wore that album out and everything they put out afterwards just wasn’t even remotely the same for me.
- Hard disagree
- Same. I'm sure the rest is not bad but I can't get into it. Ten is absolute perfection.

Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt. I love everything about that album, even today. Their other stuff is OK at best. Just not my thing.
- This was the example that popped into my head when I saw the question prompt. Listening to this now still hits me as strongly as when it came out, and the rest of the albums just don’t feel as strong to me.

A Fever you can't Sweat Out by Panic! At the Disco. I don't know what happened after that album but it wasn't good.
- I actually think Pretty Odd is this best thing they ever did, but most people who love Fever objectively hate the non emo outing.
- I like some of the songs on the subsequent albums but you're absolutely right. That first album is just banger after banger and each album after got 30-50% worse until we ended up with whatever the hell panic at the disco is today.
  
  Disbanded. They’re disbanded today.

Megadeth. Rust in Peace is a masterpiece. The rest of the albums are just boring.
- I honestly don't know why other bands are bothering to continue making music when Rust In Peace exists. It's embarrassing.
  *credit to The Onion
- Megadeth is just one of those bands where you'll only like select tracks per album. But there's almost no album of theirs that's perfect from beginning to end.

Not one perfect and the rest bad, but more masterpiece to pretty good to dogshit to hot dogshit to ok.
Powerman 5000.
- Is hot dogshit better or worse than ambient dogshit?
  
  Yes, because the dogshit molecules are obviously more jiggly in hot dogshit and that's just gross.
- Especially true. Their latest album released like two or so years ago was really just an ear-in-ear-out experience. Not a damn memorable track from that album. They're releasing a new one this year and it's probably going to be the same.
  Between the two brothers (vocalist of Powerman 5000 is related to Rob Zombie), Rob Zombie has the better end of the deal.
  
  Forget the third Zombie brother, the lead singer for The Union Underground, whose only kinda good song is basically about how stupid the audience is and just make him a millionaire already...
  To go into a bit more detail for what my actual knowledge is:
  Tonight the Stars Revolt!: Ever loving masterpiece
  Transform: Little more mindless, still really really good
  Somewhere on the Other Side of Nowhere: I really like about half the album, most Powerman fans dont
  Copies Clones & Replicants: Uh oh... absolutely trash cover album?...?? Where did that come from?
  Builders of the Future: They've lost their identity, they have lost their vibe... still liked 2 of the songs. Overall a let down.
  New Wave: Absolute utter trash. All of it. Never gave any of the songs a second listen. Actually actively avoided them.
  The Noble Rot: One song I REALLY like, a couple I can stand to listen to if Youtube puts it up automatically, the rest just pretty bad.
  Rob is definitely the OG Zombie. He just has more raw visceral roaring power in his energy. Spider One is, well, he is the dude from the video for When Worlds Collide (part of the absolute masterpiece collection that came with Tonight the Stars Revolt).
  I would also say, moderately recently, I saw Allegoria, and I much prefer Spider One's B horror movie vision over Rob's "look at my wife" movie style. In fact, I would be pretty confident saying that Spider One's musical career trajectory and Rob's horror movie trajectory are VERY similar.

Fatboy Slim, You've Come a Long Way Baby I could listen (and have) all the way through for decades. Barely even had a few singles after that I enjoyed. Was very disappointing.
- Oh, yes. Another great example. That album is killer.

Parachutes by Coldplay was a really good kind of alt-indie-pop album. Much more stripped down than the rest of their catalog. Everything since then has either been overproduced or soulless.
- If you want more chill, brooding, melancholy stuff — songs that sound about right for a band that named itself "Coldplay" — there are two EPs and a handful of B-sides from before Parachutes that are relatively unknown and have the same vibe.
  
  Got any names for those eps or b sides?

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.
- Believe is also my favorite from them. I remember when "Evolution" came out and being disappointed by how forgettable it is. I actually had to go search for it so I could remember the name of it.

Foster the People.
Their first album is brilliant, with not one bad song on it. The rest of their stuff is shite.

For me is Silent alarm by Bloc Party.
- I was so pumped to see them in concert. Unfortunately, Matt Tong (their drummer) suffered a collapsed lung when opening for Panic! At the Disco. The show was going to be Bloc Party, Jacks Mannequin, Panic! At the Disco. I was really excited to see Bloc Party & Jacks and Panic! wasn't a bad option to see too (though their sound mixer was awful and it sounded like shit). Instead of Bloc Party, we got Plain White Tees. Just a brutal replacement.

P.O.D. I legitimately did not know they released other albums because Satellite was that good. I listened to them. I shouldn’t have.
- Fr. People who only know Satellite might say POD stands for Payable on Death. Those who have heard everything else know it's actually Pile of Dookie.
- Satellite is undeniably their best album. However, the track "Southtown" from The Fundamental Elements of Southtown goes harder than anything they ever made after that, and I kept that cd for years just for that track.

Epsilon by Blood Stain Child
Melodic death metal with techno/trance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vobp17bP17c
- I still like the rest of their work, but THAT album is by far my favorite.

Boston is the first that comes to mind for me. there's their self-titled which is easily one of the best records of all time, and then everything that came wasn't exactly bad but it was nowhere near the same level
- Boston was my first reaction. Their first album is nigh perfect; everything after is merely decent '80s rock.

Boy's Night Out made the album Trainwreck, a concept album about a man having a night terror and strangling his wife to death and coping with her loss. It's fucking great.
Everything else they've ever done is aggressively mid
- You left off the best part that he "copes" by cutting off his hands afterwards. I love that album.

I don't care for the Beatles, but I love the white album
- Yeah, that's most Beatles fans. Abbey road being a close second.
  
  No. It’s not most Beatles “fans”.

The Queen is Dead is the only Smiths album I like, the others just don't do it for me.
- I loved Strangeways Here We Come but I can't listen to anything Morrissey anymore.
  Johnny Marr has done some interesting stuff solo so we've got that going for us.

Train. Drops of Jupiter was, in my opinion, just perfect. Others after that were meh at best, trying to recapture the spark that DOJ was. I always figured it was when a band loses one of its member, things like this happen…
- When i realised that song was by trai many years after it was released it blew my mind. I dont think i knew the band by name until around 2009 or maybe later than that but i really didnt like them, they just felt generic and a bit forced. Then one day i heard the song drops of jupiter again and though, oh this a good song! Who's it by? Looked it up and was gobsmacked. Never would have imagined the band that wrote drive by as capable of writing DOJ.

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

Morbid 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.

Pearl jam has fallen so far and that's all I'll say about it.
- Ten was great. Yield was ok. Vitalogy was…bugs bugs bugs. Just keeps getting stranger.
  
  Dark Matter is sounding in the okay field. I don't understand why some people in the comment sections of every track are like going "Yeah! Pearl Jam is back to their angry roots!" when the album, 7 tracks in for me, is sounding pretty mellow. Some good rock flare but it's overstating the matter about how 'angry' it is.

Bear with me on this one. Stadium Arcadian by the red hot chili peppers.
They've had other good albums before and after this one. But stadium Arcadian is so good everything else pales in comparison to such a degree that anything outside that album is trash.
- I respect your opinion but you can’t tell me “BSSM” is a “trash” album.
  
  It's not. It's a really good album. In fact, most of their albums are good, but stadium arcadium in particular is on such a different level that in comparison they're much worse.
- I've never met a single person with that opinion. I remember being so disappointed when that album came out.
  
  I have never met a single person in my life that supports Putin as president of Russia yet here we are.
- Trash? Stadium Arcadian was a good album, but Californication was one of the most well put together albums ever.

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.
- elicit.
  Illicit = of legally dubious origin
  
  Having read Scar Tissue, there was a lot of illicit love with the fans.

Closure in Moscow, Pink Lemonade is an incredible album with such amazing style and intensity and I don't understand how it's the same band as some of their other things.
- Holy shit, I love that album so much and I've never seen anybody else mention it! It's intense and upbeat and poppy but also grungy and sludgy in all the right ways. Their other stuff is just kinda sludgy but without also being fun.
  What's your favourite track on Pink Lemonade? For me I'd have to say Church of the Technochrist
  
  Oh hell yeah! I love Church of the Technochrist too but probably Seeds of Gold for me. And well described! I really wish they were able to keep up the sound they found on Pink Lemonade for their other stuff
  
  Happy Days is my jam

Groove Armada’s Black Light.
I highly doubt if anyone but me is listening to it.

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.

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.
- I mean, Alt-J just aren't that great live. I feel like they pitch-correct most of the vocals on the studio albums... I also like An Awesome Wave best but I think This Is All Yours is very very good too. But we don't talk about the later stuff.

Other Tragically Hip albums have some standout tracks, but the only album of theirs I really enjoy beginning-to-end is Fully Completely.

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.

Augustana. Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt is a fantastic album, but everything else they’ve put out is meh.
- That the one with the Boston diddy?
  
  No, that’s their first album, All the Stars and Boulevards. A few years before. Sweet and Low is their big hit from Can’t Love Can’t Hurt.

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.

178 comments