What, no Van Morrison?

March 19, 2015 6:45 AM

The Faded Glory Invitational: 16 Icons Battle to Determine the Greatest ‘Down’ Period in Pop Music History What once (and possibly future) great artist had the greatest "down" period? '90s Springsteen, '80's Dylan, Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines, and many others battle it out for "supremacy".
posted by Optamystic (80 comments total)

That's hardly enough entries for a proper bracket.
posted by ardgedee at 6:51 AM on March 19, 2015

Clicks on article, Ctrl-F for "Ghost of Tom Joad", no hits. Moves on.
posted by mcstayinskool at 6:59 AM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

They didn't think this through super well. Plenty of the artists listed lost the plot at some point, but most every pop artist does, so that is hardly interesting. The interesting ones are the ones that regain the plot or find a different plot and only a few of the artists listed (Bob Dylan is the only one I'd really defend) have managed that.

I guess you could say that artists who manage to be mediocre for a really long stretch while still selling out stadiums would be another description but that's sort of depressing.
posted by selfnoise at 7:02 AM on March 19, 2015

Ah yes Audioslave - or Rage Against The Garden as I like to call them.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 7:07 AM on March 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

Still waiting for the Rolling Stones to come out of their "down" period. It's been almost thirty five years since their last decent album but I'm sure that this is only a phase.
posted by octothorpe at 7:07 AM on March 19, 2015 [7 favorites]

I always liked "Matter of Trust."
posted by jonmc at 7:07 AM on March 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

"This is clearly sadder for Cherone, a person who exists."

It is amazing to me that thinking of Van Halen with Gary Cherone makes me long for Hagar-era Van Halen.
posted by bondcliff at 7:08 AM on March 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

> Hating “Kokomo” is like hating Hawaiian Shirt Day at the senior’s center. It’s good, clean fun designed to distract the populace from impending death.

Okay, I like this guy. Even if he inexplicably fails to consider albums like Joni Mitchell's Mingus.
posted by ardgedee at 7:11 AM on March 19, 2015 [9 favorites]

Clicks on article, Ctrl-F for "Ghost of Tom Joad", no hits. Moves on.
posted by mcstayinskool

Huh?
posted by Optamystic at 7:24 AM on March 19, 2015

While I don't disagree with the result and Neil young was the right #2 seed, it seems Prince got short shrift. And Eric Clapton should definitely have been in there. I wonder if they considered any Beatles?
posted by TedW at 7:27 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah what the fuck 90s prince is single digits for sure.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:33 AM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Also Post Pinkerton Weezer isn't at all embarrassing though--just mediocre. 3 seed? I AM YELLING
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:35 AM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

St. Anger–Era Metallica (7-seed) vs. ’80s Beach Boys (10-seed)
These should both be #1s. I CANT STOP
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:37 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Bob Dylan is even overrated at being crappy.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:39 AM on March 19, 2015 [20 favorites]

Also Post Pinkerton Weezer isn't at all embarrassing though--just mediocre. 3 seed? I AM YELLING

I would say "well, you haven't listened to enough of it" but that's like saying that you should really eat some more of this undercooked shrimp before you criticize it
posted by clockzero at 7:42 AM on March 19, 2015 [7 favorites]

Ah yes Audioslave - or Rage Against The Garden as I like to call them.

I went with "Sound Against the Machine"
posted by Renoroc at 7:47 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Billy Joel it's silly to have in there at all, as to state that he was "down" at some point suggests that he ever released any album worth listening to.

I also think Elvis Costello should be in there, certainly around the time of "Goodbye Cruel World" or "Mighty Like a Rose."
posted by holborne at 7:52 AM on March 19, 2015 [6 favorites]

Hari Kondabolu has a pretty great take on present-day Weezer.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:52 AM on March 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

I regret that I cannot unsee that Neil Young video.
posted by 724A at 7:55 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Metallica after 1988 is "down" in my opinion.
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:59 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I still love Neil's Trans album although I can't remember much about any of his other Geffin records even though either I or my roommates owned all of them.
posted by octothorpe at 8:00 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

And for the record, the true downturn for Weezer came post-Green Album, not post-Pinkerton. Green Album was a pleasant blast of '90s power pop that was of a piece with the Blue Album, if not as thematically dense as Pinkerton.

But Maladroit? That was just an unlistenable drag in every sense.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:03 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

That era Neil Young is magical for being so fucking weirdly un-like him.
After Hey Hey My My with Booji Boy in Human Highway, the synth-voice weirdness isn't really that weird, it just seems like Neil playing with sound and expectations.
Trans isn't an album you listen to a lot.
But sometimes you put it on really loud while drinking in the garage and it works. Your friends might give you the side-eye, but . . .
posted by Seamus at 8:10 AM on March 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

Garth Brooks. Shouldn't this list be limited to artists who are considered normally "good" by most people?
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:12 AM on March 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

A creative day for me is when I make a hamburger bun by using a large cup to cut circles out of 2 slices of regular bread. But by all means, let's mock artists who were blindingly brilliant in their 20s and 30s and ran into a fallow/bitter/misguided period later in life.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 8:14 AM on March 19, 2015 [6 favorites]

Garth Brooks. Shouldn't this list be limited to artists who are considered normally "good" by most people?

Garth Brooks is incredibly popular, Ms. Kael.

(Yes, I know that isn't what Kael's remark really was, but that's how it's entered the lexicon.)
posted by kenko at 8:16 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

holborne: "Billy Joel it's silly to have in there at all, as to state that he was "down" at some point suggests that he ever released any album worth listening to."

Oh good, the Billy Joel discussion again.

Related to this discussion - I finally watched "Some Kind of Monster" this past weekend. The degree to which Kirk Hammett *is* Derek Smalls ("David and Nigel are like poets, you know, like Shelley or Byron, or people like that. The two totally distinct types of visionaries, it’s like fire and ice, and I feel my role in the band is to be kind of the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.") just astounded me.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:18 AM on March 19, 2015 [7 favorites]

Audioslave and Atorms for Peace shouldn't be included because they were new bands composed of members of formerly good bands. That doesn't count as a down period.
posted by rocket88 at 8:24 AM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

I always liked 'Wonderin'" as well.
posted by jonmc at 8:34 AM on March 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

I feel like this guy came up with the winner first, and then created the concept and worked backwards to fill in the brackets. And I don't think he spent very much time coming up with his choices.
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:40 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh good, the Billy Joel discussion again

Someone forcing you to discuss it?
posted by holborne at 9:00 AM on March 19, 2015

Pearl Jam could be considered to be down. If they had made anything after Ten, that is.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:02 AM on March 19, 2015

I regret that I cannot unsee that Neil Young video.

Palate cleanser.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:05 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah this is a really disjointed list. I think the intention here is 'weird or down periods from an otherwise solid career'. The 'off' album or two due to a life event, cultural influence, experimenting etc. is markedly different than the Weezer/Liz Phair arc of being really promising and then just progressively and embarrassingly worse where people have protracted debates to determine exactly where they went really wrong. This is subtly different than the longer mainstream career that went bad: Phil Collins. This is also different than the generally listenable career arc of which the first albums are still the best: Soundgarden, Metallica. Then, there's the Radiohead arc where they just plainly changed, they're arguably as good, their fanbase is split, and from which they aren't likely to return.

Far rarer is the genuinely experimental/bad/weird album in the middle of a career from which there was a notable recovery. I like the reference to Black and Blue, as it's an off album that's nevertheless listenable, not quite as accessible to their fanbase, and from which they returned to produce more classically Stones albums (Steel Wheels is a good album, I will fight you). I also would say that, more contemporary examples include the Ryan Adams Love Is Hell/Rock and Roll crisis period. Bob Dylan's moment could have been Nashville Skyline I think.

Then there's the current careers that are probably just derailed for now - most notably for me is Damien Rice's sprawling latest album that's both very beautiful and extremely inaccessible, brought on by crisis of self and breakup.
posted by jimmythefish at 9:09 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Pearl Jam could be considered to be down. If they had made anything after Ten, that is.

I think that's unfair. Vs, Vitalogy, No Code and Yield were good. Pearl Jam is actually a fairly good example, their latest is pretty solid. I didn't much care for the period that began with Binaural. Forgettable music.
posted by jimmythefish at 9:17 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

There are less than 2 artists in the bracket that I even like, so it's mostly win (or ignore) all the way down for me.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:31 AM on March 19, 2015

jimmythefish: "markedly different than the Weezer/Liz Phair arc of being really promising and then just progressively and embarrassingly worse where people have protracted debates to determine exactly where they went really wrong."

Everything post-whitechocolatespaceegg is pretty bad.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:32 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I kinda liked Van Halen for a while, but I swear I have never heard of Gary Cherone. I have no plans to educate myself thanks to this article.
posted by tommasz at 9:37 AM on March 19, 2015

jimmy the fish, Hyden did a whole article on Pearl Jam's discography. Worth a read if you're so inclined.
posted by sauril at 9:42 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Far rarer is the genuinely experimental/bad/weird album in the middle of a career from which there was a notable recovery"

My first "real" concert was for the Rush "Roll The Bones" tour, I think they had a video on MTV with skeletons and someone rapping in the middle of it (?), so I went with some older kids. I genuinely thought a woman was singing when they took the stage.

took me a full on decade later to finally revisit Rush and see what all the (warranted) fuss was all about.
posted by remlapm at 9:42 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think the intention here is 'weird or down periods from an otherwise solid career'.

I think it was profoundly skewed by "can I find a goofy video to link to"?
posted by yoink at 9:42 AM on March 19, 2015

"I kinda liked Van Halen for a while, but I swear I have never heard of Gary Cherone. I have no plans to educate myself thanks to this article"

I'm a massive, massive fan of Nuno Bettencourt. Extreme's "III Sides To Every Story" with Cherone on vocals is a guilty pleasure I will never, ever tire of. The lyrics are far too political in a weird early 90s "let's all be colorblind, here's a warhead, choose a side, daddy don't run away" way, but WOW the guitar playing on that album is fucking superb. Worth a listen.
posted by remlapm at 9:46 AM on March 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

My first "real" concert was for the Rush "Roll The Bones" tour, I think they had a video on MTV with skeletons and someone rapping in the middle of it (?), so I went with some older kids. I genuinely thought a woman was singing when they took the stage.

I went to that tour! Yeah, the title track from the album features rapping. It's a pretty darned bad album, IMHO.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:46 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh good, the Billy Joel discussion again

Someone forcing you to discuss it?


Nobody's forcing it, but there is an undeniable.....

PRESSURE
posted by dr_dank at 9:47 AM on March 19, 2015 [15 favorites]

Everything post-whitechocolatespaceegg is pretty bad.

I agree.
posted by jimmythefish at 9:52 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm a massive, massive fan of Nuno Bettencourt.

Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee!
posted by jimmythefish at 10:02 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh good, the Billy Joel discussion again

Someone forcing you to discuss it?


Nobody's forcing it, but there is an undeniable.....

PRESSURE

Tell us about it. Tell us everything you feel.

ohhh ha ha I could do this for the longest time
posted by Metroid Baby at 10:05 AM on March 19, 2015 [9 favorites]

Also Post Pinkerton Weezer isn't at all embarrassing though.

Right, just most of it.
posted by saul wright at 10:13 AM on March 19, 2015

What, no "Friday I'm in Love"-era Cure?

I HAS AN OUTRAGE
posted by pxe2000 at 10:24 AM on March 19, 2015

I'm also surprised that Sparks from (and including) In Outer Space to whatever they were doing before Li'l Beethoven isn't on here, either.

(Okay, to be fair, Gratuitous Sax isn't without its moments, but let's be real here.)
posted by pxe2000 at 10:26 AM on March 19, 2015

Hating “Kokomo” is like hating Hawaiian Shirt Day at the senior’s center.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha no. You may not remember hating "Kokomo" or "Still Cruisin'" because the mind can be mercifully forgetful. Reviewing Mike Love's acceptance speech at the R&RHOF ceremony can fix that. Sorry, had to be done.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:39 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh c'mon. The winner by a landslide has to be Iggy Pop, 1973-present.

But don't mind me. I'll be over here listening to Fun House on headphones muttering "greatest album ever".
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:43 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Bob Dylan is even overrated at being crappy.

Which is precisely the genius of it. Gaines may win this time, but Dylan plays the LONG game.
posted by jonp72 at 10:47 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

What, no "Friday I'm in Love"-era Cure?

That marked the end of their "up" period, not the beginning of their "down" period (it's debatable whether they ever had one). It's not that huge a leap from "Lovesong" three years prior.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:48 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I went to that tour! Yeah, the title track from the album features rapping. It's a pretty darned bad album, IMHO.

Didn't Todd Rundgren release his rap/interactive multimedia album around the same time? There must have been something in the air.
posted by Dr-Baa at 10:49 AM on March 19, 2015

Van Halen always comes up in discussions of lapsarian rock bands, but it's a total shibboleth. In fact, they were never all that interesting or fun, and they didn't actually move very far from where they started. The best Van Halen (i.e. "classic" DLR-era) is more or less shitty late period Who or Kinks with mountain dew commercial guitar spooged all over it... which is pretty much exactly what the worst Van Halen is like too. Maybe they were on-zeitgeist for a minute, but it turned out that white sneakered surf-bud party music was not the enduring face of middle-class rock, so we don't have to split these hairs anymore. It's one of the weirdest hangovers of dinosaur era rock journos that disappointment in Van Halen is still an extant cultural thing. Like, we have told the story for so long that we just can't stop telling it...?
posted by batfish at 10:55 AM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Rivers Cuomo is the Steven Moffat of rock stars.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:02 AM on March 19, 2015

jimmythefish: I think that's unfair. Vs, Vitalogy, No Code and Yield were good. Pearl Jam is actually a fairly good example, their latest is pretty solid. I didn't much care for the period that began with Binaural. Forgettable music.

Yeah, if someone wanted to shoehorn them into this list, I suppose one could do Ten, vs., and Vitalogy as the initial peak, then (depending on how you feel about Yield -- I'm sort of "meh" on it) Yield, Binaural, Riot Act, and the self-titled album as a down period, but I would put Backspacer right up with their best output, and Lightning Bolt just a shade below that. As "down periods" go I think they'd be a low seed and bounced out in the first round, though -- some of those albums just weren't very strong at all aside from the odd single here and there. Lots of filler.

Anyway, I thought we raised "hurf durf band X never made anything after album Y" to the rafters of retired hall of fame snarky quips along with "your favorite band sucks."
posted by tonycpsu at 11:06 AM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm also surprised that Sparks from (and including) In Outer Space to whatever they were doing before Li'l Beethoven isn't on here, either.

I think first people would have to be aware of Sparks as a band. I've been on a major Mael Bros. kick since Rory Marinich's singular ALL OF THE SPARKS retrospective post from last June, and darned if every time somebody asks what I've been listening to lately, I don't get a blank stare and a "Who?" in return. I've decided to take this as a teaching moment.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:08 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh god, Liz Phair. whitechocolatespaceegg is so good and then her self-titled album was so bad and miscalculated it's like she was making a conscious choice to become a relic.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:20 AM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

some of those albums just weren't very strong at all aside from the odd single here and there. Lots of filler.

I think the period after Yield was precisely why they fit into this list, and especially for me at my point in life. Binaural was the first album that was released post-university for me, and it was after the Roskilde incident that shook the band something big. Drug use was heavy with Mike McCready, there was a big pullback from the unabashed kinetic energy that drove them previously. They started playing 'Release' as an opener. It was just a bummer. I clearly remember my roommate and I at the time listening to the first single in the car (Nothing As It Seems) and him going "whaaaaa...."

I like and dislike Binaural for all of these reasons, and I find it difficult to separate nostalgia from the music. It was a good time in my life, but an unsettling one. Light Years is great, Nothing As It Seems is great, but there's a throwaway feeling to it. Look at the names of the last four tracks: Grievance, Sleight of Hand, Soon Forget, Parting Ways. Serious bummer from a band that was always the pick-me-up.
posted by jimmythefish at 11:25 AM on March 19, 2015

There were a bunch of demos that leaked out after whitechocolatespaceegg, some of which she played on the wcse tour, and they were really solid. Then, for whatever reason, she went in a totally different direction. Sigh.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:29 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh god, Liz Phair.

The other day I was playing Guyville. Shatter is probably my favourite piece of music. What happened.
posted by jimmythefish at 11:31 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I would say every Liz Phair album is about two-thirds as good as the one before it, but my data on this topic doesn't extend beyond about five minutes' worth of the self-titled album.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:32 AM on March 19, 2015

'79 - '87 Dead. eww.
posted by j_curiouser at 12:05 PM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

A couple of years ago I visited the Rock and Roll HOF and there was some sort of Grateful Dead exhibit on the top floor. I'm not terribly familiar with the Dead's discography, so when I saw this album cover I couldn't stop laughing. It's magnificent in all the wrong ways.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:14 PM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I can't help but view '80s Dylan and '80s Neil Young as two opposite polarities of the same phenomenon. Both seem to be motivated by "Because fuck you, that's why!," but they're completely different in how they execute. One strategy is to execute a "fuck you" that's ridiculously insane, baroque, elaborate, and effortful, just to show much you really mean it (cf. '80s Neil Young). The other strategy is to barely show any effort at all, because only a complete lack of effort and give-a-shit can reflect the contempt that so thoroughly persuades your "fuck you" (cf. '80s Dylan).
posted by jonp72 at 12:20 PM on March 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

I always feel bad for Gary Cherone. He doesn't deserve the blame for most of that album, which wasn't very good, but at least it didn't have the suffocating homogeneity of the Sammy Hagar albums.
posted by wintermind at 12:38 PM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Billy Joel discussion?

It's no big sin to stick your two cents in if you know when to leave it alone.
posted by jonmc at 12:41 PM on March 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Gary Cherone is completely capable of driving 55, thank you.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:50 PM on March 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

My first "real" concert was for the Rush "Roll The Bones" tour, I think they had a video on MTV with skeletons and someone rapping in the middle of it (?), so I went with some older kids. I genuinely thought a woman was singing when they took the stage.

What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:35 PM on March 19, 2015 [6 favorites]

'79 - '87 Dead. eww.

i assume you mean live, right? (and you're right, too)

for me all their records past wake of the flood was a bit disappointing for me, except for in the dark - some good songs, but a lot of filler and lackluster performances
posted by pyramid termite at 2:54 PM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

What happened to post-Derrick and the Dominoes, post-Beatles Paul McCartney, or post-Atlantic Crossing Rod Stewart. I date myself.
posted by hwestiii at 6:59 PM on March 19, 2015

90s David Bowie vs 90s David Byrne
posted by threecheesetrees at 7:59 PM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

So, uh...Metal Machine Music?
posted by holborne at 8:20 PM on March 19, 2015

Nearly every band that was popular before 1978 sucked in the 80s. There are a few exceptions, but they're mostly solo artists. This is my 1978 rule of rock n roll, and it has stood the test of time and many drunken late-night debates.

It's the 1978 rule of rock n roll. It works.
posted by evil otto at 9:05 PM on March 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'm generally with the 1978 rule of Rock Music, but there are a few notable exceptions:

A. Talking Heads, I think given that their first album hit in the top 100 in 1977, while they (obviously) didn't really suck much in the 80s.

B. If counting solo stuff, Peter Gabriel's first solo album came out in '77 as well, and he had a pretty good run in the 80s.

C. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had some pretty good stuff in the 80s, of course.

I'd be tempted to add in Judas Priest, Hall and Oates, and AC/DC in the list, but only releasing good albums for 1980/1981 and releasing 'meh' stuff for the rest of the decade doesn't really count as not sucking in the 1980s in my book.

I'd be tempted to change the 1978 rule to a 1976 or 1975 rule; anyone that was popular in 1975/76 did not make it successfully through the entirety of the 1980s.
posted by pipian at 11:00 PM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

That's true as an observation but also kind of trivial as a rule. How many acts of any era in popular music have managed a consistently high quality of output for a minimum of 15 years?
posted by ardgedee at 3:40 AM on March 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

90s David Bowie vs 90s David Byrne

I really didn't keep track of Byrne in the 90s. Bowie had Black Tie White Noise, still my favorite of his post-Scary Monsters work (it was produced by Niles Rodgers, who also produced Let's Dance, which was a huge letdown for me after Scary Monsters), and also had "I'm Afraid of Americans" (which was originally done for the movie Showgirls, of all the fucking things; Paul Verhoeven also used "I Have Not Been to Oxford Town" from 1. Outside in Starship Troopers).
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:08 AM on March 20, 2015

Oh, I liked some of Byrne's 90s stuff.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:37 AM on March 20, 2015