Albums that poisoned the artist

Thinking about records where the artist went out on a limb and fell hard, making them second guess themselves/play it safe for the rest of their career. Adore by the Smashing Pumpkins and Pinkerton by Weezer come to mind - both confessional and experimental records by acutely sensitive songwriters coming off of huge success. Devastated by the rejection, Corgan and Cuomo went on to make records with elaborate conceits and an emotional distance as a pre-emptive defense against further rejection. Tusk by Fleetwood Mac fits, too - the rest of the band screams "NEVER AGAIN, LINDSEY!" and we get middling Mirage and Tango in the Night. And Congratulations by MGMT - a brilliant weirdo pop record dismissed and ignored by critics and fairweather fans expecting another half dozen hits. The s/t from 2013 is overwrought and unfocused. These are tragedies, I can't think of anyone that recovered from this sort of punishment & disappointment.

my counterpoint to this is that every MGMT album has been a different type of terrible.

There's going to be a lot of overlap between this and the recent "Every Artist Has a Tusk" topic, right?

this has to do with the albums that come after where no one is satisfied

Mirage and Tango are dope

Mirage and Tango are dope

― nomar, Wednesday, September 16, 2015 1:53 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Then why are you mentioning Fleetwood Mac? Both Mirage and Tango in the Night went multiplatinum, which may not be an indicator of quality but does lead one to think that a lot of people were satisfied by those albums.

& more importantly, the effect the response has on the artist. everyone hated Insignificance by Jim O'Rourke when it came out, and he didn't sing for another 14 years. AND moved to japan

Say You Will from 2003 is another mostly Lindsey album, btw, so I don't even know wtf you mentioned Fleetwood Mac for in this thread.

As for Corgan, Cuomo and the MGMT dudes, the probability that they were going to run out of ideas quickly was always pretty high.

chris gaines - greatest hits

'pop' by U2. and i say this as a U2 fan who has to varying degrees liked a lot of their post-'pop' work. it's odd for a band to find their artistic sweet spot and then abandon it but i suppose it happens all the time.

Green Album and Make Believe sold well but are never rated with the first two. Same with Mirage and Tango.

Green Album and Maladroit significantly better than the first two.

Same with Mirage and Tango.

What world do you even live in? Every FM album between 1975 and 1987 is canon (and popular and respected).

Dazzle Ships

Pop fits I think - as I understand it this isn't about whether the artist's career was poisoned but whether they are somehow so taken aback by the rejection of an artistic move that they swear "never again" and strive from them on to please the fans. They might be successful in doing so (hence the later records selling fine) and they might not.

I also think there is a tendency after these albums for the artist to become a "every album is their best since Blood on the Tracks" artist - not that Blood on the Tracks is one of these albums, but that they and their record company are stuck having to convince skeptical fans that they've got it back together - forget that weird one, they're back to what you love about them! This seems really clear with Adore, where Machina and especially the ZWAN album seem to expend a lot of their energy convincing you Adore was a fluke.

You could say that Around the Sun is one of these records maybe, since it was followed by two conspicuously "back to rockin'! that's what we do best! right?" albums, but I'm not sure they were ever totally poisoned, and whatever it is that did happen to them it didn't happen with just the one record. McCartney II might be one; ever since, McCartney has largely confined his "experimental" ambitions to things that are obviously "side projects" outside his main line as a tasteful tunesmith who'll occasionally rev it up with 50s-flavored rockin'.

Pop fits I think - as I understand it this isn't about whether the artist's career was poisoned but whether they are somehow so taken aback by the rejection of an artistic move that they swear "never again" and strive from them on to please the fans. They might be successful in doing so (hence the later records selling fine) and they might not.

Exactly.

I'm not sure I understand the premise, but Born In The USA seems to fit. As a follow-up to Nebraska, it's certainly more commercial, to put it mildly.

The artist makes an experimental, personal record that isn't received well, making them panic/doubt/second-guess/overthink themselves moving forward, leading to middling or 'safe' work.

in Corgan's case, everything after Adore has been wrapped in a concept easily dismissed once it inevitably fails - "oh, that was just our half-baked rock opera" (Machina), "oh, i was distracted by my shitty band mates" (Zwan), "oh, we were just trying to go back to basics" (Zeitgeist), "oh, it was the delivery system" (Teargarden), and then the last two - "people are stuck in the past"

maybe Sweetheart of the Rodeo?

TheFutureEmbrace stands out though - that was pretty risky but he was basically asking people to hate it with that cover as a pre-emptive defense. "people want pumpkins guitars"

http://cdn3.pitchfork.com/albums/1795/homepage_large.9ee77821.jpg

the day of thefutureembrace's release he put out an ad asking for a pumpkins reunion so

OK, Born In The USA doesn't fit. People loved Nebraska

If Springsteen has one it's Tunnel of Love.

How about Kiss: Creatures Of The Night, a "return to form" after the ambitious flop Music from "The Elder"

in Corgan's case, everything after Adore has been wrapped in a concept easily dismissed once it inevitably fails - "oh, that was just our half-baked rock opera" (Machina), "oh, i was distracted by my shitty band mates" (Zwan), "oh, we were just trying to go back to basics" (Zeitgeist), "oh, it was the delivery system" (Teargarden), and then the last two - "people are stuck in the past"

― flappy bird, Wednesday, September 16, 2015 2:05 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha distracted by my shitty band mates who were in bands that were better than Smashing Pumpkins

Green Album and Maladroit significantly better than the first two.

― how's life, Wednesday, September 16, 2015 7:06 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ew. no.

Sometime in New York City - John Lennon ?

supposedly the test pressing for Double Fantasy contained lethal amounts of hemlock which John Lennon breathed in, dying within minutes. they propped him up Weekend at Bernie's style until M-Chap could pop by with his .38 and help cover it up.

& more importantly, the effect the response has on the artist. everyone hated Insignificance by Jim O'Rourke when it came out, and he didn't sing for another 14 years. AND moved to japan

― flappy bird, Wednesday, September 16, 2015 12:55 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They did? I loved that record.

had a think about this last night.
does Rudebox/Robbie Williams fit the criteria ?
i would say so.

Almost certain: Metallica-St.Anger; Daft Punk–Human After All.
Maybe : Foo Fighters (First Record);Red Hot Chili Peppers–One Hot Minute;REM Up.

Wait...who hated Insignificance, now?

http://i.imgur.com/fTTBLia.gif

Wait...who hated Insignificance, now?

― Too Many Butts (Old Lunch), Thursday, September 17, 2015 11:52 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

according to Jimo, ^everyone. probably means his old chicago friends. claims people took the lyrics at face value. i thought pitchfork panned it, but apparently they gave it an 8.0. Jimo's memory might be faulty, he also claims no one liked it because it came out on 9/11. came out a couple months later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3z8twRBz24

St. Anger totally fits, idk why they got savaged for that record. killer drum sound

Batman by Prince seems to me where he started to try to be "funky" instead of just being Prince.

Disintegration by the CURE brought in the spacious arena sound I didn't care for that much.

Up by R.E.M might count. Reveal certainly felt like a bit of an apology after a few experimental records. Not sure if this would work as Around The Sun went and ruined any good will they'd built up with Reveal.

All You Need Is Now by Duran Duran. After the Timbaland produced Red Carpet Massacre was a bit of a disaster they worked with Mark Ronson who begged them to make the album that should have followed Rio.

Batman by Prince seems to me where he started to try to be "funky" instead of just being Prince.

― nicky lo-fi, Thursday, September 17, 2015 3:32 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Disintegration by the CURE brought in the spacious arena sound I didn't care for that much.

― nicky lo-fi, Thursday, September 17, 2015 3:34 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

These seem like something else than this thread, though - if I read you right you're talking about albums where the artist definitively moved down a new long-term stylistic or sonic path.

Orbital's Altogether - after the crash and burn of the response to that they did a fan-service album and promptly retired (only to reform 8 years later and put out a meh record and retire again)

the original poster cares too damn much about the artist's little feelings

only insofar as it affects their work

*effects

Green Album and Maladroit significantly better than the first two.

― how's life, Wednesday, September 16, 2015 11:06 AM

Orbital's Altogether - after the crash and burn of the response to that they did a fan-service album and promptly retired (only to reform 8 years later and put out a meh record and retire again)

I think they kinda knew that they'd given everything they had on Middle of Nowhere and just wanted to do something a bit easier? Like I don't feel like Altogether was supposed to be an exciting new direction or anything, and I think they were heading in the direction of retiring regardless. Also I would say Wonky is a lot better than "meh"!

*effects

― flappy bird, Thursday, September 17, 2015 11:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

**affects

Loveless. records that poisoned the artist and bankrupted the label. MBV didn't come out for 21 years

Pink Floyd never really recovered from The Wall

In through the Out Door and In Utero killed bonham and cobain

Highway 61 Revisited is as far as dylan could go beat-psych-ward before crashing his motorcycle and Nashville Skyline

."Debra," IMO the worst decision on the record, continues to

This was (as semi-noted) the most awaited song on the record, given years of being the centrepiece or closer for his revue-era shows.

It's also hard to tell with him whether he really suffered some sort of immediate crisis after MV

Hard to tell? Surely widely known that he got drawn back into active full-on $cienoism after breaking up w/ his long-time gf / advisor / stylist.

Worth noting that Guero debuted at #2 and is by far his biggest seller after Odelay. There's an ILM thread created in 2005 when lots of posters were surprised he'd even released an album that year.

Worth noting that beck never plays anything live from MV these days

as per Xenu's command

Tom Cruise dancing on the couch was the signal for Beck to stop having fun on records.

much as i love midnite vultures, i get where beck was coming from with that. at a certain point you're like "man, do i want to be mr. wacky all my life?" at some point you start worrying that you're going to turn into frank zappa or something.

also worth noting that beck is still abundantly capable of doing offbeat stuff post-midnite vultures- see his brilliant glass "remix" and his partch tribute. it's only when it comes to actual albums that he starts trying to channel john dowland or whatever.

MV is mostly garbage, have always been baffled by the love. Odelay was insane and weird yet super catchy, limitations of the performer were assessed accurately. just a tremendous bank of samples too. it's like the best grand royal album that never was

my friends in high school gave me so much shit for not liking MV, i felt like i was on another planet and the world was going to end due to wack funk :(

I can't listen to MV anymore besides "Milk and Honey" and "Beautiful Way."

Xxpost That was me but sub Van Halen 3 for MV

People in high school at the time VH3 came out were giving damns about VH3?

xxp otm, those were the songs i liked the best. "milk and honey" has the best hook, "beautiful way" was smooth and sparkling west coast goodness.

i feel like sea change cemented beck's ROCK CANON status. maybe there's a thread for that type of album but i feel like it's an exclusively post 90s phenom

Xxpost yea they existed

MV and the songs off of Odelay in the same vein are the only Beck I have any interest in.

Y'all have made some fair points about expectations/etc going into MV. Especially after Odelay managed not to be one of the commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996 , I suspect there was a lot of hope that he could repeat that, or that this California hybrid electro-weirdo thing was going to be big-big-big! So I buy that there was probably some pressure around those next couple records, complicated by the weird release of Mutations and so on. Just not convinced that at any point Beck's actual mentality was "oh no, that flopped, my experiment fell on deaf ears - well if Beck's what they want, then Gordon Lightfoot dipped in Nigel Godrich they shall have!" But enjoying the conversation anyway since I'm learning some things, and remembering how much I liked each of these Beck records for different reasons at different times.

i definitely remember the narrative around mutations (propagated by mtv and west coast djs), releasing "low key" albums on the off years. lol.

mutations is good though, i need to rebuy it.

Highway 61 Revisited is as far as dylan could go beat-psych-ward before crashing his motorcycle and Nashville Skyline

How is 40% of this very interesting thread (premise) about Beck?

I can't think of a better example of a "poisoned artist" than Beck

It's interesting trying to figure out how he was poisoned.

Midnite Vultures didn't seem like that much of a departure for Beck at the time, so I don't know if it really fits the premise of the thread

Highway 61 Revisited is as far as dylan could go beat-psych-ward before crashing his motorcycle and Nashville Skyline

Uh, Blonde on Blonde ring any bells?

― MatthewK, Tuesday, September 22, 2015 7:49 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea otm.

also the whole "motorcycle crash changed everything and dylan went soft/country" is a piece of dylan mythology that has always been a little exaggerated. basement tapes came after the crash!

I guess Beck's a decent example, I was just surprised to see so much discussion of him.

U2 feel like the biggest example, to me - I'm not a massive fan of their early stuff, but I really like Achtung Baby, quite like Zooropa, and didn't think Pop was a bad thing at all, but since then they've been awful, awful, awful, and, it seems to me, in a very deliberately safe, commercially-led way.

I don't know about Beck in relation to this thread, this is a bit of a digression. I find Mutations, Sea Change, and, I guess, Morning Phase to be be good vibes in search of good songs (with some exceptions). But y'all are being too harsh on Guero. Is it a retread? Kinda. Is it Beck trying to be BECK? maybe. But Guero is the middle-aged comfortable-in-its-skin Beck compared to Odelay Beck. I mean, sure Odelay is great, but its exhausting, and it feels like a lot of effort. That can be exhilarating, but sometimes you just wanna chill with a dude and be past all that trying to impress you bullshit that you did when you were first getting to know each other. That's Guero. it's all the things you like about Beck without all the trying to impress or make a name. It's Beck being, "Oh yeah, I'm Beck, this is what I can do."

To bring Radiohead into this discussion for no reason, Guero is like his In Rainbows and Odelay is his OK Computer. Maybe one is more impressive, but I know which one I am going to reach for when I just want to hang out and knock back a few drinks.

Well said brontosaur. I'd also rep for "Broken Drum" on Guero, it's brilliant without needing to tell you about it.

Yeah, I love "Broken Drum". It's languid in the best way.

Slow Train Coming and Trans poisoned the artists, but only temporarily. "Albums that food-poisoned the artist."

with beck i think he just accidentally ended up being at the helm of some kind of mid 90s melting-point zeitgeist. a place he possibly wouldn't have even got to had it not been for collaborating with karl stephenson with loser and then the dust brothers. i think it was just a right place right time thing (and i was/am a big beck fan)

then by the time the 90s finished, things moved on...

You know Beck won the Grammy for album of the year right? I mean it was a lesser Sea Change, but the guy has not faded away.

ha, i'm personally convinced beck does not have one of these, but "he won the grammy for album of the year" is a pretty strong argument for "from that point forward, he played it safe"

The albums are still technically good, but the feel is poisoned. I thought "Morning Phase" was a good album but some of the lyrics and arrangements were so straight, simple, and dull that if previous Beck didn't exist to put it in context I don't think I would've enjoyed it as much. The irony of the "Fume" singer doing "Morning Phase" is a large reason why it works.

Unless you just enjoy mumbly coffee shop music, which is fine.

Sgt Pepper. Only managed one 'proper' album after it (Abbey Road; White Album is a load of solo tracks mashed together without a cover or a title; Let It Be is a mess; the other two are a compilation and a soundtrack), and then they split up.

they weren't poisoned by the reaction to Sgt Pepper though. but maybe the white album, since GET BACK was an effort to, well...

I'll throw out a curveball one - Factory Showroom by They Might Be Giants, everything prior was informed by fun parts of folk, new wave, schlock, DIY/low-fi-culture jamming Devo-like reverence, and then this one seemed like a cash grab for suburban breeders.

back in black

(alcohol)

Dunno, if anything Factory Showroom was a bit of a back-to-what-we're-loved-for move after the unsatisfying 'rock' move of John Henry. I don't know if they ever really had a crisis moment... they just kind of lost their spark in waves, always with a few inspired songs per album but never as consistently as they were on the first four records. Just happens, with lots of bands I think - no poison required.

i feel like the monkees must have a record like the one this thread is alluding to, but i don't know precisely which one it is.

The answer to most Monkees-related questions is "HEAD".

Neil Young Harvest is the bizarro world inverse version of this thread topic.

Terence Trent D'Arby's Neither Fish nor Flesh was rather like this. Not sure many even remember his subsequent output particularly well at this point, but I seem to recall it was comparatively bland. Just read a few quotes where he actually confirmed that the poor reception 'killed' him.

The Monkees' initial popularity was so relatively flash in the pan (around two years of big hits while they had their own TV show, followed by a handful of much less successful singles over subsequent years) that I don't think this concept quite works for them. I guess Head sorta fits if anything does, but it was a soundtrack to an unpopular movie and their last album before they splintered.

Not sure many even remember his subsequent output particularly well at this point, but I seem to recall it was comparatively bland.

come on man, symphony or damn is his best record

David Bowie - Let's Dance ?

obviously not a failure, wasn't rejected, but because it was his biggest album, he maybe overthought a lot of what he did after, and didn't get his feet back on the ground til the 90s?