Albums that poisoned the artist

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?