Complementary to “growers” (paging Moose!) are “shrinkers”: bands and artists you once venerated, and eventually had to let go of, even though it had been a long and loving relationship. Bands that are at that stage for me are the no-hits Clash, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Genesis and Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd (including Dave and Roger’s solo work), The Who (MAYBE “Quadrophrenia”), and,l dare I say it, The Beatles. Overexposure is part of it.
Shrinkers and no longer being able to make it work.
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I’m with you on Pink Floyd. I was listening to Meddle the other day, and I thought, am I really enjoying this aimless, self-indulgent succession of bluesy ambience? Frankly, The Orb do this sort of thing with more wit and verve, and without the undercurrent of mutual loathing began the guitarist and bass player.
Apart from the Barrett years, though – they’re still fun to listen to.
Ever heard Metallic Spheres? The album The Orb made with David Gilmour. I love it.
I’ll give it a go.
You’ll love it. It’s sort of an aimless, self-indulgent succession of bluesy ambience.
Oh stop it!! You had me at aimless.
I like Meddle, Wish you Were Here and (less so) Animals in the post Syd era. Really dislike The Wall and, for some reason, DSOTM has never clicked with me.
I thought Meddle would be part of the sweet spot of the post-Barrett idyll when the band were still enjoying making music and not using it as an exercise in personal therapy and complaining, which the latter two albums you cited seem particularly evident of. But it finally seemed just a bit empty without Syd’s wilful spirit. There was no sweet spot after all.
No – you were correct. Arguably (arf!) the sweet spot regarding being a real band continued until DSOTM. Even Wish You Were Here has some evidence of the band working as a team, Uncle Rog’s “obergruppenfuhrer” tendencies not setting hard until The Wall.
But the last of the “post-Barrett idyll”, in musical terms – definitely Meddle. No more Cambridge pastoral, no more whimsy after Meddle…more’s the pity.
Agree with this thread. While DSOTM is admirable, I never bought it. I DID buy WYWH but it wasn’t the aforementioned Cambridge whimsy.
I love the pastoral whimsy. And the inner and outer space explorations. Both absent from DSOTM onwards.
Live At Pompeii is my favourite Floyd album, followed by Obscured By Clouds.
Takes a bit of work, but I’ve latterly found The Final Cut to be a good listen.
Yes, it’s Waters-heavy and part composed for leftovers from The Wall, and maybe an aural antidote to DSOTM/WYWH over-exposure.
I’ve always loved TFC. Some great songs – The Gunner’s Dream, Paranoid Eyes, Fletcher Memorial Home, Southampton Dock, Two Suns In the Sunset – and I think the overall concept of “a requiem for the post-war dream” is pretty cool.
“Everyone has recourse to the law
And no one kills the children anymore.”
Yes, a great album that sounds particularly good through headphones.
The Fletcher Memorial Home is one of my fave Floyd songs, and its general message is still sadly relevant.
Lately Rog seems to be more interested in political comments than songwriting, but at the time of TFC he had the balance just right.
I would go as far as to say that Paranoid Eyes might be the best ‘song’ that RW has written. Whilst it is part of the overall concept of the album it can stand alone also as a complete song.
Oasis – in retrospect, only Definitely maybe is truly essential.
And then cherry-pick some singles and album tracks.
The mega-selling What’s The Story Morning Glory is not actually a very good album (I’d a argue the Be Here Now is actually better).
Noel Gallagher’s first solo album was pretty good, and about half the second one – after that it just descends (to these ears) as predictably re-treading old ground.
Much as I love the Tull (shock!) I have no interest in new product. The majority of the canon is brilliant and it’s enough.
David Bowie I had all the albums and realised one day I didn’t like any of them
That made me chortle.
I have tried listening to many, but Low, Let’s Dance and Golden Years (compilation) – that’s all I really need if I am honest.
I honestly think you don’t need a lot of Bowie. Yes, there’s greatness there, but – whisper it – some of the music hasn’t aged that well.
Don’t love much of his stuff except Low and Ziggy Stardust are both brilliant but don’t like them as much as many other artists in my catalogue.
I grow out of love with some artists and then find myself rekindling my love affair with them later. Nanci Griffith and Prefab Sprout bring two recent examples.
The Wall, The Final Cut and The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking are the best trilogy of albums ever.
Spiritualized. Absolutely adored everything up til Let It Come Down and then suddenly couldnt take anymore
I hung around for the next two albums and then realised they kept making the same album. Couldn’t even tell you the name of a song off of the following records.
I did try with each new one, but yes it was diminishing returns.
Arf! I have a selection of their discs, usually listened to and enjoyed, then put away for posterity. It was only when I saw them live that I appreciated the truth of the @pawsforthought summation. I thought every song was my favourite, until realising they were all the same song, if with different names and very slightly different chord progressions for the choir of vocalists to bleat. Still enjoyed it, but wouldn’t go again.
It doesn’t help that Jason Pierce has one of the weediest voices in the history of popular music.
For me, they lost their provocative mojo when they parted ways with Sonic Boom. ‘Any Way that You Want Me’ was their first and last essential purchase, if I am honest, though I have a soft spot for the 12″s before the release of their first album – “Run”, “Smiles” & “I Want You”
Much confusion between the growers and shrinkers posts have ensued!
60s acts who have had too many size 10 boots trampled all over their back catalogues, over and over again… apart from The Beatles… and even then, I don’t buy the box sets.
Dylan, the Who and the Rolling Stones especially, not helped by a kinda life-support afterlife of live concerts, and supposed ‘return to forms’. No they’re not, ever, and nor have they ever been.
Much prefer Rock ‘n’ Roll and Soul compilations and groups like the Action. It’s the era that’s important, not the act… and judging by the price of the latest Pink Floyd re-release, it’s a hell of lot cheaper doing it that way.
The latest Mojo CD – Greenwich Village/Dylan – costs £200 less. Can’t help feeling that’s a significantly better deal.
25 years ago I thought Tom Waits and Nick Cave were about the best things in the world. Can’t stand to listen to either of them now.
Elvis Costello for me. I make an exception for Watching The Detectives.
The Jam and The Stranglers have also shrunk, but not as badly. XTC and Wire have grown.
Like most male music snobs, I used to pretend I liked Zappa. Have a bunch of albums and can’t see myself listening to any of them again. He’s a puerile dickhead who never really had anything to say, musically or lyrically.
My love for The Who has contracted down to Meaty etc, Live at Leeds and Who’s Next (plus bits of Sell Out, if I’m in the mood). Tommy, Quadrophenia and pretty much anything that followed is just embarrassing.
Kinks Village Green I used to love but have realised it is about three good tracks surrounded by cringy shit (Phenomenal Cat FFS?).
I’ve become less tolerant of early Stones. It really is that Beggars to Goats Head seam that I will mine from here on in (with a few tracks from before and after).
During COVID I spent a week listening to nothing but Blue by Joni Mitchell in an effort to crack this much-loved album. I still can’t recall a single note of it and of the half dozen Joni CDs I have, I can only hum Coyote (because of The Last Waltz) and BiG Yellow Taxi, because it’s fucking horrible.
What I do find interesting is the albums from my adolescence that I thought I would grow out of but didn’t. Until a few years ago, I don’t think I had listened to Floyd for decades. I was pulled back in by the Animals remix and realise I still love DSOTM, WYWH and Animals. The curve slopes off precipitously on either side.
Time has also provided a brutal filter for a lot of 70s blues rock, and it’s now obvious that stuff like Allman Brothers at Fillmore East and Layla were far superior to almost all their contemporaries. Sometimes it takes a bit of distance to focus.
@podicle nails it in the first sentence, using Zappa as a (good) example of music that peer pressure or a bizarre oneupmanship ritual persuaded me to buy. Given Hot Rats aside, I never really took to him, unsurprisingly I still can’t take him now. I have more of such artists than I ought, gradually accepting the reality and offloading. But stuff of that time I really loved, I still do, viz early ELP, Pictures and Tarkus especially.
I bought a lot of LPs to finally conclude that I liked Zappa up to and including Hot Rats – but practically nothing after that.
Zoot Allures is good, and I have affection for Joe’s Garage – brings back hysterical teenage laughter after the pub, jazz cigs on hand. “Shrink tubing with a hair dryer”.
Silly, purile stuff though.
I have his best-of Strictly Commercial, and You Are What You Is, and that’s enough for me.
I admire the musicianship on display, but I always have the feeling when listening to FZ that I’m being told a joke I don’t quite get. Valley Girl and are a couple of others are good fun, but overall his humour and worldview are not for me, and there’s too much show-off guitar.
Still, somebody must have bought his many albums.
BONGO FURY!!! BONGO FURY!!! BONGO FURY!!!
UNCLE MEAT!!! UNCLE MEAT!!! UNCLE MEAT?
If Zappa had released albums called Uncle Bongo and Meat Fury, I might have given him another try.
“Arf!”, she said…
My favourite Zappa quote was from when they were finishing the first Mothers album. The record company played him “Sgt. Pepper” so he could hear what was really happening out there. Frank listened carefully and, on being asked what he thought, said “I think they’re only in it for the money”. Kapow, title and album cover right there.
Mine was a tribute to the late James Blast. What’s your excuse?
😉
Well, by golly – no excuse really. It’s just my favourite Zappa album and I copied your format as a tribute to…your format.
After Hot Rats, I essentially still like the instrumental stuff. I like triple albums of guitar solos with no vocals, and I really like his classical stuff, peaking with The Yellow Shark. But I’ve sold on nearly all his LPs with “hilarious” lyrics.
I don’t like any Zappa, except for Bongo Fury. There. I’ve said it.
…and…breathe…
“Apostrophe” is good. No vocals.
The eponymous track, perhaps – but not the rest of the album. Don’t eat the yellow snow? Nanook rubs it? Stinkfoot? Good grief…
You are basically me @podicle. There’s a reason we refer to an act’s “imperial phase.” I’m a bit of a Bowie fan but he still only really got going with Hunky Dory, don’t like his 60’s stuff at all, twee bollocks largely.
Agreed on the Stones and Kinks too (there’s a singles act if ever there was one).
Although for the Who I will stand up for Who By Numbers.
Kinks made (at least) 4 great albums in a row. Face to Face, Something Else, Village Green, Arthur
And then 3 more with
Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One
Muswell Hillbillies Everybody’s in Show-Biz
I disagree
A few years ago I was on holiday at Xmas time and trying to entertain my young son by playing him old Coca Cola Xmas adverts with polar bears on YouTube. One of them has the Beach Boys version of Little Saint Nick. As I was listening to it I found myself thinking to myself “You know, this is really pish”. Now, I realise this is not exactly the peak of their achievements, but I found it to be the catalyst for my Beach Boys love to unravel, and I’ve never been able to get it back. I’ve sold my twofer CDs and my vinyls. I retain a residual fondness for records like Friends and Holland, but not the rest. I used to love them. Be careful with YouTube, folks.
Ah yes, Little Saint Nick. They tell us that Christmas comes this time each year. I laugh out loud every time I hear it, but it’s not going to take the shine off the good stuff.
I bought all of U2s earlier stuff before recognising that I didn’t really enjoy it.
I have definitely overbought artists in the past.
Nanci Griffith for example, recently saw a shrinkage: her very best is as good as anyone’s, but I have fallen out of love with a lot of the later part of her large catalogue and Flyer, Other Voices 2 and Hearts and Minds have been jettisoned.
Poet in my Window to Storms is a proper imperial period though.
OV2 is where I tailed off. 1 is excellent.
Other voices one is superb but I did loosen my love for her after Late night Grande Hotel although the title track is very good.
I often think that the more an artist issues, the more I retreat to the best stuff – life is too short. I love Paul Weller, and I certainly bought his later stuff because….well, just because really. Do I play them? Nah.
This is a good point. Sure, he, or she should continue to make and release music, but only by their audience not buying will they then produce the curtain call last gasp, possibly posthumously, that then suddenly regains all the missing momentum and plaudits.
I have managed at last to get off the Weller train, suspect I have overbought and that Kind Revolution is the last one I will do, despite his importance to how I got into music 45 years ago. Mid-solo career albums like Studio 150, Illumination and Heliocentric are probably ripe for shrinkage as well.
I lost Frank Zappa after One Size Fits All, although some of the subsequent 70s albums have merit, especially Studio Tan and those other two that were later released, as originally intended, as the Lather box set
OOAA maybe from @Vincent
But once into the 80s, the albums were mostly uninteresting. His live bands however, were great at that time, although their repertoire was overloaded with the Titties And Beer schlock.
I think Guitar contains some great things. Excerpts from 79-84. Whittling it all down with apparent taste and understanding. It can be done.
I rarely comment on these threads, but it’s absolutely The Flaming Lips for me. I used to think that they were being arch and clever with mock-psychedelia, and to be fair that created a series of brilliant albums. But it became clear that there were problems in the band, and that one of the band may actually be a bit mad, and that another of the band was being prevented from getting sober by being around that guy. Whilst churning out a series of basically insane records. Not naming names here, but the usual drug/ego stuff I suppose.