Yesterday, I listened to the new Oasis album. With the exception of about three songs, I hated it. With Definitely maybe and What's the story, Oasis were the band that got me listening to music with guitars in again. They made me want to pick up a guitar and sing and write songs and get on stage.

Since then:
-They've released pisspoor album after pisspoor album
-Noel has become exponentially more derivative
-Liam has decided he's never singing properly again and instead whines everything through his nose.
-Noel has let people who are shit at writing songs write songs. There's a reason why Ride and Heavy Stereo were shit.
-Liam has turned everything in his life into one big extreme parody. His voice, his swagger, his attitude, his Lennon reverence, etc etc ad infiintum

When they came out, they were really exciting cause there hadn't been anything like them for years and Noel did write great songs and Liam sang like a demon lived in his vocal chords. From Be here now to the latest pile of shite, you could probably get one decent album. It's such a shame because despite his rip off techniques, his patchy lyrics and his obsession with writing about the light that shines, the sunshine and it, he can write a great tune. I never thought I'd say this but I would love to hear a Solo album from him. One where he really cuts loose rather than having to be Oasis all the time and doesn't get swamped by the rest of the shit song writing.

Oasis - I loved them and they broke my heart because I can't justify them anymore


Any bands who have led you on with the temptation of great music only to turn around and shove a ukelele up yer arse?

Plenty of bands have jumped the shark at some point or other... tried to keep it going but not particularly well. Radiohead and Garbage spring immediately to mind but there are plenty of others.

The one that gets me though is (are) the Smashing Pumpkins.

Gish was ok. It was a debut album and it did its job. Siamese Dream, however, is arguably the finest album ever created. Every track is a joy and a delight and as it progresses the album moves effortlessly between thumping guitar tunes such as Cherub Rock and Today and beautiful, subtle ballads like Disarm and Spaceboy stopping for the occasional epic such as Soma on the way. Beautifully performed, fantastically produced and written completely from the soul.

From Melon Collie onwards... one or two good tracks per album. They had nothing left to give. They created one of the finest records in history and it wiped them out, creatively.

I've always found it hard to forgive Aerosmith for releasing Don't Want to Miss a Thing. They'd already survived a major shark jumping before only go splat into this whale size fish and stink the charts up with schmaltz. Bah.

Good thread btw. Too many bands to list here unfortunately. Thats what bands do you know. When you love them and nurture them. They leave you a burnt out husk.

Although I've only heard a couple of new tracks, I think that the Foo Fighters could be in the proccess of shark jumpage. I didn't think that the latest single was any big whoop.

And getting Norah Jones involved, well that's just inviting trouble isn't it!

I've yet to buy the album, so I'm prepared to be proved wrong.

You will be. Its a good album. No shark jumpage for Mr Grohl quite yet.

Well an order has just been placed on Play.com, so I shall find out in 3-5 days.

Tori Amos. Ironically, at the time of her life when she has nothing left worth saying, she starts to churn out dull-as-fuck 18 track albums.

Metallica - I remember when they were a rock band...

RHCP - When did they become Bon Jovi?

i predict, however, that polly jean harvey will never make a bad album.

I agree, with the metalica thing. They used to write great songs with some amazing guitar work. But now they sound like every other american rock band. Its a damn shame.

Hmm... I hate to say it, but Uh Huh Her was dangerously close to a bad album. Thankfully, Shame and Who the Fuck just about redeemed what was an otherwise slap-dash and mediocre offering.

really? you think so? i really loved most of the songs on it. i respect your opinion, but surely you have to admit it cannot be called a bad album in the traditional sense of the word. just compared to her other stuff.

Oh god, no. Not a bad album, just a less-good PJ Harvey album. Even the very worst Polly song is worth a trentfillion times the best thing Daniel Bedingfield could strain to come up with.

But to me, Uh Huh Her felt like Polly clearing out her musical cupboard rather than putting all her energies into creating something new and amazing.

With the exception of Polly is there not an outside chance that these bands were always shit and it just took you all a few albums to grow out of them?

No.

I had a close shave with Orbital at the time 'The Altogether' was released. It's so awful - in comparison with previous albums, and many albums in general - that I was gutted. I wondered if that would be the end of my ten-year love affair with the Hartnoll Brothers. Then they released the 'Blue Album' last year and totally redeemed themselves. They may have called it a day after that, but I can forgive them a minor blip in an otherwise amazing body of work.

I'm with Jessop on the Orbital thang, and I was also a touch concerned when SFA put out Rings Around The World - not a bad album, in fact better than most, but not up to their standards, then Phantom Power was released and my fears were assuaged.

Happy Mondays really fucked it up with Yes Please - Squirrel & G-Man was a good debut, Bummed was da bomb, and Pills, Thrills was the perfect sysnthesis of their shambolic approach coupled with some smooth production - Yes Please, however, was a mess, apart from two tracks. They did stop after that, though.

I have to say Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Everything after Mother's Milk seemed to get more & more turgid. Actually, can't really listen to the old stuff anymore as it hasn't aged well. They have done one or two good tunes, but they are pretty average

Also Simple Minds. Used to an amazing, sometimes experimental band, and then after Don't You Forget About Me, went on a downward spiral.

For me its Green Day. Dookie is a great album and up until last year they've just got so commercial. Maybe even before then. Releasing the single "wake me up before september ends" is just MTv shite for the pop kids.

I reckon stuff got turgid for the Chilis around One Hot Minute. They peaked on BloodSugarsexmagic.

I suppose the best example of shark jumping is the great Stevie Wonder. I n the seventies the man could do virtually no wrong. Then along came the 80s and aor shite like I just called to say I love you. Hes back on form now though.

I think the Foo Foghters lost it after The Colour And The Shape. They've never done anything even close to that good again.

The Black Crowes really disappointed me with The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion when it came out. Over the years I've learned to appreciate about half the songs on it, but they never hit the heights of their first record (Shake Your Money Maker) again.

Metallica jumped the shark either with the Black Album or after it. I've never been 100% sure.

Nine Inch Nails peaked with The Downward Spiral. Nothing Trent's done since has made me want to listen to it again.

Jean-Michel Jarre has been the one to really disappoint me. Whether you like him or not, he was undoubtedly one of the pioneers of electronic music, cited by numerous artists in the field (Orbital included) as one of their key influences.

I'll admit now that I went through an almost anoraky phase when I first properly discovered his music in the late 1980's, but I had quite a bit of catching up to do. Classic albums like 'Oxygene' and 'Equinoxe' still sound superb to this day, not to mention the little known 'Zoolook' - an album whose instrumentation was almost entirely composed from multi-layered, altered and effected vocal samples of 25 international languages - a stunning, boundary-breaking piece of work in 1984, still unmatched to this day for its ingenious use of sampling, I believe.

Many fans feel he went off the rails soon after that, experimenting with too many different ideas, but I found that refreshing and daring, and he was always capable of churning out some damn fine music, even if it was littered with the occasional slabs of cheesy dross. But since the turn of the millennium, he seems to have just given up trying. With the exception of 'Metamorphoses', his last few albums (a jazz-influenced contractual swansong, ie: "fuck you" to his record company, a 'project' for an obscure Parisian nightclub, and yet another sodding 'best-of') have all been half-arsed. Even the mega-concert extravangazas he became known for have been nothing short of lacklustre, profile-boosting affairs, with no artistic substance whatsoever.

He's always been guilty of occasionally re-hashing some of his 'early' material (often to the better), but he now does this far too often, dressing it up as "specially composed" for one particular event or another. His recent concert in the Forbidden City in China was a prime example. It was a total let down, both musically and creatively - it should have so much more. Especially considering he was the first Western musician to perform to Chinese audiences back in 1981 - an historic event for which he did especially compose a whole album's worth of new material.

Nowadays, he is just making little or no effort whatsoever. He believes his own hype too much now, to the point where it seems composing something truly worthy of his artistic vision is beneath him. He's become a total bullshitter, and I hate him for that. I think once I started listening to the likes of Orbital and Leftfield in the late 90's (artists in the techno/dance genre, which I had previously despised) I fast began to lose interest in Jarre. Orbital took his place at the throne of electronic music for me, and remain there still.

What the fuck happened, Jean? You used to be a pioneer, damn it!




Good lord, I did have rather a rant.

Oh yeah. Metallica just haven't been the same in a while. They blame their lack of success on music downloads... it's not.

Some Kind of Monster went a long way in showing why present day Metallica sucks hairy balls

are you a madman? that was their career high point! ( drug reference joke deliberate ) moneymaker was a great pissed blues bar record but southern harmony is stoned southern rock par excellence, a ragtag collection of songs that are on the verge of falling apart and yet are as tight and rocking as can be - and still one of my all time favourite albums.

re jean-michell jarre - does he still do that thing with the beams of light? that was way cool.

The infamous Laser Harp? Aye, way cool indeed - glad at least someone else appreciated that. He was lambasted in the press for being a showboat with that, mainly 'cos it had to be mimed most of the time, because it was notorious for breaking down. But when it worked, it was bloody awesome. Saw him on tour in 1997, and it wasn't mimed that time I can tell you - a couple of bum notes, sure, but only because his long flappy jacket tails caught a beam or two.

I knew that was coming - I've heard you sing the praises of TSHAMC before. When I was 17, it was an enormous disappointment, but it's not anymore. Back then, I wanted SYMM part 2. I'd still rather listen to Sister Luck, She Talks To Angels or Seeing Things than Hotel Illness or Black Moon Creeping. Any record with Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye and Thorn In My Pride on would be brilliant, but Sister Luck will always remain my favourite Black Crowes song.

but then i did buy shake your money maker after southern harmony.

Have to agree with that.

Machine Head went all crap for a while, The Burning Red wasn't great but that next one was bloody awful. Thankfully they seem to have improved quite a bit with Through the Ashes of Empires. When I heard Imperium, I remember thinking "now that's more like it".

Also Fear Factory with Digimortal. Good god that was an awful, lifeless album. I was surprised that Archetype was actually good.

I think the foo fighters are still fun to listen to. Anyway mine is AFI. I was a huge fan had all the CDs then Sing the Sorrow came out, and I feel I was such a big fan that's its too much work to stop liking them. Don't get me wrong, their music is still fun to listen to, but it's not nearly as good as the old stuff.

The Offspring.

Ixnay and Smash are absolutely fantastic albums.

Americana was really poppy and overall a bit rubbish, but no one can deny the singalongability of Pretty Fly and Why don't you get a job, and the title track is absolutely bloody brill.

I really liked Conspiracy of One, I know a lot of people didn't, but I think it's got a lot of wicked tracks.

Then came Splinter, with the exception of "Hit That" it's a big smelly pile of horse poo. For a start, it's only about 25 minutes long, and then it's just bland rock-pop-pap that you can listen to for free on TMF.

I used to love this band, now I honestly don't know if I could bear to see them a fourth time.

The hell you say. Adore is fantastic. It's Siamese Dream all grown up.

The Foo Fighters are still good, but on the downward track. I'm not tempted by the new album even though I've got the rest.

For me, and this is going to make me look silly, I'd going to say The Stereophonics. The first album was a nice old fashioned mix and songs to jump up and down to and to sit and listen to. I really liked it and I still do. The second album was a downward step, but the two albums after that were a waste of everyone's time and completely plop. I bought the last two for a pittance. In fact, I had a Stereophonics t-shirt when I was 19, but I gave it to the charity shop 3-4 years ago.

I think The Darkness are also going to break my heart, but the reason for this is because they became so popular they believed their own hype. When I first saw them in the Cockpit in 2003, the room was half full and it was dark, loud and jump up and downy. It was the best live thing I'd ever seen (until I saw Blur later in that year) and they were clearly taking the mick. I don't think they're doing that anymore, I think they think they're really REALLY good and it's going to cost them. That and they've only had one set of songs for over two years. And the new thing they're doing is Justin's solo release cover of "This Town ain't big enough for the both of us". Which I think will be rubbish. Damn you.

i was quite the indie kid and when the stereophonics first came out I had a lot of fun with word and perfomances, but after the unspeakable Jeep and every other piece of traweled over, vomit inducing, cringe making you want to poke your own eyes out with a spoon song they have released there is no forgivness. Also other Welsh bands - note Manics its a slippery rope.....a slippery rope made of self indulgence.........

Super Furry Animals have not let me down.
The GLC will remain fond to me if they keep quiet for a while and don't attempt solo careers.

Scottish bands are a whole other story...........(I'm from edin)

Word.

I've just read that back and I've missed the words "and sold them on later" from the sentence:

"I bought (*) the last two for a pittance"

where (*) denotes where I should have put those words. What a div.

And I love Mellon Collie as well. Hmm.

For me Bjork did it. I loved the Sugarcubes with a dangerous intensity and her Debut album was fantastic then she fucking went all Andrew Lloyd Webber on me. I almost cried.

And Paul Weller should have had his voicebox removed when The Jam split up, everything else he's done since then has encouraged plumbers like Stereophonics to believe they can make a musical noise. Fool.

There's bound to be more but it's amazing the number of bands who have waned before waxing all the way back up.

Morrissey - his career since the break up has shown how much he needed Johnny Marr.

*waits for things to get thrown at him*

Very true, very true.

You aren't entirely wrong but he's written some of his best lyrics since the split and Everyday is like Sunday is just brilliant storytelling which sounds pretty damn fine too.

I'll give you that, and a few other tracks as well - thing is, I'd struggle to fill an album with his solo stuff that I like, and it's been 18 years now.

I've never been a fan of Morrissey, but I bought You Are The Quarry on several good say-so's, and I thought it was ace.

Edit: I seem to remember buying a solo Morrissey album about ten years or more ago (possibly Southpaw Grammar) and I thought it was utterly dire. I was surprised I managed to sell it on afterwards, to be honest.

Marr's not done much either but Morrissey had a blinder of a debut I thought. Since then he's dallied around the edges and everyone says You Are the Quarry is good but I've hardly played it since buying it. It has a forced air about it that his early lyrics didn't.

The Smiths though, they were fucking ace.

REM broke my heart with Shiny Happy People but they returned to better pastures thankfully.

going to? i remember the first time i heard 'i believe in a thing called love'. it was the most amazing song i'd heard for ages, and all the buzz was saying it was a new young band from suffolk, and nobody knew anything about them. i was thinking it was some bunch of kids who had grown up on thin lizzy and soft rock and were playing it without any care for style or fashion. it was fresh and exciting.

and then i found out it was by a bunch of middle aged binmen dressing up in spandex pretending to be pop stars. managed by the singer's wife. overblown joke rock. what a let down. and now they think they are the biggest band in the world. make the most of it, lads, it ain't gonna to last.

Lloyd Cole, christ yes. Bastard used to be brilliant but now he just dribbles.

Looking at their post Smiths output, it's fairly obvious that Morrissey and Marr needed each other to produce magnificent stuff. Morrissey's solo career peaked with 'Viva Hate', which I still think is a great album. Shame it was his debut.


I'd agree with the Stereophonics comments - Word Gets Around was pretty good but they've plummeted since - Have A Nice Day being their nadir, I'd say. And going back to Paul Weller - I'll never forgive him for inflicting Ocean Colour Scene on the world, unwittingly or not.

That's fair comment, I won't contest that for a second. But for me, with the exception of a few songs, most of them just haven't been anywhere near tuneful enough for my taste, which is why Quarry surprised me, I guess. Perhaps because I mostly prefer listening to instrumental stuff, I tend to concentrate on melody rather than the lyric, to be honest.

Quite how I got switched on to Frank Zappa given those criteria is anybody's guess.

Marr made two sublime songs with Electronic, Getting Away With It & Get The Message which blow all of Morrisseys output away as far as I'm concerned, but more than that, it's the sheer amount of hype & hysteria that Morrissey generates which makes him more of a disappointment.

I say going to because I'm still holding all for a cockrockin' new album. I fear they've lost an edge having axed moustachioed hairmonger Frankie Poullian, and I fear they believe their own hype rather than being a bit of a laugh.

I for one welcomed the return of the spandex catsuit. You should have seen the tatty one Justin had on the first time I saw him. It looked like he'd stolen a throw from his mums house and half-arsedly sewn it round himself.

I'd agree that Morrissey's solo stuff doesn't come close to anything he did in the Smiths, but his first few solo albums aren't exactly awful. Viva Hate is good, better than could be expected considering that his was coming out of such a great band, Your Arsenal has a great, aggressive sound to it on tracks like 'You're Gonna Need Someone By Your Side' but, as has been pointed out, there weren't too many tunes amongst these albums. Vauxhall & I, however, is pure pop genius. A whole collection of great songs, with both lyrics and tunes in tact. Admittedly it falls short of even the weakest Smiths album (although I'm not certain which one that is) but it's still good. His subsequent albums, Quarry aside, were dire.

I have always maintain that Morrissey has rarely written a bad lyric, it's just that his musical partners have constantly let him down.

I'd also like to mention Paul McCartney and Eminem in this discussion. Paul wrote some of the greatest songs ever in the Beatles and a fair few tunes in Wings, but pretty much everything he has done since the 70's has been awful.

Eminem used to be a great rapper. Regardless of what he was accused of regarding his music, The Marshall Mathers LP is a brilliant record, but the Eminem Show and Encore have truly failed to live up to that album.

i think the deal with mccartney is the same as the deal with morrisey and any artist over 40. they just can't cut it any more. i'm talking about the 'pop' field here, there are loads of singer songwriters ( dylan springs to mind...surprise, that ) or writers in other categories that can keep producing great material but, with the possible exception of bowie, once a pop writer hits forty thats it.

feel free to disprove this theory.