When did [insert band here] lose their spark for you?

MrKnickerbocker

MrKnickerbocker

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I'm curious if you've experienced a decrease in admiration or enjoyment of some of your favorite musicians and why? When did it happen? This could be anything from a change in sound to a bad album to a more personal change in your own musical tastes.

This is not intended as a thread to shit on bands, but an introspective discussion on why these things happen and how it affects future enjoyment on a more personal level.
 
Kamelot
Right after The Black Halo and the subsequent live album (which is incredible). You can hear the sound shifting throughout The Black Halo to a heavier, chunkier, more gothic approach. It worked in spades on that album, but it was the last time that the band had that medieval magic to their sound. Starting with Ghost Opera everything just seemed darker, less inspiring, less magical. I think a lot of fans see Khan's departure and Tommy's arrival to be the major change in Kamelot, but I would argue that they lost the plot long before switching singers. Honestly, I find some of Tommy's material to be far superior to the songs on Ghost Opera and Poetry For The Poisoned, but I just don't get excited about their new music anymore.

Metallica
When Jason Newsted left the band. I'm a 90s Metallica fan. I love Garage, Inc. I was beside myself when I saw them play with Newsted in 2000. That decade would go on to be Metallica's darkest time and I think Jason's exit was the straw that broke everything. I still love the band and they've become great live performers again, but their new material does virtually nothing for me and a massive part of that is due to Jason's departure. He was instrumental in my enjoyment of the band during the time when I became a fan and his leaving was monumental in my perception of them as artists.

Nightwish
When Marko left the band. See above, re: Metallica. I came to symphonic metal from a much more "masculine" perspective: I was primarily into classic metal and thrash bands that had zero women in sight and were bent on being faster, harder, and more aggressive. Symphonic metal was where the theater kids hung out. Looking back, I probably started loving Nightwish around the same time I realized musicals were fun (thanks, Wicked), but Marko was the bridge that allowed my taste in metal to cross over. He seemed slightly out of place in the band, like he was just too metal to be there, but that also added such a cool flavor to the overall sound. Whether it was the best part or not, his singing and songwriting was always the highlight of a new Nightwish album for me. His departure and vocal disdain for the band's existence within the industry tainted my view of their music (it also didn't help that his last album was already a let down for me in terms of songwriting).
 
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A big one for me is Dream Theater. I was pretty ride or die through the first half of the Mangini era, I even stuck with them for The Astonishing and gave the album several honest tries in addition to seeing it performed live. They're a good pick for this thread for me because I think the loss of spark is a combination of a decline in musical quality AND a change in my own musical tastes.

Distance Over Time came out while I was in college and mainly listening to music related to my studies (jazz and classical primarily). I remember being reasonably excited about the album and DT going back to a more immediate sound, but also not really feeling that style of music as my primary interest. The album was a major bust for me. I really disliked the groove Metal/90s Metallica influences and felt like the band had stripped out everything that made them interesting. The closest thing to an epic was Pale Blue Dot and that just felt like such a half hearted attempt at writing a DT epic. Unlike The Astonishing, which was released near the peak of my DT fandom, I didn't have the patience for allowing Distance Over Time to grow on me and pretty much put it aside after a few listens. I still revisit the album once in awhile and stand by my opinion of it as the weakest Dream Theater album, although I've softened my stance on a few songs and still love Barstool Warrior (also love that it's in the current setlist!). I did see the tour and enjoyed that show fwiw.

So the combination of a pretty weak album and generally losing my interest in DT's brand of prog metal was pretty much enough to kill my interest in the band. I think I was also a bit burned out as I listened to them a lot in high school. What sealed the deal was when A View From the Top of the World came out a few years later. On paper it's a perfect DT album. It has a huge epic, some insane instrumental sections, decent enough songwriting, and yet it did absolutely nothing for me. It felt like DT on autopilot in a lot of ways. But at the same time, it forced me to ask myself whether DT had really declined that much, or whether my musical tastes have changed to the point where that type of music doesn't do it for me anymore. It's still kind of an open question. Unlike the Distance Over Time tour, which I really enjoyed, I saw the View tour twice and I was fairly underwhelmed by a lot of it.

So I'm kind of at an interesting point with the band now. The Portnoy reunion could not have come at a better time for me. I've regained my interest in the band and while I don't listen to them nearly as much as I used to, enough time has passed that I have been able to go back to their earlier albums and enjoy them about as much as I used to. I think bringing back MP has given them a much needed dose of inspiration and I hope it motivates them to try a little harder on this upcoming album, which all signs seem to point toward. Unless they really whiffed it, I expect them to deliver something that is at least on par with the post-SDOIT albums or the first couple Mangini albums. If after all of that I still don't really care for the album that much, I'm going to feel pretty certain that it's a me problem more than a Dream Theater problem, but we'll see.
 
Mosh said:
A big one for me is Dream Theater. I was pretty ride or die through the first half of the Mangini era, I even stuck with them for The Astonishing and gave the album several honest tries in addition to seeing it performed live. They're a good pick for this thread for me because I think the loss of spark is a combination of a decline in musical quality AND a change in my own musical tastes.
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Same! I also really gave The Astonishing the benefit of the doubt and I still stand by my experience that it's the best DT have sounded live in quite a long time (mostly because LaBrie didn't have trouble singing any of it).

I found the Mangini era to be a breath of fresh air that actually rejuvenated my interest in the band. I will probably go into this soon in this other thread I just created, but my early interest in Dream Theater culminated in the release of Train of Thought which solidified me as a fan. However, immediately following that period, they continued to decline in both my opinion of their songwriting and my changing musical tastes. They became too formulaic within their "lack of a formula" and the overpowering influence of Mike Portnoy's ego on backing vocals (not to mention the obvious ripping off of other bands) really killed my interest in them by the time Black Clouds came out.

I think Dream Theater were always a novelty band that somehow managed to write some absolutely incredible songs along the way. The Mangini era seemed to lean into that really hard. Yes, it felt a bit self-referential, and yes, I could still hear the obvious aping of other artists on those first three Mangini albums, but overall everything felt grounded again and enjoyable. Of course, this was also when LaBrie's voice began to rapidly decline. I saw Dream Theater a lot during this period and honestly, I've just gotten bored with them. I saw them 4 times in 5 years between 2014-2019 (all in the same venue) and it felt more like going to church because you owed your monthly tithe rather than because you felt inspired to pray. Also the preacher kept getting worse and worse.

Distance Over Time was actually an upswing for me, especially because a song like Barstool Warrior clearly stood out as the single best song they had written in decades. But then AVFTTOTW just took every rote, boring, lame thing that I didn't like about modern Dream Theater and focused solely on that. It's hard for me to pinpoint an exact moment of when I stopped caring about Dream Theater, though. I feel like it was a gradual slog. A complicated relationship study in oversaturation and monotony.
 
There’s a lot of Mangini vs MP discourse in the fandom but for me everything worked out the way it was supposed to. MP a was clearly burned out and started to be a negative influence on the band, his departure was good for both parties. We were reaching the point though where it didn’t really seem logical for MP not to be in Dream Theater. They were doing side projects together and DT as an entity isn’t really reinventing the wheel anymore.
 
I liked Distance over Time. It's not amazing, quite wishy-washy, but at least there's one of the best singles in there they have ever made - Paralyzed.
 
To keep this thread from going off on a DT tangent, another one with a similar trajectory for me is Opeth. You can pretty much rewrite my post on DT and replace Distance Over Time with Sorceress and A View From the Top with In Cauda Venenum. The differences (other than a slight timeline difference) is that their live shows have seriously declined and we have a new album out. The jury is still out for me on whether Opeth is still worth seeing live, but I am at least a bit more motivated than I was a few years ago. And the new album is, if nothing else, treading serious new ground. So I’m a lot more excited about Opeth now.

One spark that is still gone is Devin Townsend. I’ve been working on a reflection of 2024 in music so I’ll go into more detail there maybe, but it is really starting to feel like Dev is past his prime. At the end of the original DTP it felt like he was really on the upswing, but instead since then it feels more like he just makes the same album every time. It’s disappointing because he used to be one of metal’s most unpredictable artists, now he has essentially become like a weird prog metal version of Foo Fighters.

Speaking of which, Foo Fighters is another one I grew up on but don’t really care for anymore. They have definitely declined though and haven’t put out a truly amazing album since Wasting Light in 2011. I can still enjoy a lot of their work from 2011 and earlier though.

Edit: This is a good thread because in writing all of these I find myself saying the same thing. My musical tastes have changed but the bands I loved when I was younger have largely stayed the same and that is something that I seem to hold against them.

On the other hand, a band that hasn’t changed much remains my favorite of all time and I still eagerly anticipate whatever they put out: Iron Maiden.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
I'm curious if you've experienced a decrease in admiration or enjoyment of some of your favorite musicians and why? When did it happen? This could be anything from a change in sound to a bad album to a more personal change in your own musical tastes.

This is not intended as a thread to shit on bands, but an introspective discussion on why these things happen and how it affects future enjoyment on a more personal level.
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Well, this basicly happend to almost every band I think. I often start with their first material, and other than a handful of bands, I think they all start to decline after a while. But I can try to name a few clear examples:


- Aerosmith. Many great albums, but after Pump, it’s quite meh.
- Alice Cooper. Great start, okay after a while, but rather bland in the more recent albums
- Bathory. Lot’s of good albums in the beginning, but the quality failed during the mid 90’s. The Nordland albums are a little better, but nothing close to the classics.
- Darkthrone. Again, the first 5-6 albums holds great quality, but the later ones are a shadow of their former self.
- Def leppard. From 1980-1992 they rocked good. I can’t say they have done that since then.
- Someone said Foo fighters. Great example. The first 5-6 albums are great. But the last few are very boring.
- Genesis. I love the Peter Gabriel era, but they became gradually worse as they went along.
- Kiss. I love Kiss to death and they have put out great music for a long time, but I can admit they did pretty poorly from Revenge and onwards.
- Manowar. Same as many others. Lot of good albums in the beginning, then start to dissapoint. They did have a more promising album in Warriors of the world, with a couple of hits, Nuclear blast and solid production, but then DeMaio sort of see himself as a Messiah and ruin everything afterwards.
- Nightwish. Again many great albums with solid quality for a long time, but Holopainen get some Messiah complex as well, and start to loose their identity like Manowar.
- Nine inch nails. Very solid catalouge for a long time, but after the hiatus, only a shadow of his former self.
- Porcupine tree. Managed to become quite succesful after many hard years, building a solid back catalouge. But instead of taking a little extra time to work with The incident, they rushed it out, played for even bigger audienses and burned themself out. Steven Wilson did the right thing to do solo albums fulltime instead, but suddenly he wanted more money so he threw together a poor album (by Porcupine tree standards) with Richard and Gavin and session musicians. Hope it will end here, but maybe we will see another one within five years.
- Queen. Yet again a great start, but start to experiement with other genres with little success in my mind.

I could go on, but this became very boring:lol: I think it’s natural to have good and bad periods in your life, both on personal and professional level, so no wonder this happen in the music world as well.

Alice in chains, Ayreon, Battle beast, Blind guardian, Candlemass, Helloween, Gamma ray, Iron Maiden, Marillion, Pearl jam and some others know how to do it: Take the time to make a solid album that works well in their discography with their other catalouge, include new songs in their live set, experiement within their own limits, work as a group and not as a God with some disiples.
 
With Nightwish it happened after the first Floor album. It's not that I don't like their songs, but I love their early days-2011 style. The same can be said for Def Leppard, W.A.S.P. after 1992, Krokus after the 80's and Dio after 1990.
 
Blaze Bayley still kicks ass live. But his studio material declined significantly after Endure and Survive. There are a few good songs on each album since, but the past two in particular are ruined by massive amounts of pitch correction which makes it border on unlistenable. I haven't bought the past two records for these reasons (1. fewer quality tracks, 2. massive Melodyne fest), but I did buy the live LP, as it was not crazy excessive in pitch correction/Melodyne.
 
Red Hot Chili Peppers after By the Way. The two albums after Frusciante came back for the first time were excellent. They were a bit too long but there were more good songs than mediocre songs.

Since then, their albums have been too long and directionless. Since 2006, I could compile all the best songs from the last 5 albums onto one solid record of 12 songs.
 
Mosh said:
To keep this thread from going off on a DT tangent, another one with a similar trajectory for me is Opeth. You can pretty much rewrite my post on DT and replace Distance Over Time with Sorceress and A View From the Top with In Cauda Venenum. The differences (other than a slight timeline difference) is that their live shows have seriously declined and we have a new album out. The jury is still out for me on whether Opeth is still worth seeing live, but I am at least a bit more motivated than I was a few years ago. And the new album is, if nothing else, treading serious new ground. So I’m a lot more excited about Opeth now.
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I would agree about their new material, but they always show sparks of the band I love (even on their worst Nupeth albums). Last Will definitely has me excited for the future. I will say their live shows have lost spark for me mainly because the setlist is ludicrously stagnant.

Mosh said:
Speaking of which, Foo Fighters is another one I grew up on but don’t really care for anymore. They have definitely declined though and haven’t put out a truly amazing album since Wasting Light in 2011. I can still enjoy a lot of their work from 2011 and earlier though.
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I was never a huge Foo Fighters fan, but I think they remained faithful to their energy by having such a great live show. I only saw them once about 6-7 years ago but it was fantastic. I assume some of that has left with Taylor's death.
Mosh said:
Edit: This is a good thread because in writing all of these I find myself saying the same thing. My musical tastes have changed but the bands I loved when I was younger have largely stayed the same and that is something that I seem to hold against them.

On the other hand, a band that hasn’t changed much remains my favorite of all time and I still eagerly anticipate whatever they put out: Iron Maiden.
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I think this is my larger experience, too. As my tastes eventually changed so much that the bands I came back to in the strongest way are the ones that haven't changed much at all (Iron Maiden and Clutch are the most notable in this regard). At some point, all of our lives diverge into different streams of enjoyment and, generally, our favorite bands also diverge, and it's near impossible for those two things to align for so many individuals.
Kalata said:
With Nightwish it happened after the first Floor album. It's not that I don't like their songs, but I love their early days-2011 style.
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Yeah, that magic disappeared with Nightwish on Human ||:|| Nature. There are traces of it on Endless Forms and I think it has returned a bit on Yesterwynde, thankfully.
 
Used to be a huge Rammstein fan since their first album. Mutter started to rub me the wrong way but still liked some songs. Same with Reise Reise. Then they completely lost me from that point onward. A complete nosedive and a huge downfall in my book.
 
Ascendingthethrone said:
Red Hot Chili Peppers after By the Way. The two albums after Frusciante came back for the first time were excellent. They were a bit too long but there were more good songs than mediocre songs.

Since then, their albums have been too long and directionless. Since 2006, I could compile all the best songs from the last 5 albums onto one solid record of 12 songs.
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To me, RHCP had three cool first records that mixed punk and funk vibes in an uncompromising tasty fashion. Then two monster records followed, in Mother's Milk and BSSM. One Hot Minute, despite not being that good IMO was a bit different and still had some cool tracks. After that, I can count by the fingers of one hand the songs I like.
 
Kalata said:
W.A.S.P.
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Bingo! WASP is another band that fell off a cliff for me. IMO they're a band that was a complete letdown from a certain point onward. IMO their first three records are OK (some amazing tracks but also some unbelievably cringe stuff). Yet, unlike most WASP fans, I think the band hit its peak after that.

The Headless Children and The Crimson Idol are rightfully regarded as masterpieces that showed the band could easily make better music than ever without the cringe stuff from those early discs. Still Not Black Enough, while not being that high on my rank, is still a great album and criminally underrated IMO. Then there's KFD and, besides the awful sounding drums, I think the damn thing is nothing short of amazing. Of course, most metal heads dissed it for the strong electronic undertones, but IMO I think they missed the obvious: the industrial vibe is only the crust of the cake. When it comes to the shorter songs, if we scratch the surface, we'll find some of the more "old school" WASP riffs since The Last Command (the title track, Take The Addiction and Wicked Love are great examples while My Tortured Eyes, Little Death and even Killahead could easily be featured in The Headless Children). I simply love the damn thing.

Then I think Helldorado is the band having fun while recovering their hard rock roots... utterly uninspired. Unholy Terror, on the other hand, is what I consider to be WASP's last solid album: while not being amazing by any means, it features a considerable number of great tracks (i.e. the first three songs). When the next album came up, I started to listen to Shadow Man and went "Wow! Great track! This is promising!", only to be disgusted by the complete snoozefest that followed. The Neon God saga may be Lawless most sincere album from a lyrical perspetive, yet when it comes to the music, I think it's right down awful. I'd say it's a poor man's Crimson Idol, but even so I'm afraid I'd be offending Blackie's 1992 classic. After that, I liked the song "Mercy" and that's it. So yeah... It's been almost 25 years since WASP released a record I enjoy minimally, and it was by the release of The Neon God's first record that I jumped the bandwagon.
 
karljant said:
To me, RHCP had three cool first records that mixed punk and funk vibes in an uncompromising tasty fashion. Then two monster records followed, in Mother's Milk and BSSM. One Hot Minute, despite not being that good IMO was a bit different and still had some cool tracks. After that, I can count by the fingers of one hand the songs I like.
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BSSM is my favourite, closely followed but One Hot Minute.
 
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