Bands You Stopped Following

(If someone can show me the magical way they search to find such specific thread topics, please do, but when I search "bands follow stop" or some combination thereof....I get zero results, hence the new topic)

Okay, simple query...you listened to a band for many years, and loved them, but at some point you simply stopped buying their new albums.

Maybe you just lost interest, maybe you moved towns, maybe a bad album turned you off. However it happened, do you think back and wonder if you missed out on some good music?

Here's 3 bands I stopped following and why:

1. Sonic Youth: Had much of their catalogue up until Goodbye 20th Century. I liked that one a lot, I loved their old stuff, I loved the quiet experimental direction of the last couple albums. But for some reason, I never bothered to buy NYC Ghosts & Flowers. Then when I was purging a whole bunch of CDs in the early 00s, I got rid of everything except Daydream Nation and the SYR series. Now I wonder if I would have liked the latter day albums.

2. Metallica: They were my introduction to music that wasn't on the radio. I was an impressionable 10 year old, and my older brother played me this new heavy album, Master of Puppets. I was hooked. I bought it, and the older 2, and was a full-on thrash metal fan when And Justice For All came out. Then in the 3 years it took for The Black Album, I had started listening to the new alternative sound. I bought it, but my heart wasn't in it. I soon sold everything I owned except for the Garage Days EP, which is still a favourite. I've never even heard Load or anything since then. I don't think I'm missing out very much.

3. Melvins: After the dust-up that was grunge and alternative and the air was clean, the Melvins were the one band who I thought was thee best to rise out of that sludge. I had all their albums right up to the Maggot/Bootlicker/Crybaby trilogy from 00. I missed seeing them live because I was getting married (a feeble excuse). Then I kind of thought they were retiring for some reason. I stopped buying their new releases, and kind of forgot about them. Same thing with SY, I sold a bunch of their CDs (except the almighty Lysol, which I kneel at the altar of). Suddenly I look up one day and they have become championed for the new wave of sludge/doom/stoner metal bands not unlike Neil Young had been for the grunge era. Their vinyl was worth a fortune (luckily, I kept my copy of the Bullhead LP, though I don't really play it anymore). I finally saw them live, and it was a great show, and I fully respect them for what they've achieved. Yet, I have zero interest in buying anymore Melvins albums.

So, are there any bands you can say the same about?

 

The Who (70s on up).

 

Rush: A big part of my music development in '76-'80. My first bass was a Rickenbacker 4001 in Jetglo in 1980 and I played it hard like Geddy in an original band that had the usual limited success in terms of high school dances (who the hell dances to Rush?) and other party gigs. The emergence of synthesizers (as opposed to Taurus bass keys) on Permanent Waves started the spiral downward. While I'll always hold the musicians in high regard, their music lacks a certain soul - it is completely bereft of swing or swagger. It's mechanical, and that has its place (and may well be their very point), but not so much in my musical world. But I do still listen to Caress of Steel, 2112, All the World's a Stage, A Farewell to Kings, Hemispheres, and portions of Permanent Waves on occasion.

 

To me, this is where they started to get good. What came before had potential but was mostly 2nd rate. Their best stuff was about 1980-1986.

 

Well, this is why we have the freedom to like and purchase what we prefer. I consider Caress of Steel-Hemispheres to be the peak and the latter to be second rate. You know, vive la difference.

 

Every Springsteen release was a must for me... but I didn't buy the last one. The next will tell the tale.

 

John Mellencamp - kept up and really enjoyed at least several songs per record all the way up through the self-titled album. But since around 2000? Kind of lost interest.

Fish - really liked his first couple of solo albums plus Sunsets on Empire (while preferring the Steve Hogarth/Marillion band). But after Sunsets, I don't think he's really done any studio albums that work. Sometimes, I found it hard really like any of the tracks, and it slowly lost steam.

Dave Matthews Band - no more songs after the third album. Seems to have said all that was in him.

Black Crowes - Chris Robinson admires the Dead. His band didn't really pull off that kind of music and were better with shorter songs that allowed Steve Gorman to drive the team hard.

Slash - not a strong enough songwriter.

REM - after Automatic For the People, lost interest.

The Cure - really don't think there are any good songs after Mint Car.

 

Tom Petty

 

Sonic Youth for me too. I loved their late '80s and early '90s work, up through the 1992 Dirty. But I listened to some of their later '90s albums, found them too mellow and gave up on the band. Recently, though, I've been listening to some of their 2000s work (stuff like Rather Ripped) and I'm liking them again.

 

John Fogerty. I used to salivate at mere mention of him finally getting back into the studio.
But I have lost interest.

 

U2 and Prince for me, though I still love the latter's pre-AFKAP material.

 

Jane's Addiction: I love their first three albums, but after that they lost me. It ain't the same without Eric Avery (bassist). I know there's drama and all that but their sound and attitude just isn't what it used to be.

 

Moody Blues: I stopped following them perhaps later than I might have; I've heard Long Distance Voyager (which I detested), The Present, The Other Side of Life and Sur La Mer without really liking anything on them. I have yet to hear Keys to the Kingdom; if you had told me in 1972 that there would be a Moody Blues LP out in 1992 that I would not have heard by 2015 I would have told you you were crazy.

Genesis: After their self-titled 1983 LP I stopped caring. All the good stuff is from the '70s. Just like the Moodies!

 

Too much Apollo.. not enough Dionysus?

 

I can still listen to Tommy and Quadrophenia but nothing else from the Who.Beatles music is getting pretty scarce too around here.

 

U2 - The last good album they did imo was Pop. All That You Can't Leave Behind was where they started to play it safe and became boring.

Prince - His Love Symbol album was good at the time, then I didn't pay interest for quite a while, until Musicology and 3121, but after those two I bought nothing more.

Carole King - After her album Music, there's only a song here and there that I like.

Metallica - Their material after The Black Album didn't appeal to me.

Fleetwood Mac - Tango In The Night was the last album of theirs that I bought.

 

I was going to say The Dead but I listen to them once in awhile, but I really have to be in the mood. The hippie culture surrounding the band is kind of a turn off for me and like I said I have to be in the mood to listen to their stuff.

Its also been years since I've listened to The Doors. I used to be into them hardcore but that music does little for me anymore. For whatever reason.

For more recent music, I'd say Muse. Their last couple of albums have been complete garbage and that's too bad because a few years ago I considered them the best current band going. I've completely lost any taste for their music these days.

 

Sadly for me, Neil Young...

 

Springsteen. Last album I liked was Tunnel of Love. Bought them all up through Magic, and then admitted I wasn't really enjoying him and his super compressed records anymore. Sold all my Bruce albums except for my WLP of BTR, Darkness and River, plus a few boots from the 78 tour.

Similar case with Neil Young and Van Morrison, where I followed them for years, the diminishing quality wore me down, and I snapped back to only listening to the 5 or 6 albums I really like.

 

I was a huge U2 fan back over a quarter-century ago (how has it possibly been THAT long?), but I gave up on them after How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Partly because I hadn't cared for any of their albums since Zooropa, and partly because I was just burned out on them in general.

Of course, Apple fixed that for me by giving me their latest album for free. I still haven't listened to it all the way through.

 

I know, I never thought it would happen.

Everything since A Letter Home has been firmly in the 'meh' category for me.

Velvet Revolver - first one was good, but I didn't bother after. Same with Audioslave.

I've kind of quit buying every single thing Jack White does, as well. My girlfriend gets the Vault packages and that's enough imo

I've also quit spending money on Grateful Dead - so much live stuff is available in good quality there's no real point in buying any more.

I also don't have any of the albums of new material that Lynyrd Skynyrd put out since Ed King left the band...and am not really interested in the 'modern country' direction of their most recent, so...

 

Wow, totally agree with your experience with some of my favorite artist...

 

Rush
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest

 

Virtually every band I listen to there's a point where I lose interest, except Led Zeppelin and the Beatles. And the Doors if you don't count the post-Morrison albums.

 

Duran Duran.

Loved them as a teen.

Then got into Zeppelin.