Artists You Once Considered "Essential" But No Longer

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Bluesman Mark, Apr 9, 2020.

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  1. astro70

    astro70 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Illinois
    Mainly 60s proto punk, garage, avant garde, psych rock. Plenty of folk, Chicago blues, and cool jazz, hard bop thrown in. I'm also pretty into the Grateful Dead.
     
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  2. Etienne Hanratty

    Etienne Hanratty Forum Resident

    Location:
    uk
    Morrissey. Tho more because of the man than the music, although the latter has made it easier to disengage.

    On the other hand, Billy Bragg appears to have remained the same sound bloke I got into as a teenager, but he hasn’t made an album I’ve liked more than a couple of songs from since 1991.
     
  3. BourbonAndVinyl

    BourbonAndVinyl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kansas City, MO
    When I see something like this, and that tag "essential" it's hard for me to put my finger on what exactly that means... I guess I'd need a definition in terms here. I tend to think of bands I used to love but have moved on from... one could say I "out grew them" as someone posted above. A lot of stuff I absolutely loved and would have said essential in my teens is a bit laughable now... Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eddie Money, Styx, REO, Steve Miller Band. That AOR, midwest rock and roll stuff. I don't know if that fits the bill on this thread, but that was the first thing I thought about.
     
    Bluesman Mark likes this.
  4. Sear

    Sear Dad rocker

    Location:
    Tarragona (Spain)
    Wow. They are an awesome band. I play their records regularly
     
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  5. Sear

    Sear Dad rocker

    Location:
    Tarragona (Spain)
    This is nonsense
     
    Marry a Carrot likes this.
  6. Python

    Python Forum Resident

    Location:
    S.F. Bay Area
    In some cases the band changed, in others I changed, and in some cases probably both:

    Aerosmith (still consider '73 - '79 plus Done With Mirrors essential)
    Beastie Boys
    Cinderella (cringe)
    Counting Crows (double cringe)
    The Cult (okay, pretty much all of these are making me cringe...)
    Deep Purple (I actually still enjoy them quite a bit - '70 to '73 plus Perfect Strangers - but just don't consider them essential as I once did)
    David Gray
    N.W.A./Ice Cube solo
    Ice-T
    Public Enemy
    Joe Perry Project
    Robert Plant solo
    Police
    Queensryche
    Scorpions (cringe again)
    Springsteen (still love most of '73 - '87, after that albums mostly hit or miss, definitely more of the latter)
    Tesla (!)
    Van Hagar (still consider VH '78 - '83 plus Different Kind Of Truth essential)
     
  7. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    They all suck, all music sucks.
     
  8. James5001

    James5001 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    Where essential meets I played it to death to the point I could hum albums from start to finish.
     
  9. newelectricmuse

    newelectricmuse charm, strangeness and quark

    Location:
    London
    Yeah, he's so dead to me
     
  10. FACE OF BOE

    FACE OF BOE Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Spinal Tap. They were no longer essential after Shark Sandwich.
     
  11. Chemguy

    Chemguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Western Canada
    So...Clapton is still essential then? You better come up with another example for your thread, because you really don’t have one yet.

    Not trying to be critical here, but you can’t say Clapton isn’t an essential artist and the call Layla essential, right?
     
  12. Lightworker

    Lightworker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Deep Texas
    I still like his 'garage raw' solo in the Yardbirds' version of "A Certain Girl".
     
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  13. audiotom

    audiotom I can not hear a single sound as you scream

    Location:
    New Orleans La USA
    Dave Matthews. - I can only listen to Grave Digger
     
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  14. Bluesman Mark

    Bluesman Mark I'm supposed to put something witty here.... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Iowa
    Overall Clapton is no longer essential to me, thus the fact that other than Layla, a single disc compilation is all I care for by him now. Layla however, would be essential to me no matter what. If the Beatles or Queen had done it, & the same way, I'd consider it essential, & I have no music at all by either of them. Everything else he did eventually began feeling & sounding uneven to me, & too often loaded with filler, & I'm going back to all those albums of his I had in the 70s.

    He's not the only example. As much as I love Soul & Motown, most of their artists from that era I'm completely satisfied with a 1-2 disc compilation of now. I do have What's Going On, & two Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell albums, but everything else by Marvin I have well summed up in the Gold 2 CD compilation. The Supremes are entirely covered for me by their Gold 2 CD set. Grand Funk is another example. I went from having several of their albums to an 11 track single disc comp. Lynyrd Skynyrd? I had every album. Now I've got the complete One More From The Road set, & the 3 CD comp from 1991, plus the Family comp for some offshoot stuff, & that's plenty.

    Conversely, I've got everything official by the Allmans, (including all solo releases & offshoots), the Doobie Brothers, (ditto), P-Funk, (Parliament, Funkadelic, George Clinton, P-Funk All Stars, Bootsy, Parlet, the Brides Of Funkenstein, Bernie Worrell, Eddie Hazel, & so on & so forth), the J Geils Band, Otis Redding, Aretha, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Peter Wolf, Steely Dan, the Stones, etc, & with most of them I've also got copious bootlegs & other unofficial releases.

    Those are just some of the essential artists for me. Including Layla, I've got about 2 hours of Clapton. I've got more than that of the Allmans with just the 6 CD Fillmore East set. Eric made one album I still consider essential. The artists I've listed in that last paragraph, everything by them is essential to me.
     
  15. Brian Doherty

    Brian Doherty Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA
    In retrospect the sort of young sensitive maybe boozy lovelorn self-identified scrappy outsider record fiend types who saw ourselves in them if we happened to be teens or 20s in their heyday HIGHLY overrated them. I considered them my "favorite band" around 85-87 and again find their whole thing a bit overdone and not often enough even at their own best, and Paul's writing a bit perhaps underdone and overly abstract.
     
  16. Brian Doherty

    Brian Doherty Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA
    I too see it easy to say an artist has made ONE essential contribution without rating them overall as an artist essential. As per my earlier example, SQUEEZING OUT SPARKS is essential; the overall career of Graham Parker, no, because to say so would lead the unwary to a whole large body of songs I personally now consider pretty underdone and underwhelming.
     
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  17. jhershauer

    jhershauer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ
    Now THAT's blasphemy. I had to buy this whole Pic-A-Nic basket just to get a good copy of their theme song...

    [​IMG]
     
  18. chickendinna

    chickendinna Homegrown’s All Right With Me

    wow 90% of that reads pretty much like my essential list right now, who is still standing ?
     
  19. Chemguy

    Chemguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Western Canada
    I’m sorry, but I think you did it again. If Clapton is not essential, why would it be important/essential for you to have Layla AND his greatest hits?

    You’ve pared down the Clapton to its essentials, for you. If he has essential work, by default he is an essential artist in your collection. I think so, anyway.

    For the other artists you mention, you think it’s essential to have all of their music. Great. You’ve cooled on Eric, but not to the extent of ridding yourself of all of his music. He still sounds essential to me. Not as important, not as beloved, but not inessential.
     
  20. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    Oh ! I agree. They peaked well before this.
     
  21. Celebrated Summer

    Celebrated Summer Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    What about that song where he goes on for like five minutes about having "so much to say," but then ends up actually saying almost nothing but that phrase?
     
  22. O Don Piano

    O Don Piano Senior Member

    EXACTLY what I was getting at in my earlier post!
    I still find an artist "essential" whether or not he/she has released anything that may not "click" with me as much as they may have at some point.
    Case: Somebody above mentioned Jethro Tull. Sure- they haven't released something as amazing as their 1969-1975 period, but I still listen to those albums and they are such a part of my life. So why would that artist be "inessential" to me?
     
  23. Izozeles

    Izozeles Pushing my limits

    I’m a man of long lasting relationships. I have yet to abandon one of my music darlings , even if I met her during my formative years
     
  24. If I Can Dream_23

    If I Can Dream_23 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    Yes. Not to mention that not everyone's idea of essential is the same, whether in youth or old age. For instance, not everyone finds groups that they loved at 20 less essential at 50, merely because they have aged 30 years and grown. Quite the contrary in some cases - you end up appreciating those formative influences even more because time has moved on.
     
  25. Bluesman Mark

    Bluesman Mark I'm supposed to put something witty here.... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Iowa
    No, though I understand the confusion. I got the single disc Icon best of because I wanted to occasionally hear some Clapton outside of Layla. If I hadn't gotten it, I wouldn't feel I was missing anything, & in fact I can't recall the last time I listened to it or even wanted to. Layla on the other hand I have to have.

    One is nice to have if I want to hear it. The other is something I have to keep at hand to play. Layla touches me in ways that are deep & lasting. Everything else by Clapton is just a pleasant diversion to me at best, & nothing more.
     
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