Worst Post-Peak Declines/ Falls From Greatness

Leo

Well-known member
skream ("midnight request line" and a couple of other decent early trax versus most everything else)
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Also Dillinja was never good, at least Goldie would have an excuse but like, how much is Goldie responsible for? WHOOOO KNOOOOOWS....
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
There are mega fans that would argue otherwise, but prince post SOTT was pretty brutal. Ditto bowie post lets dance.
 

droid

Well-known member
Never let me down is awesomely awful. One of the worst records of the 80's. There are gems hidden in his 90's output, but not many.

But then - Blackstar & a virtually unprecedented stellar deathbed redemption.
 

martin

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Musically, the worst case example that comes to mind is SPK. Can't even begin to fathom how a band responsible for such visceral, abrasive music, and who fully deserve their rep as industrial pioneers, went from the sonic assault of 'Information Overload Unit' to the abysmal, desperate-for-a-hit wankfest that's 'Machine Age Voodoo' in the space of just over two years. The Thompson Twins have more in common with Throbbing Gristle than that pile of shit album has with anything SPK released pre-'83.

Sometime around 2000/2001, a friend purchased a live VHS tape of a then-recent Shabba Ranks performance...in a Jamaican church hall. After 45 mins of 'WTF is this?' child gospel performers, Shabba shambles onto the stage, looking totally spangled - no, actually, in pain - and delivers a performance so tortured (accentuated by the cheap shaky-cam) that it felt like rubbernecking at someone having a breakdown. I know he's got himself back on track, but that was a true Spinal Tap-style moment I'd rather have not witnessed.

Not as bad as those two, but I also lament Coil's downward trajectory from 'urban warlocks doing MDMA in the bogs at Heaven' to the coast-dwelling bores who inspired the whole wretched Ghostbox genre.
 

droid

Well-known member
Shabba did some good tunes around 2001-2002. Probably just a bad day as opposed to a fall from greatness.


Never rated him much on stage anyway.
 

martin

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Shabba did some good tunes around 2001-2002. Probably just a bad day as opposed to a fall from greatness.

Never rated him much on stage anyway.

Yeah, true. Hell of a bad day though. Perhaps he was pressured into making a charity / 'tell the yootz the truth'-style appearance at the local community centre and had to hoover up his weight in drugs to get through the ordeal. And he's done proper, high-profile sets since, so... Shabba, you are released from this thread!

I would add The Pogues, but Hell's Ditch was more mediocre than jaw-droppingly bad.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Lovesexy is good but yeah I recognize after that its some really shaky stuff from Prince.

Blackstar was bad.

Was Coil ever good? Who can say.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Interesting criteria, as you need people who attained great heights in the first place

James Brown
Can - everything after Soon Over Babaluma
Discharge - every so often you hear a revisionist case made for Grave New World, but no, it's fucking terrible
all the 80s Boston hardcore bands, most egregiously SSD
jungle, as a whole - forget individual producers (scenius, after all). was there ever a greater post-lapsarian fall from paradise?
 
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