this is obviously a wide-spread phenomenon. you always hear, "i liked their first 2 albums..."

started thinking of examples.

black sabbath (henry rollins did a stand up where he recommended el nino be renamed to something more menacing like "the first 4 black sabbath albums")
roxy music (i don't care what anyone says, the first 2 with brian eno will be my favorites)
pink floyd (even though i like some later albums, i always hear, "i like the early syd barrett era albums")

are there any opposite examples of bands getting better with age?

In terms of second half of their career being better than their first half, the Beatles and the Dismemberment Plan are two bands that immediately spring to mind.

Flaming Lips

It's an easy trap, because the first two or so albums generally incubated the longest. Artists have about 20 years to generate their first material. Later stuff gets whipped up in a year to meet contract demands.

Also, if the artists don't have anything fresh, then re-hashing what they've already done gets really lame. I mean, really, how many times are you gonna buy the same crap under a new title?


As for Roxy Music, I find "Avalon" and "Flesh And Blood" to be two of their best.

I'll also offer up The Damned, whose best albums, IMHO, were The Black Album and Strawberries--after they had progressed beyond stripped-down punk (the best of which was Machine Gun Etiquette (not Damned Damned Damned) IMHBSIO). This actually holds for a lot of the punk bands, as musicianship gradually took the forefront from energy and emotion. The ones that excelled were the ones that achieved the former without losing the latter.

some use this arguement with U2 but i'm sorry, boy and october are clearly inferior albums to achtung baby, joshua tree, war and unforgettable fire...
btw, the first two roxy musics albums remain the best.

The Cars
Van Halen
Elton John
ZZ Top

Most would consider War to be their earlier stuff. I have to disagree with you entirely on Boy, which I consider to be their best by a long shot.

I'm with Billz on this one.

ACHTUNG BABY IS SUCH A FUCKING GOOD RECORD!!!!!!!!!

KPH

REM- Murmur to Automatic.

After that it's merely okay to bad with a few good moments.

I debated mentioning this, but, three of my favorite artists of the 90s have either become, or are in danger of irrelevance to me:

Wilco
Radiohead
Oukast

Wilco's first three albums are by far more enjoyable to me. Sorry, its just my opinion. I can listen to the other two, but its nothing like when I first heard Being There or Summerteeth.

Radiohead is a band I am no longer even interested in hearing what they put out. Closed minded, yep. But remember, I'm from the South

Outkast is trickier. I really like Stankonia and the Big Boi half of SpeakerBoxxx/The Love Below is phenomenal...but they don't hold up to the heights that were reached on ATLiens and Aquemini. And of course, Southernplayalistic is a stone cold classic, but not the best music they have put out. I have hope from what I have read that they are going to pull back from the brink of utter shit/breaking up and record an actual Outkast album, and I hope that happens.

But seriously, over the last half of the nineties, these were probably my three of my most played artists, and now, unless its a nostalgia thing, I'm just not digging out there albums.

i definitely agree with this one.

and U2 up through rattle and hum.

Can anyone say: Rolling Stones?!?!

Their last great record was Tattoo You in 1981. Since then, they're just a glorified nostalgia act, IMO. And yes, TY WAS a great record:
-Start Me Up
-Hang Fire
-Waiting On a Friend
and more that I just can't think of now.

Don't argue. It's a fact.

That's nearly TWENTY YEARS from their debut. I will argue that they have had flashes of brilliance since. I will also argue that since most of these songs were outtakes/reworkings of stuff from It's Only Rock and Roll through Emotional Rescue, that Some Girls is their last GREAT ALBUM. And I will also argue that I'll take them as a glorified nostalgia act over 95% of stuff talked about on this board.

Put on Forty Licks at a

have a few

and

you'll see what I mean.

Agree Todd.

Tattoo you forgot:

Little T & A
Neighbours
Slave
Heaven
Ain't no use crying


Love that album

I'm not ripping on the Stones. Still one of the greatest bands ever.

I actually own 40 Licks and worship that collection. The amazing thing is that despite having 40 brilliant ad near-brilliant songs, it's not even close to complete.

Edit: And in this context, "early" is being used as a relative term, of course.

And neither of you mention the best song: TOPS

side 2 of tatoo you used to be my favorite ever. couldn't get enough of mick's falsetto.

Poi Dog Pondering - I'm still very fond of the first Texas-by-way-of-Hawaii hippie-surf-folk albums, when they were both naive and brilliant. Later stuff is rhythmically more advanced but loses much of its personality.

Deacon Blue - Raintown is the first and best.

Aztec Camera - first two albums are brilliant

China Crisis - earlier on had incredible tunes like "Black Man Ray" Later morphed into soft-pop muzak.

There's hundreds more, but that's a few off the top while at work

Man, I was way into The Shins on their first two records. But after that shit got all wierd. They thought they had to prove something. And then that album where they had guests on each of the songs? WTF? Neil Diamond? Snoop Dog? C'mon, guys. So sad.

Stiff Little Fingers
999
The Damned
Magazine
The Fleshtones

Bands whose best was one of their first three (which does not necessarily mean that later stuff was awful):

Cheap Trick
Iggy/The Stooges
Alice Cooper
The Wedding Present
Robyn Hitchcock/The Soft Boys
Lloyd Cole
Echo & The Bunnymen
Adam Ant
Midnight Oil
The Jazz Butcher
The B-52's
The Stranglers
X
Japan
Ultravox
Simple Minds
The Pretenders
Iron Maiden
The Cult

i'm going to add cave in as another example.
their early and extremely heavy records are amazing.
i couldn't care less about what they are up to these days.

New Adventures in HiFi is underrated, I think. For the most part, its a qual record.

REM
Smashing Pumpkins (after Siamese Dream, fuhgeddaboutit)
Sinead O'Connor
David Bowie (granted, he has some amazing moments later in history, but most of his pre-1980 is better than post-1980)