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The album after major commercial success


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I've always thought the most interesting album that a band has released was the one after major commercial success. This is not to say they're the best of their career but something vastly different from before or even after. I will give a few examples that in my opinion, were a change in direction but still a good album. 

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik > One Hot Minute

Nirvana - Nevermind > In Utero

Metallica - Black Album > Load

Stone Temple Pilots - Purple > Tiny Music

Smashing Pumpkins - Melancholy > Adore 

 

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Yeah, I can get behind that. More examples...

Rush: Moving Pictures > Signals
Genesis: A Trick of the Tail > Wind & Wuthering
Lindisfarne: Fog on the Tyne > Dingly Dell
Neil Young: Harvest > On the Beach
Eagles: Hotel California > Long Run
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours > Tusk
 

Edited by wateroftyne
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Another Rush one: Fly By Night -> Caress Of Steel

Fly By Night was my first Rush show (at B'ginnings in Schaumburg, IL). I also got to attend one of the few Down The Tubes tour shows (as Rush referred to the Caress Of Steel tour). Caress Of Steel (severely underrated IMO) made 2112 possible.

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14 minutes ago, ClassicVibes said:

Master Of Puppets may have been a great album but it wasn't a major commercial success.

It was certified gold album after release. How is that not a major commercial success? OK, the later ones were more successful, but when that album came out it was pretty well on non stop play on most of the rock channels. It was the album that took them from a fringe metal group to mainstream rock play.

And sold more than their last 4 albums.

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6 hours ago, TheMaartian said:

Another Rush one: Fly By Night -> Caress Of Steel

Fly By Night was my first Rush show (at B'ginnings in Schaumburg, IL). I also got to attend one of the few Down The Tubes tour shows (as Rush referred to the Caress Of Steel tour). Caress Of Steel (severely underrated IMO) made 2112 possible.

Yeah, when you hear how Caress of Steel went down and the subsequent tour, its amazing that they were even allowed to bring out 2112, plus they were expressly told to come up with something commercial. They refused and the rest is history. I am a dyed in the wool Rush fan and love Caress of Steel. This is also why I was annoyed at another post elsewhere saying that they were over rated. A band that struggled for recognition for years and only recently got into the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame. 

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43 minutes ago, ubit said:

Yeah, when you hear how Caress of Steel went down and the subsequent tour, its amazing that they were even allowed to bring out 2112, plus they were expressly told to come up with something commercial. They refused and the rest is history. I am a dyed in the wool Rush fan and love Caress of Steel. This is also why I was annoyed at another post elsewhere saying that they were over rated. A band that struggled for recognition for years and only recently got into the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame. 

Here's the listserv I was on in the mid-90s. We came up with this T-shirt.

mdRULMI.jpg

ADgoJer.jpg

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3 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

It was certified gold album after release. How is that not a major commercial success? OK, the later ones were more successful, but when that album came out it was pretty well on non stop play on most of the rock channels. It was the album that took them from a fringe metal group to mainstream rock play.

And sold more than their last 4 albums.

 

3 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

it went 6 x platinum in the US and in Canada, platinum in the UK and in Germany

image.png.f3c49b90ff3f4ba77ed200be5c10011b.png

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13 hours ago, TheMaartian said:

Another Rush one: Fly By Night -> Caress Of Steel

Fly By Night was my first Rush show (at B'ginnings in Schaumburg, IL). I also got to attend one of the few Down The Tubes tour shows (as Rush referred to the Caress Of Steel tour). Caress Of Steel (severely underrated IMO) made 2112 possible.

I don’t think FBN was a major commercial success as per the OP, though 🙂

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20 hours ago, TheMaartian said:

Another Rush one: Fly By Night -> Caress Of Steel

Fly By Night was my first Rush show (at B'ginnings in Schaumburg, IL). I also got to attend one of the few Down The Tubes tour shows (as Rush referred to the Caress Of Steel tour). Caress Of Steel (severely underrated IMO) made 2112 possible.

Funny, I've also been a huge Rush fan since about 81 and I absolutely get why CoS was so poorly received. I'm not sure it made 2112 "possible" but it certainly made it "necessary"! Really like both FBN and 2112 but the only songs I actually like on CoS are Bastille Day and Lakeside Park (one of my all time faves).  In fact it's probably my least liked studio album after Vapor Trains (for the over-compression rather than the songs themselves).

For me both The Fountain of Lambeth (sic) and Necrodude have always hinted at their their abilities but felt like they were put together in a pretty shoddy way with a lot of filler in-between the few and far between inspired bits. Comparing with with other bands' multi-section, long form pieces which were being produced around the same time or earlier (Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Echoes, Supper's Ready, Close To the Edge, And You and I, The Snow Goose, Starship Trooper, Tarkus etc etc) neither The Necro nor Lamneth cohere and hang together the way they do. And then there's "Didacts And Narpets" which is awful musically, poor in its delivery of an otherwise interesting concept and owner of a horribly smug lower-sixth humour anagramatised title.

If I didn't know better and you told me that CoS was their second album and they improved with FBN I'd find that completely plausible. Huge disappointment for me. And don't get me started on the sub-Tolkein Hobbit-bothering nonsense... and I LIKE Hobbit-bothering nonsense!

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Weird. I have loved music  since I was 7, been buying it since I was 10. Yet I can't think of one single artist that I like in these terms. 

I wonder whats going on here. Do I not pay much attention to charts, sales and such? Or do I seem to lose interest once a band becomes a huge success? 

Anyway, sorry, carry on. 

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39 minutes ago, TrevorR said:

If I didn't know better and you told me that CoS was their second album and they improved with FBN I'd find that completely plausible. Huge disappointment for me. And don't get me started on the sub-Tolkein Hobbit-bothering nonsense.

I got into Rush in '78 when I went down to the Friday market at dinner time from school and came back with 2112. I had heard of Rush and read about them in Sounds (the rock newspaper of the time) I was pretending to everyone that I new their stuff as I knew they were a rock band. When I got home and turned on the record player, I got a hell of a shock. I thought what the hell is this? Once it got going though that was me hooked. I retro bought the older albums after that and I think C.O.S. was last on my list. By this time I was a total fan and they could do no wrong so I like it and can still enjoy listening to the compositions less travelled. In the words of Taylor Hawkins right enough, I get why chicks  tend to not listen to C.O.S. right enough.

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trouble is a band has years to come up with the debut, or successful album then it's a case of "where's the next one' they're either rushed or an inferior copy of the first one, the Ramones aside very few bands can pull that off, the Stranglers for instance recorded enough tracks for nearly 2 albums, released the best tracks on the first one added a couple of good ones to the second and released No More Heroes

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6 hours ago, Mykesbass said:

Terence Trent D'arby: Introducing the Hardline by TTD -> Neither Fish nor Flesh (although the 'good album' caveat is very much up for debate on this one)!

Neither Fish Nor Flesh - massively successful first album pop star rebels against the music industry. Stupid twunt. 

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2 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

trouble is a band has years to come up with the debut, or successful album then it's a case of "where's the next one' they're either rushed or an inferior copy of the first one, the Ramones aside very few bands can pull that off, the Stranglers for instance recorded enough tracks for nearly 2 albums, released the best tracks on the first one added a couple of good ones to the second and released No More Heroes

We've been here before Mr Warning, all Ramones is $h1te. 

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