Bands that sucked to begin, then rocked!!
 

Most bands seem to start out great, then lose their edge and end up sucking. What bands did the opposite?

The Beatles are one band that did this. Who else?

Radiohead and The Horrors are the first ones that popped in my head.
Radiohead kinda went downhill again after Amnesiac imo.

No dude, tottaly no.

Can't really think of bands who SUCKED but got good, I can think of plenty of bands who started good and got great though.

Well, I take that back. Not really bands, but a LOT of electronic artists (even greats like Autechre, Squarepusher, V-Snares) seem to have started out kinda bland but ended up getting really amazing at some point in their career. Maybe not "sucked" (though honestly, I hate the first few V-Snares albums...), but certainly were just kinda uninspired and complacent and have now down some truly forward-thinking, groundbreaking things.

The thing is with that statement, Mr Park, is that you've basically said that you don't like dance artists that stop making dance music. I saw Squarepusher fairly early on, and he was fucking brilliant, and I saw him around '02 or so and he was fucking shite for student wankers.

It's not a problem, per se, just an observation.

Did anyone mention Beefheart yet? Does Mozart count? Actually, come to think of it, there's a lot of composers whose early work is substandard, I can only really think of Beethoven and JS Bach whose earlier stuff is as amazing as the adult stuff.

Stony Sleep?

First mention of this band's name on this forum award.

I was going to mention Beefheart. But I dunno, his whole catalogue is so weird. Safe as Milk is good, but one of my favorites is Strictly Personal, which I'd rate WAY over Trout Mask. Then again, I'd rate Doc at the Radar Station over most releases too. His whole catalogue is just weird... he really only had a few sucky albums and those weren't too bad honestly.

Really? I swear I've mentioned them before in one of those 'indie bands that every fucker's forgotten' threads. But it probably got lost in amoungst all the 'yes, Kenicke really were that great' or 'fucking hell, Sleeper sound better now than they did then!' sort of talk. I still chuck on 'A Slack Romance' from time to time, for my sins, but I never do 'Music for Chameleons'.

Autechre , yes.

Uzeda's first two LPs were really weird in an unfocused way and they became amazing afterwards.

i love the first autechre LP

lol

I totally agree with radiohead. they really sucked with some college emo rock thing going on with a handful of decent songs burried in albums of soft rock garbage.. then they started to find their edge with OK computer, and rode with it through the kid a/amnesiac/hail to the thief trilogy. Personally, I really like the in rainbows album and especially the tours..

As i have on several of these kinds of sucks to good threads will bring up the Black Keys. I did not like the black keys until recently, and I had even saw them perform twice! no appeal.. then they put out Attack and Release and I dig it, I really really dig it.

The Feelies.
I never found interest in Crazy Rythms, but I love Time for a Witness.

I have to disagree with those who said Autechre ... Incunabula and Amber might sound kinda old now, because they use those very 90's-sounding synths, but they're both great.

Talking about 90's synths... The Prodigy would certainly fit in this thread. Experience is terrible if you ask me. They would also fit in the other thread, as their new one sucks so much

Well he didn't suck coming out of the box either but Neil Young just got better and better and better and...Pink Floyd comes to mind too and I agree with the Beatles. Anything before the white album should be burnt...........

bowie's weird early mod/faux scott walker/"psychedelic" stuff is among the pooest of poos. but he kept getting better and better (the glam period, station to station, berlin, scary monsters...) and then BAM he unleashed let's dance on the world. ): fucker.

so i don't know if he belongs in this thread or the other.

Really? Prodigy Experience and Jilted... are seminal records for people of a certain generation. Fat of the Land was just the beginning of a big, boring stadium rave band. There are quite a few ex-rave (-ish) bands whose live show shits on Prodigy's. Surprisingly, in the case of Basement Jaxx.

The Beatles didn't really suck at the beginning because I love Please Please Me and A Hard Day's Night but yeah, their later stuff is way better.

There are also bands that don't suck at the beginning but that keep getting better with every release, like Animal Collective

yes, i agree with AC also.

DEPECHE MODE

Just Can't Get Enough, my ass!

Well yeah, I guess I can't understand Experience too much because I was just born when it was released, and therefore didn't live the rave scene when it did happen. I really love Music For The Jilted Generation though, but Experience I just can't get into.
I really love post-Fat Of The Land Prodigy too, but then again maybe it's because it's the Prodigy I grew up with ... Firestarter brings back memories of playing Wipeout on Playstation with my uncles, etc. I consider it as a fucking masterpiece. The next one (Always Outnumbered blahblah) ain't too shabby either if you ask me, I think it's kind of underrated. There are some great tracks on there - You'll Be Under My Wheels, Get Up Get Off, Spitfire, Girls, etc. The new one really sucks though.
I would agree with you on the live show point though - even though I've never seen them live, on the videos I've seen on the Internet (I know you should never judge live performances based on internet videos but hey...) they really sound shitty. It looks like they could just play the CD in the background with the two singers being howling clowns over it (note that I don't mean that because it is electronic music ; I'm actually more into electronic music now than I'm into rock music, and I've loved tons of electronic shows I've witnessed, but I do appreciate when an artist does a bit more than playing note by note, and always exactly with the same timing, volume, etc, as the studio version; on the case of prodigy it's so similar it almost sounds like playback)

Really? I mean, really?? It's one thing to say that the Beatles' style drastically changed by the time they were through, but to simply say their early stuff "sucked"... I'm sorry, I don't agree at all.

Yeah, that's fair enough. I didn't really factor age into it. I mean, I was 9 or 10 when it came out, so it's hardly like I was gurning in a field when it came out. There's a lot of people, of a certain age and type, who feel that the Fat of the Land Prodigy is a completely different one to the early one. They were playing second-rate dance music to a rock crowd. But, y'know, it's all horses for courses. I'd honestly not considered that to people your age Prodigy have always been the dance band playing to rock crowds.

I was actually going to come in this thread to say The Beatles, but someone beat me to it. Yes.

As far as their earliest songs are concerned, "She Loves You" or "I Want To Hold Your Hand" are pretty bland pop songs. Sure, they were great early examples, but I feel like they're just songs written for girls. Kind of like NSYNC or Backstreet Boys songs for the 60's.

And when you hear what they went on to do later on, albums like "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper" really just make those early songs look like shit.

The songs don't suck overall, they just suck in comparison to their later work.

I think as far as music of that era goes, it was pretty damn good. How many songs of that time, in that genre weren't love songs? Back then, there was no "later Beatles" to compare it to. It was what it was, and they did it well.

Right, that was my point. I'm comparing it to now. Personally, I think the earlier songs sound dated compared to later on. But again, I'm comparing.

I think you've also got to consider the country factor. I mean, I can't be 100% sure since I was only 3 when Music For The Jilted Generation came out, but I'm pretty certain that the first two Prodigy albums didn't have the same impact in France as it had in the UK. I think Prodigy really reached a mainstream success here with The Fat Of The Land. No Good was probably being played on the french radios and all at the time (I'm almost sure it was, since the first time I consciously listened to No Good, I thought "wait, I've already heard that a long time ago", kind of like a sound from my early childhood), but that was probably about it.

Yeah, no I was just reinforcing what I said at first. I don't think comparing is fair when it comes to rating an album by "sucking" or not, especially when it was produced during a time that most of us can harly comprehend, having never experienced it.

But you seem to recognize that too so, really, I think you're being fair.

The Notwist
Talk Talk

^^ good ones