# Bands, Singers and Instrumentalists Who Jumped the Shark in 1 Album



## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

In your opinion, what are some bands, singers, and nonclassical musicians who went from good/great to horrible in one album, especially those who never got their mojo back?

Believe it or not, Def Leppard used to be a heavy rock band. Along with Iron Maiden, they were even considered to be part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in 1980. I was aboard for their 1st three albums, but then they released that horrific 4th album, Hysteria. What was that? It contained arguably the worst song in recorded history, Pour Some Sugar on Me. Yuk! Love Bites. Animal. The choruses sounded like a collection of the wimpiest voices Mutt Lange could find. It was a huge commercial success, but cost them their fans from the early days. 

Some more examples of jumping the shark?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Totalist Led Zep fans will hate this (and I regard Zep as the top band ever), but _Physical Graffiti_ for me was a huge letdown, only redeemed by the stunning, incomparable Kashmir and the fine The Rover. For me, the rest of the album was uninspired music, not up to their established standard. The next two albums continued the downward trend, though between the two, they came up with three fine songs.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Pearl Jam's Ten was one of the greatest rock albums ever with several phenomenal singles and several album-only tracks that were just as good, if not better. After that they became just another average, run-of-the-mill alternative rock bands with a handful of good songs here and there. 

Up until about '71 I think The Kinks rivaled The Beatles as the best band of The British Invasion, but then they got influenced by prog and started trying to write rock operas and went to crap. They recovered somewhat in the 80s but they never returned to their peak 60s material. 

Many of the great 70s prog bands had downward turns in the 80s: Yes with 90125, Genesis with Abacab (one could argue even a bit before that with Duke and ...And Then There Were Three, but I think those are still decent), Jethro Tull with A... 

Metallica with Load and Reload... truth be told they aren't completely terrible albums, but they're pretty terrible Metallica albums. Miles away from the quartet of 80s thrash masterpieces. 

Queensryche went from being the premiere prog metal band to being a mere shadow of themselves when Geoff Tate took over sole creative control. It started with Hear in the Now Frontier, and they just got worse after that with some absolute embarassments like Frequency Unknown before Tate left. 

Those are the ones that immediately come to mind.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Totalist Led Zep fans will hate this (and I regard Zep as the top band band ever), but _Physical Graffiti_ for me was a huge letdown, only redeemed by the stunning, incomparable Kashmir and the fine The Rover. For me, the rest of the album was uninspired music, not up to their established standard. The next two albums continued the downward trend, though between the two, they came up with three fine songs.


Oh, boo! Not only my favorite Zep album but one of my favorite rock albums ever. Love the sprawling diversity. Every song sounds so distinct and different, and I think all of their experiments in other genres work. In My Time of Dying vies with Achilles Last Stand as my favorite Zep track, and I adore the underrated Ten Years Gone; probably only rivaled by The Rain Song as their best ballad (if we aren't counting Stairway). I think the quality trails off a tad with the second half of album 2, but that's still 3/4 of what I consider top-tier Zep (and, by proxy, top tier rock music). I'm in good company since I think both Plant and Page considered it their best album.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

^^^^@Eva Yojimbo: A fine post above that shows again the infinite variety of human taste in music and art! Of course I disagree, and scoff at the opinions of Plant and Page--as you know, it's our opinions that count.


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## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Pearl Jam's Ten was one of the greatest rock albums ever with several phenomenal singles and several album-only tracks that were just as good, if not better. After that they became just another average, run-of-the-mill alternative rock bands with a handful of good songs here and there.
> 
> Up until about '71 I think The Kinks rivaled The Beatles as the best band of The British Invasion, but then they got influenced by prog and started trying to write rock operas and went to crap. They recovered somewhat in the 80s but they never returned to their peak 60s material.
> 
> ...


Eva Yojimbo: Those are some great examples of jumping the shark.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Hip-hop group Arrested Development's followup to _3 years, 5 months...._ was so bad that it not only killed their career but now nobody even cares about their debut anymore. The white press (Rolling Stone et al) were setting them up as the successor to Public Enemy as the critically respectable hip-hop group of choice (it ended up being OutKast, who definitely deserved that spot more).


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## Judas Priest Fan (Apr 27, 2018)

SearsPoncho said:


> In your opinion, what are some bands, singers, and nonclassical musicians who went from good/great to horrible in one album, especially those who never got their mojo back?
> 
> Believe it or not, Def Leppard used to be a heavy rock band. Along with Iron Maiden, they were even considered to be part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in 1980. I was aboard for their 1st three albums, but then they released that horrific 4th album, Hysteria. What was that? It contained arguably the worst song in recorded history, Pour Some Sugar on Me. Yuk! Love Bites. Animal. The choruses sounded like a collection of the wimpiest voices Mutt Lange could find. It was a huge commercial success, but cost them their fans from the early days.
> 
> Some more examples of jumping the shark?


I absolutely agree! Def Leppard was one of the first bands that I got into. I think On through the Night was the very first LP that I ever bought. For me, High n Dry is still one of the best hard rock albums of all time, and while Pyromania was a bit more "pop" than the first two, it was still fantastic. After those three albums, they TOTALLY lost me!


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

when I was in high school, Rush was one of my favorites, but I stopped listening to them with both ears after they released Moving Pictures

with Led Zep, yea Physical Graffiti is one of my favorite albumns of the 70s, but I remember we waited with baited breath for years for In Through the Out Door and when it came out we were really disappointed. Had Bonzo not died and the band carried on, I might not have ever listened to them again after that record. But now 40 years after, I got to admit Fool in the Rain is one of my favorite Zep tunes


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## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

Nate Miller said:


> when I was in high school, Rush was one of my favorites, but I stopped listening to them with both ears after they released Moving Pictures
> 
> with Led Zep, yea Physical Graffiti is one of my favorite albumns of the 70s, but I remember we waited with baited breath for years for In Through the Out Door and when it came out we were really disappointed. Had Bonzo not died and the band carried on, I might not have ever listened to them again after that record. But now 40 years after, I got to admit Fool in the Rain is one of my favorite Zep tunes


I can see your point about Rush, but I have to admit I really liked Grace Under Pressure once I got used to the obscene amount of effects Alex Lifeson used on that album. The songs are good, just different. But yeah, Moving Pictures was a peak they never really got close to again.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Santana - Inner Secrets (1978). They had been floundering a bit anyway post-_Caravanserai_ but this offering was the real beginning of the end. Follow-up _Marathon_ (1979) was even worse - a total stinker.

The Who - _The Who By Numbers _(1975). Not bad at all but far too low key, so it really should have been a Pete Townshend solo album. Then there was a three-year wait for _Who Are You_ which revealed a group perilously close to running on empty. The two post-Moon albums were vapid arena rock, proving that The Who were an irrelevance by then.


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## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

elgar's ghost said:


> Santana - Inner Secrets (1978). They had been floundering a bit anyway post-_Caravanserai_ but this offering was the real beginning of the end. Follow-up _Marathon_ (1979) was even worse - a total stinker.
> 
> The Who - _The Who By Numbers _(1975). Not bad at all but far too low key, so it really should have been a Pete Townshend solo album. Then there was a three-year wait for _Who Are You_ which revealed a group perilously close to running on empty. The two post-Moon albums were vapid arena rock, proving that The Who were an irrelevance by then.


Now that (The Who By Numbers), my friend, is an excellent example of jumping the shark. It sounds like Pete Townshend's initial, low-key demos for a solo project.


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## CatchARisingStar (7 mo ago)

I was the biggest Sting fan. Had all the Police albums and even every Sting album. I only acquired the latest ones just out of solidarity, but after Ten Summoner's Tales, to me, it was downhill. I do like Desert Rose but that's a standout from otherwise mediocre albums.


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