What Bands have you Abandoned?

[bantler]

Some bands that I heavily rotated have been knocked out of my orbit permanently. I’m not talking about the half-defunct geezer reunion bands at the local Lucky You Don’t Have Smallpox Casino (sorry Journey) but rather bands that never lost their self-inflated bombasity, still tour and release tedious albums to presumably a few die hard hangers-on.

U2 is that band for me. I was a huge fan of their formative anthem-heavy single syllabic origins (WAR! BOY!) up through the release of the seminal (not a Casino; those are Seminoles) The Joshua Tree. Then something fell out. The carburetor started dragging. Something about Fly Sunglasses and songs-about-songs just didn’t connect anymore.

What bands have you abandoned?

[freezeblade]

A bunch of punk-ish bands of my youth, which (going to sound a bit hipster here) have radically changed their sound and are now quite popular (read: sold out).

The Offspring - The first album I ever bought with my own money was Ignition, everything after Americana? Pass.
Green Day - second album I ever bought: Dookie. Everything after that, eh.
Rancid - Kinda a similar reason, Punk just ain't what it used to be.
Catch-22 - I don't actually count anything after Kalnoky left as the same band, but they still tour, I guess.

Probably a bunch more, for similar reasons, I will still forever cling to the older albums though, refusing to admit they still exist, refuring to them as broken up or defunct.

[freakish777]

A bunch of punk-ish bands of my youth, which (going to sound a bit hipster here) have radically changed their sound and are now quite popular (read: sold out).

Radically changed their sound = lost their "bite" ?

For me it would be Incubus.

S.C.I.E.N.C.E. is an incredible album.
Make Yourself came out, "hm... Pardon Me is kinda rockin, but they need to have less songs like Drive."
Then came Morning View... "I like Nice to Know You and Wish You Were Here, but they've really gotten soft..."
A Crow Left of the Murder. "Nope. Done."

I'll point out that I still listen to the songs of their's that I like, but don't pursue any new music from them.



Additionally, Underoath. They're constant line up changes have left their sonic identity as schizophrenic... Nevermind the fact that they don't treat their fans right.

[AvatarIII]

Trivium
first album - awesome
every album since - meh

Radiohead
up to OK Computer - YES
Kid A to Hail to the Thief - ok
In Rainbows onwards - nah.

[Radical_Initiator]

Oasis:

Definitely Maybe - triumph
Morning Glory - classic
Be Here Now - ... not as bad as a lot of people seemed to think.
Standing on Piles of Shlock and onward - meh.

I have to admit, I didn't listen to a whole lot after Standing, except for a bit of Heathen Chemistry - they lost a lot of standing in the States after Be Here Now - so I may be missing some of the greater days.

[UniqueScreenname]

Linkin Park's first two CDs were genius. Then a long hiatus, then two albums of pure, unfiltered crap, then the most recent one is ok, but I'm so hurt that I'll never buy anything of theirs again.

Nightwish was endlessly better with Tarja. Anette simply can't sing anything Tarja could. Some of the new stuff is ok, but her voice is so justified and thin and it saddens me.

[UP Paradox]

For me, it's Keane. All of the following descriptions include "in my opinion."

Hopes and Fears - excellent.
Under the Iron Sea - a veritable masterpiece.
Perfect Symmetry - just not very good. I haven't listened to it enough to change my mind.
Night Train - had a few decent songs. Same as before, I didn't really give it a lot of listens.
Strangeland - A definite improvement over the previous two, with some good tracks. I really liked "Starting Line," and "Neon River" was pretty good too, but there were also some that I really didn't care for.

I will always give them a chance because I love the piano, and they were one of the first bands that I really got into. And I do feel kinda bad about my opinions, because I think UTIS was made when they were really struggling emotionally, and Perfect Symmetry somewhat the opposite. Still, I can't help it.

[Adam H]

The first band that comes to mind is MxPx, makers of the very first CD(s) that I ever bought. Teenage Politics and Life in General (circa 1995) were AWESOME. Oh sweet pop punk, how I loved you.

I had to wikipedia them to see if they were still around, and as luck would have it, they released a CD this year! Who knew? . . . Who cares?

I also totally identify with the U2, incubus, green day, and linkin park posts.

[UniqueScreenname]

THEY KICKED ANETTE TO THE CURB!!!!!!! FLOOR JANSEN IS TOURING WITH THEM!!!!! THEY WILL BE TWO HOURS FROM MY HOUSE!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[hawkinsssable]

The Strokes.
Is This It was perfect, and Room on Fire was pretty much just Is This It again but less interesting, so I love that one too.
And then there's First Impressions of Earth with exactly 1 good song and Angles with only 2 I feel any desire to ever listen to again.

[3fj]

System of a Down for me. It's not so much that they got any worse, just that my taste changed. Sometimes they still come up on shuffle, but I wouldn't purposefully put them on these days. There's too many "heavy for the sake of heavy" bands too, but I can't remember the name just now. That's how hard I abandoned them I guess

[Sean Quixote]

Mudvayne. L.D. 50 and The End of All Things to Come were amazing, period. It took me awhile to come around to liking Lost and Found but I actually really do now, or did, meh, I'm sure I'd still enjoy the things that I was able to come to appreciate about it at the time. But everything else since then has been that same story of having to actively try to like it, and the material just wasn't good enough and/or I didn't have enough patience to continue trying. And it's not like that's what music is supposed to be about anyway: you should enjoy it the first time you listen to it and preferably not even be able to articulate why, you certainly shouldn't have to cling on to any sense of nostalgia you may have about an artist's previous work.

Also going to give AFI a mention simply because nobody else has but someone really should. I don't consider myself a "real" AFI fan because I only discovered them after they were kinda already on their downfall, and while I'm quite sure that most any "real" AFI fans will agree that they've fallen off, and hard, I'm even more sure that my reasons for feeling this way are waaay different than the rest of their older fanbase.


The remainder of this post is spoilered for being relatively long-winded and not-precisely-on-topic. =\

Spoiler:

Okay, and now I apologize beforehand but I just have to disagree with some people. I cannot understand how anybody who ever did like Incubus cannot appreciate the fact that they have constantly evolved as a band. Brandon Boyd's lyrics, specifically his metaphors and wordplays, have only gotten better over time. I can understand (I certainly disagree, vehemently, but I can understand) if you just simply don't like the "soft stuff" whatsoever, and can see how one might listen to the raging youthful energy of S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and then the comparatively mellower Make Yourself and ask yourself what happened. But if that guess isn't correct, I would urge you to give their newest album a listen, because I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that it alone is better than the combined greatness of their previous two (or three) albums. Or, you can just recognize me as the frothing fanboy that I am and simply ignore my certifiable ranting.

My next disagreement is much less rabid but probably just as nit-picky. I'm on the fence recently about Linkin Park: I've never "given up" on them, and I daresay I never will, just because there's way too much nostalgia over the epic debates on another old forum that I was one of the main belligerents of about whether or not they suck. But anyway, I certainly agree that their first two albums were great and that since then it's been somewhat less so, I just disagree about the order. I thought Minutes to Midnight was mostly meh, but a couple of the songs I think are truly great; and I actually only recently got around to listening to A Thousand Suns but I thought the entire thing was genius; and their most recent one, I think, is their worst yet by far, but then again I only listened to it once and immediately before having listened to A Thousand Suns, so maybe I should give it another listen. Anyway, my point is that I have a complicated "relationship" if you will, with Linkin Park, but I refuse to abandon them no matter how easy of a target they are for pretentious music snobs!

[drego642]

Mudvayne. L.D. 50 and The End of All Things to Come were amazing, period. It took me awhile to come around to liking Lost and Found but I actually really do now, or did, meh, I'm sure I'd still enjoy the things that I was able to come to appreciate about it at the time. But everything else since then has been that same story of having to actively try to like it, and the material just wasn't good enough and/or I didn't have enough patience to continue trying. And it's not like that's what music is supposed to be about anyway: you should enjoy it the first time you listen to it and preferably not even be able to articulate why, you certainly shouldn't have to cling on to any sense of nostalgia you may have about an artist's previous work.

I was just about to post with the exact same thoughts. I've stopped listening to bands before for various reasons, (Linkin Park [just sort of grew out of their style, though I do still like some of their older works], Killswith Engage [after the departure of Howard]) but I can still bare to listen to them today. Mudvayne is really the only painful example of myself abandoning a band. In their early period, their songs had lyrical complexity, shifts in meter and tempo, rhythmic intensity, and still had a sort of beauty to them. The albums, L.D. 50 and TEoATtC have some of my favourite music period on them. Now, they just sound like a typical hard rock/nu-metal band with a guitar solo in every song and lyrics about getting fucked up or thrashing or whatever crap they write about these days. They're probably still as talented as they were back then (though I haven't heard much of Matt's technical proficiency or Ryan's intricate bass playing shining through by the time I stopped listening - which is a shame, because they were probably my favourite two to listen to), but as far as creativity goes, the last I'd heard of them, they've pulled a complete 180 and, in some regards, have become the antithesis of the band they used to be. God, I miss their older stuff now...

[MyGfsDog]

I was very disappointed with the new MUSE album. They are hanging on by a thread for me. I still love their previous works, but if their next album is as bad as their most recent, I will probably stop purchasing their albums.

TOOL was a band I was effing obsessed with in high school, but grew out of once I started listening to more 80s music. I still listen to TOOL on occasion, but certainly not like before. Same goes for NIN.

[Izawwlgood]

I have a lot of bands that I am somewhat nostalgic/embarrassed over and will listen to if they come up on random. LinkinPark, Goo Goo Dolls, Gregory Douglas. But I recognize them as formative for part of my life needs as I was drawn to them. The only band I think I've ever actively grown out of is SlipKnot, because I don't find their frantic angry noise does the job of getting my pumped up for runs or such anymore, as much as make me sort of snerk at how silly their excessive showmanship and chaos is.

That said, I was enormously into Sage Francis, Atmosphere, and Aesop Rock in the 2002-2005 period of my life that included a lot of walking around a city by myself, and while I like Atmospheres recent stuff, I feel that Sage and Aesop sort of stopped producing the quality of work I was after.

[johnie104]

I was very disappointed with the new MUSE album. They are hanging on by a thread for me. I still love their previous works, but if their next album is as bad as their most recent, I will probably stop purchasing their albums.

At first I was dissapointed by the new album as well, but after listening some more it grew on me. I know consider it better then The Resistance and maybe even on par with Black Holes and Revelations. You should especially try to listen to Survival without the Olympic games connotation and just see it as the one song that is the most like their earlier stuff (altough a little bit more theatric). Supremacy falls in this category as well, now that I think about it. Maybe I'm a bit biased because I have seen the new album performed live twice and it was absolutely fantastic.

As far as bands that I used to love but not so much anymore: Metallica. I think it was simply a case of My First Metal Band, but the music seems to be quite boring most of the time, especially the Load, Reload era.

[AngelaL]

I've abandoned Papa Roach. I was obsessed with them some time ago but their last albums are nothing like good old P Roach.

[Sheikh al-Majaneen]

I was very disappointed with the new MUSE album. They are hanging on by a thread for me. I still love their previous works, but if their next album is as bad as their most recent, I will probably stop purchasing their albums.

At first I was dissapointed by the new album as well, but after listening some more it grew on me.

I actually have had that exact same reaction to every album of theirs since after I discovered them Absolution-era. They release a new album, and on first listen I'm embarassed with having told people I listen to Muse...and two weeks later the new album is all I can listen to.

[strake]

Blind Guardian. Ever since Stauch left.

[theGoldenCalf;]

Metallica
Up to and including self titled: FUCKYEA
Load - Reload: meh
Anything since: why bother

Red hot chili peppers
Mother's milk - Blood sugar sex magic - One hot minute: FUCKYEA
Californication: meh
Anything since: why bother

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Monster Magnet. Sorry, Dave.

[Stu Pickles]

Ever since Amanda Palmer turned into a social media queen, she's focused more on being relevant than writing good songs. Every half-assed idea she posts on Twitter gets praised by a bunch of screaming fans, so she doesn't seem like she even tries anymore. I loved her in the Dresden Dolls and her first couple solo albums were good, but she keeps getting worse. She went from clever piano bits to 3 chord ukulele songs about her pubic hair.

[somitomi]

There are a couple bands I no longer listen to, but I didn't follow new releases at all at the time. In fact there are only a few artists/bands on my watchlist at the moment, because a lot of artists/bands I really like are no longer active. I didn't really like the last Coldplay album (I even forgot the title of it...) but they didn't get on the list for nothing, so any decision is pending until at least the next one.

[Ginger]

No longer listen to Three Days Grace. After the lead singer sang, "She's just not drunk enough to make love with me lol" I got way-way turned off. I like some of their delicious emo/rock music. A lot of it in fact. It soothes the sulky teen part of me. But I can't deal with a band that promotes drunk sex when a woman/girlfriend doesn't want to just to please her stupid airhead drunkard boyfriend/bastard. Gone Forever now Three Days Grace!

[ryanbryandyin]

Radiohead. Don't get me wrong, they still make good music. But a man can only listen to so much mopeyness before being turned off for good.

Plus their tracks in the last decade have been too electronic, too little organic.

[serutan]

Springsteen after Born in the USA. Just went through the motions after that.

[Soot Leopard]

Hmm, I mean, I like a lot of different kinds of music when it's done well and there's plenty of bands I listen to from time to time without really following them...

I guess I used to follow Coldplay but after Mylo Xyloto I was startinv to get getting more into darker genres like industrial. At the same time they were putting less and less of those little hintings of darkness into their songs which had made them so interesting to me, and relying more and more on this certain type of electronic music that just sounds kinda sterile to me.
I didn't consciously give up on them so much as I lost interest.