Ask Lemmy

Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt

Blood Sex Sugar Magic by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Smashing Pumpkins: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

R.E.M. - Automatic for the people

Gorillaz fell off? Since when?

Pink Floyd - The Wall

Not their last album before Roger Waters left the band (that was The Final Cut, the album which followed), but it was far superior, and arguably their best album-- and inarguably their magnum opus.

The David Gilmour-led era of Pink Floyd was ok, but it would never reach the fevered heights and sick intensity of the Roger Waters days.

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

They still had a few good tracks afterwards but that album really was a masterpiece.

Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica

This is really the only band I have that hipster thought that they were better before they got big. This was the last album they made that I love every song on. Then they dropped Good News for People Who Like Bad News and their style was almost completely different, but also got many more people listening to the band.

Similarly I liked Kings of Leon before they changed the original vocalist. They had a rather unique sound when I discovered Aha Shake Heartbreak, but by Only By The Night, they had completely lost everything about their sound that I liked.

Claude Debussy - Claire de Lune

The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium

Weather Report - Heavy Weather

Rush - 2112

Mr. Bungle - California

Dr. Dre - The Chronic

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle

Wu Tang Clan - Enter the 36 Chambers

Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

Getz/Gilberto/Jobim - The Girl from Ipanema

Mozart’s Requiem (good place to peak!)

Metallica - Master of Puppets

Cynic - Focus

Death - Human

Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten

Eric Johnson - Ah Via Musicom

Steve Vai - Passion and Warfare

Yngwie Malmsteen - Rising Force

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

Radiohead - Kid A

Deftones - White Pony

Secret Chiefs 3 - Book of Horizons

Dream Theater - Scenes from a Memory

The Allman Brothers - Live at the Fillmore East

Michael Jackson - Thriller

Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

Metallica (Black Album)

~~Is this a joke? This is where they're newfound mediocrity was cemented. They peaked at Ride the Lightning, everything after that was more and more watered down garbage.~~

Sorry, I meant I strongly disagree.

The Suburbs by Arcade Fire

Breakfast in America - Supertramp

Girl You Know It’s True- Milli Vanilli

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine

And Justice For All.... By Metallica

A Rush of Blood to the Head by Cold Play...

Of what came after I like X&Y and Mylo Xyloto too, but this one was their best.

I know bands can change their style over 20 years, and I'm glad the band can be happy touring and making music they like and I don't hate people that like their new stuff, but something about the brilliant, raw feeling their music had (imo anyway) gave way for generic electronic music trend-chasing. When I heard "Higher Power" I was like "wow it's The Weekend just with Chris Martin singing."

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.

Wait a second, no way you're slandering Plastic Beach like that. PB is equal to DD, some days it hits better even.

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002)

They had an incredible decade prior to this releasing 3 other top notch albums, but by far this one sticks out as the most successful and easiest to pickup. They have a lot more after this release as well, but I think Wayne found himself diving into an era of depression and it absolutely showed on those later releases. The last release was good but also nothing special at the same time.

Wolfmother by… Wolfmother

I can name every song and lyric from that album but don’t ask me about anything else by them. Iirc the band basically split post album

Green Day - American Idiot. It's not that I dislike what came after, but 21st Century Breakdown feels disjointed, the Trilogy has really low lows, and they stopped being ambitious after that and just put out two "pretty good" albums and one awful one.

Also even if you don't like their '00s sound, I seriously don't get why Dookie is more well-liked than Nimrod beyond "it had more hits and I heard it first."

This seems to happen with progressive rock at alarming levels. They just reach a point where they take their pretentious bullshit a little too far, and the fans grow weary of it. You saw that with Jethro Tull, which pushed its luck with A Passion Play after scoring a critical success with Thick as a Brick. Yes took it too far with Topographic Oceans. I'm sure ELP has an album where they pushed the envelope a little too far and pushed away the audience in the process. Unfortunately, that had a pendulum effect, with ELP releasing the wimpy Love Beach in an attempt to reel back in those lapsed fans.

NIN - The Fragile

Double Nickels on the Dime, Minutemen. Also probably the best power trio record ever made. Granted, they only made one more record before D Boon died, but as legendary as he is, Mike Watt has still never done anything as good since.

Funny with Metallica … I think there’s an argument that Death Magnetic (2008) is, for the thrash fans, the “Black Album” they wanted.

Btw, in relation to many bands that appeared on this new century, it is a bit controversial to say they are falling off after their first album.

Since 2000, countless bands have released a great first album and then ""disappeared"" or the hype just stopped. Alt-J are a good example.

At the drive in - Relationship of Command
Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come Tocotronic - Digital ist besser

Stone Roses - Stone Roses.

Their debut album put them on a very high pedestal that they were never able to match.

This is gonna be a really spicy take - Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold. Pretty much every song is a banger and Save Me is a masterpiece. The singing is on point. I debated Waking the Fallen, but sadly I feel that some songs on that album just aren't up to the same quality (and Nightmare is much more approachable).

As for albums after Nightmare, Hail to the King was okay, The Stage was good but flawed (we got so many songs, but the mixing wasn't very good imo) and Life Is But A Dream is.... Just not good - again, in my opinion as a long-time fan.

Before Nightmare, self-titled was okay (certain songs like Unbound kinda pull it down for me, but they're not straight SKIPS per se) and City of Evil was amazing but not quite Nightmare quality in my opinion (just because of Matt's nasally singing, especially in songs like Seize the Day). WtF I've already went over, and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet honestly only had a few good songs in my opinion.