Not just flat out bad efforts, moreso a decent offering that was not what the original audience liked.
For example, Terence Trent D’arby followed up his multiplatinum pop/soul/rock debut with Neither Fish Nor Flesh…, a decent but radically different self-indulgent album with ponderous song titles, psychedelic overtones and Songs With Deep Meaning. The lead single “This Side of Love” is a good track, but nothing like anything on the first album, or like anything else out at the time. The second single was about a friend with AIDS- not really a popular topic with the 80’s pop crowd. As a result of this ambition, his massive career was pretty much over, to the point that the third album contained a brillaint ballad “Delicate” that went nowhere.
Another- The Spin Doctor’s. First (major label) album had several radio friendly hits that made them huge stars, but the first release from the follow up was “Cleopatra’s Cat” a bizarre piece of art funk that sunk like a stone and pretty much ruined the momemtnum built from the first album.
Sinead O’Connor followed up “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” with “Am I Not Your Girl,” a collection of standards. While she had other issues that contributed to her career derailment, the album certainly helped the push.
Didn’t their lead singer come down with some medical condition that made it impossible for him to sing? Not sure where that falls on their career timeline, but if it’s close enough to the release of their second album, it makes it questionable wether that album was the cause of their disappearance from the pop culture stage.
Tricky always fell under this category for me. Coming off of the noir-hop of Maxinquaye and the dub paranoia of Pre-Millennium Tension,he was totally set up to become one of this generation’s most interesting and idiosyncratic artists, “the black Tom Waits.”
97’s Angels with Dirty Faces took care of that though - it’s a completely incoherent and mostly unlistenable record that still sounds as terrible 10 years later as it did the day it was released. It was all downhill from there, including a terrible “hardcore rap” record (neutered by the fact that Limey voices just sound funny when trying to posture like original gangstas), culminating in 2001’s embarrassing “Blowback,” which featured collaborations with that wanker from Live, a reggae cover of Nirvana’s “something in the way,” and (you can’t make this stuff up) a cover of the theme song from the old “Wonder Woman” TV show with the Red Hot Chili Peppers as his backing band.
Metallica following up the Black Album with Load was a grossly miscalculated career move. Sure, it still sold four million copies, but it chased off their core fans in droves and proved to be the first real chink in their armor.
Though Lou Reed never actually derailed his career, it wasn’t for lack of trying. He followed up his two most commercially successful LPs, Transformer and Sally Can’t Dance, with the starkly depressing Berlin and the unlistenable* Metal Machine Music, respectively.
Alanis Morissette got over her anger in time for her second US album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, but most of her fans were still bitter with life. It didn’t go quite as well.
Maybe money does buy happiness.
I’d say Styx shot themselves in the foot with the release of “Paradise Theater.” (Theatre?) “Kilroy Was Here” seemed to further progress their downward spiral towards career suicide.
Oh, sure. Ministry’s first album, Cold Life, was a weak 80s synthpop affair that sounded like a vaguely sinister Pet Shop Boys. Their next album, The Land of Rape and Honey, was a complete reinvention (and set the course for the rest of their career), making them the most important artist (except maybe Nine Inch Nails) of the second wave of industrial music.
Queen hit the jackpot in lots of ways with “The Game” and followed it up with “Hot Space,” widely regarded as their worst album ever. It was certainly the beginning of the end here in the US.
The Flaming Lips had a huge commercial hit w/ the song “She Don’t Use Jelly” and were even featured at The Peach Pit on 90210. They followed that up w/ another well recieved album, but as a bit of a backlash to their sudden mainstream success (and some other issues plaguing the band), they put out Zaireeka, which was a 4 CD album which was intended to have all 4 discs played at the same time from different stereos. I think that effectively closed the door on that achieved success.
**Barenaked Ladies ** were known after their first album, “Gordon”, for creating witty, funny, light-hearted pop songs. The album didn’t make a splash in the US, but was huge in Canada. Their second album, “Maybe You Should Drive”, was a lot mellower and darker. The album bombed and they nearly broke up. It would be a few albums later when they finally achieved their greatest success w/ the album “Stunt.”
Also, I don’t know if this counts - but **Liz Phair ** went from indie-rock queen to **Sheryl Crow ** wannabe and lost a lot of fans for the career shift.
::raises hand:: Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville I think is one of best rock albums of all time. Her followup is the shittiest shit that eve shit the shit.
