I really liked their first album and bought the next two, but they were rubbish.

Great debut, then a baffling follow-up - never really got back on track after that.

Agree about early UB40 - King and Earth Dies Screaming were also pretty good songs

I suggested once elsewhere that they are a band who have had a steady decreasing decline in their records. Tigermilk was world class, ... Sinister was fantastic but slightly less good... and so on through to the very patchy latest one (which probably sold the most!)

Never got back to the peaks of The Beatles feat Tony Sheridan.

A couple of good 'uns followed by three decades of dross.

Elton John should be included too. Tumbleweed Connection is so good; but from about 1976 it gets a bit poor.

...I'd agree though that '75/'76 was a turning point for me- I thought he peaked with the extraordinary 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight'.

Simple Minds didn't exactly hit the heights with their first album, but they were somehwere near the top with Sons and Fascination / Sister Feelings Call and then reached a definite peak with New Gold Dream, that they never reached again. Sparkle in the Rain has its moments, but the stadium rock virus is clearly in evidence and it was all rapidy downhill after Don't You (Forget About Me). I stopped even taking notice of them after 1991's Real Life, so it may be that one of the subsequent six albums that they have released is a masterpiece, but I doubt it...

Will do. And I'll report back!

Tindersticks II is still one of my absolute fave albums. Since then, though I've bought every one of their records with lower expectations than the last - only to be ever-more dissappointed.

It's like watching England play football.

Curtains, when they nearly called it (s'pose they did, but you know what I mean)is a humdinger. Subsequent is, s you say, law of diminishing returns.
DELIGHTED Stuart Staples DIDN'T make it, yet, into the worst singer strand!!!

...descended into a piss-poor tribute band (of themselves), even before MacGowan left the band - don't get me started on what they were like afterwards with Spider on vocal duties(or now for that matter).

When their debut album '1977' I was 14 or 15 and in my youth, I thought 'if Ash are this good now, imagine how good they will be in 10 years.' (Ash, as we were always told were releasing their first singles between doing their A' Level exams.)

You could make a solid case that each Massive Attack album was worse than the previous one, to be fair, they were from brillant to good, rather than brillant to rubbish.

I'd also suggest Ocean Colour Scene, Pearl Jam and I'd second Gomez.

I was never a fan back in their Mercury Prize hey-day, but having been asked to review their last album, How We Operate, I can vouch for the fact that it is a very good record indeed.

Sadly, I think they'd shed about 80% of interested observers by that point....

...U2

Began as the be all & end all of my life & now I buy the albums out of the memories of a lost love.

Compare: October & Unforegettable Fire to the last two.

Many artists have failed to live up to their debut album over the years such as:-

Ben Harper
Ian Dury - still made a lot of great records but the first was the best
Bjork - Her debut album is the only good one she has done

Agree about U2 - They have become something of a deity - their music can still be okay but frankly Bono gets on my tits big time.REM got to that stage around the time of Automatic for the People but have since fallen from grace, will the pope,sorry Bono face the same fate?

Psychocandy great, Darklands not bad. Automatic pretty dire and from then on it got worse and worse

After watching them perform on the Brit Awards in the early nineties, in front of a dinner suited, open mouthed industry audience, I genuinely believed that there would be revolution on the streets the following day. I would not, however, wipe my arse on their last four albums.

Anyone mention Oasis, yet? How about The Cure? Prince? Though I haven't listened to any of his last thirty albums.

First album - jingle jangle guitar pop, some really great lyrics, lovely Postcard influenced music.

Everything else - bombastic, cliche riddled hollow hollering. The sideburns say it all.

Oh, and James were tosh after their first two albums as well.

What went wrong there? I have a theory that there was only one very small niche and by the end of the Seventies it had been completely filled by Elvis Costello.

....would probably be better known if he ever came back to Blighty. Still gets a good review, but excellent later work includes 1991s "Struck by Lightning".
Of course, if your theory is right, now Mr Costello has threatened never to darken our doors again, maybe he will have to return.
I will look forward to that day.

It is a relief to know I am not the only one. My other half is still as into them as he was, saying they are bigger than ever. What I can't get through to him is that they are different fans, not a growing crowd but a whole new crowd. Not the old crowd that listened to U2, Stiff Litle Fingers, Boomtown Rats (not all intentionally Irish but it is a long time ago & I can hardly remember who else I listened to then - ooh, Simple Minds will do) but an audience made up of Coldplay & Keane fans (I may be 41 but I don't have to lay down & die)

Whinge over.

First album refreshingly good, with Noel saying it took The Beatles years to reach that level of quality... just think how good we will be in 5 years....etc etc. Erm Noel, still waiting mate. Nothing wrong with your albums. They are great fun to play spot the nicked riff with, but originality should be a part of music and you've basically turned into old men churning out safe music. What will they be playing when they are in their 60s?

Laddie, you are so right about this pompous overblown monster that we call U2.Your description of their audience being made up of Keane and Coldplay fans is spot on. My brother in law bless him told me about 4 or 5 years ago or whenever parachutes came out that I 'had to listen to the best band in the world' - I thought he was kidding but sadly he wasnt

I think the audience at a U2 gig is largely made up of people that think think they are 'rock & roll' and probably go to 2 gigs a year.

They have little concept of what it is like to experience the hot sweaty energy of a gig (alas, I'm sure that is what early U2 gigs would be like).

I'm glad I discovered Arcade Fire. I didn't believe the hype. I was coerced into going to a gig (my fella paid!)as the 1st album left me cold. Glasgow Barralands is my favourite venue anyway, but this experience left me as highly charged for days. I almost blubbed Wake up was so good. Ooh, goosebumps thinking about it.

Win, friends & family - give U2 some lessons. Please!!

Don't get me wrong, I'll be a U2 fan for ever,I just think they've lost something along the way, they don't seem able to recapture the vigour of youth. It was really more of a criticism of the kind of audience they attract now - the audience can spoil a gig for me. You made a very valid point - they can't help the size of audience they attract & you do lose alot in large venues.

Springer,I'd love to know who you've seen that impressed you more than Arcade Fire? Eagles of Death Metal were pretty groovy! Kings of Leon (apart form a too short set)? Ryan Adams? Ray Lamontagne? Some of my favourite recent gigs.

Its probably easier to ask how many bands started off s**t and got better. No doubt the list will be long and I`ll feel like a tube, but nevermind. I didn`t mean to reference Nirvana but thats a starter for 10. The U2 thing is probably going the same way as the David Bowie `peak and trough` syndrome, i.e. not worth wasting time on as there are so many fans anyway that it just don`t matter.
As for bands who burned bright to begin with and faded quickly, how about...Suede, The Stone Roses, Oasis, Travis, The Smiths, Keane, The Killers, The Magic Numbers, The Strokes, Simply Red.
I`ve lost count of the debut albums I have bought only for the follow up to be `nailed to the shelf`(circa Mark Ellen 2007).

Classic debut then ...oh, that's it.

I mean, I worship the man. But since Rain Dogs his albums have given my skip finger plenty of work. Blinding return to form with Mule Variations, then chose eclectic over quality. Waits maddens me, some of the stuff on the last 4 albums has been wonderful, but some of it is "difficult" (ie, muso for shite).