It was the worst of times and the best of times

Deep Purple.

Machine Head --> Who Do We Think We Are?

I'd consider that an opposite actually. Relayer wasn't great IMO and GFTO is one of my favorite Yes albums :D



Drama --> 90215

we can all agree on that one!

Epignosis wrote: King By-Tor wrote: I'd consider that an opposite actually. Relayer wasn't great IMO and GFTO is one of my favorite Yes albums :D Drama --> 90215 we can all agree on that one! I would rather do it the other way round (Tormato < Drama).  I quite like Yes's 80s music for what it is (to be fair, I quite like Tormato as well, but I can see why it's generally loathed).

I don't really think you can do this with Genesis, apart from the huge leap up in quality from the debut to Trespass. Their decline into 80s synth-pop rubbish wasn't really an overnight affair so much as it was a gradual slide into hell. TOTT and WAW are still quite good, barring a couple of tracks, ATTWT and Duke were a different sound but still reasonably enjoyable, Abacab and Shapes were more or less write-offs but had their good moments (I've always like Home by the Sea and it's sequel), and IT and ICD are basically the worst of the worst. There isn't really any moment in there that jumps out as "Here is where we lost our creativity." It was a slow and gradual process, IMHO.

King Crimson776 wrote: ^^ I'd just like to say, I think Invisible Touch is underrated, there are some classic tracks on there, though it does kind of lack atmosphere. After that of course it got bad with We Can't Dance... and then utterly hellish on Calling All Stations. Anyway, I'd say... how about Spock's Beard with the great concept album Snow ----> Feel Euphoria? Of course one can attribute this almost entirely to Neal Morse's departure, but the vast drop in quality remains nonetheless. Also, in the converse, The Flower Kings from the mediocre The Rainmaker to what I consider their best album, Unfold the Future. Neal Morse from his masterpiece Sola Scriptura to the par-for-the-course Lifeline... Although I at least kind of like every album by SB, TFK, and NM to some degree... a more radical change in  quality from album to album would be, perhaps The Moody Blues great Seventh Sojourn to the bland pop of Octave (though I somewhat like a few tunes from it) Oh, the biggest of all, imo: U.K. had one of my favorite albums of all time with their debut, an utter masterpiece, and then they lose Holdsworth and Bruford and put out the disappointing Danger Money. It wasn't all bad but a HUGE drop after the first, though I guess that is understandable losing such key members.

Evolver wrote: I felt the Pink Floyd's drop off was after "Animals". "The Wall", while conceptually brilliant, really has only a few tracks that don't bore me. ELP's "Works" was their first disappointing album. Gentle Giant's "Giant For A Day", was pretty bad, but "The Missing Piece" was hinting of that direction. Queen lost me at "Day At The Races", Kansas at "Monolith".

and for me "Animals" already was a severe letdown. it is an absolutely boring album, in my opinion

Dream Theater :

Edited by Ahmadbarqawi - April 25 2010 at 09:36

Ahmadbarqawi wrote: Dream Theater :   From Failure to Greatness: Falling into Infinity to Metropolis 2: Scenes from a Memory   From Greatness to Failure: 6 Degrees Inner Turbulence to Train of Thought     Also Queensryche From the Great Epic "Promised Land" to the disastrous "Hear in the Now Frontier"... and its been an Epic fail for those guys ever since

I agree with all those except I kind of liked Train Of Thought

zappaholic wrote: AtomicCrimsonRush wrote: Ahmadbarqawi wrote: Dream Theater :   From Failure to Greatness: Falling into Infinity to Metropolis 2: Scenes from a Memory   From Greatness to Failure: 6 Degrees Inner Turbulence to Train of Thought     Also Queensryche From the Great Epic "Promised Land" to the disastrous "Hear in the Now Frontier"... and its been an Epic fail for those guys ever since I agree with all those except I kind of liked Train Of Thought   Queensryche have not excelled since Operation Mindcrime and its a real pity.   I agree, Operation:mindcrime was fantastic, and they followed it up with Empire, which had about 2 good songs on it.  I lost track of them after that.

Drama and 90125 are a whole of a lot better than Going For The One and Tormato, and 90125 is the best of the bunch. I would probably take the 80s albums over Relayer/Tales From Topographic Ocean/Close to the Edge. Relayers the only one I really (as in very) like, and although its in a different way than 90125, if you translate the like 90125 comes on top. Big Generator is lackluster, Drama's probably better. On the Other Hand, Fragile and especially the Yes Album, a masterpiece, hit very hard in any conflict with 90125.

Biggest drop offs in Yes history then:

(if I got this right, they're a kind of a distant band to me, despite being in my permanent top 5 or 6)

Fragile to Close to The Edge (~ medium drop, because I don't listen to Fragile that much either, but its very good)
Going For The One to Tormato (an album I've barely listened to over the years)
90125 to Big Generator (there's just something missing, besides originality, cuz that goes without saying)


now I've got some blanks my friends after BG- Union I haven't listened to, Talk no, Keys to Ascension I & II (but ironically the supposedly rare Keystudio, which is a 3/5 in my mind, so pretty good). I have listened to the Ladder (2.75/5, reasonable), and Magnification now, but not throughly, but it sounds like Keystudio or the non-modern parts of the Ladder, so perhaps 2.75/5 again. So to me,

Big Generator to...... x......x......x.....The Ladder

:is a pretty big drop too.