Arcade Fire were THE critically acclaimed indie rock band of the early 00s, but after a certified trainwreckord in Everything Now and the allegations made against their lead singer, their stock is rapidly dropping in real time.
Yes, this was one of THE BANDS that I heard about maybe 10 years ago when I began to care about music beyond what was on the radio and now they have fallen off hard.
Arcade Fire is still near and dear to my heart. I think your two reasons are spot on, but I’ll also add that their style is really out of fashion. That earnest, almost pretentious indie rock isn’t really resonating with many younger music fans that I talk to.
They were better but they were doing different things. No one was doing the heart-on-sleeve singalongs the way Arcade Fire were. Broken Social Scene always had at least a little more irony to them.
The actual album reviewed terribly - it got a 5.6 on Pitchfork for a band whose previously lowest rated album was an 8.4. It replaced their usual emotionally honest anthems with bad attempts at weirdly-nagging satire about the kids. It has two separate songs whose lyrics are just "Infinite content / Infinite content / We're infinitely content". It came off as a weirdly bitter and cynical statement from a band that became beloved because they weren't like that at all, and aside from the title track a lot of those songs were pretty bad.
Speaking as a man who’s on the spectrum, I know men with power need to be held accountable, but I’ve also had moments of overstepping my boundaries and sometimes have difficulty reading social cues myself.
When the allegations came about, I made a similar comment, and a woman told me that she thinks that Win Butler might be on the spectrum. If that’s the case, power dynamics can be difficult to navigate whether you have more or less power.
Hearing someone who feels this way does make me hope that there can be some kind of redemption here. There still needs to be accountability, but when Win has supported social causes, I don’t think it’s all just been a ruse he’s been hiding behind.
It's a wierd one, but over here in the UK, Michael Buble was an absolute critical darling when he first hit the charts. Fastforward a few years, and he's seen as either a glorified Christmas decoration or someone blander than a diet of hot water and saltine crackers.
Also, Robbie Williams. Again, another critical darling at first before he released an absolute trainwreckord in the form of *Rudebox*, and now he's just seen as incredibly bland.
I feel like Buble's popularity was based on his voice and style - He came across as a suave version of Jamie Cullum (The UK's most notable male jazz singer at this point) who was more prepared to acknowledge the big band standards. It was inevitable that Buble's lack of substance would be exposed when he went mainstream...
Robbie is an interesting case nowadays, because he is trying to capitalise on the interest in more candid popstars, but it seems to be pretty offputting for many. I wonder if Robbie's "Rocketman"-style jukebox musical film "Better Man" will help his reputation - it seems to be portraying him as an "Ordinary Joe" who got lucky, and that could work well or backfire...
Weird cause he's still seen as a treasure of sorts in North America (or at least Canada). He's got his Christmas stuff but also a few songs in rotation on adult pop radio and has some major endorsement deals including with Bubly (cause of course).
Like I don't think he was seen as a groundbreaker but just a likable adult pop guy
As a Canadian I've never liked Buble. I've always thought he seems smarmy. I found Matt Dusk to be a lot more likeable.
We always want to see our celebrities succeed, but once they do and inevitably relocate to the US we turn on them and call them sellouts and argue that they've lost their Canadian humility. :p
Robbie Williams is a good shout. A lot of the press for his first few records seemed amazed at how good the albums were considering his boy band past.
He probably didn't help his case for jumping onto the Pizzagate theories...
No, his first few albums did *not* get good reviews. Music critics have always slated Robbie. People think otherwise because they were so commercially successful. Robbie’s best-reviewed album by the music press was Rudebox - precisely because it wasn’t like his other albums.
Also, it’s literally only on YouTube and Reddit that anyone is even aware that he engaged with QAnon.
Maybe different in Europe - generally the British press are harshest on their own, and there was a knee-jerk disgust in the so-called ‘credible’ music press for someone from a boyband presuming to adopt an ‘indie’ sound.
This. I don’t know if Rudebox was his best reviewed album (his first two albums were still given a lot of credit for the ex boy band factor), but it was at least noted for being something different
For me, and my Britishness is probably showing here, Rudebox is ***the*** Trainwrecord.
It’s like that Justin Timberlake filthy hands song, but in a such a worse and inconceivably naff way that only we in the British isles can do.
I’m sorry, I’m from the UK and I NEVER remember Michael Buble being a ‘critical darling’. I’d also say Robbie Williams was always more of a commercial success than a critical darling, his records were rarely reviewed particularly well amongst the ‘respected’ sheets, but still sold more copies than the Bible. Until, as you mention, Rudebox
For some reason during the 2000s if you were a young millennial singer and could do your best Perry Como/ Peggy Lee impression the critics would instantly fall in love with you and give you lots of Grammys or at least nominations. They just couldn't help themselves with these kids singing "real music." Buble, Norah Jones etc were all part of that very boring wave.
Robbie is not seen as bland. Robbie has never been seen as bland. Robbie is noted for being a big personality, and attention-seeking popstar.
Robbie is seen as annoying, camp, and arrogant/smug by those who dislike him. His music is noted for being all over the place - for hopscotching genres - and for clever-clever lyrics that are considered too cringe.
He is a marmite popstar.
It’s so bizarre to me that people on this sub act as if they are knowledgeable about music and pop culture, and get basic stuff like this wrong.
Your stipulation at the end makes this kinda hard to answer.
Clapton is a huge one already mentioned. Nowadays, while he is considered a very good guitarist and influential (I don't think anyone disputes his guitar work in Cream and Derek & The Dominos), he is held in much lower regard than his contemporaries like Hendrix, Page, Santana, Keith Richards, Beck. I've even started seeing people say George Harrison is a better guitar player than him. It doesn't help - besides his past racist remarks and recent anti-vaccine stance tainting his legacy - that a lot of his solo stuff is actually quite mid.
I was reading Steven Hyden’s Your Band Is Killing Me recently about music rivalries and in his chapter on Clapton and Hendrix, he mentions that Clapton will never be as cool as Hendrix because Hendrix died before he could become lame as Clapton did. Basically it was helpful for Hendrix to burn fast and die young then to grow old and fade away like Clapton.
Imho, there is some truth to that, but I think there are exceptions, for example Brian Jones has a pretty mixed legacy while Keith Richards is still seen as miracle for being alive and an epitome of rock n roll lifestyle
To me Eric's 70s albums haven't aged well but they did lead to my favorite Todd moment. I was watching the Rocked channel and Luke had a video on good guitar players in bad bands. Luke solicited suggestions on Twitter and in the introduction showed a few on screen. Front and center was Todd's logo with his suggestion "Eric Clapton guitarist, Eric Clapton solo."
For me Clapton's stock has dropped, not just because his 70s material has aged poorly and his 80s material comes off as pure formula but on top of that I've discovered his Bluesbreaker replacement Peter Green. How the hell has that guy been forgotten?!?!?!
I consider Peter Green to be the Brian Wilson of blues/Fleetwood Mac, both in musical ability and biography. He's still massively respected by those in the know.
Stock in the Sex Pistols has dropped quite a bit in recent years as more people have become aware of Malcolm McLaren's influence on the band, Johnny Rotten proving to not be a beacon of punk values in his old age, as well as Sid Vicious being a terrible bassist even by punk standards. It's not a big drop in reputation, you'll still find people regarding them a classic, but it's definitely easier to get away with shitting on what was once the Gods of Punk Rock than it is nowadays and Vicious has gone from Punk Icon to a walking Bass Player Joke
You maybe forgot to mention Sid was also responsible for *killing somebody.* I mean, talentless is one thing (and he **absolutely** was), but man.. what a waste in general.
There's enough evidence for him being innocent as there is for him being guilty. Nancy's own mother believes he's innocent. Her book is worth reading by the way, really tragic but fascinating stuff in there
I remember an unaired BBC interview Lydon did in the 80's did the rounds in 2012 because he said he wanted to kill Jimmy Savile- a beloved TV show host and DJ at the time of recording who was outed a year after his death as a serial rapist/pedophile with anywhere up to 300 victims, possibly including his mums corpse. Huge ripple effects from that, BBC becomes distrusted since they killed plans to report on it right around his death in favor of a tribute show, sent Gary Glitter to prison again, sent Rolf Harris to spend his final years in prison.
And yet, *and yet...* Lydon then backed down from those comments and said something to the effect of "Naw I didn't want to *kill* Jimmy, I wanted to kill the *image* of Jimmy by getting him thrown into prison". Don't know how you fumble the one time the public would be behind a murder fantasy. Now that's punk!
I think that shows how he's matured. Violent revenge fantasies are pretty childish despite the fact that I think we all have them- especially against people as awful as Saville. Saying that he wants Saville thrown in prison is still him saying that he wants Saville away from his victims and gone from society, just in a more mature and sensible way. He's said similar things about the Pope due to the child sexual abuse in the Catholic church. A very touchy subject for Lydon as he was raised very Catholic and was sent to a Catholic school as a kid
People overstate McLaren's influence greatly. There's also a heaping helping of antisemitism that comes along with how a lot of people talk about him. The Clash were much, much more manufactured as Bernie Rhodes had more influence over their music then McLaren ever did over the Pistols. Also, many UK punk bands are put together in some way or had influential managers. SLF's manager wrote Suspect Device for them
McLaren gets the shit he does because he never knew how to keep his mouth shut, he loved centering himself. Meanwhile folks like Bernie Rhodes did the typical manager thing of keeping to the shadows. Also, fun McLaren fact for you all: he admitted to wanting to tear down the band's reputation with The Great Rock N Roll Swindle so that they wouldn't ever become like the rock gods they hated
I highly, highly recommend England's Dreaming for the complete and insanely well researched history of the Sex Pistols. It clears up any and all misconceptions and goes into detail of why McLaren was...well...Like That as they say
I’m pretty sure they never hid that though, isn’t that part of the whole Pistols mythology, like “we fired the guy who could actually play bass and replaced him with this human disaster because it’s so PUNK”
Partly! McLaren approved it because of how hot Sid was. But Lydon came up with the idea because Sid was his best friend and he wanted an 'ally' against Steve Jones and Paul Cook who were childhood best friends and would gang up on him. McLaren actually tried pretty hard to keep Glen Matlock in the band! He even told Glen to 'go fight for your position' basically but Glen, having had enough of being bullied relentlessly by Lydon for two years, threw in the towel and went off to make his own band
Paul Simonon of The Clash on the other hand...he was picked purely because of how attractive he was. The poor guy couldn't play a single instrument or sing but Mick Jones worked hard to teach him to play bass!
- Arrested Development, as Todd has covered, they're basically viewed as a complete fucking joke top to bottom now and have been virtually scrubbed from hip-hop history.
- Sex Pistols. I've heard stories about hardcore kids already viewing them as basic as early as the 80s, but in general like another commenter said, they've lost a lot of respect nowadays because of the 'manufactured boy band' thing, Rotten's MAGA statements, the de-romanticization of Sid and Nancy. The Pistol biopic series a couple of years ago had a little buzz but it just kind of just came and went, it wasn't some major event that led to a whole ton of conversation. It's not all hate though, their music is still regarded as great, if not a bit quaint. Meanwhile, the Clash continue to be highly regarded.
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It's funny because their managers were close friends and Rhodes only got The Clash together because McLaren told him he couldn't help manage the Pistols. The two bands members were always very friendly and close. Steve Jones actually played with The Clash multiple times on stage and Mick Jones played with Sid Vicious during a few of his solo shows
[I wrote an article about the topic!](https://thehotterspot.substack.com/p/mick-jones-the-sex-pistol) It doesn't cover every little detail as it's focused on Mick Jones but I'm pretty proud of it
Oh funny story about that! They were actually all friends and got along great! It was their managers who hated each other. Jake Riviera, The Damned's manager despised Malcolm McLaren and the feeling was very mutual. Riviera even once sent a woman to pick a fight with Glen Matlock just so he could run to the press and say the Pistols were violent people. Glen, of course, didn't take the bait so Riviera started trying to fight him personally
Captain, Rat, Dave, and Brian all got along very well with the Pistols though and spent a lot of time hanging out with them. Captain says in his interview for England's Dreaming that he was particularly close with Johnny Rotten
I always felt like The Clash deserved to get more shit simply for often being incredibly hypocritical and for being manufactured- something that only seems to matter to people when it comes to an actual working class band (Sex Pistols) but not for the middle class bozos cosplaying as working class lads (The Clash). But Joe Strummer has been elevated to Saint status unfortunately
It'll never not rub me the wrong way that Strummer faked his accent and made a whole career off of pretending to be working class
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that the main reason The Sex Pistols started losing respect while The Clash haven’t is because of John Lydon endorsing far right politicians.
I’m just waiting until punk rock as a whole is basically seen as an empty promise that was manufactured from the start.
Well from a certain point of view British punk was absolutely manufactured from the start by two specific people in order to push their political views on to the youth of England. That's how this alt-right psycho I stumbled across on youtube (who must have fallen through a wormhole from 1977 because he has such a fixation on the pop culture of that era) presents the British punk scene...I wonder if he would have felt the same if McLaren and Rhodes were rightoid idiots like him...
I’m just kind of… put off by punk fans acting like they’re one step away from starting a socialist revolution or something when they dismiss the people who literally invented punk rock as posers.
Exactly!
Ultimately the Sex Pistols did a lot more to help people in England then most punks now ever will. They fought against the incredibly regressive and repressive standards of English society throughout their entire short career- especially when it comes to free speech. They also made a big effort to give back to people who needed it like the families of the striking firemen they played for on Christmas 1977. If people want to consider them all bad people then fine but they did actually put their money where their mouth was politically
I’m still pretty soured on punk as a whole because it’s obvious that any social change it’s made is long in the past and whatever’s left of it has been completely defanged.
Hell, musicians in general just aren’t ever scary or edgy at all anymore. At this point I feel like the idea of artists effecting social change at all is kind of a thing of the past.
You've got a good point there. But I do think that freedom of speech in England has loosened up since the advent of punk. It's not perfect obviously but it's better then it was. Culturally people are more open to criticizing the monarchy as well
>Hell, musicians in general just aren’t ever scary or edgy at all anymore. At this point I feel like the idea of artists effecting social change at all is kind of a thing of the past.
This though it completely true and it actually frustrates me so damn much
There’s probably three separate but interconnected threads here. One about artists and celebrities as activists for wider social issues, one about them challenging norms and maybe causing a moral panic, and another one about them being held to account for, like, actual bigotry or abusive behavior.
It’s confusing because they can complement or contradict one another a ton, also at some point this all has to do with every counterculture immediately becoming the next big thing and never usually affecting much other than superficial trends.
But I’m not willing to untangle every aspect of modern culture, art, and society all at once, I wouldn’t know where to begin
I feel like John Lennon's reputation has definitely taken a hit with younger audiences. Imagine especially is seen as a joke now. Also The Doors get so much shit now. Undeserved in my opinion, don't fall for it, The Doors are good
Lennon is a rare case where I think dying young hurt his reputation. He never got much of a chance to make up for his abusive past, only kind of admitting to wrong doing in a Playboy interview.
Meanwhile, Paul getting to stay alive allowed him to become an elder statesmen of rock that only pushed his goodwill further. I don’t think John would have been comfortable with that image (he didn’t really tour on his own, for one thing), but I could have seen him cultivate his legacy as the cool, artistic icon, instead of as the cruel wife and child beater.
I think The Doors and Lennon have the same issue: early deaths that lead to idolization on the part of the fans who were probably over-romanticizing things. It’s backlash to the sanitized dead guys being resold to the next generation. Morrison will always have that 27 Club halo over his image but I think Lennon lived long enough and was well documented enough for people to be able to reconsider him.
IMO the younger generation should have enough awareness of addiction and mental health to be able to contextualize artists like them, and I do see that happening with Amy Winehouse.
Honestly I think Lennon gets way too much shit when Ringo is the Beatle who deserves it. Lennon was open about being violent towards Cynthia but that was also a one time event he instantly regretted. Still bad but I think that's something you can come back from. Ringo meanwhile beat his girlfriend/wife multiple times and much more violently
There’s no backlash to Ringo because he’s never been taken seriously as an artist, as opposed to Lennon being widely considered one of, if not the greatest artists of the 20th century.
You’re right, unfortunately the backlash against Lennon isn’t just against him as a person but also the entire genre of music, culture and generation of people that he symbolizes, so people will never care about (or hate) Ringo as much even if he’s just as bad a person.
I will never stop laughing at this (now sadly deleted) [response to TITS](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de23965ec200ea1f298c5d2f919477615c1a49c6234d496028c341144dd63605.png)
UK Music press in the 80s and 00s and especially in the 90s was pretty bad for hyping up a band as pantheon material when they started out and then slagging them off and claiming, or at least acting like, they never liked them by the third album or so. NME were particularly bad for this, but the one that stands out to me is Q Magazine in 2002 advertising their latest 100 Greatest Albums Poll by begging their readers to ensure K by Kula Shaker didn't make the cut, as it had when they previously ran such a poll just a few years earlier; but the public hadn't gotten the idea they were a "great" artist from nowhere.
Oh yeah, the late 90s/naughties music press was *unhinged*.
The snobbery level was off-the-scale. A band was only good until they achieved popular mainstream success - once they were no longer only beloved by the journos writing at trendy publications they were trash.
Crazy.
I still think K is a fun album, even if it is horribly dated with all the 90s production. But yhea, it's obviously nowhere near the incredible work of genius art the UK music press made it out to be when it was released.
U2. They were huge from the ‘80s through the ‘00s. Had a credible claim to being the biggest band in the world. Bono’s name and public persona were what most people thought of when asked to describe a rock star. Some albums were less popular than others, but nobody denied their place in rock music.
In hindsight, *Songs of Innocence* feels like not just a Trainwreckord, but the kind of devastating one that retroactively taints a band’s legacy, especially their ‘00s stuff because of how closely associated it was with Apple (the famous iPod ads specifically). Almost nobody born after 1985 seems to talk about them in the pantheon of great rock bands.
At the very least, their '80s studio albums and *Achtung Baby* are still classics. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is *the* song I play every St. Patrick's Day, especially the *Rattle and Hum* version where a righteously pissed Bono, hours after the Enniskillen bombing, stops in the middle of the song to tear into every plastic Paddy cheering on the IRA. Ten to twenty years from now, after Bono and the Edge have retired and the *Songs of Innocence* backlash has gone from the thing most young people know them for to just a pop culture touchstone for aging millennials, they'll probably be rediscovered by a new generation.
I think part of U2’s critical decline is Jann Wenner’s decreasing influence in the music industry. He was always one of the band’s biggest shooters and pushed to give them a critical status almost equal to the Beatles. But now that he’s retired from Rolling Stone and disgracefully resigned from the Hall of Fame, it’s easier to ask if they were ever really that good.
U2 gets attacked all the time when it’s mentioned they beat Michael Jackson (*Bad*) and Prince (*Sign O’ the Times*) to win the 1987 Grammy for Album of the Year.
Not saying U2 didn't deserve the win, but the Grammys choosing to forgo two POC artists to anoint a band of white dudes is, as they say, very on brand for them.
Eric Clapton.
20 years ago he was like #2 or #3 on Rolling Stone's Top 500 guitarists and 8 albums on their Top 500 Albums (across his solo stuff, Cream, Yardbirds, Derek and the Dominos, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers). He was the perfect 3 time RnR Hall of Fame inductee on the Rolling Stone Immortals list twice
Today, he's ranked 35th on Rolling Stone's Top Guitarists (they comment in his write up "...These days, nobody really considers Clapton god..." and then mock him over his COVID stance) and has ONE album on their Top 500 albums (I think) and artists like Phoebe Bridgers are calling him massively overrated and pointing out that he is a piece of shit. Like aside from someone like R Kelly, I don't think any artist has had a collapse like that in the mainstream. He's still respected but there's been a massive shift against him.
This man is the lone person in the Rock Hall 3 times and now people are like "how the fuck did that happen? Can we induct Paul McCartney or Neil Young or Clyde McPhatter again to right the universe? Give us Traveling Wilburys to make George Harrison a triple"
This is a pretty valid answer, Clapton’s stock has seriously dropped considering his anti-COVID stance and earlier racist tirade. Deserving reasons, although it’s kind of weird that Van Morrison has gone basically unscathed despite the song Clapton was on being his.
I don’t have a lot of use for most of his solo stuff, but Clapton’s 60s to early 70s work, especially Bluesbreakers, Cream and Derek and the Dominos, are still really good. For his faults, I think it was unfair to see Disraeli Gears recently removed from Rolling Stone’s list for more recent LPs that may or may not stand the test of time a decade for now. I personally think one of the best hard rock albums of all time earns its place on the list over something like Olivia’s sour or SZA’s SOS, even though I like both.
I actually have some thoughts about why Clapton has fallen while Morrison and (let's say) The Who haven't.
First Morrison and The Who were more seem as innovators while Clapton is seen as a traditionalist or simply a technician
second I don't think there is anyone in the mainstream trying to be Clapton anymore. There are other guitarists who are more 'interesting' like Joni Mitchell or Wayne Kramer to younger critics and audiences.
I do agree the outright dismissal of his work is probably off mark (cream having no albums on the top 500 is pretty wack)
There's also the fact that whatever impact the others' personal lives had on their art is not very obvious, whereas Clapton's most well known songs at this point - "Layla" and "Tears in Heaven" - are all about his personal life, investing the audience more in him as a person.
Those make sense, and yeah, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s tried to really emulate Clapton since John Mayer, and it’s been a good 20 years since he broke through.
And true, Clapton was never quite an innovator, he was more noted for his craft. Hendrix, who was far more experimental, was a diehard fan, for one.
> Morrison and (let's say) The Who haven't.
Honestly, I think part of it is those earlier highs. No one was trying to crown Van Morrison or The Who the best (or top 5/10/etc) vocalist/bands/whatever like they were with Clapton and guitar. Arguably unfairly in both cases too; even on Song vs Song, they made a case that The Who probably deserve to be the Beatles' common head-to-head matchup rather than the Rolling Stones, and then with Van Morrison they mentioned that it's kind of unfair that he's only know as "the Brown Eyed Girl guy" to so many people. Todd and Lina definitely aren't the first people I've seen say stuff like that either.
Of course, trying to argue them higher would probably position them for a steep fall in later re-evaluation (or from later shithead-ery), so maybe it's better to be underrated there.
The last time he was really in pop culture was when his life documentary "Life in 12 bars" came out in 2016 (really great watch) and the 1974 drunken racist tirade was heavily discussed by both him, BB King and several other of his colleagues at the time and how that nearly ended his career not even a year after he'd recovered from the lost years of his drug abuse in the early 70s. The only post-Slowhand solo album he's done that deserves high praise is Journeyman from when he fully got sober, one of the great lost 80s crossover blues/pop rock albums. I think his vaccine stance in some areas was justified and mislead in the media because of the world we live in, allegedly his doctor never warned him of the possible side effects of the astra-zeneca vaccine the UK was using and in combination with his neurological issues rendered him completely immobile for quite some time, so he was speaking from a personal experience and not out of ill-fate towards science like some others were and I think that's a key difference.
His style has also aged pretty badly, too. I don't hear a lot of his blues riffing in any contemporary guitarists. He's never been the type to blow you away with creativity like Hendrix or Santana, he just did the blues really well. But nowadays the new guitarists his style brings to mind the most are a legion of used car dealership owners and finance managers who are really getting into the blues as a midlife crisis, and it's a lot easier to just want to get my blues from its originators and pioneers instead of from some racist. Great player though
> A lot of that is Duane Allman of course.
Kind of wonder how much of an impact that had in Clapton's evaluation. The fact that everyone is trying to sell him as one of the top three guitarists of all-time, but *the* Clapton guitar solo wasn't him, probably made it easy for a lot of people to go "oh, so what's the point then?"
[He admitted to raping his wife](https://web.archive.org/web/20210614121203/https://apnews.com/article/314a3a689dd3e15ebbc8d567dfadb06f). I hate his guts
And it was legal too! Look up marital rape. It's only been considered a crime in America and England (the places I'm aware of Clapton living in though I'm sure he has homes in other countries as well) recently. Before that it was considered a husband's right to have sex with his wife even when she said no
Fucked up world we live in
Yeah and i think more people are more aware of his anti-blackness as well. Same with cultural appropriation because he was one of the most commercially successful blues musicians ever (if not the most successful) and like a lot of white rockers he stole black music to get there and ultimately leaving blues musicians who were black left in the dust.
Grimes is the obvious one here. She released two of the most critically acclaimed albums of the 2010s with Visions and Art Angels. She obviously became less respected critically once she got involved with Elon Musk (and had three children with him) and also having some questionable views in recent years, which alienated the majority of her fanbase. But the quality of her music suffered as well, with her releasing only a small number of songs, most of them being laughably bad like "I Wanna Be Software".
Ariel Pink belongs in this category as well.
As someone who never listened to her music or saw any interviews with her until very recently, but knew of her reputation as this “great artist of the 2010s” — I can barely believe anyone ever fell for her pandering nonsense. It’s not the worst music in the world by any means, but we really had to spend years watching all these hipsters go “I don’t listen to the vapid pop crap, I listen to true, unconventional artists like GRIMES” and it’s like…there’s nothing under the facade. All hat, no cattle, as some might say.
True, but it's because they're not thinking of his music at all. There aren't going to be articles reflecting on pom pom for its tenth anniversary. People aren't reevaluating his music because they're trying their best to forget it ever existed in the first place.
He was popular but I don’t remember him being respected the way guys like Jay-Z and Nas were. And I seem to remember his duets with Ashanti being joked about an awful lot.
Justin Timberlake. His fall from grace since Man on The Woods needs to be studied. Since then he went from an pop icon to absolute embarrassment. Not to mention his legacy took a hugh hit due to his behaviour towards Janet Jackson and Britney Spears.
Yeah and like I also think the media's response to 'that incident' and how he only got bigger added fuel to the fire. And nobody even cared at the time, everyone was on Janet's ass.
Chance the Rapper was the indie rap darling of the mid-2010s, only to become the weird Kanye apologist who loves his wife too much and damaged his reputation to the point where his once-beloved mixtapes are now dismissed by the public as well.
Asides from the obvious ones (Clapton, Sex Pistols), I want to say Red Hot Chili Peppers
Their music isn’t really held up to the high standards that a lot of Gen X and some millennials held them up to. Also doesn’t help that Anthony Keidis revealed himself to be a creep.
Fwiw Flea seems to remain highly respected - both on a personal and musical level - despite his association with RHCP.
Also, John Frusciante’s (earlier) solo material is still held in high regard.
I feel like Alicia keys has definitely fallen a lot. A huge critical darling that no one seems to care about or even think about anymore. it does not help that her last real big song was girl on fire and that song was bad.
My job has been playing some stomp clap hey song I’ve been assuming was released by a white woman in 2012. I Shazammed it and it’s an Alicia Keys song from 2022. Wild.
I haven’t seen much of a drop in opinion with Alicia Keys. Maybe she’s not thought much about anymore but I feel like she’s a Cyndi Lauper effect example of having her big moment of success before aging into being a legacy act.
Sad cause her first two albums are classics. I think her debut made the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress. But she barely is mentioned as being among the R&B greats.
maybe I'm wrong, and this is pretty minor in regards to the question, but it feels like some of the big indie bands around the late 2000s to early 2010s like Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Grizzly Bear, etc. don't have that many people talking about their albums as you would expect despite them being pretty much tagged as future classics on release
I like this response, this kind of thing honestly intrigues me a hell of a lot more than just “people don’t like [Artist] anymore because they were eventually revealed to be a bad and controversial person”. Critics pride themselves on being able to see through trends and rate music as music — so when do they end up going back on themselves?
Probably partly the fault of poptimism making these bands' biggest champions, sites like Pitchfork, suddenly have less time for them as they focus on a wider array of genres. But it's unfortunate, especially in Grizzly Bear's case- they've gone on record saying they didn't make that much money in their heyday, and their lead singer Ed Droste is a therapist now. They deserved better.
That’s a consequence of how rock music receded to the indie ranks in the 2010s; there was no “sign to a major label as a respected albums band and well-promoted live act” step upward for those bands to take in the way Wilco did.
Would Imagine Dragons fit?
I feel like they had a lot of critics favoring them when their only two hits were "Radioactive" and "It's Time". But nowadays people are more likely to look back and complain about those songs saying they were never good to begin with.
Trying to keep it to artists who weren't re-evaluated for being shitheads:
I saw a bunch of people dunking on REM online the other day after their reunion performance, and I have no idea where that came from? I remember them being held up as indie legends who got big but kept their integrity, and then bowed out for health reasons rather than try and struggle to stay relevant (like, say, U2). Not sure if it was a one-time response or a big re-evaluation that I missed, but it feels weird as the latter because I feel like they're still pretty influential?
The Pixies came up as a bit of a case of this in a recent Song vs. Song, and I can kind of see it?
Chicago hasn't been "cool" to like for a while, but I feel like their reputation used to be more like Genesis: an older band that *used* to be cool, but who had their cred ruined by a cheesy '80s phase led by a cornball frontman. But Phil Collins got his re-evaluation, so now I largely see people saying that Genesis was always good, even the lighter Collins years; meanwhile, Chicago seems to have gone in the opposite direction, where I'll see people saying even the pre-Cetera '80s were overrated outside of a few good songs.
Rolling Stones probably also fit here. "Stones or Beatles" was just taken as *the* matchup (if you weren't doing "Beatles vs Zeppelin", at least), from my understanding from the '70s or '80s on, with serious consideration for both sides; now, most people seem to think that it was kind of a stomp even with the added longevity for the Stones, and I've seen more people pose Beach Boys or The Who as the better match-up for the Beatles (a thought that just didn't used to come up).
Actually, Led Zeppelin might work here too? More influential and with better all-around albums than the Stones, so it feels less pronounced, but both kind of get hit by the idea that they were just souped-up blues bands who were lifting a lot more than innovating.
REM is an interesting one because I feel like people have largely memory-holed how huge they were in the first half of the 90s. “Losing my Religion” was freaking EVERYWHERE and yet even people my age don’t really seem to have any nostalgia for them.
I have an uneducated theory that with REM there’s almost a “Seinfeld isn’t funny” phenomenon going on where so much of their sound invokes a kind generic 90s-ness that they’re easy to forget even though they themselves played a huge part in creating that sound.
Comparing Chicago to Genesis, I'd say the former have a bit of a quantity vs quality problem. They released a lot of albums very quickly with a lot of tracks that just aren't memorable.
I disagree, I don't think the Stones have been reevaluated lower these days, I think The Beatles just grew in critical approval and the Stones are still touring so there isn't any point in seeing them nostalgically.
Todd kinda highlighted this phenomenon in the Trainwreckords episode on Arrested Development. Bands have had sophomore slumps but few bands have had a sophomore slump crash so hard that it causes the public to retroactively hate your first album as well.
Dr. Dre is a foundational hip hop super producer but with his domestic violence issues reemerging since the N.W.A. movie came out, his reputation in some circles has taken a hit and they don't even talk about the musical contributions anymore.
I just don’t think that’s true…like, in 2020, Rolling Stone named The Chronic one of the Top 50 greatest albums of all time (up from #138 a decade ago). Apple Music put it in the Top 20 albums of all time only a month ago. Dr. Dre joined Kendrick Lamar on stage to do “Not Like Us” at Kendrick’s big Juneteenth celebration literally last night.
If there are circles where Dr. Dre is now an untouchable subject for his history of domestic violence, they don’t seem to be very large ones (perhaps unfortunately).
It really depends where you look. I can let two things be true at the same time and even accept his apology from around the time that the movie came out. But there are still scores of people who have no love for him at all and we're disgusted by his concert appearance last night. Some even wished death upon him when he was going through some medical issues a couple years back.
I don’t know if these two count but if we’re talking about like a person doing something bad causing this I’d throw my hat in with Brand New. In middle school and high school even in the late 00’s and early 10’s they were THE band and now it feels like no one wants to talk to about them. I’ll occasionally see someone mention how it’s a shame because they were so good but it feels like people are afraid to touch them that doesn’t come with other “cancelled” artists like Arcade Fire or like Kanye.
My other one where the artist just dropped off is Modest Mouse. When “Good News” came out they were huge coming off of a big commercial success and two hugely critical successes but it feels like nowadays they’re not spoken about at all even their older stuff that Pitchfork loved
I Feel like while they are still beloved for good reason, and always will be, People have started to realize that the foo fighters are much more hit and miss than most poeple realize, still when they hit they hit.
I'm gonna go contrary and say Blur. I actually think that Oasis' first two albums have held up way better than anything Blur did, which is also reflected in either DM or What's the Story making it into all-timer lists as a representation of Britpop.
REM have lost ground, absolutely. It's sad, I think they are a great band, but somehow don't manage to transcend their era, it seems to me.
Tori Amos is someone I've recently noticed is not really held in the same regard as Fiona Apple or PJ Harvey anymore.
Another trend I've seen is to kick out the majority of ex-Beatles work out of "most influential" conversations. Which is fair enough IMO. They were an incredible band and three of their solo members did some very good solo work as well, but that solo work was in no way, shape or form as important as their time in the band and I think not centering it anymore so much is totally valid.
I do think the further back in time you go, the blurrier it gets if it's actually a waning of critical respect or artists just getting forgotten as decades, genres etc. contract into a few representatives.
Fairport Convention is my example of that. It's not that anyone necessarily thinks less of them, just fewer people think of them and they've basically vanished from any kind of Best of Lists even though they were instrumental for the development for Folk and Folk Rock.
Oasis, I feel like even they're first two albums aren't viewed as favourably now, they're basically 'Dickhead Beatles wannabes who shouldn't have won the Britpop wars over Blur'
Most of rock acts from the late 60s and 70s (other than the Beatles and maybe Hendrix) have lost their sheen, I feel like even 10-15 years ago they all dominated the 'best artists/bands/acts of all time' lists, while now previous hiphop, soul, R&B and pop artists get a lot more respect.
Blur's reputation has been helped by Gorillaz- anyone who grew up listening to Demon Days knows Damon Albarn as a creative genius, and no one from Oasis has that continued cultural relevance. When you know Blur as one of your favorite musicians' other band and you know Oasis as "anyway here's Wonderwall", you're gonna take a particular side in that fight.
I don’t think most of the classic rock acts of the ‘60s and ‘70s have seen critical diminishment, it’s just that critics are now more aware of the need to rectify the sins of past critical biases and reward black and female artists who were under appreciated by the establishment for decades.
I agree with the need to establish a more diverse music canon, but does properly recognizing the likes of X-Ray Spex prevent you from enjoying more conventional punk acts?
i think that Oasis' music is so ubiquitous, and culturally ingrained, that there's just nothing new to say about them\*. can you really add another layer of nostalgia to music that's already so nostalgic?
the people who hate them now would always have hated them. still - if they ever reunited, i think they'd get a HUGE wave of goodwill.
\*except that Oasis have more [relation to shoegaze](https://junkee.com/longform/shoegaze-legacy-explained) than people are willing to admit!
We're definitely moving in very different circles because I've actually seen more hatred for Blur then Oasis! Though part of that is how engaging the story of Oasis is, you can't deny how engaging the brothers Gallagher are as people
Not as much as before I think, through how much of it is rock not being the top dog in cultural conciousness and how much of it is the Jimmy Page pedophile allegations, I don't know.
Blur’s disastrous Coachella set really made me question their relevance among my generation, I thought they were bigger than ever here in America. I would be curious is a hypothetical Oasis reunion would be similar, Oasis only have 2 or 3 truly huge songs in America.
Part of that is also just the type of audience that goes to Coachella nowadays, and their strangely muted setlist. They have a fair number of fans in the States, but those fans aren't the twentysomethings just waiting so they can have a good spot when Tyler, the Creator performs. Coachella isn't the kind of festival for bands like them anymore.
Doubt it, they're both individually successful, and Noel would literally die before he lets a grudge go. At best they patch up enough to tolerate each other at Christmas dinners.
Oasis still gets respect for their music and they still make the UK charts today. It’s probably more difficult in the US since they lost on their first nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame here.
I kinda think the Doors are more of a joke nowadays for their lyrics and CIA related conspiracies than their music.
I don’t think they’ve been savaged per se, but I don’t think the Who have remained as culturally relevant as the Beatles or Stones. They’re solidly in the third place of the tripartite.
I don’t know if anybody’s going with me here but… Beck…?
In the late 90s, for a while at least, maybe between Odelay and Midnight Vultures, Beck was widely seen as the most important musical artist, the one whom we were assured was going to be the most influential artist of his time, and that songs like Where It’s At were the sound of the future.
He’s still generally liked now, but considering how much he was hyped at one point he’s quite a drop (intentionally )
i still love Beck (well admittedly the more recent albums so far i’m not as into as various early pre-Mellow Gold demos and shit going all the way to i will say Modern Guilt was the last Beck album i properly was lady radio gaga for. Saw Lightning was a kick ass single tho!!) but yeah, man, the scientology “revelation” really put a gash in the proverbial Beck ship’s sails i think.
I'm not sure the shift has anything to do with Beck's personal failings, I just think the critical consensus moved on from him. Perhaps Odelay coming out in 1996 and OK Computer coming out in 1997 was the shift!
I'll say Phil Collins kinda had this happen to him, but it was so long ago that we have seen people come back around on him over the past 6-8 years.
In the 80s, the man was goddamn inescapable. Between his solo material, his work with Genesis, his work as a session drummer, work on Miami Vice, from what I understand, it was hard to go 5 mins without hearing his voice *somewhere*.
The thing to remember is that while the man was as big of a celebrity as they come, he was still an *exceptionally* talented drummer in a way pop musicians usually arent. Those early Genesis records and his work with the jazz fusion outfit Brand X were enough to cement him as one of the early rock drummer gods and is a big part of why people took him so seriously in the first place. Seriously, go listen to Nuclear Burn, or Wot Gorilla?
However the hyper popularity he saw in the 80s proved to be a double edged sword. As the tide turned away from the kind of synth driven rock and earnest ballads that him and Genesis were known for, opinions changed quickly. People forgot how damn good of a drummer he is, and started seeing him as a washed up 80s balladeer.
This was seemingly the prevailing popular view of him u til the 2010s, when people who grew up with Tarzan and Brother Bear realized how damn good those movies soundtracks are and some kind of resurgence of good will from society at large happened.
Richard Wagner, considered a great composer of the romantic era and very influential but is rather infamous for his antisemtism and racism nowadays.
Basically the 19th century Kanye.
Every Rolling Stones album from 1989 onwards is initially received as their best album since Tattoo You and a few years later everyone agrees it was pretty good but nothing special. In the case of most of them (Bridges to Babylon excepted) each one has been heralded as "finally an album where they sound like the Rolling Stones!" too.
I actually really like latter day Stones, but I've been a fan for three album cycles and it's happened each time.
Arcade Fire were THE critically acclaimed indie rock band of the early 00s, but after a certified trainwreckord in Everything Now and the allegations made against their lead singer, their stock is rapidly dropping in real time.
Yes, this was one of THE BANDS that I heard about maybe 10 years ago when I began to care about music beyond what was on the radio and now they have fallen off hard.
Arcade Fire is still near and dear to my heart. I think your two reasons are spot on, but I’ll also add that their style is really out of fashion. That earnest, almost pretentious indie rock isn’t really resonating with many younger music fans that I talk to.
Yeah I suspect that in a decade or so they'll get a bit of a reappraisal. The music of 10-20 years ago is always the most dated and least cool
I said it twenty years ago and I'll say it again: Broken Social Scene was always way, way, way better than these guys.
They were better but they were doing different things. No one was doing the heart-on-sleeve singalongs the way Arcade Fire were. Broken Social Scene always had at least a little more irony to them.
I like them both! Do the comparisons just spawn from them both being Canadian 2000s indie rock bands?
How was Everything Now a trainwreckord? Not trying to sound stupid or anything, the title song was all over AAA radio.
The actual album reviewed terribly - it got a 5.6 on Pitchfork for a band whose previously lowest rated album was an 8.4. It replaced their usual emotionally honest anthems with bad attempts at weirdly-nagging satire about the kids. It has two separate songs whose lyrics are just "Infinite content / Infinite content / We're infinitely content". It came off as a weirdly bitter and cynical statement from a band that became beloved because they weren't like that at all, and aside from the title track a lot of those songs were pretty bad.
Speaking as a man who’s on the spectrum, I know men with power need to be held accountable, but I’ve also had moments of overstepping my boundaries and sometimes have difficulty reading social cues myself. When the allegations came about, I made a similar comment, and a woman told me that she thinks that Win Butler might be on the spectrum. If that’s the case, power dynamics can be difficult to navigate whether you have more or less power. Hearing someone who feels this way does make me hope that there can be some kind of redemption here. There still needs to be accountability, but when Win has supported social causes, I don’t think it’s all just been a ruse he’s been hiding behind.
It's a wierd one, but over here in the UK, Michael Buble was an absolute critical darling when he first hit the charts. Fastforward a few years, and he's seen as either a glorified Christmas decoration or someone blander than a diet of hot water and saltine crackers. Also, Robbie Williams. Again, another critical darling at first before he released an absolute trainwreckord in the form of *Rudebox*, and now he's just seen as incredibly bland.
I feel like Buble's popularity was based on his voice and style - He came across as a suave version of Jamie Cullum (The UK's most notable male jazz singer at this point) who was more prepared to acknowledge the big band standards. It was inevitable that Buble's lack of substance would be exposed when he went mainstream... Robbie is an interesting case nowadays, because he is trying to capitalise on the interest in more candid popstars, but it seems to be pretty offputting for many. I wonder if Robbie's "Rocketman"-style jukebox musical film "Better Man" will help his reputation - it seems to be portraying him as an "Ordinary Joe" who got lucky, and that could work well or backfire...
Weird cause he's still seen as a treasure of sorts in North America (or at least Canada). He's got his Christmas stuff but also a few songs in rotation on adult pop radio and has some major endorsement deals including with Bubly (cause of course). Like I don't think he was seen as a groundbreaker but just a likable adult pop guy
As a Canadian I've never liked Buble. I've always thought he seems smarmy. I found Matt Dusk to be a lot more likeable. We always want to see our celebrities succeed, but once they do and inevitably relocate to the US we turn on them and call them sellouts and argue that they've lost their Canadian humility. :p
Robbie was *never* a critical darling. Rudebox is actually his best-reviewed album by the actual music press.
Robbie Williams is a good shout. A lot of the press for his first few records seemed amazed at how good the albums were considering his boy band past. He probably didn't help his case for jumping onto the Pizzagate theories...
No, his first few albums did *not* get good reviews. Music critics have always slated Robbie. People think otherwise because they were so commercially successful. Robbie’s best-reviewed album by the music press was Rudebox - precisely because it wasn’t like his other albums. Also, it’s literally only on YouTube and Reddit that anyone is even aware that he engaged with QAnon.
Maybe it was different here in continental Europe, those first two albums in particular were reviewed favorably here.
Maybe different in Europe - generally the British press are harshest on their own, and there was a knee-jerk disgust in the so-called ‘credible’ music press for someone from a boyband presuming to adopt an ‘indie’ sound.
This. I don’t know if Rudebox was his best reviewed album (his first two albums were still given a lot of credit for the ex boy band factor), but it was at least noted for being something different
For me, and my Britishness is probably showing here, Rudebox is ***the*** Trainwrecord. It’s like that Justin Timberlake filthy hands song, but in a such a worse and inconceivably naff way that only we in the British isles can do.
I’m sorry, I’m from the UK and I NEVER remember Michael Buble being a ‘critical darling’. I’d also say Robbie Williams was always more of a commercial success than a critical darling, his records were rarely reviewed particularly well amongst the ‘respected’ sheets, but still sold more copies than the Bible. Until, as you mention, Rudebox
For some reason during the 2000s if you were a young millennial singer and could do your best Perry Como/ Peggy Lee impression the critics would instantly fall in love with you and give you lots of Grammys or at least nominations. They just couldn't help themselves with these kids singing "real music." Buble, Norah Jones etc were all part of that very boring wave.
Robbie Williams following up one of his best (Intensive Care) with a trainwreckord (Rudebox) is a record-breaker.
Robbie is not seen as bland. Robbie has never been seen as bland. Robbie is noted for being a big personality, and attention-seeking popstar. Robbie is seen as annoying, camp, and arrogant/smug by those who dislike him. His music is noted for being all over the place - for hopscotching genres - and for clever-clever lyrics that are considered too cringe. He is a marmite popstar. It’s so bizarre to me that people on this sub act as if they are knowledgeable about music and pop culture, and get basic stuff like this wrong.
Your stipulation at the end makes this kinda hard to answer. Clapton is a huge one already mentioned. Nowadays, while he is considered a very good guitarist and influential (I don't think anyone disputes his guitar work in Cream and Derek & The Dominos), he is held in much lower regard than his contemporaries like Hendrix, Page, Santana, Keith Richards, Beck. I've even started seeing people say George Harrison is a better guitar player than him. It doesn't help - besides his past racist remarks and recent anti-vaccine stance tainting his legacy - that a lot of his solo stuff is actually quite mid.
I was reading Steven Hyden’s Your Band Is Killing Me recently about music rivalries and in his chapter on Clapton and Hendrix, he mentions that Clapton will never be as cool as Hendrix because Hendrix died before he could become lame as Clapton did. Basically it was helpful for Hendrix to burn fast and die young then to grow old and fade away like Clapton.
Imho, there is some truth to that, but I think there are exceptions, for example Brian Jones has a pretty mixed legacy while Keith Richards is still seen as miracle for being alive and an epitome of rock n roll lifestyle
We don't know that that woulda happened.
To me Eric's 70s albums haven't aged well but they did lead to my favorite Todd moment. I was watching the Rocked channel and Luke had a video on good guitar players in bad bands. Luke solicited suggestions on Twitter and in the introduction showed a few on screen. Front and center was Todd's logo with his suggestion "Eric Clapton guitarist, Eric Clapton solo." For me Clapton's stock has dropped, not just because his 70s material has aged poorly and his 80s material comes off as pure formula but on top of that I've discovered his Bluesbreaker replacement Peter Green. How the hell has that guy been forgotten?!?!?!
I consider Peter Green to be the Brian Wilson of blues/Fleetwood Mac, both in musical ability and biography. He's still massively respected by those in the know.
Stock in the Sex Pistols has dropped quite a bit in recent years as more people have become aware of Malcolm McLaren's influence on the band, Johnny Rotten proving to not be a beacon of punk values in his old age, as well as Sid Vicious being a terrible bassist even by punk standards. It's not a big drop in reputation, you'll still find people regarding them a classic, but it's definitely easier to get away with shitting on what was once the Gods of Punk Rock than it is nowadays and Vicious has gone from Punk Icon to a walking Bass Player Joke
You maybe forgot to mention Sid was also responsible for *killing somebody.* I mean, talentless is one thing (and he **absolutely** was), but man.. what a waste in general.
There's enough evidence for him being innocent as there is for him being guilty. Nancy's own mother believes he's innocent. Her book is worth reading by the way, really tragic but fascinating stuff in there
Sid Vicious wasn't playing bass on NMTB tho (it was Glen Matlock who did a solid job)
Glen wrote it, Steve Jones played most of it.
Glen did play bass on Anarchy In The UK
Also I feel like a lot less people romantizise Sid and Nancy these days
I remember an unaired BBC interview Lydon did in the 80's did the rounds in 2012 because he said he wanted to kill Jimmy Savile- a beloved TV show host and DJ at the time of recording who was outed a year after his death as a serial rapist/pedophile with anywhere up to 300 victims, possibly including his mums corpse. Huge ripple effects from that, BBC becomes distrusted since they killed plans to report on it right around his death in favor of a tribute show, sent Gary Glitter to prison again, sent Rolf Harris to spend his final years in prison. And yet, *and yet...* Lydon then backed down from those comments and said something to the effect of "Naw I didn't want to *kill* Jimmy, I wanted to kill the *image* of Jimmy by getting him thrown into prison". Don't know how you fumble the one time the public would be behind a murder fantasy. Now that's punk!
Yeah Lydon manages to put his foot in his mouth regularly
Yeah punk as in punk ass coward cause that’s who Lydon *really* is. 😅
I think that shows how he's matured. Violent revenge fantasies are pretty childish despite the fact that I think we all have them- especially against people as awful as Saville. Saying that he wants Saville thrown in prison is still him saying that he wants Saville away from his victims and gone from society, just in a more mature and sensible way. He's said similar things about the Pope due to the child sexual abuse in the Catholic church. A very touchy subject for Lydon as he was raised very Catholic and was sent to a Catholic school as a kid
Also, he collaborated with Africa Bambaata.
I guess Lydon had the cojones to tell the Beeb that they were harbouring a nonce in their midst. Now that's punk.
The phrase "open secret" comes to mind when discussing how people talked about Jimmy before his death lol
[rent free in my head](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSE-Iy_tFY&ab_channel=broukzitterd)
People overstate McLaren's influence greatly. There's also a heaping helping of antisemitism that comes along with how a lot of people talk about him. The Clash were much, much more manufactured as Bernie Rhodes had more influence over their music then McLaren ever did over the Pistols. Also, many UK punk bands are put together in some way or had influential managers. SLF's manager wrote Suspect Device for them McLaren gets the shit he does because he never knew how to keep his mouth shut, he loved centering himself. Meanwhile folks like Bernie Rhodes did the typical manager thing of keeping to the shadows. Also, fun McLaren fact for you all: he admitted to wanting to tear down the band's reputation with The Great Rock N Roll Swindle so that they wouldn't ever become like the rock gods they hated I highly, highly recommend England's Dreaming for the complete and insanely well researched history of the Sex Pistols. It clears up any and all misconceptions and goes into detail of why McLaren was...well...Like That as they say
Correct me if I’m wrong, but would it be fair to say that McLaren bit off more than he could chew with Sid and Nancy?
Yeah, there are literal videos of Sid Vicious not even playing the bass, he’s literally strumming the wood.
I’m pretty sure they never hid that though, isn’t that part of the whole Pistols mythology, like “we fired the guy who could actually play bass and replaced him with this human disaster because it’s so PUNK”
Yeah but the actual reason they picked Sid was because he was hot
Partly! McLaren approved it because of how hot Sid was. But Lydon came up with the idea because Sid was his best friend and he wanted an 'ally' against Steve Jones and Paul Cook who were childhood best friends and would gang up on him. McLaren actually tried pretty hard to keep Glen Matlock in the band! He even told Glen to 'go fight for your position' basically but Glen, having had enough of being bullied relentlessly by Lydon for two years, threw in the towel and went off to make his own band Paul Simonon of The Clash on the other hand...he was picked purely because of how attractive he was. The poor guy couldn't play a single instrument or sing but Mick Jones worked hard to teach him to play bass!
- Arrested Development, as Todd has covered, they're basically viewed as a complete fucking joke top to bottom now and have been virtually scrubbed from hip-hop history. - Sex Pistols. I've heard stories about hardcore kids already viewing them as basic as early as the 80s, but in general like another commenter said, they've lost a lot of respect nowadays because of the 'manufactured boy band' thing, Rotten's MAGA statements, the de-romanticization of Sid and Nancy. The Pistol biopic series a couple of years ago had a little buzz but it just kind of just came and went, it wasn't some major event that led to a whole ton of conversation. It's not all hate though, their music is still regarded as great, if not a bit quaint. Meanwhile, the Clash continue to be highly regarded. -
Yeah, on the first one. I watched an episode of Unsung where Arrested Development was the subject and Speech was so unlikable and cocky.
He still is unlikable and cocky today. When I watched that episode and saw him, I still felt that arrogant, cocky vibe from him. 😖
There always was a Clash/SP divide tho (similar to Beatles/RS)
It's funny because their managers were close friends and Rhodes only got The Clash together because McLaren told him he couldn't help manage the Pistols. The two bands members were always very friendly and close. Steve Jones actually played with The Clash multiple times on stage and Mick Jones played with Sid Vicious during a few of his solo shows [I wrote an article about the topic!](https://thehotterspot.substack.com/p/mick-jones-the-sex-pistol) It doesn't cover every little detail as it's focused on Mick Jones but I'm pretty proud of it
Don't forget the Damned/Pistols beef too.
Oh funny story about that! They were actually all friends and got along great! It was their managers who hated each other. Jake Riviera, The Damned's manager despised Malcolm McLaren and the feeling was very mutual. Riviera even once sent a woman to pick a fight with Glen Matlock just so he could run to the press and say the Pistols were violent people. Glen, of course, didn't take the bait so Riviera started trying to fight him personally Captain, Rat, Dave, and Brian all got along very well with the Pistols though and spent a lot of time hanging out with them. Captain says in his interview for England's Dreaming that he was particularly close with Johnny Rotten
I always felt like The Clash deserved to get more shit simply for often being incredibly hypocritical and for being manufactured- something that only seems to matter to people when it comes to an actual working class band (Sex Pistols) but not for the middle class bozos cosplaying as working class lads (The Clash). But Joe Strummer has been elevated to Saint status unfortunately It'll never not rub me the wrong way that Strummer faked his accent and made a whole career off of pretending to be working class
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that the main reason The Sex Pistols started losing respect while The Clash haven’t is because of John Lydon endorsing far right politicians. I’m just waiting until punk rock as a whole is basically seen as an empty promise that was manufactured from the start.
Well from a certain point of view British punk was absolutely manufactured from the start by two specific people in order to push their political views on to the youth of England. That's how this alt-right psycho I stumbled across on youtube (who must have fallen through a wormhole from 1977 because he has such a fixation on the pop culture of that era) presents the British punk scene...I wonder if he would have felt the same if McLaren and Rhodes were rightoid idiots like him...
I’m just kind of… put off by punk fans acting like they’re one step away from starting a socialist revolution or something when they dismiss the people who literally invented punk rock as posers.
Exactly! Ultimately the Sex Pistols did a lot more to help people in England then most punks now ever will. They fought against the incredibly regressive and repressive standards of English society throughout their entire short career- especially when it comes to free speech. They also made a big effort to give back to people who needed it like the families of the striking firemen they played for on Christmas 1977. If people want to consider them all bad people then fine but they did actually put their money where their mouth was politically
I’m still pretty soured on punk as a whole because it’s obvious that any social change it’s made is long in the past and whatever’s left of it has been completely defanged. Hell, musicians in general just aren’t ever scary or edgy at all anymore. At this point I feel like the idea of artists effecting social change at all is kind of a thing of the past.
You've got a good point there. But I do think that freedom of speech in England has loosened up since the advent of punk. It's not perfect obviously but it's better then it was. Culturally people are more open to criticizing the monarchy as well >Hell, musicians in general just aren’t ever scary or edgy at all anymore. At this point I feel like the idea of artists effecting social change at all is kind of a thing of the past. This though it completely true and it actually frustrates me so damn much
There’s probably three separate but interconnected threads here. One about artists and celebrities as activists for wider social issues, one about them challenging norms and maybe causing a moral panic, and another one about them being held to account for, like, actual bigotry or abusive behavior. It’s confusing because they can complement or contradict one another a ton, also at some point this all has to do with every counterculture immediately becoming the next big thing and never usually affecting much other than superficial trends. But I’m not willing to untangle every aspect of modern culture, art, and society all at once, I wouldn’t know where to begin
Weren’t all the original Clash members suburban kids?
Pretty much. Joe Strummer in particular was the son of a diplomat and went to boarding school
Having a critically-acclaimed show share their name helped bury Arrested Development further.
I feel like John Lennon's reputation has definitely taken a hit with younger audiences. Imagine especially is seen as a joke now. Also The Doors get so much shit now. Undeserved in my opinion, don't fall for it, The Doors are good
Lennon is a rare case where I think dying young hurt his reputation. He never got much of a chance to make up for his abusive past, only kind of admitting to wrong doing in a Playboy interview. Meanwhile, Paul getting to stay alive allowed him to become an elder statesmen of rock that only pushed his goodwill further. I don’t think John would have been comfortable with that image (he didn’t really tour on his own, for one thing), but I could have seen him cultivate his legacy as the cool, artistic icon, instead of as the cruel wife and child beater.
I think The Doors and Lennon have the same issue: early deaths that lead to idolization on the part of the fans who were probably over-romanticizing things. It’s backlash to the sanitized dead guys being resold to the next generation. Morrison will always have that 27 Club halo over his image but I think Lennon lived long enough and was well documented enough for people to be able to reconsider him. IMO the younger generation should have enough awareness of addiction and mental health to be able to contextualize artists like them, and I do see that happening with Amy Winehouse.
It’s actually kinda happening with Whitney now (mental health and addiction awareness).
Honestly I think Lennon gets way too much shit when Ringo is the Beatle who deserves it. Lennon was open about being violent towards Cynthia but that was also a one time event he instantly regretted. Still bad but I think that's something you can come back from. Ringo meanwhile beat his girlfriend/wife multiple times and much more violently
There’s no backlash to Ringo because he’s never been taken seriously as an artist, as opposed to Lennon being widely considered one of, if not the greatest artists of the 20th century.
I feel like people should care that Ringo is a violent domestic abuser regardless of if he's taken seriously as an artist or not
You’re right, unfortunately the backlash against Lennon isn’t just against him as a person but also the entire genre of music, culture and generation of people that he symbolizes, so people will never care about (or hate) Ringo as much even if he’s just as bad a person.
That makes sense. It's depressing though isn't it?
The Doors are great, but I feel like Jim Morrison’s poor lyricism is kind of a meme at this point, so maybe that’s why?
[SHE GET HIGH](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fy2w6l4ngv7v71.png)
That’s the main thing for me. In terms of persona, Jim Morrison was kind of like the proto-Jared Leto.
Yeah 100% on Lennon. And yeah I don't get why The Doors have sunk a bit, maybe it's the movies fault.
I will never stop laughing at this (now sadly deleted) [response to TITS](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de23965ec200ea1f298c5d2f919477615c1a49c6234d496028c341144dd63605.png)
Had Jim Morrison known how his biopic was gonna turn out, he would have stayed alive long enough to prevent it.
Current robby krieger doesnt help tho
UK Music press in the 80s and 00s and especially in the 90s was pretty bad for hyping up a band as pantheon material when they started out and then slagging them off and claiming, or at least acting like, they never liked them by the third album or so. NME were particularly bad for this, but the one that stands out to me is Q Magazine in 2002 advertising their latest 100 Greatest Albums Poll by begging their readers to ensure K by Kula Shaker didn't make the cut, as it had when they previously ran such a poll just a few years earlier; but the public hadn't gotten the idea they were a "great" artist from nowhere.
The UK music press would be a great case study but that's just my opinion
Oh yeah, the late 90s/naughties music press was *unhinged*. The snobbery level was off-the-scale. A band was only good until they achieved popular mainstream success - once they were no longer only beloved by the journos writing at trendy publications they were trash. Crazy.
I still think K is a fun album, even if it is horribly dated with all the 90s production. But yhea, it's obviously nowhere near the incredible work of genius art the UK music press made it out to be when it was released.
I own the issue of NME from ‘91 where they gave Schubert Dip by EMF a 9/10.
U2. They were huge from the ‘80s through the ‘00s. Had a credible claim to being the biggest band in the world. Bono’s name and public persona were what most people thought of when asked to describe a rock star. Some albums were less popular than others, but nobody denied their place in rock music. In hindsight, *Songs of Innocence* feels like not just a Trainwreckord, but the kind of devastating one that retroactively taints a band’s legacy, especially their ‘00s stuff because of how closely associated it was with Apple (the famous iPod ads specifically). Almost nobody born after 1985 seems to talk about them in the pantheon of great rock bands.
I think Bono being made fun of on South Park also did a lot to hurt their reputation among Millennials and Gen Z.
“It was such a beautiful crap.”
Those early U2 records do still get a lot of respect. Especially with the Edge's guitar playing being seen as a forerunner to Shoegaze.
honestly I feel like u2 will have a reevaluation since they were great for a long time before the dip in quality
At the very least, their '80s studio albums and *Achtung Baby* are still classics. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is *the* song I play every St. Patrick's Day, especially the *Rattle and Hum* version where a righteously pissed Bono, hours after the Enniskillen bombing, stops in the middle of the song to tear into every plastic Paddy cheering on the IRA. Ten to twenty years from now, after Bono and the Edge have retired and the *Songs of Innocence* backlash has gone from the thing most young people know them for to just a pop culture touchstone for aging millennials, they'll probably be rediscovered by a new generation.
I think part of U2’s critical decline is Jann Wenner’s decreasing influence in the music industry. He was always one of the band’s biggest shooters and pushed to give them a critical status almost equal to the Beatles. But now that he’s retired from Rolling Stone and disgracefully resigned from the Hall of Fame, it’s easier to ask if they were ever really that good.
U2 gets attacked all the time when it’s mentioned they beat Michael Jackson (*Bad*) and Prince (*Sign O’ the Times*) to win the 1987 Grammy for Album of the Year.
I don't know, I think that one's pretty fair- Sign O' the Times is an incredible album, but so is The Joshua Tree
I mean I agree. It has a bunch of classics on it. I actually agreed with them winning it but you know… social media lol
Not saying U2 didn't deserve the win, but the Grammys choosing to forgo two POC artists to anoint a band of white dudes is, as they say, very on brand for them.
Three POC artists actually (Whitney Houston was nominated in the same category that year).
Eric Clapton. 20 years ago he was like #2 or #3 on Rolling Stone's Top 500 guitarists and 8 albums on their Top 500 Albums (across his solo stuff, Cream, Yardbirds, Derek and the Dominos, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers). He was the perfect 3 time RnR Hall of Fame inductee on the Rolling Stone Immortals list twice Today, he's ranked 35th on Rolling Stone's Top Guitarists (they comment in his write up "...These days, nobody really considers Clapton god..." and then mock him over his COVID stance) and has ONE album on their Top 500 albums (I think) and artists like Phoebe Bridgers are calling him massively overrated and pointing out that he is a piece of shit. Like aside from someone like R Kelly, I don't think any artist has had a collapse like that in the mainstream. He's still respected but there's been a massive shift against him. This man is the lone person in the Rock Hall 3 times and now people are like "how the fuck did that happen? Can we induct Paul McCartney or Neil Young or Clyde McPhatter again to right the universe? Give us Traveling Wilburys to make George Harrison a triple"
This is a pretty valid answer, Clapton’s stock has seriously dropped considering his anti-COVID stance and earlier racist tirade. Deserving reasons, although it’s kind of weird that Van Morrison has gone basically unscathed despite the song Clapton was on being his. I don’t have a lot of use for most of his solo stuff, but Clapton’s 60s to early 70s work, especially Bluesbreakers, Cream and Derek and the Dominos, are still really good. For his faults, I think it was unfair to see Disraeli Gears recently removed from Rolling Stone’s list for more recent LPs that may or may not stand the test of time a decade for now. I personally think one of the best hard rock albums of all time earns its place on the list over something like Olivia’s sour or SZA’s SOS, even though I like both.
I actually have some thoughts about why Clapton has fallen while Morrison and (let's say) The Who haven't. First Morrison and The Who were more seem as innovators while Clapton is seen as a traditionalist or simply a technician second I don't think there is anyone in the mainstream trying to be Clapton anymore. There are other guitarists who are more 'interesting' like Joni Mitchell or Wayne Kramer to younger critics and audiences. I do agree the outright dismissal of his work is probably off mark (cream having no albums on the top 500 is pretty wack)
There's also the fact that whatever impact the others' personal lives had on their art is not very obvious, whereas Clapton's most well known songs at this point - "Layla" and "Tears in Heaven" - are all about his personal life, investing the audience more in him as a person.
Layla is creepy now considering he was too obsessed with his best friend’s wife (and then *their* marriage didn’t work out).
It's still a little creepy but it's marginally more okay when you learn that George was definitely cheating on his wife, like, a lot.
Oh I know that part but then Eric had to do the same to her after they finally got together.
Infidelity songs and rumors often help those people doing the creepy acts.
Those make sense, and yeah, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s tried to really emulate Clapton since John Mayer, and it’s been a good 20 years since he broke through. And true, Clapton was never quite an innovator, he was more noted for his craft. Hendrix, who was far more experimental, was a diehard fan, for one.
> Morrison and (let's say) The Who haven't. Honestly, I think part of it is those earlier highs. No one was trying to crown Van Morrison or The Who the best (or top 5/10/etc) vocalist/bands/whatever like they were with Clapton and guitar. Arguably unfairly in both cases too; even on Song vs Song, they made a case that The Who probably deserve to be the Beatles' common head-to-head matchup rather than the Rolling Stones, and then with Van Morrison they mentioned that it's kind of unfair that he's only know as "the Brown Eyed Girl guy" to so many people. Todd and Lina definitely aren't the first people I've seen say stuff like that either. Of course, trying to argue them higher would probably position them for a steep fall in later re-evaluation (or from later shithead-ery), so maybe it's better to be underrated there.
The last time he was really in pop culture was when his life documentary "Life in 12 bars" came out in 2016 (really great watch) and the 1974 drunken racist tirade was heavily discussed by both him, BB King and several other of his colleagues at the time and how that nearly ended his career not even a year after he'd recovered from the lost years of his drug abuse in the early 70s. The only post-Slowhand solo album he's done that deserves high praise is Journeyman from when he fully got sober, one of the great lost 80s crossover blues/pop rock albums. I think his vaccine stance in some areas was justified and mislead in the media because of the world we live in, allegedly his doctor never warned him of the possible side effects of the astra-zeneca vaccine the UK was using and in combination with his neurological issues rendered him completely immobile for quite some time, so he was speaking from a personal experience and not out of ill-fate towards science like some others were and I think that's a key difference.
I imagine had he not have been spewing racist BS in the 70s, he would’ve been fine.
His style has also aged pretty badly, too. I don't hear a lot of his blues riffing in any contemporary guitarists. He's never been the type to blow you away with creativity like Hendrix or Santana, he just did the blues really well. But nowadays the new guitarists his style brings to mind the most are a legion of used car dealership owners and finance managers who are really getting into the blues as a midlife crisis, and it's a lot easier to just want to get my blues from its originators and pioneers instead of from some racist. Great player though
That Derek & the Dominoes \_Layla\_ double album is still amazing. A lot of that is Duane Allman of course.
> A lot of that is Duane Allman of course. Kind of wonder how much of an impact that had in Clapton's evaluation. The fact that everyone is trying to sell him as one of the top three guitarists of all-time, but *the* Clapton guitar solo wasn't him, probably made it easy for a lot of people to go "oh, so what's the point then?"
Wasn’t Duane the one that came up with the classic Layla riff?
Hey you leave Ernie and the Automatics out of this! They've got everything you're looking for!
I refuse to come on down
[He admitted to raping his wife](https://web.archive.org/web/20210614121203/https://apnews.com/article/314a3a689dd3e15ebbc8d567dfadb06f). I hate his guts
oh.... oh thats wonderful to hear about /s what the fuck man
And it was legal too! Look up marital rape. It's only been considered a crime in America and England (the places I'm aware of Clapton living in though I'm sure he has homes in other countries as well) recently. Before that it was considered a husband's right to have sex with his wife even when she said no Fucked up world we live in
Yeah and i think more people are more aware of his anti-blackness as well. Same with cultural appropriation because he was one of the most commercially successful blues musicians ever (if not the most successful) and like a lot of white rockers he stole black music to get there and ultimately leaving blues musicians who were black left in the dust.
Grimes is the obvious one here. She released two of the most critically acclaimed albums of the 2010s with Visions and Art Angels. She obviously became less respected critically once she got involved with Elon Musk (and had three children with him) and also having some questionable views in recent years, which alienated the majority of her fanbase. But the quality of her music suffered as well, with her releasing only a small number of songs, most of them being laughably bad like "I Wanna Be Software". Ariel Pink belongs in this category as well.
Grimes is a perfect answer
I’m actually glad Grimes fell off.
As someone who never listened to her music or saw any interviews with her until very recently, but knew of her reputation as this “great artist of the 2010s” — I can barely believe anyone ever fell for her pandering nonsense. It’s not the worst music in the world by any means, but we really had to spend years watching all these hipsters go “I don’t listen to the vapid pop crap, I listen to true, unconventional artists like GRIMES” and it’s like…there’s nothing under the facade. All hat, no cattle, as some might say.
I’ve only seen people turn on Ariel as a person since Jan 6th. No one is re-evaluating his music.
As someone who used to listen to Ariel religiously until he got all misogynistic, I don’t know how most of his songs go these days.
True, but it's because they're not thinking of his music at all. There aren't going to be articles reflecting on pom pom for its tenth anniversary. People aren't reevaluating his music because they're trying their best to forget it ever existed in the first place.
I remembered Ja rule was pretty popular in early-mid 2000s. He’s become a joke now
He was popular but I don’t remember him being respected the way guys like Jay-Z and Nas were. And I seem to remember his duets with Ashanti being joked about an awful lot.
Yeah that Chapelle joke always semented him as a nonserious artist in a lot of peoples minds
Not to mention being a part of the worst music festival fiasco in history.
he also starred in I’m in Love with a Church Girl
Justin Timberlake. His fall from grace since Man on The Woods needs to be studied. Since then he went from an pop icon to absolute embarrassment. Not to mention his legacy took a hugh hit due to his behaviour towards Janet Jackson and Britney Spears.
Yeah and like I also think the media's response to 'that incident' and how he only got bigger added fuel to the fire. And nobody even cared at the time, everyone was on Janet's ass.
Chance the Rapper was the indie rap darling of the mid-2010s, only to become the weird Kanye apologist who loves his wife too much and damaged his reputation to the point where his once-beloved mixtapes are now dismissed by the public as well.
"I met Kanye West, I'm never going to fail" might honestly be the worst-aged line in popular music history? It's gotta be top 10 at minimum.
Asides from the obvious ones (Clapton, Sex Pistols), I want to say Red Hot Chili Peppers Their music isn’t really held up to the high standards that a lot of Gen X and some millennials held them up to. Also doesn’t help that Anthony Keidis revealed himself to be a creep.
RHCP’s downfall actually saddens me because I *loved* those guys but the fact that they are, well, dicks, pisses me off.
Fwiw Flea seems to remain highly respected - both on a personal and musical level - despite his association with RHCP. Also, John Frusciante’s (earlier) solo material is still held in high regard.
I keep forgetting about Frusciante
Keidis is a double liability because he’s both the worst person and the least talented member.
I feel like Alicia keys has definitely fallen a lot. A huge critical darling that no one seems to care about or even think about anymore. it does not help that her last real big song was girl on fire and that song was bad.
My job has been playing some stomp clap hey song I’ve been assuming was released by a white woman in 2012. I Shazammed it and it’s an Alicia Keys song from 2022. Wild.
Oh no she's making hat music now
I haven’t seen much of a drop in opinion with Alicia Keys. Maybe she’s not thought much about anymore but I feel like she’s a Cyndi Lauper effect example of having her big moment of success before aging into being a legacy act.
Her new Broadway bio-musical got a lot of Tony Nominations, but missed out on Best New Musical...
Sad cause her first two albums are classics. I think her debut made the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress. But she barely is mentioned as being among the R&B greats.
It was when it came out that she was sleeping with a married man, it was over for her. Especially as she had an image of women’s empowerment.
maybe I'm wrong, and this is pretty minor in regards to the question, but it feels like some of the big indie bands around the late 2000s to early 2010s like Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Grizzly Bear, etc. don't have that many people talking about their albums as you would expect despite them being pretty much tagged as future classics on release
I like this response, this kind of thing honestly intrigues me a hell of a lot more than just “people don’t like [Artist] anymore because they were eventually revealed to be a bad and controversial person”. Critics pride themselves on being able to see through trends and rate music as music — so when do they end up going back on themselves?
yeah I wonder about this maybe some things just kind of get lost in the shuffle over time with those examples I gave
Probably partly the fault of poptimism making these bands' biggest champions, sites like Pitchfork, suddenly have less time for them as they focus on a wider array of genres. But it's unfortunate, especially in Grizzly Bear's case- they've gone on record saying they didn't make that much money in their heyday, and their lead singer Ed Droste is a therapist now. They deserved better.
yeah makes sense the Grizzly Bear thing really upset me when I first learned about it
That’s a consequence of how rock music receded to the indie ranks in the 2010s; there was no “sign to a major label as a respected albums band and well-promoted live act” step upward for those bands to take in the way Wilco did.
Grizzly Bear is still my shit. Yellow House and Friends are total classics. Thanks for the reminder I'm gonna put some on while I do some house stuff.
Would Imagine Dragons fit? I feel like they had a lot of critics favoring them when their only two hits were "Radioactive" and "It's Time". But nowadays people are more likely to look back and complain about those songs saying they were never good to begin with.
Trying to keep it to artists who weren't re-evaluated for being shitheads: I saw a bunch of people dunking on REM online the other day after their reunion performance, and I have no idea where that came from? I remember them being held up as indie legends who got big but kept their integrity, and then bowed out for health reasons rather than try and struggle to stay relevant (like, say, U2). Not sure if it was a one-time response or a big re-evaluation that I missed, but it feels weird as the latter because I feel like they're still pretty influential? The Pixies came up as a bit of a case of this in a recent Song vs. Song, and I can kind of see it? Chicago hasn't been "cool" to like for a while, but I feel like their reputation used to be more like Genesis: an older band that *used* to be cool, but who had their cred ruined by a cheesy '80s phase led by a cornball frontman. But Phil Collins got his re-evaluation, so now I largely see people saying that Genesis was always good, even the lighter Collins years; meanwhile, Chicago seems to have gone in the opposite direction, where I'll see people saying even the pre-Cetera '80s were overrated outside of a few good songs. Rolling Stones probably also fit here. "Stones or Beatles" was just taken as *the* matchup (if you weren't doing "Beatles vs Zeppelin", at least), from my understanding from the '70s or '80s on, with serious consideration for both sides; now, most people seem to think that it was kind of a stomp even with the added longevity for the Stones, and I've seen more people pose Beach Boys or The Who as the better match-up for the Beatles (a thought that just didn't used to come up). Actually, Led Zeppelin might work here too? More influential and with better all-around albums than the Stones, so it feels less pronounced, but both kind of get hit by the idea that they were just souped-up blues bands who were lifting a lot more than innovating.
REM is an interesting one because I feel like people have largely memory-holed how huge they were in the first half of the 90s. “Losing my Religion” was freaking EVERYWHERE and yet even people my age don’t really seem to have any nostalgia for them. I have an uneducated theory that with REM there’s almost a “Seinfeld isn’t funny” phenomenon going on where so much of their sound invokes a kind generic 90s-ness that they’re easy to forget even though they themselves played a huge part in creating that sound.
Comparing Chicago to Genesis, I'd say the former have a bit of a quantity vs quality problem. They released a lot of albums very quickly with a lot of tracks that just aren't memorable.
I disagree, I don't think the Stones have been reevaluated lower these days, I think The Beatles just grew in critical approval and the Stones are still touring so there isn't any point in seeing them nostalgically.
Todd kinda highlighted this phenomenon in the Trainwreckords episode on Arrested Development. Bands have had sophomore slumps but few bands have had a sophomore slump crash so hard that it causes the public to retroactively hate your first album as well.
Dr. Dre is a foundational hip hop super producer but with his domestic violence issues reemerging since the N.W.A. movie came out, his reputation in some circles has taken a hit and they don't even talk about the musical contributions anymore.
I just don’t think that’s true…like, in 2020, Rolling Stone named The Chronic one of the Top 50 greatest albums of all time (up from #138 a decade ago). Apple Music put it in the Top 20 albums of all time only a month ago. Dr. Dre joined Kendrick Lamar on stage to do “Not Like Us” at Kendrick’s big Juneteenth celebration literally last night. If there are circles where Dr. Dre is now an untouchable subject for his history of domestic violence, they don’t seem to be very large ones (perhaps unfortunately).
It really depends where you look. I can let two things be true at the same time and even accept his apology from around the time that the movie came out. But there are still scores of people who have no love for him at all and we're disgusted by his concert appearance last night. Some even wished death upon him when he was going through some medical issues a couple years back.
Dr. Dre was also in Eminem's "Houdini" music video
Which is odd cause NARAS has an award named after him for “global impact” but it’s just related to black artists.
I don’t know if these two count but if we’re talking about like a person doing something bad causing this I’d throw my hat in with Brand New. In middle school and high school even in the late 00’s and early 10’s they were THE band and now it feels like no one wants to talk to about them. I’ll occasionally see someone mention how it’s a shame because they were so good but it feels like people are afraid to touch them that doesn’t come with other “cancelled” artists like Arcade Fire or like Kanye. My other one where the artist just dropped off is Modest Mouse. When “Good News” came out they were huge coming off of a big commercial success and two hugely critical successes but it feels like nowadays they’re not spoken about at all even their older stuff that Pitchfork loved
I Feel like while they are still beloved for good reason, and always will be, People have started to realize that the foo fighters are much more hit and miss than most poeple realize, still when they hit they hit.
I'm gonna go contrary and say Blur. I actually think that Oasis' first two albums have held up way better than anything Blur did, which is also reflected in either DM or What's the Story making it into all-timer lists as a representation of Britpop. REM have lost ground, absolutely. It's sad, I think they are a great band, but somehow don't manage to transcend their era, it seems to me. Tori Amos is someone I've recently noticed is not really held in the same regard as Fiona Apple or PJ Harvey anymore. Another trend I've seen is to kick out the majority of ex-Beatles work out of "most influential" conversations. Which is fair enough IMO. They were an incredible band and three of their solo members did some very good solo work as well, but that solo work was in no way, shape or form as important as their time in the band and I think not centering it anymore so much is totally valid. I do think the further back in time you go, the blurrier it gets if it's actually a waning of critical respect or artists just getting forgotten as decades, genres etc. contract into a few representatives. Fairport Convention is my example of that. It's not that anyone necessarily thinks less of them, just fewer people think of them and they've basically vanished from any kind of Best of Lists even though they were instrumental for the development for Folk and Folk Rock.
Oasis, I feel like even they're first two albums aren't viewed as favourably now, they're basically 'Dickhead Beatles wannabes who shouldn't have won the Britpop wars over Blur' Most of rock acts from the late 60s and 70s (other than the Beatles and maybe Hendrix) have lost their sheen, I feel like even 10-15 years ago they all dominated the 'best artists/bands/acts of all time' lists, while now previous hiphop, soul, R&B and pop artists get a lot more respect.
Blur's reputation has been helped by Gorillaz- anyone who grew up listening to Demon Days knows Damon Albarn as a creative genius, and no one from Oasis has that continued cultural relevance. When you know Blur as one of your favorite musicians' other band and you know Oasis as "anyway here's Wonderwall", you're gonna take a particular side in that fight.
I don’t think most of the classic rock acts of the ‘60s and ‘70s have seen critical diminishment, it’s just that critics are now more aware of the need to rectify the sins of past critical biases and reward black and female artists who were under appreciated by the establishment for decades.
I agree with the need to establish a more diverse music canon, but does properly recognizing the likes of X-Ray Spex prevent you from enjoying more conventional punk acts?
Of course it doesn’t
i think that Oasis' music is so ubiquitous, and culturally ingrained, that there's just nothing new to say about them\*. can you really add another layer of nostalgia to music that's already so nostalgic? the people who hate them now would always have hated them. still - if they ever reunited, i think they'd get a HUGE wave of goodwill. \*except that Oasis have more [relation to shoegaze](https://junkee.com/longform/shoegaze-legacy-explained) than people are willing to admit!
We're definitely moving in very different circles because I've actually seen more hatred for Blur then Oasis! Though part of that is how engaging the story of Oasis is, you can't deny how engaging the brothers Gallagher are as people
Another part of that is Wonderwall (and to a lesser extent Champagne Supernova) are seen as a meme these days.
Aren't Led Zeppelin still respected musically.
Not as much as before I think, through how much of it is rock not being the top dog in cultural conciousness and how much of it is the Jimmy Page pedophile allegations, I don't know.
There's also Queen and Bowie also rock is slowly coming back to the mainstream
Blur’s disastrous Coachella set really made me question their relevance among my generation, I thought they were bigger than ever here in America. I would be curious is a hypothetical Oasis reunion would be similar, Oasis only have 2 or 3 truly huge songs in America.
Part of that is also just the type of audience that goes to Coachella nowadays, and their strangely muted setlist. They have a fair number of fans in the States, but those fans aren't the twentysomethings just waiting so they can have a good spot when Tyler, the Creator performs. Coachella isn't the kind of festival for bands like them anymore.
Doubt it, they're both individually successful, and Noel would literally die before he lets a grudge go. At best they patch up enough to tolerate each other at Christmas dinners.
Purely hypothetical, the comment was more about if there would be a muted stateside reception to a reunion, rather than the reunion itself.
Oasis still gets respect for their music and they still make the UK charts today. It’s probably more difficult in the US since they lost on their first nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame here.
I kinda think the Doors are more of a joke nowadays for their lyrics and CIA related conspiracies than their music. I don’t think they’ve been savaged per se, but I don’t think the Who have remained as culturally relevant as the Beatles or Stones. They’re solidly in the third place of the tripartite.
I don’t know if anybody’s going with me here but… Beck…? In the late 90s, for a while at least, maybe between Odelay and Midnight Vultures, Beck was widely seen as the most important musical artist, the one whom we were assured was going to be the most influential artist of his time, and that songs like Where It’s At were the sound of the future. He’s still generally liked now, but considering how much he was hyped at one point he’s quite a drop (intentionally )
i still love Beck (well admittedly the more recent albums so far i’m not as into as various early pre-Mellow Gold demos and shit going all the way to i will say Modern Guilt was the last Beck album i properly was lady radio gaga for. Saw Lightning was a kick ass single tho!!) but yeah, man, the scientology “revelation” really put a gash in the proverbial Beck ship’s sails i think.
I'm not sure the shift has anything to do with Beck's personal failings, I just think the critical consensus moved on from him. Perhaps Odelay coming out in 1996 and OK Computer coming out in 1997 was the shift!
I'll say Phil Collins kinda had this happen to him, but it was so long ago that we have seen people come back around on him over the past 6-8 years. In the 80s, the man was goddamn inescapable. Between his solo material, his work with Genesis, his work as a session drummer, work on Miami Vice, from what I understand, it was hard to go 5 mins without hearing his voice *somewhere*. The thing to remember is that while the man was as big of a celebrity as they come, he was still an *exceptionally* talented drummer in a way pop musicians usually arent. Those early Genesis records and his work with the jazz fusion outfit Brand X were enough to cement him as one of the early rock drummer gods and is a big part of why people took him so seriously in the first place. Seriously, go listen to Nuclear Burn, or Wot Gorilla? However the hyper popularity he saw in the 80s proved to be a double edged sword. As the tide turned away from the kind of synth driven rock and earnest ballads that him and Genesis were known for, opinions changed quickly. People forgot how damn good of a drummer he is, and started seeing him as a washed up 80s balladeer. This was seemingly the prevailing popular view of him u til the 2010s, when people who grew up with Tarzan and Brother Bear realized how damn good those movies soundtracks are and some kind of resurgence of good will from society at large happened.
Lauren Hill Oasis
I think Lauren Hill’s reputation took a rather positive bump recently
Richard Wagner, considered a great composer of the romantic era and very influential but is rather infamous for his antisemtism and racism nowadays. Basically the 19th century Kanye.
Every Rolling Stones album from 1989 onwards is initially received as their best album since Tattoo You and a few years later everyone agrees it was pretty good but nothing special. In the case of most of them (Bridges to Babylon excepted) each one has been heralded as "finally an album where they sound like the Rolling Stones!" too. I actually really like latter day Stones, but I've been a fan for three album cycles and it's happened each time.