Why does most original creativity get lost once you make your first album or two...

Why does most original creativity get lost once you make your first album or two? Does the money and fame go to everyone's head?

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listened to Pretty Hate Machine earlier today, and the first half has fantastic energy.

You've only got so many ideas in you, and when you use them all up you're left with nothing.
Shitty example though.

I think it has more to do with time constraints. You have your entire life to come up with your first album, but only a year or two to come up with all the rest. Eventually you become creatively fried, but you still have to put out music, because you need money, so you put out shit music.

the best advice I've heard on this issue is to make your first album,

then toss it into the trash, and then make your second album,

toss that one in the trash, now make your third album and release that.

The Only Time has god tier synths. I've never heard a chorus that sounds like ecstasy

money and fame going to their head is part of it. the other thing is when musicians first start out, they don't have anything distracting them, so they can rehearse and improve their material for 10+ hours a day, every day. as they become more successful and get older, more distractions come into their lives. they lose their edge by not giving 100% of themselves to making music.

So you only have shit albums then?

This makes no fucking sense. Why would you ever trash anything that you hundreds upon hundreds of hours creating. Shit like this is disinformation from insecure artists that are scared of competition.

by the time you make your third album your musical style will have matured to a point where you can create a good vision of what sort of composition you want to hear and what technical work you need to do for it.

the first two albums you are exploring your capabilities; it's sort of like a first and second draft, and then you can start putting out good works

Better advice would just to sit on the first 2 and release all 3 at the same time

it is far more beneficial for your personal evolution as an artist if you can complete projects in succession, instead of hunkering down on one project. Your ear is just going to improve faster that way.

you want to have a style and you want your customers to become accustomed to that style so you can gain a following. Your style can evolve but you'll have a familiar identity to people.

If the reaction you want just isn't there, you can try the other albums under a different name

This makes sense if you make generic singer songwriter crap or if you are recording acoustic instruments and learning the proper process behind recording in general. Once again this is disinformation and your advice will only cause people to spin their wheels in place and devalue their their work. No it doesn't mean you should share everything but if you have already committed to making an album you should have enough of a skillset to complete it. The album in OPs post is an example of the opposite of what you said and it is arguably his most successful album.

You put your whole life into your first album and your second album is often leftover ideas and new ideas you probably need more time to properly unpack.
Also the novelty of your idiosyncrasies wears off on the listener after 2 or 3 albums so you better be ready to switch gears quickly

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Bad example, Downward Spiral and Fragile were way better. You probably think Piper is Floyd's best because it's so quirky and not as polished as their acclaimed stuff.

idk but i just finished album 10 and its my best one yet forsure

>taking hundreds upon hundreds of hours to drop one album
nah. u doin something wrong then prolly

Not all of us recycle sample packs from warez sites.

Reznor openly admits much of this album was sampled and taken from Skinny Puppy.

If anything that's NIN's least original album.

Normally your first album you had an unlimited amount of time to make.
Then you get signed, and the label says you have 1 or 2 years to make another one.
Then you have 1 or 2 years to make another.

much might be going a bit too far

NIN opened for Skinny Puppy when they were on tour. How fucked would it be if the opening band is just samples of your material.

Then you go on and everyone is like "huh...they're a lot like the opening band but not"

>sampled and taken from Skinny Puppy
Show me the songs in question please.

Umm..it doesn't? NIN isn't even a great example because their 3rd album, Downward Spiral or The Fragile if you don't count Broken, was creative as fuck. Ministry is a similar example and they didn't get super creative until their 3rd album, The Land of Rape and Honey, as well. Taking a quick glance at my record collection here's where the creativity seemed to "peak":

Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley
Black Sabbath - The first 6 albums seems pretty equal imo
Ween - Everything before La Cucaracha seems pretty equal
Faith No More - King for a Day
Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All although arguably further

Yea I don't think you're accurate OP.

The mindset of someone trying to make it is much different than the mindset of someone trying to maintain it.

Hard rock and metal groups are generally only good for 3-4 albums before the formula becomes stale. Some would also argue this is true of hip-hop. Singer-songwriters can go on pretty much forever.

This. NIN got really formulaic and stopped being interesting until Bad Witch but it's been way too long

If you go down the list you can see that this is almost always the case, barring the odd exception like Judas Priest, who lasted eight albums. Some groups cheated by using different lineups over time (eg. post-70s KISS), but generally when it's the same 3-5 guys, by the fourth or so album you've pretty much heard it all.

Priest had a bunch of different drummers over the years although their percussion has never really been that important anyway.

I like everything he's done but I can agree to the point that after The Fragile he lost the magic touch and nothing after ever quite stacks up to those first three albums + Broken

>Cuckgau hates NIN and Sonic Youth's peak material
>he loves their bland later career adult rock
When did you stop taking this guy seriously?

I never did.