College Times

Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: Daily Buzz

Media Credit: MCT

I was driving home with CT's lovely and talented assistant editor Megan Dobransky the other day when a Nirvana song came on the radio. "I miss Nirvana," I said. "Do you think they would've sucked eventually?"

"Yeah," Meg replied without hesitation. "Everyone sucks eventually."

The more I think about this, the more accurate it seems to be. For as much as I bitch and complain when one of my favorite bands puts out a shitty album (which more often than not is a harbinger of their permanent descent into mediocrity or downright suckiness), I guess I'd just never really considered the inevitability of it. It happens to virtually every band, and they always seem oblivious to it.

The obvious example here is Metallica. I'll never forget the disappointment I felt as a small-town Nebraska kid listening to the "Black Album" for the first time. I felt personally betrayed. My high school friends and I had driven 45 minutes up to Lincoln just to buy the album at midnight on the day it came out. Of course, I'd already seen the video for "Enter Sandman" a million times on MTV at that point, but I guess I was really hoping that that song would prove to be the exception to the rule. Alas, it was not to be. One of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time had officially sold out, and it hurt. I never bought another Metallica album after that (save for Garage Inc., which I picked up a used copy of just for the handful of pre-sellout songs on there). But we all remember what followed: haircuts, eyeliner, sobriety, filmed therapy sessions. Ugh.

But Metallica is certainly not alone. The list of great bands that jumped the proverbial shark is practically limitless: Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Megadeth, Soundgarden, Van Halen, the Beastie Boys, Weezer, Public Enemy. Hell, even Led Zeppelin and the classic Black Sabbath lineup weren't above putting out utter crap in the waning years of their careers.

In fact, it seems like the only way to avoid tainting your legacy is to break up in time. Of the rare bands whose entire bodies of work are considered truly great, practically all of them called it quits at the peak of their careers or just as they were beginning to show signs of irrelevance. Could it be that the only reason Nirvana, The Beatles, The Pixies, CCR, Jimi Hendrix Experience, NWA, Failure, The Police and Jeff Buckley all managed to never make a bad album is simply because they either died early or saw the writing on the wall (or in the case of Kurt Cobain, possibly both)?

Sometimes, that magic can be recaptured. Witness the successful reunions of the Pixies and the Police. But it's also interesting to note that those reunions weren't accompanied by a new album, which proved to be the fatal flaw in the Jane's Addiction reunion of a few years ago. The only band that I can think of that managed to rekindle their original spark after a long layoff is Steely Dan. Then again, there are people who would argue that Steely Dan wasn't that great to begin with.

As a music lover, it's depressing to think that sustained excellence is virtually impossible. The modern bands that have come closest to it at this point are, in my opinion, Clutch and Ween. But sadly, I have no doubt that they'll eventually start to suck too. Ween's last two albums, while passable, certainly aren't up to the standard they set with little-known classics like The Pod and Chocolate and Cheese. Clutch, meanwhile, looked to be headed in the wrong direction after the very sub-par Pure Rock Fury, , but have rebounded nicely on subsequent albums, arguably making some of their best music at this late stage of their career. But I fear it's only a matter of time before they both lose it (whatever "it" is exactly). Maybe I'm being overly negative, but I've seen it happen to too many other bands to think that anyone is immune.

So I guess the moral of the story is, don't be sad when one of your favorite bands breaks up at the height of their career. As frustrating as it is for us fans, maybe they know something we don't.

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