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10 May 2006
What is the musical equivalent of "jumping the shark?"→[More:]By which I don't mean when has a band sold out. I'm more thinking of the point at which one can tell it's all downhill from here.
I've talked with a couple friends about this, and we haven't come to a definitive answer on this one. The closest we've come was when the greatest hits collection is released, but so many bands jump long before that.
One might say it's when they begin to remake their own songs (like Aerosmith), but then, how about after their best song ever was recorded? Well that doesn't quite work either. Hmm. That's a tough one. Bands don't jump the shark, because "jump the shark" jumped the shark? Maybe. Tough question.
There are some songs that are so transcendently good that they render an band's entire catalog superfluous, even if the subsequent songs are all incredible. (Weezer's "Buddy Holly," Everclear's "Santa Monica," Radiohead's "Creep" come to mind [and believe me, I dig Weezer and Radiohead]).
Did Nelly jump the shark? Because if he did, why does he have "the song of the summer" every year for the last god knows how many?
Nice stumper, me3dia. Great questions ask more questions than they answer.
About the only times when bands do covers is when they're just starting out or they're coming to an end.
Cover albums are an especially bad sign that the party's over (Bowie is the only exception I can think of).
The other bad sign for a band is the "going back to our roots" album. Another sign that the ideas train has already left the station.
Another interesting phenomenon is when a band starts shedding members. I remember Eric Burdon talking about how The Animals fell apart and said that once they lost the guys from their home town and took on flashy musicians from London they lost their roots. You can see something like this happened with Oasis.
I'm guessing that there isn't just one thing. There are so many more variables with music compared to TV -- genre, the differences in workflow (periodic albums vs. weekly series}, musical taste -- that it's hard to pinpoint a commonality.
On preview: concept album can't be it, because some bands are very successful with concept albums: Radiohead (OK Computer), Pink Floyd (The Wall), The Who (Tommy) and Green Day (American Idiot) for instance.
I'd say REM's decline happened in the mid-early 90's, but they always have at least one unforgettable song on each of their albums, EXCEPT FOR THIS LAST ONE, Around The Sun. That was just bad from the first song on. So, IMHO, Around the Sun is REM's final moment of Shark-Jumpage.
Of course, knowing these guys, their next one will be some porchswing, quiet gem that will floor everyone while they trot off into the sunset.
I liked a couple of songs off Monster, and would have burned it and sold it back had it been a different era. Instead I just sold it back. But I do like Up. Ultimately, I think REM has had far too many JtS moments to be relevant anymore.
There's a definite point at which Radiohead jumped for a lot of people -- somewhere between Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief. Couldn't put my finger on exactly what -- maybe just the fact that HttF was a single album with a double album's worth of song titles. Wankery like that will make ya jump, jump.
I think it's always a different reason with TV shows too (or at least there are several), there's just a common phrase for when it happens.
So, for music, how about "Kilroyed"?, after Kilroy Was Here. Something that's a good example of a band that just blew it at the height of their popularity.
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