10 Massive Drops In Quality Between Albums

Dropping the Ball Hard.

By Tim Coffman /

There isn't a single artist that can keep that creative fire burning forever. As everyone's favorite band starts to get older, they're bound to release records that aren't necessarily on par with the classics that they're used to giving us. Then again, none of us were expecting the quality to drop this quick in between albums.

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For every single one of these releases, these aren't so much a slump as they are a fall from grace. Although these acts may have been on a high for the past few years that they were active, this is where the entire creative process begins to stall and everything starts to get a lot more questionable. Not all of these albums are meant to be following up classics or anything. Some of these bands had been in the game for a long time before making these albums, only to turn in something that sounds like a shadow of what they once were.

On every one of these records, it's not like you're going to get outwardly offended at every single song or anything. No, these are just the albums that just feel a little too boring to even be associated with the acts in question. Considering the average that we grade these bands on, the quality between these records and everything else are like night and day.

10. Slang - Def Leppard

As the Nirvana boom started to sweep across the rock landscape, the traditional sounds of Def Leppard weren't really going to cut it anymore. After everyone was stripping things back, there wasn't a chance of hearing a band that thrived on their larger than life production that was reminiscent of Queen. Leppard was really smart in wanting to shake things up, but Slang may have taken it the one notch too far.

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Working without their signature production style, this is considered Leppard's attempt at going alternative, with an extremely mixed result all around. Though they had some great tunes to kick off the '90s on the album Adrenalize, these feel more like ideas than actual fleshed out songs, with Work It Out being the closest thing to a radio hit to come out of this era. You can really tell that the guys are looking to make something that no one had heard from them, but even they haven't really looked back on this era all that fondly.

From the looks from their label, everyone was already fairly mixed on the final album, and guitarist Vivian Campbell recalled thinking at the time that they were spending a fortune making this album knowing that no one was going to buy it. The '90s weren't all doom and gloom though, and Leppard would eventually make a return to their classic sound at the back half of the decade on Euphoria. For these few years though, they were not exactly the greatest when it came to trend chasing.

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