Selling an album

[Brad Goldman <brad@jimmy.harvard.edu>]

>The problem is.. quoting him "before", "during" or "after" the albums
were >released. I seem to recall when they were released how "great"
they all >thought they were. Then, shortly after the breakup, the
albums were >"trash"...

Very common phenoman for any group, and it's not just after a breakup.
When you put out an album, you say it's the greatest thing ever.  Why?

1)  Cognitive Dissonance, baby.  Even if it's crap, you've just spent
a year of your life working on it, you'll ocnvince yourself it's good
even if it's not.  Why would you put it out otherwise?  (Ignoring
albums put out for blatant contractual obligations, but even those
seem to have a way of growing on the artist while they're doing it.)
You're still in your honeymoon period with the music.
2)  Sales.  C'mon, what sort of fool puts out an album and shoots
himself in the wallet by saying it's not very good?  Of course you
want to promote your album and get people to buy it.

A couple years later, neither of those reasons holds as strongly, so
all of a sudden reality hits, and is vocalized.  Plus, the public has
weighed in through reviews and sales.  It's sometimes the case that
the artist will continue to say it's his/her/their best work and
people should really get it, but usually by then they will admit their
mistakes and move on to the next album.

So what you get is every artist that is struggling at all (this
doesn't apply to U2 or Neil Young, they can put out 55 minutes of pure
crap and know it will still sell millions) saying that (1) yeah, that
last album had some serious problems bla bla, (2) We've done something
new with this one (recorded live, back to our roots, new producer,
digital technology, etc.), (3) This new album we think is the best
stuff we've ever done.

The Who are just like every other band in this respect.
-- 
- Brad Goldman
 (Brad@jimmy.harvard.edu)