There is a moment in every artist’s career when everything meshes for them. It is the moment that their creativity and their desire to reach out - hits a syncronized-pinacle. This ironically, corrupts their creativity down the road. This is generally reached in their early public career. Some artists have longer streaks of this than others. And sometimes it seems that an artist will “be there” then lose it, then get there again later. But this isn’t common. It’s a cycle that that has been happening for a long time.
You can pinpoint that moment with a lot of artists. Here are a few of mine:
ministry’s career had a good long run until '03. perhaps b/c the regard for excellence was always there.but every musician produces some dogs, like any other artist.
i don’t care about the post '03 material. at all. but maybe the band was running out of steam and paul left. well, al needed to do something with his life.
[reply][reply]Ministry had a good run from '87 to '96.
After that it was finished. And don’t gimme that crap that they ‘had a good run til 03’. Cos they didn’t.
Animositisomina is GOLD…[/reply]
Agreed!
Animos… is Ministry’s greatest album imo.
As for this peaking philosophy, I dunno…
The way I see it is bands put albums out and people have their favourites and least favourites subjectively.[/reply]
I think animositisomina is great as well. I’d probably rank it 4th of the ministry albums.
I think part of this theory of a bands “peak” has alot to do with the time context element. There is a time and place that makes certain music a little more special, even if the band still puts out good albums after that, it may not have the same spark. Kinda like how they can put a fence up like the Mind tour, but it will never have the same power it had in the original context. That’s my take anyway. So in summation - Animositisomina is great, Melvins are great, Godflesh is great and Streetcleaner is their best album and fences have a time context where they are most powerful. BOOM. I’m about to head to the show.