Would you rather they just hung around and put out crap records forever like say Marilyn shithead Manson? The quality to garbage ratio goes up more and more in favor of the garbage side the longer a band exists generally. I guess since my name is nails inspired I'm supposed to say TDS or Fragile is the best '90s album but there's so much cool shit from that decade that I don't really care exactly what is at the very top of people's lists. Could maybe try to argue Broken as the best Ep but Jar of Flie is also a '90s thing and fucking amazing to this day so welp!
well, it's an interesting one - everyone runs into the "bad album" at some point. No one needs to be around forever, but a good 3-4 albums worth of stuff should be possible.
Cases that jump to mind :
The Family Cat - released best album "Magic Happens" - then disbanded, reformed as two bands
Nyack - released great album - disbanded
Catherine Wheel - good album, great album, average album, poor album... disbanded
Gene - released great first album - rest turgid
Puressence - released good album, then incredible album, then great album, then average album, then good album...
Underworld - zomg followed by zomg followed by zomg followed by zomg followed by zomg ....
Orbital - zomg , zomg, great... , um what... ughhh... disbanded.... reformed with great album
So yeah - i guess the whole "tricky third album" tends to be the common thing but it's not entirely hard and fast.
Also - i was a huge NiN fan back in the day but i sort of fell of - TDS was okay, but FDS was the step that made me lose interest basically. Stangely enough - whilst i loved Broken and PHM the EP that really hooked me in was Fixed (of all things!)
I'm aware that's somewhat controversial but there was something about Fixed that i HATED at first but grew to really enjoy.
But yeah - the 90s is an insanely stupid list of riches in terms of music.