Those early albums often consist of material that was basically battle-hardened by the time it reached the studio. Bands early in their career often spend lots of time all in the same room, writing songs together then do lots of playing for small crowds, where they get a very up close feel for the audience response. Material that doesn’t go over well with band mates and audiences gets dropped.

With the industry’s album release cycle, bands are often under time pressure to cut a new album, so they end up writing in the studio, each person laying down tracks individually, and missing out on all the feedback of earlier iterations.

I wrote about 10 albums and my music generally got better over time, but I just stopped writing because I had children; also less time for creativity with a family.

If I were forced to write music, now, for money or whatever, it would be bad music.