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I tend to think about it two ways - or at least I used to. I used to think a band would push out their most creative and incredible music right at the beginning, and felt label interest and success would hamper everything to do with a band. That was when I was completely immersed in punk rock in my teens, and to a point I still agree - the first Stooges, Wire, Napalm Death, Rudimentary Peni, Misfits, Poison Idea, Anti Cimex, all the best stuff. But the older I get I see more in artists developing - that Black Flag thread a while back for example, I definitely prefer My War and beyond to the early stuff these days.
And for example, to me bands like Yes (Fragile, Close To The Edge), Van Der Graaf Generator (Pawn Hearts, etc), The Beatles (Revolver, Sgt. Peppers, Rubber Soul), Miles Davis (Bitches Brew, In A Silent Way, Big Fun), Deathspell Omega (Kenose, Paracletus) tend to peak later in life, but that's obviously a biased example as we're comparing punk bands to more complex progressive, fusion, black metal and psych music and you can obviously see that my tastes have changed a lot over the years. That's my tastes shifting. Basically I feel like if a band gets stuck in the same pattern the early stuff is better but if they continue to push and challenge themselves they can evolve to greater things than they ever imagined.......
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