Daft Punk – Discovery
Then Crushingly disappointing follow-up
Now Arguably the most influential album of the past 20 years
From the moment I heard Da Funk, I was a huge Daft Punk fan, which made their second album all the more baffling. I loved One More Time, but what the hell was the rest of it about? What was with all the cheesy 80s references? Who encouraged them to put that awful heavy metal guitar on Aerodynamic? Why did all the vocals have that ridiculous electronic effect on them? Nineteen years on, every single aspect of Discovery has been pilfered time and time again, from the glossy production style to the sound of the drums. Every vocal in pop has that electronic effect on it, which I now know is called Auto-Tune. Daft Punk were incredibly prescient: play Discovery today and it sounds utterly contemporary. My review, on the other hand, has not aged so well.
Alexis Petridis
This Country
Then Overly cosy 00s knock-off
Now Minutely observed and uniquely personal tearjerker
When This Country debuted in 2017, I dismissed it as a sedate and sentimental Office tribute act. Besides, I had already filled my decade-ly slot for logically unjustifiable mockumentary with People Just Do Nothing – there was no room for yet another pile-up of delusional nobodies, awkward pauses and infantile bickering. Three years and an avalanche of rave reviews later, I decided I should probably return to Kerry and Kurtan’s spectacularly dull Cotswolds village with an open mind. What I discovered was neither dated nor derivative, but idiosyncratic and deeply specific, full of bizarre quirks and agonising bathos. The final series, which incorporated the death of the creators’ real-life friend and co-star Michael Sleggs, was a masterclass in the consoling powers of comedy. Consider me – very belatedly – schooled.
Rachel Aroesti
Slayer
Then Pointlessly twiddly cartoon doom-mongers
Now The full stop at the end of metal
As a teen Smiths obsessive, I had been a bit of a snob about metal’s neck-breaking, big-shorted charms. That lasted until my late 30s, when I accidentally encountered Slayer at a festival. Within moments of their first howled, blasted, faster-than-hardcore notes, I was like: “Holy mother of SATAN, this is incredible. Why did nobody tell me!?” To their credit, no one replied: “We did. You were busy with Morrissey.” By the end, I’d quite lost the run of myself, clambering over other fans in an attempt to catch a hurled drumstick. I didn’t get it and, in retrospect, I’m glad. In all honesty, I hadn’t remotely earned it.
Phil Harrison
Tracey Emin
Then A fame-obsessed charlatan who hid a thin talent behind a big gob
Now A hero of our time who paints brilliantly, lives audaciously and expresses agony and ecstasy with guts and genius
When Tracey Emin was shortlisted for the Turner prize I found My Bed depressing, but time has proved her seriousness: blurting your secrets at 30 may seem sensationalist, but after 50 it is brave and even profound. I also got to know her and found she is an artist to her bones. I think I was a snob. Now I’m a convert, about to publish my second book about this razor-sharp modern genius.
Jonathan Jones
Phoebe Bridgers
Then Twee Gen-Z Pinterest board
Now Delicate unpicker of emotionally complex relationships
For a long time, I thought Phoebe Bridgers was an elaborate joke the universe was playing on me. Critics enthused about her tender, sad, beautiful music and darkly funny one-liners; all I could hear was a series of anaemic, one-note songs slathered in an off-putting veneer of irony. It didn’t help that her album Punisher, featuring lines such as “Day off in Kyoto / I got bored at the temple”, was released mid-lockdown. What were they hearing that I wasn’t? I gave up trying, until, suddenly, it clicked: the ghostly vocals slowly unravelling, the lush orchestration, the subtle melodies, the depraved poetry of the lyrics – annoyingly, exactly the kind of gently melancholy music I need these days.
Kathryn Bromwich
Mean Girls
Then Icky high-school comedy that ends up celebrating prettiness
Now Hilarious high-school comedy that delivers great laughs
What was I thinking? Was I hangry? Did I need a snack? When I watched Mean Girls in 2004, scripted by Tina Fey and starring Lindsay Lohan as the shy, smart student who has to infiltrate a clique of popular classmates, I grumpily tied myself in knots trying to prove it was upholding the very body fascism it was supposed to be criticising. Long after that, due to my 30 Rock addiction, I became a Tina Fey superfan and saw the Mean Girls musical on Broadway, which was a joy. Recently I watched the film again with my wife and 16-year-old son and we all loved it. It’s just enormous fun. Lindsay Lohan and top Mean Girl Rachel McAdams are both great. I should have lightened up. Peter Bradshaw
Luther
Then Another generic cop show
Now A brilliant series about a superhero trapped in a horror movie
I was mean about Luther after its first episode. Unenthused about another show about another cop who doesn’t play by the rules, I called it the worst thing I could think of: “Something that Robson Green should star in”. But as the series progressed, it wound itself tighter and tighter, wrapping a story about corruption and murder round the sort of terrifying jump-scares you only see in slasher movies. It was nothing like a generic cop show. It was actually a comic book in disguise. I felt so bad about trashing it that I even printed an apology.
Stuart Heritage
Beginning
Then Derivative romcom
Now Powerful play about frailty and the joy of human connection
I still regret the rather dismissive review I wrote of David Eldridge’s 2017 play. Set in the twilight hours of a house party, Beginning sees a man and women teasingly and tentatively flirt, chat and – the clincher – eat fish fingers together. At the time, I thought it was all a bit predictable. Now I see that it takes real guts and rare insight to write a play as honest, open and seemingly “normal” as this. Sometimes a critic can cherish novelty far too much: more often than not, real life is the most fascinating and complex subject of them all.
Miriam Gillinson
Ally McBeal
Then Hilarious and heartbreakingly personal
Now An unwatchable gush of mannered quirks
At the turn of the millennium, Ally McBeal was event TV in our flatshare: lights off, breaths held, chunky mobiles down. Its celebration of eccentricity, embrace of mental fragility and understanding of loneliness and imposter syndrome – all pitched into a pacy, glossy legal dramedy – changed my view of how mainstream TV could speak directly to my young adulthood in the way music and movies did. Revisited today, it’s still all those things … but the killjoys who said it was unbearably twee and self-conscious, and that the ickle, vulnerable, male-written female lead was a bit dodgy, were right. It’s embarrassing like a florid teenage diary.
Jack Seale
The Departed
Then A bloated Marty misfire
Now The last of the swaggering crime epics
Initially dragged along by the riptide of goodwill for Martin Scorsese’s Boston crime drama (Scorsese! Doing another mob film! With Leo, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson!), I recoiled on rewatching it a decade later. Nicholson’s over-ripe performance, Ray Winstone’s criminally bad Bawston accent, plot holes big enough to drive a truck full of stolen microprocessors through – this was a Marty misfire. But in a weak moment during lockdown I stuck it on, and now I’m a believer once again. No one makes these sorts of operatically overheated crime sagas any more – not even Scorsese (no, The Irishman doesn’t count) – and Damon’s clammy performance as conceited, double-crossing (closeted?) cop Sullivan, remains a career best.
Gwilym Mumford
La La Land
Then Oscar-hungry jazz-hands blancmange
Now Armour-piercing love story with bulletproof tunes
Even before its accidental announcement took the shine off Moonlight’s historic best picture win at the 2017 Oscars, I found it easy to resent La La Land and its offensively attractive leads. The razzle-dazzle nods to musicals past and knowing winks to Hollywood’s cut-throat present seemed like pandering to self-involved Academy voters. But at some point that punchy soundtrack bopped its way into my brainstem, and the doomed rollercoaster romance between husky starlet Emma Stone and jazz grouch Ryan Gosling suddenly felt affecting, even relatable. So yeah, I got it wrong. No need to make a big song and dance about it.
Graeme Virtue
Selling Sunset
Then Just another mindless reality show
Now The pinnacle of mindless reality shows
Selling Sunset does not, to the untrained eye, seem like a special programme. It is set in the offices of the Oppenheim Group, a luxury real-estate brokerage in LA with celebrity clientele (read: they showed Karamo from Queer Eye a house once). There are lots of female staff who morph into a magic-eye picture of blow-dried hair and tanned skin, while overfamiliar bosses Brett and Jason look like the products of an experiment to fuse Vin Diesel with the Mitchell brothers. And yet, I, and many others, have found it wholly, disgustingly compelling. While the Oppenheim Group prides itself on being a classy outfit, what has made Selling Sunset the reality show of the year is its undignified rows, soapy twists and Christine Quinn – a devious TV villain dressed as Lady Gaga circa 2008.
Hannah J Davies
Oasis – Be Here Now
Then Overlong, squidgy, coked-up mess
Now Flawed masterpiece (apart from Magic Pie)
“I wrote it on holiday,” Noel Gallagher has said of Oasis’s third LP. “There may have been a small amount of cocaine.” And, my, does it show: every song is a swollen tantrum of back-of-the-fag-packet doggerel, pointless guitar widdlery and songs that just keep going, most lolloping in drunkenly around the six-minute mark. I used to loathe Be Here Now’s lazy, wasted opportunity to complete the perfect triptych. But time’s passage has lent it a certain black-eyed charm: beneath the static and squall the tunes are there, Noel’s nattiness with a hook undiminished. Everything on it sounds utterly enormous. And Liam’s voice has never been more pristine, more righteous. As a snapshot of 90s excess – a bygone age of pig-headed rock-star bravado – it’s a preposterous hoot. Although Magic Pie does remain total, irredeemable codswallop.
Luke Holland
Dirty Harry
Then Renegade cop with a massive gun
Now Borderline fascist with a massive gun
When we were young, the thought of running around town blowing away bad guys was a thrilling and seductive one. Clint Eastwood’s taciturn hero in Don Siegel’s action-packed 1971 thriller gave us a cool role model – and he had a great line in sardonic quips to employ at school (“I know what you’re thinking … ” etc). Today, Harry Callahan’s blithe judge-jury-executioner attitude and the film’s political stance seem deeply problematic: a liberal-baiting defence of extrajudicial police violence embedded in a display of macho posturing. And it gave us Death Wish.
Simon Wardell
Madonna – American Life
Then A heavy-handed, “wake up sheeple!” political awakening
Now A brilliantly odd peek behind fame’s velvet rope
Madonna’s ninth album, a dissection of the American dream in light of 9/11 and the buildup to the Iraq war, was hard to love upon its 2003 release. The title track and lead single was hampered by that rap, in which coffee enemas mingled with shoutouts to her Mini Cooper. But beneath the “money and fame don’t make you happy, guys” sloganeering, American Life offers us a tantalising glimpse at the “real”, unadorned Madonna. The gospel-tinged Nothing Fails and the guitar-led Intervention are glorious, unabashed love songs, while the bonkers Mother and Father lays her childhood trauma bare over splintering electro-pop. Her best album? Maybe.
Michael Cragg
Friends
Then A sitcom-by-numbers that acted as a death-knell for culture
Now At least good enough to watch half an episode of while you eat your dinner
As a bristling teen/young adult I thought Friends was an obvious, pandering, saccharine American slushfest that only had six jokes (Joey is stupid! Chandler is sarcastic! Monica is uptight! Rachel is easily flustered! Phoebe is weird! Ross is a horny nerd!) and had one of the most irritating theme tunes in history. But now with hindsight and maturity I realise that Friends deserves its place as the sitcom to end all sitcoms: the cast is immaculate, the joke timing is impeccable. Yes, too many episodes end in someone hugging or falling in love for my taste, but what have we had since? The Big Bang Theory? Ten-season prime-time sitcoms are harder than you think. Friends made it look easy.
Joel Golby
Trainspotting
Then Irritating bid for Britpop-style hipster status
Now Endlessly inventive and brilliantly funny
I didn’t actively hate Trainspotting when it came out, but in the British cultural maelstrom of the mid-90s I distrusted it as an irritatingly self-conscious bid for hipster status. But I watched it again a few years later, when the hype was a distant memory – and boy, did I feel like an idiot. Really funny, properly moving and exciting; I couldn’t have been more wrong. Even Ewan McGregor’s total non-resemblance to a late-80s Edinburgh junkie (and having been a student in the city at that time, I’d seen more than a few) failed to annoy me; I could see his star-making performance for what it was. More fool me.
Andrew Pulver