Music

I think one of the main reasons an artist’s earliest albums are often their best is because those albums have hunger at their core. You can’t fake a sincere sense of hunger from the soul. And the more successful you become, the harder it is to maintain that kind of hunger. Success is like food. It’s satiating. The artist becomes satisfied. Not completely, but moreso than they were before. They become comfortable. They have something to lose. Expectations to meet. It is hard for the art to be as pure as it was before. For the creation to be as unadulterated. The artist is creating for an audience, where there was none before. They were their own only audience. That’s why I love the early albums. The artist before they made it.

100% agreed. In addition, they don't usually have much to work with. There's a creativity, a resourcefulness that's put to use in the formative years of making something that needs to be made. 

John Mayer's my go-to example. His first album is an incredible solo effort; it's just him. After that, he had the resources to expand and be "more him", but the pressures of production dilute the overall product. Thankfully, some of his later albums exemplify a return to the style and approach of his earlier work.