Hmmm. Sham 69 doesn't quite have the same charm as it once did.
Hurry Up Harry is hardly a work of genius.

Punk was always a bit of a fashion. Most of the so called punk bands were not.
How can you compare Elvis Costello to the UK Subs or The Boomtown Rats to the Sex Pistols? The Stranglers were a pub band with attitude.

Blondie? Punk? Behave.

Yes, but exercise care going through your old collection. Stuff that meant a great deal to you then can sound absolutely rubbish now. Sad to say, but much of the Jam's album stuff is mere filler.

Of albums dismissed in my youth but now very late discovering: Pretzel Logic and Safe as Milk. Crikey but they're good albums. I wish I had found them earlier.

Came out of CBGB and their very early stuff was new wave.

Then big label and Mike Chapman producing and the rest you know.

I love em by the way.

You could say the same about Swing Low for egg-chasing.

Btw, I like early Neil Diamond, but I'm with you on that song.

There aren't too many songs that I have come to dislike.
I still like all the old stuff, but sometimes it's more for nostalgia rather than any great musical greatness.
Some stuff remains as good today as it did back then, but often musical allegiance was born from tribalism as much as anything.

I like to think that I tried to avoid liking stuff just because someone else said I should, but sometimes we listen on a recommendation and like what we hear.

Stuff like Steely Dan's wider catalogue would have been a little too intricate and dull for me in my youth, although I always liked their hits, but I have a few tracks in my playlist these days.

Watching your hero's in later life is a risk. I saw Roger McGuin play an intimate acoustic venue and he was brilliant. I also saw Television play about 15 years ago. The songs were as good and the musicianship ridiculously good. But dour and through the motions. No chemistry between band nor with audience.