eir worst work

Meaning the bands or solo artists who have work that is amazing and also work that is complete garbage.

Who are the musicians with the largest "quality gulf", and which works represent their high and low points?

An easy answer is Weezer, with Pinkerton representing their apex and Raditude representing their nadir.

Pearl jam

Do you really feel that way?

PJ is very much a legitimate answer here

For sure. Lightning Bolt is creatively bankrupt and their best albums had a massive impact on me.

I mean...

Mark Kozelek and The Sword come to mind.

Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon and his early solo records were just insanely great, then Benji happened.

He lost his fucking mind and he shits out anything and everything now.

I agree.

I can't think of any other band I'm familiar with whose creative output has seemed to nosedive so dramatically and so inexplicably. It really is hard for me to square that Lightning Bolt was made by the same bunch of guys who made the band's earlier work; even their live shows are a totally different thing now to what they once were.

With a band like Weezer, I can at least understand or contextualise how they got from their early work to where they are now. Those elements seem (maybe moreso in retrospect) as though they were always present but became more pronounced over time, plus there seems like some degree of self-awareness operating with Rivers Cuomo where he's able to perceive and explain those changes.

I don't really like The Cure's post 90s output very much but I can see the connecting threads to the band's earlier work and I still get the sense Robert tries as hard as ever; he's simply run out of good, original ideas.

I'd have a much easier time understanding Pearl Jam's decline if it felt the same way, like we were just getting poor quality re-treads of earlier work, but I don't feel that same continuity at all. It's like they woke up one morning and forgot how to be Pearl Jam and never remembered.

I love Benji but nothing about Kozelek's earlier work grabs me.

Benji is great, but he just couldn't handle the fame/notoriety it earned him.

Everything since then has been nothing but rambling vocals and aimless song structures.

He's basically embraced being a caricature of himself.

Madonna.

If you were a fan of early Green Day, I'd say them

Oh this is a good one. I always thought they were awful, but damn they took a dive.

Green Day is definitely one.

Stevie Wonder

Toby Keith

Radiohead