While at one time, I considered the Grateful Dead a huge and viable part of the growth of american progressive music in the 1970s, my views have changes since moving to Europe 7 years ago. Much of the Dead's early stuff is raw and powerful, but as their playing skills progressed through the mid to late 70s, their sound became too slick and over produced (not that some of the albums of that period are bad in any regard). By their the time they released those two terrible albums in the late 1980s, the original fire had long since disappeared and not much was left but a drug addicted empty husk of a band with legions of literally "DEAD" heads following them blindly around. Their sound had become very clichéd and watered down. In my opinion, the output of american avantgard/psychedelic bands PALES in comparison to the happenings in europe during the 1970s and 1980s. Whether the Dead were a direct cause for this or not, they certainly did not help matters much, and in my opinion I hold them in the same contempt as I do with the Rollingstones and Aerosmith of late.