Best pair of albums by the same artist/band in a single calendar year

Will start the bidding with Ultravox! - Ultravox! -> Ha! Ha! Ha! in 1977. Tuomas has already suggested Herbie Hancock - Sextant -> Head Hunters in 1973, and there's always Big Thief in 2019 too, but what other examples can you think of, and how many of them are by The Fall?

D. M. X.

We sort of did this recently: If you actively dislike Creedence Clearwater Revival, then I can never respect anything you have to say about anything.

(that was "the most number of great albums," I guess)

CCR pwns this thread with an astounding THREE classic albums in a single 12-month stretch in 1969

xps

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath -> Paranoid (both 1970)

has there ever been a single year with three artists releasing three different all in the same year and where the albums have been so nice, other than 1969?

― Peaceful Warrior I Poser (Karl Malone), Monday, December 2, 2019 1:00 AM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

classic post

not sure how to count peak Wu-Tang output

future's 2015 is up there, even if you deduct points for what a time to be alive

Fairport Convention put out WWDOOH, Unhalfbricking, and Liege & Lief in 1969

Sun Ra "Space Is the Place" and "Solar Myth Approach Vol. 2" in 1972

he averaged (at least) two good albums a year for over a decade imo

haha just noticed that KM post

actually lots of jazz guys did this tbrr

Van der Graaf Generator – Still Life, World Record (both 1976)

Peter Hammill – The Silent Corner & the Empty Stage, In Camera (both 1974)

First two Led Zeppelin albums were both 1969 I think

Linval Thompson 1978: I Love Marijuana, Negrea Love Dub, Rocking Vibration, Love is the Question

and 1979: I Love Jah, Six Babylon, and Cool Down

Elton John 1973: Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player -> Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

CCR with the three-fer:
Bayou Country (1969)
Green River (1969)
Willy and the Poor Boys (1969)

Think I prefer when VDGG did this in 1970 to 1976 tbh - World Record lets that year down a bit imo. Mind you I'm not SO keen on H to He either, so...idk

I see your CCR and raise you:
Confusion (1975)
Expensive Shit (1975)
He Miss Road (1975)
Water No Get Enemy (1975)

Xps. Duh

Dillinger 1976: Bionic Dread, CB 200

for a couple of hazy weeks during the winter of 2011/2012 my answer might well have been The Weeknd’s House of Balloons/Thursday/Echoes of Silence trilogy.

King Tubby 1975: Shalom Dub, E-E Saw Dub, BRass Rockers, Dubbing with the Observer, Dub From the Roots, Presents the Roots of Dub

Scientist 1980: Big Showdown, The Best Dub Album in the World, Big Showdown, Heavyweight Dub Champion

Scientist 1981: Meets the Space Invaders, Scientific Dub, In the Kingdom of Dub, Rids the World of the Curse of the Vampires, World at War, Dub Landing Vol. 1

Scientist 1982: Encounters Pac Man, High Priest of Dub, Dub Landing Vol. 2, Heavy Metal Dub, the Seducer Dubwise, Wins the World Cup

Low / Heroes

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980)
Organisation (1980)

I can't imagine they were any good but didn't Kiss once release 4 albums on the same day (one for each band member)?

Leave Home / Rocket to Russia

Funkadelic 1970: self-titled, Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow

Parliament 1975: Chocolate City, The Mothership Connection

Husker Du - New Day Rising / Flip Your Wig (1985)

But duh, an obvious recent case is Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa’s Scorpion Kings/The Return of the Scorpion Kings one-two, both on my 2019 album ballot.

Not to mention there was also their Piano Hub last year, as well as Kabza’s solo Pretty Girls Love Amapiano mixtape.

- and just this week the pair dropped another excellent album.

Beat that, you Big Thieves people!

Low / Heroes

... and The Idiot / Lust for Life, all '77.

Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance / Dub Housing (1978)

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue/Porgy & Bess (1959)
Cheap Trick - Cheap Trick/In Color (1977)

Tons of punk bands did this. Albums I like:

Be-Bop Deluxe:
Sunburst Finish (2/76) / Modern Music (9/76)

The Stranglers:
Rattus Norvegicus (4/77) / No More Heroes (9/77)
The Gospel Of The Men In Black (2/81) / La Folie (11/81)

XTC:
White Music (1/78) / Go 2 (10/78)

The Jam:
In The City (5/77) / This Is The Modern World (11/77)

Joe Jackson:
Look Sharp! (1/79) / I'm The Man (10/79)

The Fall:
Live At The Witch Trials (3/79) / Dragnet (10/79)
Hex Enduction Hour (3/82) / Room To Live (9/82)
The Frenz Experiment (2/88) / I Am Kurious Orange (10/88)

YMO:
BGM (3/81) / Technodelic (11/81)

John Foxx and the Maths:
Interplay (3/2011) / The Shape Of Things (10/2011)

Moon Duo: Occult Architecture volumes 1 and 2 (2017)

starting to think this isn't that impressive

cmon dub is cheating

Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced? / Axis Bold As Love (1967)

Ferry/Roxy:

Stranded
These Foolish Things

and I'd argue DaBaby last year:

Baby on Baby
Kirk

Merle Haggard

1967: Swinging Doors (And the Bottle Let Me Down), I'm a Lonesome Fugitive, Branded Man
1968: The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde, Mama Tried, Singe Me Back Home
1969: Pride in What I Am, Okie from Muskogee, A Portrait of Merle Haggard
1971: Someday We'll Look Back, Hag, The Land of Many Churches

cmon dub is cheating

how so? This kind of output is dictated by economic/marketing opportunities, and dub as a scene at the time was just flush with opportunities. Scientist and Tubby were still cutting tracks and mixing product, I don't see why the actual mechanics of what got put on the albums should matter that much.

Bob Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home / Highway 61 Revisted (1965)

This isn't that rare.

Eno, "Discreet Music" & "Another Green World"

I seem to remember discussing whether HCTWJ & TTMBYS were released the same year, wiki says yes but I don't trust it.

The Byrds did it a few times

Captain Beefheart - The Spotlight Kid / Clear Spot (1972)

Captain Beefheart: Clear Spot / Spotlight Kid (1972), Bluejeans & Moonbeams / Unconditionally Guaranteed (1978)

lol xp

double don

how so?

I think it'd make more sense to credit the studio bands for this output then whoever produced/mixed/remixed it.

than

xxp quadruple Captain

manifold magic band

I think it'd make more sense to credit the studio bands for this output then whoever produced/mixed/remixed it.

fair enough, but in that case I think we're talking about literally dozens of albums of material from the Roots Radics, Aggrovators, Upsetters etc. as qualifying

Catch A Fire (1973)
Burnin' (1973)

- Bob Marley

I guess Ned must be offline right now because the two Sparks albums from 1974 haven't been mentioned yet

The Yes Album & Fragile both came out in 1971 so there's another good one

literally dozens of albums of material from the Roots Radics, Aggrovators, Upsetters etc. as qualifying

Yeah. I thought of them but it'd take hours to wade through and try to figure out the best albums they played on in any one year.

I'm curious how many good examples there are of this past, say, 1981. Feels like the record companies really pushed bands to crank out material in the 70s but that seemed to go out the window when certain LPs of the 80s sold in insane numbers. Nowadays a 3-4 year gap is pretty standard.

I'm on team Creedence here, that is all

Thinking something similar, frogbs. A winner for each decade would be good.

there was basically no reason for anybody to do this in the 70-minute CD/major label bloat late 90s-early 00s era. and then post-internet what constitutes an "album" becomes very questionable - people are streaming mixtapes, etc.

and in the 80s release schedules scaled back as budgets balooned, CDs came in etc.

Ghost - Snuffbox Immanence / Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet (1999)

not even going to look up the keiji haino or acid mothers temple discographies

there was basically no reason for anybody to do this in the 70-minute CD/major label bloat late 90s-early 00s era. and then post-internet what constitutes an "album" becomes very questionable - people are streaming mixtapes, etc.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, February 6, 2020 5:28 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

DMX tho!

the Rolling Stones did this a couple of years

1965: The Rolling Stones, Now!, Out of Our Heads, December's Children (and Everybody's)

1967: Between the Buttons, Their Satanic Majesties Request

nobody's mentioned the beatles in 1964, 1965, or 1967, so i will

it's probably not even fair to look at jazz guys ... Miles Davis, for example, released multiple albums each year 1953-1961

do you think any pair of them are the best pair released in a single year tho?

Tenuous, but if Dylan had released the "Royal Albert Hall" show in 1966, that and Blonde on Blonde would have been an amazing pair.

Prince - Sign O' The Times / The Black Album (1987)

xp of that run of years, my favorite would probably be 1957, when Miles had moved to Columbia but still had albums coming out on Prestige:

'Round About Midnight, Walkin', Miles Ahead, Cookin', Bags' Groove

I'm not crazy about the last one, but I play the others pretty often ... for a best pair I guess I'd choose 'Round About Midnight and Miles Ahead

The Black Album was not actually released in 1987! It was released in 1994.

xps

also DMX is terrible

yeah true about the black album, i was counting boots though!

Autechre: NTS Sessions 1 (5/4/19), NTS Sessions 2 (12/4/19), NTS Sessions 3 (19/4/19), NTS Sessions 4 (26/4/19),

Black Album was pressed and promoed in 1987, it's fair to count for thread purposes. Thread title only says "by."

in that case you could argue that almost all of Miles' 70s output was recorded in the same year in which case he wins this hands down imo

Someone said Drift in the other thread...

Tim Buckley - Happy Sad / Blue Afternoon (1969); Lorca / Starsailor (1970)

The Nolans - "Nolan Sisters", "Making Waves"

I read somewhere that the DMX thing was due to label pressure - Def Jam were being sold (from Polygram to Universal, as part of what would become the Island Def Jam Music Group) and needed another hit record to drive up their valuation, so they promised him a bonus if he'd deliver before the end of the calendar year.

obv E-40, who has more than a few examples. Revenue Retrievin': Day Shift and Revenue Retrievin': Night Shift from 2010 are all time

xpost ^ oh yeah - last year Underworld put out four "episodes" of their Drift series ranging from 38 mins to 85 mins, plus a box set collecting all of it (inc. a 30 minute episode from 2018) with another two hours of bonus tracks, plus the 70-minute Manchester Street Poem album.

in that case you could argue that almost all of Miles' 70s output was recorded in the same year in which case he wins this hands down imo

the two albums recorded in 1970 both came out in 1971 anyway so this doesn't especially gain anything! nobody's counting Lovesexy as 1987 because one song from The Black Album got used on it, and there's only five minutes from 1970 on Get Up With It

Motörhead released Overkill in March 1979, Bomber in October 1979, and On Parole (recorded in 1976) in December 1979.

Lol good call on E-40. Obv the volume of what he put out diminished the individual impact of each release, but dude was releasing three albums a year (on the same day) and they were usually all fire

Van Morrison: Moondance and His Band & Street Choir (1970)

Neil Young: Tonight's The Night and Zuma (1975)

it’s dark and flesh of my flesh are fucking awesome records

los campesinos! - hold on now, youngster & we are beautiful, we are doomed

I forgot the first two Damned albums came out in 1977 but only the first one is good.

Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars, not sure they're the best Beach House albums but the release of U.F.O.F. and Two Hands the same year reminded me of them

and I had the same response, I didn't want to engage too much with the second album, it felt like too much

Same

Ferry/Roxy:

Stranded
These Foolish Things

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

For Your Pleasure was the same year as well.

Scott Walker - Scott 3 & Scott 4 in 69

Al Green - Let's Stay Together & I'm Still In Love With You in 72

Scott Walker - Scott 3 & Scott 4 in 69

Was just going to post this and point out he put out another (not-so-good) album between the two.

Stevie Wonder - Music Of My Mind and Talking Book

Elton John - s/t and Tumbleweed Connection (he did this other times but this is the best one probably)

imo the beatles are not a good example of this bc usually one of their two LPs from a given calendar year is a lot better.

has there ever been a single year with three artists releasing three different all in the same year and where the albums have been so nice, other than 1969?

― Peaceful Warrior I Poser (Karl Malone), Monday, December 2, 2019 1:00 AM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

classic post

― TOO LOW, the Curator (imago)

listen i'm pretty sure i bumped the "wtf typos" thread right after that, there were ghosts in the keyboard that night

The Nolans - "Nolan Sisters", "Making Waves"

> Autechre: NTS Sessions 1 (5/4/19), NTS Sessions 2 (12/4/19), NTS Sessions 3 (19/4/19), NTS Sessions 4 (26/4/19),

and technically these were all double lps at 2 hours each

that doesn't make them not albums

Black Album was pressed and promoed in 1987, it's fair to count for thread purposes. Thread title only says "by."

But duh, an obvious recent case is Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa’s Scorpion Kings/The Return of the Scorpion Kings one-two, both on my 2019 album ballot.

Not to mention there was also their Piano Hub last year, as well as Kabza’s solo Pretty Girls Love Amapiano mixtape.

- and just this week the pair dropped another excellent album.

Beat that, you Big Thieves people!

― breastcrawl, 6. februar 2020 22:48 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This is wrong. Scorpion Kings is by DJ Maphorisa & Kabza De Small, whereas Return of the Scorpion Kings is by Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa

Obviously that is a joke, but it is slightly annoying they are not grouped together in my Apple Music library

You are absolutely right tho, Fred - I was this close to raising the same issue with the Singing Nolans: one album by was by “The Nolan Sisters”, the other by “The Nolans” for godsake.

What went wrong between you and the Scorpion Kings tho? Did you vote-split both albums outside your ballot? I had you down as one of my fellow voters.

A couple examples of artists releasing multiple great albums in one year:

Lucette Bourdin in 2009:
Silver Moon
Radiant Stars
Golden Sun
Under Currents

Uwe Schmidt/Atom Heart in 1994:
Orange [Monochrome Stills]
A.D.
Softcore
Morphogenetic Fields
Dots
Flextone
Halograms

Both of them actually released even more albums in those years, but the ones I listed are the best.

x-post: I just didn't really rate them as albums, I think. Overlong, a bit samey. Didn't vote for Sha Sha either, though it's hardly overlong. But did put Lorch at seven on my track ballot.

Or rather, I just listened to a lot of albums this year, and there's only 25 spots on an album ballot. Feel like I left off a lot of incredible jazz as well.

Coltrane 1961 - Africa/Brass, My Favorite Things

guys, how could we forget Use Your Illusion 2 and whatever the other one was called?

Neil Young - On the Beach, Tonight's the Night
and then Tonight's the Night, Zuma

and Comes a Time, Rust Never Sleeps

On the Beach and Tonights the Night were released 11 months apart, but in different years

oh, my bad. but i reckon Live Rust and Rust Never Sleeps fits the criteria.

xp to Fred: that’s fair, I guess. (I wouldn’t call the Sha Sha “samey” tho, if that’s what you were implying).

Oh no, that one really went places over a pretty short runtime :)

Frank Sinatra released 2 or more great albums every year from 1957 to 1962 except 1960. It would be hard to choose between

1957: Close to You; a Swinging' Affair!; Where are you?
1958: Come Fly with Me; Frank Sinatra sings for Only the Lonely

Peggy Lee was doing the same thing during the same period. My pick would be

1958: Jump for Joy; Things are Swingin'; Sea Shells

Gentle Giant - Three Friends & Octopus, both released in 1972

1973 Waylon Jennings- Lonesome On'ry & Mean/ Honky Tonk Heroes

Blondie - Plastic Letters and Parallel Lines in 1978

Just to raise the four album per year record of Fela Kuti 1975. Frank Zappa 1979:

- Sleep Dirt
- Sheik Yerbouti
- Orchestral Favourites
- Joe's Garage Act I
- Joe's Garage Acts II & III

Sault and Moses Sumney should be on here

I'm sure John Zorn has released 25 or so decent albums in a year at some point

A couple of those Zappa ones were recorded years earlier though and then held up by some sort of legal dispute? Notwithstanding the fact that it's Frank Zappa so none of the individual albums are that great.

was going to say '94 Pete Namlook/FAX crew etc, but of course Tuomas beat me to it with his Atom suggestion.

I think Gucci Mane is not really highly regarded on ILM (at least his recent output) but he did it a few times over the last few years imo (2019, 2017, 2016).

Sault, otm.

Sault - 5 + 7
Tom Waits - Blood Money + Alice

Kabza de Small’s tally so far this year (there were four last year, see upthread):

February: Scorpion Kings Live (with DJ Maphorisa) (note: it’s a studio album)

April: Pretty Girls Love Amapiano, Vol. 2

April: Once Upon a Time in Lockdown (with DJ Maphorisa)

June: I Am The King Of Amapiano: Sweet & Dust

These are long-ass albums, they are a lot to take in, people might even say (and have said, on this thread) they can get a bit samey, but it’s quality stuff and there’s plenty of gold* as well as new and exciting directions explored on all of them.

*including song-of-the-year-so-far “Emcimbini” on February’s offering

mount eerie - clear moon / ocean roar (2012)

Billy Childish has done this several times, in terms of actual numbers of albums it looks like he was busiest in 1987 with 7/8 actual albums not including live and comps, but not sure they were all actually good (they definitely weren't all actually good)

I do rate these though:

1984
Milkshakes - Nothing Can Stop These Men
Milkshakes - They Came, They Saw, They Conquered
Milkshakes - Thee Knights of Trashe

1986
Thee Mighty Caesars - Acropolis Now
The Delmonas - Delmonas 5

1990
Thee Headcoats - Beach Bums Must Die
Thee Headcoats - Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats (Already)

1994
Thee Headcoats - Conundrum
Thee Headcoatees - Ballad Of The Insolent Pup

1996
Thee Headcoats - In Tweed We Trust
Thee Headcoats - Knights of the Baskervilles

(warning - do not listen if you hate garage rock/punk)

A couple of those Zappa ones were recorded years earlier though and then held up by some sort of legal dispute? Notwithstanding the fact that it's Frank Zappa so none of the individual albums are that great.

as always with Zappa the sum total of good stuff on those albums is pretty impressive, especially since most of those are doubles

thinking we could call this the Kabzappa Phenomenon

Sault

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 7:25 AM

Sault, otm.

― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 7:48 AM

Sault - 5 + 7

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 8:23 AM

because it bears repeating.

hell, add the new one and that's three in just over a year.

was going to say '94 Pete Namlook/FAX crew etc, but of course Tuomas beat me to it with his Atom suggestion.

Let us not forget Elvis Costello's 1986: King of America / Blood and Chocolate

The Doors 1967: The Doors and Strange Days

Heldon, 1975: Allez Téia / It's Always Rock and Roll

(the latter is a double LP)

Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures and Conquistador! were both released in 1966, at least according to Wikipedia.

If you count each disc that makes up the Cecil Taylor In Berlin ‘88 box as an individual release — which is how they were most widely available, as the box sold out quickly — then it’s around seven or eight utterly classic records of his all released in 1989.

Damn how has this thread gone on for so long without any mention for Iggy Pop in 1977:

The Idiot
Lust for Life
Kill City EP

Low / Heroes

... and The Idiot / Lust for Life, all '77.

― (includes digression on farting) (Tom D.), Thursday, 6 February 2020 21:48 (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Amon Duul II, 1972: Carnival in Babylon and Wolf City
Alice Coltrane, 1971: Journey Into Satchidananda and Universal Consciousness

The Idiot would have been a 1976 release if not for Bowie holding it up

Yeah, I think Atom Heart's record of 7 great albums in 1994 (amongst the 10+ albums he made that year) is almost unbeatable, at least in electronic music.

Underworld from '93-'94 might have that topped in terms of sheer amount of great music - the 5 CD dubnobass reissue doesn't even cover everything

Xxpost: my bad I searched iggy pop with no results. Still, no mention of KILL CITY which is magnificent.

Underworld from '93-'94 might have that topped in terms of sheer amount of great music

For those not familiar, they only released one formal album in this time, but breaking down the output of the new lineup of the band in their early years:

warming up in 1992: a neat CDs-worth of 12"s (79 minutes), if you leave out one track they put on the album the next year.
- PLUS 2 CDs worth of remixes for other artists (1 hr 45)

1993: a tidy 48-minute LPsworth of four songs, on 2 12"s. (Two remixes of one of 'em could take up 13 minutes on a CD reissue.)
- PLUS 3 CDs worth of remixes for other artists, nearly all over ten minutes each (3 hr 10) {one of these is from 1994 but let's compile them together}

1994, barely: a real actual 72-minute CD-length double album, released three weeks into the year
and 2 CDs worth (2 hr 20) of B-sides - up to 20 minutes long - and a couple of self-remixes, almost all probably also recorded in 1993

- the 5 CD dubnobass reissue doesn't even cover everything

Across this and a couple of other archival projects c. 2014, they also released over two and a half hours (3 CDs worth) of demos recorded 1991-93.

Well, if non-album tracks, tracks made for other people and even unreleased tracks count, then surely Prince outranks most people in this thread? The 1999 box set alone has 4 CDs worth of B-sides and unreleased songs from the same era the album was made, and it doesn't even include stuff he wrote, produced and mostly played the instruments for that was released by other acts, such as The Time and Vanity 6,

Underworld doesn't actually count, I was just annotating, but albums Prince made under other names totally does imo

I think for me the current champion is Sault with '5' and '7' during 2019 (+ 'Untitled' within 13 total months).

(Reading after posting--very happy to see others had the same thought re: Sault.)

holy shit, the two towering pinnacles of my Magnetic Fields binge (The Charm Of The Highway Strip and Holiday) came out within 6 months of each other in 1994!

The close release dates of the two albums meant that some magazines reviewed the albums together, which annoyed Merritt.[7] It has also been speculated that this would have meant consumers would buy one of the two albums, but not both.[7]

oh, foolish consumers if so! but also, lol

imagining an ILM 1994 EOY poll where I get very worked up about them getting votesplit even as Illmatic and Dummy are knocked into surprise 2nd and 3rd place finishes by...Low

Prince in 1982 - 1999/ What Time Is It?/Vanity 6

I know the post specifies "calendar year" but if we just include any 12-month stretch, June 1970 - June 1971 was very good for Tim Hart and Maddy Prior; Hark! The Village Wait and Please to See the King (with Steeleye Span) and Summer Solstice (as a duo)

Also MF DOOM dropping Madvilliany and MM... FOOD in 2004

iirc Holiday was recorded first but some label issue meant it got delayed until after Charm of the Highway Strip (which was their first on Merge)

Help! and Rubber Soul (1965)

Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

The Clash released 5 LPs from December 1979 to December 1980.

The Monkees: More of The Monkees; Headquarters; and Pieces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. (All in 1967)

hard to beat Haruomi Hosono doing Paraiso and Cochin Moon in the same year, plus a third of Pacific AND forming YMO and writing a bunch of the first album