Major 'informal' albums

So in my head there's a sort of type of album throughout time where it's a major rock artist doing a major (i.e. with typical levels of promotion) album that feels all very informal, maybe quite jammy and open-ended, usually quite eclectic as their fancy takes them towards playing with other genres for the uncommitted sake of it. Generally there's a low stakes feel throughout even if it means these sort of records end up being quite divisive.

The sort of albums I mean:

Wings - Wild Life
The Rolling Stones - Black and Blue
Van Halen - Diver Down

In my head something like McCartney I, II & III don't quite fit - given that they're proper solo records, i.e. a conscious diversion which is played up in the marketing. Whereas Wild Life is a band record but it still has that proto-Bandcamp feel anyway. A true Wild Life/Black & Blue/Diver Down has to retain that informal whatever goes feel - keeping the 'fully formed' songs at a relative minimum - while still not being regarded as/with any sort of novelty.

Any other glaring examples... maybe The King of Limbs? Numerous Neil Youngs? Or is this all rather meaningless?

U2's Zooropa comes immediately to mind.

Agree with Zooropa, even though imo it feels like there was the public angle of arty/experimentation which gives it the feel of a Major Statement - even though U2 regard it as an interlude.

I want to say Love And Rockets' Hot Trip To Heaven and The Cars' Panorama also, but I don't think they strictly fit the original question as neither are loose, jammy, and open-ended despite being eclectic left-turns.

"Aging rock act on new album: This time we wanted to go back to the basics - us informally messing around in other genres."

I'd say Hot Trip to Heaven is pretty loose/open-ended, but I guess in my mind it doesn't fit because it's such a conscious 180 departure* from their earlier work. Quite high stakes (esp as it comes after the s/t).

*although I guess it isn't worlds away from The Purest Blue or I Feel Speed

Seeger Sessions

"Aging rock act on new album: This time we wanted to go back to the basics - us informally messing around in other genres."

Indeed.

For me I think another distinction is that it can't be a side-project/tribute/covers album either. It has to be a 'regular' release from the outside. But maybe the reason I can't settle on too many examples is because there aren't too many.

I've Got My Own Major 'Informal' Album To Do

I feel like this takes a very specific kind of artist at a very specific moment in their careers. Because on the one hand if you're already kind of a shaggy loose rock band known for knocking out a bag of 10-12 miscellaneous tunes per record, no one would notice the difference here. I feel like the Guess Who, for example, might have made 3-4 albums that wouldn't qualify narratively, even though what's on the record might fit the bill.

The other things I thought of first all seem wrong somehow, and maybe help shade in some of the edges of the phenomenon:

* Billy Joel's An Innocent Man is in some sense a digression into various genre exercises, that seems to have been recorded much more quickly/casually than its predecessors. But it's also impeccably recorded, carefully crafted, and not very loose/jammy... And it became one of his biggest records ever, which kinda makes it feel even less casual.

* Whereas, say, Beck's Mutations was marketed and received as a "side" album that could be easily ignored, so it feels a little closer to the mark. But all its minor, eclectic songs are also pristinely produced by Nigel Godrich, and when put alongside his previous albums, the whole thing seems downright stately.

* The White Album has the eclectic feel, big box full of odd digressions, but with the presentation, the band's stature, and the evident care and time put into the varied songs and sounds, it can't help but feel like a Major Statement. (I do wonder if its reception would be different if the jacket was some big brown confusing collage of a bunch of photos of them jamming and hanging out etc.)

Then there's Dylan, who either has no such album, or at least three of them and maybe six or seven.

"Zooropa" is a good choice.

Springsteen's "Ghost of Tom Joad"?

Does “Hearts and Bones” qualify?

I feel like this takes a very specific kind of artist at a very specific moment in their careers. Because on the one hand if you're already kind of a shaggy loose rock band known for knocking out a bag of 10-12 miscellaneous tunes per record, no one would notice the difference here

Yeah this feels important, and also that really this sort of album seems to belong to established acts who if not necessarily at the most important point in their careers are also not far from them either - and in fact these releases may occur in a slight lull during an otherwise sustained commercial peak. At the very least they're still a big deal (so Radiohead in 2011).

So the Stones imo had only already let their side down in the way I'm thinking on one album - Satanic Majesties - but that still feels more like a Major Statement/higher stakes than Black and Blue which is the auditioning a guitarist/jamming with Billy Preston/an album because it's time for an album release. Majesties had protracted recording sessions and a strong sense of its place in 1967 whereas B&B is more contented - bit of reggae because they can, bit of funk because they can, a bluesy jazz jam because they can, as though these tracks were more about flexing themselves so they can incorporate what they've learned more fluidly/less straightforwardly in later work. Memory Motel and Fool to Cry are the necessary outliers, and I guess Hand of Fate.

Good call on Beck's 90s discography making Mutations come across as an almost inverted version of the type.

Dylan has so many albums it's hard to decide which ones suit the idea best. Same with Neil Young but I was thinking maybe Hawks & Doves?

Heart and Bones sounds about right to me. Not sure about Tom Joad - which perhaps feels a little less casual imo or maybe it's just that the acoustic/Major Statement (henceforth abbreviated by me as MS) slant was quite central to its promotion? I'm unsure. Does Lucky Town as the less ceremonious of two simultaneous 92 releases make it his closest contender or does it being notionally part of a double album disqualify it?

R.E.M.'s should be Up but the exit of Bill gets in the way, in a way that the exit of Mick Taylor doesn't.

Not rock and probably doesn't fit your criteria but I'll throw out Human After All as a suggestion: their other albums sound very meticulously crafted while HAA sounds very off-the-cuff and unpolished

Is it only the context of the Stones' career that makes Black and Blue appear more informal than December's Children, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll or Emotional Rescue?

David Bowie consciously conceived Tonight as this kind of record, although maybe its current reputation is too much of a disaster for the informality to be recognized?

Interesting choice! I said rock acts as I guess, for instance, major electronic acts like Daft Punk blur the lines a bit, in that - say - some of the albums I've named seem to be rock acts concurrently scaling back on some of their over-arching components, such as full lyrics (Bip Bop, Hot Stuff), typical genres, full sets of original material etc. In the case of B&B and TKOL rhythm is particularly prioritised over melody a lot of the time, so it's maybe a bit harder loosely coming up with something roughly equivalent (or maybe I just haven't given it enough thought). Human After All sort of fits because as you say it was quickly recorded and seemingly not over laboured over too much. Although I think its really anxious feel probably plays against that.

Are we also trying to think of records that don't have a reputation as dramatic stylistic turns, like Led Zeppelin III?

Is it only the context of the Stones' career that makes Black and Blue appear more informal than December's Children, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll or Emotional Rescue?

To an extent although to me it just feels less *ahem* album-ish than the others (even DC). Like they recorded some stuff, thought it sounded good, and packaged it up. Whereas IORNR and ER feel a bit more typical.

David Bowie consciously conceived Tonight as this kind of record, although maybe its current reputation is too much of a disaster for the informality to be recognized?

I'd say Tonight is exactly the sort of album I mean

Pink Floyd’s Ummaguma

At least the studio album was conceived as them detouring and taking every idea out of their system before moving on.

Are we also trying to think of records that don't have a reputation as dramatic stylistic turns, like Led Zeppelin III?

Yeah I think so, they have to do it with less to lose. Esp as III came quite early in their career and the reaction to its stylistic change was so pronounced it annoyed Page who partly mystified the IV presentation in response. In Through the Out Door might be their best contender imo.

Popmatters did a good piece on artists taking stylistic detours. Not sure how many apply to the specific question:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/series/445/

3 Springsteen albums mentioned and none of them are Nebraska?

David Bowie's Toy was intended this way--new versions of old songs recorded quickly with the current touring band.

Mmm link is dead here’s a list transcript on rym

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/funks/popmatters_presents_detours__the_strangest_albums_from_the_biggest_artists/

Finding one for Paul Simon is difficult, because he's known for stylistic detours, so which ones are "informal" and which are "serious"? Certainly his 1972 solo album is a lot looser and more relaxed than the Simon and Garfunkel records, but that impression might be overwhelmed by the fact that he was Going Solo.

Nebraska was Bruce’s first solo though

Floyd I'm not to sure about because all their earlier albums are, how shall we say, exploratory. Maybe their least psych/prog works fit the criteria best if only because what was/is seemingly least expected of them - in which case, yeah Ummagumma with its solo avant noodling (although I guess it being a double complicates matters), and almost half of both Atom Heart Mother and Meddle being folky and a bit novelty. Plus A Saurceful of Secrets is a mess and inevitably so what with the whole line-up change being captured as it happened (that's Black and Blue again).

Nebraska is the sort of album I'm avoiding - it's more McCartney than Wild Life.

Hearts and Bones is an interesting pick to me, since it's also a "somewhat disjointed remnants of a major project which then collapsed" kind of album, a la Smiley Smile. It began as an attempted Simon and Garfunkel reunion album (after the success of the Concert in the Park) which quickly broke down; Art was then purged from the tapes. The S&G version obviously would have been a huge deal, and the album still has a number of songs which are clearly very seriously worked-out major-statement pieces. But it's also eclectic to the point of feeling miscellaneous so I can understand it being placed in this category!

I suspect a lot of borderline cases would appear where the artist has like, half the material for a "statement" album, and then rounds it out with some other stuff that doesn't necessarily fit together, even if it's all good and enjoyable, fun to play, fun to stretch out in stylistically. Elton John's Don't Shoot Me, Caribou and Rock of the Westies all kinda fit here, to varying degrees.

Simon's best fit really might be There Goes Rhymin' Simon.

Now you come to mention it, the Beach Boys.

For Pink Floyd maybe Obscured by Clouds then?

With Meddle it’s evident they had already found their foot for what comes next and Obscured by Clouds feels a bit mor, like them on autopilot and doesn’t feel like it connects to Meddle or DSOTM

It being a soundtrack commission makes it easier for them to treat is as a nothing-to-lose kind of thing

Dylan has so many albums it's hard to decide which ones suit the idea best. Same with Neil Young but I was thinking maybe Hawks & Doves?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody%27s_Rockin%27#/media/File:Everybodysrockin.jpg

... "Everybody's Rockin'"

I realised I ruled in basically every Floyd album I could then, as soundtracks being soundtracks have that as a gimmick so they aren't major/regular releases.

I think A Saucerful of Secrets is the closest thing in spirit except for the fact they'd only been releasing music for a year by then. So maybe Atom Heart Mother - half major piece, half solo-oriented tracks which aren't so major.

Everybody's Rockin' has a novelty which is obvious right from the sleeve, it doesn't feel like its meant to be a 'regular' Neil album, such as they are. I think a big thing for me is it these albums look 'regular' from the outside and have typical promotion. The fact the albums are quite strange and a bit stuck together with sellotape has to be a bit incidental to how they are promoted imo.

lil wayne's rock album

or if that one doesn’t work, you can prob insert the entire history of rap mixtapes here

Not just for rap. Charli XCX's "Pop 2" was a "mixtape". (So was "Number 1 Angel" and while quality it's not as major)

Yeah maybe the 'feel' of a mixtape is quite central to what I'm going for here (although certainly not the promotion of mixtapes, which are by design not MSs, at least when done by big acts). And these albums don't have 'concepts' as such - the essential casual nature that makes them unique doesn't mean sustaining one singular theme (like one genre or one style of song) over a whole record, since that wouldn't be so casual.

Wilco Star Wars
Bonnie “Prince” Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music
Autechre Quaristice
Big Star Sister Lovers
Lennon / Ono Sometime in NYC
Sonic Youth Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star

Wasn't Springsteen's "Lucky Town" the informal cousin to "Human Touch"?

Wasn't Springsteen's "Lucky Town" the informal cousin to "Human Touch"?

It was, which is why it is probably disqualified (also tbh probably that it wouldn't fit anyway. I've not heard it in about 10 years but it probably isn't that deceptively strange a release really).

On the surface I don't see why Experimental Jet Set would suit any better than almost any other SY album - if anything it's probably one of their most straightforward albums - and yet I sort of feel it works in its way? Maybe it's because it's the relatively overlooked record from their 90s sequence?

I like Somewhere in NYC as analogous to Wild Life but imo its too much a MS - it's a double after all, has a lot of John's most MJ solo songs as well (no matter how terrible).

most MS* songs that should be lol

The Unplugged albums, but only for artists where it didn't seem "important" on the grounds of adding to their fanbase or seeming to shed new light on their talent/seriousness. Like, Clapton's and Nirvana's are part of their canon, but McCartney's is not, I don't think.

Or maybe the whole Unplugged format, by trying to bottle and reproduce what this thread is getting at, fails the test - formalized informality.

Ciccone Youth - The Whitey Album

Spent a while trying to think how Dylan comes closest. I mean it would be Self Portrait if it wasn't so long. Maybe it still is? It's a lot harder with singer-songwriter types I think. Maybe they can't quite loosen up in the way the category asks for.

Infidels has some sort of off the cuff quasi-maybe-reggae stuff and quite wonderfully for no real reason at all other than, as I understand it, him wanting to work with Sly & Robbie. But it probably falls down lyrically - people who know Dylan better will have to say whether many of the songs mark a noticeably low-pressure Dylan but I'm assuming not. I mean Jokerman is one of those reggae-ish songs and it isn't a Love Is Strange/Cherry Oh Baby/Don't Look Down.

The Police keep coming close but given their short existence probably not. Zenyatta Mondatta has a few fleshed out songs and then a lot of jams, quasi-instrumentals and what not, but maybe comes too early in their discography. Synchronicity is half commercial singles and half whatever-whichever experimenting and noodling, but it became their biggest album (really the latter is more like Combat Rock in that way, I think).

Soda Stereo’s Unplugged might just be their most definitive album

drake's more life was a "playlist", if you're reading this it's too late was a "mixtape," dark lane demo tapes were, uh, "demo tapes." his categorizations feel more like managing expectations for commercial performance than anything.

R.E.M.'s should be Up

Not NAIHF? Songs recorded in sound checks, playing around with electronics, etc.?

Miles Davis's Get Up With It: released while he was still active (before his 1975 hiatus) but culled from a bunch of disparate sessions between 1970 and 1974, with a different band on pretty much every track, and including some things that really did feel like scraps ("Rated X", "Red China Blues").

Not NAIHF? Songs recorded in sound checks, playing around with electronics, etc.?

True - the sound check thing can't be ignored (I think Up suits the electronics angle better though). But I feel that although it could be one, its more of a MS in practice - coming on the back of the $80mil contract (not that it started until Up though iirc), on the back of their first major tour since they became household names, the US 'failure' of it becoming a WSJ piece etc. I like the idea of it being a discrete 'informal' album in a MS's body.

With R.E.M. there's arguably a case that Green and Out of Time fit as well. Green because being all scattershot and doing a few straight up pop songs, a few mandolin songs, a few Documentish rockers - all mostly without real precedent in their discography - was their aim. Out of Time because they go even further with that - the funk/rap song, the (again) straight up pop song, the quasi-instrumental, the poetry track, drafting in a few friends whose names begin with K... definitely feels a lot more open-ended than Automatic or Monster (or Hi-Fi) - a strange record to become huge on.

To me, Up sounds like a band straining to prove they Can Still Be Creative.... NAIF feels like a band that doesn't give a Fuuuuuu

Also, Green and OOT are extremely deliberate albums… surely there has to be more to this than just a little playing around with a few new genres, otherwise you would’ve cited Some Girls instead of Black and Blue, no(?)

Good thread. This made me think of a passage from the Neil Young biography Shakey where the author recalls going to a record store in 1975 and seeing the just-released Zuma in the bins and thinking it was a bootleg because of the dashed-off looking artwork. But beyond the packaging I think Zuma also meets the criteria of "maybe quite jammy and open-ended, usually quite eclectic as their fancy takes them towards playing with other genres for the uncommitted sake of it". Not that it's full of genre "experiments" (it's musical ground he had covered before), but it's eclectic in the sense of having epic jams and countryish garage rockers alongside gentle folk tracks in the same mixed bag.

Also, Green and OOT are extremely deliberate albums… surely there has to be more to this than just a little playing around with a few new genres, otherwise you would’ve cited Some Girls instead of Black and Blue, no(?)

Well those are only arguable cases - although I think the particular playfulness of OOT in particular (I don't think it sounds particularly 'rehearsed', esp given the amorphousness of several tracks) moves it reasonably close. I'm convinced the only wholly genuine examples I can think of so far are the four at the top of the thread and Tonight. Everything else has at least something that stops it from being one completely. But it's definitely a nebulous concept - which suits a nebulous sort of album.

I really like the ad hoc-ish feel of Zuma and I'm not even a fan of his 70s work really. A friend points to the drums in Lookin' for a Love for being the precise harbinger of a certain 90s US indie drumming. The right sort of competence.

Guns N Roses - The Spaghetti Incident?

gorillaz have possibly released 2 'informal' albums : the fall, and, the now now.
damon recorded both albums on his ipad/laptop while on tour.

also, wah wah by james ?
seem to recall that this was regarded as bit of a one-off with it being put together from studio jams with eno etc.

The Spaghetti Incident? isn’t very major (and also westbury said it can’t be a covers album)

Wah Wah (great album) was a limited edition and the two Gorillaz ones were intentionally minor releases in the shadow of PB and Humanz (TNN was also a departure in that it was a Damon solo album in spirit).

weirdly i prefer the fall/the now now, to the full phat gorillaz albums.
the lack of excess guest list chaos helped make them more enjoyable for me.
so, are they regarded as 'informal releases or not ?

Stage Fright by The Band seems very informal/loose compared to their first 2 LPs.

The Who By Numbers, though there aren’t exactly a bunch of stylistic detours on it. But it was the first time they’d just thrown together a batch of songs and quickly recorded them since 1966, and it followed four MAJOR and HEAVY concept albums (two of them doubles).

so, are they regarded as ‘informal releases or not ?

They’re definitely informal releases, but not what I’m dubbing (because lack of imagination) major informal releases. I’m after that middle ground between works like those (and soundtracks, covers albums, side-projects etc) and MSs. An area of major albums that still have that informal feel - which plays out in their looseness and less formed nature etc

Who by Numbers! I see that
And Stage Fright although I haven’t heard it

Stage Fright by The Band seems very informal/loose compared to their first 2 LPs.

3 of the band being on smack probably contributed to that.

They’re definitely informal releases, but not what I’m dubbing (because lack of imagination) major informal releases. I’m after that middle ground between works like those (and soundtracks, covers albums, side-projects etc) and MSs. An area of major albums that still have that informal feel - which plays out in their looseness and less formed nature etc

you're a tough taskmaster to say the least.

It’s why I can only think of a few genuine ones!

Then there's Dylan, who either has no such album, or at least three of them and maybe six or seven.

― Doctor Casino, Sunday, July 17, 2022 5:08 AM

soon as i saw this thread title i said out loud, "what? like new morning?"

Planet Waves may qualify, depending on whether you consider it major or not (it happens to be my favorite Dylan album)

Kate Bush, "50 Words for Snow".

"Aerial" was a huge event and rightly so but what next ...? Would she step away from the music business for another 12 years? And then a few years later she released a concept album about snow which was ... not what I was expecting?

I feel like if Westerberg wasn’t using an alias that Mono would be a good one.

untitled/unmastered

Maybe:

Carl and the Passions & Friends
Time Fades Away
Kojak Variety / All this useless beauty
Buhloone Mindstate
The Menace
Hindu Love Gods
Psb’s Release
Chaos and Disorder
More Fish

This is hard to define - I sort of think of them as albums that feel tossed off (even if they aren’t) and eclectic and deliberately “not major statements”. Then occasionally you get a record like Buhloone that’s one of their best things ever (imo)

Kojak Variety / All this useless beauty

Just about every Elvis Costello album post-Spike could fall into this category, honestly. The dude just shits out songs, and when he's got a dozen or so, bam! Album.

Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, 20/20, Love You

Presence
Tormato

i was with westbury on In Through The Out Door as Zep's (if they have one). but i guess there's no real reason artists can't have more than one of these? the only real limit is if they have too many of these for them to actually feel like exceptions to an otherwise more 'formal' series.

gbv 'do the collapse' (in reverse!)

Second the mention of the white album.
Every VU, to some extent (deliberately pushing out the walls of sensitive art pop perfection w "European Son," for openers, also the lurid Lou Reedisms, incl. laugh in "Heroin")(and the walls of sensitive art pop imperfection w the doo-wop-self-parody of "I Found A Reason," for closers (and the posthumous comps, VU and Another View, are also very much in this vein).
The Basement Tapes, incl. legit 2-LP, thinking esp. of "The Clothes Line Saga," "Get Your Rocks Off," "Apple Suckling Tree," "Odds and Ends," "Yazoo Street Scandal," plus the slippin' and slidin' of much of not all of the writin'--xgau:

..."serious" songs like "Tears of Rage" are all the richer for the company of his greatest novelties..."Going to Acapulco" is a dirge about having fun, "Don't Ya Tell Henry" is a ditty about separation from self...

Spoon - Transference

But if we are gonna hit it sideways a little more: The Great Lost Kinks Album, starting with its title, which incl. campy humor and seems to be snipped from clip art or a sales meeting proposal, and proceeds with items of varying value and interest, found on b-sides, soundtracks, in the can, the wastebasket, jewelry box, between sofa cushions: all kinda Kinks indeed, and I've always been happy to own it (never as a legit whole on any format other than LP, though that is still on the 'Tube, last I checked).

Presence isn't an "informal" album, it's a "half of us have suffered major life tragedies, can we even still do this shit?" album.

otm

The Cure - The Top

superchunk - what a time to be alive

whoever said buhloone mindstate is my friend whether they like it or not.

also the top? idk about that one . . .

I also second Ummagumma, though I haven't listened since I stopped tripping---but really all the Syd-era releases I've heard, Piper and Relics and some boots and his solo albums too, would fit this loose joints framework---post-Syd, they get all linear and w plenty gravity, no matter how festooned w buzzy gimmicky (however Serious) detail: I mean still worth hearing at least, for the most part, but not as much fun (exception: Wish You Were Here, which is also kind of poignant at tymes/about Syd).

linear conceptual albums are inherently this, once you get the concept, at least---or even if you don't, like I didn't re: Tommy for quite a while, but always seemed a little too stiff & normie, less than the sum of its parts. Did always enjoy The Who Sell Out, but that was so light on its feet, w/o seeming lite, and "concept"/running gag--they were no more or less commercial than evah--was a point of departure, lift-off anyway.

Also enjoyed the grab bag, from art pop w french horn of "Circles" to James Brown's "I Don't Mind" to rambunctious rave-up "The Ox," of The Who Sings My Generation (US edition)

Some more to throw out there: Zevon's Transverse City, Iggy's Zombie Birdhouse, OMD's Dazzle Ships

If True Stories was a David Byrne solo album, it probably wouldn't qualify for this list, but as a Talking Heads then probably yes.

Ciccone Youth - The Whitey Album

I disagree on the grounds that is not a major album, more of a side project.

The better SY example would be Experimental Jet Set. Opens with an acoustic number (?!) followed by their loosest, sparsest arrangements to date. A big shift from Dirty and def the sound of a band just trying out new ideas in an informal way.

agree with op that there just aren't too many of these

white album was 'informal' in the sense that they eschewed quality control and just threw everything at a wall, but also that was a calculated choice and nothing the beatles did in 1968 could really be 'informal'

ummagumma was 'informal' in that it *sucks* and no one had yet found their footing post-syd but they put it out anyway (tbf the live part rules)

basement tapes were just fucking around, right? not actually meant to be released except for dylan nuts

my first thought when i see the thread title is tom petty's wildflowers but i'm not sure if that's fully in keeping with the premise or not

Thought of Wildflowers as relaxed and playing in the same room. Counts as informal to me.

Liz Phair's self-titled album feels both like swinging for mainstream success and with songs that works individually more than as part of a cycle.

How about Something/Anything by Todd Rundgren

maybe this is me, but I kinda thought the Stones’ Exile was the default informal album.

Some interesting suggestions have come up, however I think I'm going to clarify why I think these are 'true' examples of what I mean

Wild Life - McCartney reverting to sloppy bit-of-this-and-that after the consciously album-y Ram, but this time without the novelty/marketing angle of it all being solo. It's at least him with another band noodling and tentatively trying the odd experiment - Mumbo a largely instrumental jam, Bip Bop likewise with again a minimal/novelty lyric, Love Is Strange a cover version and wholly reggae-fied just because they can, I Am a Singer a barely-formed pop song. The other four songs are, in this way, the 'real deal', more of what to expect on Wings' "proper" albums now that's he and they have gotten this clattery little testing-the-waters record out of their system (not that the ensuing albums don't have their strange, really innocuous numbers, just not half an album's worth).

Black and Blue - the template is quite similar to Wild Life, really. A couple of funk jams that aren't really fleshed into songs, another full on reggae cover just to stretch their muscles, a six-minute bluesy/vocal jazz jam highly indebted to Billy Preston, even Crazy Mama feels a bit cobbled together. This leaves only a few "proper" songs, two of which are still genre excursions into soul. Typically a Stones album esp after 1972 will have all sorts of genre dabbling but generally they'll keep the more outré or least Stonesy stuff on a leash, but B&B feels far less sequenced and thought over and more jammy - a release to keep them in the public eye while they change personnel. I can't imagine they'd have thought anyone would see this as being up there with their Imperial Phase stuff (although me being wonky I prefer it to any of those).

Diver Down - The project began with a quickie Dancing in the Streets cover to keep them in public while they went on a break, then Warner Bros encouraged them into a making a whole album similarly on the quick. So they do - half (or actually less than half) fairly typical Van Halen stuff and half EVH solo things, adventurous intros, novelties, covers. Where previous albums would keep these to a minimum (Spanish Fly, Sunny Afternoon in the Park/One Foot), DD has EVH doing three short experimental instrumentals, the group pulling together for joke dixieland and doo-wop tracks, covers of rock/R&B standards (including one which is super synthy, the aforesaid DITS). Even Secrets being slightly jazz-rock is a bit of a departure. Only Hang Em High, Little Guitars and The Full Bug are straight up Van Halen originals as one might expect of them. But no one really thinks of it as a "side" album as such because it isn't presented as one. No one skips from Fair Warning to 1984.

The King of Limbs - a Radiohead album that doesn't have that MS atmosphere. Has more of the feel of a well-loved band that has been around more than a while feeling the freedom to push a short album of tracks which are half, again, exploratory rhythmic jams - feeling themselves through whatever is taking their fancy at the time i.e. forró and future garage/dubstep - and then a few more "formal" slowies to close out - and know that'll do for now. Unlike every other album they've done, even Amnesiac, it really pushes that open feel, and it resists being looked into too much imo.

Tonight - even though Let's Dance was a pretty hands-off album for Bowie at any rate, he was still really trying for the hits there. With Tonight he is more concerned with just messing about because he's in a good place - balancing the two or three 'serious' new songs with numerous covers, more stuff to improve Iggy's bank statements, genre dabbles which feel very unaligned (the two reggae songs for instance - they feel like the choice to do them as reggae probably came about quite late) - while still knowing he can bank a hit or two from it.

Crucially, they all got away with these albums, no matter how divisive they are and how they now mostly only interest fans of the acts, and they all sell reasonably well. There wasn't really much to lose - not even McCartney at the start of Wings, who treated their early run of singles in a similar way before resting his (as I called it) Bandcamp-y attitude to discography (which comes from the end of the Beatles I think, i.e. Ballad of John and Yoko) for quite a number of years. None of these albums are Major Statements - none have 'concepts', none are double albums, none feel particularly "serious" relative to what everyone knew these artists are capable of, none sustain one genre/song idea/theme from start to end. But at the same time none are consciously minor albums either - in the sense of being soundtracks, side-projects, cover albums, tribute albums, compilations of outtakes, full-on start-to-end excursions into one genre, or albums with any particular gimmick that sets them apart. And they have the full marketing works, more or less - and as such, said marketing doesn't really play up their seeming extempore-ness.

Because of that I would rule out albums which although still feeling 'informal' to a degree are still Major Statements because of their concepts, or lengths, or when they arrived in a career - a Dazzle Ships or Something/Anything?, say. As an example of an album I think comes close but still has a point against it - something like Zooropa nails the slightly formless, spontaneous feel but the marketing/discussion around it played up its role at the apparent cutting edge of pop (Zoo TV Tour being a biiig MS after all). The sort of albums I'm after experiment - wilfully, playfully - but without it ever seeming too ardent or devout.

The Beach Boys I was thinking at the start but maybe they just have too many of these sorts of albums - anything between 1967-69 and 77-whenever? - that it would be easy to rule certain ones out because, say, Wild Honey is the "R&B" one or Love You is the "synth" one etc. etc. I'm quite taken by Friends and 20/20 fitting best I think.

Chaos and Disorder probably fits about as well as a Prince album could. Too many releases that man.

I Am Your* Singer

and Dancing in the Street* (forgive me its 5am)

i think of diver down as spare parts(, bud) -- from which DLR would be the natural winner -- to feed warners

and yes i might actually skip from fair warning to 1984

and yes i might actually skip from fair warning to 1984

That's fair! Although I think that's more a question of taste. I've never seen it taken as less of a major release just as it 'had' to be released (I think visibly keeping time is central to all those albums).

Ofc McCartneys I II & III are part of his core discography as well but I've disqualified those because the one-man-band angle is so strong. Their informality is accentuated from the off.

I don’t know if the Fall belong here, but I think Totale's Turns is a “casual” album that is among their best / most “major” (even if it doesn’t fit all the rigorous criteria of this thread).

Diver Down is pretty important to the VH narrative: seen as a return to their party hearty roots, it outsold the prior two VH LPs, and those singles crossed them over to Pop audiences in a bigger way than before, thusly setting the stage for 1984 and the Pop-friendly Hagar years.

basement tapes were just fucking around, right? not actually meant to be released except for dylan nuts

of course some dylan nuts were not happy with that version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Basement_Tapes#Criticism_of_1975_album

This may seem counterintuitive, but Madonna's Music

Pixies
The Stranglers
Tropical Fuck Storm
The Raincoats
Roxy Music / Brian Eno
some Sonic Youth

All give me informal vibes, even if the freedom in Eno's albums for example must be super calculated

Not a major album but I've just put on Return Visit to Rock Mass (by Japanese band Maher Shalal Hash Baz), which at 81 short tracks of delightful, ambling, mostly improvised music, must be one of the most informal albums I know.

The great charm of the Replacements Hootenanny and Let it Be is that they are infused with a low-stakes lets-just-throw-in-some-goofs that make the crafted songs stronger and make the personality of the band so much more vivid. All the subsequent albums have higher stakes.

Nick Cave method is it be highly worked/revised/contrived, which really goes towards explaining why he doesn't work for a lot of listeners. I recall that Nocuturama was an attempt to just spit out an album like an outlaw country artist in the 70s, not labor too much over it. And it doesn't work, save for "Babe I'm on Fire", which may be why he went back to writing in an office every day.

Lots of 70s/80s Nashville records are informal like this right?

Booming post, bendy!

Although I suppose if you were listening to the Replacements' albums in chronological order (or at the time they each came out), the "serious songs" rather then the throwaways might have seemed like the outliers.

I'm interested by Nocturama potentially being one! I haven't heard it in yonks so idk if I agree but it being the only album he's basically over done w/Bad Seeds that isn't at least pretty well-loved is what makes me think about it more than, idk, The Good Son or something.

As mentioned with Black and Blue, this phenomenon is tightly tied with the tour/album/PR cycle, isn't it? I'd say it hard for an artist Brian Eno or Kate Bush to fall into this, and much easier if it's four guys in a room with a tour being booked or a songwriter breaking in a reconstituted backing band.

Also, is this the opposite of a New Jersey? We've reached altitude, let's stay in a holding pattern.

Re-reading the original question, I would argue that the Who's It's Hard qualifies.

Major -- it got the most promotion of any Who record up to that point, though it was tied to their "Farewell" tour

Informal -- took them two weeks to record, and apparently not much longer than that to write

Quite jammy and open-ended -- arguably yes, with "Eminence Front" and "Cry If You Want" having longer-than-usual solo sections, and the album overall having a much more casual feel

Playing with other genres -- some neo-funk with "Eminence Front" and "Cooks County."

Low stakes -- they didn't have much to prove at this point, but since it was assumed to be their final record, maybe "low stakes" doesn't apply.

Quite divisive -- definitely divisive among fans (some LOVE this record), but also within the band. Roger Daltrey: "It's Hard should never have been released. I had huge rows with Pete...when the album was finished and I heard it I said, 'Pete, this is just a complete piece of shit and it should never come out!' It came out because as usual we were being manipulated at that time by other things. The record company wanted a record out and they wanted us to do a tour. What I said to Pete was, 'Pete, if we'd tried to get any of these songs onto Face Dances, or any of the albums that we've done since our first fucking album, we would not allow these songs to be on an album! Why are we releasing them? Why? Let's just say that was an experience to pull the band back together, now let's go and make an album.' He said, 'Too late. It's good enough, that's how we are now.'"

still not sure I totally get the thread but can an argument be made for REM’s new adventures as opposed to Up? The former was recorded all over the place, on the road, etc, seems like it kind of formed out of air. Up was like a conscious “we’re in the studio - reinventing ourselves - being arty - ok computer rulez” kind of thing

^I kinda said all that, lol!

What came to mind after reading the OP were mostly soundtrack albums-- Chariots Of Fire (divergent from Vangelis's previous work, huge worldwide hit), Purple Rain (Prince's first soundtrack, had several live-from-the-board recordings on it). I also thought of Ciccone Youth (my most-listened-to SY album) and Arise Therefore (not really divergent, but strange in that there is no artist name officially attached to it) and David's Town (one of my favourite Fucked Up albums is a fake compilation). Weird Era is also ranked highly in Deerhunter's catalogue (and by me) and it's essentially a bonus disc

lol sorry Morris, I ctrl-f’d “new adventures” and got 0 results so figured it hadn’t been mentioned.

all good ha ha

They aren't rock, but Taylor Swift's Evermore and Folklore spring to mind. Both massive commercial hits, both unexpected, recorded quickly, with a lot of the publicity coming from the fact they seemed to have been dashed off.

They're notable for being the two albums that finally broke Taylor Swift in the elusive Discogs.com 180gm mastered-at-45rpm marbled vinyl market. She was a nonentity on Discogs.com before that. 25,000 Discogs.com users have Reputation, 41,000 have Red, but over 70,000 have Folklore, despite the fact it only came out two years ago.

You're not a major artist unless there's a page full of comments on Discogs.com moaning about inner groove distortion.

Some other quarantine records possibly fit then—that Charli XCX one

Does the need for this to be a "major" release disqualify contractual obligation records, like several that have already been mentioned, or Islands by the Band?

Diver Down feels very much phoned in.

Especially in the wake of Fair Warning, which was a very conceptually unified album. Honestly, Van Halen II fits the bill here, too. Saith Wikipedia:

Recording of the album took place at Sunset Studio less than a year after the release of the band's 1978 debut album, Van Halen. Recording of the album began on December 10, 1978, just one week after completing their first world tour, and was complete within a week...Many of the songs on Van Halen II are known to have existed prior to the release of the first album, and are present on the demos recorded in 1976 by Gene Simmons, and in 1977 by Ted Templeman, including an early version of "Beautiful Girls" (then known as "Bring On the Girls") and "Somebody Get Me a Doctor."

That’s an example of the distinct phenomenon of a band’s first two albums being culled from the same batch of material. Devo’s first two are like that as well.

Although if effort expended on recording mapped exactly to quality of album, III would be Van Halen's best record. Surely a kind of offhanded shruggy indolence is one of VH's trademarks?

That’s an example of the distinct phenomenon of a band’s first two albums being culled from the same batch of material. Devo’s first two are like that as well.

I'm pretty sure Jane's Addiction had all the songs for their first two albums before they got signed, too.

Did we have a thread for that thing? Can’t quite remember

Grinderman feels even more informal than Nocturama. If we include "band members playing instruments they don't usually play" as a factor in these, then Out of Time might even count--more relaxed than Green.

xxxxp X too - maybe not recorded at the same time but John Doe said most if not all of the songs were written, but it was Ray Manzarek who pretty much decided which songs to put on Los Angeles and which should be saved for Wild Gift.

Arise Therefore (not really divergent, but strange in that there is no artist name officially attached to it)

Not that I disagree but singling out any one Oldham related album as "informal" is a bit of a slippery slope

xxxxp X too - maybe not recorded at the same time but John Doe said most if not all of the songs were written, but it was Ray Manzarek who pretty much decided which songs to put on Los Angeles and which should be saved for Wild Gift.

Early versions of "Adult Books" and "We're Desperate" were released as a single before they signed with Slash, so it doesn't surprise me that they'd have had a bunch of material ready to go.

Surely a kind of offhanded shruggy indolence is one of VH's trademarks?

― Halfway there but for you, Monday, July 18, 2022 2:07 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think VH are more an example of a band that is less assertive or protective of their artistic vision and more willing to concede all that to the wishes of the label or producer, especially early on. Maybe Roth is the exception, but Roth's idea of Van Halen doesn't really respect "material" as anything more than a vehicle for the band's personality or performance- so Diver Down, covers of R&B standards conform to Roth's vision anyhow.

Neu! 2 has a very “fuck around and find out” vibe for me, despite its canon status

Especially in the wake of Fair Warning, which was a very conceptually unified album.

And one of their strongest. Probably the one I'd rate second after their debut, which is one of the best debut albums ever.

Can we add Amnesiac to the "informal" pile? It comes across mostly as Kid A Part Deux. The material does come off great live, though.

Makes sense, given that they were recorded in the same sessions.

I wasn't counting Amnesiac (and others) because of them being recorded at the same time as a previous album, so the mental idea of them being second helpings is sort of unavoidable (my own specification is cruel, no doubt) (not that I don't think Amnesiac stands up on its own, mind). Also I generally just think TKOL is more the sort of record I mean. More a 'this is where we're all at now, by the way' sort of record.

still not sure I totally get the thread but can an argument be made for REM’s new adventures as opposed to Up? The former was recorded all over the place, on the road, etc, seems like it kind of formed out of air. Up was like a conscious “we’re in the studio - reinventing ourselves - being arty - ok computer rulez” kind of thing

My reason for Up feeling like it *could* have counted, more than Hi-fI, is that said 'reinvention' feels a lot more temporary, more like what they've learned from doing the more offbeat Up tracks is going to form a more songful and less vaporous follow-up album, which is what happened. Plus Hi-Fi being a relative US bomb probably took some pressure off them to provide Warners with too many single prospects (that much they seem quite ready to admit). The problem with Bill's exit though is that the album's loose sound is informed by his exit, and they were barely holding together at that point (although this emphasises the album's 'learning process' feel), so if not a MS its still high stakes.

I love the upthread case for It's Hard! I liked when By Numbers cropped up too - I quite feel that one as well despite the self-deprecating title almost offsetting it all. Maybe not very eclectic but e.g. Squeeze Box (lead single no less) and Blue Red and Grey stand out for being offhand.

Does the need for this to be a "major" release disqualify contractual obligation records, like several that have already been mentioned, or Islands by the Band?

Wouldn't say so, unless they're outtakes albums or just taking the piss (and also cover albums etc as mentioned).

I've always considered Circle of Love by the Steve Miller Band to be this type of record. Coming a few years after the huge success of a pair of albums (recorded simultaneously, I think) it doesn't attempt to recreate them but offers up some low-key almost country-ish tracks ("Heart Like a Wheel", "Get On Home") before settling into the epic all-of-side-two space blues jam "Macho City", which really threw people at the time.

As posted by Grisso/McCain on the Big Star thread, more evidence that Radio City def. pertains, at least in a key sector:
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_classic_big_star_songs_that_arent_big_star_but_a_studio_project_du

Big Star recorded everything in their arsenal for Radio City, but it wasn’t enough for a full LP, so the Dolby Fuckers tracks were added to round out the record. The only information on the album related to the Chilton-led project is this credit: “Danny Jones and Richard Rosebrough played too.”

The British Invasion-sounding “She’s a Mover” is probably the oldest track on Radio City, possibly dating as far back as mid-to-late 1972. The looseness of the evening it was captured in is preserved in the recording, which ends with a jam. The odd feedback sounds came from waving a pair of headphones over a microphone. Andy Hummel later overdubbed a bass part, so he’s on the final version. Big Star took a stab at the song, but their rendering was shelved, as it was felt it didn’t have the spirit of the Dolby Fuckers’ take.

Never heard the full SMB album but "Macho City" is perfection. Love how increasingly, patiently empty it gets until there's nothing at all.

Oops, meant to post these here, not on Big Star thread:

of course, Third/Sister Lovers is all over the place, and Complete Third omg duhhh, but even/especially that is *going* all over the place, with own sort of momentum.

― dow, Monday, July 18, 2022 5:22 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh, speaking of Stones as packrats, try Metamorphosis.

― dow, Monday, July 18, 2022

Oh yeah I did hear Circle of Love this week and I can definitely see it fitting. I don't know enough about their history in truth so the jump from 1977-81 feels like it could be significant (even then their 77 album is a companion to their 76 one) but that doesn't change the fact its three ditties, a (admittedly very nice) longer pop song and then all of Macho City, less than half (less than quarter?) of which is the actual song bit.

Not sure it counts since its a collab album technically but Will The Circle Be Unbroken feels like it hits some of the qualifiers here.

I think Parade might qualify here - it’s the breeziest and most insouciant sounding album of his big 80s run; he’s already made the post-PR left turn and has the confidence to mess around without worrying about making a Big Statement

Nothing really sounds overly-laborious and is kind of a good starting point to hear the confidence in his own minimalism-as-virtue ethos

Also I've been thinking how Mike Oldfield might fit and although he has too many albums, and therefore a lot of potential candidates (and a lot of ones that are easy to rule out too, for being too 'themed'), I've decided on him having at least one, 1991's Heaven's Open, if not at least two.

It's "just" an album by Mike Oldfield in some ways, even though none of it is him doing what he does best or what fans want most of him. It all feels quite slapdash and noodley - in order, "Make Make" is flimsy adult dance-pop with amusing midi production, "No Dream" is a moody slowie that by turns sounds like Peter Gabriel and Chris Rea but never meaningfully, "Mr. Shame" is like the mid-point between the earlier two songs, "Gimme Back" sees him go fully pop-reggae, "Heaven's Open" is folk-rock-ish pop and then the big instrumental 'epic' - "Music from the Balcony" - is more of an aimless, incoherent collage that always changes its shape completely and just feels like fucking around (although I do enjoy it a fair bit).

The closing 'fuck off' to Branson aside, I don't know how far along he was with his Virgin squabbles/planning to sign with Warner/already writing Tubular Bells II when recording this one. There is the definite feel of just quickly throwing an album together to get the contract finished, but strangely he does this by doing half pop (in the manner of Virgin-pleasing Earth Moving) and half prog (like Anarok) - except Anarok was him deliberately f'ing over Virgin for Earth Moving's song focus and largely electronic sound, so strange for him to move back there. Does this interest only me? Almost certainly.

And as for classic era Oldfield, what about Platinum?

Again the side-long epic there - the four parts of "Platinum" itself - are him friskily messing around ('Airborne' parpy synth music, 'Platinum' disco rock, 'Charleston' a semi-self-explanatory mix of disco and swing, North Star a Philip Glass tribute). Then side two is his little ambient wind chimes piece (Woodhenge), a (wonderful) love song sung in a Residents/Cheap at Half the Price-ish pitched voice (Sally), his 'parody' of punk (Punkadiddle) and then a Gerswhin cover (I Got Rhythm). All in all a big, lighthearted retreat not from the double-length Incantations but his albums before that too, while still being a 'major' Mike album without a specific concept/gimmick/theme/etc.

Amarok* that should be! I'm typoing everywhere today

Amarok feels like The Orbs Pomme Fritz to me - one of those records that’s designed to come off slapdash and tossed off but was in reality intensively labored over

Oldfield had been counting down his obligations to Branson for years; even the title Heaven's Open is a reference to getting out of his contract, like Gentle Giant's Free Hand. Also, Branson had been asking him for a "sequel" to Tubular Bells for a long time, so making that the first release on his new label was a definite "gesture" as well.
Oldfield's relationship to pop confuses me; he's said he only started writing songs at Branson's behest, but he's returned to songs once in a while in his post-Virgin career.
As for Platinum (or, as it was called over here, Airborne with "Guilty" and "Into Wonderland" added), it is a little offhand compared to the four previous records, but it's also a big turn into recording with session musicians, "going disco", covering Glass and Gershwin. I'm not sure it's any more casual than his subsequent records of the 80s.

I mean Platinum was Oldfield saying "this is how my albums are going to be for awhile".

Amarok feels like The Orbs Pomme Fritz to me - one of those records that’s designed to come off slapdash and tossed off but was in reality intensively labored over

If so, the album's reputation as a MS probably suggests the latter is more apparent than maybe was Oldfield's attention.

I'm not sure it's any more casual than his subsequent records of the 80s.

I was thinking this, and I was sort of ruling them out on probably flimsy ground - namely the ongoing conceptual Taurus stuff and the more Statement-y (to me anyway) feel of a "Crises". But no there probably isn't much difference. Good point about the change re:lots of sessions musicians too.

Sam Cooke’s Night Beat, if it hasn’t been mentioned already.

Appealing take on the Oldfield, thanks---reminds me that one of The Clash (think it was Jones) initially told Creem that they were trying to hasten end of contract by putting so much stuff on Sandisita!: 3 LPs might help, though he said that 2-record London Calling had gotten counted by the label as one album only. However it came about, loose-jointz Sandinista! seems right enough for this loose-y thread.
Also, speaking of xpost "mixed bags" like The Great Lost Kinks Album and Stones' Metamorphosis, leave us not forget 1960s US Beatles cobblers, esp. Beatles '65, Yesterday and Today, Hey Jude, and my fave rave, Beatles IV. Flowers was another such Stones collection.

Sandinista! would be ideal if, coming peak moment of critical acclaim, it wasn't nearly as high stakes (should start abbreviating that to HS) and, pressingly, 144 minutes long. They were gleefully pressing their off-kilter B-sides button throughout those sessions tho ofc.

I think of Combat Rock as a scaled down Sandinista! - the truly atmospheric/indescribable/avant-ish stuff in this deal being "Sean Flynn" and "Death Is a Star".

Re:mixed bags maybe there's fun in deciding which of them would fit the criteria of the list if they had been completely new, full promotion albums and not outtake comps of old stuff. A parallel world where Dead Letter Office is a wobble on R.E.M.'s gradual rise to success. "Ages of You" a single etc. Would probably mean delaying Document onward by half a year or so. Stamp on a butterfly etc.

Prince's Black album and N.E.W.S. fits the op

Oh speaking of Beatles, and and thread-appropriate,original, officially "non-cobbled," but still loose-rolling across the map: what about The Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack, or has that been mentioned?

Good comment on Combat Rock btw

Yesterday and Today got a flurry of publicity (and collector appeal, to this day) because the "butcher cover," but don't know how much of that was part of a promotion campaign---the Beatles pretty much provided their own publicity, regardless of the release, so that was the main reason for all those releases: which, for (almost?) any other artist, would have resulted in flooding the market back then

I mean, Capitol and EMI bought ads and stuff, but soon saw that just about any Beatles record was going to at least do pretty well (although I'm sure there were oh noes, it didn't stay at No. 1 for X weeks like etc. did)

So with Beatles, commercial distinction between major and minor release seems not to have been as clearly defined as with other artists, is my impression, anyway.

what about The Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack, or has that been mentioned?

Numerous EPs (of original material) I guess factor far more into the gist of the discussion because that's what a lot of major rock artists use/used the EP for. Even then, Magical Mystery Tour is compromised because its a soundtrack, and as much as the film is obviously secondary to the songs it (the artwork) still won't let you forget its a soundtrack. I like it as a suggestion anyway - especially given how rapidly the Beatles jumble 'Event' singles and 'informal' single releases for the next two years.

I mean, Capitol and EMI bought ads and stuff, but soon saw that just about any Beatles record was going to at least do pretty well (although I'm sure there were oh noes, it didn't stay at No. 1 for X weeks like etc. did)

It gives me great dissonance, given how the Beatles' evolution is canonised now, to think of US fans presumably having treated Yesterday and Today like one of those 'next steps'. There's several major US acts who famously discussed how Rubber Soul changed everything for them, and there's endless prose on how Revolver's impact on music included its impact in the States - so why no mentions of Y&M?

Good comment on Combat Rock btw

Up there with Synchronicity and No Parlez as one of the great 'the singles don't sound like the rest of it' early 80s albums for me!

Re:mixed bags maybe there's fun in deciding which of them would fit the criteria of the list if they had been completely new, full promotion albums and not outtake comps of old stuff.

Where does Tattoo You fall along this continuum? A "new Rolling Stones album" that's all stuff they'd halfway finished at one point or another in the 70s, pulled off the shelf and finally finished.

Where does Tattoo You fall along this continuum? A "new Rolling Stones album" that's all stuff they'd halfway finished at one point or another in the 70s, pulled off the shelf and finally finished.

Imo disqualified from the main criteria for precisely those reasons, very little of it is a new project. But as you say its still a major Stones album with proper singles and everything, and although its status as mostly older stuff was no secret, nor do I believe it played into its promotion at all (which I suppose it wouldn't, in order to keep it a Proper Stones album) (the other, probably stronger reason I wouldn't count it is that, remarkably but helpfully for the album itself, it doesn't sound cobbled together. It has the eclectic but sturdy, sequenced coherence of a Some Girls and Emotional Rescue rather than the whatever goes here's-a-few-odd-things-and-the-odd-future-classic-or-two Black and Blue)

Now that TY has come up though, I'd love Black and Blue even more if it had Slave and Worried About You on it. I'm really quite fond of that period.

It's mad to me that Weller doesn't seem to have an album that fits. All his more multifarious albums are all a bit too MS - 22 Dreams, Wake Up the Nation et al. regardless of them containing sound collages with Kevin Shields or Robert Wyatt etc. Even the latest, Fat Pop, juggles being 'yeah I've had a bit of fun in lockdown' (informal) with 'these are all meant to be like singles, 3 minutes or so' (concept).

What about---in the face of Great Expectations especially---Led Zeppelin III, or I guess it may be just III? Whatever, they were that way about titles too, following this expensively packaged curveball with the one that publication had to buy special rune type to accurately represent the title of (but the music on that one was much, much more what the suits and the t-shirts wanted).

that publications

t gives me great dissonance, given how the Beatles' evolution is canonised now, to think of US fans presumably having treated Yesterday and Today like one of those 'next steps'. There's several major US acts who famously discussed how Rubber Soul changed everything for them, and there's endless prose on how Revolver's impact on music included its impact in the States - so why no mentions of Y&M?

As I coincidentally mentioned today on the Revolver Poll thread, re tracks that were kept off the US version of that for Yesterday and Today (along with ones from the UK versions of Help! and Rubber Soul), I dug the result for its "raw, collage-y" effect, kinda like twisting the radio or TV dial, but always getting ace Beatles across the years (not that many years so far, but the changes could be heard). Likewise Beatles 65 and Hey Jude, but Beatles VII had more stylistic continuity, sounded like to me--melding the mellow and the screamers---and it was my favorite---at parties, I'd play it between Never Mind The Bollocks and In The City

"Raw, collage-y": not a million miles from original cover

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/The_Beatles_-_Butcher_Cover.jpg

Nilsson’s “Pussycats”

Hosono's Philharmony is one of these - all his actual songs were going to YMO, so most of it is him messing about on his sampler. the songs that did make it are amazing of course and thats why it's become one of his most famous albums

Cluster's Curiosum may fit as well. it's such a weird & subtle record. I'd believe it if they said it was made in a day

Teenage Fanclub's The King?

Will Oldham, mentioned above, is an example of someone who almost only does “informal” albums. See also Guided by Voices.

Pete Townshend - Who Came First

Paul Weller "Studio 150“

Nice suggestions all, but Studio 150 is covers, The King didn't have full promo, Pussy Cats has the major marketing novelty of Lennon (the cover is the closest an official solo, non-collab album can get to seeming like an official collab album). III I personally discounted somewhere in the thread precisely because of how HS it was - even though it would totally fit had it come much later, I think. That's why I think of Zep have one its In Through the Out Door - maybe the 3 1/2 years away and it being a big comeback compromises matters though? But it definitely has the feel and playful jammy/genre-dabbles etc. of one, I think.

I can see Who Came First a fair bit. Solo albums are murky waters for the criterion but yeah.

If it wasn't their second album - and also probably their best-loved - Shazam!

"Message from the Country" is more informal. "Shazam" is anything but.

They didn't have much new material for Shazam - well any, apart from "Beautiful Danger" - so they looked to their stage act for relevant covers to do, and "Cherry Blossom Clinic" again. Just as well that all those covers are really good.

DAUGHTER

I think it's a real Diver Down moment for them, in other words

Who Came First was only released because Who fans were seeking out private-press Meher Baba tribute records that contained some of those Townshend songs. Decca thought they were losing out on potential sales, and proposed to release all the songs (plus a couple of non-Townshend things) on one LP. Even after it came out, though, Townshend was quoted as saying he doesn't think he ever really made a solo record, and that Quadrophenia was, in essence, a solo record. So yeah, definitely informal, eclectic, and low-stakes, but it could be argued that it wasn't conceived of, nor approached, as an album.

I see it fitting providing it still had the full promotional game relevant to Who albums, which I'm unsure if it did.

Shazam is their Tonight

It definitely didn't. There were print ads, but no radio promotion, no singles excerpted from it, and it topped out at #69 in the US. But Decca also did the same lack-of-promotion for other Who members' solo records, lest any become big enough hits that someone might consider leaving the group and killing the label's cash cow (though Daltrey's solo records sold decently, getting into the top 30 twice).

xp

I was thinking of Pearl Jam’s No Code, but it seems less informal than just kind of messy.

Bassist Jeff Ament was not made aware that the band was recording until three days into the sessions, and said that he "wasn't super involved with that record on any level."

McCready said that a lot of the songs were developed out of jam sessions, and said "I think we kind of rushed it a little bit." Ament said that the band members would bring in fragments of songs, and it would take hours before Vedder could have music to which he could add vocals. He added that "Ed's typically the guy who finishes off the songs...But by the end of No Code, he was so burnt, it was so much work for him."

ha ha, does that Ament quote mean they didn't invite him right away; or he was there in the studio, but didn't realize they were rolling tape?

It doesn't actually fit because it came so early in their career* but A Quick One has some important qualities. Big cohesive statements or sustained moods be damned - Chris Stamp's latest business negotation ensured each member would get a hefty sum if they all contributed songs so, for the only time, they all did. This means there's a momentary cover, Roger chucks in a quick if likeable throwaway, Keith gets to do his Lennon-ish song and deranged brass-band march, John writes two quietly demented songs that helped set his style while Pete, beyond the opening song, isn't back as a writer until track seven on the other side, silently brewing the mini-opera in his mind all that time.

*as far as rushed 1966 second albums go, If Music Be the Food of Love, Prepare for Indigestion

In the vicinity of this thread and "back to basics" albums (#onethread), John Mellencamp's Dance Naked was a response to the relative failure of the more "baroque" arrangements of Human Wheels.

Jacson Browne's Running on Empty has aspects of this. Is the fitness-for-this-thread-ishness diluted by it's massive success?

while Pete, beyond the opening song, isn't back as a writer until track seven on the other side

What's frustrating about A Quick One is that, earlier that year, they'd released "Substitute," "I'm A Boy," and "Happy Jack," all of which would have improved the album considerably (and in fact, "Happy Jack" replaced "Heat Wave" on the US version of the album, itself titled Happy Jack).

Yeah, that's the version I have, didn't know it ever had "Heat Wave" on it! Hot damn would it be a killer album with those other tracks crammed in. It's not like it's even a long album so this is one of those cases where I wish the American editors had done even more meddling against the artist's wishes.

Queens of the Stone Age albums Era Vulgaris and Villains both feel like "we're trying out some new directions, here's what's in the workbook".

It's not like it's even a long album so this is one of those cases where I wish the American editors had done even more meddling against the artist's wishes.

There was also the Ready Steady Who EP earlier in 1966. Put "Disguises," "Circles," and "Batman" on the US A Quick One -- in addition to the aforementioned singles -- and it suddenly becomes one of the more significant records of 1966.

But US Decca couldn't even meddle properly. They had no clue how to market a British rock act in the US, which is why all the pre-"Happy Jack" singles flopped here. The idea that anyone at Decca at the time would pick those 1966 Who singles and EP tracks and think, "Hey, we can make a seriously great album out of this!" was ludicrous -- they were still trying to sell Ricky Nelson records.

Zooropa is a funny one because at the time it was definitely marketed as a major event where U2 would blow everyone's minds and take music to the future, and when it turned out to be a bit shit commercially and critically, the whole thing was retconned as "just a bit of an experiment, nothing too serious".

Yeah that's why it doesn't quite fit (while coming closer than many others). The marketing was relatively toned down - no actual singles in most countries, until Stay half a year later, the release of which was almost a separate thing altogether anyway - but it was attached to Zoo TV so inevitably it had MS written all over it. The loose marketing idea that Zooropa was their (or even rock's) big technological leap forward took care of itself at a time when others i.e. Billy Idol were huffing and puffing (and nowhere near as famous anyway).

I'm unfamiliar with the Mellencamp and Jackson Browne albums but this will give me an excuse to at least get clued up.

Queens of the Stone Age albums Era Vulgaris and Villains both feel like "we're trying out some new directions, here's what's in the workbook".

Years since I've heard either but I see that. The last Foos may fit alongside them as well.

Neil Young's Tonight's The Night fits in with this, as an album not released until a few years after its recording, loose, jammy, seemingly for themselves as much as anything. Even Zooropa has that bit of an air of "one for us" after a "one for them" blockbuster.

Although I'd say Neil's tactic from 1973 on was making informal albums into major statements.

Although the record was a success, in the years following its release, the group have regarded it with mixed feelings and rarely play its material in live performances. Bono said, "I thought of Zooropa at the time as a work of genius. I really thought our pop discipline was matching our experimentation and this was our Sgt. Pepper. I was a little wrong about that. The truth is our pop disciplines were letting us down. We didn't create hits. We didn't quite deliver the songs. And what would Sgt. Pepper be without the pop songs?"[111] The Edge said that he did not think the songs were "potent", further stating, "I never thought of Zooropa as anything more than an interlude... but a great one, as interludes go. By far our most interesting."[18] Clayton said, "It's an odd record and a favourite of mine."[35]

U2 as always misunderstanding where their true strengths lie. iirc the record was largely acclaimed at least stateside, I also remember it not being regarded as the massive next step into future sounds (that would be how Pop was unleashed) but maybe the single example of U2 talking about in upcoming work as just a bit of fun, a bonus, a coda, etc.

They (often wrongly) get cold feet about every album of theirs that doesn't take off towards true populist heights. R&H and Pop ofc have bits that read like that on their wikis but (perhaps surprisingly) the most major of all is for No Line on the Horizon.

also yeah Zooropa I think is always regarded as a 7 or 8/10 album critically. I don't think that's ever really changed in the years since.

really? i feel like it's gone up in estimation. when i was first getting into u2 (in the years between all that you can't and how to dismantle), the general sentiment seemed to be "avoid zooropa and pop."

Low "cmon" feels like one of these to me

Our local alt-weekly gave Zooropa a 1/5 with a comment like "coke-addled rock stars phone in their latest from the back seat of their limousines".

It was mentioned (albeit slightly qualified) upthread but Caribou really isn't far off the sort of thing I mean. It's probably more Elton's Goats Head Soup than Black and Blue in truth but still, it's a quickie, largely fun LP from near the top of the mountain that tentatively dips its toes into cabaret, funk, country and continental waters while holding on to a smattering of actual set-pieces (most notably DLTSGDOM).

Elton is a funny one for this because so many of his classic-period albums are similar grab-bags of genre/sonic exercises, and AFAIK all of them were cranked out in ludicrously short time frames. One of those artists where the 'major statement' versus 'major informal' line might really just be drawn by marketing, chart success, and critical reception. Caribou FEELS more like "major informal" than Captain Fantastic, Don't Shoot Me..., or either disc of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, but is that just because those records are better and more celebrated?

that album Nas did with Damian Marley

An informal album wouldn't start with "Funeral for a Friend" or end with "Curtains", though; there's definitely a feeling of (somewhat campy) high seriousness in the presentation. "Ticking" was apparently meant to be a big statement but it seems to be totally forgotten, maybe because the album is dismissed and it was never a single.

I feel like every rap album after like 2008 is informal

some exceptions aside of course

Yeah, I sometimes think that Carter III was like the last traditional formal rap album

Not that they were major rock artists at the time (and probably still aren't) but Darklands felt pretty informal after the pretty major statement of Psychocandy.

has no one yet mentioned the first Traveling Wilburys album?

Seems to violate the "it can't be a side project" rule

There's a Riot Goin' On seems like an LP that is both musically informal and a major statement, as opposed to Fresh, and pretty much everything that came after it, which is/are mainly informal.

One of those artists where the 'major statement' versus 'major informal' line might really just be drawn by marketing, chart success, and critical reception. Caribou FEELS more like "major informal" than Captain Fantastic, Don't Shoot Me..., or either disc of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, but is that just because those records are better and more celebrated?

Yeah this is the odd line Elton walks. But I'd say Caribou definitely is a bit more MI than at least two of those (as Brick Road is a double and Cap Fantastic a concept record). Whereas Piano Player feels about as regular an imperial Elton album as there is (at least to me), next to which Caribou feels a bit more loose and ad-hoc (even more diverse without it being known as his "eclectic" album, + slightly arbitrary album cover and title (just naming it after the studio).)

what about Tin Machine?

this also makes me think of Taylor Swift's Evermore, but "surprise" is not the same as the informal vibe here and there was by definition zero promo

xp Tonight is definitely Bowie's imo. Tin Machine was both a side-project and a Major Statement/self-revision (which in itself is unlikely combination).

Kendrick - untitled unmastered