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

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