Do bands tend to improve or lose focus if they spend longer?
Does anyone produce *more* than one good album a year?
― phil jones (interstar), Thursday, 19 December 2002 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)
I can't think of many bands/artists who actually bother to produce more than one album a year these days. I remember, for example, back in my youth (when the earth was still cooling from the hot magma, and hulking brontosauri roamed the swamps, scrounging for food and gazing quizically at the approaching asteroid, hurtling towards the still then-very-young earth), my beloved KISS used to put out at least *TWO albums a year (the debut album and HOTTER THAN HELL both came out in '74, DRESSED TO KILL and ALIVE both out in `75, DESTROYER and ROCK'N'ROLL OVER both in `76, LOVE GUN and ALIVE II both in `77, etc.) I don't think it was until the 80's that the industry standard became one album a year at the most. Shame, really.
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 19 December 2002 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)
Rappers tend to get out about 1 per year... Jay-Z certainly does
― Robin Goad (rgoad), Thursday, 19 December 2002 17:30 (twenty-two years ago)
I think Bob Pollard would benefit (artistically anyway) from only putting out one album per year
― Bruce Urquhart (Bruce Urquhart), Thursday, 19 December 2002 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)
There, you got two prime examples for each case. Kiss swung it, and Pollard shouldn't (damn it seems weird seeing those two in the same sentence).
― christoff (christoff), Thursday, 19 December 2002 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)
Sometimes the creativity just flows and sometimes your just fulfilling a contractual obligation. (-ever have days like that at work?)
― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 19 December 2002 19:30 (twenty-two years ago)
Jamaica's such a singles-driven market, though, that it seems a little unfair to count it. But only a little.
― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 19 December 2002 20:16 (twenty-two years ago)
The Beach Boys managed two good albums a year, for about three years in a row.
― Love (amateurist), Thursday, 19 December 2002 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)
Those years being 1974, 1975, 1976.
― Love (amateurist), Thursday, 19 December 2002 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)
a lot of my favorite pre-90's artists produced several of their best albums in consecutive years (Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, etc. but really too many to name when you think about it). and when i think about, what if they'd decided to take it easy every other one of those years, we might not have lost half of those songs, but we'd probably have much less interesting bodies of work, even if it means a little less filler. especially with the creative streaks that bring the same band to an almost completely different sound from album to album.
so again, flooding market = bad, so i think more than 1 a year is a bit unnecessary, unless they're entirely different projects that deserve seperate records (or side projects). but i like the idea of staying in the game and just putting out record after record, year after year, especially in a period of development and exploration, for better or worse.
but then i think the whole 'album cycle' thing is a flawed system anyway, and a weird work eithc. work your ass off for a few weeks/months to create something and then take a break from creating and either relax, or go on tour and play those songs over and over. i like when bands clearly are just writing constantly, and the albums are just stopgaps where they go ahead and put out the best of what they've got.
― Al (sitcom), Thursday, 19 December 2002 22:39 (twenty-two years ago)