"Canonized" artists/bands with very little output and/or recorded material to their name

Inspired by this line in Marc Mast3rs' Pfork review of the new Mars (no wave band) live LP -

through their sliver of recorded output-- 11 songs totaling barely over a half-hour-- the tired rules of rock got pummeled into abstract art-noise.

Who else has been "canonized" (use your judgment on that slippery-slope term...) and has little, or even no, recorded output to their name?

my first thought is Television, even though they have a few LPs they're only really known for the one

3 full-lengths with 1 canonized is not really unusual i don't think... probably hundreds of bands with that amount of output.

M/A/R/R/S - "Pump Up the Volume" - canonized for one song! and i think they only recorded one other ("Anitina" which was the B-side) unless i'm overlooking something

Robert Johnson

MBV might count. Two full lengths, 4 EPs that people talk about, a slew of one-off earlier singles and a debut EP people don't, a couple of scattered rarities here and there, fin.

Patty Waters only did one studio and one live, yes?

Some of the non-Pere Ubu Cleveland bands come to mind: Electric Eels, Rocket From The Tombs

Sex Pistols

Also, Suicide and The Screamers

I kind of feel like 'very little output' should be restricted to one album or under, there are far too many bands with two albums...

"there are far too many bands with two albums"

http://www.4thletter.net/wp-content/plugins/smilies-themer/SAEmoticons/emot-colbert.png

I was going to say Joy Division...

Lauryn Hill maybe?

weren't there like at least 4 or 5 suicide albums?

geeshie wiley

Anton Webern

are Young Marble Giants part of the canon?

The Normal

one 12"

no, one 7" and half a cassette

oh huh West Runton came out on single sided LP

sex pistols come to mind

Big Star

The Nerves.

mary margaret o'hara

the shaggs

Was about to say O'Hara.

Kevin Rowland? Has made five albums but two are largely written out of history

I'd say yes to Young Marble Giants

also: Liquid Liquid

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks perhaps as well?

the Vaselines

Life Without Buildings, but their canonization may be ILX-only?

Willis Alan Ramsey: one album
Amy Winehouse: three albums

most of these are pretty straightforwardly That One Minor Classic type situations

Minor Threat - one album that only lasts for twenty minutes or something and three over-in-a-blink-of-an-eye EPs

The Fire Engines

Operation Ivy

Never heard of them

Well you have them to thank for about a zillion ska punk bands

Ah, that might explain it. I suppose it doesn't really matter how many people canonize you?

A zillion is quite a lot.

Sonic's Rendezvous Band - one song, on both the A/B side of a single!

Military Wives with Gareth Malone

United States of America
Silver Apples

probably other psych bands?

Silver Apples have put out a bunch of albums since the 90s I think.

"Canonized"? Cult, you mean.

The Stone Roses

The La's

Southern Death Cult

The Alberts

xxxp ah yeah. And yes, possibly stretching the definition of "Canon".

MMm,

Stone Roses: Canonized, certainly. Cult, not really.

The Stone Roses have at least 60 or so recorded songs though don't they? That's like four times the number that Slint had.

Again the q. of canon, though- Slint are cult, not canon maybe?

Um, Neu! maybe? 3 albums are canonical, totalling c. 23 tracks? Again, cult not canon perhaps?

Pierre Schaeffer

Smoothe Da Hustla-- canonical for one song (though he released 2 albums 12 years apart)

Washington Phillips
Judee Sill

Hellhammer had one legit EP (and three demo tapes), and that band is responsible for, like, 79.8% of all modern "extreme" metal.

Skip Spence

if siegbran were here he would nominate winter. one ep, one album, one demo. 4 zillion bands that worship them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2REgByOqs&feature=related

the homosexuals

world of twist.

Ummmmmmmm, what canon do they belong to?

water canon.

the gallagher bros.

[and mine of course .. ]

xpost.

Jeff Buckley

are Young Marble Giants part of the canon?

this is what i was going to s'gest

The Monks

The Archies

(aka RON DANTE)

Cynic would have made the list easily for a while when Focus was their only album

The Count Five

clifford brown had very little for a jazzbo

I dunno...the Brownie box is 10 CDs, and his Complete Blue Note/Pacific Jazz box is 4 CDs. There's also scads of live recordings and pre-Roach sets out there, too.

Herbie Nichols has just 4 CDs-worth of material. And Bill Dixon appeared on fewer than 30 records over a 48-year recording career.

Amy Winehouse: three albums

two, don't insult the dead

well okay, insult the dead all you like, but don't blame them for things they didn't do

Derrick May: he's possibly considered the most infuential of the original techno artists, but his solo output is less than 10 singles, no albums. (Granted, he's done a few collabs and remixes too, but even those are pretty limited considering that his career started in the mid-80s, and he's still an active DJ today.)

lioness is like, really good tho xp

charlie feathers
james carr

The reputation of Afrika Bambaataa, Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame nominee, is based on about five singles. (Also is known for DJing and funny clothes, of course).

i don't think it's fair to condense bambaataa's influence and importance to his recorded work. the bronx river parties, the movement out of 70s NYC street gangs into the zulu nation, etc are hugely important to the development of hip hop

I know, I worded that badly... but in fact I would put him in the Hall of Fame for "Planet Rock" alone.

i don't think it's fair to condense bambaataa's influence and importance to his recorded work.

but he's still fair game for a thread about "artists with very little recorded material to their name"

I wouldn't say he is, he has like 10 albums to his name! Though I'm not sure how much of the music on those albums he's actually written/produced. From what I've understood, his importance is mostly due to him having been an important cultural driving force and a tastemaker, not for any gift as a musician. Even with "Planet Rock", I think he was basically just the "idea man", the actual music was done by Arthur Baker and The Soul Sonic Force. (Though I'm not saying his ideas weren't essential to the whole project.)

Dock Boggs

I wouldn't say he is, he has like 10 albums to his name!

I figured most of that comes under Josefa's "Also is known for DJing and funny clothes, of course"

Well, not that I've heard all of those so-called albums, but a lot of that looks like remixes, repackagings, and original material of dubious origin. So maybe he doesn't literally have "very little output" to his name, but I'm pretty sure he'd be canonized just as much had he vanished in 1986.

I guess the original Modern Lovers: their only album came out after they broke up, and the tracks were technically demos, I think. Then the fact of the bands canonization lead to a bunch of other demos/live tracks turning up, but realistically they had no real albums?

Rema Rema

Hackamore Brick. They'd be in my canon at least.

Karen Dalton comes to mind too although that might be stretching the boundaries of what's considered 'canon'.

They've been stretched plenty already

Raunchy Young Lepers -- classic or dud, search or destroy?

Who could forget the canonical act Raunchy Young Lepers?

the moles

Bambaataa definitely has a great deal of recorded material to his name, but I don't know of anyone who can name anything that's not on the "Looking for the Perfect Beat" comp. I mean he's canonized for "Planet Rock" and "Perfect Beat" alone it seems. Same with Grandmaster Flash and "The Message". They deserve some consideration.

a) Grandmaster Flash isn't even on The Message
b) Adventures On The Wheels Of Steel

Or "White Lines"!

a) he's not credited on White Lines
b) frogbs said one song and it wasn't White Lines

classic Snrub

hes not on "The Message" at all? that, I did not know
probably should have mentioned "Wheels of Steel" too, I was trying to think of his other big one but forgot that it wasn't actually on the Message LP

as for "White Lines", that's Melle Mel solo isn't it? like I know Grandmaster Flash is often credited for that but I don't think he's on it at all. IIRC there was some huge legal clusterfuck regarding the "Grandmaster" name which led to like every Flash/F5-related album having a different name/lineup

The Message is also Melle Mel solo (or Melle And Sylvia, zing), but credited to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. White Lines is credited to "Grandmaster & Melle Mel," in an attempt to be cunning

Sic is correct, Flash had nothing to do with "The Message", he was (at the time) a DJ and not a producer, and there's no DJing or samples on that tune. The single was mostly produced by Duke Bootee, but Sylvia Robinson used the name "Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five" because it had already been established. IIRC Flash actually hated the tune, he wasn't into the new electro sound.

Flash was undoubtedly a technically great DJ ("Wheels of Steel" proves that), but AFAIK Bambaataa wasn't. He was known as the "master of records", i.e. he could dig up some really odd and eccentric records to play, but he had assistant DJs who did the actual mixing. That's why I said his main importance was as an "idea man" and cultural force, not as a musician of any sort. Though in the end Bambaataa's musical importance is bigger than Flash's, because his ideas proved to have a lot of resonance.

Flash was undoubtedly a technically great DJ

he's so terrible now though ;_;

thanks for clearing all that up tuomas.

i haven't heard any of his latest albums of "original" material, but there is a DJ disc he put out in like 2005 where he tried to emulate his old style, mixing together a bunch of funk and disco records (lots of obvious culprits) along with stuff like "Trans-Europe Express". it's really really good!

as for Bambaataa, I must admit I have no idea what he actually did!