Entertainment For Lively Minds
Don't look now, here comes another one.
Posted by Lenny Law on 5 May 2011 - 10:45pm.
I was doing a count-up of the Alan Parsons Project albums the other day. Ten of them. Released over twelve years. Bloody hell.. That's some work-rate. All big studio jobs, done at Abbey Road. But, of course, they didn't tour. In a similar time-frame, REM managed eight albums, but with a heavy touring schedule. I'm sure loads of other bands of this time had a similarly high rate of release of new product. Why does this not seem to be the case with bands nowadays, given how simple the modern process of recording is always quoted as being?
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too many one-trick ponies
They say all they have to say on the first couple and then...keep remaking them endlessly until diminishing sales mean the distributor loses interest.
But then there's always Sufjan Stevens - it's hard to shut him up.
But isn't that the case
with 99.9% of bands since time began? There are always exceptions to the rule but very few bands have more than 3 or 4 truly essential classic records in them. Some barely scrape 1.
I like a band with a bit of quality control too.
Wasn't the Alan Parson Project
some kind of hovercraft?
The Smiths
Released a hell of a lot of quality product in their four years.
The Fall
304 albums in 462 years. Every one a pop classic. Whack that.
Isn't it more to do with
marketing these days? Why rush on to the next album when you can tour the world flogging this one to death in every conceivable country for the next 2-3 years?
While it must get repetitive for the artists involved, many of them will surely be content with the strategy as, if nothing else, it puts off the dreaded moment when they have to actually sit down and write an equal-or-better follow up.
"I was doing a count-up of the Alan Parsons Project albums..."
Not a phrase I'd heard before,nor will again I imagine.
Frank Zappa
90-odd albums in 27 years.
At the Roundhouse Zappa celebration weekend last Novemember, they had every album cover blown up to poster size and fixed to the walls.
As a relative latecomer...
... I would have to agree. I've only discovered them in the last decade after I started dating and later married Lenny Zakatek's niece. He steered me towards 'Eye In The Sky', 'I-Robot' and 'Turn Of A Friendly Card' possibly because his vocals feature prominently on all of them. I followed his recommendations and duly acquired all three but I haven't felt inclined to delve further.
In the DJM years, Pinner Reg knocked out two albums
per year. Of course, they also happened to contain his best material.
Felt
10 albums and ten singles in ten years with 12 days to spare. And dealing with the chaos of Creation.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
released 5 studio albums of new material between Jan 1969 and Nov 1970.
5 albums in 23 months - 1 album every 20 weeks. That's working!
Motorhead
33 official albums in 33 years. Admittedly that's including few live albums and compilations but still a canny haul.