trilogy
What about a trilogy in music. 3 in a row that somehow make a perfect trilogy. We get all these rubbishy movie ones like the Godfather (only two that were any good), but what about albums? Intentionally or not, ones that make perfect companions. Here's a few that I know and love.
John Martyn-Bless The Weather, Solid Air and Inside Out
Judy Collins-In My Life,Wildflowers, Who Knows Where The Time Goes
Bob Dylan-Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde
Rolling Stones -Beggar Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers
Al green-Call Me, Let's stay Together', I'm Still In Love With You
Richard and Linda Thompson-I Want to See The Bright Lights Tonight, Hokey Pokey, Pour Down Like Silver
Miles Davis -Porgy and Bess-Kind Of Blue-Sketches of Spain
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David Bowie
'Low'
'Heroes'
'Lodger'
Bowie Beats Three
From Hunky Dory to Lodger, not a bad album to be found.
Totally agree...
but these three I always think of as parts of a greater whole.
Beg to differ chaps
I have always thought Lodger to be one of the Dame's poorer efforts and that its reputation somehow rests purely on its association with the other two 'Berlin' albums.
In any event, isn't the Berlin connection for all of the albums tenuous at best?
Joni Mitchell
'Court and Spark'
'The Hissing of Summer Lawns'
'Hejira'
Surely ...
"Hejira"
"Don Juan's Reckless Daughter"
"Mingus"
Either...
I see the first three as linked though... her sound gradually becoming more jazz-influenced before she went really out there on 'DJRD' and 'Mingus'.
She's pretty much the only
She's pretty much the only artist I can think of where - up to and including 'Mingus' at least - every release was a substantial musical development on what went before. Personally I think 'Hejira' is a peak, and it's the one I always go back to. Although when I first heard it I hated it - but then I was 16.
Decent early live recording over at : http://www.bigo.com.sg/ on the left hand side bar.
Motörhead
'Overkill'
'Bomber'
'Ace Of Spades'
Bob Dylan
'Slow Train Coming'
'Saved'
'Shot Of Love'
and and and
Elvis Costello:
This Year's Model
Armed Forces
Get Happy!
Squeeze:
Play
Some Fantastic Place
Ridiculous
Steely Dan/Donald Fagen get in three times:
Can't Buy A Thrill
Countdown To Ecstasy
Pretzel Logic
and
The Royal Scam
Aja
Gaucho
and
The Nightfly
Kamakiriad
Morph The Cat
Roxy Music:
Roxy Music
For Your Pleasure
Stranded
Roxy Music
Really, the debut and For Your Pleasure are the Eno era. Then he left, and the next three (Stranded, Country Life and Siren) are a trilogy, released in consecutive years.
There was a four year gap after that until Manifesto, and a severe drop in quality.
Roxy
Fair point.
Manifesto, Flesh And Blood and Avalon are a trilogy as well though, Roxy AOR Music.
Stones
So you're disregarding Exile On Main Street in order to fit the trilogy format? Interesting.
The Dylan one reminded me: I was watching two episodes of The Wire last night (only up to FX speed, so no spoilers please) and in the first one someone talked about making something "street legal", and in the next episode a character mused about progress by uttering the phrase "slow train coming". I look forward to future episodes: getting the word 'saved' in shouldn't be a problem, but 'shot of love' may stick out a bit. I don't have the third series on DVD, but I'm now curious to go back and see if I can find any mention of 'desire' or 'blood on the tracks'...
Doesn't street legal refer.....
...to modifying a racing motorbike so that you can ride it on the public highway?
If you say so!
I did not know that.
Exile
Exile is an overheated, loved-by-rock-critics and sooooo lacking in good songs, mess. Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed are the heart and soul of the Stones album output. Big Hits High Tide Green Grass is the real singles essential. Only my opinion of course and don't get me started on The Velvet Underground!!!
Exile
Actually like all Stones albums, it is the archetypal curates egg, good in parts, and the best bits are very very good indeed. I remember, however, when it cmae out, with Tumbling dice as its single, and I shared your view. It is in latter years I have come to enjoy it's charm. My perhaps unusual choice of an excellent Stones LP is the later period Steel Wheels.
Bollocks!
Exile IS one of rock's great albums, thus ending the Stones golden period of four peerless collections, Beggars, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers (their best album)and Exile.
Mind you, Goats Head Soup is vastly underrated and includes one peerless ballad, Winter...
Surely...
Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt Pepper
Nick Drake
'Five Leaves Left'
'Bryter Layter'
'Pink Moon'
Neil Young - the Doom Trilogy
"On The Beach"
"Time Fades Away" &
"Tonight's The Night" ... in any order you like
I don't think
that the Miles one works. The trilogy is really the 3 Gil Evans albums - Porgy & Bess, Sketches of Spain, and Miles Ahead (can't remember the order) but of course they're not consecutive.
Does Sgt Pepper really have much in common with Rubber Soul and Revolver? I would say those two are more of a duo.
And I don't reckon the Nick Drake one works either, other than that they were obviously his only three albums. Bryter Later has a full band on many tracks and is much more upbeat than the other two.
The first three Waterboys albums sit together well, the "big music" period. It was quite a jump from them to the raggle-taggle albums.
How about The Yes Album, Fragile, and Close to the Edge? The tracks on those albums still make up the majority of Yes's set 35 years later.
Hat tricks
Talking Heads:
Fear of Music, Remain in Light, Speaking in Tongues.
For sheer diversity, the three Dexys albums.
and how about Bob Marley's top three, hearing him develop with these?
Rastaman Vibration, Natty Dread, Exodus.
Agreed...
...on the Yes albums. Each one builds on the previous one, too. Also agree on the 'Court and Spark'/'Summer Lawns'/'Hejira' one for similar reasons.
One obvious one to psych/prog fiends like myself is Gong's 'Radio Gnome Trilogy' which consisted of 'Flying Teapot', 'Angel's Egg' and 'You'. I also nominate that run of 'Larks Tongues In Aspic'/'Starless and Bible Black'/'Red' from King Crimson.
Prog x 3
Wholeheartedly agree with Yes, Crimson and Gong triplets, but what about:
Genesis:
Foxtrot
Selling England By The Pound
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
VDGG:
Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other
He To He Who Am The Only One
Pawn Hearts
And away from prog..
Robyn Hitchcock:
Black Snake Diamond Role
I Often Dream Of Trains
Fegmania!
(had to drop Groovy Decoy to make that one work)
The Soft Boys:
Can Of Bees
Underwater Moonlight
Two Halves For The Price Of One
Talk Talk
The Colour of Spring, Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock chronicle a gradual transition from intelligent pop to minimalist abstraction.
Bruce
Born To Run
Darkness On The Edge Of Town
The River
REM/Ramones et al
R.E.M.
Murmur
Reckoning
Fables of the Reconstruction
Ramones
Ramones
Ramones Leave Home
Rocket To Russia
Parliament
Mothership Connection
Clones of Dr Funkenstein
Funkentelechy Vs The Placebo Syndrome
REM
I don't agree with the REM 3 cos number 4 is Life's Rich Pageant which is flawless and many people's favourite REM album (mine included). But they had 6 upbeat belters (the above plus Document and Green) followed by a pair of crackers (OOT & AFTP) so.... 6.... divided by... 2.......equals........... THREE!
Deep Purple
In Rock
Fireball
Machine Head
Michael Jackson
Off The Wall
Thriller
Bad
The Jam
Nigh-on perfect exploration of Englishness,Empire, etc
All Mod Cons
Setting Sons
Sound Affects
Steve Earle and a few more
Train a comin'
I feel alright
El corazon
Roy Harper
Stormcock
Lifemask
Valentine
The Jayhawks
Hollywood Town Hall
Tomorrow the green grass
The sound of lies
Rod Stewart (yes, remember there was a time when Rod was great)
Gasoline Alley
Every picture tells a story
Never a dull moment
The Byrds
Fifth dimension
Younger than yesterday
The notorious Byrd brothers
trilogy
Some absolutely great selections, I think the Neil Young and the Rod Stewart's top it for me. Nice One chaps
Trilogy.....
Jeepers, Bingham, why'd you have to say that word?
Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Tarkus and Trilogy. Not Pictures at an Exhibition, as live and separate.
On Bob Dylan...
... surely it's Blood On The Tracks, Desire and Street Legal'. And on Tom Waits it's Small Change, Blue Valentines and Heat Attack & Vine. Actually, with Waits, you can split his career up into three sections: pre-gravel voice (see the adjectival blog); gravel voice, and experimental (or just plain weird according to your taste).
Surely...
...it's Planet Waves, Blood On The Tracks and Desire if we're talking seventies Dylan trilogies: the theme running from Wedding Song, through Idiot Wind and culminating in Sara.
Experimental:
See under adjectival artists.
Play some new
All of this stuff is good, but so old, old, old. My nominations from the Nineties and even the 21st Century would include:
Massive Attack
"Blue Lines"
"Protection"
"Mezzanine"
Sigur Ros
"Agaetis Byrjun"
"()"
"Takk..."
The Mars Volta
"De-loused in the Comatorium"
"Francis the Mute"
"Amputechture"
Rock Operas
The Who....
"Tommy"
"Who's Next"
"Quadrophenia"
Not including "Live At Leeds" of course.
Trilogy
Stevie Wonder.
Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale. Though I suppose you've got to add Songs in the Key of Life onto the end.
Wurzels
1975 The Wurzels are Scrumptious!
1976 The Combine Harvester
1977 Golden Delicious
Surely the perfect Trilogy of Hits
1960 Gossip Calypso
1962 Right Said Fred
1962 The Hole in the Ground
and the B-sides are good too.
And let's not forget.....
....The Band
1) Music from Big Pink
2) The Band
3) Stage Fright
The Band
I like Stage Fright a lot, but there's no way in my mind that it can be grafted onto the first two albums to form a trilogy.
The Band.....Little Feat
OK I'm re-thinking that on account of relatively weak side one.
Can I instead put forward Little Feat's Sailin Shoes, Dixie Chicken and Feats Don't Fail Me Now.
with a huge seller in the middle:
fleetwood mac (the album)
rumours
tusk
Play some new (again)
Still not much from the last 10 or so years. How about:
Radiohead
"The Bends"
"OK Computer"
"Kid A"
Wilco
"Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
"A Ghost is Born"
"Sky Blue Sky"
I'm tempted to select three from Nick Cave but he's on a great roll at the moment.
And of course...
1967 Gorilla
1968 The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse
1969 Tadpoles
Lickspittle arselicker!
Pandering to the masses (or is it Mr Valparaiso)
It was so obvious I was waiting for someone else to do it
Ta, Reg.
Old but always new...
Scott 2
Scott 3
Scott 4
or is it..?
Scott 1
Scott 2
Scott 3
I am currently having an argument with myself about which sequence is the greater.
Great shout!
I think that's a quartet, really... fabulous records.