Artists who have released five consecutive ‘classic’ albums

Quite apart from being atrociously sentimental it’s such a lazy song it is hard to imagine the same person who made those earlier albums would allow it to be released.

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Counting 4 Track Demos is a bit like counting Rid of Me twice though isn’t it? I kind of think one of the versions of those songs can be the classic album (depending on taste) but it’s pushing a bit to say that the both are.

It’s so bad that it delayed me appreciating the earlier records for about 20 years.

I bet Stevie often sits in his golden chair in his golden house and thinks ‘why oh why did I ever release it?’

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yep should be 1 really. Dance Hall should count though so I’m going to claim 5!

yeah and you know maybe he actually loves it.

I like to think he secretly hates it.

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King Crimson

Lizard
Islands
Lark’s Tongues
Starless and Bible Black
Red

would be 7 if it weren’t for Poisedon

Engine, California, United Kingdom, Everclear, Mercury

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My lukewarm Crimson take is that Poseidon is very much unfairly maligned. It loses points for aping ITCOTCK too much, but the individual songs are incredible; on a good day, I’d take Pictures Of A City over 21CSM. I’d definitely include Discipline after Red as well (Beat doesn’t offer anything already better done on Discipline), so if I’m being generous, that’s eight consecutive classics.

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The Smashing Pumpkins

Gish
Siamese Dream
Pisces Iscariot
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Adore
Machina / Machina II

No one’s ever going to touch that run.

In addition to the Pumpkins, Modest Mouse and Elliott Smith, The National have done it.

Alligator
Boxer
High Violet
Trouble Will Find Me
Sleep Well Beast

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Oh yeah?

20190319_155950

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Greg Dulli has done it with two bands:

Up In It **
Congregation
Gentlemen
Black Love
1965
Twilite
Blackberry Belle
She Loves You **
Powder Burns
Dynamite Steps **
Do to the Beast
In Spades **

** I don’t think these are considered classics by most people, but they’re excellent.

Twelve solid A’s in a row.

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Great album! ‘Classic’ wouldn’t really sound right though tbf

Good work. Three solid classics in the middle of that sequence, two that come very close at either end.

I was tempted to add San Francisco but didn’t want to push it.

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I love the title track but I struggle to even remember another song from the album.

I’d start at Young Americans for his run of 5, personally. But I’m not sure anyone other than super-fans (like myself) would accept Lodger. But then, going on personal bias, then he’s got a thirteen album run from The Man That Sold The World through to Let’s Dance, in my opinion

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San Francisco has some absolutely great songs on it (Wish The World Away, What Holds The World Together, Fearless, The Thorn in My Side is Gone etc) but it’s a bit of a shaggy mess. I always think it is a bit of a victim of the CD era when everyone thought albums had to be at least an hour long - had they recorded it ten years early it probably would have been 20 minutes and five or six songs shorter and would have stood alongside the earlier records.

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Lodger’s a weird one - some Bowie fans absolutely love it, others really struggle with it. I’ve tried with it repeatedly over the years but it’s the only 70s Bowie album I still feel I don’t really ‘get’ for some reason. On the contrary I absolutely love Diamond Dogs which lots of people slag off.

No question that the extended period you mention dwarfs what anyone else has ever achieved in popular music, even The Beatles I think.