artists who had a long streak of every album selling more than the last

I was thinking about this and it’s probably rarer than you’d think for any band to do this consistently for more than, say, 3 albums. It seems like most long-running acts either have their biggest-selling album pretty early in their career, and taper off from there (what I call the Pearl Jam Career Model), or just have a lot of ups and downs over the years. Even artists that continue to get ‘bigger’ (in terms of size of venues they play, media profile, chart peaks) rarely keep selling more and more albums over an extended period of time.

Bands that sold more of each album for their first 5 albums: Metallica, the Eagles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Police, who have the rare distinction of those 5 albums representing their entire career.

The Talking Heads did it for their first 6 studio albums (you could extend it to 7 with Stop Making Sense, but then you'd also have to include The Name Of This Band and that would break the streak). And in general let's stick with proper albums, no live/greatest hits/etc.

R.E.M. pulled it off for 8 or 9 albums, depending on whether Automatic or Monster sold more (they're both 4x platinum).

But amazingly, the all-time champs of this appear to be Genesis, who had a THIRTEEN album streak, with the 6 Gabriel-era LPs and then the first 7 with Collins singing.

btw I'm just going on U.S. sales to keep things simple, but we can fudge that a bit for the sake of conversation if needed.

I'm betting a lot of '80s college rock-type bands had good runs of increasing sales, but since most of them didn't have a lot of gold/platinum certifications like R.E.M. it's harder to verify. I have a hunch that Sonic Youth pulled this off for their first 7 albums, up through Dirty, though.

The only mid-career streaks I can think of are Aerosmith's 5 albums from Rock In A Hard Place to Get A Grip (two gold duds and then the 3 huge multi-platinum comeback albums), and Lil Wayne's 4-album run from his lowest-selling album, 500 Degreez, to the peak of Tha Carter III.

I was going to say Sonic Youth through Dirty and Genesis but you beat me to it.

yeah sadly I've probably already thought about this too much and wanted to preempt a lot of obvious suggestions so that I wouldn't have to defensively go "actually I had thought of that" later.

But amazingly, the all-time champs of this appear to be Genesis, who had a THIRTEEN album streak, with the 6 Gabriel-era LPs and then the first 7 with Collins singing.

Yes, they were slow starters and got pretty big (sadly the music didn't develop in the same direction after the late 70s).

Any statistics for Depeche Mode? The Cure? I would expect they would look at least something like this for a while.

But regarding Depeche Mode, I am sure "Speak & Spell" sold more than "A Broken Frame" so it would have to be from "A Broken Frame" or "Construction Time Again" onwards.

Motley Crue. The 5 albums up through Dr Feelgood. I suspect anyway. Wikipedia just says 4x platinum for the middle three.

The first four Def Leppard albums. I suspect the 80s will be rife with this sort of trajectory actually.

Bonnie Raitt's first six albums all peaked higher than the last, with the sixth one going gold -- but the second one eventually went gold, too.

I'd bet Death Cab for Cutie, at least through Plans.

(Plans is platinum; Narrow Stairs is only gold. But Plans took three years to get to platinum status, so it's possible that Narrow Stairs will get there eventually, too.)

Depeche only had a 3 or 4 album streak, because Black Celebration sold less than Some Great Reward. Tougher to call with The Cure but I think it's a similar case there.

yeah Death Cab is a good call. i'd imagine a lot of slow-climbing contemporary indie bands like Spoon or whoever, but again it's so hard to say.

T.I. had a good run from his first 4 albums.

Outkast

blind faith

yeah you're clever stfu

Tougher to call with The Cure but I think it's a similar case there.

If you leave out "The Mix", I find it not at all unlikely that "The Top" to "Wish" all sold more than their predecessors, although it may have been broken with "Wish" already (I know "Disintegration" was massive in the US, but I also know "Wish" was a pretty steady seller)

"The Mix" -> "Mixed Up"

Roxy Music?

i'm not exactly sure about this one, but, ugk?

late 2000s kinda killed this for a lot of artists

dirty money was a dropoff from ridin dirty

The Who: My Generation, A Quick One (Happy Jack), Sell Out, Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia (which initially outsold Who's Next, although that may not still be the case today).

late 2000s kinda killed this for a lot of artists

The three year wait between albums that has been the standard for huge acts since the early 90s has actually killed it for most artists already anyway.

If you count only original sales only (and not later back catalogue sales), this may have been the case for Velvet Underground? Or did "Velvet Underground and Nico" outsell "White Light/White Heat"?

It debuted at #199 on the American charts, if that's any indication.

yeah i'm betting And Nico was one of their better sellers at the time.

one band that I was sure had a good streak but was wrong was U2 up through Joshua Tree -- turns out The Unforgettable Fire sold less than War.

Iron Maiden?

this woulda been an awesome idolator post back in the day

yeah i had this bouncing around my head for a while like "i could write something with this theme...or i could just throw it to ilm to see what other examples people could come up with". i might still w/ the former somewhere.

i cant find if transference has outsold ga ga ga ga ga -- if so thats 5 straight for spoon fwiw

*at least* 5 straight

Black Keys look to be continuing a 7-album streak with their new one, probably the longest run of anyone going these days

i'm not sure where to find the sales data but I would guess The Police fit this perfectly

some dude thought that as well!

Lil Wayne?

The only mid-career streaks I can think of are Aerosmith's 5 albums from Rock In A Hard Place to Get A Grip (two gold duds and then the 3 huge multi-platinum comeback albums), and Lil Wayne's 4-album run from his lowest-selling album, 500 Degreez, to the peak of Tha Carter III.

― some dude, Friday, April 23, 2010 10:33 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh yeah, I missed The Police in the OP

its such a hard thing to do because bands don't usually split up if they're gaining that type of momentum

a more interesting question is what bands have a huge debut album and then sell less every album, maybe The Outfield?

as i said in the OP that's probably more common, like Pearl Jam to me is the ultimate example

Norah Jones, many more.

The Who: My Generation, A Quick One (Happy Jack), Sell Out, Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia (which initially outsold Who's Next, although that may not still be the case today).

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Saturday, April 24, 2010 1:35 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that's pretty interesting if true! like Quadrophenia dropped before the RIAA started doubling sales figures for double albums so it couldn't be that, and i just have a hard time imagining that at ANY point it had sold more copies than Who's Next or Tommy.

I think this is the Jam in the UK. Or at the very least their chart numbers only ever get better (ignoring the 20 > 22 at the start because Modern World has gone silver whereas In the City apparently hasn't).

A pair of fives: The Divine Comedy in the 90s, excluding mini-album A Short Album About Love, and 80s Bunnymen in the US.

On a much smaller scale I think this has to be true of Show of Hands for all their proper (non-instrumental/covers albums) for, I don't know, about two decades. Their last album got to 48, the one before it 70, before that 73, before that 170, before that non-charter with their most mainstream press attention yet (and their best-selling single too), before that another non-charter with what was then their most mainstream press attention yet, before that another non-charter with what...

Another full discography: Japan

is this actually true for Genesis? can't find the actual sales figures but I thought SEBTP sold more than The Lamb?