Best pair of albums by the same artist/band in a single calendar year

Motörhead released Overkill in March 1979, Bomber in October 1979, and On Parole (recorded in 1976) in December 1979.

Lol good call on E-40. Obv the volume of what he put out diminished the individual impact of each release, but dude was releasing three albums a year (on the same day) and they were usually all fire

Van Morrison: Moondance and His Band & Street Choir (1970)

Neil Young: Tonight's The Night and Zuma (1975)

it’s dark and flesh of my flesh are fucking awesome records

los campesinos! - hold on now, youngster & we are beautiful, we are doomed

I forgot the first two Damned albums came out in 1977 but only the first one is good.

Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars, not sure they're the best Beach House albums but the release of U.F.O.F. and Two Hands the same year reminded me of them

and I had the same response, I didn't want to engage too much with the second album, it felt like too much

Same

Ferry/Roxy:

Stranded
These Foolish Things

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

For Your Pleasure was the same year as well.

Scott Walker - Scott 3 & Scott 4 in 69

Al Green - Let's Stay Together & I'm Still In Love With You in 72

Scott Walker - Scott 3 & Scott 4 in 69

Was just going to post this and point out he put out another (not-so-good) album between the two.

Stevie Wonder - Music Of My Mind and Talking Book

Elton John - s/t and Tumbleweed Connection (he did this other times but this is the best one probably)

imo the beatles are not a good example of this bc usually one of their two LPs from a given calendar year is a lot better.

has there ever been a single year with three artists releasing three different all in the same year and where the albums have been so nice, other than 1969?

― Peaceful Warrior I Poser (Karl Malone), Monday, December 2, 2019 1:00 AM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

classic post

― TOO LOW, the Curator (imago)

listen i'm pretty sure i bumped the "wtf typos" thread right after that, there were ghosts in the keyboard that night

The Nolans - "Nolan Sisters", "Making Waves"

> Autechre: NTS Sessions 1 (5/4/19), NTS Sessions 2 (12/4/19), NTS Sessions 3 (19/4/19), NTS Sessions 4 (26/4/19),

and technically these were all double lps at 2 hours each

that doesn't make them not albums

Black Album was pressed and promoed in 1987, it's fair to count for thread purposes. Thread title only says "by."

But duh, an obvious recent case is Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa’s Scorpion Kings/The Return of the Scorpion Kings one-two, both on my 2019 album ballot.

Not to mention there was also their Piano Hub last year, as well as Kabza’s solo Pretty Girls Love Amapiano mixtape.

- and just this week the pair dropped another excellent album.

Beat that, you Big Thieves people!

― breastcrawl, 6. februar 2020 22:48 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This is wrong. Scorpion Kings is by DJ Maphorisa & Kabza De Small, whereas Return of the Scorpion Kings is by Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa

Obviously that is a joke, but it is slightly annoying they are not grouped together in my Apple Music library

You are absolutely right tho, Fred - I was this close to raising the same issue with the Singing Nolans: one album by was by “The Nolan Sisters”, the other by “The Nolans” for godsake.

What went wrong between you and the Scorpion Kings tho? Did you vote-split both albums outside your ballot? I had you down as one of my fellow voters.

A couple examples of artists releasing multiple great albums in one year:

Lucette Bourdin in 2009:
Silver Moon
Radiant Stars
Golden Sun
Under Currents

Uwe Schmidt/Atom Heart in 1994:
Orange [Monochrome Stills]
A.D.
Softcore
Morphogenetic Fields
Dots
Flextone
Halograms

Both of them actually released even more albums in those years, but the ones I listed are the best.

x-post: I just didn't really rate them as albums, I think. Overlong, a bit samey. Didn't vote for Sha Sha either, though it's hardly overlong. But did put Lorch at seven on my track ballot.

Or rather, I just listened to a lot of albums this year, and there's only 25 spots on an album ballot. Feel like I left off a lot of incredible jazz as well.

Coltrane 1961 - Africa/Brass, My Favorite Things

guys, how could we forget Use Your Illusion 2 and whatever the other one was called?

Neil Young - On the Beach, Tonight's the Night
and then Tonight's the Night, Zuma

and Comes a Time, Rust Never Sleeps

On the Beach and Tonights the Night were released 11 months apart, but in different years

oh, my bad. but i reckon Live Rust and Rust Never Sleeps fits the criteria.

xp to Fred: that’s fair, I guess. (I wouldn’t call the Sha Sha “samey” tho, if that’s what you were implying).

Oh no, that one really went places over a pretty short runtime :)

Frank Sinatra released 2 or more great albums every year from 1957 to 1962 except 1960. It would be hard to choose between

1957: Close to You; a Swinging' Affair!; Where are you?
1958: Come Fly with Me; Frank Sinatra sings for Only the Lonely

Peggy Lee was doing the same thing during the same period. My pick would be

1958: Jump for Joy; Things are Swingin'; Sea Shells

Gentle Giant - Three Friends & Octopus, both released in 1972

1973 Waylon Jennings- Lonesome On'ry & Mean/ Honky Tonk Heroes

Blondie - Plastic Letters and Parallel Lines in 1978

Just to raise the four album per year record of Fela Kuti 1975. Frank Zappa 1979:

- Sleep Dirt
- Sheik Yerbouti
- Orchestral Favourites
- Joe's Garage Act I
- Joe's Garage Acts II & III

Sault and Moses Sumney should be on here

I'm sure John Zorn has released 25 or so decent albums in a year at some point

A couple of those Zappa ones were recorded years earlier though and then held up by some sort of legal dispute? Notwithstanding the fact that it's Frank Zappa so none of the individual albums are that great.

was going to say '94 Pete Namlook/FAX crew etc, but of course Tuomas beat me to it with his Atom suggestion.

I think Gucci Mane is not really highly regarded on ILM (at least his recent output) but he did it a few times over the last few years imo (2019, 2017, 2016).

Sault, otm.

Sault - 5 + 7
Tom Waits - Blood Money + Alice

Kabza de Small’s tally so far this year (there were four last year, see upthread):

February: Scorpion Kings Live (with DJ Maphorisa) (note: it’s a studio album)

April: Pretty Girls Love Amapiano, Vol. 2

April: Once Upon a Time in Lockdown (with DJ Maphorisa)

June: I Am The King Of Amapiano: Sweet & Dust

These are long-ass albums, they are a lot to take in, people might even say (and have said, on this thread) they can get a bit samey, but it’s quality stuff and there’s plenty of gold* as well as new and exciting directions explored on all of them.

*including song-of-the-year-so-far “Emcimbini” on February’s offering

mount eerie - clear moon / ocean roar (2012)

Billy Childish has done this several times, in terms of actual numbers of albums it looks like he was busiest in 1987 with 7/8 actual albums not including live and comps, but not sure they were all actually good (they definitely weren't all actually good)

I do rate these though:

1984
Milkshakes - Nothing Can Stop These Men
Milkshakes - They Came, They Saw, They Conquered
Milkshakes - Thee Knights of Trashe

1986
Thee Mighty Caesars - Acropolis Now
The Delmonas - Delmonas 5

1990
Thee Headcoats - Beach Bums Must Die
Thee Headcoats - Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats (Already)

1994
Thee Headcoats - Conundrum
Thee Headcoatees - Ballad Of The Insolent Pup

1996
Thee Headcoats - In Tweed We Trust
Thee Headcoats - Knights of the Baskervilles

(warning - do not listen if you hate garage rock/punk)

A couple of those Zappa ones were recorded years earlier though and then held up by some sort of legal dispute? Notwithstanding the fact that it's Frank Zappa so none of the individual albums are that great.

as always with Zappa the sum total of good stuff on those albums is pretty impressive, especially since most of those are doubles

thinking we could call this the Kabzappa Phenomenon

Sault

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 7:25 AM

Sault, otm.

― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 7:48 AM

Sault - 5 + 7

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 8:23 AM

because it bears repeating.

hell, add the new one and that's three in just over a year.