Which band has the best discography?

actually I'm gonna say everything I've heard by clipping. has been 100% fire

btw the Dilla beats on The Love Movement were the main things I found objectionable

fair enough, but would you agree with me that they are better than the ones on WGTIFH...TYFYS

OP: take in every single thing a band has recorded from start to finish – albums, B-sides, loosies

adding in things that were deliberately not released at the time, only decades after the band split and a member or two died (as with Beatles and Go-Betweens), means that every other act in the thread also ought to be judged by the material they thought was too bad to release.

yup

Ghost (from the Far East)

ooh that's a good one. they really don't have any bad records!

Sleater-Kinney have a pretty good ratio?

Yes, but their debut is not good.

i love bands with perfect discographies other than their shitty debut, cf. sleater-kinney... jimmy eat world... idk there are others

I was thinking about Ghost but that album with Damon and Naomi is not great imo

they have two and I love them both!

Herbie Nichols
Derek Bailey
Fushitsusha

yeah was gonna say Fusitsusha or High Rise

Latter-day Fushitsusha records are not nearly as good as the ones with the classic lineup. Also Allegorical Misunderstanding, the one they did on Zorn’s Avant label, is pretty weak.

i love bands with perfect discographies other than their shitty debut, cf. sleater-kinney... jimmy eat world... idk there are others

Spoon! (Although I still haven't heard Telephono, which more people appear to ride hard for in comparison to the first SK or Jimmy Eat World)

i love bands with perfect discographies other than their shitty debut, cf. sleater-kinney... jimmy eat world... idk there are others

― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 31 January 2020 10:37 PM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Stina Nordenstam's debut album isn't shitty but there's a big leap between that and her second album, and she maintained a near-perfect discography thereafter.

as you guys noted above, duke, miles and coltrane were extremely consistent. i would add thelonious monk and charlie parker to that list as well

Only reason I would exclude Monk is Monk’s Blues, his last studio record, and...not a good one.

But Charlie Parker, definitely.

Mentioned GangStarr above but they def are another "perfect discography with shitty debut" group. Actually iirc correctly their debut has 1 classic & rest is, er, forgettable.

i kind of love monk's blues lol... but i feel u tho it has some cringey moments for sure. by the way it's not his last studio album, he actually recorded some dope underrated albums in the early seventies, such as 'something in blue' with art blakey

drive like jehu never fucked around

Maybe Boredoms? Although I guess fans of their late-period drum-oriented stuff might not be down with the early noise-dada stuff.

Several of the Super Roots EPs seemed kind of throwaway

considering the astonishing quantity and consistently invigorated records over a long long time - ok sure with the odd less successful patch -overall I would choose The Fall - but as others have said up there Fela Kuti is a good pick

Doo-Bop is a solid EP if you delete all the tracks with vocals (in fact, delete every track Miles ever recorded with a vocalist)

― shared unit of analysis (unperson)

i say thee nay, i dig his bob dorough shit, "blue x-mas" forever

i love bands with perfect discographies other than their shitty debut, cf. sleater-kinney... jimmy eat world... idk there are others

― american bradass (BradNelson),

Japan?

yeah!!!

lol why would I judge a rap album just by the instrumentals

because they better than the album itself

*are

...

https://ulozto.net/file/1miJFChe/a-tribe-called-quest-the-love-movement-1998-hip-hop-instrumental-zip

King Sunny Ade might fit here but I have only heard about 15 of 270 albums so can’t say for sure.

And if they try come stoppin' me
I show them my discography

https://images.genius.com/a7b3e345506d3954231a481447a62d7f.1000x762x1.jpg

who tf is that lolol

Souled American -- six perfect albums -- but nobody cares. Prince Far I never made a bad one while he was alive. Steely Dan's original run is legendary of course but the comeback albums, while quite good, sort of mess with the aura of it, because going out on "Gaucho" was just a God-level move.

But Souled American is 100% perfect from beginning to "end." (They never officially quit, just sort of vanished.)

Danish instrumental psych-rock quartet (now a quintet; they've added a saxophonist) Mythic Sunship haven't made a bad album yet. Four studio releases, one live album, all fantastic.

Souled American was supercool. There was this resurgence in interest here when the albums were reissued in the 90s, then ... they sort of vanished again. (Same with Shrimp Boat.)

I know they're not an ILM fave but Elbow's discography has been incredibly consistent.

Scott Tuma has a pretty perfect discography off the back of Souled American, too.

also has anybody nominated Sun Ra yet
― Οὖτις, Friday, January 31, 2020 9:23 PM

I did, upthread.

xp
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, January 31, 2020 9:26 PM

How many people have heard everything by him?

Also I think there's a promise in the original post that's not been entirely been fulfilled by the thread itself, in that the *best discography* isn't necessarily about having a short-but-consistent or flawless run of albums. Otherwise you might as well go 'Young Marble Giants' and leave it at that.

The bands I really think of as discography bands have catalogues that reward exploration, that are full of twists and turns and little rooms hidden off to the side. EPs, B-Sides, obscure early singles or non-album hits, perhaps remixes or reworks of other artists. There are so many bad or boring Sonic Youth songs even at their peak but there's also the sense that there might be a real treat hidden away in there that you hadn't previously heard. Ditto REM, New Order, Cocteau Twins, Prince and later on Autechre or Aphex Twin or Carl Craig. The demise of physical media kind of flattened this out among newer artists but not entirely.

yuup carl craig's discography is very very good!

the only techno artist as consistent as carl is probably... Gas

Not sure I can name anything by Carl Craig from the last twenty years that isn't a remix

Saint Etienne definitely ticks the deep cuts/buried treasure aspect for me (annoyingly the deluxe versions of their albums, excluding the remixes collection, have been off Spotify a while now)

Here to rep for Japan and the individual band members' post-Japan projects. TONS of signal, very little noise.

Saint Etienne are very consciously that sort of discography band I think because they understand the thrill of that kind of fandom. Does anyone really rate the more recent run of albums up against their 90s output though?

If I were to go for sheer quantity of great releases, I'd say REM and Swans.

Consistency is a terrible metric and is for people who enjoy filling out forms and informing on their neighbours.

If there's no garbage in there what's going on

I love w all my heart FoxBase Alpha and So Tough but rest of SE's catalog varies from meh to ugh

i think "catalogues that reward exploration" really nails it, Matt DC otm (altho i would pick very different artists as examples)

with a select few artists i even sort of dread coming to "the end"

Royal Trux has one of the best ratios I can think of, in terms of quantity:quality... everything they released was outstanding* until around ’99 (and even then they never got “bad,” just took their foot off the gas a lil bit). Even their reunion albums are enjoyable.

*it helps to be a fan to have opinions like this, as someone noted above