Which band has the best discography?

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

I feel like 5-6 releases is the sweet spot where you have a big enough discography to be respectable, but haven't been around long enough to run out of ideas. Works for Sade, Pavement, Erykah Badu.

to me, a discography HAS to be consistent in order to "reward exploration." i mean who really wants to wade through ALL the smashing pumpkins albums. whereas you can't go wrong with gorguts.

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

consistency lol

just to clarify, when i say consistent i mean "unchanging in standard" (not "always the same")

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?

― Matt DC

I rate Tales From Turnpike House as their third best album and Words & Music isn't far behind. Sound Of Water and Finisterre are pretty solid but easily their weakest eras for me. Turnpike House really took me by surprise at the time and stands up 15 years on. Words & Music felt like a continuation of them sounding inspired again and contains some of my favourite songs of theirs (Tonight, DJ, Over The Border, Popular). I wouldn't say Home Counties is quite on the same level, but I still enjoyed it.

I don't like Led Zeppelin II and I don't like a lot of Sister Lovers, and I'm sure there are Jim O'Rourke or Pauline Oliveros records I haven't heard yet that I wouldn't like so much, so I'll cheat and say The Attractions.

Maybe Minutemen is the right answer.

Phenomenal catalog! Tho 3-Way Tie for Last is kind of not on par with the rest imo

meshuggah's discography is really cool and unique

i sort of feel like there's a balance between consistency and adventurousness. like to me looking at gentle giant's catalogue i value "civilian" more than i do, say, "in a glass house", because "civilian" is gentle giant doing an enjoyable record in a style they hadn't done before (and since it was their last record, wouldn't ever do again), whereas "in a glass house", well, you know, they have around eight pretty good records in that style. what can i get out of "in a glass house" that i couldn't get out of "power and the glory"?

the trade-off is that the two records before "civilian" are shit. what's better, a decent record i never listen to or a shitty record i never listen to? does it matter?

I want to say Rockpile, counting the records also nominally by Lowe and Edmunds, but basically all the same band

I agree In a Glass House & The Power and the Glory are pretty similar but the rest of GG's records seem pretty distinct to me

fwiw I think The Missing Piece is alright, especially the proggier second half. Giant for a Day on the other hand...who knows what they were thinking. has a Love Beach sorta vibe to it. what gets me about these records isn't so much that they suck, it's that the production is so weak and the performances so dispirited...its like the band themselves didn't really buy it either.

What's the New Mary Jane is pretty bad

A Taste of Honey

there's others...

They didn't release What's the New Mary Jane or write A Taste of Honey, so not sure what the point is here...

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

― akm, Saturday, 1 February 2020 17:06 (three days ago)

Elbow's is the only front-to-back catalog I regularly turn and return to as often as The Beatles and Underworld.

But also, Underworld. Dubno... to the present.

(The false start that is/was Underneath the Radar need not apply.)

What's the New Mary Jane was released on Beatles Anthology 3

the OP makes no mention of authorship

xps

and if we’re being extra pedantic OP says “every single thing a band has recorded” (i.e. whether the band released the recording or not shouldn’t matter, leaks and bootlegs fair game, presumably that’s what “loosies” means)

Loosies are songs on, like, soundtracks and comps.

Leaks and bootlegs are up to your own discretion I guess

not even leaks, everything that was ever put on tape, even if they recorded over it later

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.

― don't care didn't ask still clappin (sic), Saturday, February 1, 2020 9:07 AM (four days ago)

yup

― Οὖτις, Saturday, February 1, 2020 9:10 AM (four days ago)

Beatles Anthology 3 is an officially released comp

this is a stupid argument

which good band / artist has the worst discography?

imo if members are dead and the band split up decades earlier, then the intent was clearly not to release the abandoned demos as an authoritative contribution to the discography

this is a stupid argument

agreed, especially if we extend this to cover the entire thread

what is the argument ? i was really only noting that, if you wanted to, you could count bootlegs in a band's discography. or you don't have to. sometimes unofficial shit, particularly concert fan recordings and scrapped studio sessions, are essential to "knowing" a band's discography, at least to some fans. i'm not trying to make "rules" and my post was sort of in jest.

then again other times an artist comes around and says, "yeah those bootlegs, we own that, here they are officially." that was one of the main points of the anthology series ! see also dylan for another obvious example.

which good band / artist has the worst discography?

Black Flag

In a similar vein: Bad Brains

I'd go with The Kinks there, you remove a 5-year chunk of their 30-year career and pretty much all that's left is garbage with a handful of good singles

Start a new thread!

Joan Osborn- One Of Us.

I'm admittedly an album or two behind, but unless she's inexplicably gone into a qualitative freefall: Tara Jane O'Neill. And even if you feel like plugging all of her side work into the equation, it's still a pretty gahdamn unstoppable discography.

Hmm, no mention of Rush or the Ramones in here ...

Catherine Christer Hennix

whoa

Have The Fall been mentioned yet? Seems an obvious choice to me.

They have (I re-read this thread last night); but as much as I’m a fan, I would not call their catalogue “flawless”…

lol definitely not