A Bum Note and a Bead of Sweat

Last week I received a text from a family friend asking me who, in my mind, “has the best discography… a perfect or near perfect discography?”
 
Obviously that’s a big question, and deserving of something more than a flippant answer. My mind started racing around, thinking about my favorite artists, what made their catalogs great, and the circumstances that led to albums that, shall we say, ruined their track records.
 
I will say that the first band that came to mind was The Police. However, as they only released five albums over five years, it almost felt like cheating to name them. But why? Maybe they did it right, knowing when their working relationship would no longer prove to be fruitful. It got me thinking about the ideas of perfection, innovation, and longevity. It’s also got me thinking in terms of musical styles and circumstances behind the scenes, how management and record labels affected the product that was released.
 
Before I go further, I want to warn you, dear reader, that I am on new medication (usually prescribed for ADHD) that, along with my daily coffee consumption, makes my mind race and even more prone to psycho-babble than normal. If you just want to see my limited list of artists who managed to achieve a “perfect” discography (whatever that means), skip to the end. However, if you wish to know how I came to this (subjective and limited) list, and if you are curious as to why I believe that the traits and circumstances of truly great artists are many of the same things that keep them off that that list, read on. Caveat emptor.
 
I will begin by proposing the following axioms:
            Perfection in art is impossible.
            Excellence is not perfection.
            Perfection is not constancy.
            Consistency is not innovation.
 
Bearing these in mind, I’d like to change the framing of the question from one about perfection and think more of terms of artists who have catalogs of continual excellence. Of course, it is the continual part that is the big part here. For example, it could be argued that Jeff Buckley had a “perfect” discography. Sadly, he didn’t live long enough to mess it up, leaving us with only one pretty glorious album. Obviously an artist needs to have a certain minimum of albums to be mentioned in this conversation.
 
In judging a body of work, one can hope to find a high and consistent level of craft, but true masterpieces occur at an intersection of craft, innovation, authenticity, a deep level of emotional and/or intellectual engagement, and usually a strong foothold in the zeitgeist. These works are rare, and few have managed more then one over the course of their careers. I think about the artists who made what are rated as the greatest albums of all time, and I find that there were some equally terrible albums in their catalog. With any artist that has been producing for an extended period of time, I think that the best one can hope for is a “stinker-free” discography. Maybe not every album is essential, but even the worst has something to offer.
 

Brian Wilson

Contrary to what the Rolling Stones asserted, time is not on their side. We all know of musicians who, as they aged, lost their chops, burned out, or became jaded and out of touch. Some of the greatest, most innovative bands of the 1960s, for example, have remained together and keep releasing albums, with each succeeding release a pale imitation of the one before it. The Beach Boys bottomed out with Keepin’ the Summer Alive (1980), an album rushed out at the behest of their record company at a time when bandleader Brian Wilson was plunging to the depths of his mental illness. Wilson, of course, in his heyday helped to usher in the era of the LP as a carefully constructed, complete artistic statement (the “album era” is generally considered to begin around the time of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds [1966] and The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [1967] and with the rise of the MP3). During his most creative era, he was one of the most visionary, risk-taking artists.
 
Even artists that maintain the spirit of experimentation (and mental and physical health) can fly too close to the sun and plunge into the ocean. And frankly, that’s not a bad thing. To avoid becoming stale, artists need to get out of their comfort zones. In art, all experiments work.
 
An example of this is The Kinks, one of the greatest and most influential bands of their era. However, their foray into “rock theatre” with their Preservation albums (1973,1974), along with Soap Opera (1975) and Schoolboys in Disgrace (1975) is to be considered the nadir of their career. (Interestingly, the Kinks’ earlier songs, wonderfully rich character sketches and short stories, were a huge influence on The Who’s Pete Townshend, who was to create the quintessential rock operas, Tommy [1969], and Quadrophenia [1973].) Later, the Kinks would have a great second act in their career by “getting back to basics” and focusing on individual songs that were hooky, unique, and often wonderfully odd. With the rise of punk and new wave, that approach fit in nicely with the cultural climate. The zeitgeist came back around to them.
 

The Who

And what about The Who? Their sound varied from album to album, but with a profound emotional reality linking them. They were a bit more methodical, though. They were not nearly as prolific as their peers. Still, every experiment worked… until they stopped experimenting. I would argue that Quadrophenia was their peak. It was rich and complex in its composition, explosively broad in sonic impact, yet emotionally raw and intimate; beautiful and angry at the same time. Where do you go from there? In Pete Townshend’s case, he became less theatrical and more direct. He stopped hiding behind fictitious characters to express his personal truths, a change that one might say was a more conventional type of songwriting. What followed were two albums, The Who by Numbers (1975) and Who Are You (1978), that were deeply confessional, if at times cryptic. The band had lost none of its thunder, but it could be argued that they were entering a new period. Pete was still searching for the sound, still toying with technology, still looking forward, but making songs that were more introspective at the same time.
 
Then in 1978 drummer Keith Moon died. “It was the end of an era,” Who frontman Roger Daltrey said in the aftermath. “We’re going to try and go on. But one thing everyone must understand: It will never ever be the same. That died.” The band went out on tour with their new drummer (the unfairly maligned), Kenney Jones, and they seemed like they would move forward with another album. Pete had other plans. He felt that his increasingly confessional songs needed to be presented unadulterated, without the musical voices and personalities of his bandmates. Pete’s subsequent solo album, Empty Glass (1980), was probably the epitome of Pete’s songwriting as fearless personal exploration. It also was, and still is, the top selling solo album by a member of The Who. While all members of the original group had released solo albums in the past, as the primary songwriter, Pete’s burgeoning solo career posed more of a threat to the band. It is argued that the two subsequent Who albums suffered from lackluster material, with Pete’s bandmates feeling resentful, believing that he kept many of his best songs for himself. Face Dances (1981) and It’s Hard (1982) fared poorly. It seemed that the band had run out of steam, and they broke up shortly thereafter.
 
Many people think the band should have broken up when Keith Moon died. If they had, they might have had that “perfect” catalog. Is it better to burn out than fade away? The band would regroup numerous times over the next several decades. They would always be a serious concert draw. They recorded two further albums, both of which received mixed to positive reviews, but they seemed somehow apart from their “classic catalog.”
 

Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits

Another thing that can mar a catalog is the “sophomore slump.” It’s frequently said that you spend your whole life making your first album, and six months to make your second. There are many bands whose second album sounds just a little too much like the first album, well played by uninspired. A notable example of this is Dire Straits (sorry Patty). Their second album Communiqué (1979), was panned, with the songs being described as “pale imitations” of those of the first album. The band would redeem itself with the following LP, Making Movies (1980). Arguably their best album, they would begin incorporating country and jazz to their rootsy, pub rock sound. Coincidentally, the band would never again have the same line-up from one album to the next, with leader/singer/songwriter Mark Knopfler and bassist John Illsley being the sole continuous members. Line-up shifts that often would have a deleterious effect on a band’s output, didn’t seem to affect Dire Straits. In fact, quite the opposite.
 
Sometimes it’s the record companies that are responsible for lackluster releases. Labels often pressured artists to put out product even when the creative well was dry.
There are many cases where musicians would rush material simply to fulfill or get out of a contract. These “contractual obligation albums” can take the form of slapdash compilations of unreleased material and new recordings made with no consideration of quality. The Band released Islands in 1977, simply to fulfill their contract with Capitol records. Consisting almost entirely of songs that didn’t make the cut on previous albums, it was a commercial and critical failure. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, on the other hand, completely burnt out and tired of each other, were forced by their label to create one more album of original music. It has been said that Love Beach (1978) not only ruined ELPs reputation, but also killed the entire genre of prog rock in the 70s.
 
On the comical side of things, some musicians would deliberately record sub-par or unreleasable material to get free of their record companies. The Rolling Stones delivering the single “Schoolboy Blues” to Decca is a classic example. With references to oral and anal sex and object insertion, there was no way it could be released and get radio play. (It’s kind of an awesome song, though.)
 
Another hilarious case of contractual sabotage is Van Morrison. After leaving the Northern Irish blues/garage rock band, Them, he went to New York to record several singles for Bert Burns’ label, Bang Records. Having not perused the contract, he did not realize that he was also authorizing an LP release of these tracks. The story goes that he wished his first solo LP to be something of a grander, more contemplative statement than a hodgepodge of unconnected songs, and he was angered by the release of Blowin' Your Mind! (1967). Bert Berns died several months after the release, leaving Morrison in a contractual dispute with Burns’ widow, Irene. When Warner Brothers bought out his contract, one stipulation was that Van had to submit thirty-six songs to Burns’ publishing company. Here’s where it gets funny: Van went into the studio, not even bothering to tune his guitar, and proceeded to rattle off thirty-six songs, made up on the spot. To give you an idea of the content, song titles include “Ring Worm,” “Blowin’ Your Nose,” and “Here Comes Dumb George.” Needless to say, Irene Burns did not publish these songs. Van would begin his solo career in earnest with the sublimely ethereal Astral Weeks (1968), but to his dismay, the slap-dash Blowin' Your Mind! remains the official beginning of his discography.
 
Sometimes labels would even put out substandard material without the artist’s consent or even knowledge. It was not uncommon for for a record company, if one of their artists moved on and found success at another label, to rush release an album cobbled together with older recordings in order to capitalize on their new-found success. After Aretha Franklin broken through with I Never Loved a Man the Way I loved You (1967), her first LP on Atlantic, her former label, Columbia, put out Take It Like You Give It (1967), comprised of outtakes with absolutely no sense of continuity.
 
This also could happen on labels with which an artist was then affiliated, particularly in the “pre-album era.” At that time, most artists could only sit back and watch as record executive would crank out their albums, taking the latest hit single and padding it out with filler cuts, hastily written and recorded. This is the case for many Motown artists, who often also had no control over the songwriting and song selection. As the organization’s focus was grooming their artists, Motown often just tried anything, using seemingly random approaches to find what sort of material would work for a given artist. For an organization that was so concerned with quality control, it’s odd to see that LPs like The Supremes Sing Country, Western & Pop (1965) and Stevie at the Beach (1964), an album of a young Stevie Wonder singing surf music, were ever released. Consequently, you can scratch Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder off the list of “stinker-free” catalogs, even though, once they received a degree of independence from the Motown machine, both would have strings of unimpeachably brilliant albums in the 1970s.
 
I’d even argue that The Beatles would get knocked off the list due to the albums released in conjunction with their movies. Whereas the British releases of the albums A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965) featured all the songs from the movies plus other songs from those periods that fit within the same sound and structure of the album, their American counterparts did not have that advantage. Perhaps it had to do with publishing rights or some other legal weirdness, the American soundtrack albums used only the songs specifically written for each movie and were padded out with orchestral scoring from the movie. It was common in that era for English and American releases to have different track lists, but there was a huge disparity between the quality of the British and American releases. However, both British and American record buyers got the shit end of the stick when it came to the soundtrack of Yellow Submarine (1969). The releases were identical on both sides of the Atlantic. The album featured only four new songs, with half of the album being the Muzak-like underscoring. Fortunately, with the EMI/Parlophone compact disc reissue campaign in 1987, it was the British versions of A Hard Day’s Night and Help! that were released and thus established to be canonical. Unfortunately, Yellow Submarine was part of that series of releases as well, making it part of the standardized catalog. Chalk up one “stinker” for the Beatles.
 

The idea of “canon” is quite important to this conversation. For example, many people don’t realize that the Velvet Underground did not, in fact, disband when Lou Reed left the group in 1970. The band continued touring over the next few years, all the while with original members leaving or behind dismissed from the group. By 1973, only Doug Yule remained (not even an original member, he joined the group in 1968 after the departure of multi-instrumentalist, John Cale). Under pressure from manager Steve Sesnick, a final album was recorded and released under the Velvet Underground name. In actual fact, Yule wrote, recorded, and produced Squeeze (1973) almost completely by himself (interestingly, drums were played by Ian Paice of Deep Purple). It received scathing reviews at the time, and many view the album to be outside of the Velvet Underground’s discography. When, in 1995, the band released their ostensibly career-spanning box set, no material from it was included. Is it an embarrassing blemish on the catalog of the VU, or apocrypha?
 
So between issues of label interference, bad management, band politics, shifting line-ups, ennui, writer’s block, drugs, mental health, and death, we have basically knocked out most of the greatest artists from the “stinker free” catalog list. You may have noticed that I have not addressed jazz artists yet. Is it because they are just better musicians? Well, I would say that jazz musicians are generally better in terms of technique and knowledge of music theory. It’s not for nothing that many of the best session cats are jazz guys. That said, I would not say that most jazz musicians have catalogs of consistent quality. These guys tend to be so prolific that there is far too much to wade through. As a largely improvisational form, so much of jazz is trying to capture lightning in a bottle. To be fair it often happens. Ascension, John Coltrane’s 1966 album was largely composed in the studio. A single recording session yielded one of the greatest, and most controversial albums of all time. That same year, it took Brian Wilson twenty sessions just to record “Good Vibrations,”
 
Jazz guys have the same issues with their labels, drugs, band squabbling, etc, that popular music artists have, but with one major additional liability: The fact is, the 1970s were a golden era for rock, soul, and funk music, but not so much for jazz. The decade began promisingly enough, with geniuses like Miles Davis, Tony Williams, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and John McLaughlin embracing other styles and approaches to music and incorporating them into their own work. Latin influences, African sounds, funk, even hard rock ended up in the stew later dubbed “fusion.” Unfortunately, as the decade wore on many of the jazz cats would stop charting new territories and starting chasing trends in the search for a broader audience. Miles Davis did himself a favor when he retired in 1975 (but he would end up making some terrible records when he returned in the 80s) as by the end of the decade, fusion would become dirty word, associated with cheesy “smooth jazz” crossover music.
 
In summation, artists with a “stinker-free” discography have to have a strong sense of identity and well honed craft from the very get-go. They do not rush things. They have record companies that are either supportive or sufficiently hands-off. They are aware of sea change, in culture and in music, but do not chase trends. They are willing to experiment and are lucky enough if those experiments take them out of their comfort zones but not outside of their abilities and greatest strengths. And frankly, oftentimes, they know when to quit. That’s a lot.
 
After all that, who has a “stinker-free” catalog? As you, dear reader, can probably tell, I am an old fart and am definitely stuck in the past. As shitty as record companies still are, I would posit that artists now signed to labels, major and independent, in the last couple of decades are better off than those in the early 60s. I have noticed that artists don’t seem to be pressured to put out material as quickly. I am aware that there are many more contemporary artists who have created a body of work that has garnered near universal acclaim (Jill Scott, D’Angelo, and Kendrick Lamar come to mind), but I have not perused their entire catalogs personally. My list was inspired by combing over my own shelves, so forgive me for any omissions.
 
The Police

My first thought. Some people slag off their second album, Regatta de Blanc (1979) as suffering from the sophomore slump, but I think it is a fine follow-up to their debut, with more sophisticated songwriting while stretching what they were able to achieve musically with a guitar/bass/drums band. They would perfect that sound on their following album, Zenyatta Mondatta (1980). Consequently they would begin to incorporate synthesizers and other esoteric instrumentation and change the soundscape on their final albums. After their masterpiece, Synchronicity (1983), they called it a day.
 
Talking Heads

Talking Heads released eight albums over eleven years. True Stories (1986) is considered to be the nadir of their catalog, but taken on its own it would be seen as a fine piece of work were it made by a lesser band. Hardly essential, it’s not a complete stinker. Their catalog is marked by continual experimentation and growth from the stark, sometimes desolate instrumentation of their early albums, to the rich, wide scope of albums such as Remain in Light (1980) which incorporated African rhythms and extended improvisation. Their catalog is marked by a restless chasing of sounds experiment with texture.
 
John Coltrane

Most jazz artists are too prolific not to have a misstep or two, and deciding what is canon is difficult. As a band leader, he released dozens of albums in a ten year period (I am not including his lengthy work as a side man), and not all of his albums were highly rated when first released, but that’s a cross you have to bear when you’re ahead of your time. Of the albums released with his authorization during his lifetime, the worst that can be said of those is that he may have only averaged one masterpiece per year, and the rate of growth is astonishing. As is the problem with many jazz musicians, even though every release is worthwhile, there are too many to simply dive into his catalog without a guide (Blue Train (1958), Giant Steps (1960), and My Favorite Things (1961) is a good start). Also, what is considered canon can be up for debate. Passing away in 1967, one can only speculate how he would have navigated the rough waters of the 70s and 80s.
 
Jimi Hendrix

It is true that he only released four albums in his lifetime, they were all stunning, unique, and cannot be ignored. The three albums his did with his original band, billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, redefined rock music, even as his sound was in a constant state of conception. Are You Experienced (1967) hit the music scene like a claymore mine, shattering notions of what a guitar could do and killing sacred cows by the herd by wedding blues with psychedelia. His second album, Axis: Bold as Love (1967), often featured a more trance-like, lyrical sound. Electric Ladyland (1969), brought out more funk elements, as well as more extended (but not noodly) jams. Even his contractual obligation live album, named after his new group, Band of Gypsys (1970), was a monster. Hendrix was in the middle of recording his fourth studio album when he died on September 18th, 1970. Six months later, his first posthumous album was released. An attempt by bandmates his recording engineer to get as close to Hendrix’s vision of his next album as possible, The Cry of Love (1971) sounded surprisingly complete, able to stand up to his classic releases.
 
Led Zeppelin

The band’s formidable power and musicality along with guitarist/leader Jimmy Page’s relentless perfectionism, sonic experimentation, and openness to a myriad of esoteric musical influences made Zeppelin’s first six studio albums indispensable classics of hard rock/proto metal while having a broader palate that defies being limited to those genres. Though their seventh album Presence (1977) was less eclectic, it was by design, with the band trying to get back to its hard rock roots. Still, it yielded the epic “Achilles’ Last Stand” and the blues-rock burner, “Nobody’s Fault but Mine.” After that, they should have tanked when drummer John Bonham’s alcohol consumption made him a liability and Page’s heroin use sapped his creativity and drive. However, during he recording of In Through the Out Door (1979), bassist/multi-instrumentalist (and Zeppelin’s secret weapon) John Paul Jones stepped up, with his composition dominating most of the album. It wasn’t the Zeppelin of old, but that was a good thing. There were solid cuts such as “Fool in the Rain” and “All of My Love” that had a sound that was solidly contemporary, but genuine. The stylistic change indicated that they have been able to survive into the 80s had tragedy not struck with the death of Bonham in 1980, upon which the group disbanded.
 
Roxy Music

Roxy Music’s catalog has a definite trajectory, from the wildly varied, dynamic, sometimes caustic and sometimes lyrical, post-modern, glam influenced avant-rock of their self-titled debut (1972), to the sleek, exquisitely airy romanticism of their final studio album, Avalon (1982). The journey between the two is exhilarating and inspired. The genres of ambient music and New Romantic can find their embryos planted in their catalog.
 
Okay. So one thing that is common with these six examples is that all these discographies are relatively short, four years at the shortest, twelve at the longest.
 
I keep looking over at my shelf and I see other possible candidates, but I really should stop here. I’m sure with more time, I could come up with more examples. At the same time, I would need to be far better versed in more contemporary music. In any event, I would argue that perfection can never be an expectation, and universal excellence in a discography is usually only seen in hindsight. It often takes distance to see where an album sits in an artist’s oeuvre, and how it enlightens the other works within.
 
My father used to tell me that “perfection is the enemy of very, very good.” I know that there are albums that never came out because the artists fussed over every detail and ultimately became overwhelmed by the process or simply lost the battle to time (the most well known example being The Beach Boys’ Smile, with sessions recorded between 1966 and 1967 before being abandoned). The search for perfection can often lead to a sterile product (e.g. The Eagles), with the window into the artist’s mind and soul closed and sealed. In many forms of popular music, authenticity and honesty are considered paramount to polish. As The Who’s frontman, Roger Daltrey, said: “Give me a bum note and a bead of sweat anytime.”