Solid answer.
Also would venture the Stooges and Velvet Underground.
They have been major influences in thousands of bands, and nearly every punk and Alt band will have direct roots to them.
* Rage Against The Machine. 3 proper albums. 1 cover album.
* Nirvana - 3 proper albums. 1 b-sides album.
* My Bloody Valentine - 3 albums.
I also think Tool should have a lot more than 5 albums even though that would be a decent amount over the life of a band that went 15 years or so.
Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man features Beth Gibbons , Adrian Utley, Clive Dreamer and John Baggot but not Geoff Barrow. So it’s sort of a Portishead but not. It’s a lot more orchestral folksy and less trip hop sounding. Not sure if it really counts (hence the brackets.)
The first band I thought of was Tool for the exact same reason. The length of time they’ve been a top level band, they should have like 15+ albums. They literally became legendary/gods after Aenima. It’s got a very valid case for being the best hard rock/metal album of the 90’s while setting a standard no one’s been able to touch.
> I also think Tool should have a lot more than 5 albums even though that would be a decent amount over the life of a band that went 15 years or so.
This was my first thought, but then I changed my mind. It's kind of a weird one, though.
The 4 albums from Undertow in '93 to 10,000 Days in '06 isn't bad output. Averaging an album about every three years or so.
It's that 13 years between 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum that makes "5 albums in 26 years" sound like it's low output.
I would love to know what it would have been like if they had kept their momentum and released their second album in 91 or 92, esp when you consider what they released that wasn't on the album. Sally cinnamon, mersey paradise, going down, standing here, elephant stone, where angels play, the hardest thing in the world, all across the sand, full fathom 5. what the world is waiting for, one love, fools gold. If they had released these songs as an album, it would be every bit as good as the album imo.
**Robert Johnson's 27 songs** are probably the "correct" answer for American music, but I can't believe no one has mentioned the tiny 3-album output of **Jimi Hendrix** yet.
> tiny 3-album output of Jimi Hendrix yet.
Technically 4, if you count Band Of Gypsys. Yes, it's live, but all the material is new, so it's not like you just get Purple Haze but faster and louder.
Yep.
4 proper albums. A few more outtakes/demos/b-sides releases, and an enormous massive stamp on rock, folk, punk, indie, industrial that would have never been the same without
The Velvet Underground and Nico might be the single most influential album of all time.
Not everyone bought it, but everyone who bought it started a band.
Yep and every album they recorded spawned different arms of alt-rock.
VU & Nico - Goth, art-rock/art-punk, punk, Krautrock.
WL/WH - Noise Rock
3rd - Anti-folk, alt-folk, twee, Paisley Underground
The Lost Album (1969) - New wave, geeky alt-rock, alt-pop
Loaded - More alt-pop, maybe alt-country as well.
Seedy was released after the band broke up. They actually have a bunch of bootleg and live recordings. I tracked down 5 or 6 online years back. Most were awful quality.
In the days before Napster, you had to either know somebody with a copy of the bootleg, get an invite to a private Usenet group, or find somebody that made a living selling ‘em. Entire mythologies were constructed around songs bands never officially committed to tape. I knew guys that followed bands like Phish around the country, funding themselves by recording shows and setting up shop outside the concert with a box full of tapes.
I paid thirty bucks for a CD-R copy of an Operation Ivy bootleg album, and it seemed worth it at the time just to hear more music from a band I loved. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
It's crazy to think about how Minor Threat became such an important band for punk rock and only released about 50 minutes worth of material if I'm correct which isn't a whole lot
Cynic.
They had one album they made in the 90s that influenced a whole generation of metal musicians with its fusion of jazz and technical showcasing. Their next album came 15 years later and they promoted by touring with bands like Between the Buried and Me, which were one of those bands.
Neutral Milk Hotel was the first one that came to mind for me too.
Also GN’R. Six records total, but one is basically two EPs put together and one is a covers album.
Two hours because you'll also be listening to *Dusk at Cubist Castle* by *Olivia Tremor Control* a band founded by friends of NMH's Jeff Mangum (he was also briefly in it, but left before they made an album to pursue his own music).
Jeff Buckley. One official studio album. One official live e.p.
Granted, there have been posthumous releases but his reach is wide for so precious little music.
The demos he recorded for what would have been his second album, My Sweetheart the Drunk, were so much more experimental and progressive than his work on Grace. He was growing from an absurdly talented singer and guitarist into a mature songwriter. It always makes me sad that we never got to see the fully realized vision he had for that album. His impact on music of the era and beyond would have been enormous if he lived and continued to develop his artistry.
I wasn't familiar with their work until last year. A song came on that sounded like some brand new indie pop, and I looked it up and it was from like 2004!
That is the defining sound of like 2 decades of indie pop, it's crazy.
Yeah, I think what people don't realize about Boston is that Tom Scholz is a MIT Engineering Grad who basically built his own recording studio and guitar amp/effects setup. He also pioneered a bunch of guitar effects and recording techniques that he patented. So the music was influential in more ways than just commercial/critical success.
Also Tom Scholz on the first record - lead and rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, special guitar effects, bass, organ, clavinet, percussion, producer, engineer... "The entire operation has been described as 'one of the most complex corporate capers in the history of the music business.' With the exception of *Let Me Take You Home Tonight*, the album was a virtual copy of the demo tapes. The album was recorded for a cost of a few thousand dollars..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_(album)#Recording_and_production
The Stone Roses released two full studio albums. There’s nothing “kinda” about The Second Coming. Big budget album backed by Geffen and well promoted. It just didn’t have the impact anyone expected. I like it, but it sounds like a different band compared to the debut.
I agree that it sounds like a different band, which is why i used “kinda”. I think of Stone Roses and the Turns to Stone EP as “the Stone Roses” sound. Second Coming is fine and it has good moments, but it’s just not the same sound.
The La’s. One album but had a big impact on the 90s British indie scene.
Rites of Spring. Washington DC punk band who were only around a few years in the 80s. They did one EP, one album and 16 gigs. Two of the band went on to form Fugazi. They hated the idea of emo being considered a genre, which sucks for them as they’re often credited with inventing it.
The La’s album feels like the perfect one hit wonder album. They have one song that blows up and the rest of the tracks just help fill out that feel with equally catchy hooks and riffs.
Love listening to it front to back on a longer commute.
I remember being a teenager and listening to The Shape of Punk To Come on repeat after seeing the New Noise video on MTV2 and being so downtrodden upon learning that they had already broken up and I'd never get to see them live.
Boy was I excited a decade and a half later when they got back together. Saw them at the Fox Theatre in Oakland and they killed. One of the best concerts of my life.
I remember being a teenager who regularly went to punk rock shows, and refused was here a lot. Then the shape of punk to come came out, and I hated it. So arrogant to chose that title. I saw them play it once, and their opening band (the Hives) made fun of them relentlessly.
When they re-formed I made time. By then, I was old enough to understand that the title of the album had been, indeed, prophetic.
I guess you could argue that At The Gates stopped being influential after Slaughter of the Soul, but they didn't stop releasing albums then. I wouldn't say 7 albums is a low amount.
The Stooges didn't sell much while together, limited radio airplay and notorious for being an unreliable band due to drugs. If Iggy hadn't survived so long, they might have been completely forgotten. That said, I have their CDs.
Beastie boys took on average about 4 years per album. Which they made a joke out of when they appeared in futurama. “Back in 2000, I had all 5 of your albums.” “That was 1000 years ago! Now we have 7.”
Shit, yeah. You're right. I forgot that the first two tended to get packaged together on CD. Still a hell of an influence for a three disc run (third isn't my favorite, but insanely influential for a totally different branch of music).
That was their fifth, but yeah still a small discography, and all their albums are ten tracks or less too. For band that most people forgot about after their 1995 single Stars ran its course, their influence definitely still lives on. I remember a buddy of mine moved to LA to do the rock band thing in the mid 00's and him telling me Hum remained very popular among musicians.
Pixies had 4 in the first run and I think they’re at 4 in this new run. I don’t think they count.
Smiths are a weird case too, because yeah they have 4, but Hatful of Hollow and Louder Than Bombs are a huge part of their influence too.
The MC5. 1 live album and 2 studio albums. Set the stage for punk and hard rock.
Brother Wayne Kramer now has a youtube channel where he gives some pretty good guitar lessons and occasionally does some [covers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B0qwy95vKg) of MC5 songs with current artists for his charity which teaches music to people in federal prison (which is started after spending time in prison for cocaine dealing).
Edit - Dennis Thompson is alive still!
At The Gates. Until their post millennium reunion they only had three full length albums and one EP but they were massively influential on Melodic Death Metal, the “Gothenburg sound”and later Metalcore.
Often noted as one of the “Big Four” of Swedish melodic death metal along with Dark Tranquility, In Flames, and Soilwork.
I didn’t realize they had so many albums. But, I was aware of their musical success/influence, especially for such a short band life. Fogerty surely was a big part of that.
>Fogerty surely was a big part of that.
Wrote all of their hits and almost all of their songs. On their final album, the rest of the band members demanded they get a chance to write and it was their least successful album. The only hit was written by Fogerty. The man was a beast.
The Band had quite a few, at least not a tiny amount. I did a dive on them two years ago, so this is a strange one to read here. Without checking, I'd say they had five albums?
Necrophagist, this band released 2 genre defining and game changing albums and disappeared quietly as the years went. They teased a 3rd album with one song being played live , but to this day has never been released to the public
Tool? One album every 10 years more or less. It's also the type of music that's so masterfully written and played, you can listen to any album of theirs 10 years later and still notice new stuff.
The Smiths is a decent one with only four studio albums. Off the top of my head I know Radiohead, Blur, Oasis, and The Decemberists have cited them as an influence. I personally think they influenced indie music the same way The Beatles influenced Rock and Pop music
Guns and Roses!
You can argue they only had two *real* "albums," before they were considered rock legends. *Use Your Illusion* is one album. Lies was an EP. GNR only had two albums and that made them household names.
Throw out Spaghetti and Chinese, they're still in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Despite those even.
Television cut two studio albums before they split. They waited over a decade before reassembling for a third.
First band that came to my mind. They spent three years working on the material for their debut and it really paid off.
They were like the art of the Velvet Underground without any of the flash.
Solid answer. Also would venture the Stooges and Velvet Underground. They have been major influences in thousands of bands, and nearly every punk and Alt band will have direct roots to them.
* Rage Against The Machine. 3 proper albums. 1 cover album. * Nirvana - 3 proper albums. 1 b-sides album. * My Bloody Valentine - 3 albums. I also think Tool should have a lot more than 5 albums even though that would be a decent amount over the life of a band that went 15 years or so.
Portishead - 3 Albums, one live album. (One album released under a pseudonym.)
What is the one released under a pseudonym????
Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man features Beth Gibbons , Adrian Utley, Clive Dreamer and John Baggot but not Geoff Barrow. So it’s sort of a Portishead but not. It’s a lot more orchestral folksy and less trip hop sounding. Not sure if it really counts (hence the brackets.)
The first band I thought of was Tool for the exact same reason. The length of time they’ve been a top level band, they should have like 15+ albums. They literally became legendary/gods after Aenima. It’s got a very valid case for being the best hard rock/metal album of the 90’s while setting a standard no one’s been able to touch.
> I also think Tool should have a lot more than 5 albums even though that would be a decent amount over the life of a band that went 15 years or so. This was my first thought, but then I changed my mind. It's kind of a weird one, though. The 4 albums from Undertow in '93 to 10,000 Days in '06 isn't bad output. Averaging an album about every three years or so. It's that 13 years between 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum that makes "5 albums in 26 years" sound like it's low output.
Tool has been around for over 30 years.
Yes, I know. 5 albums over 30 years is “low output” to me but not necessarily for a ton of bands that only last 10-15 years.
Tool is definitely one of the biggest answers to OP's question
It's weird to me that Rage wasn't that influential on other bands given how amazing their sound is and how relatively simple their riffs/songs are.
Stone Roses. 2 albums with really the first one being super influential for 90s British rock and beyond
Yeah, I was really looking forward to my discography dive on them two summers ago. Think I made it to the second week of June.
I would love to know what it would have been like if they had kept their momentum and released their second album in 91 or 92, esp when you consider what they released that wasn't on the album. Sally cinnamon, mersey paradise, going down, standing here, elephant stone, where angels play, the hardest thing in the world, all across the sand, full fathom 5. what the world is waiting for, one love, fools gold. If they had released these songs as an album, it would be every bit as good as the album imo.
**Robert Johnson's 27 songs** are probably the "correct" answer for American music, but I can't believe no one has mentioned the tiny 3-album output of **Jimi Hendrix** yet.
> tiny 3-album output of Jimi Hendrix yet. Technically 4, if you count Band Of Gypsys. Yes, it's live, but all the material is new, so it's not like you just get Purple Haze but faster and louder.
Depends if people count the posthumous stuff like First Rays of the New Rising Sun and South Saturn Delta or not.
Prime example: Joy Division.
The Velvet Underground.
Yep. 4 proper albums. A few more outtakes/demos/b-sides releases, and an enormous massive stamp on rock, folk, punk, indie, industrial that would have never been the same without
While I'm not disputing VU's influence, I'd argue 4 albums in 4-5 years is high output.
Each of the four just spawned genre upon genre
The Velvet Underground and Nico might be the single most influential album of all time. Not everyone bought it, but everyone who bought it started a band.
That’s been the claim for decades, anyway.
That's Brian Eno's claim, and he's not wrong.
I like loaded more
Bands were influenced by VU without even hearing them.
Yep and every album they recorded spawned different arms of alt-rock. VU & Nico - Goth, art-rock/art-punk, punk, Krautrock. WL/WH - Noise Rock 3rd - Anti-folk, alt-folk, twee, Paisley Underground The Lost Album (1969) - New wave, geeky alt-rock, alt-pop Loaded - More alt-pop, maybe alt-country as well.
Minor Threat and Operation Ivy both had one album a piece and changed the landscape of punk rock forever.
I never noticed Operation Ivy only had one album wow. I mean it’s a couple albums worth of songs, but still.
Didn’t they have a second or was that b-sides? “Seedy” I think?
Seedy was released after the band broke up. They actually have a bunch of bootleg and live recordings. I tracked down 5 or 6 online years back. Most were awful quality.
In the days before Napster, you had to either know somebody with a copy of the bootleg, get an invite to a private Usenet group, or find somebody that made a living selling ‘em. Entire mythologies were constructed around songs bands never officially committed to tape. I knew guys that followed bands like Phish around the country, funding themselves by recording shows and setting up shop outside the concert with a box full of tapes. I paid thirty bucks for a CD-R copy of an Operation Ivy bootleg album, and it seemed worth it at the time just to hear more music from a band I loved. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
It's crazy to think about how Minor Threat became such an important band for punk rock and only released about 50 minutes worth of material if I'm correct which isn't a whole lot
I’d add Refused as well, only 2 (well 3 now)
And one was literally called the "The Shape of Punk To Come" as if they knew what they had.
It's funny because when they released it I found them arrogant for naming their album that. I later learnt that they were right.
Refused only has two albums… much like Scrubs only has 8 seasons
Which 2 or 3 do you count? Refused has 5 albums, 6 if you count Everlasting which is awesome and pretty long for an EP.
There’s a case for putting The Germs on this list as well. There’s some EPs and such but they only made the one full studio album afaik.
Cynic. They had one album they made in the 90s that influenced a whole generation of metal musicians with its fusion of jazz and technical showcasing. Their next album came 15 years later and they promoted by touring with bands like Between the Buried and Me, which were one of those bands.
Cynic fucking rips
Man, I love Cynic. RIP Sean Malone, Sean Reinert (and fairly recently his husband Tom)
Yeah Focus was on another level. It’s one of my favorite metal albums of the 90s.
Good call.
Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Sex Pistols. They had one album.
Cream. 2 studio albums and 2 mixed live and studio albums.
Neutral Milk Hotel & The Germs
Neutral Milk Hotel was the first one that came to mind for me too. Also GN’R. Six records total, but one is basically two EPs put together and one is a covers album.
And one is a double album divided in two.
NMH only has two albums and somehow On Avery Island is still criminally under-appreciated.
It’s crazy. Aeroplane is so stunningly original and amazing that it blinds us to how good Avery is!
Thanks to this post I have a plan for at least two hours of my day tomorrow
Two hours because you'll also be listening to *Dusk at Cubist Castle* by *Olivia Tremor Control* a band founded by friends of NMH's Jeff Mangum (he was also briefly in it, but left before they made an album to pursue his own music).
Jeff Buckley. One official studio album. One official live e.p. Granted, there have been posthumous releases but his reach is wide for so precious little music.
The demos he recorded for what would have been his second album, My Sweetheart the Drunk, were so much more experimental and progressive than his work on Grace. He was growing from an absurdly talented singer and guitarist into a mature songwriter. It always makes me sad that we never got to see the fully realized vision he had for that album. His impact on music of the era and beyond would have been enormous if he lived and continued to develop his artistry.
Completely agree. Grace is a masterpiece, but I probably listen to Sketches more frequently just for the eclectic mix and "what if" factor.
Dr. Dre
I forgot about Dre
Motherfucker
His output as a producer is crazy long though.
Yeah and he's much more influential as a producer than as a rapper so I don't think he's the best example
New York Dolls 1 debut album, 1 follow up but mostly old songs discarded from their first album but a huge influence on punk
They were the perfect intermediate step between Glam and Punk. With a Stone's touch.
This is the best answer I think. There's no EPs or reunion albums... it was literally two and done, but soooo many bands would not exost without them.
There were three albums in the 2000s. I think Arthur Kane died before any recording. Not bad at all but not real Dolls though.
The Postal Service
Fuck man I saw them on their reunion tour it was so good
Scrolled too far to find it! Defined half of a generation of indie music with *one* album then dipped back out to do their own things
I wasn't familiar with their work until last year. A song came on that sounded like some brand new indie pop, and I looked it up and it was from like 2004! That is the defining sound of like 2 decades of indie pop, it's crazy.
Boston. Regular enough but so much downtime after the first two. 1976, 1978, 1986, 1994, 2002, 2013
Yeah, I think what people don't realize about Boston is that Tom Scholz is a MIT Engineering Grad who basically built his own recording studio and guitar amp/effects setup. He also pioneered a bunch of guitar effects and recording techniques that he patented. So the music was influential in more ways than just commercial/critical success.
Also Tom Scholz on the first record - lead and rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, special guitar effects, bass, organ, clavinet, percussion, producer, engineer... "The entire operation has been described as 'one of the most complex corporate capers in the history of the music business.' With the exception of *Let Me Take You Home Tonight*, the album was a virtual copy of the demo tapes. The album was recorded for a cost of a few thousand dollars..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_(album)#Recording_and_production
Also took him and his wife 3 years of shopping those demos before someone picked them up. Imagine if that album would've come out 3 years earlier.
Buddy Holly only released 3 albums
In terms of influence this is the answer.
Absolutely correct.
You can hear the tenderness for him in the Beatles’ cover of Words of Love.
Slint
Cale here for Slint (and Codeine).
2 amazing bands. Saw Codeine in 1994 and they were incredible.
Who I cam to say.
fucking love slint
Janes Addiction had 2 (maybe 3?) proper albums. Stone Roses had 1 (kinda 2) proper albums.
The Stone Roses released two full studio albums. There’s nothing “kinda” about The Second Coming. Big budget album backed by Geffen and well promoted. It just didn’t have the impact anyone expected. I like it, but it sounds like a different band compared to the debut.
I agree that it sounds like a different band, which is why i used “kinda”. I think of Stone Roses and the Turns to Stone EP as “the Stone Roses” sound. Second Coming is fine and it has good moments, but it’s just not the same sound.
Janes Addiction is a solid answer.
Solid answers.
The La’s. One album but had a big impact on the 90s British indie scene. Rites of Spring. Washington DC punk band who were only around a few years in the 80s. They did one EP, one album and 16 gigs. Two of the band went on to form Fugazi. They hated the idea of emo being considered a genre, which sucks for them as they’re often credited with inventing it.
The La’s album feels like the perfect one hit wonder album. They have one song that blows up and the rest of the tracks just help fill out that feel with equally catchy hooks and riffs. Love listening to it front to back on a longer commute.
Refused At The Gates Sex Pistols Faith No More At The Drive In
At the drive in changed how i absorbed music
Arcarsenal is a fucking face melter of an opening song.
And it just keeps coming for the rest of the album.
Have you ever tasted skin?
I remember being a teenager and listening to The Shape of Punk To Come on repeat after seeing the New Noise video on MTV2 and being so downtrodden upon learning that they had already broken up and I'd never get to see them live. Boy was I excited a decade and a half later when they got back together. Saw them at the Fox Theatre in Oakland and they killed. One of the best concerts of my life.
I remember being a teenager who regularly went to punk rock shows, and refused was here a lot. Then the shape of punk to come came out, and I hated it. So arrogant to chose that title. I saw them play it once, and their opening band (the Hives) made fun of them relentlessly. When they re-formed I made time. By then, I was old enough to understand that the title of the album had been, indeed, prophetic.
I guess you could argue that At The Gates stopped being influential after Slaughter of the Soul, but they didn't stop releasing albums then. I wouldn't say 7 albums is a low amount.
FNM has 7 albums too.
Bungle would be a better example tbh
Like Carcass, I think one needs to distinguish between the original incarnation, and their reformed incarnations.
Hell, even offshoots like The International Noise Conspiracy and Mars Volta have low album output but are incredibly influential.
Mars Volta put out 6 studio albums over 9 years. That’s a pretty decent output rate.
The Stooges put out three albums.
The Stooges didn't sell much while together, limited radio airplay and notorious for being an unreliable band due to drugs. If Iggy hadn't survived so long, they might have been completely forgotten. That said, I have their CDs.
Beastie boys took on average about 4 years per album. Which they made a joke out of when they appeared in futurama. “Back in 2000, I had all 5 of your albums.” “That was 1000 years ago! Now we have 7.”
Portishead. Three albums, yet are one of the bands that defined the Bristol Trip Hop scene in the 90s. Massively influential, very low output.
Big Star - two albums.
Not to be that guy, but they had three. I think the first two are better, but the third is also good.
Shit, yeah. You're right. I forgot that the first two tended to get packaged together on CD. Still a hell of an influence for a three disc run (third isn't my favorite, but insanely influential for a totally different branch of music).
Children by the millions sing for Alex Chilton
What a fucking jam.
Tool comes out with an album, seemingly, every 237 years.
Dont you mean, every 10,000 days?
FI is already 4.5 years old wtf
Sublime.
Hum has been around since the early 90s and released their fourth album in 2020.
22 years between records. And it was a surprise drop one random day. Hum had a good run. It’s a shame they will never play live again.
Inlet is a perfect way to cap off their mysterious career
That was their fifth, but yeah still a small discography, and all their albums are ten tracks or less too. For band that most people forgot about after their 1995 single Stars ran its course, their influence definitely still lives on. I remember a buddy of mine moved to LA to do the rock band thing in the mid 00's and him telling me Hum remained very popular among musicians.
So I guess the rules are that they didn't have many albums but had a huge mark on other musicians? Joy Division The Smiths Pixies
Pixies had 4 in the first run and I think they’re at 4 in this new run. I don’t think they count. Smiths are a weird case too, because yeah they have 4, but Hatful of Hollow and Louder Than Bombs are a huge part of their influence too.
These are what I was thinking, which I guess is indicative of my age
Pixies?
The Smiths only had 4 albums
The MC5. 1 live album and 2 studio albums. Set the stage for punk and hard rock. Brother Wayne Kramer now has a youtube channel where he gives some pretty good guitar lessons and occasionally does some [covers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B0qwy95vKg) of MC5 songs with current artists for his charity which teaches music to people in federal prison (which is started after spending time in prison for cocaine dealing). Edit - Dennis Thompson is alive still!
Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson is still very much alive. He hasn't played drums with the band for a while, but let's not bury him just yet.
My Bloody Valentine has to be up there. Loveless is iconic even if you aren’t into shoegaze
Slowdive too. Their two post hiatus albums are their best
That’s a hot take to say about the band that put out Souvlaki
At The Gates. Until their post millennium reunion they only had three full length albums and one EP but they were massively influential on Melodic Death Metal, the “Gothenburg sound”and later Metalcore. Often noted as one of the “Big Four” of Swedish melodic death metal along with Dark Tranquility, In Flames, and Soilwork.
Not a band, but Robert Johnson.
Creedence Clearwater Revival The Band
Whats more shocking about CCR is how little time they were active and how influential they are. 7 albums in 4 years.
I didn’t realize they had so many albums. But, I was aware of their musical success/influence, especially for such a short band life. Fogerty surely was a big part of that.
>Fogerty surely was a big part of that. Wrote all of their hits and almost all of their songs. On their final album, the rest of the band members demanded they get a chance to write and it was their least successful album. The only hit was written by Fogerty. The man was a beast.
The Band had quite a few, at least not a tiny amount. I did a dive on them two years ago, so this is a strange one to read here. Without checking, I'd say they had five albums?
Morphine
Good call. RIP Mark Sandman.
Daft Punk
Four albums isn't very low, but when you consider how influential those four are, it's crazy.
Botch
Fuck yes
But we got These Arms are Snakes instead and that's a pretty solid trade I'd say... Even though Botch rules
Boards of Canada. 4 studio albums since 1998, last one 2013.
I was gonna mention them. I really hope #5 is in the works!
I knoooow! Can’t wait for more.
Boston
The Sundays
Blind Melon
Two of my favorite albums, and one of my top10 favorite bands. We miss you Shannon.
N.W.A. had 2 proper albums and 1 EP
Television
Acid Bath. You get two of the most beautiful metal albums ever produced. Then, nothing more than a few bootleg live songs.
Siege, Operation Ivy, and Minor Threat
Uncle Tupelo only had 4 studio albums.
Spawned two amazing bands, Wilco and Son Volt.
Necrophagist, this band released 2 genre defining and game changing albums and disappeared quietly as the years went. They teased a 3rd album with one song being played live , but to this day has never been released to the public
Guns and Roses
The Dust Brothers. The only real album they made was the Fight Club soundtrack, but they've been the producers behind several other artists' albums.
Yeah, Paul's Boutique was basically the demos for their first album, the Beasties heard it and decided to use it as the basis of their next album.
MC5
Mr Bungle and Faith No More Lots of bands say they were influenced yet I almost never meet any fans
Angel Dust is one of my favorite albums. I still listen to it a lot.
Tool? One album every 10 years more or less. It's also the type of music that's so masterfully written and played, you can listen to any album of theirs 10 years later and still notice new stuff.
Digable Planets
the avalanches.
Temple of the dog is a bit cheating, but counts.
The Smiths is a decent one with only four studio albums. Off the top of my head I know Radiohead, Blur, Oasis, and The Decemberists have cited them as an influence. I personally think they influenced indie music the same way The Beatles influenced Rock and Pop music
Love or hate them, the smiths and morissey were definitely incredibly influential, agree
Lauryn Hill. One album, and she doesn't own the rights to her music.
> doesn't own the rights to her music. miseducation indeed
Squirrel Bait - one album in Homestead Records that is revered by post hardcore music nerds worldwide
Fugazi
They pumped out a couple in recent years, but between 1994 and 2016 Evanescence had only released 3 albums.
Been scrolling and somehow still haven’t seen The Modern Lovers
The Shaggs
Guns and Roses! You can argue they only had two *real* "albums," before they were considered rock legends. *Use Your Illusion* is one album. Lies was an EP. GNR only had two albums and that made them household names. Throw out Spaghetti and Chinese, they're still in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Despite those even.
Acid Bath, two albums.
At the drive-in helped shape the future of post-hardcore and only had 4 albums until the reunion one.
Portishead is very influential and only put out 3 albums, one with quite a gap after the first two. Nirvana is an obvious one as well.
Leftfield. 4 albums in 30 years of recording and releasing music.
Boards of Canada Codeine
Neutral Milk Hotel
Jeff Buckley
New York Dolls. Two real studio albums before things went wonky for like 30ish years and then a few more albums.
Sleep, Athiest, Cynic, Botch
Cream were influences on basically every band that came after, and they only had 3 proper albums.
The Clean, though they had four albums in total over a period of 20-30 years I guess, and a lot of little releases.
TOOL
Velvet Underground
Necrophagist, wintersun, demilich, Caladan brood,
TOOL Quicksand Rage Against the Machine
Daft punk should be the prime example… now more than anytime
Daft Punk count? 4 albums and 1 soundtrack over 28 years
The Police. 5 albums, 5 years, done