Perfect Discographies?

[Trollheart]

I'm honest enough to admit even my favourite bands don't have them. Genesis? The debut, Abacab, Calling All Stations - they've a few. Marillion? Not so many but I don't particularly like Somwhere Else (and have yet to listen to their most recent two). Waits? Not into The Black Rider, Blood Money or Alice at all. Bon Jovi's 7800 Fahrenheit is two or three good songs struggling to stay afloat amongst a sea of dross, and Iron Maiden? Well, you know how I feel about The X Factor and Virtual XI!

So I can't offer any. But can you? In order to qualify and meet the benchmark, your artist(s) must fulfil one of two criteria: either (a) it's generally accepted (among their fans or even outside of their fanbase) that they don't have a bad album or (b) you believe this to be the case. If you're going for (b), be totally honest with yourself: can you say that you would take every album this artist has (studio only; don't worry about compilations, live albums, extended reissues etc - I only ever judge an artist's discography on their original output) and listen to them, one after the other, without skipping a track?

Any artists we can say that about, we'll keep a list of, and let's see just how many artists have actually produced a flawless catalogue.

Important note: if (a) above goes against your belief, then (a) wins. In other words, if everyone - or most - think the artist has at least one album that sucks, then they are disqualified, even if you think otherwise. Your opinion is valid, of course, but you can't go against public and popular opinion.

So, who's first? Anyone?

Important note: Only artists with three or more STUDIO albums (see above caveat) are allowed to be considered (this does not include personal solo albums etc). Please check before you nominate, as it's a pain in the face having to double-check them on Wiki when I don't know them. Thanks.

CURRENT LIST

Nick Drake
Steely Dan
The Raincoats
The Stooges
Jun Togawa
The Birthday Party
Neutral Milk Hotel*
Bikini Kill
After Dinner
Jimi Hendrix
Velvet Underground
Underground
Silver Apples
The Cramps
The Smiths
Dog Faced Hermans
The Breeders
Guerilla Toss
Long fin Killie
Simon and Garfunkel
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Änglagård
Laura Mvula
Led Zeppelin
Talk Talk
My Bloody Valentine
Portishead
Boards of Canada
Slowdive
Outkast
The Roots
Sigur Rós
My Chemical Romance
Run the Jewels
EI-P (Not ELP, nor ELO)
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros
The Tikiyaki Orchestra
Alvvays

* bowing to the superior experience of Marie here

[Lisnaholic]

That's a tough challenge, Trollheart ! Probably like you, I ran through, in my head, some likely candidates, (Allmans, Softs, Beatles, etc) but they all had weak albums, either early efforts, or more often, imo, later, off-the-boil albums. In the end I settled on this old favourite who has one great advantage in discographies: he only released three albums:-

Five Leaves Left - a melancholy beauty with strings, and a mood set by the singer that makes for a cohesive, quality album.
Bryter Layter - a jazzier development of the previous. The only thing you can say about the weakest imo track (One Of These Things First) is not that it's bad, it's just not quite as good as the others.
Pink Moon - This was the one that took me longest to like, but it's highly regarded, and if you're in the mood is still a good, if fairly stark collection of songs.

As for listening to all six sides of Nick Drake's studio albums in one go, I don't think I'd want to do that with any artist, so I'm not sure it's a good criteria to put in. It's like asking "Which drink do you like so much that you'd drink ten gallons of it in one sitting?" 

[Guybrush]

I'd second Nick Drake. It's a very good mention.

For myself, I'd think perhaps Steely Dan. I'll be honest and say I haven't listened too much to Two Against Nature, but I think it's well regarded. So while I could be wrong, I think that means every SD album is.

I certainly like them with Aja and Gaucho being my favourites.

[Oriphiel]

The Cramps

[jimmy jazz]

Sex Pistols
Joy Division

[Oriphiel]

Sex Pistols
Joy Division

^^^

[Marie Monday]

The raincoats
The stooges
Jun Togawa
The birthday party
Anna hogberg attack
Bikini kill
After dinner
Jimi Hendrix

The Beatles and Sleater-Kinney have inconsistent discographies but no actual bad albums.imo so they half-count

[Marie Monday]

Also:
Silver apples
Neutral milk hotel
My bloody valentine

A lot of these are three-album bands, interestingly

The velvet Underground is also inconsistent but never bad

[jimmy jazz]

Also:
Silver apples
Neutral milk hotel
My bloody valentine

A lot of these are three-album bands, interestingly

The velvet Underground is also inconsistent but never bad

I was gonna say VU. The last one is a VU album in name only. So of their actual albums they're all good imo.

[Lexi Darling]

I was gonna say VU. The last one is a VU album in name only. So of their actual albums they're all good imo.

I'd argue that you should count everything released under the band's name; otherwise we get into more arbitrary territory. It's not an objective fact that Squeeze is not a "real" VU album, it's listed as part of their studio album discography.

[jimmy jazz]

I'd argue that you should count everything released under the band's name; otherwise we get into more arbitrary territory. It's not an objective fact that Squeeze is not a "real" VU album, it's listed as part of their studio album discography.

By all means if there are any other examples feel free to exclude them as well.

For some legal or contractual reason Squeeze was able to use the band's name but its a Doug Yule solo album. It's not their music.

[innerspaceboy]

I have well-over 600 Underworld albums and shows and there isn't a single one I don't enjoy. Sure, there are stretches like Bungalow With Stairs but you have to go through hundreds of releases to get that deep in the weeds and even then there are some nice surprises, like the "Lonely Bollock / Happy Bollock" deep cut name-check of an old and half-forgotten speech sample from a discarded Lemonworld tape.

It's rare that an electronic duo can be this fresh and enjoyable live, particularly after over 40 years of music-making. I treasure their archives.

[Lexi Darling]

By all means if there are any other examples feel free to exclude them as well.

For some legal or contractual reason Squeeze was able to use the band's name but its a Doug Yule solo album. It's not their music.

I mean there have been other instances of albums where only one previous member of the band was involved. There are Smashing Pumpkins albums where it's basically just Billy Corgan and some hired guns. And yeah he's a more important member of his band than Doug Yule was for the VU, but that's still a subjective judgement on the listeners' part. But that's just my take of course.

I'll think about my answer to the thread and post in a bit.

[Marie Monday]

I had straight up forgotten that Squeeze existed lol

other perfect discographies:
The Smiths
Dog Faced Hermans
The Breeders
Guerilla Toss
Long fin Killie

and then I haven't even counted any one-album bands

I suspect Kristin Hersh has never made bad music and the same goes for a lot of Jazz musicians but those discographies are too fucking large so idk
And have Kendrick Lamar and jpegmafia ever released anything bad? I think the general consensus is no, but I don't know all their albums either

[jimmy jazz]

Kendrick has yes.

As well as skippable tracks even on his best releases.

The Kendrick thread on MB when 'Damn' dropped >>>