1974

I wonder what was going on in 1974 that enabled multiple artists to rease two back-to-back classics in one calendar year?

Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain

Sparks - Kimono My House and Propaganda

King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black and Red (edited per Delvin)

Francis Ford Coppola - The Conversation and The Godfather II

Mel Brooks - Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2024 10:48AM by breno.

> King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black

Isn't that a single album?

Oops - forgot to add Red.

I can't say what might have been special about the year 1974, in this regard. But it does seem that a lot of pop music artists were able to release two top-notch albums in the same calendar year, throughout the Sixties and Seventies.

Granted, nearly all artists turned out the work at a higher rate back in the Sixties and early Seventies. The Beatles released their first six studio albums in the UK at a rate of two per year. Indeed, from what I've read, it was kind of a cause for concern, to the record-buying public, when 1966 came and went with only one new Beatles album. (Bob Dylan was the subject of similar concern, that same year, when he didn't follow up Blonde on Blonde until the following year ... most of the public apparently being unaware of his motorcycle accident.) Still, that doesn't account for the inspiration level being so high, among so many artists.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love (1967)
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II (1969)
Elton John - Elton John and Tumbleweed Connection (1970)
Alice Cooper - Love It to Death and Killer (1971)
Stevie Wonder - Music of My Mind and Talking Book (1972)
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure and Stranded (1973)
Be Bop Deluxe - Sunburst Finish and Modern Music (1975)
David Bowie - Low and Heroes (1977)
Cheap Trick - Cheap Trick and In Color (1977)
The Ramones - Ramones Leave Home and Rocket to Russia (1977)
Joe Jackson - Look Sharp! and I'm the Man (1979)
Gary Numan - Replicas and The Pleasure Principle (1979)

I'm sure there are others; these are just the ones I'm spotting on my shelf.

Of course, the validity of the list above depends on your perspective -- whether, as Reno once said, I'm applying the term "classic" to albums whose merit and significance has stood the test of time, or just albums that I like a lot.

I think everything you listed can safely be counted as a classic.

I recall how Springsteen taking three whole years to follow Born to Run with Darkness on the Edge of Town was treated like some monumental epoch of time to labor over an album, and that when John Lennon released Double Fantsy it was like a return from the depths of eternity, when it was in fact just five years since his last album. Nowadays if someone takes just three years to release their next album, they're more likely to get the stink-eye for releasing too much stuff than to be questioned about what took them so long.

The anomaly in this era is Taylor Swift, who churns stuff out like she's in the 1970s - not even counting all her re-recorded albums, she's been putting out a new album every year and a half/two years and managed the two albums in one year trick with Folklore and Mirrorball, which, to my ears anyway, ended up being her two best. Love her or hate her, she's definitely got a work ethic from a different era than the one she's living in.

And there's always Gulded By Voices, who have released three albums since I started typing this. But it's kind of hard to give them too much credit, since a huge reason why they're so prolific is because Robert Pollard half-asses everything, but is so freakishly gifted that the 30-second snippet he hums to himself while taking his morning piss is worth hearing.

I agree, Folklore and Evermore were surprisingly her two best albums. Pretty remarkable that would happen so late in someone's career, but then again she started as a teenager and just hit 30 when those two came out. (For comparison, Springsteen was the same age when he was making The River.)

Before the horrendous turn he took, Kanye West was similarly prolific and he liked to say he was competing with '70s Stevie Wonder because none of his contemporaries were making records at the same pace at the same level. (Can't think of a single recording artist with remotely the same stature who's had a personal and professional collapse on the same scale.)

Zach Bryan released a 2-hour album and 40-minute "ep" in 2022, followed by another album and ep in 2023. He's supposed to have a new album on the way this year.

It's pretty common for mainstream rappers to drop the equivalent of two albums each year. (Drake has done so the last 2 years.) Gotta get those Spotify streams up by putting out 30 songs every year!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2024 08:35PM by steevee.

> Springsteen taking three whole years to follow Born to Run
> with Darkness on the Edge of Town was treated like some
> monumental epoch of time to labor over an album ...

Springsteen actually was eager to get back into the studio by fall 1976, a year after Born to Run's release. But he ended up mired in the legal swamp when he decided to fire his manager. This prevented him from recording, so he chose to stay on the road for the rest of 1976 and most of 1977 too, while the lawyers did what lawyers do. Ironically, that unexpected marathon of touring probably brought him a much wider audience -- giving radio more time to break his record, and giving more people a chance to see him onstage -- and thus increased the anticipation for the next album.

Once he'd reached a settlement with his former manager and got back into the studio, Darkness took only half as long to finish as Born to Run had taken.

> When John Lennon released Double Fantasy it was like a return
> from the depths of eternity ...

Whereas it was simply a return from willful obscurity, as he had chosen to walk away from his music career and devote the next five years to raising his son.

Also from 1974, the ever prolific Peter Hammill released (1) The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage and (2) In Camera. There was no VDGG release that year so that freed him up to record two solo albums.

> Nowadays if someone takes just three years to release their next
> album, they're more likely to get the stink-eye for releasing too
> much stuff than to be questioned about what took them so long.

Prince would've been thrilled with Warner Brothers, if the label had appreciated his old-school work ethic. As the '90s went on, he was more than willing to offer his label two new albums a year. But WB consistently urged him to hold back, to give the record company (and, by implication, the artist himself) sufficient time to break off and promote singles.

Looking back, it's hard to prevent myself from wondering how different Prince's career might have been, if he'd exercised that level of self-restraint. Out of all the tracks he released on his albums, he might have cherry-picked them a bit more carefully. (Blasphemy to true Prince fans, I know ...)

Other two-fers from 1974 ...

Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band - Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams
Jimmy Buffett - Living and Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A
Deep Purple - Burn and Stormbringer
Ohio Players - Skin Tight and Fire
Queen - Queen II and Sheer Heart Attack
Sweet - Sweet Fanny Adams and Desolation Boulevard*
Frank Zappa - Apostrophe (') and The Roxy & Elsewhere

---

*Sweet Fanny Adams was released only in the UK. The U.S. release of Desolation Boulevard cherry-picked tracks from the UK version, and added choice tracks from Sweet Fanny Adams.

I went through Prince's post-Emancipation albums after he died since I had ignored almost all of them, and I think there were four albums that surprisingly worked as genuinely good albums. From the remaining dozen plus, there were three, maybe four additional albums worth of excellent music that I'd go back to. This never would've happened, but if that had been his only known output from 1997 to 2016 (and 7 or 8 albums across 20 years is considered good these days), his entire discography would've been a model of consistency in terms of quality.

Albums were only like 35 minutes long then.

And most album were done live (or live-ish) in the studio. No DAWs back then, and not many had the budget for George Martin/"Pet Sounds"-type extravaganzas. I mean, the jazz guys would record an entire album in a few days.

> The jazz guys would record an entire album in a few days.

Too right! I was looking at Wikipedia for albums released in 1974, and found SIX studio albums and one live album by Oscar Peterson.

Brian Eno is still using that "70's" work ethic to make music these days, he made 4 albums last year, and, even though they may not possess the same gravitas as the releases from earlier in his career, it's still quite amazing to think about...that is a level of creativity rarely seen fr0m any artist, no matter the medium. Even Tangerine Dream thinks that's too much and they release at least two albums a year.

Cheer-Accident has put out 30 albums since 86 and I may be opening up a can of worms with lo-fi artists but R. Stevie Moore has 107 releases since 73 (a lot of those of cassette only)

Creedence released 3 albums in 1969 -- Bayou Country , Green River and Willy+Poor Boys..

It's hard to talk about (over-)productivity in contemporary times without mentioning King Gizzard. There have been two distinct years in which they have released five separate records, all of them quite different.

1976: Graham Parker: Howlin' Wind and Heat Treatment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2024 10:32AM by konyc.

> Brian Eno is still using that "70's" work ethic to make music these days ...

So is Bill Nelson.

Joe "King" Carrasco apparently has given it a really good try.

It was the end of an era. My theory is that 1963-1987 was the golden era of pop music/culture. 1975 is about the middle. So 1974 is the wrapping up of old guard glam, hippy folk, baroque, etc and the start of the new era Laurel Canyon, punk, electronic krautrock, Reggae, Jaws, Taxi Driver, etc. Obviously things don't appear out of nowhere and there is over lapping.