IT'S ALL TOO MUCH! (WHEN ARTISTS RELEASE TOO MANY ALBUMS)

[@morrisgautreau6704]

And then there's the opposite with TOOL, only making 1 EP and 5 official studio albums, 6 if you count in 'Salival', in 27 years. Buckethead! Like wow! That's way way way too much!

[@seansheppard8635]

Two words: Neil Young. Between regular albums and archival releases, both live and studio, it's a lot!

[@williamfarr8807]

In the 1950s and early 60s, it was normal for artists to put out one, two, sometimes three or four albums a year. Look at the discography of people like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, or jazz artists like Miles Davis and John Coltrane. I suspect this was driven by the record companies and their marketing departments, and not the artists. And of course, those people were not writing their own songs and improvising a lot of the music. It was the emergence of the “singer song writer” (Bob Dylan) and later more complex productions (e.g. Freak Out!, Pet Sounds, 66) and concept albums (Sgt. Pepper's, 67) in the late 60s that one album a year became the norm. The first major band I remember that let a year pass without an album was Led Zeppelin (IV 1971, Houses of the Holy 1973). And Houses of the Holy was the first album that had eight original Led Zeppelin songs, and not a lot of reworked, rehashed (plagiarized) blues standards.

[@josephsmall4270]

You have these musicians that are more into recording in a studio than going on tour,and doing live shows,and I think this is why we get a lot of albums. Prince was like this.

[@mr.milehi9883]

My question is what happens if you have to count past 21? What do you do then? That's all the digits I have.

[@scottmcrae3355]

The crazy thing with Guided by Voices is that Robert Pollard has numerous solo albums and side projects and I love most of them. He has released over 130 lps total as well as a bunch of EPs .

[@jameswilson7084]

Taylor Swift has released more than half her catalog, in the past five years of her 18-year career. But, she has had a good run from 2019 - 2024.

[@ethan-c093]

I agree with you about becoming a fan of artists with huge discographies. For me I have tried to get into Frank Zappa and while I do really enjoy the albums that I have heard there are just too many albums for me to listen to.

[@ArenHill]

Just over 100 is too many?

[@mitchellbenefiel4490]

I think once it gets above 50 studio albums it starts to get a little too overwhelming but if it’s a good enough artist I could see myself pressing on, but I don’t think I could ever get into someone with more than 100 albums

[@shane.b.]

I get why it frustrates people. For me it’s case by case. I usually love when I get into a new band / artist and find out they have 20, 30, even 40 albums, gives me something to work on for a while. but I do get overwhelmed at times when it’s a newer artist and I feel like they’re releasing things before I can catch up. or if it’s one of those older artists who has close to 100.

[@nicholasperl]

I could never commit to keeping up with an artist like that. I'm happy for their fans, though. They'll have plenty of listening material to last them the rest of their lives haha

[@rockonthestone4907]

The more the merrier for me

[@tadreaming1]

Conrad Schnitzler German keyboard, avant garde artist had over 800 albums before he died in 2011. Impossible to collect his music, he did one offs for certain people, my gawd. Steve Roach is kind of insane as well.

[@gameboycat05]

Buckethead must've never had and art or writers block in his life I think one or two albums per year for an artist is the most reasonable

[@MostlyLoveOfMusic]

simply not enough time in life to listen to even 0.1% of all albums

[@johndollman9025]

The Ventures definitely cranked out a lot of albums. I really like their music, but according to some discographies I've seen, they have around 300 albums!

[@ralfandreakkd4368]

I wonder if Buckethead knows every of his "songs" at all.

[@truckerkevthepaidtourist]

Have a look at the late John mayall discography 🤣🤣🤣

[@jeanpepin6497]

I'm the same with Ryan adams. I used to buy all his albums when it was once every couple of years. In 2005 he released three. After big colors it seemed to be a lot with him and it was only released digitally. I feel like some of them were filler songs. It's a weird feeling when you have a top artist you love and listen to everything and one day you just lose interest. I think the last album I really liked was 1989, the swift album. I don't really care for swift but his cover album was really good and you should check it out.

[@GlenKellawayfromthebasement]

If the quality is there I don’t care if they release a thousand albums…great artists like Miles Davis, Zappa were prolific musicians and great creators..they lived to play and create..not excessive at all..in my opinion..the problem with artists like Bryan Adams is every album sounds the same for the most part..how many do you need….Bill Nelson is a special artist because he explores sounds, music collages, guitar based albums..some of them miss the mark but he gets kudos for always growing and creating..👍❤glen

[@davidellis5141]

Frank Zappa & Prince were both major offenders of excessive releases & excessive double or triple albums.

[@GlenKellawayfromthebasement]

There was never enough Frank..I was not a Prince fan so not even sure how many albums he has..

[@adamfindlay7091]

Sifting thru takes a diligent ear. I only buy what i can use. I respect imaginative effort. Not chart/ commerce.

[@gerrylambert5225]

Bucket head played Chiang Mai Thailand I had never heard of Him

[@aroberts560]

Which discography website is used in this video? Looks good to me

[@LarryGravesCanadianStudmuffin]

Rate Your Music

[@aroberts560]

@LarryGravesCanadianStudmuffin thank you. It looks simpler and better to me than wikipedia or discogs.

[@goldrag3163]

Quantitatively speaking, I think bands like The Beatles, The Who, and Pink Floyd got it right. I’m satisfied with a discography over 10 and under 20 albums. You mentioned The Beatles and Rolling Stones early in the video, and I want to make a distinction between them and the others you showed. It was pretty standard in those days to put out 2 albums per year, and they were several months apart. You got to really know the music because there were less distractions. Not only that, but the songs were really short and easy to digest. These were only 30-40 minute albums. Many albums since the CD age have gone way past that runtime. You could say that The Beach Boys or Ringo Starr have too many albums, but many of those don’t overstay their welcome, good or bad. A catalog that can be marathoned in a day without feeling excessive, is a good way to test out this “is it too much?” question. Good topic.

[@morrisgautreau6704]

When a band is as good as KGLW, I do want to get them all, but I'll just get the better albums first and take my time getting the rest. Even with Sparks, becoming a fan so late in their career, it's going to take time and money getting all their albums too, but both bands are worth it, only because they are in my top 5 favorite bands. Everything else will have to take a back seat, except for Beatles, I will be getting the rest of those as soon as possible, as I only have 5 more to go. For everything else, I don't mind going secondhand. I do agree, it can be a bit too much.

[@TheAlbumReviewchannel]

I’ve never seen anything like that in my life from Buckethead. I would interested to gauge the quality of some of these as it’s just insane. Cheers. Dave

[@williamfarr8807]

Yes, it is insane. I would assume there is a lot of improvisation (not suggesting that is bad), as opposed to new, original song writing on his albums.

[@joeyvocals1]

2-3. How are Molly and you doing? Your buddy Joey in Cleveland.

[@LarryGravesCanadianStudmuffin]

Mollie is doing great and she recently did videos on both of my channels.

[@legendmaker694]

It can definitely be excessive sometimes, but if there are good reasons for it and the material is good, I'm okay with keeping up. At the other end of the spectrum, there are so many classic bands that released more albums in their first few years of existence than in the decades since combined, and are still touring on the back of their success from the 60s, 70s or 80s to this day. This tends to annoy me more, especially when they put out only one album every 5 or 10 years and it's mediocre at best. If they no longer have the inspiration to make quality new material, they're better off just touring full time (as many such bands eventually do). Sometimes I hear stuff like "Eric Singer has ben in KISS for 30 years" and no offense to Eric (he played drums on 'The Eternal Idol', one of my favorite Black Sabbath albums) but the last good KISS album came out over 40 years ago, so... I still don't really associate him with that band, since he literally doesn't play on any of their stuff I ever listen to. It's not how long you were there I care about, it's how much of the great stuff you've contributed to.

[@alk61695]

A person that come to mind who has way too many albums is Ringo Starr. Which goes back to the video you made the other day about the worst Beatles solo albums where it was mainly Ringo on the list. Ringo seems to have a new album out every year which are mainly just forgettable. Even Paul McCartney seemed to have a lot of albums released in a short periods of time. Bob Dylan is another one. After a while most of the stuff on those albums become lost or forgettable.

[@yinoveryang4246]

It seems like quantity over quality, The problem, I think, is that there doesn’t seem to be any filtering or reworking of this music going on. It feels like the pieces must be just put out as soon as they’re made, as kind of "beta versions" without taking time to step back and refine them. Buckethead is an incredibly talented musician, who can clearly do so much more, so why does he take this approach? When it must achieve nothing more than hurting the quality of his work.

[@benfoldsfunf4517]

I think R Stevie Moore has released 500 albums

[@LarryGravesCanadianStudmuffin]

That's insane. I did love his cover version of Sparks "Here Comes Bob".

[@joelfrombethlehem]

When you said that you'll "...have the artist with the biggest discography at the end of this..." I immediately thought you'd say the Grateful Dead, but you did not. And that's fine by me. According to Rate Your Music, the site you are now using, the Grateful Dead have 275 (or more) albums, 259 of which are archival live recordings.

[@ilabelle1]

It's ridiculous really. I just give up when discographies are too big. KGLW is a good example. Great band but I just lose interest and can't be bothered any more. Another pet peeve are artists that release overly long albums. Every album they release is a double or even a triple album. Why? I find 40 minute albums are perfect. They don't overstay their welcome and you really get to know the album. With a lot of super long albums I know the first half really well but then after an hour I start losing interest. It's like books. Do you want to read a writer who puts out books that are over a thousand pages long every time? Once in a while, sure but not every time.

[@janetsampson1779]

To me Larry unless you're gifted songwriters like Lennon and McCartney and a few others an artist can't come up with quality material that easily,to me an artist releasing a ton of material in a short period of time is probably releasing inferior product,it's probably not very good,just my opinion. Bob

[@kevtruth]

I liked Guided By Voices on their initial run, up until 2004 when they broke up. After that I stopped counting new releases between the reformed GBV and Robert Pollard solo stuff. Can't enjoy. I might be missing great music but it's not worth it

[@scottmcrae3355]

It’s so worth it for me! The solo stuff and side projects are often as great as the GBV stuff if you ask me.

[@girthbloodstool339]

Thee Oh Sees, King Gizzard - it's too much - the quality of the songwriting does not support this.