1978 - Van Halen
1979 - Van Halen II
1980 - Women and Children First
1981 - Fair Warning
1982 - Diver Down
1984 - 1984
Then with Sammy Hagar they continued the streak
1986 - 5150
1988 - OU812
1991 - For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge
1993 - Live: Right Here Right Now
1995 - Balance
Everyone of these consecutive albums has gone multi-platinum or diamond! The “density” of the first 6 albums is pretty awsome althought they had a huge library and set list from their club days to draw on.
It’s too bad they couldn’t hold it together and Van Halen III with Gary Cherone only went gold.
**The Who:
**
A Quick One/Happy Jack
Sell Out
Tommy
Live at Leeds
Who’s Next
Quadrophenia
By Numbers
Who Are You
Traffic
Mr. Fantasy/Heaven is in Your Mind
Traffic
Last Exit
John Barleycorn Must Die
The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
Shootout at the Fantasy Factory
Interesting…Although I could see “Houses” breaking the streak, now that I think about it, if only for “D’yer Maker.” Otherwise, it’s a great album. I don’t really think it’s any worse than III, all-in-all.
Why did you stop before The Hissing of Summer Lawns?
Donna Summer:
Love to Love You Baby ('75) A Love Trilogy ('76) Four Seasons of Love ('76) I Remember Yesterday ('77) Once Upon a Time ('78) Live and More ('78) Bad Girls ('79)
Side one is reissues and the side Bs of singles. Side two is treacle by George Martin. I didn’t include the first Dylan best of album in my list, so stuff like this doesn’t count.
As a fan, I’d say Peter Hammill had a great run of solo albums all the way from his first in 1970 right through to 1983 with Patience. Maybe a little hiccup on Enter K
70 - Fool’s Mate
72 - Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night
74 - The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage
74 - In Camera
75 - Nadir
76 - Over
78 - The Future Now
79 - pH7
80 - A Black Box
81 - Sitting Targets
82 - Enter k
83 - Patience
And parallel to this, he had two great runs with van der Graaf.
Their first 4 lps were
69 - The Aerosol Grey Machine
70 - The Least we can do is wave to each other
70 - H to He, Who Am the Only One
71 - Pawn Hearts
then they split for a few years and came back in the mid 70s with
75 - Godbluff
75 - Still Life
76 - World Record
He and the group are still going, still recording new material, but that first decade+ was quite remarkable, imho.
The Band’s first three albums: Music from Big Pink (The Weight, This Wheel’s on Fire), The Band (The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, King Harvest, Up on Cripple Creek, Rag Mama Rag), and Stage Fright (Strawberry Wine, The Shape I’m In, Stage Fright). Cahoots has a couple of good songs but it breaks the streak.
And the Allman Brothers Band’s first four albums went this way: self-titled debut (Trouble No More, Dreams, Whipping Post), Idlewild South (Don’t Keep Me Wondering, Midnight Rider, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed), the live album At Fillmore East (enough said), and Eat a Peach (Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More, Mountain Jam, Blue Sky).
Oops, you forgot ‘Obscured by Clouds’ (following Meddle) which was, at best, so so.
OTOH, you could have started with their first three albums and had their run going through six albums (yes, I like, the More soundtrack). You’d then have:
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
A Saucerful of Secrets
Soundtrack from the Film More
Ummagumma
Atom Heart Mother
Meddle
My Aim Is True
This Year’s Model
Armed Forces
Get Happy!!
Trust
Husker Du:
Zen Arcade
New Day Rising
Flip Your Wig
Candy Apple Grey
Warehouse: Songs and Stories
(And that was in a span of 3 years, with two of those being double albums)
The Real Steely Dan did seven straight excellent albums:
Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972)
Countdown to Ecstasy (1973)
Pretzel Logic (1974)
Katy Lied (1975)
The Royal Scam (1976)
Aja (1977)
Gaucho (1980)
And then Donald Fagan released the excellent The Nightfly (1982). Following which he and Walter Becker were abducted by aliens. There were no further Real Steely Dan albums.
Some other artists have interesting cross-band streaks.
Stephen Stills
Buffalo Springfield (1966)
Buffalo Springfield Again (1967)
Last Time Around (1968)
Super Session (1968)
Crosby, Stills, and Nash (1969)
Deja Vu (1970)*
Stephen Stills (1970)
*Technically, the next two CSN studio albums were CSN (1977) and Daylight Again (1982), which are both pretty good.
Eric Clapton*
Fresh Cream (1966)
Disraeli Gears (1967)
Wheels of Fire (1968)
Goodbye (1969)
Blind Faith (1969)
Eric Clapton (1970)
Layla (1970)
*depending on how you count his touring with Delaney and Bonnie.
There’s fan appeal, then there’s chart success. Streaks can vary wildly on these metrics.
From a fan perspective, Alice Cooper had a great quality streak of albums which I never get tired of.
Love It to Death (1971)
Killer (1971)
School’s Out (1972)
Billion Dollar Babies (1973)
Muscle of Love (1973)
Welcome to My Nightmare (1975)
Alice Cooper Goes to Hell (1976)
