I came in here to mention Sleater Kinney, and I’m not even a particular fan. I just know there’s something of a fan consensus that every album holds up and they don’t have any songs that people really dislike.
See, I love the Clash’s first three albums, but they lost me at Sandanista. Maybe I need to revisit it, but I just didn’t like that album. Meanwhile, the first three would probably all rank on my top 100 rock albums of all time (with “London Calling” making my top 10.)
I can see that, I somehow forgot about Sandinista when I wrote that. It’s not a bad album per se, but has some major issues: it’s too bloated, too long and too ambitious. Another major flaw is Topper Headon’s performance: he went through serious heroin troubles during the recordings, and it shows everywhere on that album, it doesn’t really rock or swing, although Headon in ace form is one of my favorite drummers. But there’s a lot to discover among the clutter; Broadway is probably my favorite Clash song. But yeah, it’s not as good as their first three by any standard.
I personally enjoy Robert Plant’s Now And Zen album, but I think I’m in the great minority in that assessment, and Kirsty is all over it.
I think there are some bands that didn’t put out any crap. But the best bands always did. If you’re pushing boundaries and experimenting, eventually you’re going to fail. You’re right that a band with no bad songs isn’t trying hard enough. But there are plenty of pretty good bands who fall in that category.
Sounds like the perfect description of Motörhead, who’ve basically recorded the same album over and over again for 35 years. But even they’ve managed to come up with a few duffers (mainly every time they try to record a ballad.)
I’m of the “no such animal” camp as well, although Buffalo Springfield comes close, as does Roxy Music.
I’m not real sure because I’ve collected so many of their tracks as an adult but not their albums as a kid, but what about Creedence Clearwater before the coup or whatever it was? Their output was awesome.
I mentioned them upthread. Pendulum was a pretty tired-sounding album (and the first where Stu and Doug demanded equal space for their compositions with [del]one of the five best songwriters in American rock history[/del] John Fogerty’s), but even that one was pretty good. And the first three albums were perfect.
They haven’t produced an album that I don’t regularly listen to and there are no songs that I skip.
I guess when you take 3-9+ years between albums you can be picky