So, i was watching a thing on CCR today. And, i can't believe they made 3 albums in a year during 1969.. What some would say 3 classic albums in a year! it's no wonder they were on the edge at that time.

How could a band make 3 albums in a year? and the albums were all good, had hit (classic singles) and did touring as well? i just don't see how they did it... or how bands back int he day did that stuff. I feel that's the reason so many of them were fighting and tired of each other.

What say the org?

They had a moment of creativness that reached each one of 'em and pushed them to stay much longer in the studio and work on much more music... Or, they could've had some of the material long time ago and decided to add newer material to it and then release 3 albums.

Maybe their own left-overs that never made their second album were so good they thought they'll fit for a 3rd album, same goes for the fourth one. It's all in the studio, you work your ass on something so genius and great, you can't see what'll make the cut... In CCR's case, they began recording sessions for the third album that year shortly after releasing the second one, that's genius in my opinion, as for the two first albums, I guess they had enough time to do that (The first in January and the second in August).

The Beatles also never slowed the momentum, they just kept recording great material for their albums, they released 2 albums in 1963, two in 64, in 65, in 69... and between 66 and 68 they released 3 masterpieces: Revolver, Rubber Soul and SGT..... that's even more genius if you ask me. (Not to mention that The White Album could've been released as two albums in 69 - Adding Abbey Road - That's 3 albums in one year - Apart from the Let It Be sessions that occured also in 69).....

[Edited 6/2/14 15:22pm]

Plus, you were on point when you said that couldve been the reason many of them were tired of each other, that was THE REASON John & Paul from The Beatles left the band, they were sick and tired of each other, too many albums, too many songs, too many studio sessions, how many more a musician could bare?

Shawy89 said:

...how many more a musician could bare?

Now you're talking about John, aren't you?

That's not really that unusual for the time. The average act released at least 2 albums a year, because that was required, unless they were signed to a singles only contract. Singles only were usually small labels who didn't really release many albums. There was a 2 year period in the late 1960s where James Brown released around 10-12 albums, and that's not including other acts he produced. The Beatles and other acts recorded songs for single release only (well they were on the Capitol albums in the US though ). You could say that house bands like Booker T & The MGs and The Funk Brothers were on way more albums than that. Jazz musicans like Herbie Hancock played on lots of other jazz acts albums. The albums back then were on average around 30-35 minutes long, and were recorded live, because there were only 4 track machines and later 8 tracks. It's not like Boston taking months to record one song in the 1970's.

.

The Beatles 1st album took 12 hours to record, and Sgt. Pepper took 4 or 5 months, because there were a lot of effects and Abbey Road only had a 4 track console. When the bigger consoles with more tracks came out in the 1970s, people started to take longer to record to make "perfect" sounding albums, they could edit out mistakes and punch in new parts. It also made one made one man band records possible or singers doing all of the vocals like Marvin Gaye. It was in the 1970's where labels started to release an album a year, to milk them. That's really when albums started to sell really big, like they say Jaws & Star Wars started the blockbuster movie. At one time Carole King's Tapestry was considered the biggest selling album and it came out in 1971.

[Edited 6/2/14 15:37pm]

PANDURITO said:

Shawy89 said:

...how many more a musician could bare?

Now you're talking about John, aren't you?

And Paul too.. Let's face it, it's not like Paul was waiting for John to leave the band, he had that in his mind long before John as I seen in one of his interviews....

But John literally hated Paul at one point, wether it was his disliking of Paul's approach of music (Funny, cheesy, corny), or him taking the spotlight all the time... and Yoko Ono was also a reason, those guys just had to split...

[Edited 6/2/14 15:43pm]

MickyDolenz said:

It was in the 1970's where labels started to release an album a year, to milk them. That's really when albums started to sell really big, like they say Jaws & Star Wars started the blockbuster movie. At one time Carole King's Tapestry was considered the biggest selling album and it came out in 1971.

[Edited 6/2/14 15:37pm]

True.. I read in an article that Led Zeppelin was forced to release the whole quadrology in 3 years.... after releasing the first two albums in one year.

I honestly forget how crazy it was for people to do that. Yet it was normal in those days... i think honestly that's incredible. Like... beyond amazing they could make more than 1 classic album a year.

But which of those bands lasted long? most seemed to grow to hate each other or fight over royalties.

I know with John Fogerty he felt he wasn't getting enough respect. Because he was writing every single song and singing on every single song. The rest of the band remained cool with their record company... and let them have rights to use the songs in movies and TV shows.

John didn't want any of that and he was the only member who was outside all of it afte they broke up. There was also the famous incident where he came out with The Old Man Down The Road. He was sued by his olde record company for it sounding too close to Run Through The Jungle. And sionce they had rights and he didn't... he was sued for plagiarizing himself.

Shawy89 said:

True.. I read in an article that Led Zeppelin was forced to release the whole quadrology in 3 years.... after releasing the first two albums in one year.

It was standard label contract pre-1970's to release 2 albums, so they couldn't have been "forced" by the label to record unless they were not doing what was in the contract. Led Zeppelin were signed in the late 1960's. That's how a lot of acts back then have so many unreleased songs that labels release today in box sets or bonus tracks on reissues of old albums to get the public to buy the same album again. In some cases back then, the first 1 or 2 albums was material the bands were already doing in their concerts, so they were not writing songs specifically for an album, and it was common to have cover songs on albums. It's probably a little different to have to write songs to order. Really it was The Beatles that popularized self-writing. There were acts before them that wrote their own stuff, but it was not really that common in the pop field. People didn't care that Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, or Rosemary Clooney didn't write songs. It was the start of the rock press like Rolling Stone & Creem who sold the idea that self-writing was important, and that's what they tend to praise. That's probably why they tend to devide music as pre-Beatles and post-Beatles and also probably why R&B is not praised as much as rock by the rock press, as the popular 1960's & 1970's R&B acts generally did not write their own songs. It was more producer/writer driven (eg. Gamble & Huff, HDH, Norman Whitfield, Don Davis, etc.)

It seems that Buckethead has released over 50 albums in 2013-2014. I don't know if they're actual CDs or just downloads.

[Edited 7/8/14 16:23pm]

Micky's right, it was very standard for acts to be expected to deliver a new album every 6 to 9 months or so. Some people say that's what messed up the music business - once artists were freed from the need to constantly produce, they became indulgent.

Those were also the days when you were expected to knock out an album in a week, not dick around remixing and retracking it for years.

If the writer's prolific, I don't see it as a problem. Look at Pete Townshend's output in the 5 years between 1969-73:

Tommy (2 lp)
Who's Next

Quadrophenia (2 lp)

3 non-lp singles in 1972

Who Came First (solo album)

Happy Birthday, I Am (solo recordings released by the Baba society, over an LP's worth between those two titles)

At least 2 more albums worth of unreleased outtakes

That's three masterpiece albums in a row, made in the middle of constant touring, like 6 months a year on the road every year except 1972-73 when they only did 2 months a year. It's his most ambitious works ever, using field recordings and synthesizers in ways no one had before. Oh and he spent a month getting Eric Clapton's Rainbow concert band together. And released Live At Leeds, the greatest live rock album ever.

The mind boggles.

MickyDolenz said:

It seems that Buckethead has released over 50 albums in 2013-2014. I don't know if they're actual CDs or just downloads.

[Edited 7/8/14 16:23pm]

They're also almost 100% instrumental and very easy for a guitar noodler to do.

If I wanted to write very simple vamp-based stuff I could easily do 50 in that time frame.

Hell, I've got 47 'songs' like his laying around that because I don't want to do that kind of stuff.

His playing is physically amazing and when I'm in the mood Buckethead is super-cool, but a songwriter he is not.

CD or download is not important. Music is music.

Yeah it's different for an improvisational artist. They can theoretically release anything they do, it's all original. Go jam once a week, edit every session into a 45 minute "release" and boom, 52 albums a year.

Ryan Adams is an example of somebody who prolifically writes and quickly releases a lot of stuff. 14 LPS and 7 EPs since 2000. 3 albums came out in 2005 alone. I remember he was criticized at the time for doing too much, that he would be better served to have distilled those 3 LPs into one great one.To which he said, I'm not going to throw away songs I think are good just because no one else is releasing so many records so fast.

I do remember feeling the same way about Rocket From The Crypt in 1995. They were Interscope's big deal signing of the moment, and they wanted to show their independent spirit so they did 3 releases that year, one on a small but respected indie label, one for their own label on vinyl only, and one that was a regular Interscope CD. And what ended up happening was, each of the records had some of their best songs, and also some of their worst. None of them is satisfying from start to finish. The good songs on the indie releases never reached a wide audience, and the major label album that COULD have found a big audience wasn't as good as it could have been.

Really it was The Beatles that popularized self-writing. There were acts before them that wrote their own stuff, but it was not really that common in the pop field. People didn't care that Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, or Rosemary Clooney didn't write songs. It was the start of the rock press like Rolling Stone & Creem who sold the idea that self-writing was important, and that's what they tend to praise.

English press had a direct effect on the Who writing their own material in 1965. They had recorded what they thought was going to to be their debut album, made up of one Pete Townshend song, "Out In The Street", and a bunch of American R&B covers, James Brown and Vandellas kind of stuff. Their manager played a test pressing to a journalist from, I think, the Melody Maker, who said that they sounded great and had good energy but that since the rise of the Beatles, groups like this really needed to write their own material. Pete Townshend went home and wrote "My Generation", "The Kids Are Alright", "Circles" and seven other songs, and they turned it in three months later with only three cover songs on it.

That first Who album is such a strong statement, it's hard to believe almost all of it was written in the two months before it was finished. You usually think of a first album being the accumulation of years of preparation, all the ideas you've had since childhood. But they're still an R&B cover band that plays in dance halls when they start making it.

bobzilla77 said:

English press had a direct effect on the Who writing their own material in 1965.

I've never understood the big deal if someone writes or not. People don't know if a person actually writes a particular song anyway. You can put anybody's name on the credits or register them at the copyright office, it doesn't mean they wrote it. Many Lennon/McCartney songs were written separately, but they made a deal to credit each other. John Lennon did some minor help on George's Taxman, but is not credited. Some bands give credit to every member, whether a particular member actually contributed or not. In the old days, the label heads would add their names to credits to get paid like the Bihari brothers who ran Modern Records. Managers (and even mafia guys) would do this too. Some writers have added family members or friends to help them out financially, and some have even used the names of their pets. Some don't want credit for various reasons. In the 1970's, James Brown used 2 of his daughters names (who were both under 10 at the time) on some songs to get around the taxman. As adults, they sued James for royalties. Leagally, since they're registered at the copyright office, they should get paid, even if they had nothing to do with the songs. There's the case of ghostwriters too.