[albummaster]

I came across an interesting blog today, and basically the author has produced an analysis, based on stats from BEA, to work out if the most highly-rated albums by an artist are released early on in their careers. Their findings suggest this might be true.

In most other walks of life, people tend to become better at their professions as they become more experienced, so I find it interesting why this might be different for rock musicians. Perhaps they lose their creativity and can't vary their output enough over multiple releases, or maybe they just run out of things to say.

http://troywheatley.blogspot.com/2011/06/debut-albums-rock-which-number-albums.html

Another post from the same author examines the track sequence of the best albums to work out where the strongest tracks tend to be located. The findings suggest that the best albums lead with the strongest tracks.

http://troywheatley.blogspot.com/2011/06/opening-tracks-rock-what-are-best-track.html

Just thought I'd share...

[Applerill]

That's really interesting.

I wonder what band had their 15th album on the top 100... 😜

[Bork]

[cartoken]

Interesting ...

but which album people have listened to first from a band is an important factor.
meaning: even if a 2nd album of any act is "better" than the first, but looks like the first one (same vocals, guitar playing, sounds...etc), people will prefer the first one because at that time it was original, and 2nd one even better but less original.

[Boogn1sh]

I think the biggest factor in this is that artists have their entire lives to come up with their first album then maybe a year or so at most to follow it up if their debut was a success. They may have been working on some of the songs on their debut for decades even, honing them until they are finely crafted. Then when they're faced with the prospect of following it up there's simply not enough time to create anything as nuanced as their first work. There are many exceptions to this though, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, The Velvet Underground, The Beatles...

[Hayden]