Best Prog Albums: Last But Not Least

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

 Psychedelic Paul wrote:

How many instances can you think of where a band's last (or latest) album surprisingly turns out to be their "best" album?

Only one album immediately springs to mind, and that is Bowie’s Blackstar. I honestly can’t think of another off the top of my head. The next two to mind are Bowie’s contemporaries, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop - but while I love Lulu and Free, and would put them in my top five albums from those artists, they’re probably not my favourite album (which is how I assume “best” is meant to be taken, and why it is inverted commas).

Taking a quick glance through my CDs, I can add only four:

Anathema - The Optimist
The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience - Bleeding Star
22 - You Are Creating
3Ds - Strange News from the Angels

Well, I could add more if I included bands and artists with only one or two albums to their name, but that would seem to somewhat defeat the purpose of the exercise.

It would also be quite easy if I included what is presently the last album released by a band or artist, because in a lot of cases, the most recent album released is my favourite - but so long as the band is still active, chances are that it’s not really the last album.

Even if an album seems to have been the last released, there is really no way of knowing if the band or artist might decide to come back. I found half a dozen albums, for example, that would have been my favourite last albums, had the bands not come back with new material years afterwards.

Alice In Chains - “Tripod”
At the Drive In - Relationship of Command
Crowded House - Together Alone
Faith No More - Album of the Year
Screaming Trees - Dust
Soundgarden - Down on the Upside