A whole lotta Nunslaughter
. . .
Why do bands compile long discographies? By long, I don’t mean, say, 10 full-lengths, a typical figure for a long-running band. I mean the ridiculous triple-digit numbers that bands put up these days.
The Encyclopaedia Metallum Discordance has a sorting filter called “Bands by Release Count”. It shows that Deep Purple has the most releases of any “metal” band, with 221. Agathocles is second with 193, while Motörhead is third with 161. Releases include everything discrete that a band puts out: demos, singles, splits, albums.
Major label bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden compile long discographies because several singles typically accompany each album. Add cash cows like compilations and live albums, and it’s unsurprising that big names put up big numbers discography-wise.
But for underground bands, such numbers baffle me. If releases come out in response to demand, where is the demand for 193 Agathocles releases? Are people actually collecting them all? Can they tell the releases apart? Could the band remember enough songs to take requests live? Why do 193 Agathocles releases even exist?
. . .
Agathocles: 25 years, 193 releases
. . .
Perhaps a more interesting measure than sheer length of discography is the length of discography over time. Longer-running bands naturally have more chances to amass a discography. But which ones are cranking them out like Catholic babies?
Using the Discordance’s list, I divided the number of releases by the number of years that a band has been in existence. I’ll call the result “prolificness”. Below are the 10 most prolific “metal” bands. The first number is the number of releases, the second is the number of years in existence, and the third is their quotient, average releases per year.
1. Zarach ‘Baal’ Tharagh: 125/10 = 12.5
2. Senmuth: 75/6 = 12.4
3. Akromusto: 47/6 = 7.83
4. Njiqahdda: 39/5 = 7.8
5. Agathocles: 193/25 = 7.72
6. Uruk-Hai: 79/11 = 7.18
7. Unholy Grave: 120/17 = 7.06
8. Heirdrain: 53/8 = 6.63
9. Melvins: 108/17 = 6.35
10. Nadja: 49/8 = 6.13
The trends are clear. Two bands are grindcore (Agathocles, Unholy Grave), while the rest are one- and two-person bands that play mostly ambient metal. The one exception is Melvins, whose eternal job is to be the exception.
Several conclusions are easy to draw. First, one- and two-person bands don’t have the checks and balances of normal bands. No one else is there to tell them their stuff sucks. So they release everything. With recording technology so cheap these days, it’s easy to press up 50 CD-R’s of a demo. Second, ambient sounds and lo-fi black metal and grindcore are probably too easy to make. You don’t see death or thrash metal bands racking up huge discographies. (Except for Nunslaughter – can anyone tell their 105 releases apart?) Finally, of these prolific artists, arguably none are “real” metal. Perhaps “real” metal does not lend itself to pumping out product.
. . .
Boris: 18 years, 60 releases
. . .
As an editor of writers (including myself), I understand the inability of artists to self-edit. However, I don’t understand why fans indulge such behavior. When Justin Broadrick flooded the market with Jesu EP’s and splits, people still bought them, even though they were thin on ideas and inspiration. Why do people obsess over demos and splits today? Twenty years ago, demos or splits might have been valid artistic statements. But today there are so many that say so little that I can’t help but see a baseball card-type of collect-them-all mentality at work.
From a market standpoint, this is fine. If artists put out crap, and people still buy it, who am I to care? But from an artistic standpoint, prolificness is terrible. The market is over-saturated, artists lose mystique because they’re never “away”, and bands forsake significant artistic statements in favor of drips and drabs.
Playing devil’s advocate to what I’ve said, however, I can see reasons for drips and drabs. Artistically, the EP is a good format for bands to explore ideas that might not be appropriate for a full-length. Financially, drips and drabs might be better ways to sell albums nowadays. If you have 10 songs that you want to sell for $10, people are more likely to buy them if they come in two packets of 5 songs for $5. Even though the total price is the same, psychologically $5 is less menacing than $10. And if you break up the 10 songs into three 7″s, call them Parts 1, 2, and 3, and give each 7″ a different vinyl color – people will climb over each other to collect them all.
One’s views on this might depend on one’s age. I grew up with albums, so those will always be the measures of bands to me. My favorite bands don’t have very long discographies because they collect their songs onto albums. Kids today pull music from everywhere – an iTunes single here, a blogspot download there. Their hard drives are wild assortments of folders, bitrates, and ID3 tags. This is distasteful to me, but maybe it doesn’t matter. Is the music good or not? That’s probably the only question I should be asking.
Isn’t the quantity of releases in underground circles mostly to do with keeping the band going? A new 7″ or split to sell on ever tour has to be the difference between completing the tour or not to some bands, maybe even eating and staying alive to some others. I’ll give you the fact that some ,looking at you Jesu & Nadja, seem to throw any kind of quality control out of the window for no other reason than to bleed the completists but if a label offers you a decent cheque to releases your B-Grade demo material then why should they turn it down. Since most people listen before they buy nowadays it’s up to the consumer to set their own level of quality control against their gotta-have’em-all mentality.
No mention of the Floor box set? I think that people on all sides of this just love stuff. Artists put out more stuff out to feel important, fans buy more stuff to feel more fanboy. Its just an indication of what society has become.
I must say, I am in fact a fan of Jesu’s putting out EP after EP. There’s less pressure to like an EP compared to a full length (due to its length, and the fact that another release will be around the corner), so ‘thin ideas’ are more forgiveable, and I actually find myself enjoying them.
I think bands are just trying to appeal more to the “collector” aspect that comes with metal. Getting every Nunslaughter release is the metal equivalent of the dudes that collect Star Wars or GI Joe action figures, for instance. In fact I’m betting there is some crossover between the metal crowd and that crowd. Hell, I used to have quite a comic book and action figure collection myself.
I was surprised not to see any mention of Sabbat(Jpn). I was always under the impression that they had a mammoth discography.
This is a great article that got me thinking, are there any bands I’d want to own every little trinket from? The only answer I could come up with is Darkthrone.
My favorite collect-them-all artifact is probably the Merzbox, which was stuffed with 50 CDs, almost half of which were previously unreleased. Then there’s Acid Mothers Temple’s Kawabata Makoto, whose prolificness dwarfs that of anyone on this list. He’s probably released three new albums while I’ve been typing this comment.
I think that the most prolific bands tend to be those for whom improvisation and experimentation are central (see also the huge discographies of a lot of jazz musicians). Does that mean improvised /experimental is easier to play? Perhaps so, but I think it’s actually harder to make interesting improvised music than it is to make good music that is more conventionally structured. Most bands that release album after album just churn out ephemera. A few artists, however—Makoto, Matthew Bower, the Melvins—manage to be both absurdly prolific and consistently engaging. If all 108 Melvins releases sounded exactly the same that would be one thing, but their expansive discography has given them the opportunity to experiment with all kinds of different sounds and approaches. I’ll take an inconsistent discography over a boring /repetitive one any day.
Insomnivore nails one reason big fairly squarely; there is very little point for most bands to go on tour without anything new to sell in the current climate.
With one/ two man bands the rate they produce music is always going to be fairly prolific, but once a name’s been established there’s generally no shortage of offers to release everything (and really, the micro-label in metal/ noise/ hardcore has been the useless twats way to attempt make a name in their scene of choice for years now, what better way than to piggy back someone elses work?).
And in this era of instant information and Follow Us on Twitter it’s both easy to be forgotten and to fear you’re going to disappear without constantly putting out some small reminder that you still exist.
I think it’s just bands gearing their releases towards the collector. Thou is doing this and I have yet to hear a bad Thou song so we’ll see how this pans out for them. They release stuff on various labels and it sells well. For a band to have hundreds of releases though, I don’t get it (even a band that’s been around 20 years).
I wonder if, to some extent, this isn’t maybe the unintended consequence of an initially interesting strategy on the part of independent, underground artists. I’m thinking, for example, of the the French LLN bands, which pretty much released material only on cassette tapes, and in extremely limited quantities. I’m not particularly interested in debating the actual musical merits of these bands (which range, generally, from atrocious to excellent), but rather the type of strategy they were trying to deploy.
Your point about the ‘market standpoint’ is apt, Cosmo, because this was clearly a case of trying to artificially increase demand by restricting supply. The kinda bullshit thing about it, though, is that it gets marketed instead as the only way to be “truly underground.”
If you think about it, though, a band putting out a 7″ or a split cassette or whatever “strictly limited to 25 copies” is patently ridiculous. Chances are that maybe 15 of the people who snatch up those 25 copies don’t really care about the music, but are just looking for the collector item, meaning that maybe 10 people who are actually invested in the music get the physical, fetish object (because let’s face it, all these collector pieces are there to be fetishized), leaving anyone else who is actually interested to either call it a day, or find the mp3s online the following month.
Thus, it seems to me that what originally began as this sort of marketing ploy cloaked in the guise of authenticity or true believer knowledge gets confused with legitimate musical expression.
That being said, I know that the financial incentives currently facing underground bands (‘overground’ bands, too, for that matter) are pretty fucked, so if banging out a few limited release splits and EPs to sell on tour is a more effective way to eke out a living, then I’m all for it.
The really interesting prolific bands, to me at least, are those ones who put out a massive amount of material, but where most of it is still restricted to full-length album statements. I’m thinking, primarily, of Striborg, Xasthur, Hellveto, or Nadja (though I can’t stand most of Nadja, and I know they’ve also got twelve ass-loads of splits, re-recordings, and god knows what else). It’s just as easy to get overloaded on that stuff, but at least it sticks with what, for me (as for you, it seems), has always been the most meaningfully digestible musical statement: the album.
Interesting post, and thanks for crunching the numbers. Of those ten, I’d have to agree with others here that Melvins are the only ones who have earned the right to legitimately put out so much bizarre stuff, and at such a market-saturating, carpet-bombing rate.
“However, I don’t understand why fans indulge such behavior.”
To be blunt…who gives a fuck? An artist, a true artist, should do whatever the hell they want. Otherwise they’re not an artist, they’re an economic/marketing business based around the sale of recorded music in a tried and tested model.
If a fan likes what they do (put out a shit load of releases) then cool, they’re a fan. If the fan doesn’t like what they do well then they’re just not a fan.
Actually I’m not sure I agree with myself. An artist (recording + live band) is so much more than the sum of their releases so you can be a fan without wanting to own the recordings.
Back to the original point – who gives a fuck? An artist should do whatever they want. Music first. Everything else after that.
sorry, I had trouble following the article after you said melvins weren’t real metal.
also, it’s pretty clear at this point that the Album perfectly conceived and executed – isn’t a machine that a band can depend on to finance further exploration. like was mentioned above, tour-only ep’s are definitely a more viable way to keep the merch table busy – I’ve already downloaded their Album, but something new is more likely to part me from my money than the tip jar.
Great idea. I added this analysis to the Discordance. Always better to let the computer do the counting. Most of your year counts are off by one (e.g., 2004 to 2009 is 6 years, not 5), and a couple are just wrong (you have the Melvins at 17 years, but they have releases from 1986 to 2010, so that’s 25 years, dropping them to 23rd).
Discordance – Most Prolific Bands
Not that the correct results change your points any!
glenn
@adam: I think what he meant is that the Melvins are kind of on their own plane of existence.
As a fan, it’s easy to find the middle ground on the artist’s production – I’m a JKB fanboy, and I will buy all his Jesu EPs but I’m not going to track down every silly remix thing he does. Are there really completists out there that are buying every one of those hundreds of releases of some of those bands? Do they have rooms dedicated to storing that shit?
There is a little bit of everything around. Some bands just want to cash in, others just feel the need to record and release absolutely everything they can. Then, there is the collector’s mindset but that does not necessarily apply to everything a band puts out.
I collect music in all formats, but I could care less about singles and shit and I would only buy Die Hard editions if I won the lottery.
The point is, it is unnatural and unreal to presume that all the music contained in Agathocles’ 193 releases is pure quality. The same applies to most bands thaht follow that m.o.
There are a very few bands (with expansive discographies) which I would even be interested in enough to collect their entire discographies:
Melvins
Boris
Entombed
Napalm Death
Darkthrone
But for me it’s about rate of consumption. I find that I do not appreciate a work fully until I’ve had a chance to digest it. Downloading a torrent of a band’s discography and then listening to it straight through is hardly what I consider giving it a chance. Therefore, consuming a band’s discography should take years to complete.
As for bands like Nunslaughter: I don’t fault them for the giant discography. I’m sure those releases have helped them to get by financially countless times. That doesn’t mean I’m going to buy them. I have one Nunslaughter release and I think that’s more than I’ll ever need.
Of course, some would suggest that the whole thing is essential (The guy who took that photo is either really proud or is trying to get rid of it all on eBay) and that one Melvins release is all they’ll ever need.
Personally, I find the collectors mentality a bit silly. Because most of the collectors find joy in possessing stuff rather than using it. How many people planet can really claim they use the entire Nunslaughter discography?
I also liken this to collecting sports cards. I was hardcore into card collecting and part of that fun was going to the store or wherever and finding that one Mike Piazza card (or anything with him on it). Once I had it, it was no big deal, but still cool to go treasure hunting.
By the way “Razor Sharp Daggers” by Agathocles is the only full length you NEED to own by the those guys. You can tell they spent time on it. Also comes w/the best splits, 7″’s they did. Funny that they are second to Deep Purple. The Ag discography length was always a running joke among me and my friends- if Burt keeps going he might pass Deep Purple.
“you have the Melvins at 17 years, but they have releases from 1986 to 2010, so that’s 25 years, dropping them to 23rd”
They’re even older than that if you count the stuff on their _Mangled Demos from 1983_ release. Of course, I only know that because I’m a geek who compulsively buys everything they put out.
Why would you, for example, buy into the Boris singles series without hearing the material or having any guarantee to it’s quality.
Why do people gamble? It’s a bet, really. The artist is someone you enjoy, respect, they have a past track record of quality output. Perhaps, like Boris, they are on a creative or artistic surge or plateau. You take that chance based on those factors and the expectation that the new music is going to kiss ass (even if it ends up not). It’s not unlike horse racing really.
That’s said, the Boris singles were a mixed bag, and they definitely made me think twice about the Southern Lord vinyl subscription series, which I ultimately passed on. Like Boris, Southern Lord itself had seemed to be on a roll for a while, producing high quality product. I guess starting with the last Pelican release, I’ve been kinda unimpressed.
That’s part of the music buyer psychology too; determining when things go ‘hot or cold’ with a label, scene, whatever. Much like you music critics probably do
Regarding EPs: some EPs I actually enjoy better than their full-length companions.
Regarding Deep Purple: Well, there were at least 4 incarnations of the band. And they originated at a time when companies would release slightly different or altered product in different countries. However, I would imagine the bulk of their extensive discography are live concerts, much like the Grateful Dead.
It’s posts like these, Cosmo, why I continue to think you’re stomping around inside my head and composing my thoughts into coherent, legible sentences.
Continue the excellent work!!
Insomnivore – You’re definitely right about needing new product to sell on tour. That’s probably the case for Thou right now (The Path Less Traveled – I disagree, I think much of the Thou non-album stuff is disposable), and I’ve seen Fuck the Facts conceptualize and execute some pretty cool releases so they can sell them on tours.
Crack – Box sets are a separate, though related issue. Floor weren’t unnaturally prolific during their existence, and this type of catch-all discography compilation isn’t uncommon these days. What is uncommon is the material and financial lavishness of the Floor box set.
Josh – Sabbat (Jpn) indeed are prolific (I crunched their numbers from the Discordance). They put out nine live albums in 2007! However, in terms of frequency, they don’t hold a candle to the one- and two-person acts.
pseudonymous – My discussion doesn’t really apply to jazz and improvisatory music, because the point of such music is that no two performances are the same. Add in highly technically skilled players, and 10 nights of the same set list can sound very different. I wonder how the “collect them all” aspect applies in jazz, since there would be more of an artistic reason for prolificness.
survivalist – That’s a good point that you imply, that there is more demand now because there are, wrongly or not, more labels than ever willing to release music.
Dan – I think some of those album-favoring artists like Xasthur and Striborg are just part of the one- and two-person band phenomenon. They are similarly prolific, but they put out albums instead of EP’s because it doesn’t cost much more now to make/put out an album.
Chris West – Artistry does not exist in a vacuum. In most cases, commerce is involved in getting the art to the consumer. And the point here is the age-old one, that commerce (quantity) and art (quality) do not necessarily get along. And, yes, a band can very much have relevance outside of its recordings. There are many bands I love to see live whose records I never listen to.
adam – I doubt that the Melvins would call themselves metal. As to whether I would call them metal, I agree with D Fitch. They think outside the box too much to be metal.
glenn mcdonald – Math is not my strong suit; also in at least one case, the list band year of origin was incorrect, so I manually corrected for that. In any case, I appreciate the mechanical help, and will amend the post shortly to reflect it. Again, for the readers, the Discordance now lists “Most Prolific”:
The Most Prolific Metal Bands
D Fitch – There are obsessive completists for at least the Godflesh portion of Broadrick’s career – see http://www.godflesh.com.
Vinnie – I would prefer not to stomp around inside anyone’s head (or be perceived as doing so), but thanks for the odd compliment.
I own a good chunk of that Deep Purple discography, but nothing close to the total. Jeez.
Well, if you were to talk about jazz, would that just include albums released under the musician’s names, or just albums he/she played on? I mean, Ron Carter has played on over 2,000 albums…
“Artistically, the EP is a good format for bands to explore ideas that might not be appropriate for a full-length.”
Definitely true. It’s a good thing that some bands don’t feel constrained to record full length albums for every release.
A lot of bands feel compelled to release full lengths(label pressure, etc) and the result is an album with some good songs, plus a lot of filler.
From a music consumer perspective, yes, it is also annoying trying to follow each Jesu release and determine whether I think it is worth purchasing(ST album + Silver is all I have so far).
Of course with the digitising of music, it is easier for consumers to just purchase the songs they like.
I’ve always been a fan of moderation: one album a year even seems like too much, although I make exceptions. I don’t mind singles and EPs as long as they are worthy explorations and meant to stand alone (such as with Ludicra’s S/T and Coalesce’s 7″s).
They’re “metal cred” has always been in question — and much of their discombobulated discography is due to shady labels, shadier managers, and the band’s ambivalence re: questionable bootleg’ish releases — but for just the record: Hawkwind has 250+ releases (~1969 to present).
(ref: http://home.clara.net/adawson/)
Back OT: I think the bands that release more-or-less ‘anything that they’ve ever played at least once and happen to have had it recorded’ are filling a need. A need for them to get their material out to the masses as much/as often as possible. Maybe to an audience of none, as it were. But if it keeps their creative juices going, cool. If that means a few rabid collectors are eating it up, then that’s fine, too.
In other words, no harm, no foul.
With the exception of some of my favorite groups from my much younger days (e.g. Anacrusis, Sadus, Death Angel, et al), I just don’t feel the need to be a completist with every single act in my collection. The joy of the Encyclopaedia Metallum is being able to see what is a “vital” release, what you can pass on, what anthology release gathers up the best of those various rare EPs and demos in a neater/cleaned up package, etc.
I don’t have the time, money, or motivation to hunt down everything from everybody.
But I say live-and-let-live re: the obsessive collectors — and the bands their keeping afloat.
//TB
Ha ha, you said ‘kids today’! Old!!!!
I think kids today are happy to download whatever from the internet, which is why a lot of bands are going through the whole vinyl only/lots o’ 7 inch and splits route. Also, consider this:
1) People who listen to metal are nerds
2) Nerds like to collect things
3) You make money when people buy your things
4) Therefore, the more things you release, the more money you make.
I am gonna ramble a quarter and say it reminds me of Pokemon!
In the game franchise, one might be content with 5 Pokemon (and occasionally change em for stronger ones).
Others ever since the release back in the late 1990s want them all (currently according to the Pokedex: 493) despite not having something like an achievement or trophy system that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have.
GOTTA CATCH EM ALL!
“1) People who listen to metal are nerds
2) Nerds like to collect things”
Pretty much. I’m a nerd that lacks the collector gene, but both my dad and brother are heavily into collecting their respective trinkets. I’ve had to think a lot on what’s different between me and them and all I could come up with were determinist simplifications about ‘hoarding instinct’ and whatnot. It’s safe to say I’ll never feel what they feel when they buy a new batch of stuff to add to their collection, and I’m not judging them.
Nor am I in the habit of judging music collectors and over-consumers, if it suits them, go for it, apparently it’s not for me, though. More than a record a year in this cultural climate is suspect, even. Again this isn’t me prescribing reality, it’s describing experience: if even a single band I love would put out an album a year for a five year stretch and I’d consider them all essential, I’d say otherwise. But it has never happened so far.
So yes, the dude that collects Nunslaughter records, I think he likes Nunslaughter, but it’s safe to say he likes collecting Nunslaughter more. Some bands, or even artists generally, can eke out a living out of catering to collectors.
As to the Heavy Metal spirit, let’s just say that too many litanies (and too many requests for financial patronage) make for a petty god.
I would agree with the nerd statement, metal at all levels atracts these sort of obsessives be it the mainstream (metallica guy) or the underground (nunslaughter guy). But as does any genre of music personally i tend to steer clear of huge discographies but do own records by some of those mentioned; however, i have neither the will nor funds to pursue everything by say boris or striborg. But also due to the fact that the quality vs qunatity rule definately applies to many of those artists, even groups with smaller dicographies tend to fall into this trap around the more obscure releases.
However the thing i really really dont understand are the collectors who obsessively collect every permutation of an artists output, every colour every pressing at that point it goes form impressive to slightly diconcerting.
As I believe someone said above, many of these bands were directly influenced by Merzbow’s output. And I also think they see it as some strange form of competition. Then there are the bands that put out a split with every single other band they know as some kind of show of solidarity.
Honestly, I think it’s simply the result of home recording, reduced recording and printing costs, smaller/self-owned labels, and simpler or more direct forms of music. When people were first forming the DIY concept, though, I don’t think they ever dreamed a band could put out 12 releases a year…
The bands that I first noticed really flooding were Nadja and Striborg. But then again both of these bands have fans that love every second of every release…so who cares?
Wesley Willis = Prolific
Having sat through a single Zarach ‘Baal’ Tharagh demo, I can say that there is no good reason for that man to release much of anything until he actually learns how to make something that resembles music.
“grindcore … probably too easy to make”
ouch. that hurts. i guess the problem, more, is it’s too hard to make well
I’ve told lots of people how I own all the Melvins stuff…. from the evidence above which I’ve been telling a big lie. I own almost all the studio albums on CD and a couple of live albums – which puts in the area of 30 odd Melvins CDs.
I think the Melvins are an example of a mix of reasons why a band can be legitimately prolific without it hurting their creativity/quality control etc…
First of all bands that have been around a long time, tend to move labels and reissue early albums in different formats with additional tracks etc… I think Melvins released lot of old stuff that was digitally remastered etc when they moved to Ipecac. This along with releasing all their early demo’s etc (which if nothing else gave an insight into where they came from and their influences before there influences became increasingly difficult to pick) woud swell those release numbers…
The Melvins are also big ones for releasing every song as a single on an album. While it’s not for me, I don’t think it harms their mystique or creativity or quality control. Usually they work with cool artists and give their collector type fans a piece to treasure. S if it is keeping the Melvins on the road and in the studio, I’m happy for the punters to keep giving the Melvins money for these singles and splits…
Also I look forward to the day when I make a comment on this site that doesn’t have the Melvins in there somewhere.
Motorhead, 161? Awesome, I have some collecting to do.
I believe that with Agathocles the purpose is somewhat different to the other bands you have listed. Agathocles release many split releases with relatively unknown bands, the purpose of this is to give unknown bands a level of exposure thus bringing them on to the musical radar. A prime example of this is Nasum who did their first release as a split with Agathocles in 1993. I owe agathocles plenty for introducing me to some absolutely amazing bands, however sometimes it is stressful trying to keep up with the number of releases they churn out.
I think the sad fact of the matter is the trend of putting out more EPs/singles (digital or otherwise) will increase, considering a fair bit of bands (including the Melvins) have complained that “no one buys CDs anymore.”
Since you mentioned Justin Broadrick though, I remember a few years ago that he was saying he always wanted to release different releases on various labels even during the Godflesh years, but that Earache Records discouraged this, as it was bad business (which is probably true to some regard). Although recently I heard that he definitely wants to scale back on the Jesu releases.
Overall, I definitely mourn the loss of really appreciating albums, but I suppose I do ultimately fall into the “collector’s mentality.”
From the NWN forum, this page has photos of a dude’s (almost complete) Agathocles vinyl collection:
http://www.nwnprod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3039&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=3255
That’s a LOT of records. I think I have 2 of them…
This post reminds me of an Onion A/V article from 2006 analyzing prolific bands (a prominant example being Animal Collective) in the digital, home recording age. You can read that here: http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hell-of-being-prolific-are-musicians-making-to,39269/
I’m hesitant to judge the bands (independent bands that is, not the ones whose label is the main impetus behind a large discography of mostly forgettable releases between proper albums/eps) who release multiple recordings a year. In all of the bands I have ever been in, I took a lot of time to write really great songs before committing them to tape, which basically means I have very few recordings. Do I wish I had? Yes and no.
Yes, I wish I had more of my own stuff to share, especially songs that were never recorded since we did so too seldom. No, I’m glad I don’t have 10 different versions of a song that was only okay.
At the same time, if there’s a band I love I try to grab everything they put out (this just happened to me two weeks ago when Robotic Obscurities put all of Breather Resist’s b-side material on their blog for free download. http://roboticobscurities.blogspot.com/2010/07/breather-resist-non-album-tracks.html) As many of the responses indicated, a lot of us feel that way about several bands we hold dear, I am no exception.
But as Cosmo mentioned, artists generally cannot self-edit. (And those that do tend to self-edit themselves into never doing work Finding that balance between “this is good enough” and “this could be better” is difficult to attain to say the least) So most bands probably need a “producer” or a “label” or someone who can as objectively as possible say “this sucks, shelve it,” or “this is great, run it.”
At the same time, it would have been remiss of Converge didn’t release “Unloved and Weeded Out” especially considering how the title of the record itself leads one to believe that they themselves didn’t even want to release it. ‘Cause that live version of “Locust Reign” is fucking tight.