Back in the '60s, it was very common for a pop artist to release two or even three albums every year. In recent years, however, many artists take their sweet time recording, resulting in unusually long gaps between albums. Here are twelve artists with huge gaps between albums.
1. The Feelies
In 1980, New Jersey indie rock legends the Feelies released Crazy Rhythms, a tightly coiled collection of jangly post-punk songs that would prove to be one of the greatest debut albums of the '80s. So how did the Feelies follow this? By waiting six years to release its follow-up The Good Earth. After the band's 1991 album Time for a Witness, it would be another 20 years before we'd get another Feelies LP.
2. Fiona Apple
Though many fans complained about the lengthy gap between Fiona Apple's When The Pawn... and Extraordinary Machine, she would take an even longer time to put out her fourth album The Idler Wheel..., which came seven years after Extraordinary Machine.
3. The Knife
Swedish electronic duo The Knife released three albums between 2001 and 2006, but after 2006's classic Silent Shout LP, it took the Knife a full seven years to release its fourth album, Shaking The Habitual, though it probably would have been released much sooner if it wasn't 96 minutes long.
4. David Bowie
Though David Bowie had been releasing music very steadily from 1967 to 2003, with 25 albums in 36 years, many of his fans were under the assumption that he had retired after 2003's Reality. However, in 2013, Bowie surprised everyone by releasing The Next Day, containing his first new material in ten years.
5. Portishead
After perfecting trip-hop with 1994's Dummy and following it up with the intensely gothic Portishead in 1997, Portishead inexplicably took nearly 11 years to release another album. Luckily the wait was worth it, as 2008's Third is arguably the band's best album, a refreshing spin on its eerie electronic sound.
6. Scott Walker
During his days as a mainstream pop crooner, Scott Walker made albums at a relatively quick pace, with ten releases between 1967 and 1974. However, after 1974's We Had It All, it would take Walker ten years to release his experimental follow-up Climate of Hunter, which set him on a new career path. Between 1984 and 2006, Walker would release just two albums, 1995's Tilt and 2006's The Drift.
7. Kate Bush
After releasing a respectable seven albums between 1978 and 1993, Kate Bush took off the rest of the '90s and the first half of the '00s to raise her son Albert. In 2005, Bush finally released her double album Aerial, her first album in almost exactly 12 years.
8. Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy has become more of a punchline than an album, the ultimate insult for an artist taking way too long to release something. Chinese Democracy was finally released on November 23, 2008, exactly 15 years after the previous Guns N' Roses LP, The Spaghetti Incident?
9. My Bloody Valentine
My Bloody Valentine's mbv was often called the Chinese Democracy of indie rock, but it actually took even longer to record. By the time the notoriously perfectionist Kevin Shields released mbv in February 2013, it had been more than 21 years since the release of the band's last album Loveless.
10. The Eagles
Though the Eagles reunited for the Hell Freezes Over Tour in 1994, the band didn't release a new studio album until 2007's Long Road Out of Eden, which came 28 years after the band's previous album The Long Run.
11. The Stooges
The Stooges are a classic example of a band that was ignored during its initial run, but found a huge audience in the years following its break-up. The band reunited in 2003 and released a new album The Weirdness in 2007, 34 years after the last Stooges album Raw Power, though it was the first Stooges album to feature Ron Asheton on guitar since 1970's Fun House.
12. Vashti Bunyan
Much like the Stooges, Vashti Bunyan's music was met with indifference in the early '70s, but instead of fighting for recognition, Bunyan basically retired after releasing just one album, Just Another Diamond Day. By the early '00s, however, members of the "freak folk" movement such as Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective cited Bunyan as an influence and brought her into the public consciousness, which inspired her to release a new album Lookaftering, 35 years after her first.
What other artists have had huge gaps between albums? Let us know in the comments section!
