The Best 5-Album Stretch

Who had the best run?

So this tweet came up on a local sports talk show here and the best they could come up with either the first 5 Zeppelin albums, or the 5 Beatles albums preceding Yellow Submarine. Neither is a great list, but both are terribly obvious, too…

Keeping in mind this has to be 5 albums in a row, that knocks out folks like Aerosmith, Van Halen (thanks to Diver Down), Foo Fighters, Fleetwood Mac, Styx, Neil Young, and a few others

But, depending on your personal tastes, most of these are pretty easy to put up against those 5 Pink Floyd albums and didn’t require a whole lot of scraping around to rattle them off.
In no particular order…

1. Rolling Stones: Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St, Goat’s Head Soup
2. Allman Brothers: self-titled, Idlewild South, Live at Fillmore, Eat a Peach, Brothers & Sisters
3. Metallica: Kill ’Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, And Justice for All, Black Album
4. U2: War, Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, Rattle & Hum, Achtung Baby (and if you have to leave out Rattle & Hum b/c of the “soundtrack caveat” in the original tweet, then back up to October rather than roll forward to Zooropa)
5. Talking Heads: More Songs, Fear of Music, Remain in Light, Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures
6. Pearl Jam: Ten, Vs, Vitalogy, No Code, Yield
7. Elton John: Tumbleweed Connection, Madman Across the Water, Honky Château, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
8. Journey: Infinity, Evolution, Departure, Escape, Frontiers
9. RHCP: Mother’s Milk, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, One Hot Minute, Californication, By the Way
10. Whitney Houston’s first 5 albums probably do it for some people
11. Jay-Z most folks would start with “Vol 1” but the better stretch is Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter, The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, The Blueprint, The Blueprint2: The Gift & the Curse, The Black Album
12. Stevie Wonder’s run from Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness’ First Finale, Songs in the Key of Life

The problem with the Foos is that there are too many albums between The Colour and the Shape and Sonic Highways, so you’re stuck w/ some fluff that keeps out their 2 best albums

Depending on how you count live albums, Thin Lizzy gets you Fighting, Jailbreak, Johnny the Fox, Bad Reputation and then Live & Dangerous and that’s waaaaay better than people want to give it credit for

You can do 2 different stretches with Rush, depending on whether you want Moving Pictures / Permanent Waves at the front of the list or the back:
Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows ~ or ~ 2112, A Farewell to Kings, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, but either way, that’s a hell of an 8-album run right there

But if you really want to scare the shit out of people with how many great songs you can cram into 5 albums, check out the track listing from Aretha Franklin’s late-60 run of I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Aretha Arrives, Lady Soul, Aretha Now, Soul ‘69

Some others that have been mentioned elsewhere?

1. Van Morrison, from Astral Weeks thru St Dominic’s
2. The Who, from Tommy to Who Are You
3. Iron Maiden’s first 5 albums (or skip the first two and add 6 & 7)
4. Kiss, from Dressed to Kill to Love Gun
5. Lynyrd Skynyrd, from (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-’nérd ‘Skin-’nérd) thru Street Survivors

OK, so what’s on your list of the best 5-album run from an artist?

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