Analysis of music listicles — an exercise in pedantry

I spend a fair bit of my time listening to music. To complement that, I read widely about music.

To be more accurate, I once read a lot, but nowadays, not so much. The format or style of music writing has changed substantially. I can’t remember the last time I bought a music magazine. Now I wake up to daily emails delivering headlines and short pieces about happenings in the music world. I have to dig a little deeper to find a substantial piece that is well beyond the attention span of the TL;DR crowd.

The list article, or listicle, is one of those types of writing (I am hesitant to call it journalism) that took off not that long ago and has become ubiquitous or pervasive with the gradual infestation of clickbait across the world’s media. We have all seen it, and most of us have probably clicked on a few links too. Articles like You won’t believe the top five crazy things Axl Rose keeps in his pantry — sickening! or similar!

Many seemingly reputable publications turned to the listicle dark side long ago. Rolling Stone magazine is one publication that utilises the format, thankfully without the dodgy sensationalism. I find some of the magazine’s listicles quite useful. For example, I often explore end-of-year lists to see which great albums I missed during that 12 months. A quality listicle serves its purpose and suits those who wish to get a quick idea of a theme, scan through some examples, and focus on perhaps one or two items before moving on.

One-and-done

A while back, I read a Rolling Stone piece called 40 Greatest One-Album Wonders, published in April 2021. It was a comprehensive piece, put together by 11 authors. After a very brief introductory paragraph, the reader is led straight into descriptions of the 40 so-called one-and-done releases. The vignettes get slightly more comprehensive as the list progresses through to the top pick.

Upon quickly scanning through the 40 selections and reading perhaps 10–12 accounts, I found myself analysing the list, picking apart the selections, and posing pertinent questions.

My initial observation was that some of the selections were albums made by people with well-established music careers. This was followed by the realisation that supergroups were on the list, which featured collectives of established and highly successful artists. I will run through a couple of examples to illustrate my observations.

Eric Clapton, guitarist and singer-songwriter, appears on the list twice. Just let that sink in. Someone appears on two one-and-done albums. That in itself is illogical. Those albums are the self-titled Blind Faith album, which ranked #14 on the list, and Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos, which ranked at #2. Before the release of those albums in 1969 and 1970, respectively, Clapton had become one of the world’s greatest guitarists and had played in The Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers (twice), and Cream. He was certainly not fresh on the scene with a debut album.

I fully understand that each of Clapton’s outfits was unique, with different personnel and featured different approaches to songwriting, arrangements, and instrumentation. However, does that make each band worthy of inclusion in the one-and-done listicle? To me, the answer is I don’t think so, especially when comparing them to artists who genuinely had one album.

Perhaps an even stranger example concerns two gentlemen called Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, whom you may know as members of Pearl Jam. The two feature on three one-and-done albums. Again, that is illogical.

The first album the pair appears on is the Green River album, Rehab Doll, ranked at #33. This one is fair enough as a one-and-done album — it was the first album recorded and released by all members of the band. They subsequently split up due to musical differences, but finished the album and released it in 1988, about eight months after the split!

The second album the pair appears on is the Mother Love Bone album, Apple, ranked at #18. Bruce Fairweather came over from Green River with Ament and Gossard. The band was rounded out with former Malfunkshun singer Andrew Wood and a rookie drummer, Greg Gilmore. Green River and Malfunkshun had released an album each. Despite the slightly different musical style, I still reckon that this album should not qualify for the article.

What about the next album Ament and Gossard appeared on, the self-titled Temple of the Dog, ranked at #12? Following the death of Andrew Wood, a tribute album was put together by his friends Ament, Gossard, Chris Cornell, and Matt Cameron from Soundgarden, and Gossard’s long-time friend, Mike McCready. Eddie Vedder sang on a few songs, including co-lead on Hunger Strike — Vedder was actually there to audition for the singing role in the new band being put together by Ament and Gossard that would become Pearl Jam.

The waters become a tad muddier when the reader is presented with a debut album featuring a combination of veteran musicians and people brand new to the business of making an album. Does that album deserve one-and-done status? The Temple of the Dog album is a great example, with Vedder and McCready appearing on their first recording. However, Cornell and Cameron were seven- and five-year veterans with a couple of albums under their belts.

To increase the turbidity of that stream even further (have your Secchi disc at the ready!), Temple of the Dog was a tribute album. It was unlikely that a second album would be made. Does that make it a genuine one-off album? Or does it perhaps fall into the supergroup category like the Blind Faith album? I still have not decided if this album should have been on the Rolling Stone list or not. Sitting on the fence is uncomfortable.

I believe a classic one-and-done album is that artist’s first and only album, the first time they recorded material for release.

I reiterate that I fully appreciate the view that an artist’s subsequent band or bands may be vastly different from what came before. That difference may put the newer outfit’s first recorded material into the debut or first album category.

The reasons for just one album may be many and varied. For example, the death of an artist or band member is a pretty good reason. The ‘musical/irreconcilable differences’ reason is unusual for a group with just one album. On reading about some albums, some bands were lucky to get their first record completed and released. As we saw with the Green River example, that can happen very early!

With my criteria of no veterans and supergroups, and very quickly looking at the top … eight (!), which albums did the Rolling Stone piece get right?

• Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. #1.
• Grace by Jeff Buckley. #4.
• The Modern Lovers by The Modern Lovers. #5.
• Out of Step by Minor Threat. #6.
• Buena Vista Social Club by Buena Vista Social Club. #7.

And which were not so correct?

• Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos. #2.
• The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Lauren Hill. #3.
• L.A.M.F. by Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. #8.

Do feel free to scan through the listicle and make your own judgment call about the 40 selections. Let me know in the comments if you would have similar criteria, or if you disagree entirely and how you would categorise the albums discussed.

Two-and-through?!

After considering the one-and-done list at length and breaking it down according to what I considered to be legitimate qualifying albums, I wanted to put together a list of my own. However, given the high number of single album lists that were everywhere, I switched my attention to those artists who had made just two albums.

It turns out there is a substantial list of artists who made two albums before their fledgling careers abruptly roared to a halt. Some artists released a pair of gems, while others released a cracking debut followed by a dud. The dud often led to unrest and the band’s demise.

Using my rather pedantic criteria, I could exclude pairs of albums by artists with a broader catalogue of releases behind them and performing under a different moniker. A couple of key artists represented here include:

• David Bowie’s band Tin Machine — Tin Machine (1989), Tin Machine II (1991).
• Bob Mould’s band Sugar — Copper Blue (1992), File Under: Easy Listening (1994).

Influential power pop outfit, Jellyfish, almost made the cut. However, the key members of the band had made albums in previous bands.

Excluded supergroups include ​Travelling Wilburys, The Power Station, Chickenfoot, UK, Damn Yankees, Bad English, The Firm, and Gordian Knot.

That left me with a modest list of two-and-through artists, releasing just a pair of albums in their short tenure. Some are well-known to many music fans, including:

• ​Amy Winehouse — Frank (2003), Back to Black (2006)
• Joy Division — Unknown Pleasures (1979), Closer (1980)
• NWA​ — Straight Outta Compton (1988), Niggaz4Life (1991)
• The Stone Roses​​ — The Stone Roses (1989), Second Coming (1994)

Below are brief profiles of just two artists that may not necessarily leap to mind in a two-and-through discussion.

Jale

Dreamcake (1994), So Wound (1996)

Jale was an indie pop outfit from Halifax, Nova Scotia — the second Canadian band to be signed by Sub Pop Records, following in the footsteps of Eric’s Trip from New Brunswick.

Jale comprised Jennifer Pierce, Alyson MacLeod, Laura Stein, and Eve Hartling, with their first initials making up the band name. Pierce had contributed guest vocals on the first two albums by fellow Halifax band Sloan.

Dreamcake was produced by Brad Wood and featured hook-laden melodies, exquisite harmonies, and a mixed blend of jangle and fuzz guitars.

Drummer Alyson MacLeod quit the band and was replaced by Mike Belitsky from The Sadies. The revamped unit recorded So Wound, again produced by Wood, which had more of a power pop feel. An excellent album with good reviews wasn’t enough for Sub Pop — the band was let go in the middle of a tour. The band’s legacy is a collection of wonderful indie pop songs.

Pierce, Stein, and Belitsky went on to play under the name The Vees and recorded an EP before calling it quits in 1998. The three were part of the Joe Pernice album Chappaquiddick Skyline a couple of years later. Stein and Belitsky played on the second and third Pernice Brothers albums. Hartling is an award-winning designer and artist.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood​

Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984), Liverpool (1986)

For many years, I thought Frankie Goes To Hollywood was in the one-and-done category. In my mid-teens growing up in Australia, I did not hear anything about the band’s second album at all.

The Liverpool group had an absolute monster of a hit debut single with Relax, released in late 1983. The second single, Two Tribes, released in 1984, was almost as huge and brought on a strange phenomenon. Relax came back into the UK charts and reached number two while Two Tribes was number one — that had happened only twice before, courtesy of The Beatles, and John Lennon. A third single, The Power of Love, also went to number one — Gerry and the Pacemakers were the only act to that point to have their first three singles reach number one in the UK. As one music journalist wrote, “Frankie owned 1984.”

Relax and Two Tribes were number two and number four on the UK’s biggest-selling singles list in the 1980s (number one was the Band-Aid single, Do They Know It’s Christmas?). Worldwide smash hits and an ambitious debut double album in Welcome to the Pleasuredome turned the group into megastars.

Moving into 1986, the ‘musical differences’ issue appeared, with various group members unhappy about the focus and direction of the all-important second album. Liverpool was eventually completed, and singles were released; however, it did not come within shouting distance of the success of the debut.

Relationships fell apart, and infighting occurred between band members, the label, the producer, and management. Lawsuits were filed, which essentially spelled the end of the group.

Thank you so much for reading this far! I would like to know your thoughts on my analysis, criteria, and selections. Comments are most welcome!

Anthony Overs
Canberra, Australia

This piece was originally published on medium.com.