Are Your All-Time Favorites Still Releasing Good Music?

[LoathedVermin72]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. How many of your all-time favorite artists are still releasing music you care about? Not new favorites - old-timers. Maybe like, I dunno, artists who have been in the game for a good ten years or more.

Of my four all-time favorite artists, only Kanye West is still releasing music. The others (Steely Dan, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Acid Bath) are all out of commission.

Other artists who would fall under this criteria for me:

-David Bowie: Dead
-Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Haven't released music I love in over a decade
-Crowbar: Haven't released music I love in over a decade
-Deftones: Last album wasn't great
-The Drones: Still releasing great music!
-The Exploited: Haven't released in album in over fifteen years
-Glassjaw: Still releasing great music (finally)!
-Helmet: Still releasing great music!
-Interpol: Haven't released music I love in almost a decade
-Led Zeppelin: Disbanded
-Melvins: Haven't released music I love in almost a decade
-Pearl Jam: Haven't released music I love in fifteen years
-Queens of the Stone Age: Haven't released music I love in almost a decade
-Radiohead: Haven't released music I love in over fifteen years
-Septicflesh: Last album wasn't great
-Smashing Pumpkins: Haven't released music I love in almost twenty years
-Bruce Springsteen: Still releasing good music!
-Stone Temple Pilots: Haven't released music I love in over fifteen years
-Andy Williams: Dead

It's pretty much all up to the (very small crop of) newcomers now. A little sad.

[bodysnatcher]

Radiohead, absolutely. my all-time favorite band, and I've loved the last 2 records. especially the most recent.

[Blaine Ryan]

Agreed on Radiohead (with bodysnatcher). And Springsteen with LV.

Elvis Costello just put out a tremendous album last year.

Ryan Adams is still putting out stuff I love.

I still look forward to anything Bob Dylan releases.

Tom Waits hasn’t released an album since 2011, but I still very much look forward to the next thing he does.

I’ve loved every Nick Cave album since Abbatoir Blues.

I really liked Backspacer.

Wilco are still putting out good stuff.

So there are quite a few, actually. And that’s just off the top of my head. I think there are very few, if any artists I’d count among my all-time favorites who have released bad music consistently enough for me to write them off completely. In most cases, they’re my favorite artists precisely because they don’t do that. Even if their albums aren’t always homeruns, I usually find enough things to like about them or a way to contextualize them in the larger catalog that makes me happy that they exist.

There are a few cases where an artist has released one or two albums that are all-time favorites for me and then petered out — Smashing Pumpkins are a good example. But that typically disqualifies them from any favorites list I would make.

[swan]

Radiohead, absolutely. my all-time favorite band, and I've loved the last 2 records. especially the most recent.

Same. AMSP is aging really nicely, and I loved it when it came out.

[knee tunes]

^Wilco is

[PHATJ]

No

[PHATJ]

Pearl Jam - bad
STP - dead
Ween - old
Pink Floyd - broken up/old/dead

[BurtReynolds]

Of the ones that were around for a long time, I think most of them are long gone or putting out crap.

Mogwai is still around.

[Stardog Champion]

A few off the top of my head:

Prince - dead
Springsteen - still great
Elton John - I've enjoyed more of his late career output than I thought I would at one point
Nine Inch Nails - Trent's still doing good work here
U2 - mixed bag, though I haven't become bored by them like I thought I might
Against Me! - poppier than they used to be but still a fan

[Kevin Davis]

A lot of my long-term favorites are either (a) dead or disbanded, or (b) in that workmanlike phase of their career where they release new music on their own schedule (sometimes regular, sometimes not), with inconsistent results ranging from "abysmal" to "surprisingly great" but usually settling somewhere in that late career wasteland of "respectable and not without highlights, but diminished." Some of these artists reward continued attention more than others, but over the past few years I've found myself increasingly content to simply disregard new releases by favorite artists if I don't expect them to be any better than decent, or if I feel like I'd be checking them out more or less out of obligation.

Brad Mehldau and Kanye West are probably the only two artists who I've been following for 15+ years who I'd say still consistently release things that excite me and stimulate my imagination as much as, or more than, they did when I first got into them. Elvis Costello might fall into this category too, but there's some recency bias; if he hadn't just released a spectacular new album last fall after a half-decade of inactivity, I'd have probably put him into category (b) as well.

[doone]

Matthew Good - I haven't liked any of his albums since he got his mental health issues diagnosed and went on meds. Sad but true.

Powderfinger - disbanded

I'm not sure if Kings of Leon qualify but I haven't liked any of their albums for the last decade.

Pearl Jam, of course.

Soundgarden/Chris Cornell - gone

Oh, and Tragically Hip were still releasing good stuff but now that their lead has passed away, I expect that's it. Don't know if they have any unreleased material.

[guestT]

PJ: no
Neko Case: hell yeah
Drive-By Truckers: yep
Wilco: yes
Dylan: sure
U2: yes
Radiohead: yes
Hiss Golden Messenger: yes but not quite at the 10 year mark unless you count The Court & Spark
MMJ: They had 10 good years, followed it with 10 mostly bad years, and Yim Yames' solo stuff sucks.
Soundgarden:
Pedro the Lion/David Bazan: yes
Afghan Whigs: yes
Smashing Pumpkins: no
Constantines: broken up, but Bry Webb's solo stuff is good
Kathleen Edwards: who knows?
James McMurtry: yes
Josh Ritter: yes

[Blaine Ryan]

Drive-By Truckers: yep

Forgot about them.

[Blaine Ryan]

I guess Spoon would qualify for this, too. It’s funny, I still think of them as a “new” band. But according to Wiki they’ve been around since ‘93.

[bada]

None of my favorite Hip Hop/Funk/R&B bands/artists are doing anything. All my rock heroes are dead or creatively bankrupt. AIC is chugging along and I'm glad but its inferior. Old school metal isn't so bad Iron Maiden and Metallica haven't made great music is forever but their last few releases have been sorta solid. Down appears to be dead thanks to Phil's idiocy. QOTSA isn't the same. Some current pop acts that I sometimes like Justin Timberlake and Gaga seems to have gone country for some unknown reason. I wasn't super wild about the last Arctic Monkeys. The Darkness still make me smile.

[Jorge]

My answer on my all-time favorite artist (Elvis Costello) is yes. Sure he recently took 5 years between albums, but he released 5 albums between 2008-2018 they're all really great. In that time, Pearl Jam released just two, and I don't even like them much

[wease]

Other than Gov’t Mule and Tedeschi Trucks Band, no.

[epilogue]

It's a mix for me. A lot of them, yes. There are some (like Tom Waits) that aren't releasing very much at all with any consistency but I don't know that he's done or anything. The song he released late last year with Ribot was really lovely.

[VinylGuy]

yeah most of my fav bands or artists are pretty active. Even if they take time between albums, they release material that im very drawn to.

And there are cases like Nick Cave, were for a long time he released stuff i wasnt interested and came back with two wonderful albums and an amazing live show and movie.
The Melvins too, they have been doing amazing new work for me...Mudhoney, Cornell before he died, Cat Power, U2, Alice In Chains...all great work.

[Strat]

Pearl Jam- Debatable (lets see if something happens next)
War on Drugs - Absolutely
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Yes
Black Crowes - RIP
Nick Cave - Heck yes!
Neil Young - Hmm....
Tom Waits - Yes but...
Replacements/Westerberg - Mostly
Ryan Adams- Definitely
Radiohead - Absolutely