Are Your All-Time Favorites Still Releasing Good Music?

[surfndestroy]

Of bands still recording music....
Metallica - last two albums were very good if not great
Iron Maiden - mediocre and becoming formulamatic, the loss of vocal range becomes more pronounced on every record
Rival Sons - very good
U2 - a shadow of what they once were but I still enjoy them. Better than almost any band 30+ years in.
Radiohead - Great. I don't think they get the props they deserve for maintaining such a strong artistic vision through out their whole career.
PJ - put a fork in 'em
Ryan Adams - occasional good songs but hasn't had a good album in a long time. I forever hold out hope possibly because he hasn't lost a lot of his voice yet
Bowie - Great until the end. His final run of seven album is possibly his best run of albums. Amazing
Smashing Pumpkins - mediocre at best. Last record was a great improvement over Monument to an Elegy
Noel Gallagher/Oasis - still putting out good stuff and worth it to still be able to hear Oasis songs live
Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson - a little less return on each album but still solid. Grace For Drowning is my favorite record of the 2010's
Robert Plant - boring
Judas Priest - please retire
Opeth - a little less return on each album but still solid.
Avenged Sevenfold - Great

[surfndestroy]

Tedeschi Trucks Band

Yes, they don't get enough spotlight on here. Amazing band. Can't wait for their new album, second single from it dropped today, and the coming tour.

[VinylGuy]

I miss R.E.M. a lot.
And i have been listening to SG, Audioslave and Chris´s music a lot...so in a few years its going to suck hard not to have anything new.
Last QOTSA sucked hard but i adore the previous so its ok. Lanegan is always a pleasure....i do wish there was another Janes Addiction album....More Dangelo yeah..more beastie boys..

[bada]

Another Janes would be nice.

[Dev]

my old favorites mostly suck now, but my new favorites are young and super charged.

[Dev]

-Helmet: Still releasing great music![/b]

this is probably my favorite punk band

while some of the new music is passable it can't touch the glory days

honestly, I only think there are a couple perfect Helmet albums but they are just amazing

[LoathedVermin72]

-Helmet: Still releasing great music![/b]

this is probably my favorite punk band

while some of the new music is passable it can't touch the glory days

honestly, I only think there are a couple perfect Helmet albums but they are just amazing

I wouldn’t call them punk, but I love them to death

I think I’m finally coming around on Aftertaste BTW. Which means their discography is pretty much perfect to me now

[bodysnatcher]

i'll add The National. they're on a roll.

[Blaine Ryan]

i'll add The National. they're on a roll.

Seconded.

[epilogue]

Maybe one day The National will click with me.

[bodysnatcher]

i'm in a bad mood, work is shitty right now, it's cold and raining, and it's been completely gray for about 3 months now.

i'm gonna go listen to some National

[Strat]

i'm in a bad mood, work is shitty right now, it's cold and raining, and it's been completely gray for about 3 months now.

i'm gonna go listen to some National

*huggles*

[Anders]

Maybe one day The National will click with me.

At the 2007 Roskilde festival, The National played on the final day. It has been a really hectic and fun week. I found a quiet and comfortable spot outside the tent, and sat there listening to them play. After 20+ concerts up front, it was just pure bliss.

[liebzz]

Yeah that is a mixed bag:

Pearl Jam - good, sometimes very good but not great

MMJ - yes (I liked Jim James’ Uniform Distortion a lot)

The Who - no new music in a long time

Springsteen- I would say yes

Ben Harper (yes I still enjoy his music): yes (his last two albums - one with Charlie Musselwhite and the other with the Innocent Criminals were both good)

Rolling Stones - no

Soundgarden - sadly no

R.E.M. - retired

Neil Young - yes on account of the year he released Americana and Psychedelic Pill with Crazy Horse

Govt Mule - yes

[PHATJ]

The National is BY FAR my favorite band currently releasing new music.

[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.

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

Yeah, thinking about it, Costello probably belongs in that last elite category too. He has greater and lesser records but he's never really had a protracted cold streak -- he's always been more or less on his game. I know he doesn't have a lot of other fans on RM, but I'd put Mark Knopfler into that category too. And Nick Cave.

To kind of rephrase my post, a lot of my "all-time favorites" have recent albums I enjoy. I was just drawing a line between artists who are really still operating at peak levels of creative engagement, and others who've fallen into varying levels of inconsistency (whether that's quality, frequency of output, or some combination of the two). But I guess that's not what LV asked for.