No, Bands Shouldn't Break Up After Three Albums

OK, sit down. Let grandpa tell you a story. Back in the day, bands rarely arrived looking like they had things figured out from the get go. It wasn't the norm to suddenly have a brand new band release an album that was great front-to-back. Bands just didn't burst onto the scene with a fully realized sound and a unified image. They didn't look like The Strokes, or Interpol, or Grimes. They looked like The Beatles in leather playing the Cavern Club in Liverpool.

Sure, there were a few exceptions. When the Sex Pistols or Joy Division first took the stage, they looked exactly like they sounded. The were the definition of bands that "had it together." But, in general, bands and musicians came out the gate looking unsure, treading familiar ground between obvious influences and attempts at making their own mark.

Now consider all those legendary names that your older peers, hippie uncle, or favorite publications tell you are THE BEST BAND EVER. Now consider those musicians' BEST ALBUM EVER. OK, you've probably got a couple of albums lined up in your head by now. Now, some of those records might suffer from excess hype or "legendary status." But some of those records are just absolutely, objectively important.

"Important," doesn't necessarily mean you'll personally like them. You certainly shouldn't waste your time trying to enjoy a particular album because you feel like you need to in order to be considered "cultured" or "hip." But not grasping the cultural value of albums that came from artistic growth, and the historical context of the time when they were released, is to misunderstand music—and to an extent, culture—itself.

Some records transcend their musical value (that is the sounds within) because perceptions and context continually shift these values. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band isn't great because it contains some amazing songwriting (subjective!). It's great because it changed the way fans viewed their favorite bands. Gone were the days of releasing albums that sounded exactly like what came before. Now bands had to progress and mature with their audience's ever-growing tastes. What The Beatles did with Sgt. Pepper's would today be like One Direction suddenly releasing an album heavily influenced by krautrock and free jazz. Imagine the pop cultural impact that would have for the demographic of music fans that tend to listen to mainstream pop like One Direction.

This opened up a whole new window, artistically (subjective!) but it also ushered in waves of very-real changes within the music industry. Sgt. Pepper's certainly wasn't alone in heralding in this change, but even in its time, it was its most-recognized proponent of a newfound complexity within pop music.

The same could be said of Pet Sounds, of The Dark Side of the Moon, of Kid A, and many others too numerous to mention. Whether or not you like Radiohead, for many current musicians who were young in 2000, Kid A was as a major gateway to underground music.

That album forced musicians to step up their game—discarding sonic comfort zones to push their artistry to a new level in order to remain competitive. These albums are what got us to the current state of surprisingly complex pop music (think Kanye, Grimes, Beyonce). They changed how the industry works because the fans now demand greatness. But those mature records took time to germinate. And they couldn't have been made by a band who didn't understand their strengths and weaknesses, or cultural climate at the time.

These records are one of the key reasons the demand for artistic quality is so high these days. Only a dullard would expect the first or second release of a band to sound like Pet Sounds—the Beach Boy's ELEVENTH record.

There is no denying the magic of some debut records. There is a purity and a drive that sometime dissipates with age and success. That purity is romantic and unrepeatable—but it isn't the only way music can be considered good or be enjoyed. It's pretty juvenile to succumb to the romantic notion that "the old stuff is always better." It's a perspective that has nothing do with the musical value of music. It's a complete misappropriation of any artistic value that music has or had.

So here are some latter day records you should absolutely check out, in no obvious order. This isn't a list of my favorite albums, or even ones I particularly like. These are just some of the albums that objectively changed the musical landscape. And none of them were a band's first, second, or even third album.

• Grateful Dead - American Beauty
• Led Zeppelin - IV
• Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express
• The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
• Can - Ege Bamyasi
• Carcass - Heartwork
• AC/DC - Back in Black
• Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
• Vangelis - Chariots of Fire (Soundtrack), Bladerunner (Soundtrack)
• New Order - Brotherhood
• The Beatles - Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road
• Death - Human
• Rachel's - Selenography
• Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock
• Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air
• Leonard Cohen - Death of the Ladies Man, Songs of Love and Hate
• Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Soundtrack)
• Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See Darkness
• Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
• Animal Collective - Feels, Strawberry Jam
• Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
• A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service
• Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
• Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, Under the Bushes Under the Stars