My favorite American Band (Wilco) & favorite American solo artist (Paul Simon). Two other runs by those artists that also feel like trilogies to me are- Wilco: ~"Sky Blue Sky" ~"Wilco (The Album)" ~"The Whole Love" Paul Simon: ~"Surprise" ~"So Beautiful Or So What" ~"Stranger To Stranger"
Hejira Don Juan's Reckless Daughter Mingus You could almost call this Joni's "jazz period" though that is something of a mischaracterisation. In any event these albums are where Jaco is to Joni what Prez was to Lady Day and Clifford Brown was to Sarah Vaughan. His bass to her voice is a tonal combination that is I think unmatched in rock.
Richard & Linda Thompson: ~"I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight" ~"Hokey Pokey" ~"Pour Down Like Silver" Yo La Tengo: ~"Painful" ~"Electr-O-Pura" ~"I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One"
Richard Dawson’s new album The Ruby Cord is being described as the third part of the trilogy that began with ‘Peasant’ in 2017. The albums are consecutively themed - past, present and future. I guess we can assume then that this counts as a ‘real’ trilogy: Peasant (medieval) 2020 (contemporary) The Ruby Cord (future)
Cat Stevens: Tea for the Tillerman, Teaser and the Firecat, and Catch Bull at Four. Mona Bone Jakon isn't part of that trilogy. Those three I mentioned fit in theme, quality, and focus.
I’m not sure about what the definition of a “false trilogy” is, exactly. Most of these seem to be three album runs that seem similar enough after the fact to group together… as opposed to albums that the artists actually said or intended to be viewed as parts of a cycle. Which I’m cool with, either way. It’s fun. I’d throw out Tom Waits’ Swordfishtrombone, Rain Dogs, Frank’s Wild Years run, which has already been mentioned. Also, Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy, No Code, and Yield seem like a trilogy of sorts to me, being the albums they put out once they’d really started actively kicking out against super-stardom and Ticketmaster and all that. It’s my favorite run from one of the first bands that I really fell in love with. Springsteen’s Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and The River feel like a trilogy to me too. BTR feels like it’s about finding hope in escape. Darkness feels like a hard realization that there isn’t anywhere different to escape to, and The River feels like coming to terms with the realities of life. I never felt like he intended it to be that way, but it feels like the records show him wrestling with those ideas, maybe in real time. I’ve found that in my own life, each record resonated more with me as my own life sort of caught up with those themes.
90125 Big Generator Talk Not a real trilogy but they belong together for being by the band called Cinema that got passed off by management as Yes. Love the first, mixed feelings about the second, can't abide the third.
I don't think Robert Smith ever suffered from psychosis. 20s gloom maybe. Not to be pedantic, but there’s a big difference.
Too much drugs, too much touring and yeh 20s gloom combined left him in a dark place for a bit. Quoted from Wikipedia on the making of Pornography: In the words of Robert Smith, regarding the album's conception, "I had two choices at the time, which were either completely giving in [committing suicide] or making a record of it and getting it out of me". He also claims he "really thought that was it for the group. I had every intention of signing off. I wanted to make the ultimate '**** off' record, and then sign off [the band]".[9] Smith was mentally exhausted during that period of time: "I was in a really depressed frame of mind between 1981 and 1982".[10] The band "had been touring for about 200 days a year and it all got a bit too much because there was never any time to do anything else".[11]
not sure if mentioned but talk talk color of spring, Spirit of eden and laughing stock could be considered a trilogy
This three part rock opera came out as two albums and later as a box set. So i don’t think it counts as a trilogy- which is three separate albums.
You could make a case that Dead Ringer and Steinman’s Bad For Good are part of that same thematic universe.
Dunno, I'd argue that Mona Bone (being mainly acoustic, pastoral and "singer-songwriter"-ish) fists more comfortably with the following two. Catch Bull at Four (which is my favorite Cat album) is more transitonal in that it introduces a much stronger rock/pop element.
Tull’s prog trilogy: Aqualung Thick As A Brick A Passion Play. Ian would say false because he doesn’t consider Aqualung a concept record, which he mistakenly conflates in with being a requisite for a prog album. I say true.
