[quote="terra"][quote="sheerheartattack"]Approximately one album per year or two is pretty standard for most bands that I'm aware of.[/quote]

Examples?

Taking Son Goshin's examples, Weezer has had gaps from 1-5 years between albums. The Beatles, however, had 12 original albums in 7 years (going by [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles#Original_UK_LPs]this[/url]), which I would say is far more productive. Regardless of longevity, another band could be said to be just as prolific in comparison for the time they are active.[/quote]

The Beatles is an example of a band that [i]actually was[/i] unusually prolific. 12 albums in 7 years, or one album every 0.58 years. Like I said, the typical figure is one album every 1-2 years.

the pillows: 16 albums in 18 years. (Every 1.13 years.)

Now, let's look at some typical rock bands:

Led Zeppelin: 9 albums in 13 years. (Every 1.44 years; first 4 albums in 3 years - every 0.75 years.)

Queen: 13 albums in 18 years. (Every 1.38 years; first 7 albums in 5 years - every 0.71 years.)

Ramones: 14 albums in 19 years. (Every 1.36 years.)

Rush: 19 albums in 33 years. (Every 1.74 years; first 6 albums in 4 years - every 0.67 years; 15 albums in first 19 years - every 1.27 years.)

Van Halen: 10 albums in 17 years. (Every 1.7 years; first 6 albums with David Lee Roth in 6 years - every year.)

As one can see, one album every year or two is typical. However, in any given band's heyday, bands may release albums at an even quicker rate. For the pillows, I suppose this would be from PML to HB (4 albums in 3 years - every 0.75 years), but they don't really get far more prolific than that short period for the pillows.

...However, there are other factors to be considered :P

Namely, in the case of The Beatles. After the release of Revolver, they stopped touring and became strictly a studio band. So, while they did then release 5 of the greatest albums ever (with about a 6th's worth of non-album singles and b-sides) in the span of 4 years, they weren't spending time on the road. A lot of the other bands mentioned would release an album and then hit the road for months.

...Granted, of course, as opposed to the time it takes to tour the world, or even just North America, Japan's smaller order. The pillows don't quite have to dedicate as much time to tour.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]good-ass data[/quote]

Good stuff, but you say "let's look at some typical rock bands" - I dunno if I'd call some of the [b]best known rock bands in the world[/b] "typical." I dunno if this is gonna affect your data, whether being a really kickass band is going to up your production more than usual...but it's something to consider. I think it may be important to consider the band's relative popularity and reception. Stuff like that. Cause I don't think it's "typical" for any given rock band to be releasing one album per year, or faster. Just the feeling I get. For the vast majority of the bands I listen to, I don't really have the "Oh sweet, another album by [ ] this year! I hope it's as good as last year's!"

Maybe my experience is just different, but I'd say...every 2-3 years is more typical.

Even though I'm against this mass-release of material by the Pillows, if we were to address it solely to Sawao as a musician, it wouldn't be that baffling. There are a lot of musicians out there who release stuff every year. For example, Damon Albarn of Blur, from 1999 onwards hasn't slowed down for a single moment. Between Blur, Gorillaz, The Good, The Bad & Queen, OSTs, operas and other side projects, he has released a total of 12 records in 11 years, being one of the most prolific British musicians of the last 20 years. The problem with Sawao is that he's released most if not all of his work under The Pillows, [u]AND[/u] that his work has hardly evolved in the past 10 years.

See, personally, whenever I say "the pillows are releasing albums too quickly", I'm not referring to the frequency at which they've released albums throughout their [i]entire career[/i]. Rather, I'm specifically referring to the past decade or so in which they've yearly churned out album after uninspiring album.

Here's a variation of Sheer's interesting study: let's look at how fast these bands released the second half of their discography (not counting the Beatles, since they became a studio-only band). After Happy Bivouac's release in 1999, the pillows proceeded to release 8 albums in the next decade (or an album every 1.25 years). As for the other bands:

- Led Zeppelin (after the Led Zeppelin IV/untitled album/whatever, 1971): 4 albums in 9 years (every 2.25 years)
[note: I don't count Coda since it was released after they disbanded, plus it was pretty much just leftovers and unreleased material]

- Queen (after News of the World, 1977): 7 albums in 14 years (every 2 years)

- Ramones (after Subterranean Jungle, 1983): 7 albums in 12 years (every 1.71 years)

- Rush (after Signals, 1982): 10 albums in 25 years (every 2.5 years)

- Van Halen (after 1984—guess when that was released): 5 albums in 12 years (every 2.4 years)

From what I've noticed, it seems that most bands who have experienced substantial success have a kind of "adrenaline rush" where they release as many as two albums a year (for the pillows, this little prolific spurt obviously happened during the FLCL era). But after that, as you can see, most of these bands tended to only produce, at most, an album every two or three years.

The other thing is that I normally wouldn't care about how frequently the pillows release albums. However, especially with the last two albums, their recent material feels so…half-baked. I think if Sawao took the time to actually throw songs away and only keep the best of the best, we'd have 4 or 5 mature (and probably pretty damn good) pillows albums. Instead, we have 8 albums that are mostly mediocre compared to their earlier work.

[quote="Orochi"]I think if Sawao took the time to actually throw songs away and only keep the best of the best, we'd have 4 or 5 mature (and probably pretty damn good) pillows albums. Instead, we have [b]8 albums that are mostly mediocre compared to their earlier work.[/b][/quote]

8 albums.
OOPARTS, Pied Piper, Wake Up, My Foot, Good Dreams, Penalty Life, Thank You My Twilight, Smile...

...HEY, THIS SUMBITCH JUST KNOCKED TYMT AND SMILE! GET HIM, BOYS!

But yeah, I'll agree that a few tracks off of both albums could easily be scrapped, or at least retooled heavily.

I think up to Penalty Life, The Pillows were still great. But then from Good Dreams onwards they went rather downhill and haven't recovered yet.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]...HEY, THIS SUMBITCH JUST KNOCKED TYMT AND SMILE! GET HIM, BOYS! [/quote]
[quote="Orochi"]I think if Sawao took the time to actually throw songs away and only keep the best of the best, we'd have 4 or 5 mature (and probably pretty damn good) pillows albums. Instead, we have [b]8 albums that are [i]mostly[/i] mediocre compared to their earlier work.[/b][/quote]

…the key word here being [i]mostly[/i].

[quote="Orochi"]…the key word here being [i]mostly[/i]. [/quote]

Yeah, OOparts had Your Order, Beyond the Moon, and Primer Beat, all of which I liked. Wake up x3 had Scarecrow. And Pied Piper had New Animal, Purple Apple and Last Holiday. My Foot was still mostly good except for Degeneration. For me, the start of the downhill was My Foot.

But Sawao's solo album. Looks interesting, I'm anxious to hear what it all sounds like. Seeing Jun on there made me happy, but I was surprised to see he's not listed as fragments.

Why does everyone think Beyond the Moon is good? Am I missing something, or have you guys just not listened to this song past the one minute mark?

Eh, the more I think about it, the more I'm disappointed. A couple of my other favorite bands' frontmen have started/are starting their own solo careers, and all in all, I think it's a bad idea. It's pretty much unanimous that Manabe = win. Sawao is great, but without Manabe, something's... lacking. Just look at The Predators. Catchy tunes? Yeah. Things I claim to be super brilliant songwriting? Not quite.

Kele Okereke from Bloc Party's going solo, Julian Casablancas from The Strokes has already released a solo album... now Sawao... I half expect a solo project from Goto from Asian Kung-Fu Generation...

[quote="Aplaca"]Why does everyone think Beyond the Moon is good? Am I missing something, or have you guys just not listened to this song past the one minute mark?[/quote]

For somebody with a motherfucking Smiths album as their profile picture, you sure have some bad taste in fantastic pillows ballads.

@Takagi: Sawao's few solo tracks have all been fantastic and interesting though, so your point is moot. This album is going to be goddamn fantastic.

I like all of Sawao's solo work (My Room is Delicious stuff). Also, Beyond the Moon is one of my favorite tracks on OOParts, and it gets better past the one minute mark.

Sawao writes all the pillows' songs, so I'm confident this album will at the least be decent. Manabe is just a better guitar player than him, and The Predators only use one guitar, not two. So that's part of the reason why The Predators can be kinda "meh".

And yea, I don't see all the fuss about Beyond the Moon being good. I'll take Sayonara Universe over it any day.

is this album just sawao doing discharge covers?