The 25 Greatest Artists Who Only Released 3 Albums

The output of any recording artist is impossible to predict. To use two examples relevant to this year, Guided By Voices will drop their 39th studio album in just a few weeks, while the Postal Service spent this summer on tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of the only LP they will likely ever make. In between those two poles are hundreds of thousands of artists that have released a lot or very little music in their creative lifespans. But for the purposes of this list—and the two to follow—we are zeroing in on those folks whose work has been, for one reason or other, relatively slim. In this case, it’s a rundown / ranking of the acts who only released three albums over the course of their career.

It’s a fairly arbitrary number to start with (in subsequent weeks, we’ll celebrate those artists that only made two LPs and then those, like the Postal Service, that released only one), but it allowed us to narrow our scope a bit and not spend many hours arguing over who got added to the list. Because, as I’m sure some of you will remind us, we left a number of worthy candidates out of the running.

We should also acknowledge that we were pretty strict in our definition of what artists should be considered for this. It’s not as though the bulk of these acts only released the music that you’ll hear on their trio of long-players. Lush, for example, filled out their discography with plenty of EPs and singles, and, of course, Tom Petty released many more records with his band the Heartbreakers over the course of his life. For the purposes of this list, we are only including artists who dropped three proper full-length albums before either breaking up, passing away or, like Petty, concentrating on other projects. Bands like Alvvays, who just recently released their third album, are primed to add more entries to their own canons and have been left off.

Myself and the rest of the crack squad of music writers here at Paste hope that this list will give you a chance to celebrate these artists that, for whatever reason, only spent a short amount of time in the studio, leaving us with music that we’ve spent countless hours poring over and picking apart and digging into. Without further ado, here are the greatest artists who only released three albums. —Robert Ham, Associate Music Editor

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25. The Idle Race

You’re very much forgiven if you’re unfamiliar with The Idle Race. They still remain something of a cult favorite amongst psychedelic rock enthusiasts and a bit of a footnote in the careers of some of the folks who logged time in the group, like future ELO leader Jeff Lynne and The Move founders Roy Wood and Trevor Burton. Even so, the band had a lot of support among their contemporaries like members of the Beatles and T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan, and their songs have been covered by the likes of the Fall and Pugwash. The group is ripe for rediscovery as their three LPs — 1968’s The Birthday Party, a self-titled 1969 release and 1970’s Time Is — are replete with shimmery pop hooks, a lyrical whimsy worthy of Lewis Carroll and plenty of sonic delights appropriate for the post-Sgt. Pepper’s era. Their final statement, recorded following Lynne’s departure as the band’s leader, took on a more folksy influence in the manner of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span but it was a sound that fit the band’s overall remit of maypoles and mushroom trips very well. Shame that we never got to here where they would go from there as the band dissolved soon after the release of album #3. —Robert Ham

24. Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros

Sometimes lost in the tragedy of Joe Strummer’s death in December 2002 of a congenital heart defect at age 50 was the fact that he was still in the midst of releasing some of the most essential music of his career. Best known for his work with The Clash, Strummer spent much of the ’90s in record company limbo before putting the Mescaleros together, eventually releasing a trio of top-notch records that were unconstrained by any sense of genre and exhibited a sense of joy and playfulness that might surprise fans of his punk roots. The run began with 1999’s Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, which blended reggae rhythms with a love for old British working class folk anthems and Strummer’s enduring punk ethos, all rolled into the single “Yalla Yalla.” It ended with 2002’s Streetcore, which opens with “Coma Girl,” which should have been a global hit as big as “Rock the Casbah,” and includes the band’s cover of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” a version of which also exists as a duet between Strummer and Johnny Cash, released just months after both giants died. —Josh Jackson

23. Pale Saints

Formed in the late ’80s in Leeds, England, Pale Saints started out in the speedy, jangly vein of the C-86 indie scene before settling into a sound that was far dreamier and darker, driven as it was by Graeme Naysmith’s brilliant displays of guitar fireworks. Yet, from the jump, the group existed in a state of constant tension with their musical progression not moving fast enough for their frontman, bassist / vocalist Ian Masters. What they did manage to accomplish while he was in the group is still remarkable. Their debut, 1990’s The Comforts of Madness balanced the hyperspeed thrust of their early work with more restrained mood pieces, while follow-up, 1992’s In Ribbons, used new member Meriel Barham’s voice and guitar to help expand their sonic reach while still holding true to their pop principles. The band soldiered on after Masters left the fold, leaving the world with 1994’s Slow Buildings, a Barham-led affair that dared to let songs breathe and evolve with plenty of empty space and long guitar explorations. —RH

22. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions

Like a few of the acts on this list, Scottish pop quartet Lloyd Cole & the Commotions had a measurable success in their native U.K. with all three of their albums cracking the Top 20, while they only skimmed the surface here in the States. More’s the pity as Cole’s witty, wise songwriting could have had a vast ripple effect on generations of likeminded artists. The ones that he did touch, though, sing his praises loudly. The three albums Cole made with his limber, versatile backing band the Commotions — 1984’s Rattlesnakes, 1985’s Easy Pieces and 1987’s Mainstream — are pop genius distilled. He wrote poignantly about tortured souls weaving their way through life often buoyed by alcohol and the hope of making a connection, however brief, with a lover or friend. Though all of it was filtered through a fictional lens, inspired as he was by the Beats and Bukowski, Cole’s own bruised heart was present enough throughout to make his songs zing with life and bow slightly under the weight of his slumped shoulders. —RH

21. Vashti Bunyan

After two years of traversing the Scottish hills by horse and carriage, Vashti Bunyan had more than enough material to write an album. She stumbled upon a divine sort of inspiration that allowed her to record her debut album, Just Another Diamond Day, in just three days of studio time in 1969. What ensued was nothing short of magic. With just her voice and strings, Bunyan became a world in herself. Her voice is as diaphanous as it is dense, with layers of vibrato and naturalism. Her compositions are simple; Joe Boyd’s production pulls each note as taut as it can go before it breaks. From tree to timbre, Bunyan’s debut is about as utterly captivating as music could get. Bunyan’s first album was also the only one she would release for 35 years. After her debut was met with little excitement in the months and years following its release, Bunyan disappeared from the music world and took time to care for her children. After a more than three-decade-long gap in her career, Bunyan released the 2005 Lookaftering, a gentle and transportative record that paid no mind to time or space, rather only to its internal harmonies and sounds. Bunyan unveiled her final album to date, Heartleap, in 2014, rife with delicate piano ballads that hold an integrity to where she started, but also bookend her career with an act of self affirmation. “I neither read nor write music, nor can I play piano with more than one hand at a time,” Bunyan said of her third record. “But I have loved being able to work it all out for myself and make it sound the way I wanted. I’ve built these songs over the years. The album wouldn’t have happened any other way.” —Madelyn Dawson

20. Cibo Matto

Japanese-born New Yorkers Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori met by chance in the city, in 1994, after they had both been working on experimental projects in the East Village. They bonded over two things: music and food and, from there, their dynamism ignited. They didn’t make any sense. Their name was Italian, they sang in English, French, Japanese and Spanish. Their first album, 1994’s Viva La Woman, featured songs that were themed around food; tracks like the jangly and brooding “Apple” giving way to the sensual, intimate “Artichoke,” with Hatori singing “Can you peel my petals off one by one? Are you gonna keep peeling me?… / Everything you wanna feel / Everything you wanna taste.” Their musical influences were equally as expansive, incorporating sounds from trip hop, hip-hop, latin jazz, Shibuya-Kei, techno and experimental rock into their particular flavor of oddball ’90’s pop arrangements. Anyone who didn’t get what they were doing in 1994 had no option but to get with their program five years later, with the release of their sophomore record Stereo Type A. Here, their vision was fully realized and, for all of their experimental weirdness, the duo had an inexplicable charm that dripped like honey from their sugary and playful compositions. Stereo Type A was pure joy, infectious and spontaneous, but obviously meticulously thought through. In 2002, Cibo Matto disbanded and did not record music together again until 2007, when they released their third and final album, Hotel Valentine. —MD

19. The 13th Floor Elevators

The precise moment when garage rock went psychedelic can be traced to about midway through the 13th Floor Elevators’ 1966 debut single “You’re Gonna Miss Me.” Following the song’s first chorus, Roky Erickson wails “Oh, you’re gonna miss me baby.” Behind him, everything is vibrating and reverberating off each other. Tommy Hall blows into his electric jug, and everything else falls into place. Hall is actually credited, as per a 21st century documentary on the band, with coining the term psychedelic rock itself. The Texas group released their debut record Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators in 1966. This particular moment in time, both for the band and the country at large, landed them on top of the world—no, they couldn’t get any higher.

After touring the West coast with other psychedelic giants, of them Quicksilver Messenger Service, Grace Slick, and Moby Grape, the group went back to the studio to record a follow up to Psychedelic Sounds, the even headier, more out there Easter Everywhere. The record was full of the same erratic ingenuity as their previous, but it was less hooky, less ready for the masses. Pair that with successive lineup changes to their rhythm section, drug use and overuse, more than a fair share of run-ins with the law, Erikson’s mental health struggles, and a counterculture that was quickly encroaching on its own collapse, even a light as bright as the Elevators couldn’t sustain its own burn. In 1969, they released their final album together, Bull of the Woods, leaving behind one of the most inimitable legacies in rock history, but also perhaps one of the most widely influential. —MD

18. Blind Melon

The trippy, psychedelic foil to mainstream rock’s alternative obsessions in the early 1990s, Blind Melon were the little Los Angeles group that could—developing into a quiet powerhouse while Nirvana ruled the world. Bolstered by their 1992 hit song “No Rain,” Blind Melon were able to enjoy consistent critical and commercial success across their first interaction as a band—which included their self-titled debut in ‘92 and Soup three years later. The band’s lead singer, Shannon Hoon, would pass away in 1995 at the age of 28, and they’d go on hiatus for a decade after failing to find a replacement vocalist—until Travis Warren came into the picture in the 2000s and Blind Melon would reform and put out For My Friends in 2008. Since Warren’s departure in 2010, the group has relegated themselves to playing gigs here and there, but they’ve remained largely inactive. But there’s no denying that ‘90s run they had up until Hoon’s death. For all of the reasons that “No Rain” is one of the greatest rock tracks of its era, songs like “Tones of Home, “Change” and “Galaxie” are just as essential. Blind Melon are one of the biggest what-if bands of the last 30 years, but their three-album run across two decades is a joy to revisit. —Matt Mitchell

17. Soul Coughing

Downtown New York quartet Soul Coughing leapt into the alt-pop, post-grunge slipstream with a surprising splash. Here were a bunch of skinny dudes playing live versions of hip-hop breakbeats, complete with oddball samples, while a very skinny dude laid down wild, knotty slam poetry and noir-ish sprechgesang fantasies over the top. Their sound was made even stronger and stranger when they finally hit the studio to make 1994’s Ruby Vroom thanks to the angular approach taken by their chosen producer Tchad Blake. They upend every expectation on what direction you think a song is going. The grooves may hold strong but they’re going to zing you upside the head with a Howlin’ Wolf drop or Yuval Gabay’s florid drum work. Things got vaguely poppier through the group’s two subsequent releases, 1996’s Irresistible Bliss and 1998’s El Oso even as touches of drum ‘n’ bass and folk-rock started to creep into the mix. As the band’s star slowly rose, and frontman Mike Doughty’s heroin addiction became a problem, the tensions within the quartet grew and grew until they splintered for good. —RH

16. Aaliyah

The mind reels at what singer Aaliyah could have accomplished in her career were it not cut short by an unfortunate — and entirely avoidable — plane crash that took her life at the young age of 22. At the same time, we should remain entirely thankful for what she did leave behind. On her debut album, 1994’s Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number, she held her own against the larger than life presence of her then-mentor (and for a stretch husband) R. Kelly. Even though she was all of 15 at the time, she brought wisdom and surety to instant classics like “Back and Forth” and “Street Thing.” For her final two albums, 2001’s Aaliyah and 1996’s One In A Million, she worked with a murderer’s row of songwriters and producers, but found her greatest foil in Timbaland. His window rattling futuristic beats (with assists from the great Missy Elliott) gave Aaliyah the perfect landscape upon which to dance, flirt and cajole us mere mortals into doing her every bidding. We would have followed her into battle. —RH

15. Lush

Although grunge ruled the ’90s, a quartet from London was quietly crafting the celestial sounds that would be blaring from the speakers of angsty college kids 30 years later: shoegaze. What makes shoegaze music connect with people is the utter chaos of turning up the volume up to an 11 on every instrument, in a sound that mimics the deafening sound of a brain riddled with anxiety—and Lush captures that in all three of their albums with some unflinchingly honest lyrics. Spooky feels like being trapped in a watercolor painting, with the colors dripping all around you; Split feels like wading through a pool of thick syrup with no rush to get to the other side; Lovelife feels like you’re stuck inside an amp with the bass cranked up. All of Lush’s albums had that core shoegaze lackadaisical tone, but they somehow managed to each possess their own identity. The group broke up when their drummer, Chris Acland, tragically died. It couldn’t be Lush without him. In their three albums, they managed to inspire artists for decades with their dream-like sonics and unabashedly noisy. How is it that something so soft can be so loud? —Olivia Abercrombie

14. Buffalo Springfield

To be the band that produced Stephen Stills, Jim Messina, Richie Furay and Neil Young is an achievement in its own right, but to be one of the greatest psychedelic-folk groups of all time is just icing on the cake. Los Angeles proto-supergroup Buffalo Springfield only made three albums between 1966 and 1968, but each of them were important to the fabric of counterculture-era rock ‘n’ roll. Buffalo Springfieldboasts the protest anthem “For What It’s Worth” and one of Young’s greatest songs, “Flying on the Ground is Wrong”; Buffalo Springfield Again would showcase just how singular Young’s writing was, as tracks like “Mr. Soul,” “Expecting to Fly” and “Broken Arrow” are some of the greatest country and psych-rock compositions ever. Buffalo Springfield are largely propped up by the political and social legacy of “For What It’s Worth,” but they were such a passionately vibrant band with a deep pocket of experimental and roaring inclinations. Knowing how big Stills and Young would go on to be over the next 50 years, it’s unfathomable that such minds first workshopped their stardom in a band that has largely carried an underappreciated legacy. —MM

13. Camp Cope

Melbourne power emo trio Camp Cope—Georgia Maq, Sarah Thompson and Kelly-Dawn—made music built to last in their eight years together. Their recent break-up announcement signaled the end of the band and the end of an important moment in Australia’s punk history. Camp Cope gave no fucks and, especially through the ferocity of Maq’s leadership, wrote tunes that were empowered, blistering and heartbreakingly familiar to many. Their self-titled debut featured songs like “Done” and “Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams,” while How to Socialise & Make Friends was the sophomore effort that etched their legacy in stone. “The Opener” remains one of the single biggest portrayals of music industry sexism, as Maq railed against double-standards and misogyny amongst show bills and venue promoters. On their final album Running with the Hurricane last year, Camp Cope moved away from their punk roots and delivered their melodic, beautiful, aching swan song—and tracks like the title track and “Jealous” proved, once and for all, that few Australian bands will ever be as great, as loud or as necessary as them. —MM

12. Tom Petty

Is including Tom Petty in this ranking cheating? Probably, but we make our own rules. While he put out a baker’s dozen records with The Heartbreakers, Petty only released three solo albums across his 40-year career—Full Moon Fever, Wildflowers and Highway Companion. In all fairness, Highway Companion is a fine project, though it’s nowhere near as good as 85% of the Heartbreakers’ albums with Petty. But Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers are both some of the best releases of their era—the former being a commercial and critical darling ballooned into immortality by songs like “I Won’t Back Down,” “Runnin’ Down a Dream” and the inescapable “Free Fallin’.” Wildflowers, on the other hand, was much more refined and mature—a true masterpiece in the heartland rock canon and spearheaded by “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” “You Wreck Me” and its title track. Petty was already an all-time great by the time his first solo album came to us in 1989, which is why his inclusion in this ranking feels silly in some regards—but it would be wrong not to recognize his solo career for as good and standalone as it is. —MM

11. The (English) Beat

The Beat (known here in the U.S. as The English Beat) will forever be tied to the post-punk movement of young artists playing around in the sandbox of ska music — a subgenre named after the record label that famously fomented this scene, 2-Tone. While this group did release a lone single on that imprint, their dashing cover of Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a Clown,” they never truly fit well within that world even if their membership did include one of the great Jamaican toasters, Ranking Roger, and their three albums did make great use of the loping rhythms of reggae. With baby-faced Dave Wakeling at the helm and crucial support from future Fine Young Cannibals David Steele and Andy Cox, this was a pop band through-and-through. Debut album I Just Can’t Stop It put the speedy garage rock vibe of “Best Friend” and their languid take on the Andy Williams hit “Can’t Get Used To Losing You” next to the roots riddims of “Whine & Grine” while later efforts like 1982’s Special Beat Service let Roger and fellow singer Pato Baton spar while Wakeling jangled along through their best-known tune “Save It For Later.” —RH

10. American Football

American Football’s existence on this list will likely be short-lived, given that their fourth album could come any day now. But, as it stands, the Urbana, Illinois emo greats remain at three LPs—and they endure as one of the best acts with such a small catalog. Their first release, LP1, arrived in 1999 and, through songs like “Never Meant” and “Stay Home,” cemented them in the echelons of punk and all of its adjacencies. It would be 17 years before they ever put out anything else, but LP2 was more than worth the wait, showcasing Mike Kinsella and co. were never going to be one-album anomalies. Their second offering was shouldered along by tracks like “Desire Gets in the Way” and “I’ve Been Lost for So Long” and, while the whole project didn’t stretch as far into greatness as its predecessor, re-introduced American Football to a new generation. The quartet would come back three years later with LP3 and, miraculously, make their best statement yet—ushering in collaborators like Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Land of Talk’s Elizabeth Powell. “Silhouettes” and “Uncomfortably Numb” instantly became benchmarks in American Football’s discography, and they endure as one of the best three-album groups of all time—for now. —MM

9. The MC5

The first punk band? Punk before it was called punk? Debatable claims to be sure, especially when other Detroiters like Death and the Stooges were on the scene. But what’s not in question is the crater-like impact this quintet had on the rock scene when they emerged from the Motor City in the mid-’60s. The dual guitar crunch of Fred “Sonic” Smith and Wayne Kramer and stentorian boom of vocalist Rob Tyner were guaranteed to rattle the cages of anyone that came within earshot, even before they heard that sky shaking call to arms to “KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHERFUCKERS!” Their leftist politics may have contributed to their struggles to find purchase in the rock landscape, and those issues may have led them to temper things a bit on their two studio albums (1970’s Back In The USA and 1971’s High Time). But combined with the bone-crunching snap of their live-recorded debut, 1969’s Kick Out the Jams and their high-octane performances, those records lay the blueprint for multiple generations of ass kicking rock groups that aim to melt minds and unmoor the foundations of our sociopolitical systems. —RH

8. D’Angelo

Michael Eugene Archer only released one album before the turn of the century. In 1995 Archer, better known as D’Angelo, put out Brown Sugar, a masterclass in sound and sensuality that would become the blueprint for any neo-soul release to follow. Within six months, the album was certified platinum. After its release, the Virginia singer, performer and multi-instrumentalist took a step back from the music industry, recuperating from his own successes. Of course, for him, this step back included collaborations with legendary acts—including Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill and Angie Stone. On his sophomore project, D’Angelo found himself increasingly comfortable with the smooth, sexual passion he could transmit with his music. 2000’s Voodoo showcased an even more in-control soul singer, solidifying his own standing among the legends that surrounded him. After Voodoo, however, D’Angelo took a break for real—becoming displeased with the constant objectification he felt, disillusioned by the loss of a close personal friend and dispossessed of the creative control he sought over his work. It wasn’t until fourteen years later that Black Messiah was set forth into the world, a nuanced and deeply celebratory record, replete with fresh significations towards classic sounds that inspired him, and it served as the perfect capstone to his endlessly influential career that could very well continue on at any moment. —MD

7. The Sundays

The dreamy guitar and shuffling drums play just a handful of measures on “Can’t Be Sure,” the first single off The Sunday’s debut album Reading, Writing And Arithmetic before the world was introduced to Harriet Wheeler’s singular voice, like a warm blanket and cuppa Earl Gray on a dreary day. The English quartet arrived fully formed with an album full of a new kind of comfort-pop, buoyed by David Gavurin’s swirling guitars. It took nearly three years for the follow-up Blind to arrive with its transformative cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” and nearly five more years for Static & Silence with its upbeat single “Summertime.” Each was met with critical and commercial success, and though Wheeler and Gavurin married after the band’s break-up and have reportedly never stopped making music together, they haven’t released any of it since 1997. —JJ

6. Portishead

In 2012, Geoff Barrow was interviewed by The Quietus, where he said with great certainty “There’s definitely going to be another record, we’re just going to get on it as soon as my studio gets working.” If you’re anything like me, you’ve read that sentence over again every day for the past decade, hoping that there is something that can make it true. For now, though, we’ve only got the three painfully meticulous, damn near flawless records from Portishead. Barrow met Beth Gibbons in 1991, in Bristol where they both resided. The two recorded “It Could Be Sweet,” a track that would appear on their debut album Dummy three years later. In the studio, they met Adrian Utley, and his ideas were seamlessly integrated into the duo’s plans for the record.

And so, the now-trio put out their first album in 1994. Dummy is all atmosphere. It is as much the sounds as what is suspended between them as it is the anticipation in the spaces separating each string plucked. The album rests on the tensions that arise from pulling the ropes of Gibbons’ otherworldly wailing, electronic turntable scratches and buzzes, and seductive, dramatic strings. The album is masterfully taut. It worked to define a region, a sound and a methodology; when I say it was the greatest trip-hop record, I don’t think anyone would dare to argue with me. Portishead released their sophomore album—a self-titled record—in 1997 after a brief hiatus. They brought the same haunting beauty and hollow fullness as they did to Dummy, but Portishead existed in a grittier, more acrid vein. It wasn’t until 2008 when they released their next, and final, studio album, Third. Perhaps their most expansive project, Third ran the gamut from “Machine Gun”’s rattling artillery-like percussion, to “The Rip”’s gentle white horses riding into the sunset, reminding us that Portishead isn’t just one of the greatest bands from Bristol in the early 1990s, but probably one of the greatest acts from anywhere, ever. —MD

5. My Bloody Valentine

I am guilty of only turning on Loveless when it comes to My Bloody Valentine, but when you have “Only Shallow,” “When You Sleep” and “Sometimes” all on the same album, it’s nearly impossible to not gravitate towards. Nearly. While Loveless will always remain the #1 My Bloody Valentine record for its pure shoegaze ecstasy, their debut and reunion albums each have their own shining moments. There is a certain blissful terror that they captured on Isn’t Anything before they really defined their blasted-out sonics. Certain tracks like “Lose My Breath” and “No More Sorry” must be put on a horror soundtrack ASAP. The disjointed and shrill compositions unsettle in the perfect way. The Dublin quartet were way ahead of their time with the stylized lowercase song titles of m b v—this coming from a lowercase texter. m b v is the more mature version of those angst-ridden 20-somethings that wrote the most influential shoegaze record of all time. I’ll always be surprised when a band can come back together decades later and not only recreate the magic they had but excel with new nuances to their sound. —OA

4. The Jimi Hendrix Experience

It’s always impressed me that a group that only made three albums could have such an incredible impact on music. However, if you are extraordinary like Jimi Hendrix was—and still is—it could have been done with only one album. Although I will always be partial to Electric Ladyland, there’s no doubt that The Jimi Hendrix Experience turned heads with their debut, Are You Experienced. Though Hendrix is the revered legend of the group—and for good reason—Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell were an integral part of that psychedelic rock sound with their bluesy basslines and relentless percussive imprint. Overcoming the anti-lefty music industry by simply playing his own guitar upside down, Hendrix created sounds straight from outer space—the same place he must have descended from. Though I think some of those talents were lost on their second album, Axis: Bold as Love—except for the mesmerizing funk of “Little Wing,” which will never get old—the trio brought them right back on Electric Ladyland with the lengthy licks of “Voodoo Chile” and the acid-rockification of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower.” It’s a song that continues to inspire debates over who did it best 55 years later, and that’s what real impact is. What truly makes a great guitarist? Is it a mark of technique or their ability to produce a unique sound? I’d take the latter any day of the week—it just so happens that Hendrix and his bandmates mastered both. —OA

3. Television

When Television released their debut album Marquee Moon in 1977, they soared to the forefront of the art-rock wave that had cast an important shadow over New York City. The work was steadfast, nocturnal and Bohemian, with songs like the title track, “Venus” and “See No Evil” proving bandleader Tom Verlaine’s greatness once and for all. He had a propensity for fashioning hooks smacked with puns, double-entendres, French poetry-inspired imagery and robust hooks. Television had no intentions of adopting the power chords that had washed over the city’s neighboring punk scene, as Verlaine and co. embraced jazz interplays and counter-melodies instead. On their follow-up, 1978’s Adventure (which, I would argue, is a better album on some days), the band pumped the brakes on their own urgency and opted for jangle-rock and post-punk gossamers. Tracks like “Days” and “Glory” re-established them as guitar heroes, as Verlaine and Richard Lloyd could shred at a snail’s pace and that’s what made them so perfect. Their final and self-titled album was a mark of restlessness more so than a swan song, as the band took a much more alt-inspired persona without losing the edge that made them greats in the first place. This time, Television had arrived matured and polished, building on Verlaine’s vision with ease and cementing the quartet as all-timers. —MM

2. Nick Drake

One of the great “What if”s in the history of recorded music surrounds the life and work of Nick Drake. Could he have reached even greater heights after soaring so high on the three studio albums that were released during his devastatingly short life? I want to answer emphatically in the affirmative but every time I spin Five Leaves Left, Pink Moon and Bryter Layter, I doubt myself. There’s something so delicate and so ethereal about his music that I don’t think he could have managed to eke out another note beyond the one that fades out at the end of “From the Morning,” the last track on Pink Moon. This is by no means to suggest that the music predicted his death by suicide at age 26. More that each album seemed to take so much out of Drake that I fear that to continue would have meant a diminishing of what he had achieved. And I don’t think he would have allowed anything but his best to be presented to the world. Oh how I wish I could be proven wrong on this point. What we’re left with instead, gratefully, is an unimpeachable discography; a run of three albums that tumble and chill and delight like an autumn breeze sending waves of orange and yellow leaves sailing down a country lane. —RH

1. Nirvana

Nirvana are the ultimate three-album group, as Bleach, Nevermind and In Utero have greatly stood the test of time in the 30+ years since they were all released. They were the Seattle band that, against all odds, helped dethrone the pop monolith of the 1980s and usher in a new, definitive era in the 1990s. Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl and Chad Channing (on Bleach) etched their names in immortality once “Smells Like Teen Spirit” broke through the mainstream and changed the trajectory of rock ‘n’ roll forever in 1991. Had Cobain not tragically passed away in 1994, who knows what Nirvana could have done, how many more albums they would have made. But what we got, these three LPs that are each, in their own unique, distinctive ways, have largely endured as such gems of punk, hard rock and grunge. Nirvana are as big now as they were three decades ago, as their music continues to reach new audiences and Cobain’s life continues to resonate with so many. So few bands have exploded like Nirvana did 32 years ago; so few bands’ dissolution have ever sparked such a succinct and abrupt end to an era they created. —MM