For most rock musicians, the full-length album is the highest artistic statement in the medium, the equivalent of a novel for a writer, or a feature-length film for a director. Just like novels and films, specific albums within an artist's catalogue are sometimes designed as trilogies, with certain musical and lyrical themes. Here are six artists who have released album trilogies.
1. David Bowie
More than any other solo artist, David Bowie has gone through a great number of musical phases. He began in the mid-60s writing Beatles-esque baroque pop before moving on to folk, glam, funk, and soul in the late '60s and '70s. However, Bowie's greatest phase came in 1977 with the release of Low, the first album of his "Berlin Trilogy," which also includes his following two albums "Heroes" and Lodger (Iggy Pop's first two solo albums, produced by Bowie, are associated with this period as well). Though "Heroes" was the only album of this period recorded entirely in Berlin, all three albums have an industrial, avant-garde sound inspired by experimental German bands of the '70s, such as Kraftwerk, Can, and Neu!
2. The Cure
Depending on who you ask, the Cure actually has two album trilogies, both involving the band's 1982 album Pornography. The first trilogy came during the Cure's initial gothic phase of 1980-1982, when the band released the albums Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and Pornography. However, frontman Robert Smith considers Pornography, along with 1989's Disintegration and 2000's Bloodflowers, to be part of another trilogy of the band's darkest and most challenging music. The three albums were performed together at the 2002 Trilogy concerts in Berlin.
3. Blur
What set Blur apart from its Britpop peers (particularly Oasis) was its interest in musical experimentation. Though Blur didn't consciously set out to make an album trilogy, its three albums from 1993 to 1995, Modern Life is Rubbish, Parklife, and The Great Escape, are collectively referred to as the band's "Britpop Trilogy," containing some of the most enduring pop songs of the mid-90s Britpop era. Following The Great Escape, however, the band abandoned its bright, aggressively British sound in favor of grittier songs inspired by American indie rock.
4. The Magnetic Fields
Few artists in American indie rock are as intentionally eclectic as the Magnetic Fields. Though the band started off playing synth-pop, it moved on from synthesizers in favor of folk and noise pop. The three albums released by the Magnetic Fields between 2004 and 2010, i, Distortion, and Realism, are known as the "no-synth trilogy," for obvious reasons. The band would return to synth-pop for 2012's Love at the Bottom of the Sea.
5. Ulver
Unlike pop singers who dabble in hip-hop, or alt-rock bands that find inspiration in folk music, metal bands typically don't ever stray from playing metal. However, Norway's Ulver is famously unpredictable when it comes to genre. The band's first three albums, Bergtatt, Kveldssanger, and Nattens Madrigal, were all influenced by black metal and traditional Norwegian folk, leading these them to be cited as Ulver's black metal trilogy. These albums would be released as a boxset in 1997 called The Trilogie - Three Journeyes Through the Norwegian Netherworlde. After 1997, Ulver began exploring electronic music instead of metal and folk.
6. Green Day
After taking over the world (and pissing off its diehard fans) with the sprawling rock operas American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day's next project was, somehow, both relatively simplified and bloated. In 2012, the band released three full-length albums, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré!, which were attempts by the band to return to its punk roots. If Green Day really was trying to be punk again, though, it would have released just one 29-minute album, instead of three 45-minute albums.
What other artists have released album trilogies that you've enjoyed? Let us know in the comments section!
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