After looking at my first list, I noticed a handful of bands that had large spreads but not consistent excellence.   So, I was curious which artists had 5-star songs in the most different years.

As an example, a band like the Silver Jews from the previous list has an impressive 14 year spread.   However, they only released 6 albums in those 14 years.    All 6 had at least one 5-star song and 6 distinct years is impressive, but would not make the top ten.

There was overlap between the lists, but four artists fell off this list:  Bob Mould, The Sea and Cake, Black Francis, the Silver Jews.

The top ten is below…

1.  The Mountain Goats (15 years) – 1993 – 1995, 1997,1999 – 2002, 2004 – 2009, and 2011.

2.  Damien Jurado (13 years) – 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002 – 2008, and 2010 – 2012

3.  Bill Callahan/Smog (12 years) – 1992, 1993, 1995 – 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2010

3.  Will Oldham/Bonnie Prince Billie/Palace (12 years) – 1993 – 2000 and 2003 – 2006

5.  Jason Molina/Songs: Ohia (11 years) – 1996 – 2000, 2002 – 2005, 2007, and 2009

6.  Modest Mouse (10 years) – 1993, 1996 – 2001, 2004, 2007, and 2009

7.   Tom Waits (9 years) – 1973, 1975, 1976, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1992, 1999, 2011

8.  Ben Barnett/Kind of Like Spitting (8 years) – 1996, 1999 – 2002, 2005, 2006, and 2009

8.  Matt Pond PA (8 years) – 2000 – 2005, 2007, and 2011

8.  Dinosaur Jr (8 years) – 1985, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994, 2007, and 2009

I was listening to “Full on Idle” by the Breeders the other day (off their Title TK album), which is a great song by the way.    And I got to thinking this song was released a long time after the first Breeders song that I dug, “When I was A Painter” from Pod.    Its 12 years to be precise.   I was curious how impressive this 12 year spread was and what my top ten spreads were between 5 star songs.

As it turns out 12 is pretty impressive, but not good enough to be in top 10.    Also, interesting to see Kim Deal made 12 years, while Black Francis made 15 years.    Man the Pixies were awesome.     I also could have thrown J Mascis in the list below, but felt he was covered with Dinosaur Jr.

Also interesting to me was the fact that so many of bands below are really single minded musicians, not exclusively but large percentage.

I excluded compilations and live albums, unless the live album introduced a new song.

Here is my top 10:

1.  Tom Waits (38 years) – Multiple tracks (e.g. “I Hope that I don’t Fall in Love with You”) from Closing time (1973) to “New Years Eve” from Bad As Me (2011)

2.  Dinosaur Jr. (24 years) –  Multiple tracks (e.g. “Forget the Swan”) from Dinosaur (1985) to “See You” from Farm (2009)

3.  Bob Mould (19 years) – Multiple tracks (e.g. “See A Little Light”) from Workbook (1989) to “The Silence Between Us” from District Line (2008)

4.  Smog/Bill Callahan (18 years) – “I’m Smiling” from the Forgotten Foundation (1992) to “Bowery” from Rough Travel for a Rare Thing (2010)

5.  The Mountain Goats (17 years) – Multiple tracks (e.g. “Sendero Luminoso Verdadero”) off Beautiful Rat Sunset (1994) to “High Hawk Season” off All Eternals Deck (2011)

5.  The Sea and Cake (17 years) – Multiple tracks (e.g. “Jacking the Ball”) off their self titled debut (1994) to “Up on the North Shore”  from the Moonlight Butterfly (2011)

7.  Modest Mouse (16 years) – “Wrong Decision” from their Dub Narcotic Demos (1993) to multiple tracks (e.g. “I’ve Got it All (Most)”) from No One’s First and You’re Next (2009)

8.  Damien Jurado (15 years) – Multiple tracks  (e.g. “The Joke Is Over”) from Waters Ave S. (1997) to “Museum of Flight” from Maraqopa (2012)

8.  Black Francis/Frank Black (15 years)  – Multiple tracks (e.g. “Brackish Boy”) from Frank Black (1993) to multiple tracks (e.g. “When They Come To Murder Me”) from SVN Fngrs (2008)

10.  Silver Jews/DC Berman (14 years) – Multiple tracks (e.g. “Trains Across the Sea”) from Starlite Walker (1994)  to multiple tracks (e.g. “Aloyisius Bluegrass Drummer”) from Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea (2008)

Would love to hear about others lists or bands/musicians that I overlooked.     Some bands in my catalog with very large spreads that did not get 5 stars on the book ends (Bob Dylan,  Neil Young, Mission of Burma, Daniel Johnston, Social Distortion, Sonic Youth, Superchunk, REM, U2, Yo La Tengo, and Guided By Voices).  I would expect some of you have those bands.   Who else?

Check out Sustained Excellence Part 2 for another way to think about this.